By Natalia Zinets

KYIV (Reuters) - Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged people to act on health advice on Saturday after official data showed daily COVID-19 infections had risen to a record level.

The country saw 2,328 cases of the new coronavirus in the past 24 hours, and 37 deaths of people having tested positive for the virus, data from the national council of security and defence showed.

Infections have risen sharply in recent days and the latest daily total surpassed the previous record of 2,134 set on Thursday, pushing the total number of cases to 102,971. The death toll has risen to 2,244, the figures showed.

Zelenskiy asked people to take seriously the recent jump in the daily tally of new infections, urging them to wear masks and keep social distancing.

"Please help doctors, be careful," Zelenskiy said in a televised interview. "We really did not have the first wave (of infections) when it happened in Europe. Now it is coming, now we are growing ... almost daily."

He said Ukraine had managed to avoid a big number of infections in March through May thanks to a strict lockdown. Yet as soon as restrictions had gradually been lifted, numbers of new daily coronavirus cases started rising, from bellow 1,000 in June to above 2,000 this week.

"We are well prepared in terms of (hospital) places, equipment, number of tests ... But no number of places in hospitals, and especially no number of specialists, will help us survive if there is the second and third wave, if it is very powerful," the president said.

"And here the question is only for our people".

Like other countries, Ukraine's government decided to ease lockdown rules for economic reasons, after seeing gross domestic product shrink 11.4% in the second quarter year-on-year, showing the deepest quarterly fall since 2015.

The authorities do not plan to lock down the whole country again, but have reimposed some restrictions such as limiting public transport and imposing bans on large public events in several cities and towns with high numbers of infections.

(Reporting by Natalia Zinets; Editing by William Mallard and David Holmes)
Several districts of Rajasthan will likely receive light to moderate rain with thunderstorm, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Sunday.

Thunderstorm with light to moderate rain likely to occur at isolated places in Dungarpur, Banswara, Udaipur, Sawai Madhopur, Baran, Kota, Jaipur, Tonk, Ajmer, Bhilwara, Bundi districts and adjoining areas, in Rajasthan, the IMD said.

Apart from Rajasthan, Bengaluru will also witness moderate rain with cloudy sky till August 26, according to IMD predictions.

Whereas the South Bengal will receive heavy to very heavy rain from Monday due to the possible formation of a low pressure area in north Bay of Bengal.

The weather department, in its forecast, said the districts of South 24 Parganas, East and West Midnapore, Jhargram, Purulia and Bankura are likely to receive heavy rainfall, the intensity of which will increase from Tuesday. It also predicted widespread rainfall in Gujarat till Monday, with heavy to very heavy rain in some districts.

Gujarat has already received over 90 per cent of the average annual rainfall.
Chinas daily power generation has hit new highs in July. As urbanization continues to improve and financial enterprises keep supporting the real economy, the national economy recovered steadily in July.



Social electricity consumption is regarded as an economic barometer. From the recent data released, social electricity generation and electricity consumption are both growing positively.

In terms of power generation, industrial power generation at and above the national scale increased by 1.9 percent in July compared with the same period last year. Among them, hydropower, nuclear power and wind power generations increased by 6.1 percent, 6.7 percent and 23.2 percent respectively over the same period last year.

Referring to electricity consumption, in July the electricity consumption of the whole society increased by 2.3 percent compared with the same period last year. Among them, the electricity consumption of the primary, tertiary and residential industries increased by 11.6 percent, 5.3 percent and 13.8 percent respectively compared with the same period last year.

The electricity consumption of the secondary industry decreased by 0.7 percent compared with the same period last year, mainly due to a decline in the growth rate of electricity consumption in high energy-consuming industries such as electricity, building materials, iron and steel.

In the manufacturing industry, the electricity consumption of the automobile manufacturing industry increased by 20.3 percent compared with the same period last year, and electricity consumption of the furniture manufacturing industry, computer communications and other electronic equipment manufacturing industry, general equipment manufacturing industry, electrical machinery and equipment manufacturing industry, and food manufacturing industry all grew by more than double digits.

From a regional point of view, electricity consumption is growing in 20 provinces across the country, including Sichuan, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Guangdong, Tibet, Fujian, Inner Mongolia and Yunnan, with a growth rate of more than 10 percent.

Preliminary analysis shows that daily power generation across the country is reaching new highs, which is not only a result from the continuous high temperatures and the need for air conditioning, but also reflects the continued steady recovery of the national economy, Meng Wei, spokesman for the National Development and Reform Commission said.


By Associated Press

LAFAYETTE: The mother of a man fatally shot by Louisiana police said her son was intelligent, shy, and had sought therapy for social anxiety. Her lawyers said they plan to sue over the death of Trayford Pellerin, who police said had a knife and was trying to enter a convenience store.

The shooting Friday night was captured on video, and the state ACLU condemned what it described as a horrific and deadly incident of police violence against a Black person. Both the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center quickly called for an investigation.

Pellerin's death prompted a crowd of protesters to gather Saturday and demonstrate against the latest fatal police shooting. Officers in riot gear fired smoke canisters on Saturday night to get the crowd to disperse, Trooper Derek Senegal said. No tear gas was deployed, he said.

At a news conference late Saturday, local officials said the protest began peacefully, but violence later erupted with fireworks shot at buildings and fires set in the median of the road.

Our intent is not going to be to just let people disrupt our town and put our citizens and our motorists and our neighborhoods in danger, Interim Police Chief Scott Morgan said.

Arrests were made, Morgan said, but an exact number wasn't immediately available.

We do support people's First Amendment rights, Lafayette Parish Sheriff Mark Garber said. However, when it comes to the destruction of property, we are not going to have Lafayette set on fire.

On Friday night, Lafayette officers followed Pellerin, 31, on foot as he left a convenience store where he had created a disturbance with a knife, Louisiana State Police said. Stun guns failed to stop him, and the officers shot Pellerin as he tried to enter another convenience store, still with the knife, according to a news release.

Pellerin became anxious in groups and may have been frightened by the officers, Michelle Pellerin told The Advocate. He had sought professional help earlier this year, she said.

Instead of giving him a helping hand they gave him bullets, national civil rights attorney Ben Crump told the newspaper. He and Baton Rouge attorney Ronald Haley said they have begun their own investigation by interviewing witnesses. Some said Pellerin was not armed, Haley said.

The family believes Pellerin may have been having a mental health crisis, Crump said.

Lafayette police asked state police to investigate  standard procedure in the state for shootings by local officers.

Lafayette police shot Mr. Pellerin several times as he walked away from them, Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in an emailed statement. His killing demands an analysis of the excessive use of force by law enforcement. We fully support movement leaders calls for a swift and transparent investigation into Mr. Pellerins killing.

State ACLU executive director Alanah Odoms Hebert said, Once again, video footage has captured a horrific and deadly incident of police violence against a Black person who was brutally killed in front of our eyes.

Captured on video, the May 25 death of George Floyd under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer sparked a global reckoning over police tactics and racial injustice.

Trayford Pellerin should be alive today. Instead, a family is mourning and a community is grieving," her statement said. None of our communities are safe when the police can murder people with impunity or when routine encounters escalate into deadly shooting sprees.

Rikasha Montgomery, who took a video of the shooting, told The Advertiser that a man holding what looked like a knife kept walking down the highway while some officers fired stun guns at him. Officers holding guns shouted at him to get onto the ground, said Montgomery, 18.

She said they fired when the man reached the door of a Shell gas station.

When I heard the gunshots, I couldnt hold my phone like I was first filming, she said. I feel kind of scared about it. Im traumatized. Youre so used to hearing about this, but I never thought I would experience it.

Crump, representing Pellerin's family, called the shooting reckless and his death tragic.

"The officers involved should be fired immediately for their abhorrent and fatal actions, Crump said in a statement Saturday.

The incident was the third shooting by Lafayette police since mid-July. State police said a man was critically wounded last month after being shot during an altercation with police. Another man was in stable condition after being shot during a burglary investigation earlier this month.

Haley told The Advocate that he and Crump will be seeking reform and policy changes in the police department as well as damages.

We want policy changes as well, so that Ben and I are not in the living room with another family in Lafayette dealing with this, Haley said.
The body of a 25-year-old woman who last seen jogging on a highway has been found after an almost three-day search.

Sydney Sutherland, from Arkansas, was reported missing on Wednesday evening (local time) after she went jogging that afternoon and failed to return home.

Authorities discovered on Friday (local time) a female body near the nurses home, with Jackson County Sheriff David Lucas confirming on Saturday the state medical examiners office had identified the body as belonging to Ms Sutherland through DNA.

Jackson County Police said her mobile phone was found on Thursday about half a kilometre from her home, showing pings of a loop the keen jogger regularly ran.

Sydney Sutherland (pictured) went missing on her usual jogging route. Three days later her body was found close to her home. Source: Jackson County Police

The death has shocked the tight-knit community who gathered in droves to join the search for Ms Sutherland when she was initially reported missing, including local police who knew the nurse and her family.

Its taken a toll, it really has. Just because I know the people of this county. I know this family personally. I know this young lady personally. Ive known her and watched her grow up. It hits me personally, Sheriff Lucas told reporters.

The police officer described her death as very tragic case, according to US news outlet KAIT8.

A farmer from Jonesboro is in custody on suspicion of homicide, Fox 16 reported.

"We do have a suspect in custody at this time," Sheriff Lucas said on Saturday.

He also confirmed the suspect was known to Ms Sutherland and had not been formally charged.

The death has shocked the tight-knit community who gathered in droves to join the search for Sydney Sutherland when she was initially reported missing. Source: WKRN

Unity Health Harris Medical Centre, where Ms Sutherland worked, posted a heartfelt tribute to her on their Facebook page.

All of us at Unity Health are deeply saddened to hear of the loss of our precious co-worker Sydney Sutherland. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends. She will be forever missed, the post said.

One woman responded to the news, saying: She was an amazing nurse who took great care of my daughter while hospitalised this spring. She was kind, sweet, professional, and always made sure we had what we needed.

Story continues

Praying for her family. I have known her mother Maggie and family for over 25 years. This just breaks my heart, a family friend wrote.

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.
Amid the growing bitterness between JD(U) and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president JP Nadda on Sunday (August 23) said that BJP, JD(U) and LJP will fight the upcoming Assembly election in Bihar together and will emerge victorious by a thumping majority. Addressing Bihar BJP State Karyasamiti via video conferencing, Nadda said that the BJP workers have to add value not only to the BJP but to JD(U) and LJP too. It is to be noted that BJP, JD(U) and LJP are alliance partners in Bihar and had contested 2019 Lok Sabha poll as part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.

Despite the bitter war of words between Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) and Chirag Paswan-headed LJP, the BJP has been regularly asserting that there is no differences between the two allies and has repeatedly maintained that Kumar will be NDA's chief ministerial face in Bihar.

Launching a scathing attack on the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, Nadda said that the opposition in Bihar as well as elsewhere has become a "spent force". He added that people across the country support the BJP as it is the only party which can fulfill the aspirations of the people. The BJP chief noted that the RJD, Congress and other opposition parties lack the ideology and vision to serve the people. Nadda also lauded Bihar government for handling COVID-19 pandemic and floods in the state in a good manner.

Talking about the special package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the development of Bihar, Nadda said that it has been implemented in "letter and spirit". Nadda suggested the Bihar BJP leaders to go to people of Bihar with the details of special package provided by the Centre to the state.

Assembly elections in Bihar are scheduled to take place in October-November.
A 22-year-old man was shot and killed in Paterson on Sunday morning, authorities said.

Police responded to a report of shots fired around 3:48 a.m. near 189 Hamilton Ave. and found Byron Brooks, of Paterson, lying on the ground with gunshot wounds, the Passaic County Prosecutors Office said.

Brooks was taken to St. Josephs University Medical Center in Paterson where he was pronounced dead at less than an hour later, authorities said.

The Passaic County Prosecutors Office is asking anyone with information about the shooting to contact its tips line at 877-370-PCPO or tips@passaiccountynj.org or contact the Paterson Police Detective Bureau at 973-321-1120.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Avalon Zoppo may be reached at azoppo2@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AvalonZoppo.
First, he said, he was struck by the number of staffers who miss Roger Ailes, the networks dictatorial co-founder who resigned in disgrace in 2016 after a horrifying string of sexual harassment allegations and died less than a year later. Under Ailes, these staffers told Stelter, there was at least some leadership, a clear vision and some journalistic standards  even if those standards were aimed squarely at maximizing ratings and pursuing an arch-conservative agenda. Ailes was the obvious audience of one, at the Murdoch-owned network, the boss whom all strove to please or suffer the consequences. With his fall from grace, a new, far stranger reality emerged: The audience that matters most now is President Trump.
Another big political expose from The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes on Sunday night again ruffled political feathers, this time in the Victorian Liberals. But it also left another unlikely political entity unhappy: the subject of the last expose, former Victorian minister Adem Somyurek.

The dramatic promo for the 60 Minutes report last week reminded everyone how The Ages Nick McKenzie exposed Somyureks foul mouth towards gays and women, plus allegations that the minister, ministerial advisers and electorate officers were involved in branch stacking.

Premier Daniel Andrews sacked Somyurek from cabinet and he resigned from the Labor Party. In the aftermath two other ministers went and Labor elders Steve Bracks and Jenny Macklin rode into Dodge to sort out the mess.

Now it emerges that the disgraced former powerbroker, on the QT, has been in contact with lawyers about his defamation options, which presumably could include taking on this masthead, as well as individuals featured in the reports.

Potential roadblocks: investigations by the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission and the Victorian ombudsman. The time frame for their investigations is not yet known.
Mirzapur : , Aug 23 (IANS) A senior consultant at the divisional hospital in Mirzapur district, Dr JP Tripathi, has been reported missing under mysterious circumstances, police said on Sunday.

Tripathi went missing on Saturday after he alighted from his car near the Bhatauli bridge on the Ganga river in the district.

Mirzapur Superintendent of Police Ajay Singh, who is monitoring the search operation, said that while an alert has been sounded across the district, teams of NDRF and divers had been asked to search in the Ganga river.

He said: "Tripathi, 55, left his home in Varanasi to go to the Mirzapur divisional hospital. When his car reached near the Bhatauli bridge, Tripathi asked his driver to stop the vehicle to relieve himself. However, when he did not return even after 15 minutes, the driver started searching for him and then called his wife Dr Sunanda, who is posted at the HB Cancer Hospital in Lehartara, and reported the matter. His son is also a medical practitioner." The SP said that after Sunanda alerted the Mirzapur Police, efforts to search for him were launched.

Tripathi was earlier posted in Basti as Medical Officer but had joined the Mirzapur hospital in July.

Tripathi's driver told his family that he was upset over providing consultations to patients during Covid-19 pandemic as many suspected cases had come to him.
Coastal residents in low-lying areas of Louisiana and Cuba were evacuating on Sunday, while roads turned to rivers in Haitis capital city, as twin hurricanes threatened the Caribbean and U.S. Gulf Coast.

Tropical Storm Marco, which is forecast to hit the Louisiana coast with hurricane-force winds on Monday, will be followed by Storm Laura, now over the Dominican Republic and expected to travel across Hispaniola and Cuba and strengthen to a hurricane before striking the Gulf Coast on Thursday.

In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, videos on social media showed people wading waist-deep in muddy water in some of the worst flooding the capital has seen in years. Haiti is especially vulnerable to intense rains due to shoddy infrastructure and deforestation which increases the likelihood of landslides.

Authorities called on residents along the Artibonite River to evacuate due to risks the Peligre Hydroelectric Dam might burst it banks.

Haiti was the first to report a death from Laura, where a 10-year-old girl was killed when a tree fell on her home in the southern town of Ans-a-Pitres.

With hopes dashed that the mountains of Hispanola would weaken the storm, Cuba scrambled on Sunday to prepare for Laura.

Evacuations were underway in eastern parts of the Caribbeans largest island, where the storm was expected to strike this evening, bringing flooding, before traveling along the entire island on Monday.

Back-to-back hurricanes arriving at the U.S. coast within days could result in a prolonged period of hazardous weather," National Hurricane Center forecaster Stacy Stewart warned on Sunday.

Officials in Louisianas coastal Lafourche Parish ordered a mandatory evacuation for residents of low-lying areas at noon on Sunday. The U.S. Coast Guard also raised its warning for the Port of New Orleans, calling for ships to make plans to evacuate some areas.

The potential for flooding and evacuations added to worries about the spread of COVID-19. Tulane University, the largest private employer in New Orleans, said it will close its testing center on Monday due to potential flooding and power outages and called on students to maintain social distancing guidelines.

In Grand Isle, at the states southern tip, authorities were placing sandbags to bolster its protective levy while energy companies continued to pull workers from offshore platforms and shut production in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico wells.

Laura could strengthen and become a Category 2 or 3 hurricane and move west, closer to the Houston-Galveston area, bringing flooding rains late Wednesday or Thursday, said Chris Kerr, a meteorologist and director of offshore forecasting for DTN, an energy, agriculture and weather data provider.

Oil producers including BP, Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell had shut 13% of the regions offshore oil production on Saturday. The region accounts for 17% of total U.S. oil production and 5% of U.S. natural gas output.

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
- William Ruto accused the Raila Odinga-led party of pretending to be saints yet it was involved in propagating graft

- The DP also claimed that the ODM party entered into a truce with President Uhuru (handshake) with the aim of protecting its graft dealings

- Ruto was reacting to a statement issued by ODM that appeared to defend KEMSA against graft allegations raised against it

- The medical supplies procurement agency has been accused of misappropriating billions of donor funds given to Kenya to support the war against COVID-19

Deputy President William Ruto has accused the ODM party of using its position to perpetuate corruption in the country despite having earlier declared itself as a watchdog.

In a strongly-worded statement, Ruto claimed the Opposition party had over the past been working in pretence and it was only recently when it showed it was composed of "lords of corruption".

READ ALSO: KEMSA fraud: William Ruto allies pile pressure on Health CS Mutahi Kagwe to resign

Deputy President William Ruto. Photo: William Ruto.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Kevin Omwenga: Slain businessman had bought brand-new KSh 14 million Porsche

The DP made the remarks a day after the Raila Odinga led ODM party issued a statement poking holes into the credibility of graft allegations that have rocked the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA).

"The pretentious (former) Opposition, now turned lords of corruption, attempted defence of the COVID-19 grand larceny is not shocking," said the DP.

READ ALSO: Lawyer Grand Mullah shows off his adorable daughters as he enjoys family time

Ruto continued to tear into the Opposition party by questioning its intentions when its chief Raila shook hands with President Uhuru Kenyatta on March 8, 2018.

According to Ruto, the opposition entered the truce with the intensions of easing its corrupt dealings aimed at draining public coffers.

"It confirms the worst of Kenyan's fears that their side of the handshake was never interested in the people's good but opportunity to loot. What a shame," the DP lashed out.

William Ruto (l) and Bahati MP Kimani Ngunjiri. Photo: William Ruto.

Source: Facebook

In what seemed to be a defence against fraud claims raised against KEMSA, ODM Secretary General Edwin Sifuna termed the reports that the medical procurement agency had misappropriated billions of donor funds given to the country to finance the war against COVID-19 as "sensationalised by the media".

READ ALSO: Beki wa Man United, Harry Maguire achungulia hatari ya kufungwa miaka 3 jela

The DCI was also not left out in the onslaught with the ODM party stating that it was using information sourced from "shadowy sources" to investigate KEMSA.

"We gather that the DCI has been called into KEMSA to investigate these matters. We, however, wonder how this can be so before a credible audit by the auditor-general is carried out to ascertain the veracity of this claims.

Precedence has been set before where the media goes on a sensationalist extravaganza with the half-baked information obtained from shadowy sources ending up creating more problems than the solution," said Sifuna.

READ ALSO: Peter Kenneth, Murathe, Waiguru attend Ida Odinga's invite-only birthday party

The ODM party also threw jabs at Ruto whom it accused of not helping President Uhuru Kenyatta in the fight against graft.

"It is disheartening to hear no less a senior government official than the deputy president to go public with the juvenile and improper statement that "at least now nobody will blame me for stealing COVID-19 funds". This statement suggests that it is ok for funds to be stolen if he is not to blame or more unsettling, it expresses the jealousy of being left out of the gravy train.

At a time when he should help the president crack the whip on corruption cartels within the government, he holds campaigns at his residence while cheering wrongdoing within the government in the mistaken belief that any perceived failure by the president will raise his dwindling profile," the party stated.

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.

Kenyans react to the revenue sharing formula row | Tuko TV.

Source: TUKO.co.ke
ATLANTA (dpa-AFX) - Delta Air Lines Inc (DAL) announced that it has planned to restart service on the international route for the winter 2020-2021 and summer 2021 seasons that were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Delta specified that it plans to add over 50 transoceanic flights next summer, compared to the summer 2020 schedule. Delta begins to restore its global network, and plans to increase flying in the trans-Atlantic market from winter 2020-2021 to summer 2021. Delta Air Lines said that it would continue blocking middle seats through at least January 6,2021. Delta added that it has extended its change-fee waiver for new flights purchased through September 30, 2020. 'While significant hurdles remain in the global fight against the pandemic, we are ready to connect customers to the people, places, opportunities and experiences they're longing for,' said Joe Esposito, senior vice president for network planning. Delta said it is maintaining its global presence and investment in Seattle (SEA) over the next year, which continues to be a premier gateway for travel to Asia. Delta also remains committed to the Japan market and by summer 2021, will offer service from seven U.S. cities to Haneda. Continued daily service next year from Sea-Tac to Tokyo-Haneda (HND), Seoul-Incheon (ICN), Beijing (BJS), and Shanghai (PVG). Delta said it will operate the adjusted schedule with upgraded fleet of Airbus A350-900s, A330-900neos and refurbished Boeing 767s, following the retirement of its Boeing 777 aircraft by the end of October 2020. Beginning in December 2020, Delta plans to add up to four-times weekly services between Haneda and Honolulu (HNL). Delta also plans to maintain a minimum of thrice-weekly service between Los Angeles and Sydney (SYD) before resuming daily service in 2021. Between September and October, Delta will resume service to several major business and leisure markets, including a buildup at its hub in New York-JFK and the Service between Boston and Paris will return in November. Delta said that it will expand its hub-to-hub flying between the U.S. and Europe moving into next summer. 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.
Attorney general KK Venugopal on Sunday declined to grant permission for the initiation of criminal contempt of court proceedings against Bollywood actor Swara Bhasker for a statement that a petitioner said was critical of the Supreme Court and its judgment in the Ayodhya title dispute case.

Bhaskers statement that the Supreme Court acknowledged the illegality of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in its November 2019 judgment and yet rewarded those who brought down the mosque appears to be a factual statement and reflects Bhaskers perception of the incident, Venugopal said in his letter to the petitioner, Usha Shetty, declining the request.

The statement appears to be a factual one and is a perception of the speaker. The comment refers to the judgment of the Supreme Court, and is not an attack on the institution. This does not offer any comment on the Supreme Court itself or say anything that would scandalize or lower the authority of the Supreme Court. In my opinion, this statement does not constitute criminal contempt, the AGs letter stated.

The plea against Bhasker, which was filed by Shetty on August 17, was placed before AG for his consent to list the matter before the court.

As per Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act and Rule 3 of Rules to Regulate Proceedings for Contempt of Supreme Court, the consent of the AG or the solicitor general is required before the apex court can hear a criminal contempt petition filed by an individual.

The November 9 judgment of the Supreme Court in the Ayodhya dispute, which was delivered by a bench headed by then Chief Justice of India ( CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, had awarded the 2.77 acre disputed site for the construction of . a temple; it directed the Centre to allocate a five-acre plot elsewhere for the construction of a new mosque. The 16th Century Babri mosque was demolished in December 1992 by Hindu activists who believe that the site marks the birthplace of the warrior-god Ram.

The top court had acknowledged the existence of a valid mosque at the disputed site and had expressly stated that the acts of Hindus in placing idols inside the mosque in 1949 and destruction of the mosque in 1992 were illegal.

Bhasker had, on February 1, attended a panel discussion organized by the non-government organisation (NGO) Mumbai Collective on the topic Artists Against Communalism. During the discussion, Bhasker, as alleged by the petitioner, made the following statement:

We are now in a situation where our courts are not sure whether they believe in the Constitution or notWe are living in a country where the Supreme Court of our country states in a judgment that the demolition of Babri Masjid was unlawful and in the same judgment rewards the same people who brought down the mosque.

Regarding Bhaskers statement about courts not believing in the Constitution, the AG said that it was a vague and general statement not related to any particular court and cannot be taken seriously.

Venugopal had on, August 20, asked the Supreme Court not to punish lawyer Prashant Bhushan for contempt of court in relation to his tweets against Supreme Court and current CJI SA Bobde.

After AG declined permission, Shetty lawyers on Sunday wrote to solicitor general Tushar Mehta, seeking his consent.

Shetty submitted that the statement by Bhasker was derogatory and intended to scandalize the Supreme Court. It is not merely a cheap stunt for publicity, but a deliberate attempt to incite the masses to resist and revolt against the apex court, she added.

The statement intends to incite feeling of no confidence amongst public with respect to the proceedings of the Supreme Court. It amounts to criminal contempt, the petition said.
Thank you for joining Marissa Calligeros and I for our rolling coverage today. Much of the news focused on the behaviour of security guards working in Melbourne and Sydney's quarantine hotels.

In Melbourne, a Rydges hotel security guard who caught COVID-19 told Victoria's inquiry into hotel quarantine that he delivered food while awaiting his test result, and again after he was told to self-isolate, and that security guard at Sydney's Marriott Hotel infected with COVID-19 has been fined $2000 for failing to self-isolate and going to a shopping centre while he waited for his test result.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. Credit:Joe Armao

The other big revelation was that Victorias state of emergency could be extended for up to another 12 months, but Premier Daniel Andrews needs the support of the opposition and crossbenchers in parliament first.

Here are some of the other key developments of the day:

The royal commission into aged care has rebuked the federal government for failing to act on persistent problems across the sector, with new research sparking a clash in Parliament over measures that might have saved lives.

The new coronavirus case numbers in Victoria over the past few days have been extremely reassuring, Deakin University epidemiology chair Catherine Bennett says. The state recorded 116 new cases on Monday  the lowest daily increase since July 5.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews all but conceded on Monday that the grand final was lost to the state and said he would continue negotiations with the AFL to get the best compensation for Victoria.

A new data dashboard will be released by Victoria's Health Department that provides more information on coronavirus cases in local council areas. People will be able to see if a known case has visited their local supermarket, cafe or other location;

About 15 "mystery" cases in NSW are not connected to any known clusters, prompting Premier Gladys Berejiklian to encourage more people to come forward and get tested;

Genomic testing is required to determine if Queensland's latest COVID-19 cluster is linked to the two women who returned from Melbourne infected with the virus last month, the state's Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young says;

Businesses that have fallen off JobKeeper will retain the power to cut staff hours by as much as 40 per cent if they can show their turnover has fallen at least a tenth under a Morrison government plan to save jobs.

No bintang? Foreign tourists are expected to be locked out of Bali until 2021; and

Aucklands level three lockdown has been extended by four days, while wearing face masks on public transport will be mandatory, after nine new cases emerged.

You can follow all the updates in our live coverage on Tuesday here.
Tropical Storm Laura and Tropical Storm Marco are organizing quickly and beginning to gain strength after days of struggling to survive. Both systems are forecast to make landfall next week along the Gulf Coast, one day apart and miles from each other. Two hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico at one time  if it occurs  would be a first on record. The governors of Louisiana and Mississippi have both declared states of emergency.

Tropical Storm Marco

On Saturday, hurricane hunters examining Tropical Storm Marco in the western Caribbean found a much more robust system, with intense thunderstorms blowing up near the center and stronger winds wrapping into the circulation. As of late morning, the storm was located near the western tip of Cuba. Winds were 65 mph and the system was moving north-northwest at 12 mph into the Gulf of Mexico.

Warm water will allow for a window of intensification, and Marco is expected to become a hurricane this weekend as it moves northwest toward Texas. However, upper level wind shear ahead of the system is forecast to weaken the system before landfall on Tuesday, likely along the Texas coast.

/ Credit: National Hurricane Center

Tropical Storm Laura

Tropical Storm Laura is also experiencing a large increase in thunderstorms but that has yet to translate into a surge of winds. As of 11 a.m., the National Hurricane Center said the storm was located just southwest of Puerto Rico, with winds of 40 mph. It is moving west at 18 mph. Given the mass of thunderstorms developing, winds will likely increase later on Saturday.

The storm is forecast to move near or over Hispaniola and Cuba which will disrupt the circulation somewhat, likely prohibiting it from gaining too much power in the short-term. But once the system reaches the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, light environmental winds and above normal water temperatures will likely fuel intensification.

Pictured in blue-green is wind shear which weakens systems. Each storm has an envelope & window of time w/o shear to intensify. Laura entering stage right is without shear for 2 days in the E. Gulf, a widow for rapid intensification IF it is not a shambles from island interaction pic.twitter.com/6KSDxGPLzs

Story continues

 Jeff Berardelli (@WeatherProf) August 21, 2020

As of Saturday, the storm is forecast to become a hurricane early next week before it makes landfall, possibly in Louisiana, or even Texas, on Wednesday. That means Marco and Laura may make landfall within hundreds of miles of one another, just 24 hours apart.

/ Credit: National Hurricane Center

Despite the systems being so close to each other, they cannot combine to become a "supercane." That's because each system has sinking air on its outskirts, which presses down on the other system. So, when two systems are that close, the larger one tends to weaken the smaller one. And in some cases they can even dance around one another in a phenomena called the Fujiwhara effect.

2020 Atlantic hurricane season

The 2020 season is far ahead of record pace, with Marco being the earliest 14th named storm on record in the Atlantic. The former record for the 14th storm is September 2nd, set back in 2005 and 2011.

The record pace is partly due to abnormally warm sea surface temperatures across most of the Atlantic Ocean, which for most of the summer has been near record levels. Since 1900, Tropical Atlantic waters have warmed around 2 degrees Fahrenheit due to human-caused climate change.

The image below shows sea surface temperature departures from normal right now. Expansive areas in orange  almost the whole basin  show above normal temperatures, and very small patches in blue indicate below normal temperatures.

/ Credit: CBS News

The warmer-than-normal water is like high-octane fuel for tropical systems. That's why both Marco and especially Laura need to be monitored closely for rapid intensification, which can quickly turn a middle-of-the-road storm into a disastrous one, as it did with Hurricane Michael in 2018.

Rapid Intensification is becoming more common in a warmer world. Research from 2018 calculated that since the 1980s, rapid intensification has increased 4.4 mph per decade.

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United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. 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Cabins dont get much more exclusive than this one.

Seventeen miles deep into the Custer Gallatin National Forest, just off the rutted and rocky four-wheel drive Picket Pin Road, rests the Whittaker cabin, an aging log structure with a red tin roof.

The 1930s-era cabin  which has since been updated  was built on the East Boulder Plateau, about a half-mile from the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, in between the Boulder and West Stillwater river drainages.

As cool as the cabin is, Forest Service officials said it may be illegally occupying forest land, benefiting a select few who have a key to the locked front door. Yet until an investigation is launched, they can't say for sure.

"Until all of the legal research kicks in, we don't know that," said Marna Daley, Custer Gallatin National Forest public affairs officer. "The bottom line is ... we would have to do our due diligence."

Big Timber-area resident Dennis Holman is the alleged owner of the cabin, but did not return phone messages left by the Billings Gazette. According to sources the cabin is also used by the local snowmobile club as a warming hut in the winter. The club officer did not return a call seeking confirmation.

Priorities

No district ranger has ever taken on the work of formally removing the Whittaker cabin. That may be because, as MaryBeth Marks, minerals program manager for the Custer Gallatin National Forest said, it is a law enforcement process that takes a significant amount of agency effort, money and time. As the Forest Service's budget and staff have been steadily reduced, and workers routinely reassigned, the Whittaker cabin has never risen to priority status.

The situation raises a question of fairness. On the nearby Boulder River cabin owners are paying thousands of dollars to the Forest Service for similar-aged structures on federal lands. In nearby Lower Deer Creek, a similar structure built by a Big Timber family on forest land was turned into a recreation cabin open to the public in the 1990s. Historic cabins built on forest lands in the Stillwater River drainage were eventually burned decades after the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness was formed and the structures became illegal.

Such trespass isnt unusual on the forest, Marks and Daley said. Ideally, similar violations are caught and dealt with quickly. The Whittaker cabin, however, has managed to avoid being challenged for decades, possibly because its so remote.

It really is a workload management issue whether to take it on as a project to expend money on, Marks said.

The Custer Gallatin National Forest is also already occupied with access disputes regarding the Crazy Mountains. However, in that case it's the public asserting a right to old trails across private lands, whereas the Whittaker cabin is a private individual asserting exclusive rights to public land.

Claims

The mining history of the area adds a different twist to the situation. Decades ago, cabins were often built on such remote claims.

Yet according to the Forest Services website, a mining claim is restricted to the development and extraction of a mineral deposit. The surface of an unpatented mining claim is NOT private property. If you staked a mining claim on National Forest System lands, ownership remains federal lands administered by the Forest Service.

The website goes on to note, You may not construct, place, or maintain any kind of building or other structure, road, trail, fence or enclosure, and place or store equipment without the prior approval of a plan of operation from the Forest Service.

The Forest Service map for the East Boulder Plateau does not show the land as part of a patented claim, which are white patches within green forest lands.

The Bureau of Land Management oversees all mineral rights in the United States, even on Forest Service property. According to the BLM website, A patented mining claim is one for which the Federal Government has passed its title to the claimant, giving him or her exclusive title to the locatable minerals and, in most cases, the surface and all resources.

Since 1994, however, the agency hasnt accepted any new patents.

According to Robert Grosvenor, a minerals administrator for the Custer Gallatin National Forest and history buff, the mining claim for where the Whittaker cabin sits was dropped in 2014.

Two weathered posts near the cabin contain pieces of tin punctured with words and letters similar to those used to mark mining claims. One was stippled on three sides with tin that read: BLAK POWDER, FOXX INC. and B.P. QUARTZ. The other post has a piece of tin punctured with the initials JC, SW., COR and 5003.

Trespass

Despite its remote location, the Whittaker cabin and its environs are well known to some, mostly four-wheel drive enthusiasts who navigate the rocky route to the plateau.

I dont have a feel for how much use (the cabin) gets, Grosvenor said. Ive never gone by and seen the door open, but he does know that ATVers regularly picnic at the cabin.

Given the extensive mining history of the area, the Whittaker cabin has been known to the Forest Service for many years, Marks said.

Location

The blackening logs of the cabin were stacked on the edge of an expansive, boggy, wildflower-filled meadow at an elevation of about 9,000 feet.

The cabin is a mix of gathered bits. Tacked onto the front logs are handmade wooden and metal sled skis, grills, and two scoop shovels. Out back a fading red 1930s-era Coca-Cola cooler rests not far from an abandoned Cabinet Wesco coal-burning stove.

A graying, limbless pine tree is affixed upright to the buildings front like a flagpole. It holds a whitened bull elk skull and antlers beneath an apparent two-way radio antenna. In faded pencil on the door are the barely visible words keep out.

Despite the cabins isolated locale, it has running water delivered by a black plastic pipe snaked from a nearby stream. Large propane tanks along the back wall supply gas for a cook stove. Not far along a beaten path is an outhouse overlooking the meadow.

History

The cabin may have been built as early as 1939 using logs from other abandoned mining cabins in the area, Grosvenor said.

Its a hodge-podge of pieces, he said.

Other than the setting is stunning, its not much of a building, Grosvenor said. I dont think it even has any cultural value because it has been modified over the years.

The cabin gets its name from Dewey Whittaker, a flashy and bejeweled mining entrepreneur who staked placer and mining claims on the plateau, as well as in other areas of Montana. According to the Montana Department of Environment Qualitys Abandoned Mines website, Whittaker held claims on the East Boulder Plateau as early as 1944.

Just because the area was so remote, a lot of people used (the cabin) to stay dry and warm, Grosvenor said.

Other speculators were working the area at the same time, he said, staking claims to iron, then chromite, they kept looking for something that would make them money.

That continues to this day. The area is home to the largest known deposit of platinum group metals in the world. The Canadian firm Group Ten Metals is currently basing crews on the grounds around the Whittaker cabin as it drills to assess mineral deposits. Those claims are next door to ones already patented and being worked by Sibanye-Stillwater, a South African mining company, at its East Boulder and Stillwater underground mines.

Its a neat place to be accessible by a wheeled vehicle, Grosvenor said. We dont have a lot of those areas that are open. Thats probably why were seeing so much (four-wheel drive) use up there.

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Better Late Than Never

David S. J. Meng

Today is your youngest day in the rest of your life.

If you are reading this in your twenties or thirties, congratulations! You are getting a head start in the right direction. However, dont worry if you are older. As a scientist buried in research for decades, I myself started late investing in real estate, when I was 47. I hope that the following example will give you courage and inspiration.

Buffett made 99.6% of his money after the age of 52. I read the biographies Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist (by Roger Lowenstein) and The Snowball  Warren Buffett and the Business of Life (by Alice Schroeder). I also searched sources www.marketwatch.com/story/from-6000-to-67-billion-warren-buffetts-wealth-through-the-ages-2015-08-17, and https://medium.com/the-10x-entrepreneur/warren-buffett-has-made-99-7-of-his-money-after-the-age-of-52-71e2ce04c347. I went through the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Reports for the past decades. These are all documents available in the public domain. Indeed, Mr. Warren Buffett made about 99.6% of his wealth after his 52nd birthday.

How is this possible? Don't people think that 52 is kind of late, and that you should have made the bulk of your wealth by then already? How did he make the bulk (99.6%) of his wealth after 52? Does this mean that, if we are already 40 or 50, that it is not too late for us to start serious investing?

At the age of 52, Mr. Buffett's wealth was approximately $376 million (= $0.376 billion). At 87, his wealth was approximately $86.6 billion. There are 35 years from 52 to 87.

$86.6 billion / $0.376 billion = 1.1683**35.

Therefore, by growing at an average compounding rate of 16.83% annually in the past 35 years, his wealth grew from $0.376 billion to $86.6 billion. (Buffett's wealth fluctuates with the market, so the focus here is not on the exact accuracy of the numbers. The focus here is that compounding for many years can do wonders.)

With an increase from $0.376 billion to $86.6 billion, (86.6  0.376)/86.6 = 99.6%. Therefore, Buffett made 99.6% of his money after the age of 52.

This is truly amazing: Whatever money he had at the age of 52, he multiplied it by more than 200x after he had turned 52 years of age.

My humble story. In June and July of 2010, my 15-year old daughter became sick and was in and out of the hospital for two weeks. We later learned that she had appendicitis, but she was initially misdiagnosed by the doctors, who told us that she probably ate something bad and would recover soon.

After two weeks, her condition suddenly worsened and she was sent to the emergency room in the middle of the night. She was hospitalized for three weeks from a ruptured appendix. The rupture created a life-threatening infection of her abdomen.

Heavy antibiotics administered over two weeks failed to lower her temperature to normal. Finally, the doctors performed two procedures which successfully fought back the infection, and she gradually recovered. My wife and I stayed in the hospital with her every day for 21 days, during which my daughter lost more than 10 pounds and I lost 6 (and I had only 112 pounds to start with!).

It was during those heavy-hearted days that I realized I needed to do something for the family financially. Prior to that, as a scientist, I had focused only on my research and writing papers, and had not paid much attention to money. It dawned on me that if one of our children suddenly fell ill and became a long-term patient, my wife or I might have to quit our job to care for the patient. And if either one of us became a long-term patient ourselves, not only would the sick one be unable to work, but the other would have to compromise his/her job to take care of the spouse. Either scenario would mean a substantial reduction in income that would jeopardize the family finances.

The days with my daughter in the hospital were long, and I spent that time becoming increasingly determined to invest and secure the financial freedom for the family.

My daughter was finally discharged from the hospital and went home to recover. I called my real estate agent and told her that I would like to buy houses as rental properties, and that I planned to buy five houses.

I had read in a book that if you buy five houses as rentals and use the rent income to pay the mortgages every month, then after the mortgages are paid off, the rent income would be enough to live on. Then you would not have to work to earn a paycheck, and you have the option to quit your job. That would mean you have achieved financial freedom.

That was why I told my agent that I planned to buy five houses. My wife overheard the phone call and laughed. She thought that I was crazy to want to buy five houses. It's not like going to the supermarket and buying five bags of groceries. Five houses? We are a regular working family with ordinary income; where would the money come from?

We bought our first rental house in 2011. As detailed in my book, in eight years, we expanded to 14 rental properties.

Our net worth has increased from $0.8 million in 2011 (primary residence + retirement accounts) to $5.5 million in 2019 (mostly cash-producing properties). This represents an annual rate of 27% in our wealth accumulation.

The net positive cash-flow (after paying for mortgages, taxes, insurance, repairs, etc.) from our rental properties reached $150,000 per year.

My wife and I enjoy our jobs and have continued to work, but this cash-flow would be enough for us to live on, if we chose to retire now.

In addition, (1) with gradual increases in rent, our cash-flow will increase over time. (2) Over the years to come, the mortgages will be gradually paid off, further increasing the cash-flow. (3) The values of the properties will continue to appreciate in the long-term. The situation is a win-win-win.

We have achieved this under relatively ordinary circumstances. As detailed in my book "$5 Million in 8 Years", we do not live in one of those booming, fast growing areas where real estate prices increase by 8% or 12% per year, enabling investors to get rich quick. Such a booming may not be sustainable in the long-term, nor reproducible by you in your area.

Instead, the housing prices in our area have been increasing by a modest 3-4% per year in the past eight years, which is representative of a normal market and does not deviate significantly from the long-term historic average in the United States.

In addition, I am not a handy person who can do my own repair work on the houses to save money. My three lovely and talented kids tease me for calling a handyman to fix every small thing. Therefore, the aforementioned wealth accumulation was achieved through relatively normal appreciation by someone who is not particularly handy around a house  and I believe it is attainable for you too.

If you happen to be handy and can save money on house maintenance, or live in a faster-appreciating location, you could do even better.

Theodore Roosevelt once said: Every person who invests in well-selected real estate in a growing section of a prosperous community adopts the surest and safest method of becoming independent, for real estate is the basis of wealth.

Indeed, compared to many other types of investments, real estate investing with a good and safe use of leverage, as this book will describe, can produce wonderful returns at a managed and minimized risk. As the famous entrepreneur Marshal Field put it: Buying real estate is the best, safest way to become wealthy.

History shows that the majority of self-made millionaires made it through real estate.

According to the industrialist, business magnate, and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie: Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate. More money has been made in real estate than in all industrial investments combined. The wise young man or wage earner of today invests his money in real estate.

My wife and I made 85% of our wealth in the last 8 years after I was 47. From 2011 to 2019, we increased our wealth from $0.8 million to $5.5 million. (5.5-0.8)/5.5 = 85%. Hence, in our case:

(1) We made 15% of our wealth in nearly two decades of working hard at our jobs from our late twenties to age 47;

(2) We made 85% of our wealth from age of 47 to 55 via real estate investing.

Many people consider 67 as the retirement age. There are 12 years from 55 to 67. As demonstrated in my book, from 2011-2019, our wealth increased at a rate of 27% annually. I expect it to slow down in the coming years, because our leverage has decreased and it is not easy to get more loans from the banks. Assume in the next 12 years, we increase our wealth by 15% annually, then

$5.5 million x 1.15**12 = $29.4 million.

And, (29.4-0.8)/29.4 = 97.3%.

In this case, we would make 97.3% of our wealth after the age of 47.

Assume an even lower rate of 10% annually in the next 12 years (The SP 500 index has returned 10% annually on average from 1965-2019), then

$5.5 million x 1.1**12 = $17.3 million.

And, (17.3-0.8)/17.3 = 95.4%.

In this case, we would make 95.4% of our wealth after the age of 47.

Please note that the focus here is not the exact numbers. The numbers may be different for different individuals. In addition, different investors may use different ways to estimate their numbers. The focus here is: Investing can enable you to make the bulk of your wealth after the age of 50.

Important point. Therefore, you can earn the majority of your wealth by investing, even if you start late. Don't let I am old, It's too late, or other excuses stop you.

Here are other factors that may help erase your concerns and increase your confidence. (1) I am not handy and not physically strong; (2) I spend 50+ hours per week on a day job, and I spend only a few hours per week on real estate investing by building a team and using other peoples time and talents; (3) I live in a relatively slow housing price-appreciation market; (4) My wife and I have raised three kids and paid for their college tuitions with 0 student loans; (5) We sent money to help parents and relatives.

I truly believe that if my wife and I can do it, you can too.

I would like to emphasize the following main points.

(1) You should be able to achieve an annual rate of return of 15% to 20% in real estate investing by sufficient and cautious use of leverage. (The SP 500 returns 10% annually in average from 1965-2019; it is passive and you do not have to do anything except look at it once a year. If I cannot obtain 15% in real estate, why spend the extra effort and time?)

(2) After holding your properties for several years, with rent increases, principal reduction and house value appreciation, you can build substantial cash-flow over time and achieve financial freedom, even if you are already in your 40s and 50s when you start.

(3) Of course, the younger you are when you start, the better. Remember that compounding over time is the 8th wonder of the world. Pull the trigger, get started, and do not wait. The best time to start is now.

(4) Don't let anyone tell you that you are too old to do this. The age of 50 is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. It is only the end of the beginning.

(By David S. J. Meng)
In a breaking development, in a joint statement, US President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi on Thursday announced that Israel and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to normalise relations. As per White House officials, Israel, under the agreement has agreed to suspend applying sovereignty to large parts of the occupied West Bank that it has been discussing annexing.

HUGE breakthrough today! Historic Peace Agreement between our two GREAT friends, Israel and the United Arab Emirates!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 13, 2020

Additionally, the White House said the peace deal was the product of lengthy discussions between Israel, the UAE, and the United States that accelerated recently. Further, White House officials also told Reuters that the agreement was clinched on a phone call between Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi.

In response to President Donald Trump, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu retweeted the US President's tweet and called it a 'Historic Day'.

READ: Israel's PM thanks US after successful testing of Arrow-2 ballistic missile interceptor

Furthermore, Israel's ambassador in Washington, Ron Dermer stated that Israel commends the courage of MBZ (de facto UAE leader Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan) for the historic decision of the UAE to join Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994) in making peace with Israel.

A great day for peace! Israel commends the courage of MBZ for the historic decision of the UAE to join Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994) in making peace with Israel. Israel deeply appreciates all @POTUS Trump has done to make this breakthrough possible. More to come!  Amb. Ron Dermer (@AmbDermer) August 13, 2020

As per the statement, Israeli and UAE delegations will meet in the coming weeks to sign bilateral agreements. Both countries are also expected to exchange ambassadors and embassies.

This development also makes UAE the first Gulf Arab state to do so and only the third Arab nation to have active diplomatic ties to Israel. Until now, Gulf countries had no diplomatic relations with Israel.

READ: Israel successfully tests Arrow-2 ballistic missile interceptor
WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is on a trip to the Middle East, the first of two senior U.S. officials to travel to the region this week as the Trump administration presses an ambitious Arab-Israeli peace push that President Donald Trump hopes will burnish his foreign policy credentials ahead of Novembers election.

Pompeo is travelling to Israel, several Gulf Arab states and Sudan and will be away when he is scheduled to speak on Tuesday to the Republican National Convention, which will nominate Trump for a second term. Should Pompeo appear by remote or recorded video, it will break a long tradition of secretaries of state declining to participate in the public political nomination process.

Previous secretaries of state have shunned overtly partisan rhetoric. Pompeos three immediate predecessors made a point of being out of the country and unavailable during their political parties presidential nominating events. Pompeo is likely to tout Trumps Mideast policies and the recent agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates to normalize relations.

On Sunday, Pompeo tweeted: Looking forward to sharing with you how my family is more SAFE and more SECURE because of President Trump. See you all on Tuesday night!

To accelerate progress in the region, Pompeo is expected to be followed to many of the same destinations later in the week by Trumps senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, diplomats said.

The separate visits come as the administration seeks to capitalize on momentum from the historic agreement between Israel and the UAE.

In addition to Israel and Sudan, the State Department said Pompeo would travel to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Officials said stops in Oman and Qatar are also possible.

The U.S. commitment to peace, security, and stability in Israel, Sudan, and among Gulf countries has never been stronger than under President Trumps leadership, the State Department said in a statement announcing Pompeos trip.

Kushner and his team are expected to visit Israel, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Morocco on their trip, which is scheduled to begin at the end of the week, according to the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the itinerary has not yet been finalized or publicly announced.

In Israel, Pompeo will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss regional security issues related to Irans malicious influence, establishing and deepening Israels relationships in the region, as well as co-operation in protecting the U.S. and Israeli economies from malign investors, the State Department said.

Malign investors is a reference to China, which is seeking to gain a commercial foothold in Israel.

In Khartoum. Pompeo will meet Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok to discuss continued U.S. support for the civilian-led transitional government and express support for deepening the Sudan-Israel relationship, the department said. Sudan is eager to be removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and normalizing ties with Israel would be a step toward that goal.

However, removal from the terrorism list is also dependent on completion of a compensation agreement for victims of the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. A tentative deal struck several months ago is still awaiting finalization.

Neither Pompeos nor Kushners trip is expected to result in announcements of immediate breakthroughs, but both are aimed at building on the success of the Israel-UAE agreement by finalizing at least one, and potentially more, normalization deals between Arab countries and Israel in the near future.

The administration has forged ahead with those efforts over Palestinian objections and without any indication the Palestinians are willing to enter negotiations with Israel. The Arab world had long held that a settlement to the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a prerequisite for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.

Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced on Aug. 13 they would establish full diplomatic relations, in a U.S.-brokered deal that required Israel to halt its contentious plan to annex occupied West Bank land sought by the Palestinians.

The agreement was a key foreign policy victory for Trump as he seeks reelection and reflected a changing Middle East in which shared concerns about archenemy Iran have largely overtaken traditional Arab support for the Palestinians.

Last week, the administration took the controversial step in the U.N. Security Council of triggering the restoration of all international sanctions on Iran, something that only Israel and the Gulf Arab nations have publicly supported. Thirteen of the 15 council members, including U.S. allies Britain, France and Germany, have rejected the move.

Pompeos plans to address the Republican National Convention would be an unprecedented and unconventional step for any Cabinet member let alone the secretary of state who oversees a corps of career diplomats steeped in nonpartisanship.

The State Department said Pompeo would be speaking in his personal capacity.

No State Department resources will be used. Staff are not involved in preparing the remarks or in the arrangements for Secretary Pompeos appearance. The State Department will not bear any costs in conjunction with this appearance, the department said in a statement.

Like his two immediate predecessors, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, both of whom were unsuccessful Democratic Party nominees for president, Pompeo was a member of Congress before joining the executive branch. Both Clinton and Kerry eschewed the Democratic National Convention while they served as Americas top diplomat.

When President Barack Obama was officially nominated for a second term during the party convention in 2012, Clinton was literally half a world away, travelling to the Cook Islands, Indonesia, China, East Timor, Brunei and far eastern Russia. When Clinton was nominated in 2016, Kerry was travelling in Europe and Southeast Asia.

Its not just Democrats. When Republicans nominated John McCain in 2008, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was on a trip to Portugal, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.
Israels cellphone surveillance for coronavirus contact-tracing may have overcome challenges by privacy watchdogs, but the state tracking policy is hard put to deal with low-tech evasion methods seemingly lifted from TV cop shows.

Some Israelis, fearing a quarantine order after unwittingly being near a coronavirus carrier, are rendering themselves untraceable while in public by switching their cellphones to airplane mode or using prepaid burner SIM cards instead.

Such actions are not illegal and, although there is only anecdotal evidence for their prevalence, they drew remonstration from Communication Minister Yoaz Hendel on Sunday.

This is a problem, he told Ynet TV. Ultimately, we are not a police state. We will not manage to compel the citizens of the State of Israel to keep to the health regulations.

The surveillance, initially instituted without parliamentary oversight by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been anchored in legislation at the behest of Israels Supreme Court after it heard challenges by civil liberties groups who worry the mass-surveillance is ripe for abuse.

Modeled on a counter-terrorism technology and in force since March, the system back-tracks movements of people who have tested positive for the virus to determine who came within 2 metres (yards) of them for more than 15 minutes while they were infectious.

Having been identified by their own cellphone locations, these potential new carriers are then ordered over SMS to self-isolate for a period of 14 days from the moment of exposure.

Around 80,000 people per week have received such notifications since July 1, according to officials - an economic drag for a country of 9 million.

Officials say the surveillance has detected some 30% of coronavirus cases in Israel. They also acknowledge a false-positive rate of around 16%, sometimes due to a vertical blind-spot in the technology which risks flagging people above or below a coronavirus carrier in a multi-storey building.

Such instances may be overturned on appeal - a process that can take several days, during which the quarantine is in force.

Israel offers a voluntary coronavirus app, HaMagen, whose latest upgrade includes Bluetooth contact-tracing for greater precision. But with users complaining about battery drainage, its market penetration has been far below the 60% required for the state surveillance technology to be dropped, officials say.

Israel has recorded 102,380 coronavirus cases and 834 deaths.
A man arrested at London's Heathrow Airport as part of an investigation into the New IRA has been taken to Belfast for questioning, police said.

The 62-year-old lives in Scotland and was detained using anti-terrorism powers.

Following the arrest officers from Police Scotland searched a property in the Blackhall area of Edinburgh.

A total of 10 people have been apprehended during the police's operation against the dissident republican organisation.

A man, aged 62, who lives in Scotland was arrested at Heathrow airport and has been taken to Belfast for questioning

Two were charged and appeared in court on Saturday morning.

Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) assistant chief constable Barbara Gray said: 'Detectives from the PSNI's Terrorism Investigation Unit have today arrested a 62 year old man at Heathrow Airport under the Terrorism Act in connection with an ongoing investigation into the activities of the New IRA.

'The man, who resides in Scotland and was arrested as part of Operation Arbacia, has been brought to Northern Ireland and is currently in Musgrave serious crime suite where he is being questioned.'

There are now a total of 10 people arrested as part of Operation Arbacia.

Two of them have been charged and appeared in court this morning.

Journalist Lyra McKee, 29, was shot dead by a New IRA gunman while observing a riot in Derry on the night of 18 April 2019

The New IRA is opposed to the Northern Ireland peace process of the 1990s and has carried out many attacks on police.

Formed in 2012, the group has its origins in republican splinter organisations and has been involved in killings, gun and bomb attacks.

There has been a revived security forces focus on the activities of the organisation since the death of journalist Lyra McKee last year.

Lyra McKee, 29, was shot dead by a New IRA gunman while observing a riot in the Creggan area of Derry on the night of 18 April 2019.

The New IRA admitted the killing of McKee but accused police of provoking rioting that preceded the gun attack in which she died.
Danny Zaragoza /Laredo Morning Times

TAMIU students will not be able to return to classes unless they complete a university COVID-19 training.

According to the university, regardless if a student is online or on-campus, they will not be able to start the class until the online training is complete.
Zareen Khan says people still assume Salman Khan helps her find work: "I cannot be a monkey on his back"
Three men, a woman and a teenage girl have been arrested after the death of a man found slumped by the side of a Birmingham road with a stab wound to his chest.

West Midlands Police said the male suspects - aged 22, 30 and 40 - had been taken into custody for questioning after being detained at separate addresses in Nottingham on Sunday.

A 28-year-old woman and a 15-year-old-girl were detained at the scene the previous evening and remain in custody, the force added.

Officers were called to Mill Pool Way in Bournbrook, at the junction to the citys busy Bristol Road, at 5pm on Saturday.

The victim was pronounced dead in hospital just over an hour later. He is yet to be formally identified.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 16 January 2022 The moon rises above the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth, Hampshire PA UK news in pictures 15 January 2022 Demonstrators outside Downing Street during a Kill The Bill protest against The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in London. PA UK news in pictures 14 January 2022 Ecologist Emma Smart (left) and retired GP Dr Diana Warner outside HMP Bronzefield, in Surrey, following their release from the prison where Emma undertook a 26-day hunger strike during her incarceration. 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Detective Inspector Stu Mobberley, who is leading the investigation, said: "We've made rapid progress overnight having worked with colleagues at Nottinghamshire Police to arrested three men we believe were involved in the stabbing.

Recommended Knife crime hit record high before coronavirus lockdown

"Our inquiries continue and we are actively seeking at least one other person.

"I still really need to hear from anyone who was in Mill Pool Way, Bournbrook, at around 4-5pm yesterday and who saw what happened, or any disorder, to get in touch."

Roads closed by police following the stabbing have now reopened but officers were maintaining an increased presence in the area on Sunday.

Police requested any witnesses call 101 or message via live chat on the West Midlands Police website, quoting log 3112 from 22 August.

Additional reporting by agencies
Mark Meadows, White House Chief of Staff, visited the U.S. Capitol on Saturday in an attempt to pressure Democrats into accepting a slimmed down version of the stimulus bill.

Meadows said he tried to meet with Speaker Nancy Pelosi to discuss moving forward with a coronavirus stimulus package, The Hill reported.

But Pelosi was not available when Meadows arrived.

Meadows was in Capitol Hill to talk about more relief funding with rank-and-file members in both parties. He said Congress should pass legislation in areas where bipartisan agreement was found.

The stimulus has been stuck at weeks of deadlock as negotiations between negotiators collapsed on August 7, a Bloomberg report noted.

House Provides $25 Billion for Postal Service

The House convened for a rare Saturday session to vote on a bill that provides $25 billion for the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).

Meadows told reporters it was "hypocritical" for Pelosi to take up legislation that provides funding for USPS, while not holding a vote on the stimulus.

He argued that small business funding and other economic provisions have to be added to the bill.

"Speaker Pelosi and Democrats: if you really want to help Americans, how about passing relief for small businesses and unemployment assistance ALONG with postal funding?" he tweeted on Saturday morning.

He added that he met with rank-and-file lawmakers on paths to reach a compromise.

"If she wants to strike a deal with the president of the United States on behalf of the American people, the president is willing to do that," Meadows said. He also said the deal has to be based on real numbers and issues that are urgent, not a partisan wish list.

A CNET report said Meadows was open to a "piecemeal" legislation around both the USPS and the stimulus relief. He said if Congress can agree on both postal and stimulus checks, they should pass it.

"Congress needs to come back and get their act together," he added.

Meadows came with his entourage in an impromptu attempt to meet about the stimulus impasse, and they were told she was in a meeting.

"As you know, the secretary (Steve Mnuchin) reached out a few weeks ago," he told reporters. "She made it clear at that point that there was no real need to continue to vote."

Slimming Down the Stimulus Package

There weren't any scheduled meetings between Pelosi and Meadows, a source said. "He showed up with no notice. Speaker was in a leadership meeting," a senior Democratic aide said.

The latest effort to restart stimulus talks come after he and other members of the GOP have pressed for a slimmer $1.1 trillion GOP Senate bill.

This measure combines $10 billion for the USPS with other provisions. It lists new funding for small businesses and unemployment insurance benefits.

Back in May, House Democrats passed a big $3.4 trillion coronavirus relief package. The proposal was greatly rejected by Republicans in the White House and the Senate.

According to Washington Times, Pelosi thinks Meadows' request for a slimmed down stimulus is "deficient."

She earlier told reporters that Meadows was proposing a bill that could lead to millions of layoffs for workers in the public sector.

It could also sacrifice the safety of children in schools as the aid was tied to school reopening.

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I write these thoughts on August 9, 2020, the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki. I have been active in northern New Mexico peace and nuclear disarmament efforts for about 20 years, not long compared to many. There were many trips to Los Alamos Ashley Pond with signs in Augusts, many walks to the gates of the lab, arrests, petitions against weapons of mass destruction and for cleanup of radioactive waste.

For years, I observed with horror actions by my government and U.S.-based corporations in other countries: coups, pollution not mitigated, communities destroyed, people killed. Only gradually did it dawn on me that we American citizens were not in a special category unlike citizens in those countries, when it came to harm done and not repaired.

Clearly, one of the costs of doing business is the cost paid by people who stand in the way of major projects in which government and industry have joined hands. Most of the Southern California beach side community where I grew up was devoured by eminent domain so that LAX could have a north runway. It was naive of me to continue to believe in the inviolate rights of Americans to their property, privacy, safety and civil rights.

So it was with horror that I recently read Kristen Iversens memoir, Full Body Burden, and the long story of her growing up close to Rocky Flats in Colorado. Rocky Flats was the nations plutonium pit plant from 1952 to 1992. Its location, which is severely assailed by winds, is close to Denver and its suburbs. It was sold to the public with a combination of patriotic Cold War pitches and the promise of jobs. Over the years of its operations, there were several criticality events, irreparable leaks, fires in the radioactive materials areas. Always covered up, minimized, denied. Workers at the plant and neighbors in adjoining communities got higher than average frequencies of cancers and many died. The wind blew the plutonium dust into the waterways and topsoil.

In 1998, Rocky Flats was shut down for committing environmental crimes.

The final cleanup solution to Rocky Flats was to cap it with concrete, spread a park over it and call it a wildlife preserve. It wasnt cleaned up to the degree needed; the DOE wouldnt commit that much money. And radiation escapes, always. So when the wildlife die of radiation sickness, only the Fish and Game Rangers or those monitoring the area will know.

Im writing this letter because Los Alamos National Laboratory has been chosen as the replacement for Rocky Flats. It is commanded to make from 30 to 80 new plutonium triggers (pits) a year. Regardless of the fact that radiation and other mishaps occur frequently at the lab, some in the nuclear weapons industry stand to make a fortune on expanded pit production.

Just recently, utility workers who were digging a sewer line that was being rushed through so a contractor could finish its low-income housing construction project in time for tax credits, unearthed radioactive legacy waste. In spite of this discovery, work on the project has continued.

Our senators, representatives and governor are not filling the role of speaking out on behalf of their constituents health and safety, and the northern New Mexico environment by failing to demand that DOE to conduct a Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement. Instead, they are gung ho on multi-billion-dollar, industrial-scale plutonium pit production, once again citing patriotism and jobs. What politician wants to stand up to DOE? Money talks. Sometimes it seems only money can be heard.

We northern New Mexicans very much hope that the concerns of the communities that share the air, soil and water of northern New Mexico will be addressed before the lab proceeds further with Rocky Flats on the Pajarito Plateau. We are joining our voices together to demand a new Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement be conducted BEFORE the commencement of new pit construction.

Susann McCarthy is with Taosenos for Peaceful and Sustainable Futures.
Sources said Indian Army's assessment is that the Chinese military is not serious about resolution of the border conflict

New Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday reviewed the overall security scenario in eastern Ladakh, two days after India and China held a fresh round of diplomatic talks to resolve the border row in the high-altitude region, people familiar with the developments said.

Separately, the Indian Army said a meeting of the Army commanders took place from 20-21 August to review the security situation and operational preparedness on both the northern and western fronts.

The meeting chaired by the defence minister was attended by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat, Army Chief Gen MM Naravane, Navy Chief Admiral Karambir Singh and Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria.

All "important aspects" of the border row with China in eastern Ladakh were discussed in great detail, the people familiar with the developments said, adding the meeting also deliberated on the future course of approach in dealing with the situation.

Gen Naravane made a brief presentation about India's operational readiness, deployment of troops and weapons as well as on arrangements being made to maintain the current strength in all sensitive areas along the Line of Actual Control in the harsh winter months, they said.

India is not going to lower its guard at all, government sources said.

The Indian Army is strongly insisting during the talks that the Chinese side must restore the status quo ante of April this year to resolve the row, they added.

The sources said the assessment by the Army is that the Chinese military is not serious about the resolution of the border conflict.

It is learnt that the Army commanders at the two-day meeting deliberated on all possible security challenges along the borders with China as well as Pakistan and the measures needed to be taken to deal with them effectively.

India and China have held several rounds of military and diplomatic talks in the last two-and-half months but no significant headway has been made in resolution of the border row.

On Thursday, the two sides held another round of diplomatic talks following which the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said they had agreed to resolve outstanding issues in an "expeditious manner" and in accordance with the existing agreements and protocols.

The sources said the meeting could not produce any significant outcome.

In the military talks, the Indian Army has clearly stated to the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) that "shifting" of the Line of Actual Control is not acceptable to it, the sources said adding Chinese military is now desperately attempting to give "ex post facto strategic meaning" to its actions in eastern Ladakh.

Even as both sides have been engaged in diplomatic and military talks, the Indian Army is making elaborate preparation to maintain its current strength of troops in all key areas in eastern Ladakh in the harsh winter months.

"The Army is ready for a long haul along the Line of Actual Control," said a military official on the condition of anonymity.

Army Chief Gen Naravane has already conveyed to all the senior commanders of the Army, overseeing operation of the frontline formations along the LAC, to keep up a significantly high state of alertness and maintain the aggressive posturing to deal with any Chinese "misadventure", the sources said.

The Army is also in the process of procuring a number of weapons, ammunition and winter gears for the frontline troops, they added. The temperature in some of the high-altitude areas along the LAC drops to minus 25 degrees Celsius in the winter months.

Sources said notwithstanding the border row, India has been carrying on with laying new roads in the Ladakh region.

The formal process of disengagement of troops began on 6 July, a day after a nearly two-hour telephonic conversation between NSA Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on ways to bring down tensions in the area. However, the process has not moved forward since mid-July.

The Chinese military has pulled back from Galwan Valley and certain other friction points but the withdrawal of troops has not moved forward in Pangong Tso, Depsang and a couple of other areas, sources said.

In the five rounds of corps commander-level talks, the Indian side has been insisting on complete disengagement of Chinese troops at the earliest, and immediate restoration of status quo ante in all areas of eastern Ladakh prior to April.

The tension between the two sides escalated manifold after the violent clashes in Galwan Valley on 15 June in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed. The Chinese side also suffered casualties but it is yet to give out the details. According to an American intelligence report, the number of casualties on the Chinese side was 35.

Following the Galwan Valley incident, the government gave the armed forces "full freedom" to give a "befitting" response to any Chinese misadventure along the LAC.

The Army sent thousands of additional troops to forward locations along the border following the deadly clashes. The IAF has also moved air defence systems as well as a sizeable number of its frontline combat jets and attack helicopters to several key airbases.
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The second COVID-19 aid package faces a standstill as Republicans and Democrats are unable to agree on its size and specifics.

Stimulus Proposal

Previously this week, Senate Republicans began circulating a new and remarkably curtailing stimulus proposal which makes no remark of the second series of direct stimulus payments and diminishes extra unemployment benefits (which expired at the end of July) between $600 and $300 per week.

The stimulus check 2 plan discussion is currently stalled notwithstanding lawmakers raising support for the second series of $1,200 direct payments. The stimulus check 2 date is stalled with the Senate in recess until September. reported Tom's Guide.

There were high expectations for a hasty resolution to the next stimulus bill when the Senate gathered again to session from their summer break. Leadership in both the Republican Senate and Democrat House were wont to strike a deal to bring adequate financial relief to Americans, reported Forbes.

Direct Payments

Republicans and Democrats do agree on one idea: There should be more direct payments this 2020. Both parties hope that a new COVID-19 stimulus relief bill or at least a scaled-down package to include a second stimulus check will pass soon.

If a final novel coronavirus relief bill passes, a United States citizen could receive their payment more quickly than they did in the first round.

To vote on a rescue bill for the US Post Office, the Democratic-led House of Representatives will return to Capitol Hill on Saturday, reported CNET.

Also Read: Thousands of Chicks Arrive Dead at Farms Amid USPC Budget Cuts

According to United States President Donald Trump, Democrats are the reason US citizens have not yet received a 2nd direct payment from the government. Republicans blame Democrats and as one may perceive, Democrats accuse Republicans.

Americans wanting to rely on emergency coronavirus aid and a second $1,200 check from the White House might have to wait until fall.

As discussions over the new COVID-19 relief package have halted, the White House and congressional leaders have far views on the scope, size, and approach for reopening schools, shoring up households, and establishing a national strategy to contain the virus.

Rescue Bill

As the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives will return to Capitol Hill on Saturday to vote on a rescue bill for the United States Post Office (USPS), Republicans have been teasing their own scaled-down COVID-19 relief package. This leaves people wondering what would transpire with the halted discussions and if another stimulus check would still be part of a new law.

According to a GOP senator, the slimmed-down COVID-19 relief package being prepared by Senate Republican leaders of an estimated $500 billion will include extended payments for smaller businesses and unemployed people. This measure will also involve $10 billion for the embattled US Postal Service, stated one top GOP aide.

The new proposal's purpose is to stabilize the ongoing reopening of the economy by shielding businesses from COVID-19-related lawsuits while providing funds for testing of schools and government spending. The aforementioned $500 billion package is well below the $3 trillion HEROES Act proposed by Democrats and an estimated half of the $1 trillion HEALS Act Republican proposal in July.

Related Article: US President Donald Trump Visits Younger Brother in New York Hospital

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CBI grills Sushant Singh Rajputs friend Siddharth Pithani, cook about June 13-14 intervening night

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Mumbai, Aug 23: Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput's friend Siddharth Pithani on Sunday arrived at the guest house in Mumbai where Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials probing his death are staying, news agency ANI reported.

The late actor's cook Neeraj Singh was also seen at the guest house for the third round of questioning by CBI officials, ANI reported.

The CBI began its probe into the death of Sushant Singh Rajput on Friday, two days after the Supreme Court asked the agency to take over the case, as it questioned a former staff of the Bollywood actor and collected documents and reports from Mumbai Police.

Meanwhile, another CBI team visited the state-run Cooper Hospital in the city, where autopsy had been performed on Rajput''s body, on Saturday.

They met the dean of the hospital and will also meet the doctors who carried out the autopsy, the official said.

A third CBI team visited the Bandra police station to meet officials of the Mumbai police who were investigating Rajput''s alleged suicide earlier.

It was the CBI team''s second visit to the Bandra police station since it began the probe in Mumbai on Friday.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the transfer of an FIR, lodged by Rajput''s father at Patna against actor Rhea Chakraborty and others for allegedly abetting his suicide, to the CBI.

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Story first published: Sunday, August 23, 2020, 12:05 [IST]
(Reuters) - Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and other senior government politicians said they were shocked over an attack on a Jewish community leader in the southern city of Graz on Saturday, and ordered tighter security at Jewish institutions around Austria.

An unknown assailant attacked the Graz Jewish community's president, Elie Rosen, with a wooden club on the premises of their synagogue, which was twice targeted by acts of vandalism in the past week, the community said in a statement late on Saturday.

Rosen took shelter in his car and was unhurt. The attacker then fled, according to the statement.

Police in Styria, the province where Graz is located, said they are searching for the suspect.

Kurz said on Twitter he was shocked by the attack on Rosen and authorities would do what they could to find the perpetrator and guarantee the security of the Jewish community in the country.

Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said, also on Twitter, that surveillance of all Jewish institutions in Austria would be tightened in response.

According to a report published in May by the Jewish Community of Vienna and the Forum against Antisemitism, 550 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in Austria in 2019, up 9.5% versus 2017.

Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen also condemned the attack on Twitter, saying: "Hatred towards Jews and anti-Semitism have no place in our society."

(Reporting by Silke Koltrowitz; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
The man who was beaten unconscious by Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland, Oregon, last week said his assailants don't practice what they preach after they descended on him when he tried to stop a trans woman from being robbed.

Adam Haner crashed his pickup truck on a sidewalk near a BLM demonstration in the Northwest city last Sunday evening before he was pulled from the vehicle and beaten.

Portland has been the site of daily and nightly protests and clashes with law enforcement since the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.

Adam Haner (right) was with his girlfriend, Tammie Martin (left), when he was beaten unconscious by a mob of Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland, Oregon, last Sunday evening

After Haner was knocked out by the kick, other demonstrators came to glower over his motionless body and shout obscenities

Video footage showed a man, believed to be 25-year-old Marquise Love, kicking Haner unconscious.

Haner, who was driving his truck with his girlfriend, Tammie Martin, in the passenger seat, also suffered two black eyes in the vicious beating.

I thought that's what they were down there trying to fight, was this kind of behavior toward them, but they're exhibiting the same behavior that they're trying to stop, Haner told the Fox News show Watters World on Saturday.

Haner told Fox News that he and Martin were headed to a 7 Eleven convenience store when they noticed a young transgender woman being robbed of her backpack.

He said that when he intervened, he was targeted by several people who punched him and called him a white supremacist.

Haner then decided to get back into his truck and drive away. But an engine failure caused the vehicle to stall.

Thats when several people descended on him, though Haner denies claims that he tried to mow down BLM protesters with his truck.

Marquise Love was taken into custody on Friday morning, accused of beating Haner during a BLM protest in Portland. He is pictured in his latest mugshot

I warned everyone to get out of my way when I did start my truck. I'd been down there long enough, he said.

They knew when my truck started, to get out of the way.

Haner continued: I was down there for a lengthy amount of time. I managed not to hurt anyone while I was down there, but myself, evidently.

I can't say the same to them.

Haner and Martin also criticized Portland police for not responding to the scene quickly enough.

Haner said it took police 10 minutes to reach him after a 911 call was placed by his girlfriend saying that he had been knocked unconscious.

Love turned himself in to police on Friday morning following a city-wide manhunt that lasted four days.

Online records show he has now been charged with felony assault, felony coercion and felony riot. Bail has been set at $260,000.

Love is accused of punching and kicking Haner in the head after he accidentally became caught up in a protest on Sunday evening.

Haner crashed his pickup truck on a sidewalk near the demonstration, before he was pulled from the vehicle and beaten.

Video footage showed a man - believed to be Love - kicking Haner unconscious. The victim also suffered two black eyes in the vicious beating.

Love already has a lengthy criminal record which includes charges for domestic assault, interfering with public transport, driving without a license, domestic harassment and guns charges.

In a statement on Friday, Portland Police Chief confirmed the arrest, but did not say what provoked Love to hand himself in.

'I am pleased the suspect in this case turned himself in and appreciate all of the efforts to facilitate this safe resolution,' he stated.

'Thank you to all of the members of the public who have provided information and tips to our investigators. Your assistance is very much appreciated.'

Portland police have arrested Marquise Love (right) over the brutal attack on Adam Haner (left) near a Black Lives Matter protest in Portland on Sunday evening

Footage of Haner's beating has sparked outrage on the internet since it first began circulating late on Sunday.

In the video, demonstrators are seen hauling Haner out from his truck and throwing him to the ground. The BLM protesters appear to believe that he deliberately plowed his vehicle into them.

Hanner, who was profusely bleeding from the head, was ordered to sit on the ground and told to 'wait for police to arrive.'

However, he was knocked out by a vicious kick to the side of his head. The kick was purportedly made by Love.

As he lay unconscious on the ground, shouts of 'Black Lives Matter' were heard as other protesters attempted to provide first aid.

Others began ransacking the man's truck and when questioned by bystanders, they explained that they were simply 'checking for weapons.'

Haner was rushed to hospital after being kicked. He has since been released and is recovering, police said

On Wednesday, after being released from hospital, Haner uploaded a photo showing the injuries he sustained in the attack

A look into his recent social media activity revealed that he has shared memes poking fun at Black Lives Matter protests.

One of his posts read: 'Would it be wrong to follow rioters home and burn down their properties? Asking for a friend.'

Haner has denied deliberately trying to provoke the protesters.

On Thursday evening, police also released a photo of an eyewitness, and asked him to come forward saying he may be able to provide more information on the attack.

The incident purportedly began when Haner and his girlfriend, Tammie Martin (right), were driving through Portland in his truck on Sunday evening. The couple say they were in no way trying to start trouble

On Thursday evening, police also released a photo of an eyewitness, and asked him to come forward saying he may be able to provide more information on the attack

David Hernandez, who shot the graphic footage, says he believes Haner was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.

'I think he just felt extremely threatened,' Hernandez said in an interview.

'They chased him... until he finally crashed. When they finally caught up to him, they went nuts.

'This was violent, extremely violent. Sometimes I forget I'm walking the streets of an American city in the Northwest. Sometimes it feels like you're walking in a Third World county.'

Meanwhile, prior to his arrest on Friday, Love had been posting messages on Snapchat, according to The Sun.

In one of the posts, he can be seen asking followers for money in case he is arrested for the attack on Haner.

'Might go to jail for murder tonight for a racist when all I did was fight him look it up on twitter put money on my books and come see me,' he allegedly sent from his Snapchat account, alongside a selfie.

While on the run, Love, 25, took to Snapchat to ask for money in case he was caught and jailed for the alleged beating of Haner

LOVE'S CRIMINAL RECORD 2019: Failing to appear in court for driving with a suspended or revoked license 2017: Arrested for domestic assault and domestic harassment (not prosecuted) 2016: Two arrests for providing false information in connection with the transfer of a fire arm, domestic assault, criminal trespass, driving without a valid license and without insurance. Making unreasonable noise with a motor vehicle, driving with a suspended license, not having insurance, vehicle registration or plates. 2015: Interfering with public transport 2014: Involved in a domestic case that proved he was the father of a baby. He was also charged that year for violating probation in another case. 2012: Second degree theft and interfering with public transport and criminal trespass Advertisement

The arrest comes after another wild night in Portland, during which protesters tried to smash into an ICE building and clashed with federal agents on the 84th day of violence in the city.

Demonstrations that often turn violent have racked Oregon's biggest city for more than two months following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Cops fired tear gas to disperse the crowds after protesters pounded on the window of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement complex and spray-painted expletives on the walls.

Police claimed protesters were throwing glass bottles and 'softball-sized rocks' and shining lasers at federal officers leaving the ICE building, while two people were arrested before the crowd was finally cleared after 1am. Two arrests were made on charges of 'interfering with a peace officer and disorderly conduct', police said.

Portland's police chief pleaded with protesters to call off the 'endless destruction' as he condemned the 'senseless criminal activity' in the city. Officers sustained minor injuries Wednesday, a police statement said, without specifying how many were injured.

Portland police declared a riot for a second night running Wednesday as protesters tried to smash into an ICE building
In KC's deadliest year, Operation LeGend hasn't improved homicide clearance rate Two months after 22-year-old Marcus Stone was gunned down at 18th and Vine, his family wonders if the killer will ever be brought to justice. His younger brother, Ke'Shawn Stone, knows it's a question other Kansas City families face as dozens of homicides this year remain unsolved.

Operation Legend - The federal law enforcement crackdown has only been up and running for a few weeks yet the so-called "paper-of-record" casts blame after DECADES of letting their favorite politicos slide on this sordid subject.Here's a glimpse at what more and more subscribers are skipping:
In the blissful days before coronavirus, Lisa Gardner-Springer hatched a plan for a summer vacation. While their oldest daughter would be exploring Europe with friends, she, her husband, Colin, and their younger daughter would head to Quebec.

Then the pandemic changed everything - for the Gardner-Springer family and the entire travel industry.

With stay-at-home orders in place and a novel coronavirus sweeping across the nation, planes stopped flying. Hotels emptied. Rental cars sat in undisturbed rows. Cruise ships eventually, mercifully, docked. Amid a global health crisis, tourism has tanked. The World Travel and Tourism Council estimated in April that the tourism sector worldwide lost more than 100 million jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic, the result of would-be travelers holed up at home.

But eventually, people began exploring again, slowly and carefully.

In September, Gardner-Springer will embark on her first vacation since the pandemic was declared. Her family will relish a long weekend in a cabin at Sleeping Fawn Resort near Park Rapids, Minn. They will kayak, bike and enjoy a view of a quiet lake and woods instead of their own backyard.

In that small family trip lies a larger reality: As travel returns, vacations look different.

Travelers now engage in more outdoor activities, head to destinations that can be reached by car, keep it brief and book shortly before departure.

These new trends derive from the obvious motivation to stay healthy. Other forces are also at play. Leaders and health experts have admonished travelers to avoid unnecessary trips or at least stay close to home. The European Union, Canada, Mexico, Japan and other countries have rolled up their welcome mats for Americans. Some states also began requiring quarantines for visitors from states with high numbers of coronavirus infections, adding uncertainty even within the U.S. Meanwhile, we have learned that outdoors is safer than indoors when it comes to the virus.

A recent poll from Morning Consult for the U.S. Travel Association found that only 44% of Americans plan to travel in 2020, the majority via short car trips. The same poll found that travelers are dipping their toes rather than plunging into the experience, as 78% are planning trips of four nights or fewer.

According to a webinar hosted by Angie Briggs of the U.S. Travel Association, 60% of Americans consider outdoor recreational activities safe. The group's online tool that monitors national park attendance shows visits have been rising through the summer.

Once the coronavirus is mostly in the rearview mirror, avid travelers will likely act on delayed plans and pent-up desires to see the world. According to the U.S. Travel Association and Oxford Economics, travel spending in the U.S. will fall from $1.13 trillion in 2019 to a projected $622 billion in 2020. But spending is expected to rebound to $855 billion in 2021 and $976 billion in 2022.

As Gardner-Springer said, "We're all itching for the day, making our fantasy plans."
When Jaime Santos hid a treasure chest worth at least $600 and launched a hunt last Saturday, he expected it to take at least a few days to be found, but a local construction worker cracked the clues in just a couple hours.

David Dominguez did not give the rest of Laredo much time to search for the treasure despite a head start as he started looking right after work.

I just dissected the riddle. Thats pretty much what I did, Dominguez said. Seeing it at work, I didnt realize it was already out for 12 hours, and I was thinking about it at work all day. Since the first clue was about something about the north and the middle, I came up with the notion that it had to be in North Central Park.

Eventually, the treasure was found in the park underneath a pile of leaves and dirt close to a palm tree and a standing land post with no connections. He was able to locate it by deciphering all the clues posted to Facebook by Santos.

Though he deciphered almost all off the clues by himself, Dominguez did not find the treasure alone. Right after his shift at work ended, he called his friend Joshua Crespo to help him find the treasure. Dominguez said he needed his friend to help as he liked riddles more than him.

His friend was babysitting at the time, but he brought the kids along on the adventure. At first the kids did not take Dominguez seriously when he said he was hunting for real treasure.

I just told him that I had a friend who hid a treasure as he is trying to do something for the community and simply asked him if he wanted to go treasure hunting, Dominguez said. He told me he was babysitting, but I just said that it was perfect as he could bring the kids. We then met up at North Central Park and went on treasure hunting, and the children didnt take me serious.

READ MORE: Treasure hunt in Laredo starts and ends Saturday

Nobody took him seriously at first aside from his friend. He even told his mother, and she simply told him to have fun as a way of showing that he was not doing anything serious. However, people started to take him seriously once he found the treasure worth at least $600.

And then, suddenly I just see it there under some dirt and leaves, and I pick it up and quickly yell, Call me Indiana Jones, Dominguez said. It did take us a good two hours to find, but it was really fast as Santos had said it could take a month.

He believes he got a head start because he is friends with Santos on Facebook and therefore saw the clues right when they were first posted.

Although Santos has not provided specific details beyond saying, Another hunt is already in the works, to LMT, Dominguez said he spoke to Santos and that the next treasure will have an even greater value.

He did say that the next treasure is going to be an even bigger prize, Dominguez said. Next time he said its going to be bigger, and I am sure that many people can find the fun and rewarding aspect of this activity as it is safe and also helps maintain social distancing as well.

As for the treasure worth close to $600 found by Dominguez and Crespo, he said they divided the prize evenly. Dominguez is saving his half for the meantime and not exchanging the silver for money because he wants to wait for it to increase in value.

Dominguez is ready for the next treasure hunt and said he will bring more people with him.

I definitely am ready for it; however, I told him that Im going to wait at least one day to give other people a head start, Dominguez said. Definitely, I will participate in the next one as I even told my mom and a couple of friends, and they said that they will now go looking for it with me, but it might mean dividing the treasure even more.
Out on Wall Street, some stocks are shooting for the stars. Driven by optimism related to a COVID-19 vaccine, swift Federal Reserve action as well as better-than-expected economic data, the market has bounced back with sheer force since hitting a low point five months ago. Not only has the S&P 500 recovered its COVID-induced losses, but it has gone on to break a record, reaching a new closing high on August 21.

So, is there more growth on tap for stocks? For some, the answer is yes. According to the analyst community, a few names reflect serious growth plays. We arent kidding when we say serious. These are companies that have already notched impressive gains year-to-date, and are poised to see the growth keep on coming even after 2020 wraps up.

Bearing this in mind, we used TipRanks database to scan the Street for stocks that fall into this category. Locking in on three in particular, the analysts believe that each ticker, which also happen to boast a Strong Buy consensus rating, can keep the rally alive through the rest of 2020 and beyond.

Quidel Corporation (QDEL)

Best known for its rapid influenza testing products, Quidel is one of the top providers of point-of-care and near-patient diagnostic solutions. With a gain of 222% already achieved in 2020, the good news is set to keep on coming, according to the analyst community.

Five-star analyst Alexander Nowak, who covers the stock for Craig-Hallum, tells investors that huge does not even describe the demand, nor the margins.

We already knew going into the results about the pre-announced revenue upside - what we learned was the incredible margin potential of these COVID products (mid 70%). We also learned that demand is multiple times larger than QDELs current supply. Unfathomable was thrown out to describe the demand, and in a more quantitative sense QDEL saw at one point 5x more demand than supply, Nowak stated. The analyst points out this demand doesnt even include retail, pharmacies, schools, physician practices or employers, which best case scenario, could be addressed in mid-2021.

Story continues

For Q2, QDEL reported revenue of $202 million, exceeding the $179 million consensus estimate. COVID products were $109 million, below our $127 million estimate due to product mix among Lyra and Sofia... The lower COVID sales imply the core-QDEL business performed better than expected, Nowak mentioned. QDEL guided for Q3 sales of $375 million, which flew past the Streets $294 million call.

The company has placed a significant focus on its COVID-19 diagnostic tests, with it selling $52 million (approximately 1.7 million tests) in Lyra molecular COVID tests in Q2. That said, Nowak argues Quidels real strength in COVID is a rapid point-of-care test on Sofia.

Expounding on this, Nowak said, The company produced 3 million tests in Q2 and we believe a large purchase order(s) as well as cycle between production/shipment led to the disconnect. There was little discussion around Lyras go forward production capacity, though it sounds as if there is enough demand to keep sales elevated for several more months.

To conclude, Nowak commented, Another way of saying it, there is plenty of clamoring for QDELs tests to keep estimates moving higher. With fundamentals still having potential for upside and more (not less) momentum-driving news to come (COVID/flu panel, distribution partnerships and likely more news on the realistic length of COVIDs tail), this is a stock that can keep working higher.

Based on all of the above, Nowak has high hopes for QDEL. Therefore, he puts a Buy rating and $363 price target on the stock. This means a potential twelve-month rise of 50% could be in store. (To watch Nowaks track record, click here)

Are other analysts in agreement? They are. Only Buy ratings, 3, in fact, have been issued in the last three months, so the consensus rating is a Strong Buy. Given the $361.50 average price target, the upside potential comes in at just under 50%. (See Quidel stock analysis on TipRanks)

Cloudflare Inc. (NET)

Protecting and accelerating internet applications, Cloudflare offers online solutions that dont require any additional hardware, software or code. Climbing 128% higher since the turn of the year, several members of the Street believe that this growth narrative is only getting stronger.

Following a conference that the company participated in, five-star analyst Shaul Eyal, of Oppenheimer, is even more confident about its long-term prospects. NET recently raised its guidance after its Q2 2020 results blew estimates out of the water. The strong showing was driven by elevated demand from both new customer acquisitions and growth within the installed base.

During the quarter, the number of free and paying customers grew 40% year-over-year, and paying customers increased by 7,000, with the figure now landing at over 96,000. Additionally, the amount of customers spending over $100,000 annually rose 65% year-over-year. Importantly, visibility improved substantially in the quarter, which was part of the reason NET ramped up hiring.

Even though management said the global growth of internet traffic plateaued in the quarter, the frequency of cyber-attacks continues to rise. This means the company's mitigation activity also continued to grow. Eyal noted, For example, for the same cohort of customers, NET blocked 37% more cyber-attacks per day in Q2 than in Q1, and if new customers are included, the growth in mitigated attacks was 63%.

On top of this, NETs Workers product, which was launched three years ago, is gaining traction, and today ~10% of traffic flowing through the company's network is powered by Workers, and ~20% of new large customer deals include Workers. Eyal commented, NET recently announced a number of new Workers features, which should further fuel demand for this offering.

Summing it all up, Eyal stated, Cloudflare is the leader in its space, and the company says that client conversations during the COVID-19 disruption place NET squarely on clients' must-have lists. We expect NET to remain in growth mode, delivering strong revenue acceleration, for several quarters to come.

In line with his optimistic approach, Eyal keeps his Outperform rating and $55 price target as is. This target puts the upside potential at 41%. (To watch Eyals track record, click here)

Most other analysts dont beg to differ. 10 Buy ratings and 2 Holds have been assigned in the last three months. Therefore, NET is a Strong Buy. The $48.25 average price target implies shares could surge 24% in the coming year. (See Cloudflare price targets and analyst ratings on TipRanks)

Dynatrace Inc. (DT)

Providing all-in-one advanced observability with AI-assistance, Dynatrace enables clients to monitor, optimize and scale every app in any cloud. Even though it has already posted a year-to-date gain of 57%, some analysts believe theres still plenty of fuel left in the tank.

After having conversations with management, RBCs Matthew Hedberg tells clients he thinks that DT did a great job talking through their differentiation vs. peers and why they are well positioned to benefit from trends post COVID. The five-star analyst also notes that the recent pull-back following Datadogs earnings release presents an attractive entry point.

Looking more closely at the long-term opportunity, the selling environment has improved compared to three months ago, with the acceleration of digital transformation deals and the move to the cloud driving new and expansion business. According to Hedberg, this reflects a major positive for the company post-COVID. He argues that the transition is creating new opportunities, given that roughly 40% of deals are greenfield, with new customer additions potentially accelerating based on the pipeline.

Overall, we think a lot of this was evident in Q1s 39% CC ARR growth (virtually unchanged vs. last year ex-conversion), and we believe growth and profitability can remain elevated for several years as the company separates from the monitoring pack, Hedberg commented.

The analyst also points out that DT isnt experiencing the same pressures as its peers. Why is this? Hedberg explained, Because they focus on selling a high-end cloud monitoring software intelligence platform into the G15K and dont see much of the next-gen peers but rather continue to take share from legacy vendors (including Cisco/AppD) that still have billions of market share while also expanding within their base. Management also havent seen an impact due to competitor price changes, most notably New Relic, as again DT plays higher up in the enterprise and offers a premium product where value matches pricing.

Adding to the good news, Hedberg sees DTs base as being underpenetrated, with management optimistic about the new business pipeline. The company is expected to add 450 new customers for the rest of FY/21, which resembles Q2Q4 of FY/20. We liked hearing plans to increase quota reps by 2025% this year, which could help sustain growth in the future. And, now that reps arent focused on converting Classic Dynatrace customers (as of April 1), that could free up an additional 20% capacity, the analyst stated.

When it comes to the expansion side, growth in cloud-based applications, increasing scope in terms of what a customer monitors and cross-selling additional solutions such as Infrastructure, AIOps, Digital Experience, and Digital Business Analytics should allow DT to maintain a 120%-plus expansion rate for the foreseeable future, in Hedbergs opinion.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Hedberg stays with the bulls. Along with an Outperform rating, he left the $55 price target unchanged. Should his thesis play out, a potential twelve-month gain of 38% could be in the cards. (To watch Hedbergs track record, click here)

The bulls take the lead on this one. Over the last three months, 7 Buys and 2 Holds have been issued. So, this means that DT is a Strong Buy. At $49.44, the average price target suggests 24% upside potential. (See Dynatrace price targets and analyst ratings on TipRanks)

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.
In an attempt to mitigate the potential spread of COVID-19, one Michigan college is requiring all students to install an app that will track their live locations at all times. Unfortunately, researchers have already found two major vulnerabilities in the app that can expose students' personal and health data.

Albion College informed students two weeks before the start of the fall term that they would be required to install and run the contact tracing app, called Aura.

Exposure notification apps being deployed by states, based on the iOS and Android framework that Apple and Google announced earlier this year, are designed to minimize harms to privacy. That framework basically uses a phone's Bluetooth capabilities as a proximity sensor, to see if the phone it's installed on has been near a phone of someone who reports having tested positive for COVID-19.

Aura, however, goes all in on real-time location-tracking instead, as TechCrunch reports. The app collects students' names, location, and COVID-19 status, then generates a QR code containing that information. The code either comes up "certified" if the data indicates a student has tested negative, or "denied" if the student has a positive test or no test data. In addition to tracking students' COVID-19 status, the app will also lock a student's ID card and revoke access to campus buildings if it detects that a student has left campus "without permission."

TechCrunch used a network analysis tool to discover that the code was not generated on a device but rather on a hidden Aura websiteand that TechCrunch could then easily change the account number in the URL to generate new QR codes for other accounts and receive access to other individuals' personal data.
Endava, a New York Stock Exchange-listed technology services provider, has acquired Dublin-based software engineering services company Comtrade Digital Services in a deal worth 60m.

The acquisition of Comtrade Digital Services, which moved its headquarters to Ireland in 2018 and was part of Serbian-headquartered Comtrade Solutions Group, was announced by UK-founded Endava last week.

During peak business, Comtrade can employ up to 200 people in Ireland.

Comtrade has had an Irish presence since 2001. It has worked with several Irish companies, including Ryanair and Aer Lingus.

Endava acquired the business by purchasing all of the issued share capital of its companies in Slovenia and Serbia, which own all the Comtrade assets. The move by Endava will allow it to reinforce its business in south-eastern Europe.

Speaking with the The Sunday Independent, Ian Cassidy, Endava's financial services sector director, said Comtrade had strengths in areas where it wants to grow, particularly in travel and mobility. He said he expects the acquisition to enhance the business here, while Dejan Cusic, a director of Comtrade in Ireland, said the move would strengthen the company's Irish roots.
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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Marco became a hurricane over the Gulf of Mexico for most of Sunday but weakened back to a tropical storm as it closed in on the Louisiana coast during the night, while Tropical Storm Laura killed at least 11 people in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Laura began moving over Cuba late Sunday afternoon, following a path forecast to take it to the same part of the U.S. coast by midweek as a hurricane.

The National Hurricane Center said Marcos sustained winds had decreased to 70 miles per hour (110 kph), though it still warned of life-threatening storm surges and dangerous along the Gulf Coast. Marco was centred about 185 miles (295 kilometres) south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River land heading north-northwest at 13 mph (20 kph).

Marco was expected to be approaching the Louisiana shore Monday afternoon before turning westward toward Texas.

Haitian civil protection officials said they had received reports that a 10-year-old girl was killed when a tree fell on a home in the southern coastal town of Anse-a-Pitres, on the border with the Dominican Republic. Haitis prime minister said at least eight other people died as Laura passed by and two were missing. In the Dominican Republic, relatives told reporters a mother and her young son died after a wall collapsed on them.

Hundreds of thousands were without power in the Dominican Republic as both countries on the island of Hispaniola suffered heavy flooding.

A hurricane watch was issued for the New Orleans metro area, which Hurricane Katrina pummeled in August 2005.

Laura was centred about 125 miles (200 kilometres) southeast of Camaguey, Cuba, late Sunday, and its maximum sustained winds were at 65 mph (100 kph). It was moving west-northwest at 21 mph (33 kph).

It was forecast to move along Cubas southern coast during Monday.

New warnings were added Sunday morning for Marco, including a storm surge warning from Morgan City, Louisiana, to Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and a hurricane warning from Morgan City to the mouth of the Pearl River. A tropical storm warning included Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana, and metropolitan New Orleans.

A storm surge of up to 6 feet (2 metres) was forecast for parts of coastal Louisiana and Mississippi.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, who declared a state of emergency Friday, asked President Donald Trump for a federal emergency declaration.

People in Louisiana headed to stores to stock up on food, water and other supplies.

The hurricane centre said the storms were not expected to interact as the region faces an unusually active hurricane season.



Associated Press writers Freida Frisaro in Miami and Janet McConnaughey in New Orleans contributed to this report.
Britons consume 20million chickens and several hundred thousand pigs every week. During lockdown, we ate even more.

Cranswick, based in East Yorkshire, was a key beneficiary of that increased appetite. One of the UK's leading pork producers, Cranswick processes more than 3million pigs a year, creating premium sausages, bacon, joints and other treats.

The group has become a major player in the poultry market too, milling its own feed, breeding and rearing birds and processing them at a brand-new facility in Eye, Suffolk.

Cock-a-hoop: Cranswick has an impressive dividend record, increasing payments every year for the past three decades

The site was opened just a few months ago, it is now fully up and running, capable of handling more than 50million chickens a year.

Last week, Cranswick's chief executive, Adam Crouch, delivered an upbeat trading statement.

Turnover in the three months to the end of June was almost 25 per cent higher than during the same period in 2019 as people stayed at home, prepared more meals from scratch and indulged in more cooked breakfasts, using Cranswick produce.

Sales have remained robust over the summer and, even if demand tails off in coming months, Crouch expects this year's results to be ahead of previous forecasts.

Analysts responded to the trading update with enthusiasm, forecasting an 11 per cent rise in turnover to 1.85billion for the 12 months to March 31, 2021, and a 14 per cent increase in profits to 116million.

Cranswick has an impressive dividend record too, increasing payments every year for the past three decades. That looks set to continue, with brokers expecting the payout to increase from 60.4p to 64p for the current financial year, and then to 68p in 2022.

The group supplies all the main supermarkets, as well as Marks & Spencer and the discounters Aldi and Lidl.

Pork is Cranswick's biggest sales item but its range has increased substantially in recent years, including barbecued fare, pies and pasties, and deli treats, such as olives and charcuterie.

The firm has burnished its environmental credentials too, with a commitment to minimise waste, reduce energy consumption, cut back on plastic use and, above all, promote animal welfare across the business.

The wellbeing of employees is also paramount, with thousands of key staff awarded a bonus of 500 each for their work during lockdown.

Cranswick's emphasis on quality and sustainability attracts fans not just in the UK but overseas too. Exports are growing and China is a big customer, particularly since the spread of African swine fever almost halved the country's pig population.

Midas verdict: Midas recommended Cranswick in 2007, when the shares were 8.45. We looked at the stock again in 2014, by which time it had risen to 11.88. Today, Cranswick shares are 37.68. The price appreciation is well deserved, as the business has come on in leaps and bounds over the past 12 years. Investors may choose to sell some stock and bank a profit, but they should keep at least 50 per cent of their shares, as Cranswick is well managed and Crouch is determined to keep on delivering the goods.

Traded on: CWK Ticker: Main market Contact: cranswick.plc.uk or 01482 275000
Traymore is an all-female state teachers college nestled off Interstate 81 in a tiny mountain burg that bears the same name. Its ruled by Elzic Barton, a prudish autocrat who routinely has student dorms searched and professors mail opened.

The ex-Navy captain actively discourages any whiff of dissent on campus. Professors who grow beards risk their merit raises. Barton censors the student newspaper and imposes an ironclad curfew on students. Even those of drinking age could be booted for a slight whiff of beer on their breath.

And then the late 1960s come along. Gusts of rebellion blowing across America reach Traymore and stiffen the spines of some students and younger faculty members. One is David Pritchard, a newly hired associate professor of political science who also holds a law degree.

Barton cracks down and hires private detectives to surveil faculty and students. Soon, lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union begin sniffing around campus. Bartons victims begin winning civil rights lawsuits, and that threatens his 20 years of leadership at the college.

Thats the plot of A Little Rebellion Is a Good Thing: Troubles at Traymore College, published this month by Virginia-based Belle Isle Books. Although its a novel, only some of it is fiction, said author Duncan Clarke.

Clarke, 79, is a professor emeritus from American University who lives in California. Hes previously written nonfiction tomes covering international relations and national security. A Little Rebellion is his first novel.

Its a thinly fictionalized account of the launch of Clarkes long career in academia, which began in 1969 at then-Radford College. Professor Pritchard is based on Clarke himself. He spent much of the year rebelling against the dictatorial control of then-President Charles Martin. By then, Martin, a stalwart member of Virginias establishment, had ruled the college for 20 years.

I have never forgotten that one year at Radford, Clarke told me Thursday. It was quite traumatic. It almost put an end to my academic career. It also turned him into a civil libertarian, he said.

I learned about A Little Rebellion from Charlie Boswell, a Roanoker who provided narration for the novels audio book version. In that era, Radford had about 4,000 students. Among them was Boswells sister and his later wife.

Martin, Boswell told me, used to stage fire drills in dorms. As the students evacuated and stood around outside, hed have campus police search their closets and footlockers for contraband such as tobacco and alcohol.

Professors could get on Martins bad side by simply not attending church, or not shaving, or hosting forums on subjects Martin disapproved of, such as the Vietnam War. Clarke did that once, at the invitation of the student Honor Society president. Martin noted his disapproval in no uncertain terms, Clarke said.

One administrator told me if I continued doing what I was doing, Ill make sure you never get a job in the state of Virginia or anywhere else, Clarke said.

Its historical fiction, said Boswell, but [Clarke] said almost everything in the book actually happened.

Clarke told me Martin hired him into a tenure-track associate professors position after a single brief interview, only days after hed defended his doctoral thesis at the University of Virginia. At the time, that was unusual, Clarke said. Most newly minted PhDs could at best hope for a lower-echelon assistant professor gig.

He wasnt interested in my academic background, Clarke told me. What he saw on my [resume] was that I had worked two summers as an analyst at the CIA and I had a [law degree].

Martin said, I like that. Youre not one of those radicals like those pinkos in Blacksburg, Clarke recalled. The ACLU was like the Politburo of the Communist Party to Martin.

At that time, Clarke said, Radford was a repressive place. He served as advisor to chapters of the Young Republicans and Young Democrats. Leaders from both groups were in his office every week, complaining about the same things.

Id never been in an environment where you couldnt say what you want to say, Clarke told me. Its hard to realize how much courage it took in that day.

Times changed and [Dr. Charles Martin] didnt, said Jack Chamberlain, an education writer for The World-News who covered much of the turmoil.

That year, Clarke said, saw decisive lawsuits against the college and its repressive president which, in time, led to the removal of the longest-serving college president in Virginia, coeducation and the founding of Radford University, and restoration of long-denied academic freedoms and civil liberties for faculty and students.

One of events that drove Martin bonkers was a laudatory letter tenured professor Edward Jervey wrote to Redbook magazine in 1968, about a previous Redbook article advocating birth control and premarital sex. In the letter, Jervey said he might use elements of the article in history courses he taught.

The wife of Radfords history department chairman read Jerveys letter one day while thumbing through a Redbook as she stood in a supermarket checkout line, Boswell said. The result was scandal. The next semester, Jervey was reassigned to teach introductory freshman courses, Boswell said.

In a later lawsuit that Jervey ultimately won, the professor claimed the letter had cost him a $1,200 raise. Another professor charged that Martin had him disciplined after Martin opened a letter the professor had written to the University of Chicago.

Some professors organized a chapter of the National Society of Professors, an offshoot of the National Education Association. The NEA sent an investigator to Radfords campus and later issued a report that recommended Martins dismissal.

Instead, the colleges board of visitors promoted Martin to the post of chancellor and hired Donald Dedmon as president. Under Dedmon, Radford became a co-ed university.

Martin ended up resigning the chancellors post in 1972 and moving to North Carolina. His final interview with The Roanoke Times  written by the late Joe Kennedy in 1973  was full of bitterness and snubs he blamed on Dedmon. Martin died in 1987 in South Carolina.

So far, Ive only barely cracked A Little Rebellion. But it looks like an exciting read. The names of a lot of real-life people have been changed, and Clarke conjured parts of the story from his imagination. But the guts appear rooted in many uncomfortable realities from 50 years ago.

Id say its worth a read, or at least a listen.

The headline should say, Great audio book available, Boswell cracked.

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I have a very good friend named Helene, who Ive known since we were in high school together at Merion Mercy. Shes a Registered Nurse as well as a dance therapist who, with her sister Jeannanne (another proud Mercy girl and nurse) have created a program called Look Whos Dancing! That might sound familiar to you, since Ive written about them in the past. This is a program that uses dance moves and music to improve the lives of people with developmental and learning disabilities, as well as the elderly. Its a mitzvah, as my Jewish friends would say, a true blessing.

I tell you all of this by way of an introduction, because I want you to know the kind of person Helene is. There is not a hostile, mean bone in her body (which I am quite sure is leading you to ask the question How the heck is she friends with Flowers?). A front-line worker during this time of crisis, a woman who spends her spare time finding ways to lift up those who fall into the margins of society, a person who wouldnt even squash one of those spotted lantern flies if it flew by her face (okay, maybe thats pushing it).

And this is why what happened to her, and to others like her, angers me. Then again, I am no longer surprised at the depths to which some people will sink in these fraught and tortured moments. Helene posted something on her Facebook page about honoring the life and tragic death of Cannon Hinnant, the little 5-year-old from North Carolina who was shot through the head by his next-door neighbor. I also posted about the death, and made the childs picture my social media profile photo. We both did it to call attention to the loss of another innocent to senseless, ubiquitous violence.

But Helene was told that her posting smacked of racism. Why, you might ask? Because the killer of Cannon Hinnant  a white child  was a black former drug dealer and felon. Apparently, recognizing that this child was the victim of a felon who happened to be the same race as George Floyd was engaging in race baiting, even though race was barely mentioned in any of the posts about the childs death. For that matter, the parents and family of Cannon Hinnant have come out saying that they dont believe race was a factor in the murder.

Yes, there are some conservative outlets that have tried to make it about race, and thats wrong. This is about the death of a child, one whose blood is the same color as the spilt blood of black and brown children in the inner cities. That blood is shared by the babies shot to death in Philadelphia as a direct result of D.A. Larry Krasners lax gun policies, and Mayor Jim Kenneys preoccupation with statues over the safety of our streets. They are, by a vast majority, black and brown. And we pay attention, and mourn their loss.

So focusing on the race of Cannon Hinnant and his killer is wrong.

But lets take a closer look at whats going on here. The people who came after Helene, and who have been coming after anyone who suggests that not enough attention has been paid to this babys massacre in broad daylight, dont seem to like the fact that we are talking about a child who isnt black or brown. There is the not-so-subtle suggestion that even focusing on the tragedy of his lost life is an attempt to deflect attention from the larger national conversation on racism and the mattering of Black lives, and the bigotry of Republicans. There is the sense that if we dare to mourn his passing with the same passion and fervor and anger that we should give to the death of any martyred human, we are disrespecting the memory of Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, and Ahmad Aubury, and all of the other names that we have heard and stories that we have absorbed over the past five or so months. It is the crazy, tone deaf premise that we cannot care about all of the senseless crimes committed against innocent people at the same time.

This is also the type of reaction you get when you say that Blue Lives Matter or the hated All Lives Matter. Weve been told that if you refuse to say the right words, the magic incantation that shows how woke we are, it is a direct and deliberate exhibition of racism. To depart from the script written for us by the activists and their allies (God I am beginning to hate that word) is to assent to the violence being done to racial minorities in this country, at this time. And that is, if you will excuse the poetic flair, total B.S.

I do not think that Cannon Hinnants life was more important than that of any minority childs. I do, however, think that we are making him lesser than, when we attack people who try and bring attention to his passing. The suggestion from the tolerant progressives that calling attention to the murder of a little boy riding his bike in front of his house is somehow racist shows just how brainwashed these people are. Their compassion is written on lawn signs, their furrowed brows and their carefully curated social media pages, but not on their hearts.

We are at a very dangerous place when people have to be afraid to mourn the death of a child because it might offend or trigger someone. I refuse to capitulate in that, and pander to the type of person who only has a limited amount of compassion, all of which was exhausted after the Floyd funeral.

I will be keeping Cannons image alive on my Facebook page, not as a challenge to a social justice movement and not as a way to disrespect George Floyd, but in defiance of those who think that only some lives matter.

And because I love Helene.

Christine Flowers is an attorney and a Delaware County resident. Her column usually appears Sunday. Email her at cflowers1961@gmail.com.
Sure, it might be warm Wednesday, but what about the rest of the week?
USA polls: PM Modi featured in Donald Trump ad to woo Indian-Americans

Donald Trump, President of the United States of America, released a new campaign advertisement ahead of elections in November. The ad features Prime Minister Narendra Modi and clips from mega events involving the two leaders, like 'Howdy Modi', held in US' Houston, and 'Namaste Trump', held in India's Ahmedabad. PM Modi is heard introducing the US President at one point, and subsequently, Trump says America loves India, in the video. The clip, titled '4 More Years' was tweeted by Kimberly Guilfoyle, chief of the Trump Victory Finance Committee. She said that the Trump campaign enjoys support of Indian-Americans. Trump and his challenger, Joe Biden, seem to be jostling for votes of around 12 lakh Indian-Americans ahead of the November 3 election. Biden has chosen Kamala Harris as his 'running mate'. She is of Indian and Jamaican descent. She would become the Vice-President in case Biden wins. Watch the full video for more. ...read more
When fashion designer Jenny Packham wants a frank opinion of her collection, she can count on her brother, nature presenter Chris Packham.

Every collection Ive ever done I get quite a critique, she says cheerfully. Hell say: That one was good, that one was rubbish. But I dont mind. In fact, I love the honesty.

Its hard to imagine a more improbable pair of siblings. Chris is the intense presenter of programmes such as the BBCs Springwatch and Autumnwatch and notorious for his outspoken views on conservation that have led to him receiving death threats.

In contrast, Jenny, at 55, four years his junior, is the creator of exquisite wedding and evening dresses beloved of celebrities including Angelina Jolie, Kate Winslet and Jennifer Aniston. Then theres the Duchess of Cambridge who, for years, has worn Jennys fairytale gowns to official events, even choosing her pretty day dresses for her first appearance outside hospital after the birth of each child.

Jenny Packham who grew up in Southampton, reflected on childhood memories with her brother Chris (pictured) and the challenges facing her brand

The siblings grew up in Southampton, where their father was an engineer, their mother a housewife.

Chriss nature obsessions dominated family life. I used to dread being asked to clear out the freezer, because youd be rummaging around and suddenly youd put your hand on a bit of roadkill, Jenny recalls, sounding indulgent rather than indignant. Or youd come home from school and a snake would be slithering down the stairs.

Jenny was in thrall to her big brother. Once she swallowed three tadpoles at his bidding; another time she allowed him to lock her in the car to memorise a book of birds eggs.

Chris is one of those people you just end up saying yes to, because hes so charismatic. Hed be doing photography and Id end up with a snake around my neck  but hed have a way of making you feel safe.

It was only in his 40s that Chris was diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome, a form of autism which often manifests itself in single-mindedness and an inability to read social cues.

Growing up wed never heard the word Aspergers; everyone just thought he was very clever and a bit intense, Jenny says.

Chris lives in the New Forest, Jenny in London, but their bond hasnt dimmed. We really try to help each other as much as we can, Jenny says.

Jenny who has designed dresses worn by celebrities including the Duchess of Cambridge (pictured), revealed both of her parents encouraged creativity

She still gets pulled in to his crazier projects, as happened on a holiday they took in The Gambia about eight years ago. Theres a wonderful picture Chris took of me next to the back of an alligator  which apparently is the most dangerous place you can sit, says Jenny, laughing. He was like, Just sit next to it! 

During lockdown, the siblings were in close contact. He was on and on throughout: Youve got to come see my badgers, so, last week, we went to the New Forest and had to lie quietly on the ground for an hour. Then 12 came out and it was just magical! Thats the thing about Chris  you get to do these moments with him.

I wonder if Jenny started sewing (inherited from both grandmothers) as a way to develop her own passion.

Yes, she says softly. And I always loved glamour. Her parents encouraged their childrens hobbies.

There was always a lot of enthusiasm about creativity from both my parents, I was making clothes and Chris is an amazing artist and photographer, she says.

To this day, Ive always taken it for granted that being creative is a self-help method. If Im stressed or worried I sit down and start drawing.

Jenny (pictured) admits the Covid-era is the biggest challenge her brand has faced in the 32 years since its launch

Now Jennys lending her voice  along with Victoria Beckham and Claudia Winkleman  to the national Lets Craft appeal which, this summer, is donating crafting packs full of materials to the 1.3 million British children in need of free school meals, in the hope of inspiring them.

I think the boxes could be giving the kids a lifetime of creativity, which is essential to wellbeing.

If you needed proof of how creativity can serve you well, then you need only look around Jennys eponymous shop where were sitting, in the heart of Mayfair, flanked by showrooms of some of fashions biggest names such as Balenciaga, Dior and Christian Louboutin.

The racks are laden with diaphanous frocks, studded with sequins and crystals. Downstairs are rows of dreamy bridal gowns.

But on a weekday morning, the glossy surrounding streets are eerily deserted and only one bride-to-be enters the shop during our chat to discuss some details.

After all, in the Covid-era, when weddings are limited to 30 socially distanced guests, theres little call for dresses costing several thousand pounds.

In all our years, this is the biggest challenge weve faced, Jenny admits. In the 32 years since its launch, her label has weathered credit crunches and gulf wars.

Jenny (pictured) who spent lockdown designing and redesigning her upcoming collections, has seen sales picking up in the Far East

Usually your thoughts immediately turn to what can you do to deal with it, how you can step up, says Jenny. But, this time, you just had to be patient and that was a challenge for me.

Thats not to say Jenny had a quiet lockdown. Instead, she filled her days designing, then redesigning her upcoming collections.

Wed design then think: This doesnt look right. We took away some of the red-carpet pieces and added more casual stuff to the range. But for the whole fashion industry its very, very difficult at the moment.

Still, sales are picking up in the Far East, with brides trickling back to her stores in Shanghai, Beijing and Seoul. When it comes to wedding dresses, no one wants to buy online. Its much better to go with your mum or your friend.

The trickier thing is not being able to show seasonal collections to customers, especially department-store buyers who used to fly in from all over the world. For now, Jenny is modelling garments digitally, on avatars.

Already my feedback is buyers absolutely hate this, Jenny says. Its much better to see actual clothes than photographs.

Jenny (pictured) said she stopped doing catwalk shows because 'it all felt too crazy after a while', now preferring to display her work to small groups

Shes still deciding whether shell show her clothes at Paris Fashion Week next month, having opened a showroom in the city 11 years ago.

Shes stopped doing actual catwalk shows  it all felt too crazy after a while  preferring to display her work to small groups in her showroom. I think some designers will be showing their collections, though theyll probably just film their catwalk collections.

I doubt a lot of people will be travelling but, if they are, we will make the effort to go  it makes all the difference  and well show the collections here to as many people as we can. But it will be a strange time. After leaving St Martins College of Art in London, Jenny set up her label under a London flyover with her boyfriend Matthew, a sculpture student from Cambridgeshire, quite a feat for two poor young graduates from the provinces.

Looking back, I do admire myself because we didnt even start off with cheaper garments. We went straight into the luxury market. In the end, it turned out to be good for us.

There werent too many people making things for special occasions then so, from early on, we were selling internationally in the U.S. and Middle-Eastern stores.

A lot of the customers from then we still sell to now.

Jenny (pictured) revealed she and Matthew only married four years ago because they had been busy with the business and kids

Pretty and soft-spoken, Jenny, who has two daughters aged 22 and 26, is the polar opposite of the stereotypical in-your-face fashionista.

Her calmness must come in handy, especially with hysterical A-listers who need a red-carpet outfit by yesterday.

Today, Jennys wearing a black jacket and trousers accessorised by a badge reading I Still Miss Elvis. At home, does she waft around in ball gowns? Oh no, thats absolutely not me! I very much design for other people, I dont think about myself at all.

After all, the bridal specialist only got round to marrying Matthew four years ago. Jenny wore a self-designed knee-length dress of grey, Austrian lace pulled together by a single seam.

I couldnt have worn one of our long white dresses, I was too old for that. What took them so long to tie the knot? We were just busy with the business and kids.

I thought it was really nice to get married later, so the guests were all people who had supported our relationship over the years.

Jenny said it's important 'to lead the opposite of what people imagine fashion life to be, because otherwise the industry will destroy you'. Pictured: Dita Von Teese, Jenny Packham and Chris Packham

She eats well, exercises by walking her dog and does everything to minimise stress. Fashions really hard work and you have to be really fit.

Youre constantly being challenged by people wanting new ideas and also criticising what youve done.

You have to lead the opposite of what people imagine fashion life to be, because otherwise the industry will destroy you.

It doesnt bother me, Im much more interested in the creative side of fashion than the party side.

Everyone wants to know how Jennys coped for three decades working with her husband. People are fascinated, but its our way of life and we have adapted.

Now I dont understand people who dont work with their husbands!

Does she have any plans to work with brother Chris? A huge smile breaks over Jennys face. I think hell stay away from ladies evening wear, she chuckles. I think shes right.

To donate 10 to the Lets Craft appeal, text CRAFT to 70085 or donate online at craftscouncil.org.uk
Visitors wearing face masks to help protect against the spread of the coronavirus visit the Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul, Monday, Aug. 17, 2020. AP



South Korea's daily new virus cases spiked to 397 on Sunday, and infections were reported in all major cities and provinces across the country, health authorities said.



Of the total COVID-19 cases, 387 were local infections, 297 of them in Seoul and the surrounding areas, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).



The country's total caseload has risen to 17,399.



Sunday's new cases are the most since March 7, when the country reported 483 new cases, the KCDC said.



The number of daily infections has been in the triple digits since Aug. 14, when 103 additional cases were reported. Over the past 10 days, a total of 2,629 cases has been identified.



A resurgence in new coronavirus cases, mostly traced to churches, has been reported in Seoul and its surrounding Gyeonggi Province, home to half of the country's 51 million people.



Of the newly identified local infections, 138 cases were reported in the capital city of Seoul, 124 from Gyeonggi Province surrounding the capital city and 32 from the western port city of Incheon, the KCDC said.



Health authorities warned that the wider capital region should brace for another wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and that the country stands on the cusp of a nationwide outbreak.



In a sign that the virus is spreading across the nation, more virus cases have been newly added outside the greater Seoul, with 100 new cases. It marks the first time in recent weeks that the number reached triple digits.



The southern city of Gwangju and the central city of Daejeon each reported 15 new cases, the KCDC said.



Amid grim prospects of a nationwide epidemic, the government decided on Saturday to impose a stricter social distancing scheme outside the greater Seoul area, starting earlier in the day.



Health authorities said a surge in cases traced to a church in northern Seoul and infections tied to a massive weekend rally in central Seoul appear to have served as a catalyst in spurring virus spread nationwide.



Health authorities also urged participants in the anti-government rally held last weekend to immediately take virus tests regardless of whether they are showing symptoms. A large number of Sarang Jeil Church members took part in the rally.



As of Saturday at noon, a total of 796 COVID-19 patients has been traced to the church, the KCDC said.



The KCDC remained on high alert over a potential explosive outbreak tied to the rally as it is hard to trace the whereabouts of thousands of protesters who came to Seoul from other cities. A total of 104 cases have so far been tied to the march.



The government earlier said it is not yet time to consider raising the level of social distancing to Level 3.



The highest anti-virus curbs can be issued when the number of daily virus cases reaches a two-week average of 100-200 and the doubling of new COVID-19 cases occurs more than twice a week.



If the level is raised, its impact on the economy and people's daily lives could be severe. Gatherings of 10 or more people would be banned, and offline school classes would be suspended.



South Korea reported 10 new imported cases on Sunday. Cases coming in from overseas rebounded back to double-digit numbers from mid-June for about a month, but such infections recently slowed.



South Korea reported no new deaths, with the tally remaining at 309, the KCDC said. The fatality rate was 1.78 percent.



The total number of people released from quarantine after making full recoveries stood at 14,200, up 31 from the previous day.



The country has carried out 1,791,186 coronavirus tests since Jan. 3. (Yonhap)


A screen shows that all exhibitions at the Seoul Arts Center, southern Seoul, will be closed after the government raised social distancing measures to Level 2, Friday. Yonhap



By Park Ji-won



Following the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, actors and drama production staff have tested positive for the coronavirus, prompting delays and cancellations of shows to prevent any further infections.



San Theater said that 15 of its members were confirmed to have contracted the virus as of Aug. 19 while seven tested negative and 19 others were awaiting test results. Following this, "Jjamppong" and "Cow," plays concerning modern history slated to be performed between Aug. 19 and Aug. 30, were cancelled. Sand Theater was the first performance group in the country to have such a large number of infections  so far, the source of the infection cluster remains unknown.



On Thursday, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) reported 324 new COVID-19 infections nationwide.



The cases at the theater prompted the cancellation or delay of other productions as two of the actors there were involved in other dramas.



One of the troupe's actors confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 was featuring in KBS' "Men are Men," which has suspended filming as a result and the final episode of the drama will not air until later. Other "Men are Men" cast members who may have come into contact with the actor decided not to appear in other shows, including "Bare: The Musical."



The production of the KBS drama "Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol" was also suspended as another actor from the group who tested positive was involved in the drama and now some of the show's cast members, including those in lead roles, are awaiting test results. Additionally, the production of JTBC's "Just Comedy" has been put on hold after a makeup artist who did makeup for Oh Man-seok, was also confirmed positive for the coronavirus. Oh tested negative.



In addition to those in the acting circle, Park Tae-jun, a web comic creator and TV personality, was confirmed to have been infected with COVID-19. He wrote on his Naver comic series "Lookism," Thursday, "I rarely go outside my house but I was infected with the coronavirus. I am now hospitalized and trying to upload the new episode of my comic series. But it is not easy. I hope you will be careful of COVID-19 and take care of yourself."



On Friday he wrote on Facebook: "I have no sense of taste and cannot smell. I have a temperature of 38 degrees on average. I cough a lot and have muscle pains down my entire back. I get chills for an hour per day. The most difficult part is that I suffer from dizziness during work. But I was so moved by the medical staff. They are so nice and dedicated. I will leave hospital after being treated well."



Last week, a member of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra tested positive after teaching a student who was infected. The orchestra is considering cancelling its upcoming performances in August and September.



JTBC reportedly decided to stop all production of drama series filmed in Seoul and its surrounding areas. Netflix also decided to suspend all production in Korea for the safety of cast and crew members.



Art troupes and companies are similarly cancelling or delaying shows to prevent further infections, or taking appropriate measures following possible or actual infections.



The Thursday performance of the musical "Ludwig: Beethoven the Piano," was canceled Thursday, after it was confirmed that one of its actors possibly met with an infected person. The opera "Fledermaus," and "Heo Nan Seol Heon  Su Wol Kyung Hwa," a ballet performance by the Korean National Ballet were also canceled.



"Hwajeonga: Spring Picnic," a play by the National Theater Company of Korea, closed Aug. 23, five days earlier than originally planned. "Mozart!" a musical, had its last performance show three days early.



"Red Pants," an opera by the Korea National Opera, will be released online.



Meanwhile, the Seoul Arts Center temporarily suspended all exhibitions, performances and programs from Friday to the end of August.


Iran said Sunday that an upcoming visit this week by the head of the U.N.'s atomic watchdog agency to Tehran has nothing to do with a U.S. push to impose so-called ``snapback'' sanctions on Iran.

The Trump administration last week dismissed near-universal opposition to its demand to restore all U.N. sanctions on Iran, declaring that a 30-day countdown for the ``snapback'' of penalties eased under the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers had begun.

U.S. allies and foes have joined forces to declare the action illegal and doomed to failure. The U.S. argues that Iran has violated the restrictions imposed on its nuclear program under the 2015 deal, a charge Tehran has dismissed.

Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted on Sunday Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA, Kazem Gharibadadi, as saying that the visit this week is ``neither related to the snapback mechanism nor the U.S. demand.''

Gharibabadi said the visit by the IAEA chief Rafael Grossi comes within ``the framework of Iran's invitation.''

``We do not allow others to manage Iran,`` he said, adding that Iran's trust in the IAEA has been ``damaged in recent months.``

He expressed hope Grossi's visit will lead to building trust. ``It is important to assure Tehran that the agency will move based on impartiality, independence and professionalism,'' said Gharibabadi.

The IAEA said on Saturday that Grossi will head to Tehran to press Iranian authorities for access to sites where the country is thought to have stored or used undeclared nuclear material. Gharibabadi said Grossi was due to meet with Iranian officials on both Tuesday and Wednesday.

The landmark 2015 nuclear deal was endorsed by a U.N. Security Council resolution and includes the snapback provision. President Donald Trump pulled America out of the accord in 2018 and imposed severe U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Last week, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a letter to the U.N. Security Council said the U.S. has no right to demand the restoration of U.N. sanctions, arguing that the U.S. lost the right to make demands when it withdrew from the accord.

The five countries now in dispute with the U.S. administration _ Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany _ remain supporters of the nuclear deal to rein in Iran's nuclear program and prevent its development of nuclear weapons. The five nations and Iran will meet in Vienna on Sept. 1.

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In practice we have found that is still not enough time to be the very best for our students that we can be, she said, adding some teachers have said the plan is working but most have said it is not. Ive never seen them this stressed before.
Bihar BJP on Saturday set a target to win three-fourth of seats for the NDA in the assembly elections due in October-November.

Stating the target in presence of BJP national general secretary Bhupendra Yadav and others, state party president Sanjay Jaiswal made an appeal to 76 lakh party workers upto Panchayat level to ensure that the coalition achieves the mark.

"We have set a target of winning three-fourth seats for NDA in Bihar. We will ensure that the coalition achieves the mark," Jaiswal said while addressing the two-day state executive committee meeting that started Saturday.

National Democratic Alliance in Bihar comprises of BJP, Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) and Ram Vilas Paswans LJP.

Bihar has 243-member assembly.

Precautions have been taken for conduct of the meet in the midst of raging Covid-19 pandemic in the state with only a handful of leaders including Bhupendra Yadav, Jaiswal and state ministers-Nand Kishore Yadav and Prem Kumar- sitting on dais in the state headquarters.

Former Maharashtra chief minister and party's election in-charge for Bihar Devendra Fadnavis joined them virtually.

BJP's national president J P Nadda will give his valedictory speech Sunday.

The caution in organising the event comes in the backdrop of its over two dozen leaders and workers testing positive at the state headquarters in July in course of conducting regional meetings as part of election preparations.

Jaiswal praised both the central and state governments for working together for the victims of floods and coronavirus especially migrant workers, who returned to their home during pandemic from different parts of the country.

He also lauded the party workers for feeding poor and migrant labourers during lockdown apart from distributing essentials such as medicines, masks, besides organising blood donation camp among them.

Abolition of Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir, paving way for construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya through a court verdict, annuling triple talaq for muslim women and providing citizenship to non-muslim minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan were among some of the major decisions of the Narendra Modi government, he underscored.

Assambly elections are due in the state in October- November and the Election Commission has indicated it would go ahead with organising the polls on time notwithstanding concerns expressed by opposition parties and also by NDA partner LJP that it could lead to further spread of the coronavirus disease.

Bihar will be the first state where election would be held amid pandemic that is raging in the state as well in the country.

The BJP meet shows that the saffron party is going ahead with its poll preparation in the politically crucial state that sends 40 MPs to Lok Sabha.

The executive committee of the state was formed on March 20 last, but it could not hold any meeting till date due to Covid-induced lockdown enforced in Bihar on March 22 and subsequent nationwide shutdowns.

Addrressing the meet, Fadnavis exhorted party leaders and workers to take developmental works done by both the central and state governments to the people.

"We need to tell people about various works done by both governments- be it Atmanirbhar economic package, Garib Kalyan Yojana or the work done by the state government- as people forget them easily," Fadnavis said.

He, however, did not touch the issue of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput death case which had triggered a bitter faceoff between his home state Maharashtra and Bihar, and instead kept his speech focused on political issues and elections.

Criticising 15 years of Lalu Prasad-led RJD rule in the state which pushed Bihar 25-30 years back into backwardness, Fadnavis said, "people need to be reminded about the time when the state witnessed rampant corruption and nepotism and was ruined economically." "The NDA government has brought change in Bihar in past 15 years and put development back on rails and now the state will move faster in next five years and thats why it needs a government which can work in tandem with the Narendra Modi government, said Fadnavis, who began his speech with his reverential salutation "Pranam" to people of Bihar.

Image credits: PTI
Protesters in southern Iraq had given provincial governor 48 hours to step down amid growing anger over killing of activists.

Southern Iraqs Basra province is facing the prospect of renewed unrest after a deadline set by protesters for the departure of the local governor expired amid growing anger over the killing of prominent activists.

Demonstrators on Friday set fire to the parliaments local offices in the city of Basra as security forces fired live rounds in the air to disperse them. They had gathered to demand the dismissal of Basra Governor Asaad al-Eidani after two activists were killed and others wounded in three separate attacks by unknown gunmen last week.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi arrived in Basra late on Saturday in an attempt to quell the unrest, pledging to bring those accountable for the killings to justice.

Basra will recover again, God willing. This is a message to all criminals and killers, this is a new government that is working to establish the prerequisites of security, al-Khadimi told crowds in Basra.

Id like to tell everyone that carries a weapon contrary to the governments law, they wont escape punishment and the killers will be brought to justice very soon, he added.

Id like to talk the criminals  your blood will be a title for justice.

Very worrying

Activist Reham Yacoub, who had led several womens marches in the past, was killed on Wednesday and three others were wounded when unidentified gunmen, brandishing assault rifles on back of a motorcycle, opened fire on their car. A second female occupant of the car later died.

Days earlier, activist Tahseen Osama was killed by armed men. That killing prompted dozens of protesters to take to the street, and police responded by firing live rounds at them.

In response,al-Kadhimi had Basras chief of police sacked.

The recent rise in targeted killings poses a challenge for al-Kadhimi, who took office in May, becoming the third Iraqi head of government over the past year after months of deadly protests in the country demanding an overhaul of the countrys political system.

Al Jazeeras Dorsa Jabari, reporting from Iraqs capital, Baghdad, said protesters had initially given officials in Basra 72 hours to step down on Friday, but a day later they extended it to 13:00 GMT on Sunday.

This all started because the number of activists that have been killed during the past two weeks, Jabari said.

This is something the local population has said is very worrying, she said, noting that demands for accountability have been growing.

Iraq has witnessed a series of assassinations and forced disappearances of journalists and political activists, as well as the killing of hundreds of protesters since October 2019, the start of the demonstrations against corruption, political and security deterioration and the economic crisis.
A man, wearing a protective facemask, walks past the Rain Vortex display at Jewel Changi Airport in Singapore on February 27, 2020. Photo by AFP/Roslan Rahman.

Singapore has cut the quarantine period from 14 to seven days for travelers from Vietnam, deeming it a low-risk country.

The quarantine policy also applies to travelers from Australia - excluding Victoria state - mainland China, Malaysia and Taiwan, Singapore officials told reporters on Friday, AFP reported.

They said the city-state will allow travelers from Brunei and New Zealand to visit from September. The visitors will have to be tested for the novel coronavirus, but will be exempted from the 14-day quarantine.

Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung said Brunei and New Zealand were chosen as they are small countries and have controlled the virus well.

"All in all, I think this is a small cautious step to start to reopen aviation and resuscitate Changi Airport," he said, as cited by AFP.

"Remember, as a small open economy, to survive we've got to keep our borders open. To earn a living, (we) gotta have connections with the world and to thrive and to prosper, we must be an aviation hub."

Changi Airport used to serve 1,000 aircraft a day but this number had fallen to 150, Ong said.

Singapore closed its borders in March to tourists and short-term visitors. It has reported 56,266 Covid-19 infections and 27 deaths.

Vietnam, whose infection tally has reached 1,014, including 26 deaths, took similar actions in late March to control the pandemic spread. The country had considered plans to open borders to people from several Asian countries with low risks, until community transmissions resurfaced in late July.
Chinese app TikTok is preparing to take the legal route against the Trump administrations executive order prohibiting transactions with the popular short video app and its Chinese parent ByteDance.

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 6 making it illegal for American companies to do any business with TikTok and gave its parent company, ByteDance, 45 days to sell its business. On August 14, Trump signed another executive order giving ByteDance 90 days to divest its US assets and data the company had gathered in the country.

TikToks legal challenge pertains to the first executive order, according to Reuters. TikTok plans to argue that the executive orders reliance on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act deprives it of due process. TikTok will also contest its classification by the White House as a national security threat, the sources added.

It was not immediately clear which court TikTok plans to use to file its lawsuit. The company had previously said it was exploring its legal options, and its employees were also preparing their own lawsuit.

Also read | Explained: What would a US ban on Chinese-owned app TikTok mean?

TikToks legal challenge would not shield ByteDance from having to divest the app. This is because it does not pertain to the August 14 executive order on the sale of TikTok, which is not subject to judicial review. However, the move shows that ByteDance is seeking to deploy all the legal ammunition at its disposal as it tries to prevent the TikTok deal negotiations from turning into a fire sale.

Several US companies like Microsoft, Oracle and Twitter have shown interest in buying TikToks business in the US and other international markets like the UK, India, Australia, etc.

(with inputs from Reuters)
They say absence makes the heart grow fonder.

And it seems Sadie Frost firmly believes in the old adage  after admitting she may never live under the same roof as her millionaire boyfriend.

She and businessman Darren Strowger have been together for six years after being introduced by mutual friend Kate Moss.

But 55-year-old Ms Frost says she adores being independent  and Darren, 53, continues to live two miles away from her home in North London.

The mother-of-four  who split with Jude Law in 2003  said: 'I like being on my own and I like my own space.

Sadie Frost and Darren Strowger attend an intimate dinner hosted by Edward Enninful and Anne Mensah in celebration of the BAFTA Breakthrough Brits at Kettner's on December 9, 2019 in London. Ms Frost, 55, says she adores being independent

'Some people who are in their 50s are settled down with a partner. I don't live with my partner. I have got more time on my own by being at home. I think I have got a little better as I'm not so co-dependent.

'I used to be not able to do anything on my own and I do like sharing my life with somebody.

'But with my partner now, yes, we love each other and we are strong personalities, but I am not sure if we could live together.'

The actress and fashion designer is not alone in choosing to 'live apart together'  an arrangement known as LAT, in which couples enjoy an intimate relationship but live at separate addresses.

Recent research by Bradford University found 25 per cent of couples are choosing not to co-habit.

The mother-of-four  who split with Jude Law in 2003  said: 'I like being on my own and I like my own space.' Pictured with Mr Law in 2008

While many in the study were 'not ready' to live together, a growing number of older people had made a decision to live apart.

Ms Frost said she and Mr Strowger  founder of communications agency Excell Group  still share much of their life together.

'I love having him as a companion and we like sharing experiences,' she said. 'But I have had a lot of relationships and I have had relationships with strong men, who were like my dad.'

She is not alone among celebrities choosing the LAT option. Until their split in 2014, Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton famously lived separately in two houses next to one another.

And Bake Off judge Prue Leith also refused to live with her second husband John Playfair for their first three years of marriage but changed her mind last April and they now happily share a home.
Mee Raqsam : ; Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Danish Husain, Aditi Subedi; Direction: Baba Azmi; Rating: * * * (three stars)By Vinayak Chakravorty There is something very earnest about Mee Raqsam that endears, about the way debutant director Baba Azmi tries using his story to reiterate a message that is all-too familiar yet always relevant. Despite lacking in nuances that would have helped set up a layered narrative, the film is a simple story that connects.

Azmi, a veteran cinematographer of over four decades, takes his directorial bow with a film that talks of the need to free art from the shackles of religion, gender bias and societal restrictions, through the story of a Muslim girl who dreams of being a bharatnatyam dancer. Her situation is complex owing to the milieu she hails from -- the heartland village of Mijwan in Azamgarh district (Mijwan, in fact, is the birthplace of Azmi's father, late poet-lyricist Kaifi Azmi).

In Mijwan, Husain and Safdar Mir's writing imagines a tailor named Salim (Danish Husain) and his daughter Maryam (Aditi Subedi). She dreams of being a bharatnatyam exponent, and he goads her to chase her dream despite being fully aware such an idea is unacceptable in their orthodox world, where a girl who dances is crassly dismissed as a 'tawaif'.

Naseeruddin Shah, in a formidable special appearance as community elder Hashim Seth, defines such constricted notions in Salim and Maryam's world. For the likes of Hashim, as well as Maryam's khala or nani, the girl's dancing in public would not just demean the family but the community, too. The form of dance she has chosen itself is deemed 'gair mazhabi" by Hashim. By turns, he tries reasoning with and threatening Salim, who tells his daughter he is willing to endure all storms to make her dream come true.

Mee Raqsam maintains a progressive tone in storytelling as well as while conveying its message, which makes the film a well-intentioned effort. However, creatively there is not much that you can applaud beyond its intention. The narrative sorely lacks a treatment that would have rendered the plot a certain depth, beyond its ambition to make a few obvious comments about society.

Despite getting rather flat characters to play out, the cast is impressive in the impact it leaves. Naseeruddin Shah towers above all, despite playing a character you would quite simply loathe and in spite of his limited screen space. It is a delight to watch the iconic actor, as always.

Danish Husain imagines Salim as a man with quiet resilience, harbouring a mindset far more progressive than the Muslim stereotype he represents. Maryam, the centre of all focus in the story, is sincerely portrayed by Aditi Subedi. Her final dance performance (as well as the fusion score Ripul Sharma has arranged) is absorbing fare.

Although Baba Azmi is a cinematographer par excellence, he has opted delegating camera work to Mohsin Khan Pathan. The shots are functional, without trying to be outstanding.

That last observation in fact echoes across everything about the film. Mee Raqsam seems contended being functional while telling its story and putting a rather simplistic message across.

(Vinayak Chakravorty can be reached at vinayak.c@ians.in)
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Former Reserve Bank of India Governor D Subbarao said, on Sunday, that the 'green shoots' of economic revival are just a mechanical rebound, and that the government doesn't need to read much into it.

Talking about India's short- and medium-term growth prospects, Subbarao expressed that they appear grim and the Centre should not make much of the economic activity coming back from the depressed base of coronavirus-induced lockdown.

In an interview with PTI, the ex-RBI governor enunciated that "what we have been seeing is just a mechanical rebound from the depressed base of the lockdown" and it would fallacious to see it as a sign of a "durable recovery".

Also Read: India can expect V-shaped recovery post coronavirus crisis, says former RBI governor Subbarao

Subbarao added that the "short-term, as well as medium-term prospects (for Indian economy), continue to be grim" adding that the COVID-19 pandemic is "still spiralling, the number of daily cases is rising and it is spreading to newer regions".

The Indian economy was in a troubled state when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. Before the crisis hit India, the real GDP growth had moderated from 7 per cent in 2017-18 to 6.1 per cent in 2018-19 and to 4.2 per cent in 2019-20.

On India's medium-term growth prospect, the former RBI governor said that the economy was in a troubled state when the Covid-19 crisis hit India.

"When the crisis is behind us and I hope that is soon enough these problems are going to be much bigger. Fiscal deficit is going to be much higher, the debt burden much larger and the financial sector in worse shape," he said.

The World Bank last week projected India's fiscal deficit to rise to 6.6 per cent of GDP in 2020-21 (April 2020 to March 2021) and remain elevated at 5.5 per cent in the following year. This compares to the 3.5 per cent target set by the government.

"Our medium-term prospects will depend on how effectively we resolve these challenges," Subbarao said.

With India's economic growth in pre-Covid 2019-20 fiscal slipping to its lowest in a decade, global and domestic agencies have indicated a sharp contraction in GDP in the current fiscal year. The estimated contraction ranges from 3.2 per cent to 9.5 per cent. This will be the first contraction in four decades.

Asked whether he sees any positives at all in this grim scenario, Subbarao noted that the rural economy has recovered better than the urban economy helped by several factors and the expanded MNREGA provided a lifeline when most needed.

He said that another big, although less acknowledged positive is that the economy today has some basic safety-nets in place.

Also Read: Coronavirus impact: India needs to build on farm sector to accelerate growth, says former RBI guv Subbarao

Citing an example, Subbarao said that 40 million urban labour went back to their villages post Covid-19 induced lockdown and despite that there have been no reported cases of mass starvation or hunger.

"Throw your mind back 20 or even 15 years, and it's easy to imagine how easily this could have turned into a story of hunger, destitution, and death. That story did not play out is a testimonial not just to this government but to successive governments over the last several decades," he emphasised.

On criticism that the government is not spending enough to help the nation tide over the economic crisis, the former RBI governor said he does believe it is critical for the government to borrow and spend more.

"Indeed, government spending is the only growth driver we have in the short term; all other growth drivers - private consumption, investment, and net exports - are all depressed.

"Besides, if the government does not spend more now to arrest the decline, many problems such as bad loans will only get even more intractable and take a much heavier toll on the economy," he argued.

Subbarao, however, added that government borrowing cannot be open-ended and it should set itself a limit.

"That will force the government to be efficient, transparent and accountable," he noted.

Asked where he thinks additional spending should go, Subbarao opined that given the very limited fiscal space, more than ever, the government should aim to get the maximum bang for the buck.

"Spending can go either to spur consumption or production," he said, adding that he believes production should take precedence over consumption.

Noting that the RBI has already given guidelines for loan restructuring by banks, Subbarao said, "The government can chip in by taking in some of the loan burden from MSMEs and from MUDRA loans."

The government also needs to spend a significant amount to recapitalize banks, and through that, provide support for the recapitalisation of NBFCs, he added.

When asked about the criticism that the RBI has not been bold enough on unconventional monetary policies, he said the LTROs that the RBI has instituted to support specific sectors like NBFCs, MSMEs, HFCs etc. are certainly unconventional policies.

Also Read: Coronavirus in India: COVID-19 lockdown may cost the economy Rs 8.76 lakh crore; here's how

"True, the RBI has not gone into as much uncharted territory as advanced economy central banks but there was no need to. A central bank cannot be expected to do something just because it is fashionable; it should make its policy as demanded by the macroeconomic circumstances," he said.

Besides, Subbarao noted that in comparison with advanced economies, "we must remember that the markets are less forgiving of unconventional policies by emerging market central banks as compared to rich-country central banks."

Asked whether having a universal basic income (UBI) would have made the problem simpler during the Covid-19 pandemic, he said UBI is a neat idea, yet it is not clear that UBI is an unambiguously good idea.

"What is the guarantee that politicians will not convert UBI to a UBI plus? Giving subsidies is after all so politically intoxicating. So, we might end up in a worse situation than we are in now," Subbarao said.

Nevertheless, the balance of advantage may lie in adopting UBI provided the government can institute some checks and balances for minimising the downsides, he added.

(With inputs from PTI)
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Last weeks poll shows that the Microsoft Surface Duo excites power users  maybe not so much with its hardware, but with its promise of next-level multitasking instead. Despite the Surface branding, this doesnt run Windows, its an Android phone, but Microsoft did lean on its decades of UI design expertise to create a fairly unique product.

Dual screen mobiles are nothing new. The Sony Tablet P is an early example of the form factor, the ZTE Axon M is more recent. There are even several LG and Asus phones that fall in this category with their second screen accessories.

However, none of these went further than the side-by-side multitasking that's included in Android (some do offer a gaming mode though). What Microsoft is proposing is more advanced cooperation between apps. It has worked with Google to develop the APIs and soon both Microsoft and Google apps will support the Surface Duo. Third party developers are invited as well.

Most people who voted see great potential in that with about 18% calling it a productivity powerhouse. Another 28% agree, but dont think this is worth $1,400 and would rather wait for the price to come down. Yet more people (around 20%) are on the fence and will wait for reviews before making a decision.

Predictably, theres a large group who think that the Snapdragon 855 chipset and small 3,577 mAh battery dont cut it. Microsoft explained that with this first generation device it focused on getting the hinge and battery system right  since each half of the device is only 4.8 mm thick, theres not much room for a battery. For comparison, the Z Fold2 measures 6.9 mm when open.

Microsoft knows that the battery capacity, lack of 5G and chunky bezels are not ideal. However, the company believes these issues can be resolved in future versions. If it pulls it off (and doesnt take too long to release the 2nd generation), the next poll may be even more positive.

However, considering that the Surface Duo project was first announced last October and the first model is set to go on sale this September, the 2nd generation could be just a distant dream for now.
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Read our full Opinion Policies here. Updated on 10/7/2020
Oyo State Police Command has arrested a trader identified as Emmanuel Egbu, for allegedly eating human excreta with bread.

It was gathered that Egbu, who has a shop at the Sango area of Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, was caught by some persons around 12 noon on Saturday.

This caused traffic snarl as many people thronged the place to have a glimpse of the bizarre situation.

Eating human excreta is said to be the hallmark of Internet fraudsters, who also combine money rituals with cyber fraud.

Egbu, who has a thriving cosmetics shop where he sells Brazilian hair, was said to have been caught eating human excreta and bread. Those who caught him with the weird food combination were said to have raised the alarm, which attracted a huge crowd.

The trader, who is said to have bought a house and rebuilt it around the same area, was however rescued before he could be lynched. He was taken to the Sango Police Station.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
Published on 2020/08/23 | Source

The government has canceled the full reopening of schools for the fall semester amid a resurgence of coronavirus infections.

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So far schools in the capital region had been told to decide on reopening at their own discretion to ensure some degree of social distancing, while those in other areas were about to resume daily classes once students returned from their summer break.

But a video conference Wednesday with 17 regional education superintendents and Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae agreed to keep numbers in attendance below two-thirds per day until Sept. 11.

This applies to all areas, not just Seoul, Incheon, Gyeonggi Province and Busan, where social distancing rules have been tightened recently. Students will therefore attend classes only two or three days a week.

Even elementary schools in Seoul had hoped that it would be possible to push for a full reopening for first and second graders. There were worries about a possible decline in children's achievements as a result of reduced school days, while parents had become tired of taking care of their kids at home.

But the situation changed abruptly as infections resurged last week. About half of the 190 infections among students and teachers since May 20, when high school seniors were allowed to come back to school, occurred over the last eight days.

Some 619 large crammers with more than 300 students in the capital region shut down as social distancing regulations were tightened on Wednesday.

Universities are also canceling their plans to reopen in favor of continuing online classes in the fall semester. More students are likely demand a refund of their tuition fees if universities cannot function.
Oregon man caught in Lyon County with $760,000 of marijuana
The Assam unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has rubbished former chief minister and veteran Congress leader Tarun Gogois claim that former Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi could be the BJPs CM candidate for next years assembly polls in the northeastern state.

People utter a lot of meaningless stuff when they grow very old, we would put Gogois statement in that category. I have met many former chief ministers, but no one makes such baseless assertions like Gogoi. There is no iota of truth in what he said, Assam BJP president Ranjeet Kumar Dass said.

On Saturday, Tarun Gogoi, 85, who was the chief minister from 2001 to 2016, had told journalists in Guwahati that the former CJI, who took his oath as a nominated Rajya Sabha MP in March this year, could be the BJPs CM face in 2021.

I have heard from my sources that Ranjan Gogois name is in the list of BJPs probable chief minister candidates. I suspect he might be projected as the CM by the party in the next assembly polls, Tarun Gogoi said.

BJP is happy with Ranjan Gogoi for the Ayodhya Ram mandir verdict and therefore he was nominated as a Rajya Sabha MP after his retirement. Gogoi could have refused to be a Rajya Sabha MP, but his acceptance shows he is interested in active politics, he added.

Tarun Gogoi, who represents the Titabar seat in the Assam assembly, said that he would contest next years elections, but will not be the Congresss prospective CM candidate. On Saturday, Congress and the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) agreed to form an alliance against the ruling BJP in the 2021 polls.

Theres nothing to comment on Tarun Gogois utterances. It seems he knows more about our party than those who are in the BJP, said Assam BJPs chief spokesperson Rupam Goswami.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 23) The National Bureau of Investigation is looking into suspicions of "sabotage" following the sudden massive roof leak at the Ilocos region office of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, the Justice Department said Sunday.

There are suspicions (of sabotage) all of these are being investigated by the NBI, Justice Undersecretary Markk Perete told CNN Philippines Newsroom Weekend.

We are trying to retrieve yung (the) pictures which were taken by the PNP (Philippine National Police) as well as the Bureau of Fire Protection which might lead us to either confirm or reject the suspicions regarding the supposed parang sadya na pagsira ng mga documents (deliberate move to destroy these documents), he added.

A video which first circulated last week showed water pouring through the ceiling of PhilHealths regional office in Dagupan City, Pangasinan.

Some officials raised alarm over this, with a number of senators flagging the case as a possible attempt to destroy evidence amid the ongoing probes on the embattled agency. Senator Panfilo Ping Lacson also said "there's enough reason to suspect" that the leak was intentional.

However, the PhilHealths regional office dismissed claims of a cover-up, saying the incident happened after a heavy downpour on Wednesday afternoon. It added all agency documents were intact and accounted for, and that no critical equipment suffered damage from the incident.

Perete noted NBI officers and agents have been stationed in the said office to help secure the documents and computers parts affected by the water leak. The agency is also verifying if there are indeed copies of the documents in PhilHealths central office, he noted.

The agencys regional office said it was also conducting a parallel investigation into the issue.

Hangad din namin ang katotohanan na makakapagbigay linaw sa pangyayaring ito (we would also like to know the facts that would shed light on this incident), the PhiliHealth Regional Office-I said in a statement on Sunday.

READ: Many records from PhilHealth office saved after roof leak, but damage on wet computers unclear

Task Force PhilHealth sets more hearings

Meanwhile, Perete said the multi-agency task force led by the Justice Department is also set to schedule two more hearings in the coming days to further tackle the fresh allegations of irregularities against the state health insurer.

The group was given until September 14 to submit their findings and proposed legal actions to President Rodrigo Duterte.

The Ombudsman has already placed more than 10 PhilHealth officials under preventive suspension during the conduct of the probe.
Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Sunday announced it had issued an emergency use authorization for convalescent blood plasma as an experimental treatment for COVID-19.

The treatment, which hinges on injecting antibodies from COVID-19 survivors into other patients to boost their bodys defenses against the virus, has been used on at least 97,000 patients. So far, though, the plasma treatment has only produced middling data to support its efficacy.

This is what Ive been looking to do for a long time, President Trump said at a Sunday afternoon press conference announcing what he called a very historic breakthrough.

The announcement came just days after the FDA reportedly pulled back from issuing the same authorization over concerns from Dr. Anthony Fauci and other top government health officials about the effectiveness of the treatment.

Could Blood From Coronavirus Victims Help the Sick?

FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn said Sunday that the agency had seen a great deal of demand from doctors asking to use plasma in COVID-19 treatments. And to be sure, four former FDA chiefs have voiced support for the therapy, citing its effectiveness in treating prior epidemics, including SARS, measles, Ebola, and the 1918 influenza outbreak. But they stated that it should be fully tested before widespread implementation in a clinical setting.

Let's get the trials done & if the results are life saving, let's make it standard of care, thus benefitting hundreds of thousands to millions, former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf wrote in a tweet. If not we can avoid the huge expense & effort & keep looking for best treatments.

A Mayo Clinic analysis of 35,000 plasma recipients found that COVID-19 patients who received the plasma earlier in their treatment had a better chance of surviving than those who received the plasma later. But that work, like other efforts to study the use of convalescent plasma treatment on COVID-19, hasnt been peer-reviewed, and it didnt include a control groupmaking it unclear how seriously doctors and health officials should take its results.

Story continues

There were signs as early as March that plasma therapy might work. Between late January and late March, a team of doctors at Shenzhen Third Peoples Hospital in China administered convalescent plasma from five recovered donors to five critically ill COVID-19 patients.

The results were encouraging. Body temperature quickly normalized in four of the five patients. Viral loads decreased. The hospital soon discharged three of the patients. The other two were stable at the time of publication in late March.

But the Shenzen doctors warned against drawing firm conclusions from an experiment involving only five people. This was a small case series that included no controls, they wrote. It is unclear if these patients would have improved without transfusion of convalescent plasma.

Convalescent plasma is not all hype, Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, told The Daily Beast. But its also certainly not a game-changer, he said.

I'd say its probably beneficial to issue an emergency authorization, which will make it easier to administer more broadly, Stephen Jameson, a University of Minnesota immunologist, told The Daily Beast. But its hardly a new breakthrough, since tens of thousands of people have already been given thisand whats been reported so far doesnt make it sound like this treatment will instantly cure people or anything like that.

The announcement came just a day after Trump blasted the FDA, which is led by one of his own appointees. The president accused the agency of deliberately hindering research on vaccines and therapeutic treatments to sabotage his re-election chances.

The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics, Trump tweeted. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answers until after November 3rd.

Trump praised the FDAs decision on plasma at his press conference Sunday.

The FDA really stepped up, especially over the last few days, he said.

For his part, former Obama administration health official Andy Slavitt blasted the FDA authorization before it was official on Sunday, suggesting that the Trump administration was pushing for a political win ahead of proof that the treatment actually works.

So why the rush? Slavitt tweeted. The RNC begins tomorrow. Thats it.

At his press conference, Trump denied just that.

This has nothing to do with politics, the president claimed.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Visitors to the India Mobile Congress 2019 look around at the Samsung Electronics' booth in this Oct. 15, 2019 photo. / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics



By Baek Byung-yeul



Samsung Electronics is expected to have a small but meaningful benefit from the Indian government's plans to exclude Chinese network equipment makers  Huawei and ZTE  from its plan to launch 5G network trials this year, industry analysts said Sunday.



They said the Indian government's possible ban on the Chinese vendors would help improve Samsung's position in the lucrative 5G network equipment business. Samsung is the world's fourth-largest 5G equipment maker behind Huawei, Ericsson of Sweden and Nokia of Finland.



However, they added it is too soon to say whether the Korean tech company will be buoyed by the Huawei ban as the Scandinavian makers are expected to fill the gap, and India has not even kicked off preliminary work such as conducting test operations and holding an auction for 5G network frequencies.



"It remains to be seen whether Samsung Electronics will actually benefit from the Indian government's possible ban on Chinese vendors," an industry official familiar with the matter said. "India has not yet launched its auction process for 5G network frequencies and mighty European suppliers such as Ericsson and Nokia have large market shares."



The Indian authorities were expected to exclude Huawei and ZTE from its 5G operator trials on national security grounds due to prolonged tensions with China, according to media reports. Bloomberg said India's Ministry of Communications was set to restart the approval process for 5G trials with restrictions applied that would block the Chinese companies from competing.



The move comes after an India-China border conflict and is in line with the Indian government's recent decision to ban apps and services made in China including popular video app TikTok. India ordered local telecom operators and internet service providers to block access to these services.



Samsung has been chosen as one of the equipment suppliers for local telecom operators' 5G trials. According to local Indian media the Economic Times, Reliance Jio Infocomm, the largest telecom operator there, has filed a government application to conduct its 5G trials with Samsung.



Samsung provided its 4G or LTE network equipment to Reliance Jio Infocomm, which started its LTE service in 2016. The Indian telecommunications company also reportedly submitted another application to conduct 5G trials independently using its own equipment.



Bharti Airtel is expected to team up with Scandinavian makers Ericsson and Nokia, as the No. 2 telecom operator will run 5G trials in the Kolkata and Bengaluru regions.



While Huawei has had the largest share in the 5G network equipment market, the company is expected to lose its dominance due to the prolonged trade dispute between the U.S. and China. In July, the British government announced it would also phase out Huawei from its 5G network over looming national security concerns.



According to data provided by U.S.-based market tracker Dell'Oro, Huawei had the largest share in the 5G equipment market with 35.7 percent in the first quarter of 2020, followed by Ericsson with 24.8 percent, Nokia with 15.8 percent and Samsung with 13.2 percent.



Samsung has been trying to expand its influence in the market rapidly. In the past several months, the company has secured four new 5G contracts including ones with Videotron in December, U.S. Cellular in February and New Zealand telecom Spark in March.



The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute expects the global market size for 5G network equipment to grow to around $37.8 billion this year, and this will keep increasing as 5G is forecast to provide service coverage to more than 40 percent of the world's population by 2024.


London: He was once known as the "lad" of the royal family, most at home surrounded by friends from the Army and the aristocracy, and possibly down the pub.

But Prince Harry this week proved he has made the full spiritual transition to his new home of California, as he let slip his new-found bond with the A-list's favourite self-help guru.

Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. Credit:Getty Images

The Duke of Sussex, who has recently been sporting a tan and casual clothing to suit his life in the Santa Barbara sun, disclosed he "absolutely adores" none other than Dr Brene Brown, known for her inspirational TED talks, who has become a friend. Brown, whose many notable admirers include Oprah Winfrey, and Melinda Gates, is a writer, podcaster and prolific sharer of inspirational quotes about vulnerability, courage and overcoming shame.
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The federal government says 2.3 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) accessed interest-free loans under the Government Enterp...

The federal government says 2.3 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) accessed interest-free loans under the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) between 2016 and 2020.

Sadiya Umar-Farouq, minister of humanitarian affairs, disaster management and social development, was speaking at an event to mark the ministrys one year anniversary in Abuja on Friday.

GEEP, which is a part of the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP), provides loans under its TraderMoni, MarketMoni and FarmerMoni programmes.

Other social investment programmes are N-Power, Home Grown School Feeding programme and conditional cash transfer (CCT).

Umar-Farouq said GEEP provided loans between N10,000 and N300,000 to traders, artisans, enterprising youths, agricultural workers and other micro-service providers.

Since its inception in 2016 to date, GEEP has empowered over 2.3 million such micro-enterprises with interest-free loans to grow their businesses, Umar-Farouq said.

According to the minister, 109,823 beneficiaries from batches A and B of the N-Power scheme have set up businesses in their communities.

On the school feeding programme, Umar-Farouq said the total number of children enrolled on the programme was 9,196,823, as verified by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

It is worthy of note that at the onset of the pandemic, the national social register contained data of over 2.6 million poor and vulnerable households (with over 11 million individuals) across 34 states and the federal capital territory (FCT), she said.

With the accelerated registration and rapid expansion, the register has, as at June 30, grown to 3.7 million (equivalent to 15.5 million individuals) across 36 states and the FCT.

Umar-Farouq said the federal government is working to ensure the establishment of the national disability commission and the take-off of the national senior citizens centre.
By Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With incriminating evidence cropping up against the bogus contract signed between the UAE Consul General and Unitac Builders and Developers in the Life Mission project, Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala has sought a CBI probe into it. Regarding the Thiruvananthapuram airport privatization issue, Chennithala alleged that the CPM which has been openly criticizing the Adani Enterprises has been supporting them on the sly. Talking to reporters at Cantonment House here on Sunday, Chennithala maintained that the LDF Government has cheated the people on the airport issue. The contract should have in fact been signed between the UAE Red Crescent and Unitach.

Chennithala said when the LDF Government has not been releasing the documents pertaining to the Life Mission, it evokes further suspicion. He informed that the UDF will be holding a protest across the state on Thursday against the Life mission scam.

A day after Congress youth MLAs V T Balram and K S Sabarinadhan urged the party leadership to reconsider the party's support to the LDF Government on the airport privatisation issue, Chennithala maintained that the ploy of the LDF Government is to cheat the Opposition once they lend their support.

"The LDF Government has betrayed the people. Whenever required the Opposition had rallied behind the ruling Government over the last four years. But Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has shown nothing but betrayal. He cannot be trusted.", said Chennithala.

He also informed that the UDF parliamentary party meeting will be convened on Monday morning prior to the daylong Assembly session which is being mainly convened to pass the finance bill. At this meeting, the UDF will decide whether the Opposition has to join hands with the State Government on bringing out an unanimous resolution on the privatization issue of the Thiruvananthapuram airport.
More Americans than ever are expected to vote by mail in 2020 presidential election. But the U.S. Postal Service is in billions of dollars of debt and President Trump has said he doesnt want the agency to be funded to help with mail-in voting. While the Postmaster General is now promising to suspend any changes to USPS until after the election, some worry the spending cuts and removal of collection boxes may have already done enough damage to overwhelm the postal service come November. Soledad OBrien speaks with Trevor Potter, the founder and president of the Campaign Legal Center.
In mid-August, Simon Property Group in a joint venture agreed to buy Brooks Brothers and Lucky Brand Jeans out of bankruptcy for $325 million and $140.1 million, respectively.

According to market speculation and other reports, Simon Property Group and rival mall owner Brookfield Property Partners could partner to buy J.C. Penney, which also has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

This isn't a new strategy. Before the largest owner and manager of U.S. malls was facing the global pandemic, it was contending with the so-called retail apocalypse.

"I think they finally figured out that they know the difference and maybe they should start getting in the game of helping innovative, good retailers to succeed through capital and expertise," said John S. Talbott, director of the Center for Education and Research in Retailing at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business.

COVID-19 pushing retail changes: Can shopping malls survive the coronavirus pandemic and a new slate of permanent store closings?

More Lord + Taylor stores closing: Liquidation sales are underway as part of company's bankruptcy amid COVID-19

Simon Property Group did not respond to requests for an interview. But retail experts such as Talbott and others interviewed by the IndyStar, part of the USA TODAY Network, say the recent purchases reflect an ongoing change that seizes upon opportunity. Leverage your insight. Bargain shop for quality brands. Consolidate stores. Embrace e-commerce.

Pedestrians wearing protective masks walk past a Brooks Brothers location in a July 8, 2020 file photo, in New York.

Industry watchers say Simon Property Group is building on its shared acquisition of teen apparel chain Aeropostale. Still, a misstep could prove costly.

President and CEO David Simon provided analysts some insight into the company's strategy during its second quarter earnings call on Aug. 10.

"There's been a lot of bankruptcy this year. We're not playing in a lot of them," said Simon, who declined to address speculation about whether the company is pursuing J.C. Penney. "We're very selective in what we're looking at. The brand's got to have value.

Story continues

From retail landlord to savior

Talbott likens Simon's growing sideline of retail ownership to moving up a food chain.

"It's kind of like when suppliers decide that they want to go directly to consumers, and you know, as you go upward in the food chain, the margins get better," he said.

Simon Property Group has become adept to evolving its business model, Talbot said. The company's longevity, expertise and internal data provide insight into which brands might be good to salvage.

In 2016, the Indianapolis-based company and a consortium of investors that included New York-based licensing firm Authentic Brands Group and mall owner General Growth Properties, now owned by Brookfield Property Partners, finalized the $243.3 million purchase of teen apparel chain Aeropostale.

Similar to the situation with Brooks Brothers, Simon Property Group and the investor group bought the brand out of bankruptcy, which helped the chain avoid a total liquidation.

John Talbott

In February, Simon Property Group, ABG and Brookfield finalized the acquisition of fast fashion retailer Forever 21. ABG and Simon Property Group each took a 37.5% ownership stake while Brookfield Property Partners now owns 25% of the intellectual property and operating businesses.

While the retail apocalypse may be the prevailing narrative among observers, Talbott said it's not one he agrees with. Consumers have directed their shopping habits online, leaving companies to rightsize by closing brick and mortar stores.

The pandemic has exacerbated that shift as shoppers, unable or afraid to physically go to stores, increased online purchases.

"Retail is a huge industry that's going to be around, and out of the other side of this is going to come more innovation than you've ever seen before, and Simon is buying when others are selling," Talbott said.

"If you can get the J. Crew brand  a brand that probably five or 10 years ago was worth multiple billions of dollars  if you can buy it for $500 million today, it's a deal."

J. Crew filed for bankruptcy in May.

The pluses and minuses of chain ownership

In the Aug. 10 earnings call, CEO Simon insisted the company isn't seeking to have a large portfolio of retail brands but instead is keeping an eye out for selective opportunities.

He has said that the company has made a lot of money on "value-creating opportunities" such as the Aeropostale deal.

The company, he said, will continue to look for and capitalize on similar deals.

Under a partnership called SPARC Group LLC, Simon and ABG is purchasing the brands Brooks Brothers and Lucky Brand Jeans out of bankruptcy at or below cost, CEO Simon said.

The company is buying tenants in its own malls, but Simon dismissed claims that his company was seeking the retailers to ensure rent payments.

"We're doing it because we believe in the brand," Simon told analysts. "If we didn't believe in the brand and if we didn't think we could make money, we wouldn't do it."

As he explained to analysts, SPARC absorbs retailers at reduced overhead costs and can reject any retail lease that doesn't fit and is deemed unprofitable.

Simon said SPARC is seeking investments that quickly return a profit.

Talbott notes that even though Simon Property Group is buying distressed chains, the retailers still have brand value to consumers and are sustainable.

Simon Property Group could end up with a smaller, more profitable business by closing underperforming stores, letting go of some brick and mortar employees and working to fine-tune the brand's e-commerce business.

"What they're doing when they acquire these firms out of bankruptcy, the locations that are not Simon malls will be closed ...," Talbott said. "So they're gonna go in and anywhere it doesn't make sense to keep that door open in some of their malls, they won't keep it open."

Aeropostale, for instance, had more than roughly nearly about 800 stores when it filed for bankruptcy in 2016. The retailer now operates more than 500 stores in the U.S., according to Simon Property Group.

While Talbott said the company seems to be employing a smart strategy to evolve its business, there are a lot of risks.

SPARC could bet on the wrong retailer by picking a brand with a disrupted supply chain or declining brand value for consumers. Stock ratings agencies, such as Standard & Poor's view, revised their outlook on Simon Property Group to negative due to the possible long-term implications of the pandemic on the company's retail tenants. But, CEO Simon said he is unconcerned about that outlook and how they view the recent transactions.

He sees a profit on a low-cost investment.

"Those two investments, either directly or through capital contribution to SPARC, will be under $50 million from us," Simon told analysts.

What does this mean for the future of Simon?

Scott Stuart, CEO of the Chicago-based Turnaround Management Association, an organization that represents professionals who works in corporate restructuring and renewal, said Simon is acting similarly to a private equity firm.

Even during the pandemic, the company is flush with cash. It reported $8.5 billion in liquidity at the end of the second quarter, including $3.6 billion in cash.

"One of the avenues that they've chosen to pursue is doing equity participation and, in some cases, acquisition of retailers in an effort to both shore them up and maintain the integrity of their retail spaces beyond the anchor stores," he said.

This, Stuart said, is just part of the process of rethinking Simon Property Group's business model as retailers consolidate and face pressure from online giants like Amazon.com.

And unlike in the past, retailers aren't lined up to fill empty mall suites.

"Their back is up against the wall. There aren't retailers lined up to jump into a spot that a Forever 21 or a J.C. Penney or Sears has vacated," he said. "So if they don't rethink what they're going to do to survive, they're going to be left in a very vulnerable position."

The Wall Street Journal, citing people with knowledge of the matter, reported earlier this month that Simon and Amazon were engaged in talks to convert empty J.C. Penney and Sears department stores into fulfillment centers.

Talbott said Simon is uniquely qualified to bailout chains because of its scale, balance sheet, and experience. The company isn't the same as it was two decades ago, when the focus was optimizing rent structures and keeping shopping centers full.

"They probably wouldn't have given a lot of thought to this notion of nurturing new retailers  early-stage retailers  and also picking off brands that have suffered from these difficult economic times and that are still valuable," he said.

Contact IndyStar reporter Alexandria Burris at aburris@gannett.com or call 317-617-2690. Follow her on Twitter: @allyburris.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Simon Property Group: Why mall owner is bailing out retail chains
Two of the teenagers who killed Police Constable Andrew Harper are reported to be planning to write a book about their horrific crimes.

It is also claimed that neither Albert Bowers nor Jessie Cole, both 18, can read or write so they have commissioned someone in prison to help them write the book.

But any money made as a result of a crime or in connection to a crime can be confiscated.

Albert Bowers (left) and Jessie Cole (right) are reportedly boasting about how much money their book will make them

They also have plans to appeal against their convictions and 13-year manslaughter sentences.

Sources told the Sun the two killers are 'strutting around like celebrities' in Belmarsh Prison in South London.

Bowers and Cole are 'loving the attention' and talking about the money they think their book with will make them, a source said.

'They really are acting like VIPs. If they carry on, somebody will make sure they come down to earth  with a bump.'

Bowers, Cole and Henry Long, 19, were jailed for manslaughter after their getaway vehicle dragged PC Harper, 28, for over a mile near Bradfield Southend, Berkshire, on August, 15 last year.

PC Andrew Harper (pictured with his wife Lissie) was trying to stop them from stealing a quad bike when they killed him

The traffic constable had been trying to stop the trio, from a travelling community in Reading, getting away with a stolen 10,000 quad bike.

The teenagers whooped and cheered over the videolink from Belmarsh Prison as they were cleared of murder but found guilty of manslaughter last month.

Long, the driver of the car who had previously admitted manslaughter, was jailed for 16 years and Cole and Bowers were given 13 years each.

PC Harper's widow Lissie is campaigning for anyone convicted of killing a 999 worker to get life under 'Harper's Law'.

Conservative MP John Howell has said he will suggest looking into changing the sentencing guidelines for police killers after meeting PC Harper's relatives.
A major hospital trust was accused tonight of covering up suspicious baby deaths.

It has repeatedly failed to report tragedies to coroners or investigate potential failings, the Mail can reveal. Grieving families believe senior staff tried to brush off deaths by claiming they were expected or by implying mothers were to blame.

East Kent Hospitals University Trust is now at the centre of a major probe following the deaths of at least 15 babies in potentially avoidable circumstances since 2011.

Figures obtained under freedom of information laws show at least 124 infants have died after being born at the NHS trust over the past seven years. Yet only 24 of the deaths were reported to coroners even though many were sudden and unexplained.

Hospitals should inform the coroner of such cases and around 45 per cent of all deaths are referred on for an initial investigation.

East Kent admits in another freedom of information response that just 11 of its 93 stillbirths and newborn deaths over the past two years led to a serious incident investigation.

Hospitals are obliged to launch one whenever a patient dies or comes to harm avoidably or unexpectedly as a result of staff actions.

The major independent inquiry into the trusts maternity services was ordered by ministers in February.

The extent of the failings came to light a month earlier during the inquest of a baby who died in November 2017 in what the coroner called wholly avoidable circumstances.

Sarah and Tom Richford with their son Harry who died seven days after he was born in November 2017 at the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (QEQM) Hospital in Margate

A view of the entrance to the maternity unit of the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (QEQM) Hospital in Margate, Kent, part of the East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust

Harry Richford was delivered by an emergency caesarean section which was performed too late and by an inexperienced locum doctor who had not been assessed by the trust.

A second doctor delayed resuscitating Harry and he died from irreversible brain damage seven days later.

Other families came forward to report their own potentially avoidable tragedies  claims backed by the shocking figures about newborn deaths and stillbirths.

The East Kent inquiry was launched while health officials were investigating maternity services at the Shrewsbury and Telford hospital trust, where 1,800 families have reported baby deaths, harm and poor care.

East Kent initially refused to refer Harrys death to the coroner but his grandfather, Derek Richford, did so in March 2018, fearing staff were trying to cover up mistakes.

Mr Richford, who uncovered the hospitals figures with freedom of information requests, said: Since Harry died we have found that the trust have done everything in their power to avoid scrutiny. I still cant fully decide if this was a matter of gross incompetence or a conspiracy to cover failings.

Kirsty Stead, whose baby Reid Andrew Shaw died last November, also accused the trusts staff of not telling the truth.

Nick Fairweather, a medical negligence solicitor who is representing 12 families, said he feared there was a concerted cover-up.

He added: This needs the most thorough investigation and scrutiny. My fear is that while these problems continue not to be checked effectively, more babies are unnecessarily killed or harmed.

East Kent Hospitals University Trust, to which the QEQM hospital belongs (pictured), is at the centre of a major probe following the deaths of at least 15 babies since 2011 (file photo)

Maureen Treadwell, of the Birth Trauma Association, said: So many trusts have a greater focus on looking good rather than being good. Staff are scared to be honest despite the duty of candour they have.

The Mail has also spoken to other mothers whose baby deaths were not investigated or referred to coroners.

Some said that staff suggested they were to blame for the tragedies, either by contracting infections which they passed to their babies or through refusing medical interventions.

A letter from the senior coroner for Mid Kent and Medway to legal teams representing families warns that deaths of babies within the trust which should have been referred to the coroner at the time of the death had not been.

The note adds: I am of course now aware of a number of historic baby deaths that were not referred to the coroner at the time.

East Kent serves a population of three quarters of a million and maternity services are run from two of its major hospitals, the William Harvey in Ashford and the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in Margate.

Experts claims its failings are widespread and range from consultants being reluctant to work weekends to midwives not detecting infections or deteriorating heartbeats.

The trust will come under further scrutiny later this year with the inquest of Archie Batten, who died last September after his mother Rachel Higgs was turned away from a maternity unit.

Separately, the Care Quality Commission watchdog is due to announce imminently whether it will bring a criminal prosecution for the failings leading up to baby Harrys death.

The latest official data shows that East Kents neonatal death rates, the number of babies dying in their first 28 days, and its stillbirth rates, are relatively high.

According to an Oxford University report last October it has 5.47 deaths per 1,000 births compared with an average of 4.96 for similar-sized hospitals.

A spokesman for East Kent said: We are treating the concerns raised about the safety of the service with the utmost seriousness and urgency.

We have made significant changes to maternity care and we will not rest until we are delivering an outstanding maternity service.

'We have welcomed the independent investigation into East Kent maternity services and we are doing everything in our power to assist and support it.

The inquiry into East Kent is being overseen by Dr Bill Kirkup, a former associate chief medical officer at the Department of Health. He also chaired a damning report into the maternity scandal at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay in Cumbria.

Harry Richford pictured here with parents Sarah and Tom, died at just seven days old

Avoidable death that sparked the inquiry

The death of Harry Richford exposed the extent of failings at East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust and prompted other families to come forward.

His mother Sarah had an emergency caesarean performed by a locum doctor who had not been fully assessed by the trust.

But the procedure in November 2017 should have been carried out much earlier and Harry was born silent and floppy and needed to be resuscitated.

He died seven days later and an inquest in January ruled his death was wholly avoidable.

Harrys family believe the trust had no intention of referring his death to the coroner and his grandfather Derek Richford took matters into his own hands in March 2018 and reported the death himself.

They also claim staff said Harrys death was expected and pretended there were no complications during the birth, even though it was extremely traumatic.

Other grieving families subsequently came forward and in February the Government launched an independent inquiry into the trust chaired by Dr Bill Kirkup.

He oversaw the investigation into the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay scandal in which up to 30 mothers and babies died.

Mr Richford believes there have been systemic problems for more than six years.

A spokesman for East Kent Hospitals acknowledged that Harrys death should have been referred to the coroner.

They added: We recognise that we have not always provided the right standard of care for every woman and baby in our hospitals and we wholeheartedly apologise to families for whom we could have done thing differently.

'I'm very angry. My son had no chance!'

Kirsty Stead, pictured left, has accused the East Kent trust of misleading her about the true cause of her son Reid's death after he was stillborn at the QEQM hospital at 37 weeks

Kirsty Stead has accused the East Kent trust of misleading her about the true cause of her sons death.

The 23-year-old was admitted to the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother hospital in Margate at 37 weeks experiencing severe stomach and back pain, as well as excessive movement.

At this stage she says she was told she may have a slight infection in her placenta and was sent home.

Two weeks later, the day before her due date, she phoned the maternity ward complaining once again with severe pain, irregular contractions and excessive movement. After two more calls she was finally advised to come in. Once she arrived at hospital, staff were unable to locate a heartbeat and she was told her baby, Reid Andrew Shaw, had died.

Miss Stead said I was told initially hed died because the cord was wrapped around him. But the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch report says it was the infection that killed him. So someone wasnt telling the truth at the start.

It felt like they thought I was overreacting because I wasnt experienced. Im angry, very angry. Not for me but for my son. He had no chance.

We should have been receiving the best care but we didnt.

'Why did they not spot his infection?'

Katy King, pictured with Fletcher, said staff failed to believe she was in labour as she was only 28 weeks pregnant. Her son died aged nine days after family say staff failed to spot infection

Katy King said staff refused to believe she was in labour went she started experiencing contractions at 28 weeks.

Her baby son Fletcher was born following an emergency caesarean section but although he was weak and small, he was breathing with minimal assistance by the time he was two days old.

She and her partner Jason were told that their son would have to stay at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Kent, until he put on more weight but he should have been fit to go home in around a month.

But Fletcher suddenly became ill at nine days old and died four days later. He had suffered numerous seizures each day and doctors believed he had some unspecified genetic condition.

The family said staff failed to spot he had developed a fungal infection, which could have been treated. They believe if he had been born at a hospital 40 miles away he would have been given the correct antibiotics from birth.

Miss King said: Well never know if hed been given the anti-fungal medication, would he ever have got the infection. It just has such a horrific effect on everyone.

A spokesman for East Kent Hospitals said: 'There was no evidence of any omissions in care.

'The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman is currently investigating the family's complaint.'

Miss King says the trust did not report Fletcher's death to the coroner in summer 2017.
New Delhi, Aug 23 : BJP President J.P. Nadda dubbed the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government in Rajasthan as "useless and indolent" on Sunday during a virtual addresses to the party's Rajasthan unit.

"The Gehlot government of Rajasthan has proved to be an inefficient government on every front. It is a government that has betrayed the public rather than provide relief to the people. The Chief Minister has done nothing but play politics," alleged Nadda during his address to Rajasthan's BJP office bearers.

He also targeted the Congress government for allegedly failing in curbing crime. "Rajasthan has recorded more than 3.83 lakh cases of crime in a year, which is 80 per cent more than the previous year. Similarly, there has been an increase of 122 per cent in the case of female oppression, 92 per cent rise in cases of Dalit oppression and 101 per cent rise in the case of oppression against tribals as compared to the previous year," charged the BJP chief.

Upping the ante over the law and order situation in the desert state, Nadda further charged that incidents of rape, dacoity and looting have also "increased exponentially". He called it a sign of "government stagnation and the collapse of government structure". During the virtual address, he also brought in the charge of promoting nepotism against the Congress government.

However, it was Nadda's reference to the strained relationship between Sachin Pilot and Gehlot that was significant. "A Chief Minister does not meet his deputy for 18 months, calls him 'Nikamma' and also alleges that he has no contribution. Now an agreement has been reached, but what is the basis for it and how long it will continue, one does not know," said Nadda while hitting out at Gehlot.

The Congress government faced a political crisis after Pilot came to Manesar along with his supporting MLAs and virtually rebelled against Gehlot, prompting speculation of him joining the BJP. However, after a long stalemate, the two sides called a truce but Pilot lost both his positions as Deputy CM and the state Congress chief. Nadda called the episode "embarrassing". He added, "The manner in which rude words were used against each other in a mutual battle was scandalous." He also claimed that at a time when the people of Rajasthan were struggling with coronavirus, the Gehlot government was engaged in a fight. He contrasted that with the BJP's efforts where he claimed that BJP's public representatives were engaged in "public service".

He urged the BJP office bearers who were attending the virtual interaction to "expose the low level politics" of the Congress party.
BAMAKO, Mali - West African leaders visiting Mali pressed Sunday for the release of ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita amid mounting speculation that he could be flown out of the country after thousands showed support for the military coup that toppled him.

The 75-year-old Keita has been in the custody of the ruling military junta for five days at the barracks where the government overthrow originated. The 15-nation regional bloc known as ECOWAS has demanded Keitas reinstatement, though with a wave of public support for his ouster it appeared increasingly unlikely Sunday he would return to power.

ECOWAS had earlier demanded that Keita be reinstated and said it would mobilize a regional standby military force. But a demonstration by thousands of Malians showing their support for the coup in the streets of Bamako on Friday made it more difficult for the regional leaders to sideline the junta.

Among the destinations where Keita could go is neighbouring Senegal, which hosted Amadou Toumani Toure, the last democratically elected Malian president overthrown in a similar 2012 coup.

African countries and the wider international community have expressed alarm over the coup detat, which deposed Keita three years before his final term was due to end. Mali has been fighting against Islamic extremists with heavy international support for more than seven years, and jihadists have previously used power vacuums in Mali to expand their territory.

The high-level delegation, led by Nigerias former president, Goodluck Jonathan, held talks with the junta, including Col. Assimi Goita, who has declared himself the groups leader. The regional delegation also met with Keita and the other detained officials.

After the brief meetings, few details were given, but Jonathan did say that Keita was doing well.

We have seen the president IBK and he is very well, Jonathan said, referring to Keita as many do by using his initials.

Hours after Keita was detained Tuesday after his home, the democratically elected president announced his resignation on state broadcaster ORTM saying he did not want any blood to be shed for him to stay in power. By early Wednesday, soldiers took to the airwaves calling themselves the National Committee for the Salvation of the People.

While the new military leaders have insisted they intend to hand over power to a civilian transitional government, West Africa has seen a large number of putschists prolong the transitional period so that the military stays in power. In the case of Mali, it took nearly 18 months after the 2012 coup for democratic elections to resume.

It was Keita himself who won that 2013 vote in a landslide, only to see his popularity plummet after his 2018 reelection as the Malian army faced punishing losses from jihadist attacks. Then after dozens of legislative elections were disputed this spring, demonstrators began taking to the streets calling for his resignation. He offered concessions and regional mediators intervened, but his opponents made it clear they would accept nothing short of his departure.

On Friday, Malis opposition coalition, the M5-RFP, welcomed the ouster of Keita insisted they remained deeply attached to democracy.

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The coronavirus recession is expected to boost numbers at government and low-fee Catholic primary schools as families defer the switch to high-fee private schools until year 7.

P-12 schools educate about 11 per cent of Victoria's students, providing continuity and convenience for families and 13 years of fees for schools.

The market for girls is particularly competitive, with Glen Iris Catholic girls' school Sacre Coeur set to halve its primary school fees by 2025 in a bid to boost enrolments.

Mark McKelson: "It's really hard to get a gauge of how many people have lost their jobs." Credit:Eddie Jim

Education consultant Paul O'Shannassy said high-fee P-12 schools would feel the pinch next year.
LONDON - Geoff Woolf gave his sons a love for literature. When he got sick with COVID-19, they turned to books to help him  and others.

The 73-year-old retired lawyer was hospitalized in London in March, and within days he was on a ventilator in intensive care. Unable to visit, his family could only watch from afar with frustration and dismay.

Then sons Nicky, a 33-year-old journalist, and Sam, a 28-year-old actor, had an idea: Maybe literature could help him and other patients.

"He always said if he was in hospital for a long time, he would be able to deal if he had a book," Sam said.

The brothers loaded an e-reader with Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice"  "his comfort read," according to Sam  and played it for their unconscious father.

Doctors said, "'We can't tell you he'll definitely hear it. But we also can't tell you he won't,'" Sam said. "There is power in hearing a voice."

The brothers set out to acquire more devices for other patients. As they came to terms with the likelihood of losing their father, they saw the project, which they named Books for Dad, as a legacy.
If the developers of a proposed construction and demolition landfill in rural St. Tammany Parish hoped to convince the public of the merits of their proposal at an Aug. 19 community meeting, their hopes were dashed by the time the two-and-a-half-hour meeting was complete.

The agenda for the St. Tammany Parish Zoning Commissions Aug. 4 meeting included a request by Clark Heebe to rezone 104.66 acres on the north side of La. 36, east of La. 434 and west of Archie Singletary Road in the central part of the parish from A-2 and A-3 Suburban District residential and HC-4 Highway Commercial District to SWM-2 Solid Waste Management District zoning so they could construct a C & D landfill on the site.

Heebe's attorney, Trey Lape, asked that the hearing on the request be postponed so the developers, at their expense, could hold a community meeting to discuss their proposal with the public. Commissioners approved the postponement, and the meeting was scheduled for Aug. 19 at Pelican Parks Castine Center in Mandeville.

More than 100 people arrived at the Castine Center to join the meeting, but only the first 100 were allowed to enter due to coronavirus meeting restrictions. The others were turned away. As it was, two separate 50-seat meeting rooms were set up to accommodate the crowd, with an audiovisual feed broadcast to the second room.

Veterans among the five members of the zoning commission who were there said it was the largest community meeting they had ever attended. It also turned out to be the longest.

Lape began the meeting by introducing Heebe and his partners in the project, Brett Davis and Heath Rushing, all three of whom are St. Tammany residents.

Lape then made the case for the project, explaining that it would only receive C & D materials such as concrete and wood, and was not going to be a municipal landfill that would accept household waste and other debris. Lape added that the landfill would meet a principal need in the parishs long-term Solid Waste Management Implementation Plan, a document that was prepared for the parish a number of years ago.

Lape also introduced Zia Tammami, a Baton Rouge environmental consultant who is working with the developers and has been involved in a number of similar projects elsewhere in the state.

Tammami described the permitting process overseen by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, focusing on the safeguards that would be required in the construction and operation of the facility to ensure that it met all regulations and posed no environmental or other threats to the surrounding area.

Lape and Tammamis presentation took just 30 minutes, but for the next two hours, a steady line of speakers protested the development, and no matter how the two responded the audience sided with the speakers. No one spoke in favor of the project, and many opponents said they fear it could damage the local environment.

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Environmental activist Margie Vicknair-Pray noted that the headwaters of Bayou Lacombe are less than a mile away from the site, and questioned whether safeguards would protect the bayou over the long term.

Others expressed similar concerns, including Lacombe resident Lindsey Capdepon, who said her family had moved to St. Tammany from Harahan to eliminate their exposure to the controversial River Birch Landfill in Waggaman.

Lacombe resident Joan Bailey summed up the environmental concerns, saying, Theres no price you can put on the quality of our water.

Other complaints questioned how well the facility would be managed. Davis said that the operation would be contracted out to a highly qualified company, and Tammami described DEQs enforcement mechanisms. But Vicknair-Pray and others said DEQ was understaffed and did not have a good track record of enforcing its regulations.

Still other speakers said it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the operator to ensure that every truckload of debris consisted only of allowed materials, and complained about offensive odors and dangerous gasses that might emanate from the facility as a result.

Opponents got the support of two public officials.

Rykert Toledano, one of six St. Tammany Parish Council members in attendance, said the parishs current disposal needs are being met by the waste transfer stations that are already in operation and said, I think most people in St. Tammany Parish feel exactly the way I do. Id rather not have any landfills in St. Tammany Parish. How do we determine that your service is not a duplication of a service that is already provided?

Zoning Commissioner Nelwyn McInnis, who is a conservation biologist, said, This is highly environmentally related, and I find it extremely difficult to vote on a zoning change with so little environmental information on the site. So I would ask, before you come to our commission, that you give us more information because I, for one, will find it very difficult to believe that this is a suitable location without that.

The zoning commission is scheduled to hold a formal public hearing and vote on the request at its Sept. 1 meeting, which will be held at 6 p.m. in the Parish Council chambers on Koop Drive.
CAMP TAJI, Iraq: United States-led international coalition troops withdrew from Iraqs Taji military base on Sunday and handed it over to Iraqi security forces, Reuters witnesses and the coalition said.

The base, 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad, had been the site of frequent rocket attacks by Iran-backed militias targeting U.S.-led troops in recent months.

The movement of coalition military personnel is part of a long-range plan coordinated with the government of Iraq," the coalition said in a statement, adding that Camp Taji has historically held up to 2,000 coalition members, most of whom have departed this summer.

Remaining coalition troops will depart in the coming days after finalising the handing over of equipment to Iraqi security forces, it added.

This was the eighth transfer of a coalition portion of an Iraqi base back to Iraqi forces, it said.

The withdrawal came days after U.S. President Donald Trump redoubled his promise to withdraw the few U.S. troops still in the country. The United States has had about 5,000 troops stationed in the country and coalition allies a further 2,500.

Iraqs parliament had voted this year for the departure of foreign troops from Iraq and U.S. and other coalition troops have been leaving as part of a drawdown.

The vote came after a U.S. air strike on Baghdad airport killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

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
A Goldman Sachs office in the New York Stock Exchange. / AP-Yonhap



By Park Jae-hyuk



Questions are growing among investors here over the possible "hidden intention" of Goldman Sachs' recent downgrading of Samsung Life Insurance to "Sell" from "Neutral," according to industry officials, Sunday.



The leading U.S. investment bank changed its stance "surprisingly" on the Korean life insurance company last week, claiming the 30 percent rise in its stock price over the past two weeks was immoderate.



Samsung Life shares soared in mid-June after Rep. Park Yong-jin and Rep. Lee Yong-woo, both lawmakers of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), proposed revisions to the Insurance Business Act. At the time, investors anticipated increased dividends thanks to the revision bill that demands the insurer sell its Samsung Electronics stocks worth 20 trillion won ($16 billion).



But Goldman analysts were skeptical about Samsung Life increasing its dividends after selling off its Samsung Electronics stocks, local media reports said.



According to the report, the investment bank's target price on the life insurer was 54,000 won, far below the consensus among domestic brokerages, 76,100 won. Most Korean securities firms raised their target prices on Samsung Life this month.



A day after publication of the Goldman report, Samsung Life shares, which had surpassed 70,000 won on Aug. 13, fell below 60,000 won at the end of this week.



In most cases, foreign multinational banks issuing negative reports on listed firms in Korea have been considered to be aimed at short selling, which bets on a drop in a company's stock price. Goldman's previous report on Helixmith was a good example, drawing a severe backlash from the biopharmaceutical company and its investors.



Those who have heard of the close relations between Goldman and Samsung, however, speculated that there could be a different purpose behind the investment bank's abrupt change in its outlook for the life insurer.



Along with Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, Goldman was a lead underwriter for the initial public offering (IPO) of Samsung Life in 2010.



Although there was concern over the planned IPO at that time after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed charges against Goldman for allegedly defrauding investors, the banking giant successfully carried out marketing campaigns overseas for its client and eventually attracted around 4 trillion won for its listing on the benchmark KOSPI.



Goldman was a financial adviser to Samsung C&T back in 2015, when Elliott Management interfered with its merger with Cheil Industries. Goldman gave advice directly to Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong for his leadership succession at the conglomerate, according to reports, although Samsung denied this.



Goldman's negative report has somewhat cooled investors' enthusiasm about the revision bill, which could cost Samsung at least 5 trillion won in taxes and which could shake up the conglomerate's governance structure.



Samsung's owner family may also want to keep Samsung Life's stock price low, according to investors.



The life insurer is the owner family's key to controling Samsung Electronics, because they have used their stake in Samsung C&T to control Samsung Life, which controls Samsung Electronics.



Lee has acquired Samsung C&T and Samsung Life shares over the past few years to further tighten his grip on Samsung Electronics. If Samsung Life shares jump more than expected, he could face a setback in his acquisition and inheritance of a 20.76 percent stake in Samsung Life from his ailing father, Chairman Lee Kun-hee.



Foreign banks have emphasized that their "Chinese Walls" strictly bar their research and sales arms from exchanging information with each other. However, a high-ranking executive at a local securities firm, who asked for anonymity, raised doubts whether those walls are really intact, saying foreign firms here are not under as strict supervision by the financial authorities as domestic firms are.




Stakeholders including chiefs and opinion leaders in the Akatsi North District, have expressed their readiness to improve on their position on the teenage pregnancy league table in the Region.



The 2019 and 2018 Ghana Health Service District Ranking of teenage pregnancy put the District in the first position for having the highest rate in the Volta Region making the Region with the highest incidence of teenage pregnancy.

The stakeholders at a days advocacy forum on prevention and reduction of teenage pregnancy/child marriage at Ave-Havi said that tag was becoming embarrassing to the district, thus, the need for concerted efforts to reduce the incidence.



The forum organised by the Department of Gender (DoG), Volta Region with funding support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the third of its kind in Akatsi North, brought together traditional leaders, assembly members, group leaders and heads of departments.



Dr Prince Amuzu Sodoke, District Chief Executive for Akatsi North, said the District was performing well in other areas, but when it came to reproductive health, it performed poorly and noted that the assembly would together with key stakeholders, tackle the issue holistically.



This teenage pregnancy is affecting our performance. Local Government Service assessment of districts performance ranked our district the first in the Region but fourth in the country, due to this issue.



The Assembly and other organisations have made efforts at raising awareness and educating communities, but theres not much change. We will need to consider a lot of things including the bordering nature of the District to effectively address the problem.



Madam Augustina Aku Modzakah, the District Girl Child Education Officer, said before the COVID-19 pandemic, schools were doing their bit to support the fight against teenage pregnancy/child marriage through career conference celebrations.



She said the concept termed Operation Protect My Dream which involved Parents Teachers Association (PTA) meetings and pupils dressing in their desired future profession al attires, aimed to challenge the children, their parents and the communities to play key roles to keep children particularly girls in school to realise their dreams.



Mr Israel Aklorbortu, Volta Regional Director, Department of Children, urged all to be advocates for rights of children/teenagers in society, saying these were difficult times requiring the support for children so they could grow up into important citizens in future.



He underscored the need for communities to watch out for threats such as peer pressure, substance abuse, social media, child trafficking, poverty and poor parenting, so they did not ruin the lives of children but rather guard them with the right information needed on their education and sexual reproductive health so as to make the right decisions in life.



Madam Lena Alai, Volta Regional Director, DoG, called on the chiefs and people of Akatsi North to do their very best to mitigate the increasing rate of teenage girls becoming pregnant, because at the end, that cycle would get intensified where children of these teenage mothers would take after their mothers and then the District would ultimately suffer as citizens would not be in position to contribute to its development in future.

Source: GNA









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Protesters filled the streets of Minsk, Belarus, on Sunday, August 23, for the 15th consecutive day of demonstrations over the countrys presidential election results, according to local media reports.

Anti-government protests ignited after it was announced on August 9 that President Alexander Lukashenko was re-elected for a sixth term. He has been in power since 1994.

The main opposition candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, claimed the vote was rigged.

This video posted on Sunday shows a crowd of protesters marching through Minsk. Vladislav Davidzon, who filmed the video, said demonstrators were chanting tribunal, tribunal, tribunal!

Local media said a crowd gathered near the Minsk Hero City Stele on Sunday, with protesters getting closer and closer to the security forces. Authorities were calling for demonstrators to disperse, according to reports. Credit: Vladislav Davidzon via Storyful
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says that, if he were in Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenkas place, he would call fresh elections in one month with international observers present.



"Let's imagine that I am confident about myself, I am confident in the peoples vote, that I am a confident person. How can I calm everyone down?" Zelenskiy said.



"I would definitely say: In one month there will be a new vote. And I am running for the new election. Whoever wants to run -- go ahead!'"



He added that he would invite in "all international observers."



Euronews released excerpts of the interview on August 23 ahead of the broadcast of the full interview on August 25.



The Ukrainian leader's remarks came after the European Union and other Western countries said they did not recognize the result of an August 9 presidential election giving Lukashenka 80 percent of the vote.



Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the main opposition candidate, has claimed that she was the true winner. She has since departed for Lithuania, saying she fears for her safety, amid mass protests in Minsk and other cities.



Zelenskiy said any candidate should be allowed to run in a repeat election.



"Id tell the people of Belarus: 'Please, elect whoever you want,'" he said. "And after that result, there would be no more questions. I'm convinced about it."



It would be a way to avoid bloodshed, he said and would "be fair and would make history."

Based on reporting by Euronews
MILWAUKEEThe largest street demonstration of last weeks Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee was shouted down, for a while, by a handful of pro-Trump men shouting insults through a bigger loudspeaker and carrying an assault rifle  a microcosm of how politics across the U.S. often seems to play out these days.

This was in Red Arrow Park last Thursday  the demonstrators prefer to call it Dontre Hamilton Park, in honour of a young, mentally ill Black man who was shot dead by a police officer there in 2014. An organizer with the Coalition to March on the DNC told me that the groups message originally focused on defeating Donald Trump while holding the Democratic Partys feet to the fire on a list of key issues  climate change, immigration and economic inequality, among others  but had decided after George Floyds death to focus on racial justice in policing.

As the marchers gathered in the park, they carried banners bearing the names and faces of Wisconsin residents who had been killed by police: Alvin Cole, Jonathan Tubby, Joel Acevedo, Isaiah Tucker. The families of these men gathered in front the press and about a hundred early-arriving demonstrators to tell the stories of their lost sons.

Just as the first of them began to speak  no amplification had been set up, they were just using their voices  a loud shouting came from a booming megaphone across the park.

What are you going to do when President Trump wins again? If you hate America, you should leave it! The voice was coming from the opposite edge of a park, across a closed-for-the-season skating rink, where six men carrying anti-abortion and homophobic signs stood. Youre a bunch of atheists, homos, lesbians! the man shouted.

He was loud enough that you could not hear the voices of the family members speaking just a dozen feet away. Jose Acevedo appeared to be near tears talking about the pain of his sons death this spring. The loud pro-Trump voice was shouting about Black on Black crime and how abortion kills more Black Americans than police do. He was extolling the virtue of Trump and police. He was shouting about Fidel Castro.

This went on as various grieving family members came up to speak. Cassandra Tucker, whose son Isaiah was shot and killed by police in nearby Oshkosh, WI in 2017, raised her voice to be heard. I loved my son, so yes Im asking for justice. And if you watched footage of your child dying, you would ask for justice too.

Eventually a handful of the demonstrators went over to confront the pro-Trump group. A Black woman in a long, patterned blue, yellow, and red dress took a megaphone to shout back at them.

Youre a Jezebel! A Jezebel! Get away from me, Jezebel! Read the bible and repent! the pro-Trump guy shouted again and again, as she shouted at him from inches away to leave. An older man in combat clothes carrying an assault rifle repeatedly attempted to block the woman from following the man with the megaphone. A few of those from the demonstration attempted to use their own bodies to block the gun-toting guys path. He pushed them away as they shouted in his face.

When police arrived, they ordered the DNC March protesters to go back to the other side of the park. Its big enough for both protests. The officer said openly carrying a gun is legal in Wisconsin.

Shortly afterwards, more police came, including some on horseback. There was a short, ultimately uneventful confrontation between mounted officers and demonstrators. As the afternoon became evening, the demonstrators  now several hundred people  marched peacefully through the streets and past the mostly-empty convention centre that served as convention headquarters.

But the scene in the park seemed to sum up something about American politics right now. An angry minority was able to effectively shout down a grieving majority by being louder and armed. The demonstrators had arrived to air particular policy concerns stemming from their own lives, while the pro-Trump conter-demonstration appeared only intent on disrupting them, and insulting them, and demonizing them.

And when the authorities arrived to adjudicate, they essentially called it even and wound up in a confrontation with the larger group of policy demonstrators.

A similar dynamic played out, more violently, when pro-Trump demonstrators showed up in Portland over the weekend and physically attacked and pepper-sprayed Black Lives Matter protesters  before dispersing and leaving police to clash with the racial justice protesters.

But it plays out on the national stage in the U.S. too, more broadly. Americans often appear not to be having the same argument. One side is merely trying to shout the other down, and the rules often help them. This plays out in how Trump floods the zone with dishonest, demonizing claims about his electoral opponents. In how the electoral college system has allowed the Republicans to win three of the past five presidential elections, though Democrats got the most votes in four of those. In how keeping people from voting, especially some of those in cities, has become virtually an open strategy for one party.

How do you have a political debate in an environment like that? In Milwaukee, the larger, quieter group of demonstrators just waited it out and marched on, well into the night, chanting at a mostly empty convention hall, and their neighbours, vocally critical of Democrats but afraid of Trump.
By Associated Press

LAHORE: The Pakistan government has declared former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, currently in London for treatment, an "absconder" and approached the UK government for his extradition.

Adviser to the Prime Minster on Accountability and Interior Shahzad Akbar said that Sharif's four-week bail on medical grounds expired in December last year.

"The government is treating him (Sharif) as an absconder and has already sent a request to the British government to extradite him," Akbar was quoted as saying by the Dawn News on Saturday.

Sharif, who was sentenced in a graft case by an accountability court, informed a court in Lahore last month that he is unable to return to the country as his doctors have told him not to go out due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Sharif submitted his medical report to the Lahore High Court (LHC) through his counsel and said doctors have recommended him to avoid going outside due to the coronavirus as he has low platelet counts, diabetes, heart, kidney and blood pressure related problems.

Akbar said the government would request the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to pursue Sharif's extradition as well and it was also looking into legalities of guarantees of Shahbaz Sharif, who was supposed to escort his elder brother back to Pakistan after his medical treatment.

His comments came after a new picture was shared on social media which shows Sharif walking on the streets of London with his son, Hassan Nawaz holding an umbrella.

"His stroll on London roads is a slap in the face of the judiciary and the government cannot allow this. There is nothing personal in it: we are only trying to implement the law and fulfil its requirements," the adviser was quoted as saying.

The 70-year-old three-time premier is currently in London for treatment after he was diagnosed with an immune system disorder.

He left for the UK in November last year after the Lahore High Court granted him four-week permission to go abroad for treatment.

Akbar alleged that ex-premier submitted fake lab reports The adviser said that on October 29 last year the court granted Sharif eight-week bail for treatment within Pakistan and on November 16, he got a four-week permission to travel abroad for treatment.

He said that the former prime minister was supposed to keep the court and the Punjab government updated about his treatment by sharing the details of the process of his treatment and test reports which he did not do.

He said that Sharif applied to the Punjab government for bail extension on February 19.

"A medical board was constituted which sought details of medical procedures being done and test reports of Sharif, but nothing was shared," he said.

He said that the law ministry, NAB and the prison department were informed about the bail expiry and rejection of its extension when the medical board got nothing as evidence document.

He said the UK government was also informed about the development on March 2 with a request for his extradition.

Commenting on recent pictures of Sharif, Akbar said that the former premier looked perfectly fine in the pictures being shared by his sons, the daily reported.

His daughter Maryam Nawaz had said her father was a high-risk patient therefore his cardiac catheterisation/coronary intervention had been postponed owing to COVID-19.
News

Miami, Florida - Cooperation efforts between United States and Turks and Caicos Islands law enforcement authorities culminated in Wednesdays extradition to the United States of a Canadian national who has been charged with alien smuggling offenses.

Sri Kajamukam Chelliah, aka Mohan, 55, is charged in a criminal complaint, unsealed today in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, with conspiracy to bring aliens to the United States and to encourage and induce aliens to come to, enter, or reside in the United States for commercial advantage and private financial gain, and attempting to bring aliens to the United States for commercial advantage and private financial gain.

The defendant allegedly facilitated a smuggling operation by attempting to transport aliens through various countries, including the United States, for financial gain, said Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the Justice Departments Criminal Division. This case demonstrates the departments commitment to working with our foreign law enforcement partners to prosecute human smugglers who seek to thwart our system of legal immigration, jeopardize our national security, and risk the lives of people who face the dangers of maritime smuggling.

Human smugglers not only violate our countrys immigration laws and threaten our national security, they also put in jeopardy the very lives of the people they transport, said U.S. Attorney Ariana Fajardo Orshan for the Southern District of Florida. Alongside its local, national, and foreign partners, my office is firmly committed to prosecuting members of international criminal organizations and others who try to profit from this callous activity.

Transnational Criminal Organizations use human smuggling as a means for profit while at the same time threatening the security of the United States said Special Agent in Charge Anthony Salisbury of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Miami. HSI will continue to work with our international law enforcement partners to target criminal organizations who conspire to undermine our nations laws for their own profit.

According to the complaint, Chelliah is alleged to have attempted to facilitate the travel of aliens from Sri Lanka through Haiti, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the Bahamas to the United States from on or about July 1, 2019 to Oct. 10, 2019. On Oct. 10, 2019, Turks and Caicos Island authorities interdicted a Haitian sloop sailboat carrying Chelliah and 154 aliens, including 28 Sri Lankan nationals. Chelliah was arrested on local immigration charges and later sentenced. Following the completion of his prison sentence, he was placed in immigration detention in Turks and Caicos. U.S. law enforcement determined Chelliah and others allegedly made arrangements to smuggle numerous Sri Lankan aliens to Canada through the United States for monetary payments.

Chelliah was arrested on July 28, 2020, by Turks and Caicos authorities, based on a provisional arrest request submitted by the United States. He consented to extradition and, on Aug. 15, 2020, the Governor of Turks and Caicos issued an order allowing the extradition to the United States.

This case is being investigated by HSI Miami, with assistance from the HSI Human Smuggling Unit and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The investigation is being conducted under the Extraterritorial Criminal Travel Strike Force (ECT) program, a joint partnership between the Justice Departments Criminal Division and HSI. The ECT program focuses on human smuggling networks that may present particular national security or public safety risks, or present grave humanitarian concerns. ECT has dedicated investigative, intelligence and prosecutorial resources. ECT coordinates and receives assistance from other U.S. government agencies and foreign law enforcement authorities.

The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Rami S. Badawy and John Alex-Romano of the Criminal Divisions Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (HRSP), and Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Dobbins of the Southern District of Florida. HRSP Trial Attorney Jim Hepburn provided substantial assistance during the investigation. The Justice Departments Office of International Affairs provided significant assistance in the investigation and in securing the defendants extradition to the United States. The Department of Justice gratefully acknowledges the government of Turks and Caicos Islands for their valuable assistance.

The charges contained in the Chelliah complaint are merely allegations and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Tara O'Neill / Hearst Connecticut Media

BRIDGEPORT  Police are investigating after shots were reported in the East End neighborhood early Sunday, and one person arrived at the hospital with a gunshot wound.

Authorities were called to Fifth Street at 2:23 a.m. after the citys ShotSpotter system registered gunfire.
Lt. Col. Thomas Rosser Cochran Jr. of Friends Home will turn 100 on Tuesday, Aug. 25.

The Virginia native was married to Joan Hunt for 70 years until her death in 2015, and he has four daughters.

Cochran was a lieutenant colonel of the 15th Air Force Division in World War II and flew 50 combat missions in a B-17 Flying Fortress out of Italy.

After active duty he trained pilots in Florida on B-29s.

He received five Bronze Stars and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Cochran joined Rotary International Club in 1950 and in June 2018, the perfect attendance award was officially named the Tom Cochran Perfect Attendance Award. At that time, Cochran had attended the Rotary Club of Greensboro for 68 years with perfect attendance.

He was the founder and president of Cochran Restaurant Equipment from 1947-81.

He organized and served as the first president of the N.C. Food Service Equipment Dealers Association, was a local director of Bank of North Carolina, is a member of Saint Andrews Episcopal Church and volunteered for several organizations in his younger years.
In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke about a committee deliberating on the minimum age of marriage for women. We have formed a committee to ensure that the daughters are no longer suffering from malnutrition and they are married off at the right age. As soon as the report is submitted, appropriate decisions will be taken about the age of marriage of daughters, he said.

The PM was likely referring to a task force set up by a central government notification issued on June 4. The terms of reference of the task force require it to examine the correlation of health indicators such as infant and maternal mortality rates and nutrition with the age of marriage and motherhood. It has also been asked to suggest measures for promoting higher education among women. An HT analysis shows that motherhood increases the chances of nutrition-related deficiencies. However, marriage also has a deeper cultural and economic impact on the lives of women. The norms of marriage seem to matter more than the legal age of marriage for these effects. Marriage restricts women from seeking skilled employment and education way beyond the minimum age of marriage, and also affects their mobility.

The minimum age of marriage for men and women in India is 21 and 18 years, respectively. According to the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS) conducted in 2015-16, 58.8% of 20-49-year-old women were married by the age of 20, below the minimum age of marriage for men. The survey also shows that motherhood has an impact on the nutritional status of women. Fifty-eight percent breastfeeding women and 50% pregnant women were anaemic compared to 52% women who were neither pregnant nor breastfeeding. This suggests that while nutritional status improves slightly during pregnancy, it actually becomes worse during childcare.

Also read: 1 in every 5 girls in UP is a child bride

However, malnutrition among Indian women is generally high. In the reproductive age group (15-49 years), 22.9% of Indian women are underweight (those with body mass index less than 18.5) compared to 20.2% men; and 53.1% women are anaemic compared to 22.7% men. Indian women are also worse off than their peers globally. According to the 2020 The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released earlier this year, the share of reproductive age women in India who were anaemic was 51.4% in 2016. The share was 39.9% for Bangladesh, 48.7% for Southern Asia (including India), and 43% for lower-middle-income countries (including India). According to the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) conducted in countries across the world, the share of women who are underweight is also higher in India and decreasing slowly. In 1998-99, the share of such women was 36.3% in India, much lower than in Bangladesh at the time (45.4%). This share dropped to 18.6% in Bangladesh in 2014, but was at 22.9% in India in 2015-16.

These statistics highlight the urgent need for addressing womens nutrition in India. The focus of such an effort has to be on younger women, as they suffer more from malnutrition. The share of anaemic women was 54.1% among 15-19 year old women and about a percentage point lower in each subsequent 10-year age group, according to the latest NFHS. The share of underweight women was 41.9% in the 15-19 age group and 25% or lower in the subsequent 10-year age groups.

Addressing malnutrition among women will need the government to spend money, as it is the poorest women who suffer the most from malnutrition. Women from the bottom 20% households were three times as likely to be underweight as those from the top 20% and 1.2 times more likely to be anaemic, according to the latest NFHS. However, budgetary allocation under the biggest nutrition scheme of the government  the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS)  whose beneficiaries are children in the 0-6 age group, pregnant, and lactating women has been falling as a share of total budget expenditure. The amount of expenditure under the Anganwadi Scheme (or core ICDS) has also declined in real terms compared to 2014-15. In 2019-20; the real expenditure under the scheme was 86% of the amount in 2014-15. Some of this gap has been filled by more money being pumped into a maternity benefit programme from 2017-18. However, accounting for this too only brings the 2019-20 real expenditure under nutrition-related schemes of the umbrella ICDS to the 2014-15 levels. The real expenditure under these schemes for 2020-21 cannot be calculated because annual Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures for this fiscal year will be available only at the end of it.

The minimum age of marriage may have an impact on women to the extent that motherhood affects their nutritional status. The task forces findings on this aspect will be useful. However, marriage also has an adverse cultural and economic impact on the lives of women that has little to do with the minimum age of marriage. For instance, contrary to popular belief, in the 15-17 and 18-20 age groups, married women are more likely to participate in the labour force -- number of people who are either working or looking for work -- than unmarried women, according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) conducted in 2018-19. It is in the older age groups that unmarried women are more likely than married women to participate in the labour force.

To be sure, this doesnt mean that it is good for younger women to be married just because marriage is positively correlated with labour force participation in those age groups. Experts say that participating in the labour force at an early age implies that the work is going to be of unskilled or semi-skilled nature. It is possibly because married women primarily do unskilled and semi-skilled work that the labour force participation rate (LFPR) is higher among married women in younger age groups. These statistics, therefore, highlight a more urgent need to address the norms surrounding marriage than the minimum age for marriage.

The real question is about decoupling marriage norms from entering the labour force, said Neelanjan Sircar, assistant professor, Ashoka University, and visiting senior fellow, Centre for Policy Research. What we do know is that as women get married, there is a consequence in terms of what is expected of them at home. So, the big challenge that we have is women are restricted in how far they are able to go from their home and the hours for which they are able stay out of home. So agricultural labour is fine, but being in a full-time job an hour away is difficult, he added.

In an article published in this newspaper in September 2018, Jayati Ghosh, professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University had highlighted one of these aspects. The article argued that if a womens unpaid domestic work is recognized, the share of workers among women is higher than among men. The PLFS data shows that marriage is to blame for pushing women into domestic work.

Marriage doesnt prevent younger women from seeking unskilled work, but it does affect their prospects of pursuing education. Ninety-five percent married women (including those who were widowed, separated or divorced at the time of the survey) in the 18-20 age group, for instance, were engaged in some kind of domestic work if they were not looking for work, according to the PLFS conducted in 2018-19. In the same age group, only a third of those who were never married were engaged in domestic work if not looking for work. The remaining two-thirds women were studying. To be sure, even among unmarried women, the share of those doing domestic work increases with age. This comes closer to the share among married women in higher age groups.

The 2015-16 NFHS report further shows that trends in education and employment are influenced by cultural norms around marriage. A quarter of men, for instance, said decisions about visits to wifes family or relatives are made mainly by the husband, compared to 7% who said the decision is mainly made by the wife. 16% men similarly said husbands are justified in beating their wife if they go out without telling him. This sentiment was also shared by 26% women respondents.

Ghosh said the governments move addresses a side issue rather than the actual needs of women. It just involves another law and creating a criminality where there is none. What we need to do for women is very well known. We need to make sure they get adequate nutrition; we need to make sure they get through the 12 years of schooling; and we need to make sure that marriage is not made the only important thing in a womans life. This, of course, would involve much more work on the part of the government, she said.
Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has been under house arrest since 2011 as one of the leaders of Iran's proreform Green Movement was Iran's Prime Minister between 1981 and 1989.

One can still remember young men and women protesters who were executed in Iran during the 1980s without even establishing their identity. Their pictures appeared in newspapers on the day after the execution so that their families could identify them and take delivery of the corpses for burial.

It might sound unbelievable that thousands were blindly executed, or if they were lucky enough their belongings were confiscated before they were fired from their workplace or school. Others received lashes for listening to music or playing chess.

The years 1981-1989 when Mousavi was the Prime Minister mark one of the darkest periods in man's history as far as violation of human rights is concerned. Documents released by the UNand human rights watchdog show that Mousavi and the offices he controlled ignored the international community and human rights organizations in the same waythat the Islamic Republic does today. Not only individuals and offices working under Mousavi as Prime Minister did not protest what was going on, but they did their best to conceal the violation of human rights in Iran.

In a 2010 interview, Mousavi described the execution of political prisoners in Iran in 1988 as "criminal" and "ugly." This showed a change in his behavior. But what causes sensitivity among his critics is that he does not acknowledge his administration's responsibility for covering up the violation of human rights and for whitewashing the behavior of Islamic Republic officials, particularly Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeyni who ordered the massacre in Iranian prisons.

Mousavi said: "Neither I, nor anyone else among the heads of the branches of government at that time knew about the executions. At a meeting I had with them at the time, none of them approved of such an act. I remember that Mr. Khamenei said at the same meeting that this event will tarnish the face of the regime as if you have poured tar on it."

This comes while Khamenei had said in an interview with Resalat daily in 1988 that political prisoners "deserved" execution. He defended the murders. Meanwhile, then Majles Speaker Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Judiciary Chief Abdolkarim Mousavi Ardabili also defended the executions in January 1989. At the same time, Prosecutor General Mohammad Mousavi Khoiniha said "We are not afraid of the rising number of executions."

In the 2010 interview, in an attempt to clear Khomeyni of the charges, Mousavi said in an unbelievable statement that Khomeyni had notordered the mass execution. He said: "They used Imam Khomeyni's name as an excuse. One of the gentlemen in the board that issued the death sentences believedthat oppositionists should be eliminated. Such individuals joined hands with the man in charge ofthe Evin Prison and started a series of executions that did not serve the regime's interests and were stopped as soon as the officials found out about them."

This contradicts the decree issued by Khomeyni which stated "As the hypocrites do not believe in Islam, those prisoners who insist on their hypocrisy are fighting Allah and should be sentenced to death."

Asked if the decree was about those already sentenced to death or about other prisoners who insist on their position, Khomeyni said: "In all cases anyone insisting on his or her hypocrisy should be executed quickly."

Documents and survivors' reports indicate that the executions started in the summer of 1988 and continued until the next winter and at least 5,000 members or sympathizers of Mojahedin-e Khalq organization, leftist prisoners and members of other parties were killed.

According to former President Rafsanjani, at a September 1998 meeting attended by Mousavi among other officials, which took place after executing some 4,000 prisoners, it was said that Khomeyni had delegated decision making about further executions to those present at that meeting. This shows that not only Mousavi, but all other top officials of the regime knew about the executions.

Speaking about that meeting, Mousavi has said: "At that time, I was committed to defend the totality of the regime as its Prime Minister."He also said in many other occasions that he has kept silent about the massacre.

Keeping silent and not showing interest in speaking about the victims of what Mousavi himself described as crime, as well as fabricating history and undermining Khomeyni's role and the responsibility of other state officials does not relieve Mousavi of his responsibility as the country's Prime Minister. Meanwhile, his mild criticism of his former colleagues is nothing more than nagging. The first conditions indicative of a protest is acknowledging responsibility and trying to make up for the past.

The opinions expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the views of Radio Farda.
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Ethiopia arrested thousands of protesters, opposition members, and journalists during July's sectarian unrest. Health workers and local officials say some of those detained have contracted COVID-19 and are concerned the virus is spreading in overcrowded prisons and makeshift detention centers.
Young women working in a state government department in the city on August 18, 1972. Credit:Stuart William MacGladrie

The report was prepared by the staff of the Royal Commission inquiring into the Australian Public Service.

Canberra, Sunday. - It might be desirable to appoint Minister for Women's Affairs to give women a voice in Federal Cabinet, according to an official report published today.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald on August 25, 1975

"I would certainly not like anyone to think I am against women ministers": Senator Ruth Coleman in 1974. Credit:Staff photographer

It also backs the Federal Attorney-General, Mr Enderby, in his plan to outlaw sex discrimination in the Federal territories and the Public Service.

The report says women in the Commonwealth Public Service are victims of subtle and complex discrimination, and generally end up doing menial work.

But these views were immediately rejected by Senator Ruth Coleman (ALP, WA), who said: "I would certainly not agree that we need a minister."

Discrimination affected both sexes and should not be separated, she said. Periodically, a boy whose only ambition was to be a chef would find himself excluded from home science classes.
Nokia launched the C3 as a 5.99-inch HD+ display phone with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage in China recently. It also runs Android 10 with an octa-core processor, and costs about US$101. A new leak suggests this budget phone is also headed to India soon.

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HMD Global is currently taking pre-orders for the Nokia C3 in China. This phone certainly packs the specs to match its economical appeal, with a 5.99-inch display and 3GB RAM. The new phone also has just 32GB of internal storage, although there is support for microSD cards of up to 128GB in size.

The C3 has just 1 8MP primary shooter, set into its rear "environmentally friendly" polycarbonate rear panel. However, Nokia China asserts that it "focuses on quality", with HDR, FHD video and auto-focus. Similarly, the selfie camera - found in a traditional forehead balanced out by a chin and big old bezels around the screen - is 5MP.

The phone has Android 10 out of the box, at least, powered by a 1.6GHz octa-core processor. This SoC, while touted by Nokia as "high-performance", does not get a name or model number on its official specs page. It also has the brand's Xpress hardware button that can be mapped to a variety of desired settings or functions.

According to NokiaPowerUser, this new C-series variant is also destined for an Indian launch. The blog claims to have snapped a poster allegedly directed at this market. The teaser also promotes one year's worth of replacement cover. Therefore, the Nokia C3 may be a welcome addition to the tier corresponding to its price, which is currently set at 699 yuan (US$101/INR 7572).
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Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala denied reports that Sonia Gandhi has resigned as party president.

Reports of Sonia Gandhi resigning from the post of Congress interim president are false, news agency ANI quoted Surjewala as saying on Sunday.

The Congress is facing a leadership crisis after a letter from 23 leaders of the party asked for a complete overhaul of the organisation. These leaders include former chief ministers, some Members of Parliament and members of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the partys highest decision-making body.

In the letter written earlier this month, these leaders suggested changes from top to bottom; the most controversial has been the suggestion about leadership change. The leaders said the Congress has been on the decline for the last six years but has not learned its lesson.

Responding to the letter, Sonia Gandhi said that all of them should get together and find a new chief as she does not want to carry out the responsibilities any further, people familiar with the development said.

In her response, Gandhi has told them that she was not interested in leading the party once again when the CWC on August 10 requested her to assume the reins of the organisation again, a senior functionary said on condition of anonymity.

Sonia had assumed the charge of Congress president last year.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) speaking with attendees at the 2015 Iowa Growth & Opportunity Party at the Varied Industries Building at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, Iowa, on Oct. 31, 2015. (Gage Skidmore/[CC BY-SA-2.0 (ept.ms/2utDIe9)])

Declassified FBI Documents Show Double Standard for Trump, Clinton Campaigns: Graham

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters on Aug. 23 that he believes the FBI sought to give former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton an advantage over then-candidate Donald Trump before it could pursue a FISA warrant against individuals who were working for Trump.

The FBI did the right thing by briefing Clinton and failed to do the right thing by never specifically briefing President Trump about their concerns, Graham said in an Aug. 23 statement. He noted that the federal law enforcement agency declassified documents in recent days that demonstrated a clear double standard to benefit Clinton and harm Trump.

The declassified documents, his office said, showed that the FBIs leadership in 2015 sought to give the Clinton campaign a defensive briefing before an FBI field office could pursue a FISA warrant related to a threat posed to the Clinton campaign by a foreign government.

But a year later, when there was a similar threat to Trumps campaign, the FBI didnt provide him with a defensive briefing and instead opened the now much-derided Crossfire Hurricane investigation to pursue FISA, or Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, warrants against Trump.

When it came to the Trump campaign, there were four counterintelligence investigations opened against Trump campaign associates. Not one time was President Trump defensively briefed about the FBIs concerns, Graham stated.

Even more egregious, when the FBI gave a generic briefing to the Trump campaign about foreign influence, not only did they fail to mention the specific concerns about Trump associates, they sent an FBI agent into the briefing to monitor President Trump and General [Michael] Flynn.

Former national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn passes by members of the media as he departs after his sentencing was delayed at U.S. District Court in Washington on Dec. 18, 2018. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

Graham noted in an Aug. 23 interview on Fox News that foreign governments will always attempt to interfere with and influence U.S. elections.

But there were four counterintelligence investigations opened by the FBI against the Trump campaign in 2016, he said.

They never tell him about it so he can fix it.  They never told Trump, Oh, by the way, youve got a Carter Page problem, youve got a George Papadopoulos problem. As a matter of fact, not only did they not tell Trump, they used a generic briefing to spy on Trump.

Moving forward, Graham said better safeguards are needed for candidates to determine whether there are foreign governments trying to interfere with their respective campaigns.

If not, there is a double standard and political bias at play, he said.

I cannot tell you how inappropriate it is to do what they did to Trump. They never told him about the problem, they used the problem as a way to spy on him, he said.

In July, the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center reported that China, Russia, and Iran are attempting to undermine the 2020 election.

However, the agency placed special emphasis on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), saying that Beijing is ramping up its efforts to shape U.S. policy and is pressuring political figures while countering criticism of the regime ahead of the 2020 election and poses a more severe threat to U.S. democracy than Russia or Iran.
- Jowie left many of his fans with a lot of unanswered questions after revealing he was seeing someone and together they have a daughter

- After digging deeper, it emerged Jowie has been dating a lady identified as Eleanor Musangi Ndambo alias Ella

- The pretty momma who is also a model doubles up as Jowie's manager

Having a pretty and smart lady that one can run to for support in their times of need is every man's desire.

Joseph Irungu alias Jowie can clearly narrate the feeling of coming home to someone who appreciates you with all your flaws.

READ ALSO: Jowie shows off cute daughter in his new song Nishikilie

1. In an interview with Jalang'o on Thursday, August 20, Jowie left many of his fans with a lot of unanswered questions after revealing he was seeing someone else.

READ ALSO: Federico Bernardeschi: Chelsea plot summer move for Juventus star

2. He just said her name was Ella but online detectives dug deeper to find the woman who has been warming his bed.

READ ALSO: Jowie amtambulisha bintiye kwa umma, afichua ako na mke

3. Eleanor Musangi Ndamo alias Ella who is the ex-remendeed's lover is not just a pretty lady but a hard-working woman.

4. The pretty lady is also a model who was once signed under SuraZuri Modelling casting agency.

READ ALSO: Jowie Irungu: Kenyans in awe of ex-prisoner's voice after release of gospel song Nishikilie

5. Whoever said that behind every successful man there is a woman was never wrong. Despite being Jowie's lover and baby mama, Ella is also his manager.

6. The beauty brags of being a mom to a pretty angel who was featured in Jowie's latest song Nishikilie.

READ ALSO: Lilian Muli lights up internet with cute dance video rocking cute little black dress

7. Earlier on in 2018, Jowie proposed to media personality Jacque Maribe in a private affair that was only attended by their close friends.

It is in the same year that the two were charged with the murder of businesswoman Monica Kimani that saw Jowie remain in prison for two years.

8. During the interview with Jalang'o, the father of one said he and Maribe broke up while he was still in police custody and they are no longer in touch.

READ ALSO: Woman who gave stranger KSh 3k that she only had rewarded with KSh 21k for kind gesture

9. A few days ago, Jowie lit up the internet with a perfect song Nishikilie. Netizens were wowed by his singing and a majority flocked social media to congratulate him for the great milestone.

Eleanor Musangi Ndambo is Jowie's baby mama and also doubles up as his manager. Photo: Ella.

Source: Instagram

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Kenya's county where young girls are sold to men for sex in exchange for maize and beans | Tuko TV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 10:37:21|Editor: huaxia

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CANBERRA, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- How do rockets fly? How to make elephant's toothpaste? Why do bubbles pop? The National Science Week in Australia could give you answers to these questions.

Running from Aug. 15 to 23, it features over 30 different local events in Australian Capital Territory (ACT). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the events are held online.

"There are events for all ages and interests including at home science pub trivia, an online film screening, making rockets at home and hearing awe inspiring stories from local STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) role models," says ACT National Science Week Committee co-chair Michelle Kothe.

Project coordinator Jillian Matthews told Xinhua that the National Science Week happens every year in August around the country.

"It is a chance for everyone to engage with science community so that they could meet local scientists and take part in a lot of activities," she said.

This year the National Science Week kicks off with an online workshop on how to improve composting with science, and concludes showcasing the weird and wacky world of the animal kingdom.

"The highlight is the satellite selfie event," said Matthews. "We are actually getting a satellite to fly over the ACT and it is also happening in the Northern Territory as well. It is going to take a photo of everyone in Canberra and the surrounding area where they are."

The satellite comes at set time. "To participate is very easy: just to go outside, we suggest you lie down; wear a color that is very bright against the ground."

To make themselves distinctive, Matthews suggested that people create a big sign, pose with a flag or create big letters with friends and towels.

She noted that due to the COVID-19 pandemic they had to move the events to the online format. "This is to make sure that everyone can participate given the social-distancing requirement," she said.

"That is why the satellite selfie event works so perfectly. You don't need to be at any place. You could just be at your home, go online outside or create a sign at home. It is a bit challenging, but it is giving people a new way to innovate and come up with new ideas."

According to Matthews, lots of schools were pleased to take part in the event, and the photos will be uploaded in early September.

Other participants who posted their photos on social media include the Australian War Memorial, the School of Archaeology and Anthropology in the Australian National University, as well as the Embassy of Italy in Australia.

Individuals were also keen to take part.

"This gives me an opportunity to make my backyard design so much bigger!" commented Kristen Hannan on Facebook.

Mario Rossi shared his own photo of a big R on Facebook.

"As part of the National Science Week, we too wanted to make our contribution to the #SatelliteSelfie in Canberra. The satellite photographed our initial set up outside the home," he wrote.

"It was fantastic to see so many members of the ACT community out and about on Monday beaming a message to the world as part of the Satellite Selfie flyover! " said the notice on the National Science Week Facebook account.

However, due to undesirable weather condition, the satellite was unable to capture the image at other set time.

An additional flyover has been organized for next Tuesday morning, between 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.

"We are encouraging everyone to get back out there with their amazing designs, banners and space faces for a truly 'out of this world' photo," the notice said. Enditem
(Newser)  A political argument on Twitter between actresses Rose McGowan and Alyssa Milano escalated over the weekend until their former Charmed co-stars stepped in to calm things down and assure the show's fans that no one's angry at them. It began when McGowan tweeted Friday that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and party leaders are "monsters" and "frauds," later posting that they have never solved any problems, Yahoo reports. Milano answered Saturday, listing "things the Democratic Party has done to make the world a better place," beginning with adding women's right to vote to the Constitution and ending with legislation making food stamps available to millions of needy people.

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Angry exchanges followed, with McGowan calling Milano a fraud who made the Charmed set toxic and "stole #metoo." When Milano's name started trending, McGowan endorsed making "#AlyssaMilanoIsALie to trend number 1." Milano countered that "your lies are going to hurt people less privileged than you" and "Thousands of people are dying a day but you go on with your hyperbolic attention seeking tweets." Other onetime Charmed co-stars stepped in Saturday. "I think everyone should vote for the future they want," Holly Marie Combs tweeted. Shannen Doherty clarified for viewers following the angry exchanges. "I just want to say.... thank you Charmed fans," Doherty posted. "No matter whats happening just know you are appreciated and loved." (Alyssa Milano discussed the toll of COVID-19.)
A look at how the indie scene captures the essence of post rock and tries to describe it, as a community for the sub-genre slowly grows in India.

Bangalore, 2005. Members of the band Lounge Piranha met twice a week. They spent hours jamming, letting their minds connect, allowing ideas to flow freely, and giving the sound the space to evolve into something intimately original. In looking to then describe their sound, they turned to the internet to research different genres. I came across this thing called post rock, recalls vocalist and guitarist Abhijeet Tambe, and since their "jams were super spacey and post rock-y, they decided to use the sub-genre tag, making Lounge Piranha among the first post rock bands in India.

This was partly fuelled by Tambes interest in bands that had been around earlier and had related sounds, like Sigur Ros, Mogwai, Radiohead, Velvet Underground, and Sonic Youth, among others. But the other reason they decided to use the tag was simply because it was funny. Saying post something is always [considered] a cooler thing than the thing itself, says Tambe.

This decision was in keeping with their overall approach to music, reflecting the one quality that above all else characterised Lounge Piranha: irreverence.

While the local scene at the time was dominated by metal, the band, through their jams, created a sound that pushed purposely in the other direction. Even as people advised them to play songs when they got on stage, Lounge Piranha, as a matter of principle, opened every set with a jam, taking listeners with them as they ventured into unknown territory. It was our way of warming up with each other, speaking to each other and making a connection, before we actually started playing any songs. While most bands took covers seriously, they indulged in parody covers, from performing punk versions of pop icon Britney Spears music to doing metal parody covers, and even picking up viral Kannada songs of the time like Rajkumars If You Come Today. Whatever people loved to do at the time, we used to just take that and destroy that song, says Tambe.

So while they never consciously tried to shape their sound in any way, and one could argue against calling their 2008 album Going Nowhere a post rock record, its their boldness that was in keeping with the ethos of post rock.

The spirit of post rock is essentially subversive, born as it was as a reaction to a certain established homogeneity.

In the mid-90s, British music critic Simon Reynolds noticed an un-imaginativeness setting into the alternative rock being produced, describing it in a 1994 article in The Wire as the musical equivalent of reproduction antiques.

But, in as much as the dreary and repetitive is constantly challenged by the fresh and innovative, he noticed the emergence of new groups. Subverting the established practices and sounds of the time, these groups sounds ranged from electronic to ambient and art rock to avant rock, leading Reynolds to describe them as venturing into a more financially precarious, but aesthetically vital hinterland-without-a-name. So Reynolds gave them the name post rock, a term he thought open ended yet precise enough to cover all this activity.

(Although Reynolds is widely credited with bringing the term into public consciousness by using it in another 1994 article to describe English group Bark Psychosis album Hex, he did not coin the term. For more about its etymology, see Reynolds 2005 blog post about how, by the mid-90s, the term had already been floating around for over a decade.)

Its this open-endedness that allowed the term to spread, eventually offering itself to a band in Bengaluru almost a decade later.

And although Lounge Piranha disbanded in 2011, through their irreverence, they had breathed fresh life into an almost homogenous local scene. By challenging established practices and sounds, they were inspiring younger musicians to explore and experiment with music, and were introducing alternate ideas about the sounds and behaviours that were possible on stage. While neither the band itself nor audiences really knew what post rock was at the time, Tambe recalls that by the time [their] band stopped doing it, [he] started seeing a lot of bands, especially those based out of Bengaluru, [taking up the sub-genre]." "I started seeing a lot more post rock in India after that, he says, as outfits like Eternal Twilight, Until We Last, and Farfetchd took off around that time.

Earthgazing by Until We Last

Even as sporadic activity continued, the big surge for post rock in India came around 2014-16. During those years, several international acts associated with the sub-genre toured India, including Tides From Nebula, Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, and 65daysofstatic. Post rock had started entering the collective consciousness of the scene, as a sub-genre worthy of ones attention. It was in this electric atmosphere that aswekeepsearching (AWKS), arguably the biggest post rock band in the country today, released their EP Growing Suspicious in 2014, and debut album Khwaab in 2015. I remember in 2015, there were somewhere close to 11-12 active post rock bands, recalls AWKS guitarist and vocalist Uddipan Sarmah.

With increasing activity came the need to really understand the term.

Reynolds had, of course, offered a definition when introducing the term in 1994. Post-rock means using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes, he wrote, following it with the example of using guitars as facilitators of timbres and textures rather than riffs and power-chords. This became the most widely used way of explaining the term.

But as often happens with art, it soon came to be that no single definition of post rock could fully encapsulate all the music the term was coming in associating with.

I still dont know [what] the definition of post rock is, says Lounge Piranha drummer George Mathen, also an artist under the moniker Appupen. It has to be a progression from a standard rock and roll set Like were taking rock and doing something so its not just rock, its post rock. It should be like that, if you take it in the art sense. But even in art, its [post] also a term to make everything vague. Like if youre doing modern art you can do anything. So post and alt modern, it became like that Like how art is described in the Biennale, he adds with a laugh.

While identifying musical elements, ascribing the sub-genre tag seems prudent. For Sarmah, Post rock has always been about emotions. Its about the steadiness and patience which it asks for. Because you dont have too many things happening in the sound. Theres no second verse, chorus, [or] bridge. Just the flow of the music. And you can connect with it any way you want, he explains.

Vespertine by This Will Destroy You

This sense of freedom and being able to connect with the music in whatever way feels most instinctive is perhaps what draws several listeners to the sub-genre. What emotion is a certain chord evoking? What past experiences are being recalled through a soundscape? Does a particular layer of music sound buoyant and hopeful, or does it seem like a familiar wail one is holding inside?

Whatever the response, post rock rewards attentive, participatory listening.

This freedom is what Ronnie (Supratik Sarthak), an avid post rock fan, was craving when listening to songs with lyrics. The problem I faced was, there are some songs which make me feel very happy but the lyrics are speaking about sad things. So it automatically creates quite a lot of disturbance for me. I have a conflict of emotion, he says about the unwanted emotional tangent lyrics can sometimes lead to. But with post rock, its all up to you. You decide whether its a sad song. A sad song can be a happy song for you and nobody has to say so. I can listen to one song and be happy today and sad tomorrow. Which is fascinating for me. This is also how he introduces the sub-genre to new listeners: Imagine, if you could remember all your dreams. Post rock is the soundtrack to all your dreams.

*

While the ambiguity and vastness of post rock offers musicians a boundless playing field where one can be experimental and innovative, there are also those who find comfort under the cloak of a seemingly undefinable term, as they then find the space to peddle mediocrity. That post rock charm went away, recalls Mathen. [Sometimes,] people are just not practiced. You can tell in the first two minutes that theyve lost their trip. That is also considered post rock I thought it was a very lazy and effortless scene, he says. This attitude stems partly from some musicians lack of willingness to put in any real effort, given the near-absence of monetary returns. So if you can wing it, just pretend on stage and get away with it; most of the wannabe rock musicians get what they want, adds Mathen, about the ostentatiously 'rockstar' behaviour some of the artistes put on. In this overpopulated milieu, Mathen finds that several genuine artistes got lost being caught up in complicated names and long songs, which didnt go anywhere.

Unfortunately, such music also found an audience of listeners who were not genuinely engaging with the music and therefore, not identifying quality. Im not a big fan of the audience here, says Mathen. If youve ever played in a Hard Rock youll know. People are just talking. Were like a replacement for a speaker. We could be in a glass case along with Princes underwear. Sometimes, if we have a quieter patch, you can hear the crowd noise and glasses and plates over us.

While a lack of attention and respect from audiences is a phenomenon across much of the scene, this mentality is especially exacerbated in the case of instrumental music. Its extremely difficult to sell instrumental music to an Indian audience, because they are not very accustomed to listening to [such music], says Ronnie. Most people believe that post rock is usually used for background music, like music to study or something. Like they do some work with post rock, dont listen to post rock as a whole, he adds.

Without lyrics and the verse-chorus structure, post rock often throws new listeners off. At the [2018] God Is An Astronaut show this guy was standing next to me, and halfway through the set he went what the hell, does the vocalist need backup support or something? says Ronnie, about audiences waiting for lyrics. India is still not very knowledgeable [about] and exposed to niche genres like post rock, says Sarmah. If one isnt first aware of the sub-genre then listeners find something lacking in the music or dont often connect to it easily.

Here again, post rocks subversive spirit demands an expansion of the listeners' idea of what musical aesthetics comprise.

The lack of serious attention to instrumental music also means that artists face greater challenges, as they try to explore instrumental genres. For instance, AWKS latest album Sleep, released during the COVID-19 lockdown on 17 April, boasts calming ambient music while focusing on themes like relaxation and mental health  an extension to their 2019 release Rooh. But when they turned to online stores to distribute the music, the lack of demand from audiences meant the genre tag simply wasnt available. Think about this. When you upload something from India, you dont have an option for ambient. Because people in India dont listen to ambient, says Sarmah.

sleep by aswekeepsearching

But besides the mental barrier against instrumental music, theres another aspect of audience attitude that led to the mid-2010s' high, to a gradual fizzling out. I think India has those phases where every new genre comes in with a bang, and then fades away, says Sarmah. Hes talking about the trend of rise and fall of genres in the scene, like prog, then djent, post rock, and now hip-hop. This is the result of a vicious cycle of promoters only giving shows to whatever genre is trending, and audiences consuming the latest trends instead of genuinely engaging with the music. Dont like a few things! is Sarmahs response to this audience attitude. Only then can we have a proper audience. [Right now], theres no solid community in this country. Thats why a couple of bands will survive and the rest will all fade away, he adds.

The attitude of fellow musicians as listeners also hinders community-building. When we were small, we got support from everyone in the industry. The moment we started getting a little bigger, everyone stopped supporting us. Without a loyal audience and consistent support, building a community proves to be tough.

*

While individual bands still struggle, a community of listeners genuinely interested in post rock is slowly growing. Around 2014-15, when Ronnie first took to the sub-genre, he couldnt find many takers for it, and conversation about it was limited to a handful of Facebook groups that shared underground music. It was during this time that he decided to start the YouTube channel wherepostrockdwells, so he could share and promote underground music. Post rock is a very umbrella term; its a massive thing. Its very difficult to point to a band and say you sound like post rock but youre not. I just keep an open mind, he says about the music on his channel, as he uses the sub-genre tag as an all-encompassing term.

Its a niche genre, but right now I think its coming more in the limelight because a lot of post rock has been used in movie soundtracks and in mainstream media as well, says Ronnie.

Over the years, he has observed a growth in the awareness of the sub-genre and an increase in the number of fans for post rock bands in India. Today, according to the data Ronnie has collected over the years, India has 80 active post rock bands, and the scene has seen a total of 92 bands whose sound relates to the sub-genre, with bands emerging largely from Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Delhi. In 2020 alone, 10 bands have released a new album or EP, including Seeking Atlantis by Beluga, Hitherto. by Hitherto, An Exercise in Patience by Little Whales, and the eponymous MOIN, among others.

Plus the overall post rock community has increased exponentially, says Ronnie, as his database lists a total of 4,370 active post rock bands in the world. Reddit, Ive heard has 50,000 people in the post rock community, which is awesome. When I started, I think there were about 2,000-3,000 people, is his observation of emerging trends among listeners. His own YouTube channel has 1,46,000 subscribers today.

As the community grows, the pressing question of gender disparity remains. It is not, for instance, by chance that all my interviewees are male. Female post rock artists are scarce and as for listeners, the analytics of Ronnies channel reveal that roughly 85 percent of his audience is male, an imbalance reflected across much of the Indian scene.

*

In the face of the pandemic, it seems a futile undertaking to try and predict its effect on listening habits and the scene at large, let alone the future of the sub-genre. But what can be said with certainty is that post rock as a sound is varied enough to appeal to any mood, especially during prevailing times of mounting anxiety, frustration, with sporadic interjections of gratitude for the smallest signs of hope. And although live music is not an option at the moment, post rock lends itself just as easily to private consumption with headphones. So open your mind, close your eyes, and give post rock a listen.

 Featured image: AWKS during the Rooh tour. Facebook/aswekeepsearching
US presidential candidate for the Democrat's Joe Biden and vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris extended their greetings to Indians around the world on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi on Saturday (August 22).

Taking to microblogging site Twitter, Bide said, ''To everyone celebrating the Hindu festival of Ganesh Chaturthi in the U.S., India, and around the world, may you overcome all obstacles, be blessed with wisdom, and find a path toward new beginnings.''

To everyone celebrating the Hindu festival of Ganesh Chaturthi in the U.S., India, and around the world, may you overcome all obstacles, be blessed with wisdom, and find a path toward new beginnings.  Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 22, 2020

Joining Biden, Kamal Harris also wished, ' a very happy Ganesh Chaturthi' to Indians around the world. Harris tweeted, ''Joining @JoeBiden in wishing everyone celebrating a very happy Ganesh Chaturthi.''

Joining @JoeBiden in wishing everyone celebrating a very happy Ganesh Chaturthi. https://t.co/iYzangpfAS  Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) August 22, 2020

The wishes from Biden and Harris come at a time when the campaign for presidential elections is in full swing in the United States and the candidates are trying to woo Indian origin citizens based in the US.

The 10-day festivities of Ganesh Chaturthi, the birth anniversary of Lord Ganesha, began on August 22. However, this year, it will be celebrated in a much more restricted way due to the COVID-19 pandemic
AUSTIN  Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday said the states current coronavirus statistics are far more accurate than they were over the past several months, as the state has nearly finished documenting more than 850,000 backlogged tests that have skewed a key indicator of the severity of the outbreak in Texas.

The state has dealt with two separate testing backlog issues throughout the month of August, attributing one to an outdated reporting system and a second to coding errors with data from three private labs.

Problems with the backlog date back to the beginning of the pandemic. State health officials disclosed the extent of them to the public last week, as counties statewide questioned an influx of old results indicating a surge in positive tests, even as lab-confirmed COVID-19 hospitalizations have declined.

The data that we have now is far more accurate than what we had last month and maybe even a couple of weeks ago, Abbott said. That data should be very close to being perfectly accurate in the coming weeks and coming months.

A state health department spokeswoman told Hearst Newspapers last week that at that time there was no way of knowing the true rate at which Texans are testing positive for the virus, since the backlogged tests date back to March.

IN-DEPTH: Texas positivity rate, Abbotts key metric in fight against COVID, proven unreliable

Abbott has based decisions on whether to shutdown businesses and public activity based on the positivity rate throughout the pandemic and has said that a sustained rate below 10 percent could prompt further reopenings.

The governor did not say whether he regretted using the skewed positivity rate earlier in the pandemic to make reopening decisions. But Abbott did say that every decision that Ive made has been a decision that is in the best interest of the health and safety of the people of the state of Texas and based upon the data and medical advice available to him at the time.

He stressed that the number of people hospitalized  data that is very accurate and very current  has been declining, an encouraging sign that Texas is on the mend from its midsummer surge.

On Sunday, the seven-day positivity rate stood at 16.2 percent, an increase from 12.7 percent the day prior. Such spikes have been common over the past month, as the backlogged data was being included with the daily test results.

Meanwhile, lab-confirmed COVID-19 hospitalizations continue on a downward trend, with about 5,200 Texans admitted as of Sunday. Nearly 11,000 people were hospitalized during the states peak in mid-July.

The state cleared its first backlog, including about 346,000 tests, in the days after a system upgrade on Aug. 1. Before the update, the state could process only 48,000 tests a day  creating spillover throughout July, when as many as 67,000 tests were conducted daily.

Officials have attributed the second backlog to a series of coding errors from three private labs  Quest Diagnostics, Walgreens and CHRISTUS Health  that added up to more than 500,000 outdated test results. State officials said most of the tests are from June and July, likely indicating that the states resurgence of coronavirus earlier this summer was worse than known at the time.

There may still be some lingering challenges with some of the private labs and their ability to give us immediate, updated test results, Abbott said. We are continuing to work with those private labs for a quicker turnaround.

COVID POLITICS: Will attacking Abbotts COVID response lead to a Texas takeover by Democrats?

The state sends lab results to counties for vetting before including them in its daily reports on the Texas coronavirus tally. Some counties are still working through the lab backlog, which state health officials last week said would be resolved within a few days.

That decentralized reporting system has also introduced errors into the states coronavirus statistics. Local health departments report their numbers to the state differently  some differentiating between old and new cases, while others group them together.

That disparity means that some of the states most recent testing numbers include results from weeks or months ago. State officials have since hired outside consultants to review the data collection process and decide whether to overhaul the current statistics presented to the public.

The state health department did not immediately respond Sunday to questions about the status of the consultants review.

cayla.harris@express-news.net
Belarusian opposition leader sees herself as a symbol of change Belarusian opposition politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya addresses the nation in Vilnius

By Andrius Sytas

VILNIUS (Reuters) - Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya sees herself as a symbol of change whose role is to help deliver new elections as President Alexander Lukashenko will have to quit sooner or later, she told Reuters on Saturday.

Speaking in Lithuania where she and her two children have fled for security reasons, Tsikhanouskaya said she felt duty-bound to do what she could to support protesters in her home country but would not run for president again.

"During the campaign I didn't see myself as a politician but I pushed myself forward," she said. "I don't see myself in politics. I am not a politician."

Tens of thousands of Belarusians have taken to the streets for nearly two weeks to protest against what they believe was a rigged Aug. 9 presidential election. They want veteran leader Lukashenko to quit so new elections can be held.

Tsikhanouskaya, who ran in the election against Lukashenko after her husband, a well-known video blogger, was jailed, said fate had handed her a role that she had no right to forsake.

"It is my fate and my mission, and I don't have the right to step away. I understand that I'm in safety here, but all the people who voted for me in Belarus ... need me as a symbol. They need the person they voted for. I couldn't betray my people."

She has been making regular video appeals to try to keep up the protests' momentum. She said she had also fielded phone calls from world leaders who had asked her how they could help.

None gave concrete promises to support her, and none said they regarded her as the president-elect.

"I understand that they have no right and possibility to interfere in internal affairs of our country ... I asked everybody to respect the independence of our country, the sovereignty of our country", she said.

'SOONER OR LATER'

When asked which countries had called, she referenced Canada, the United States, Britain, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and others.

Story continues

Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country has close ties with Belarus, had not been in touch, and Tsikhanouskaya said she would not attempt to reach him herself.

"I don't have anything to ask him about, just (to respect) sovereignty," she said. "Any future relationship with Russia or other countries would be decided by people and by the new president."

Tsikhanouskaya said that Lukashenko's authority was badly damaged and that things would be different in Belarus, even if he managed to cling to power for now.

Lukashenko said on Saturday he would close factories that have seen worker protests, the Russian RIA news agency reported, his latest attempt to quell a wave of opposition rallies since the contested elections.

"Belarusian people have changed during this year. The Belarusian people won't be able to accept him as the new president, and will not allow him to treat him as they did before," she said.

"I'm sure that sooner or later he will have to leave."

(Reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by David Clarke)
Umaru Zulum, governor of Nigeria's restive northeastern state of Borno, on Saturday warned that the Boko Haram insurgents are negotiating with fighters from the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps to recruit them, Trend reports citing Xinhua.

"This is frightening. If the IDPs living in camps could not get what they are looking for, especially the opportunity to go back to their respective towns and return to the farm, they may be forced to join Boko Haram," the governor said.

Addressing reporters in Maiduguri, the state's capital, the governor said if care is not given, the IDPs might be forced to join.

Though the security situation is improving in the state, there are still dangers as the insurgents are still in their hiding places, warned the governor.

One way to end the war with terrorism, especially Boko Haram, is to build a good relationship between the military and civilians, said the governor, adding that he hopes the military will intensify efforts so as to make it possible for these people to return to towns.

Since 2009, Boko Haram has been trying to establish an Islamist state in northeastern Nigeria, expanding its attacks to countries in the Lake Chad Basin.
The last few months have been bad for Australias magazine industry. Titles that were once considered the shiny jewels of media empires are struggling to operate, let alone make a profit.

Even a $40 million merger between Australias two biggest magazine publishers was not enough to prevent closures and jobs cuts.

Bauer Media shut several of its magazines as a result of the pandemic and structural declines in the market. Credit:Rhett Wyman

But there are still some titles that make money - and they arent the ones you might think. While glossies like Vogue Australia, Australian Womens Weekly and Marie Claire attract a lot of attention, trashier tabloid titles make much more.

Magazine publishing executives surveyed by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age unanimously consider the following weekly titles to be the industry's biggest profit makers: Womans Day, New Idea, TV Week, Thats Life and Take 5.
First Lady Melania Trumps Call with Ambassador Dame Karen Pierce of the United Kingdom

Washington, DC - Yesterday, First Lady Melania Trump spoke with Ambassador Dame Karen Pierce of the United Kingdom. Mrs. Trump congratulated Ambassador Pierce on becoming the first female ambassador to the United States from the United Kingdom.

The First Lady extended her condolences to the British people affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Mrs. Trump also expressed optimism and hope that there would soon be an effective vaccine and that the global economy would continue to recover. Mrs. Trump and Ambassador Pierce looked forward to both of our countries working closely together and emerging stronger than before.
Abiodun Ogunyemi

TheCable reports that the Kaduna state government has filed criminal charges against Abiodun Ogunyemi, bishop of Zaria diocese, Anglican communion, over defamatory remarks made against Nasir el-Rufai, the governor.

Ogunyemi was arraigned before a chief magistrates court in Kaduna on charges bordering on criminal defamation, injurious falsehood and criminal intimidation.

The bishop had in a statement in November 2019, criticised the governor over the planned demolition of St George Cathedral in Zaria.

Ogunyemi had said the governor was being groomed to take over from President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023 but he would never be president.

The government has since rescinded on its plans to demolish the 110-year-old cathedral because of its historical value.

After several interrogations from the police, Ogunyemi was arraigned with the approval of the ministry of justice.

He pleaded not guilty and was granted bail.

A member of the Kaduna Synod and a canon of the cathedral church of St Michael Kaduna stood in as surety.

However, the director of public prosecutions who led the state legal team told the court that there were ongoing consultations which could lead to a peaceful resolution of the case.

John Omughele, counsel to Ogunyemi conceded to the submission of the prosecution.

The magistrate has adjourned the case to October 28, 2020, for continuation.
The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on August 21 reportedly said that it would be impossible to prove that Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko did not win an August 9 election in the absence of international observers. The Interfax news agency reported that Lavrov said that Moscow calls for the launch of a genuinely broad national dialogue in Belarus after the disputed presidential election results set off two weeks of protest and unrest.

Belarus has been witnessing massive anti-government protests over the recent election results, in which Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko retained his position with a landslide win. Lukashenko has made repeated appeals to Russias leader Vladimir Putin to intervene in the current political upheaval in his nation and safeguard his 26 years of the regime. He was quoted as saying, we will perish by the state media reports, which revealed, that the disturbed Belarusian leader sent several SOS to his Russian counterpart asking him to take control of the situation.

READ: Belarus' Lukashenko Orders Army To Defend Borders Ahead Of Mass Protests

According to media reports, Lukashenko also sought Kremlins support against the external threats. He said that Russia had, in fact, agreed to help ensure Belarus' security against external pressures. He, however, remained unclear about the external threat he referred to. Additionally, in a telephonic conversation, he warned his Russian counterpart, saying, there was a threat not only to Belarus.

Reports confirmed Lukashenko informing the military chiefs about Russias "comprehensive help". He was reported saying that Russia had agreed to solve Belarus problems and soon. Both Russia and Belarus have remained strong allies fostering the economic and military co-operation, however, Belarus opposition launched a scathing attack on Lukashenko for seeking foreign aid.

READ: Belarus Protesters Demand Fair Elections, Freedom

Lukashenko orders army to defend borders

Meanwhile, amid the ongoing protests, Lukashenko has ordered the army to defend the country's territorial integrity. Reportedly, these orders were given while the leader was visiting military units in Grodno. The 65-year-old leader won a sixth term in the elections that took place on August 9 with 80.23 per cent of the vote. Lukashenko criticized the recent anti-government protests, which as per him are receiving support from Western counties. The authoritarian leader ordered the army to defend and protect western Belarus which he termed as a pearl.

READ: Belarus President Says NATO, West Are Threat To The Country

READ: Belarus Military Instructed To Protect Country's Territorial Integrity Amid Mass Protests
More than a month after China reopened domestic theaters, the 10th Beijing International Film Festival kicked off on Aug 22, attracting nearly 5,000 movies from 90 countries and regions to contend for its top honors.





Due to COVID-19 prevention and control measures, the festival canceled the opening ceremony and red carpet, usually a dazzling moment to bring stars together. Instead, it held a launch ceremony in Beijing Yanqi Lake International Convention and Exhibition Center.





The festival will conclude on Aug 29 with the presentation of Tiantan Awards, its top honors, to winners ranging from best picture to actors selected by nearly 50 Chinese and foreign filmmakers.
According to a report by Global Watch Analysis, Pakistans intelligence agency ISI has been using crime syndicates located in countries such as France and Thailand to further its agenda. Police in Thailand had just recently arrested a man named Baqar Shah for being involved in several crimes, including those such as money laundering for the ISI.

In 2012, the same man had organised a protest in front of the US Consulate in Chiang Mai. This is when he was noticed by the Thailand police. In 2016 again, he was arrested by the Thailand police for being involved in ...
Demonstrators massed in central Minsk on Sunday after opposition leaders called for a huge rally to demand the resignation of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, the latest in a wave of protests against his disputed re-election.

The authoritarian leader dispatched his notorious riot police to disperse spontaneous rallies that erupted after he claimed a sixth presidential term in an election two weeks ago that critics say was rigged.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators draped in the red-and-white flags of the opposition flooded Independence Square and marched through the capital chanting "freedom" and "we will not forget, we will not forgive" as passing cars honked in support.

"We have just two demands: fair elections and stop the violence," 32-year-old Igor told AFP.

Officials issued a warning to Belarusians against participating in "illegal demonstrations" and local news outlets published videos on social media showing water cannon and riot police with shields moving towards Independence Square.

The defence ministry said it would intervene to protect "sacred" World War II memorials and several metro stations in Minsk were closed.

Opposition-leaning media and Telegram channels reported that more than 100,000 protesters had convened for the second Sunday in a row and an AFP journalist said smaller demonstrations erupted in provincial cities.

"Lukashenko wants everyone to leave and live like it was. But it won't be like it used to be," said Nikita, a 28-year-old protester.

Solidarity rallies were also due in neighbouring Lithuania, where demonstrators planned to form a human chain from Vilnius to the Belarus border, three decades after residents of the Baltic states joined hands and linked their capital cities in a mass protest against Soviet rule.

- No 'second Ukraine' -

The EU has rejected the results of the election and has vowed to sanction Belarusians responsible for ballot fraud and a police crackdown that saw nearly 7,000 people arrested and sparked gruesome allegations of torture and abuse in police custody.

Top EU diplomat Josep Borell warned that Belarus should not be allowed to become a "second Ukraine" and said it was necessary to deal with the 65-year-old Lukashenko, Europe's longest serving leader.

The man branded "Europe's last dictator" has brushed aside the calls to go, dismissed the possibility of holding a new vote and instructed his security services to quell unrest and secure the borders.

His judiciary opened a criminal investigation into the opposition's Coordination Council that is seeking new elections and the peaceful transition of power, after he said opponents wanted to "seize power".

The former collective farm boss ordered the military into full combat readiness during an army inspection on Saturday near the border with the EU and warned about NATO troop "stirrings" in neighbouring countries.

"The fatherland is now in danger. We cannot joke," Lukashenko said.

Lithuania's President Gitanas Nauseda said Lukashenko was trying to "divert attention" from unrest at home, while NATO dismissed the claims as baseless.

- 'Not afraid' -

The unlikely leader of Belarus's opposition, 37-year-old Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, fled to Vilnius fearing reprisals for mounting the greatest challenge to Lukashenko and claiming election victory.

In an interview with AFP ahead of the demonstrations, she urged protesters to continue to exert pressure on the authorities, saying it was "important to continue to be united in the struggle for the rights".

The authorities have to understand "we are not a protest movement... we are a majority and we will not step away. We are not afraid of them any more."

Lukashenko's opponents have organised strikes and the largest protests in the ex-Soviet country's recent history over his re-election, with more than 100,000 people turning out in Minsk alone last weekend.

Yet fewer workers at state-run factories -- usually a bastion of support for Lukashenko -- have continued to strike, with activists citing pressure from the authorities.

The president has threatened from Monday to shut down production lines where workers have put down their tools.

Staff at state-run media outlets have also staged walkouts and Lukashenko admitted this week that journalists from Russia had been flown in to replace them.

His powerful ally, Russia, has warned European leaders against interfering in Belarus and the Kremlin has said it would intervene in the post-election unrest if necessary.

US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun will visit Lithuania as part of a trip next week that will also include a stop in Russia for talks on the election fallout.

He is planning to meet with Tikhanovskaya, her representatives told AFP.

Lukashenko's army inspection came ahead of large-scale military exercises planned on the border with the European Union between August 28 and 31.

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New Delhi: Superstar Salman Khan arrived at sister Arpita Khan Sharma's Mumbai residence to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi with his entire family. Pictures and videos from the celebrations have been posted by his brothers-in-law Aayush Sharma and Atul Agnihotri. The Khan-daan welcomed Bappa on Saturday. The decorations with flowers are a sight to behold.

Watch the videos here:

Another adorable picture of Arpita and Aayush's kids Ahil and Ayat, twinning in matching outfits, has also taken over the internet. Take a look:

Every year, Salman's family celebrates Ganesh Chaturthi with much fanfare. However, this time the celebrations were low-key due to coronavirus restrictions.

Salman has been spending his time amid the pandemic at his Panvel farmhouse. He shot three songs there and also filmed the promo of 'Bigg Boss 14'.

Ganesh Chaturthi, the 10-day festival, began on August 22 and will end on September 1 with Bappa's visarjan. The festival is celebrated across the globe and majorly in Maharashtra.
Everyone thinks of Route 66 when they think of a road trip, he said during a recent phone interview from the associations headquarters, a storefront in Chester, Mass., two hours west of Boston. Route 20 may not have a jingly song or occupy the same niche in the nations conscious, but its a better trip, he said, because its longer, and it offers much of the same Americana experience. He should know. Hes traveled the entire route several times since his first trip in 2010, stopping at new points each time.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday (August 23) held a meeting with senior ministers and officials to formulate strategy and policies regarding ways to boost plastic toys manufacturing under AatmaNirbhar Bharat campaign. PM Modi said that plastic toys manufacturing clusters should be developed, promoted through innovative and creative methods.

The Prime Minister observed that Indian toy market has huge potential and can bring a transformative change in the industry by promoting Vocal for Local under the AatmaNirbhar Bharat campaign.

PM Modi said focus should be on use of technology and innovation and also towards manufacturing quality products that meet global standards.

Prime Minister said toys aligned with Indian culture and ethos should be used as pedagogical tools across all Anganwadi Centres and Schools for all-round development of children. He even suggested that youth should be engaged to come up with innovative designs and toys that can instill a sense of pride towards National goals & achievements.

Prime Minister noted that toys can be an excellent medium to further the spirit of Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat and exhorted that toys should reflect Indias value system and culturally established environment-friendly approach.

He further suggested using tourism as a tool to promote Indias culture especially in regions which are renowned for handcrafted toys.

Prime Minister also emphasized the need to organize hackathons for youth and students for innovations in toy technology and design, including online games, to reflect Indian ethos and values.

Laying emphasis on fast growing digital gaming arena, Prime Minister said India should tap the huge potential in this area and lead the international digital gaming sector by developing games that are inspired from Indian culture and folk tales.


New Delhi, Aug 23 : A Sikh man based in the US has alleged that the chief of the Pakistan-sponsored Khalistani extremist group Sikhs For Justice (SFJ), Gurpatwant Singh Pannun extorted $15,000 from a Dalit youth from Punjab.

The US-based SFJ has been running a secessionist campaign seeking to "liberate" Indian Punjab from "occupation". The group is headed by Pannun, a law graduate from Punjab University and an attorney at law in the US. The Indian government banned the group last year.

In a video shared on social media, Surjit Singh of California has alleged that Pannun cheated him of $15,000 which he had paid to him in an immigration case of a Dalit youth last year.

Surjit Singh is heard saying in the video that he gave Pannun $15,000 for getting the US residency status for a Punjabi youth of the Valmiki community (Dalit). However, after Pannun received the money, he did not fulfill his commitment and did not deliver what he had promised. Surjit is also heard saying in the video that whatever Pannun has been doing, he does it only for money.

The video is a recorded phone call between Surjit and a representative of a media channel. Surjit asked the media channel if they were doing a programme on Pannun. The mediaperson informed Surjit that they indeed have aired a show on Pannun and were following up with another programme on Pannun's men.

Surjit during the conversation said, "Gurpatwant Singh Pannun is a fraudster. Last year, a boy (from Valmiki community) from our village came to Georgia in the US with the help of an agent and was imprisoned. Someone told me to contact Pannun, claiming that he had a good hold in immigration. So we contacted Pannun's law firm. Pannun demanded $7,500 in advance for the release of the youth. However, Pannun did not attend the court hearing in Georgia." Narrating his ordeal, Surjit said he called Pannun again but he demanded another $7,500 for the case. "We don't know when the case started and when it ended. Pannun took $15,000 from us but the case was not resolved. Pannun is collecting money by fooling people and later he does not even receive their phone calls," Surjit said. The Dalit youth was sent back to Punjab in December last year.

Describing Pannun as a "very deceitful man" Surjit said that he never turned up after he receiving the money. "Now he is playing with the religious sentiments of the people of Punjab. He is asking innocent youth of Punjab to hoist the Khalistan flag and is offering them money in return but he is not sending money to anyone."
MUMBAI: The CBI team probing Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput death case may issue a summon to actress Rhea Chakraborty and call her for questioning in connection with the case.

An agency source also said the CBI may also ask for the call detail records of Sushant, Rhea and others.

Sources said that while carrying on questioning of Sushant's flatmate and personal staff, CBI found some 'inconsistencies' in their statements. Sources added that Sushant's flatmate Siddharth Pithani, his cook Neeraj and helper Dipesh Sawant were also being questioned, as CBI found some stark differences and inconsistencies in their statements.

The CBI has questioned Pithani thrice earlier and Neeraj thrice since Thursday after the team arrived in Mumbai from Delhi, as it seeks to ascertain what really happened between June 8 to June 14, when his girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty left for her house and who all visited his flat.

Meanwhile, a team of forensic doctors arrived at the IAF-DRDO guesthouse in Santacruz area, to discuss the details of August 22 findings from the late actor's flat and the doctors of Cooper hospital where his post-mortem was conducted on June 15, agency sources said.

It also wants to find who all Sushant spoke to in absence of Rhea and how he was behaving when his sister stayed with him till June 12.

The CBI team went to the Water Stone resort where Sushant had spent two months as the agency tried to determine how Sushant was behaving when he was staying there.
Members of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea's Supreme Council hold a meeting at the National Assembly in Seoul, Friday, with protective partitions being set up to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Yonhap



By Jung Da-min



The political parties are reviewing whether to again introduce emergency disaster relief to help people overcome the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, following a new outbreak.



If adopted, it will be the second such round of funding following the first in May when up to 1 million won ($840) was provided to about 21.7 million households regardless of income level.



Officials from the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), relevant ministries and Cheong Wa Dae held a closed-door meeting Sunday to discuss whether the government needed to draw up a fourth extra budget, and should it provide more relief funds. Since earlier this month, the ruling bloc has reviewed a possible fourth emergency budget to deal with damage from the heavy rainfall which hit many regions.



The DPK's leaders said the issue of introducing a second batch of relief funds should be reviewed in an economic crisis.



"The country's economy will deteriorate over the next two months with the rapid spread of COVID-19," DPK floor leader Rep. Kim Tae-nyeon said at a party meeting last week.






Part of the wreckage from Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752, a Boeing 737-800 plane that crashed after taking off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini airport on Jan. 8, 2020, is seen in this still image taken from Iran Press footage. (Iran Press/Handout via Reuters)

Iran Says Black Boxes From Downed Ukraine Jet Show Missiles Hit 25 Seconds Apart

DUBAIAnalysis from the black boxes of a downed Ukrainian passenger plane shows it was hit by two missiles 25 seconds apart and that passengers were still alive for some time after the impact of the first blast, Iran said on Sunday.

The announcement by the head of Irans Civil Aviation Organization marks the first official report on the contents of the cockpit voice and data recordings, which were sent to France for reading in July.

Tehran has said it accidentally shot down the Ukraine airliner in January at a time of extreme tensions with the United States. All 176 people aboard the plane were killed.

The second missile hit the aircraft 25 seconds after the first, but only 19 seconds of that gap was captured on the recordings because of damage from the first missile, Touraj Dehghani-Zanganeh was cited as saying by state television.

Nineteen seconds after the first missile hit the plane, the voices of pilots inside the cockpit indicated that the passengers were alive  25 seconds later the second missile hit the plane, he was reported as saying.

Therefore, no analysis of the performance and effects of the second missile was obtained from the aircrafts black box.

The aircrafts flight crewtwo pilots and an instructor also travelling in the cockpittried to keep control of the plane until the last moment, Zanganeh said.

Irans Revolutionary Guards shot down the Ukraine International Airlines flight with a ground-to-air missile on Jan. 8, just after the plane took off from Tehran, in what Tehran later acknowledged as a disastrous mistake by forces on high alert during a confrontation with the United States.

Iran has been in talks with Ukraine, Canada, and other nations that had citizens aboard the downed plane, and who have demanded a thorough investigation into the incident.

Iranian and Ukrainian officials have also held talks on the compensation to families of the victims. Another round of talks is set for October.

Irans investigation is being carried out under United Nations aviation rules calling for probes aimed solely at preventing future accidents, separately from any judicial process. But the probe has been swept up in regional and domestic tensions.

The data analysis from the black boxes should not be politicized, Zanganeh said.

Over 20 people have been sentenced to jail terms up to 20 years in Iran for participating in peaceful protests against the downing of the plane.

Some Iranians took to Twitter on Sunday to show their anger, with at least one user tweeting They were alive for 19 seconds  a tragedy.

By Parisa Hafezi and Tim Hepher
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 10:56:55|Editor: huaxia

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MEXICO CITY, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- A federal judge in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua has sentenced an organized crime leader to 50 years in prison for the murder of Mexican journalist Miroslava Breach, the Attorney General's Office (FGR) said on Saturday.

This is "the highest penalty to date and represents a precedent in investigations of crimes committed against freedom of expression," said the FGR in a statement.

Juan Carlos Moreno, nicknamed "El Larry," was convicted in March for the 2017 murder of Breach, a correspondent for the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, who had been reporting on Moreno and his alleged criminal activities. His sentencing was delayed several months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The government of Chihuahua has identified Moreno as the head of Los Salazar, a drug trafficking group that operates along the border with the United States. Enditem
Bullish on gaming segment, Taiwanese tech major ASUS will continue to expand its offline retail presence, and set up 12 more 'Republic of Gamers' (ROG) Exclusive stores across the country to help potential buyers experience the products, a top company official said.

The company, which already has eight such gaming cafes in cities like Chennai, Bengaluru and Delhi, uses these franchise-owned facilities to sell products and for users to experience games and the devices.

"We have eight ROG Exclusive stores right now, and while we had plans to ramp this up aggressively, the COVID-19 pandemic slowed us a bit. However, we are still bullish on the whole concept," ASUS India Business Head of Consumer and Gaming PC (System Business Group) Arnold Su told PTI.

"This model not only helps us reach new customers but also helps us in building the gaming ecosystem in the country," he said.

He added that the company plans to ramp the number of outlets to 20 by the second quarter of 2021, including in cities like Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Bengaluru.

"By the year-end, we should have 13-14 operational stores. We are following strict safety and sanitation measures at these outlets. While a lion's share of gaming-related purchases happens online, we feel it is also important to let consumers experience the devices and get an immersive experience,"

He added that in 2016, gaming PC market was about 40,000 units annually. This has grown significantly and sales of gaming PCs are expected to be around 1 lakh units per quarter in 2020.

Su noted that ASUS has three product lines for gaming enthusiasts -- Vivobook (device for casual gamer), TUF (mid-segment) and ROG (high-end users).

"About 8 percent of the overall consumer PC market is gaming devices, and this share is expected to grow to 10-13 percent this year and 20-30 percent by 2022-23.

"For ASUS, gaming segment already accounts for 20 per cent of the volume of our consumer PC business and is growing at a strong pace," he added.

ASUS aims to have 40 percent market share in the gaming PC market in India by Q4 2021.
The Sunday Times claimed the report raises concerns two suspected double murders in Wilmslow, Cheshire, could have been the work of an offender unknown to the police.

The first two double killings happened in 1996 and 1999 only two miles apart. In both cases husbands were previously thought to have murdered their wives before killing themselves.

But after re-examining the cases using modern techniques, the report finds both cases were likely to have been double murders, reports The Sunday Times.

Cheshire Police said they were conducting a review of the findings in the report, which was handed to the force last month, the newspaper said.



This individual will not stop killing until someone or something stops him

They are also said to have alerted Greater Manchester and Cumbria Police  where some of the killings took place.

The 179-page report calls on the National Crime Agency and Interpol to review cases in Britain and Europe to determine whether there are more related murders.

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This individual will not stop killing until someone or something stops him, the report is quoted as saying.

The report, written by Stephanie Davies, the senior coroners officer for Cheshire, is supported by evidence from her predecessor at the time of the first deaths and a US-based crime-scene analysis expert.

The deaths of Howard and Bea Ainsworth and Donald and Auriel Ward were considered by police to be murder-suicides.

Both couples were discovered lying on blood-soaked beds in their nightclothes.

Brutal deaths of elderly couples spark fear of serial killer -- exclusive investigation in The Sunday Times #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/W6knbcnXcq  The Sunday Times (@thesundaytimes) August 22, 2020

Similarities between the cases included the extremity of violence, with knives left in bodies at the crime scene; injuries to the head from a blunt weapon and stab wounds; and the fact that the women had been left with their nightdresses lifted.

The report points to a number of inconsistencies which do not corroborate the original manner of death of being murder suicide.

It also identifies a further three murder-suicide cases, in 2000, 2008 and 2011 which should be reviewed, two in Greater Manchester and one in the Lake District.

In each case police said the wife had been stabbed and hit on the head with a blunt object by the husband before he took his own life.

A spokesman for Cheshire Police told The Sunday Times: We are in receipt of the report and it is being reviewed. This is a piece of research which has been undertaken by the staff member, independently.

As with any case that has been closed, where new information comes to light it is reviewed and acted upon if appropriate. We have notified Greater Manchester Police and Cumbria constabulary.
TDT | Manama

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), a professional accounting body of India, has officially confirmed its approval to have Bahrain as an exam centre for examinations. The exams which are normally held twice a year, in May and in November, see over 750 thousand students globally appear for the exams.

This is a big relief for students based in Bahrain who had to previously travel to India or Dubai to write the exams which in the current COVID situation is especially difficult, said Ajay Kumar Chettuvetty, Chairperson of Bahrain Chapter of ICAI. This is a very welcome development which will benefit many students who were facing uncertainty about travelling to India for the November 2020 exams.

I would like to extend our sincere thanks to Atul Gupta, President of ICAI for confirming the approval and also to Piyush Srivastava, the Ambassador of India to Bahrain and Dr Ahmed Al Shaikh, Director of Bahrain Institute of Banking and Finance (BIBF) for their significant support in securing the approval.

Piyush Srivastava welcomed the decision saying, This is a significant development in the current situation bringing relief to students and extended the support of the Indian Embassy in the conduct of the CA Exams in Bahrain. Dr Ahmed Al Shaikh said this is part of BIBFs work with ICAI under their Memorandum of Understanding.

He said the deal will pave the way for the development of professional accounting training to Bahrainis in the future. A good number of students who are based in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia can also benefit from the approval accorded to Bahrain.
Namita Bajpai By

LUCKNOW: In a bid to give a push to start-up ventures, UP government, besides creating a corpus of Rs 150 crore with the help of Abdul Kalam Technical University (AKTU), has also charted a course to promote start-up ventures of women, transgender and divyangjan (differently-abled) entrepreneurs under the new UP Start-Up Policy 2020 with additional incentives and institutional support.

However, the newly created corpus would fund the ventures at the stage of ideation, patent registration, participation in domestic and international events.



A push to start-up ventures of women, transgender and differently-abled persons is one of its kind initiatives by any state government in India to bring these communities into the mainstream of the business world through start-up ecosystem, said a state government spokesperson while briefing the policy.

The new policy targets to set up 100 incubators across 75 districts of the state with the goal of creating 1.5 lakh employment and self employment opportunities, including 50,000 direct jobs in the state.

As per the Additional Chief Secretary, Industries, IT and Electronics, Alok Kumar many academic institutions such as Banaras Hindu University, High Tech Institute, ABES Engineering College, Krishna Engineering College, Jaipuria Institute of Management etc. have shown interest in setting up incubators under the new policy to support start-ups.

The new Policy was cleared by the state cabinet last month as the UP government has been aiming at figuring among top three start-up congenial states in India. On May 20, UP CM Yogi Adityanath had also launched the UP Start-Up Fund to be managed by the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI).

The Fund has garnered interest among leading Venture Funds/AIF (alternative investment fund) of the country. SIDBI has so far received four applications from leading AIFs for an aggregate amount of Rs 285 crore to create the initial corpus, said a government spokesman.

So far, the government has released Rs 41 lakh to the Start-Up Nodal Agency to be disbursed among start-ups and incubators whose proposals were approved by the Policy Implementation Committee (PIU).

According to ACS Alok Kumar, the fund will be given in the form of a sustenance allowance at various stages like idea stage, seed capital assistance at commercialization stage and the capital grant to incubators for strengthening IT infrastructure within their premises to be utilized by start-ups and other stakeholders.

While releasing a statement over the new policy, the state government claimed that since launch, the new policy had been receiving accolades by the stakeholders of the start-up ecosystem and had been hailing it as a great catalyst for creating self-employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for the states youth.

The statement mentioned that the CMs concern for regional imbalance in UP, especially in the Bundelkhand and Purvanchal regions, had been addressed in the Startup Policy by offering additional incentives for startups and incubators operating from these regions.

This will help in democratising the startup ecosystem across the state which so far was heavily dominated by tier 1 cities like Noida.

Besides, a UP Angel Network and an online system were created for fresh entrepreneurs.
Former Nebraska Attorney General Don Stenberg, who worked closely with Schmit-Albin during his time in public office, described her work as legendary.

Few Nebraskans have worked so long and so faithfully to save the lives of unborn children, he said in a statement.

Tom Venzor, executive director of the Nebraska Catholic Conference, described her as a woman of strength and courage.

She never shied away from her responsibility to prophetically speak the truth concerning the dignity of every human being from the moment of conception to natural death, he said.

Schmit-Albin was the 2019 recipient of the Catholic Conferences Gospel of Life Award.

She was known for her tireless work.

Columbus Area Right to Life Co-President Barb McPhillips said in her statement: I was never quite sure when Julie slept, working late into the night or starting her day early. ... We will remember Julie as someone who never gave up.

Schmit-Albin is survived by her husband of 40 years, John Albin; her father, former State Sen. Loran Schmit; four children; and one grandchild.


A list of food to go. Directions for attending a funeral. A note to cancel local summer celebrations.

These simple, everyday objects of life in the pandemic have found a home in the Historical Museum of Urahoro in Hokkaido, in northern Japan.

This small town of 4,500 people does not even have a movie theater. But thanks to Makoto Mochida, it now has a place to tell future generations what it was like to live in the time of COVID-19, things like social distancing or public fears over the pandemic.

As curator, Makoto Mochida selects the objects to place in the museum. I am fascinated by how things connect with people, he said.

Mochida said some people are surprised that he is collecting objects that should be thrown away. But he believes the items provide an excellent way to accurately archive history. And he admits that he has problems throwing things away at home, too.



There are documents showing how children were taught to start online schooling and directions on how to make face coverings. Several hundred objects have been collected so far, after a call went out to locals in the area.

After the Spanish flu of 1918-19  the last great world pandemic - letters and notes provided details about life during that health crisis. That pandemic killed more than 50 million people.

But these days, papers and notes have all but disappeared. And their digital versions, like emails and social media messages, are all but lost in a sea of cyberspace, Mochida said.

He is planning a big show next February to present more of his collection. It will be a follow-up to the smaller museum, which centers mainly on how masks have developed over a short period of time.

At first, masks were hard to find in Japanese stores. Some earlier ones were made by hand from old clothes. Then came masks that permit wearers to eat and drink or that were made out of clear plastics. The coverings eventually became fashion statements, some with complex designs.



Cases of COVID-19 have been growing in Japan. But Urahoro has not yet recorded a single case.

At first, the community ignored the pandemic. Then fears began to grow as outsiders and adult children working in Tokyo or nearby cities would come to visit.

The small town decided to end in-person eating at restaurants in an effort to reduce any virus spread. So people began to take out a local food favorite called spa-cut to eat at home. It is a meat-sauce noodle topped with fried pork. Before the pandemic, it was not even a possibility to take the popular food home.

Shoko Maede was born in Urahoro and works as a cook at a school for young children. She says that many years from now she can almost imagine how people will struggle to remember what life was like during the pandemic.

They may think, Oh, so this was the way it was, she said, after visiting the museum.

I'm Bryan Lynn.

Yuri Kageyama reported this story for the Associated Press. Hai Do adapted the story for Learning English. Bryan Lynn was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

pandemic - n. an occurrence in which a disease spreads quickly and affects a large number of people around the world

curator - n. a person who is in charge of the things in a museum

fascinated - adj. very interested in something

accurately - adv. free from mistakes or errors

archive - v. to collect and store materials (such as recordings, documents, or computer files) so that they can be found and used when they are needed

digital - adj. using or relating to computer technology

cyberspace - n. the online world of computer networks and especially the Internet

mask - n. a covering used to protect your face or cover your mouth
A lot of people in the film industry ask if the star system is over, if the Covid-19 pandemic and the full scale invasion of the OTT streaming platforms are only speeding up the process. Whatever ready content was available in the market has been bought over by these streaming platforms. To them, looking at the stuff they are buying, the content matters and not stars. Even if the streaming platforms are not considered, the star system as it was known may have seen its last superstars.

The era of 1960s and 1970s, had a lot of stars reigning at the same time. While actors like Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar, Dharmendra, Jeetendra, Rajendra Kumar, Manoj Kumar, Shammi Kapoor, Biswajeet, Joy Mukherjee, Vinod Khanna, and Feroz Khan dominated the silver screen over a period, the film industry flourished. They all delivered successes. The rate of hit movies per year remained healthy.

That was the time when a film's success created a following for the actor among the moviegoers, which made him a star.

Then came the glossy gossip film magazines that started labelling the stars. There were so many stars, but the one they fancied was more of a star. Unlike others, he was the superstar. And, the first one to be labelled so was Rajesh Khanna. It takes little to feed the ego of a filmstar. Such a label was enough for a star to live on earth with his head up there in clouds.

I am sure that the kind of popularity they enjoyed in their time, even KL Saigal and Ashok Kumar were superstars! Thankfully, there was no such media that bestowed unsolicited, unofficial honorific on them. Isn't the film industry about actors? This labelling spoilt the equilibrium that existed with the star system and castings in the film industry. Rajesh Khanna's success and the title of superstar created a coterie around him -- a group of sycophants, all of them wanting to make a film only with him.

The glossy rags which created a title for Khanna got this misgiving that they had created the superstar Rajesh Khanna. So they took upon themselves to create myths of their own. One magazine featured a comparative newcomer, Mahendra Sandhu, on its cover, proclaiming him as the next he-man with the caption: 'Move over Dharam, Swinger Sandhu is here'. As it happened, Dharmendra was given the titles of He-Man and Garam Dharam. Don't know about Sandhu, but Dharmendra is still very much around.

Then came Amitabh Bachchan. His name spelt super success for a time. The media devised a new title for him, the Mega Star! The sycophants, on their part, did their bit by calling him 'the One Man Industry'. Now, every filmmaker worth his name wanted to cast Bachchan in his film. Sadly for them, Bachchan encouraged no coterie, no sycophants to surround. For a long time, he did not even care for what the media had to say about him, nor interacted with them.

The concept of media changed as print media, which never cared to even mention films except in the customary film reviews column, realised that adding film-related content added to the circulation figures, and they all went on to add supplements to the main newspaper. The media had mushroomed from print to electronic to web portals. Film coverage means the very survival and sustenance to a lot these media. Their watchword was 'a quote and a byte', it had become that easy.

The media replaced the sycophants hanging around the stars. They became the sycophants and the mouthpiece of stars who knew how to use them. The best two in this media management business were Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan. The reporters, photographer, videographers that represented this breed of media hung around these stars. Some of them simply wanted to be acknowledged and recognised by their pet star, some just wanted a selfie to post on the social media and become famous, while a bit more ambitious ones wanted to make films.

Aamir Khan did not want to be used by the media houses so decided to keep away from the business of awards functions but kept the media at his beck and call. Salman Khan did not care, either way. Shah Rukh Khan went the whole hog.

The media had changed and had no imagination for creating titles for stars. So, a star would do it himself and use the media to spread it as its own work. So, we had King Khan! Like the era of the triumvirate of Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand and Raj Kapoor, the period of last two and half decades was dominated by three Khans, Salman, Aamir and Shah Rukh but, looks like, the media soon loses interest in one set of stars as the new ones rise on the horizon.

Salman Khan has been the most successful star among the three, universally accepted all over India in all circuits. None of the other two Khans could boast of variety when it comes to the genres that Salman did with "Tere Naam", "Bandhan", "Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!" or comedies like "Andaz Apna Apna", "Ready", "Judwaa" or action films like "Wanted", "Ek Tha Tiger", "Tiger Zinda Hai", "Dabangg", "Bodyguard", and not to forget no-genre-defined films like "Jai Ho" and "Bajrangi Bhaijaan".

No awards or titles came Salman's way, he did not cultivate the media. The spread of the film oriented media and the start of the multiplex era with multiscreen releases bringing in collections to the tune of Rs 300 to 400 crore kept them right at the top.

Then there are Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn, and Hrithik Roshan who have carried the baton and don't seem to fade out anytime soon.

Presently, we have a newer breed of stars. Ranveer Singh, Ranbir Kapoor, Varun Dhawan, Vicky Kaushal, Ayushmann Khurrana, and Shahid Kapoor have managed to hold their own.

Are stars relevant anymore? Atul Mohan, editor of the trade magazine, "Complete Cinema", thinks that the stardom won't matter as it does now. Talent is what will count.

The actors enjoying the superstar status are a spillover of the last century. No actor from the new lot has that pull to reach the benchmark set by the Rs 200 to 400 crore stars. The superstar era is over. But, the way the film industry is transitioning, will the very star system survive? With sums assured from OTT platforms, the content coupled with talent are the factors that will do the job, not necessarily the stars.

Stars drew the first show viewer to the cinema hall, content made it last. That is how it was till filmmakers started depending more on stars rather than writers. The newer crop of filmmakers will bring the content back.

(Vinod Mirani is a veteran film writer and trade analyst. The views expressed are personal)
After Citi Group mistakenly transferred $900 million on behalf of troubled cosmetic company Revlon to its lenders, a Bank of America Corp. customer in Massachusetts, US, opened his account to find an even bigger inclusion of $2.45 billion.

The bank's spokesperson later confirmed that it was a display error and no money has been transferred.

This was a display error and nothing more than that, Bank of America spokesman Bill Halldin said. Its been corrected.

Blaise Aguirre, the customer, said that he initially figured that the bank would discover the error itself. But he had to later reach out to his relationship manager to inquire about the mysterious money showing both online and his phones mobile app.

After being contacted by Bloomberg, the bank fixed the issue with Aguirres Merrill Lynch account.

This isn't the first time for the bank to have a multibillion-dollar mishap. Earlier this month, the lender had a temporary display issue that caused some online and mobile-banking clients to see inaccurate balances. That mistake wasnt like that of Aguirres $2.45 billion mirage, but their accounts were showing $0 balance.

On the other hand, The Citi group, too, is facing a issues in erasing mistaken payments sent to the cosmetic giants lenders. While some have willingly sent back the wrongly transferred funds, others have refuse to return the payment, including Brigade Capital Management and HPS Investment Partners.

The bank is now locked in a bitter legal battle with the two hedge funds.

Benjamin Finestone, lawyer of Brigade and HPS, told a judge in proceedings this week that the firms did not admit that the transfer was a mistake.

The Citigroup, rather said the funds actions threaten the integrity of the administrative agency function and trust in the global banking system.
The Queen is set to make Windsor Castle her main home and wont resume residence at Buckingham Palace this year, according to a royal source.

Her Majesty, 94, would like to commute to London for engagements if it is safe to do so, the Sunday Times reports.

It is believed the Queens absence from Buckingham Palace will be her longest during her 68-year reign.

The Queen would usually go back to the premises in October following her summer break in Balmoral, but instead, she will reportedly return to Windsor Castle where she self-isolated with the Duke of Edinburgh from March 19 prior to their Scottish holiday.

The Queen (pictured at Windsor in June with Prince Philip) is set to make Windsor Castle her main home and wont resume residence at Buckingham Palace this year, according to a royal source

Her Majesty, 94, would like to commute to London for engagements if it is safe to do so, the Sunday Times reports. Pictured, Windsor Castle

A royal source said: There is a desire to get Buckingham Palace up and running again as a working palace, but only if all the relevant advice suggests that it is appropriate to do so.

It is believed that proposals are being reviewed for how the Queen could safely attend commemorations at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday in November.

But Her Majesty apparently wont be returning to Buckingham Palace again until the threat from COVID-19 is extinguished.

However, it is thought that the Queen will be spending her usual Christmas break at Sandringham in Norfolk.

It is believed the Queens absence from Buckingham Palace (pictured) will be her longest during her 68-year reign

She has reportedly been told that the close-knit 'bubble' of household staff who have been working with her since March is still the safest way to reduce the chance of infection.

It comes after reports that Her Majesty may not be allowed to return to her public duties due to the risk of catching Covid-19 'for years' to come.

Royal biographer Andrew Morton, 66, told The Sun in May that he feared the Queen may never be able to return to her regular duties and will most likely be seen on TV or video links rather than in public.

He told the paper: 'It's terribly sad but I can't see how the Queen can resume her usual job. The Covid-19 virus isn't going away soon and will be with us for months, if not years.

It comes after reports that Her Majesty (pictured in March) may not be allowed to return to her public duties due to the risk of catching Covid-19 'for years' to come

Royal biographer Andrew Morton (pictured), 66, told The Sun in May, that he feared the Queen may never be able to return to her regular duties and will most likely be seen on TV or video links rather than in public

'It would be far too risky for the Queen to start meeting people on a regular basis.'

The writer, who penned Diana: Her True Story in 1992, added that while the royal enjoyed meeting the public, such gatherings would pose a risk to both herself and Prince Philip.

The Queen has said in the past that she feels she has 'to be seen to be believed', so the measures are expected to be felt deeply by the monarch.

Meanwhile, Buckingham Palace remains closed to visitors amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The opulent State Rooms in the London residence are usually only open to the public for 10 weeks each summer and selected dates during winter and spring.

But last month, the Royal Collection Trust made the decision to keep Buckingham Palace closed 'because of the operational challenges of social distancing' in their palaces and properties.
According to the John Hopkins Coronavirus tally, the global death toll from the COVID-19 infections has crossed 800,000 on August 23. As per international media reports, several countries are stepping up restrictions in order to curb the spread of the disease. Western European countries like Spain, Italy Germany, and France had been badly affected by the COVID-19 sparking fears of a possibility of resurgence.

READ: US CDC Estimates Up To 2,05,000 COVID-19 Deaths By September 12

Over 23 million cases

The number of deaths worldwide has doubled to just over 800,000 since June 6, which accounts for 100,000 fatalities in the last 17 days. As per reports, more than 23 million cases have been confirmed across the world. South Korea is the latest country in Asia to announce that it would ramp up lockdown restrictions to contain the spread of virus. According to the tally, South America is the worst affected region with more than half of the global fatalities reported from US, Brazil, Mexico. The UN health agency reportedly said that the world would be able to come out of the pandemic in less than two years.

READ: Coronavirus: Global Death Toll Reaches 477,807, Total Cases At 9,273,773

The WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, "We have a disadvantage of globalisation, closeness, connectedness but an advantage of better technology, so we hope to finish this pandemic before less than two years".

As the coronavirus contagion continues to tighten its grip on the United States, the country has reported more deaths related to COVID-19 than anywhere else in the world and moreover, the updated models forecast 20,000 more Americans could die in just next three weeks. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a report which predicts 187,000 to 205,000 total COVID-19 deaths will be reported by September 12.

READ: Arkansas Reports 547 New Coronavirus Cases, 11 New Deaths

READ: Coronavirus Cases Rise By 4,943 In Texas, 215 New Deaths

(Image credit: AP)
Justin Bieber recently enjoyed some quality time with wife Hailey during a cross-country road trip.

But the Grammy winner has since returned to work, as the music industry gets back to business amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

He was all smiles Saturday in a casual t-shirt and gym shorts, as he arrived at a recording studio in Los Angeles.

Back to work: Justin Bieber was all smiles Saturday in a casual t-shirt and gym shorts, as he arrived at a recording studio in Los Angeles

The 26-year-old sported a black CSC shirt with navy blue gym shorts and a pair of brand new white Nike trainers.

He showed off his kicks in his story, tagging skateboarder and footwear designer Nyjah Huston: '@nyjah for the win.'

Justin has recently been spotted getting back to business, while taking precautions against COVID-19.

He masked up and had his temperature taken earlier in the week for a shoot, which also appeared to include wife Hailey, 23.

Business casual: The 26-year-old sported a black CSC shirt with navy blue gym shorts and a pair of brand new white Nike trainers

Wifey approved: Justin's wife Hailey loved his casual outfit so much that she posted a photo of him wearing it to her Instagram Story

Cool kicks: He showed off his kicks in his story, tagging skateboarder and footwear designer Nyjah Huston: '@nyjah for the win'

The Yummy artist has also sparked collaboration rumors with Hailey's ex Shawn Mendes, 22, after they were seen at the same studio.

It comes after he postponed his 45-date summer tour to next year, kicking off June 2, 2021 in San Diego.

Justin previously spent his summer road-tripping across the country for some quality time with Hailey.

Earlier this month, she cleared up some baby rumors at PaleyFest LA: 'We didnt make any babies, so thats that.

'Honestly, I really do think weve enjoyed this time. We're still pretty newly married. I mean, we'll celebrate two years in September.'

Busy boy: Justin has recently been spotted getting back to business, while taking precautions against COVID-19
Without being unnecessarily immodest, a period of thirty years is enough for an objective assessment of how surefooted or otherwise democracy as a system of government is in any given society. The panoramic overview of performance, functional utility, and societal relevance of the extant Public and Social Institutions, as these relate to the delivery of goods and services and dividends of democracy to the people, still remains the surest way of attaining to a credible barometer or valid and acceptable profile assessment of democratic governance.

The critical part and key ingredient of any political struggle is that it must have well-defined principles, long-term goals, and a well-grounded ideologicalstate leaning upon which the Grundnorm and developmental objectives of the country must be based. Otherwise, any attempt at governance remains a mockery of reality; a humpty dumpty, waiting to collapse or fizzle out. So, in the last thirty-years or thereabouts, what have been our experiences from the countrys diverse attempts at institutionalising democratic ethos; and entrenching democratic values of tolerance, accommodation, issue-based politics, hitch-free succession, political participation, and electioneering processes? Well, an eclectic view of emerging regimes of governments during the period under review will give us a clearer picture of how Nigeria has so far fared.

Let us start with Ibrahim Babangida, Nigerias self-styled military president. The Minna, Niger State-born combatant officer did not nurse any pretence as a military ruler. Needless to repeat also that Maradona, as he was fondly called, was a child of circumstance who came as a brilliant and ambitious soldier but left with a bruised ego and an unfulfilled dream of becoming a civilian president of Nigeria. Babangida came in to rescue and protect the interest of the conniving elites in the country. Unfortunately, the evil genius ended up bastardizing Nigerias situation the more! The late MKO Abiola was his friend. Of course, that is why a section of Nigerians is insisting that Abiola should not be forgiven for the havoc he joined IBB to wreak. After all, for the duo, it is just like a fortuitous power game, or calculated gamble, which went sideways! And, by the time the former military ruler would step aside in 1993, democratic practice in Nigeria had laid prostrate. It was only waiting to be uprooted.

Realising that there was a vacuum in the topmost leadership structure of the country, a cross-section of the owners of Nigeria presented Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military ruler with a Messianic facade, as the preferred choice. Though what happened or did not happen thereafter is a matter for another day, Obasanjo became Nigerias president only to end up imposing his subtle messianic dictatorial imprimatur on the sands of time and governance in Nigeria. Put succinctly, he came to complete the ruination of the countrys public administration, which he left-off, few years earlier. He succeeded! Obasanjo was highly self-opinionated and intolerant. He was not a team player! In fact, the retired General was everything but a democrat! Under his watch, the civil service lost the vision and the essence of an ideal bureaucracy as espoused by Max Weber. Corruption became endemic; and most choice houses in Abuja, Nigerias Seat of Power, belonged to civil servants whose legitimate salaries could not even pay the requisite rents for apartments in those choice houses. The fight against corruption under Obasanjo remains what it is: a selective attack on some greedy and corrupt Nigerians whose economic interests and socio-political agenda did not align with those of the General. His style of administration typified the tyrannical regime of despots and painted, in bold relief, the thoughts and meditations of Max Weber on the Limitations of Democracy. By the time Obasanjo was leaving office, following a botched third-term bid, the uprooted and battered democratic system in Nigeria had taken flight.

Although, Goodluck Jonathan did not predetermine to ruin Nigeria, he was practically not man enough to effect any meaningful positive change either. He was a reluctant contestant who, against his desire or ambition, was persuaded become president in 2009; and he became one! Jonathan tried to please everybody but, as fate would have it, he ended up displeasing everybody; and the national economy, especially, was in disarray! A substantial amount of money was thrown at the problem of insecurity. Unfortunately, it escalated! Security arrangements were designed to fail; and they failed woefully! Some quarters were even of the opinion that some smart guys in the military industrial complex capitalized on Ebeles alleged cluelessness to turn the national misfortune into their own personal fortune. Human lives depreciated in value. Social tension and incohesion became the order of the day. Sad that that administration was clueless to the end; and the country is yet to recover from the shock!

Then entered Muhammadu Buhari who, after several attempts, eventually had his way! Yes! Nigerians love Buhari, our president. We want him to succeed and be remembered, long after he will have left Abuja, with his reputation of integrity for Daura, his country home. The raison detre for his election and the collective mandate given to him by Nigerians is for him to fix the country. Whatever may be the conceptual limitations of the understanding of democratic principles in the country, the system we run, and how we run it predisposes common people to hunger, poverty, deprivation, frustration, anger, and anxiety. It is therefore not for him to be manufacturing excuses and lame-footed explanations as to why things are not working. After all, Nigerians knew that the country wasnt working before Jonathan was sent packing with the thumb. The retired General may be doing his best, but, as things stand, events, especially, in the last one year have not only shown that his best is not giving us anything near the least of our expectations, it has also reduced Nigeria to an object of scorn and ridicule, snowballing into a near pariah status among the comity of nations.

Nigerians want to know where this government is taking the country. Since independence, nothing seems to be on good footing. No policy works as anticipated; development targets proposed were never met. Yet, governments come and go, life goes on! For the country not to implode this time, urgent steps must be taken to address salient socio-political-cum-economic issues of hunger, safety and social integrations.

All eyes are on the forthcoming Edo and Ondo States governorship elections!

May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace in Nigeria!

KOMOLAFE writes in from Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State ([email protected]; 07087941459 - SMS only)
The Trump campaign believes that Indian-Americans can play an important role in this election, especially in some of the battleground states

Washington: Aiming to woo the influential Indian-American voters numbering over 2 million, the Trump campaign has released its first video commercial that has short clips from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speeches and US President Donald Trump's historic address in Ahmedabad.

Modi and Trump addressed a huge crowd in Ahmedabad during the US president's visit to India in February this year. Trump was also accompanied by his wife Melania, daughter Ivanka, son-in-law Jared Kushner and top brass of his administration on his trip to India.

"America enjoys a great relationship with India and our campaign enjoys great support from Indian-Americans!" Kimberly Guilfoyle, national chair of Trump Victory Finance Committee said in a tweet releasing the video commercial.

The president's son Donald Trump Jr, who is leading the campaign and is well connected with the Indian-American community, also retweeted it as the commercial soon became viral on social media with over 66,000 views on Twitter in the first few hours.

Titled "Four More Years" the 107-second video starts with the iconic footage of Modi and Trump walking hand in hand at the NRG Stadium in Houston during the prime minister's visit to the US last year wherein the leaders of the world's two largest democracies made a joint address before a strong crowd of Indian-Americans numbering more than 50,000.

Amidst cheering of thousands of his supporters in the US, Modi is seen as saying that Trump "needs no introduction" and that "his name comes up in almost every conversation."

He is the president of the United States of America "Mr Donald Trump", the prime minister says at the start of the video, that has been conceptualised by Al Mason, co-chair of the Trump Victory Indian American Finance Committee.

Modi's "Howdy Modi" address in Houston last September was attended by a record 50,000 people. Trump made a solo trip to Houston to join Modi in addressing the historic rally.

After Modi introduces Trump to "my family", the second part of the commercial has clips form Trump's address in Ahmedabad this February.

"America loves India. America respects India. And America will always be a faithful and loyal friend to the Indian people," Trump says in the commercial in which he praises the contribution of four million Indian-Americans.

"They are truly spectacular people," the president said.

The commercial comes following a research by Mason in battleground States according to which the Indian-Americans, who traditionally vote for the Democrats, are switching over to the Republican party in significant numbers because the friendship that Trump has with Modi and the latter's high popularity among a large section of the community, of which 2.5 million are eligible to vote.

In the battleground States the Indian-Americans number 1.3 million as per a recent statement made by the Indian-Americans in the Democratic Party.

Mason's survey was conducted before former vice president Joe Biden, the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, selected Indian-origin Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate, a move the Democratic Party leader believes would stem the flow of Indian-Americans towards the Republicans.

However, both President Trump and his campaign, in recent remarks, asserted that more Indian-Americans support them than the Democrats. In various writings and statement, the Democratic leaders in recent weeks have apprehended that Trump's friendship with Modi might sway their traditional vote bank this November election.

The Republican National Convention  now almost in a virtual mode  is being held next week. President Trump is expected to deliver his nomination acceptance speech from the White House lawns on August 27.

The Trump campaign believes that the Indian-Americans can play an important role in this election, especially in the battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, where the two rival campaigns would be battling for every vote. It has also created separate coalitions for the Indian-Americans and Sikhs. For the first time, a presidential campaign has created a coalition group for the Hindus.

The rival Democratic campaign too is coming out with ideas and commercials to woo Indian-Americans. Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez has addressed the community virtually, wherein he has acknowledged the key role that the Indian-Americans can play in the battleground States.

On August 15, both Biden and Harris made a video address at an Indian-American event. The campaign has released a policy paper for Indian--Americans.

A day earlier, a Silicon Valley-based Indian-American political couple released a musical campaign video targeting Indian-Americans in the battleground states and urging them to vote for Biden and Harris.

Democratic supporters are planning to release at least two more Bollywood-style video commercials to attract the Indian-Americans, as the campaign heats up in the next 70-plus days.
A Crusaders player has said his heart goes out to the family of a train driver killed in a recent rail crash in Scotland.

Christopher Hegarty (28) lodged with Ray and Beryl McCullough, parents of victim Brett McCullough, when he first moved to London as a 16-year-old.

He described them as "the nicest people you could ever meet" and said they looked after him like he was part of their own family.

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The couple's son was one of three men who died in the accident in Aberdeenshire just under a fortnight ago.

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The 45-year-old father-of-three was driving the train when it was derailed after apparently hitting a landslide following thunderstorms and heavy rain.

The Crusaders defender said he was stunned when he realised that Mr McCullough was one of those killed.

"I couldn't get my head around it. His brother Glenn phoned me after it happened and he told me the family are just devastated," he said.

"I haven't been speaking to Ray yet but I have sent them a card and I am planning to go over and visit him and Beryl when the dust settles."

The Dungannon man, a former Rangers player, has kept in touch with the couple since first meeting them 12 years ago after leaving school to take up a youth scholarship with Millwall FC in London.

He said: "They are unbelievable people. They looked after me and Wayne Drummond from east Belfast when we first moved over.

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"I was very fortunate. The first three or four months aren't easy when you are away from home and they were like a mother and father to us.

"In the cold mornings Ray would have taken us to training in the back of his black taxi cab. He is such a gentleman.

"Sunday dinners, everything we got was the best, and Beryl did all our ironing. They are just such kind people. I last saw them two years ago."

He added: "There was a time my mum and dad came over to look after us and the other boys to let Ray and Beryl go up to Aberdeen to see Brett and the family.

"I met Brett once when he came down to Bromley to stay with us. My deepest condolences go out to the whole family. It's a complete and utter disaster for them."
EU chief negotiator again warned that, at this stage, no agreement with the UK was likely. Demands for a political high-level breakthrough will build rapidly as the European holiday season ends in early September.

Barnier warns of trade talks heading backwards

In his press conference following the latest round of EU/UK trade talks, EU chief negotiator Barnier stated that talks did not move swiftly forward this week and he expressed both surprise and disappointment that negotiations are not speeding up.

He added ; too often this week it felt that we were going backwards rather than forwards.

He again attacked Prime Minister Johnson and did not understand why time was being wasted.

He reiterated that there was very little time left as a deal needed to be concluded by the end of October at the latest in order to leave time for ratification.

Barnier added that there was still no willingness on the UK side to take on board the EU priorities in the areas of fishing and state aid.

Any trade deal must go in hand with fair standards on a level playing field and a long-term perspective is needed for European fisheries.

He added that a level playing field is non-negotiable.

On the area of trucker right, he stated that why should we give UK road transport firms access to our roads and single markets if they are not bound by the same rules on safety and standards.

Overall, Barnier concluded that we are very concerned about the state of play in negotiations and he repeated his comments from the previous discussions that At this stage, an agreement seems unlikely.

Frost repeats UK sovereignty demands

UK counterpart Frost stated that the UK would continue to work hard for a deal, although it was clear that it would be difficult to achieve.

We have been clear from the outset about the principles underlying the UK approach. We are seeking a relationship which ensures we regain sovereign control of our own laws, borders, and waters, and centred upon a trading relationship based on an FTA like those the EU has concluded with a range of other international partners. When the EU accepts this reality in all areas of the negotiation, it will be much easier to make progress.

Frost confirmed that the next round of talks would be held in London in the week of September 7th.

The UK and EU political focus will be a key element and a top priority once the holiday season ends from early September, but coronavirus developments will still take priority.

Sterling lost ground following the comments, surrendering gains booked on the firm UK data releases. Sterling/dollar dipped to 1.3160 while Euro/Sterling rallied to 0.8975 from 0.8945.

Marshall Gittler, Head of Investment Research at BDSwiss Group, commented; Nonetheless, it seems that the market is bored with Brexit and has factored in the likely endings: either Britain crashes out of the EU without an agreement, or PM Boris The Umbrella Johnson folds, as he did with Northern Ireland.
A mysterious network of white blood cells that can search out and destroy cells infected with the coronavirus has taken on new importance as epidemiologists continue their search for a vaccine amid doubts that antibodies alone can provide lasting immunity.

These blood cells, called T cells, are like snipers in a platoon of immune system soldiers as they stalk and kill infection. It is a skill set, on a microscopic scale, that scientists hope to use against SARS-CoV-2, the specific coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The human body, in fact, wages a constant war against invaders, and the production of a vaccine against the coronavirus will require molecular biologists to harness those armaments. That includes B cells, which secrete antibodies that neutralize pathogens, and T cells, which destroy the pathogens and any toxic molecules they produce.

T cells have been thrust into the limelight because recent studies indicate the human body may not retain antibodies produced by B cells for very long, raising questions about whether permanent immunity to COVID-19 is possible after people recover.

Nadia Roan, an associate professor at UCSF and a T cell expert, said the key to a vaccine may be to figure out how to inspire T cells to target the coronavirus even in the absence of antibodies, the workhorses of the human immune system.

Photos by Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

Roan and her colleagues found that a robust population of T cells that attack the coronavirus emerge after mild infections, and these cells persist for months and can multiply. The results, which were accepted for publication Aug. 14 in the peer-reviewed journal Cell Reports Medicine, suggest that T cells may play an important role in the battle against the virus.

We found a diverse collection of T cells recognizing SARS-CoV-2, each serving their own specialized functions, Roan said. Importantly, these T cells persisted for over two months after recovery from infection, and were capable of markedly expanding in number.

The UCSF findings were similar to what researchers at Frances Strasbourg University Hospital found in a preliminary study published recently in medRxiv, an online service that distributes unpublished manuscripts. Both studies found that the T cell response was detectable for at least 69 days in patients recovering from mild cases of COVID-19.

A Swedish study published last week in the scientific journal Cell found SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells in patients, including asymptomatic individuals, who had no detectable antibodies.

The Roan research team plans to monitor T cell responses in patients for six months to see if they are still present.

Its kind of encouraging, said Roan, who works in the UCSF urology department and is an investigator for the Gladstone Institutes, an independent biomedical research organization.

The studies are an example of the complexities scientists face in their accelerated search for a coronavirus vaccine.

Of the 150 potential coronavirus vaccines in various stages of development, at least five elicit both antibody and T cell responses. Those include RNA vaccines developed by the Massachusetts biotechnology company Moderna and New York City firm Pfizer.

The ability to stimulate T cell production, or replication, is expected to be a crucial part of whatever vaccine is developed. Roan and her colleagues recently published a separate study showing that a protein called Interleukin-7 boosted the number of T cells. The Interleukin-7 treatment is also undergoing a clinical trial in the United Kingdom.

Its good news for us that these cells that can fight SARS-CoV-2 can expand in numbers, she said.

Researchers must also figure out how to stimulate T cell growth without causing the immune system to overreact. T cells can, when stimulated too much, attack healthy cells. Physicians say overreactive immune responses, called cytokine storms, have been responsible for many of the most severe cases of COVID-19 and quite a few deaths.

Harnessing T cells isnt easy, given that researchers dont completely understand all the ways the virus interacts with the human body. The job requires a deep dive into the diverse collection of cells, amino acids and proteins that make up the human immune system.

There are two types of T cells  known as CD4 and CD8. CD4 cells are known as helpers because they assist all other cells, including the production of antibodies by B cells. The CD8 cells are the bodys assassins, lying in wait in the bone marrow and lymphoid tissues, where they jump out and attack infected cells, according to microbiologists.

Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

It is possible to differentiate between the two using technology called mass cytometry, Roan said. In the past, scientists bunched blood cells together and analyzed them all mixed up like a fruit smoothie. Mass cytometry allows each individual T cell to be identified, measured and marked with a kind of ion bar code.

Roan and her colleagues used the technology to track the slow increase of CD4 and CD8 T cells in one male COVID-19 patient with lymphopenia, extremely low white blood cell counts common in severely ill coronavirus patients. She noted a large increase in CD4 helper cells after 26 days and only a hint of CD8 attackers. Then, 14 days after that, both types of T cells were found in abundance.

The full T cell response, albeit delayed, was so effective that the man was released from the hospital.

It does suggest that T cells may play a more beneficial role in helping with recovery, Roan said.

But T cells are only part of the complex picture. The attacking virus binds onto the ACE2 receptors of healthy cells, breaks in and replicates. The bodys immune response flags infected cells by placing fragments of protein, or peptides, on their surface, according to the experts. These peptides inspire T cells to break into action, which in turn can help B cells to make antibodies. Then, antibodies can latch onto the virus and prevent them from binding and entering other healthy cells.

Antibodies are also designed by B cells to match an invading virus in a very specific manner, allowing them to bind tightly and neutralize viral functions. Typically, the stronger the binding, the more effective the antibody is in preventing the pathogen from entering the cell, according to infectious disease specialists.

Viruses, however, are capable of mutating in ways that can take away that perfect match, reducing antibody effectiveness. The influenza virus mutates often, which is why people need a different flu shot every year.

And antibody levels can wane over time, leaving too few of them to block all of the virus particles. That may be another reason people need booster shots with some infectious diseases.

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.

When human antibodies lose their effectiveness in these ways, it can also hamper the ability of scientists to produce effective vaccines. Thats because vaccines are designed to produce viral proteins, called antigens, that in turn elicit peoples immune systems to respond, including through production of antibodies.

Vaccines also can elicit the help of T cells, which recognize infected cells that the antibodies failed to protect.

T cells can give protection completely absent of antibodies. They help make a stronger response, said Jason Cyster, a professor in the department of microbiology and immunology at UCSF. T cells specific for the virus proliferate once they are exposed to the virus and then become aggressive and attack the infected cell.

A goal of many vaccine developers is to figure out how to harness those unique capabilities. The key to that may be found in the ability of human T cells to develop a kind of memory.

Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

After most T cells are done fighting an infection, a small population of memory T cells remains behind, according to Roan. The numbers of these cells, and how long they last, can vary, but these cells have the powerful ability to re-emerge when the same virus strikes again.

If in the future the person is infected with the same virus, these memory T cells can respond faster and more effectively than the first time around, Roan said. Thats in part how vaccines work, by eliciting memory cells.

The phenomenon can also happen with B cells.

Dr. Jay Levy, a specialist in immunology and virology and a professor of medicine at UCSF, said cell memory is why the vaccine for smallpox has continued to work for decades even though the antibody response goes down 75% six months after people are inoculated.

A recent paper showed that patients who contracted SARS, a coronavirus identified in 2003 in China, had long-lasting T cell immunity at least 17 years after they were infected, Levy said.

Immunity does wane with some diseases, he said, which is why booster shots are sometimes needed for, among others, polio. Repeated exposure to some childhood infections, such as chicken pox and mumps, naturally boosts immunity, he said.

The original B cell that produces the antibodies stays around, probably in the bone marrow, but probably other places, like the lymph nodes, as memory B cells, Levy said. If the antibody starts waning, it doesnt mean the person cant respond if the agent comes in again.

Scientists are focusing on maximizing the effectiveness of these memory cells as they attempt to develop vaccines. But Roan said SARS-CoV-2 is unusual and, for some individuals, the memory response doesnt occur as predicted.

We would like to elicit a comprehensive immune response, Roan said. But if the antibody response wanes, perhaps the T cells can play an important role.

Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 11:54:05|Editor: huaxia

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WELLINGTON, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Three new confirmed cases of COVID-19 were reported in New Zealand on Sunday, said the Ministry of Health in a statement.

According to the ministry, one case was epidemiologically linked to an existent cluster in Auckland as a household contact of a previously reported case. Two were imported cases reported in the Managed isolation and quarantine facilities.

The total number of active cases in New Zealand was 114, of which 18 were imported cases from managed isolation facilities, it said.

The total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country was 1,324, which was the number New Zealand reported to the World Health Organization, said the ministry.

Nine patients were currently being treated in hospital including three people in ICU, it added.

Laboratories across New Zealand processed 7,005 tests for COVID-19 on Saturday, bringing the total number of tests completed to date to 692,481.

The ministry continued to urge New Zealand people who had symptoms of COVID-19 to seek medical advice about getting a test.

Due to the recent COVID-19 outbreak in Auckland, the greater Auckland region was put back into Alert Level 3 from Aug. 12 with restrictions in and out of the metropolitan city. The rest of the country was currently at COVID-19 Alert Level 2.

The New Zealand government will announce a decision on current Alert Levels on Monday. Enditem
As Ghana nears the 2020 general elections, issues of contention are expected to crop up between the political parties who will battle for votes come December 7, especially between the NPP and the NDC, the two major political parties.



Currently one of such issues is the argument on whether there should be a public debate between the leading presidential candidates, President Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party and former President John Dramani Mahama of the NDC.



Adding his voice to the discussion which is currently the most topical in the country, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Ghana, Professor Ransford Gyampo, has alluded that the decision on whether Presidential Candidates get to debate or not, does not lie with the candidates but with the Ghanaian people who are the ultimate repository of the sovereign power of the land.



Reading from the history of previous presidential debates, Prof Gyampo bemoaned how it has become a trend in the country for presidential candidates who are sitting presidents to refuse to participate in a debate, whiles opposition candidates are quick to aggressively push for one.



According to him whiles some serious accountability mechanisms such as debates have evolved in Ghanas political landscape, there is the need for such mechanisms to be institutionalized as there is a must for election winning to be solely a result of healthy contest of ideas in an institutionalized debating culture.



He shared his thoughts in a write up on his Facebook page.



Read his full post below:



Some Thoughts on the calls for debate



1. Ghana has witnessed the conduct of Presidential Debates prior to Presidential Elections since 2000. Yet, serious debates arise about debates, in the lead up to elections, where a sitting President is also a flagbearer of a political party.



2. It is to be admitted that, regardless of how a student gets prepared for examination, no one is actually interested in writing exams. But, to write or not to write an exam, shouldnt be a debate for any serious student wishing to be promoted. Similarly, in as much as sitting Presidents may not be too keen on debating, it is in our own enlightened interest as a people to ensure that, to debate or not to debate, is never a choice that Presidential Hopefuls must make. It should be the call of the ultimate repository of the sovereign power of the land.



3. The IEA held the first ever Presidential Debate in Ghana in 2001. But in 2000, there was no sitting President that contested the Presidential Elections. So, being the first time, it was almost a mere Question and Answer Series for the many Presidential Aspirants who emerged after the exit of Jerry Rawlings.



4. In 2004, the sitting President boycotted the Presidential Debate but the opposition wanted it. In 2008, there was no sitting President that contested the Presidential Elections. So, the flagbearers of the two main parties participated in the debate.



5. In 2012, the President boycotted the debate, but was called to eternity shortly afterwards. Realizing, that there was no time to campaign, his successor made a u-turn and participated in the debate. That was actually the first time a sitting President participated in the debates.



6. In 2016, the sitting President who had participated in the 2012 debate, boycotted the debate, even though the opposition wanted it. In 2020, some officials of the ruling party have said it emphatically that, the President wont be part of any debate on infrastructure. But the opposition wants it.



7. Why do sitting Presidents fear to debate? Is this a tacit admission of non-performance by those who govern us? Why do opposition leaders clamor for debates when they are in opposition and develop cold feet to debates when they win power? Is it because talk in opposition is cheap?



8. Is it fair to the good people of Ghana for supporters of political parties to advance cogent argument in favor of debates when in opposition, and to turn around to argue against debates when they are in power?



9. Should the decision to mount an important accountability platform of debates, be left entirely to the prerogative of those who seek to exercise fiduciary trust of ordinary people?



10. Should the relevance of Presidential Debates be interrogated only from the myopic and selfish perspectives of votes? How about their role in calming down political tension, engendering issues-based discussion, promoting civil discourse in the body politic and helping electorates to exercise rational choice during voting?



11. All well meaning Ghanaians should be sad about the way and manner we have mortgaged our drive towards democratic maturity to a few self-seeking, self-perpetuating and self aggrandizing political cabals.



12. Those calling for a debate today, should remember what they said about debates in 2016. Similarly, those saying they wont debate, should also remember what they said about debate in 2016, when they needed power.



13. Politicians in Ghana should stop playing ajana one-ajana-two with the minds of Ghanaians and desist from overly exploiting our gullibilities and the plague of excessive partisanship that sometimes makes it difficult for some people to be fair in their thinking.



14. There should be an elite or popular consensus on what can be evolved and institutionalized on our political calendar to deepen accountability, beyond the mere conduct of periodic choiceless elections, where people sometimes vote, without necessarily choosing.



15. Some Serious Accountability Mechanisms including the conduct of Presidential Debates, have somewhat already evolved and must be institutionalized. Winning elections must not be as a result of insults, mudslinging and vituperations. It must solely be as a result of a healthy contest of ideas in an institutionalized debating culture, in the lead up to elections. It is not about what appeals to the whims and caprices of any politician, whether in government or in opposition. It must always be what is in the interest of Ghana.



Yaw Gyampo

A31, Prabiw

PAV Ansah Street

Saltpond

&

Suro Nipa House

Kubease

Larteh-Akuapim

Source: ghanaweb.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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Hundreds of people gathered in protest on Saturday after a Black man was shot and killed by police officers outside a convenience store in Lafayette, La., on Friday, according to the Louisiana State Police, footage from the scene and reports.

Lafayette Police Department officers responded to a disturbance and found a man, 31-year-old Lafayette resident Trayford Pellerin, allegedly armed with a knife in a convenience stores parking lot, the state police said. The officers tried to approach Pellerin, but he ran away, and the officers followed him on foot as he walked from the convenience store, which was at a Circle K gas station, to a Shell gas station, according to the Lafayette Daily Advertiser. The officers shot him with tasers, but didnt manage to stop him, the State Police said.

As Pellerin tried to go inside the Shell convenience store, the officers shot him, the state police said. The police shot him 10+ times, Benjamin Crump, a civil rights attorney representing Pellerins family, wrote on Twitter.

Police said Pellerin was brought to a local hospital, where he died. The Lafayette Police Department requested that the Louisiana State Police Bureau of Investigations look into the shooting, the state police said.

Several cops surrounded a Black man and fatally shot him 10+ times tonight in Lafayette, LA! He reportedly had a knife and was walking away from police, but didnt deserve to die  they acted as judge jury and executioner. We demand JUSTICE and ANSWERS. #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/6gI3rNU4FH  Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) August 22, 2020

A woman who filmed the shooting, Rickasha Montgomery, 18, confirmed to the Lafayette Daily Advertiser that she watched the officers tase the man, and that he had been carrying a knife. The officers had ordered the man to get to the ground, and shot him when he tried to go inside the convenience store, Montgomery said.

Story continues

When I heard the gunshots, I couldnt hold my phone like I was first filming, Montgomery told the Daily Advertiser. I feel kind of scared about it. Im traumatized.

The Daily Advertiser reported that hundreds of people gathered for a vigil at the Shell gas station to honor Pellerin and call for justice on Saturday. About 150 protesters marched down the street where Pellerin was killed, the Northeast Evangeline Throughway, and blocked traffic. Police fired flash bangs and smoke at the protesters, and some ran away, reportedly believing the blasts were gunfire. Interim Police Chief Scott Morgan later condemned protesters who had set off fireworks, tried to start fires and disrupted traffic, and confirmed that several people had been arrested.

Marja Broussard, the President of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People chapter, told the Daily Advertiser that she is concerned that police could have done more diffuse the situation and to prevent the shooting.

How much time did they have to do something other than freaking shoot? Broussard said.
A Louisiana man wanted for the murder of a 21-year-old mother has been apprehended in Fort Bend County by the U.S. Marshals.

Jaylohn Triqe Mitchell, 19, was arrested Aug. 21 and charged with the second degree murder of Zion Hutcherson, authorities said.

Hutcherson was shot to death Aug. 8 while on a trail ride in Baton Rouge, La., with her sister when a group of men fired semi-automatic weapons into a crowd. Hutcherson was the only fatality, but several others were injured, according to a statement from the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriffs Office.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Houston police searching for missing girl

In a video filmed by an eyewitness, a frantic bystander said, All of a sudden they just pull out freaking AKs. Im talking about they spraying this up.

Three suspects, Brandon Perry, 30, Tommie Diamond, 23, and Craig Brown, 29, were arrested shortly after the shooting, but Mitchell and a fifth suspect, 27-year-old Raven Warford, evaded authorities and remains at large. The Sheriffs Offices wanted list states that the suspects may be part of a gang.

Mitchell has been charged with second-degree murder and two-counts of attempted second-degree murder.

Authorities believe the shooting was random, and Hutcherson was not specifically targeted.

According to her obituary, Hutcherson was the mother of a 1-year-old child, Zai'Leigh. She worked at a plasma center and was studying to become an X-ray technician and phlebotomist.

Related: Nearly 40 percent of Texans now struggle to pay rent. Here's where to turn for help.

claire.goodman@chron.com
The next government of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) would establish a National Rental Assistance scheme to assist Ghanaians to rent decent homes.



The scheme, which would start off with a GH100 million seed capital, would primarily provide loans to young Ghanaians who might not have the financial power to rent an apartment.



This forms part of the highlights of the NPPs Election 2020 manifesto launched in Cape Coast on Saturday.



The launch, which was on the theme leadership of service, protecting our progress, transforming Ghana for all brought together the rank and file of the Party including the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and his wife Mrs Samira Bawumia, the Chief of Staff, Madam Frema Opare and Majority leader, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu among others.



Throwing more light on it, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia stated that the government was aware of the financial challenges young graduates went through in search for a decent accommodation after securing a job.



There are lots of youth who after school, renting accommodation becomes a big problem especially because of the demand for rent advance sometimes up to two years, he said.



But someone who is starting life afresh after school does not have that savings to pay all these huge demands for rent advance. There is a market failure. This is why the government has decided to come in and bridge this market failure by setting up a National Rental Assistance Scheme, he added.



To benefit from the scheme, Dr. Bawumia explained that one would have to be gainfully employed, because the loan given, would be deducted from the monthly income of the beneficiary.



Under this scheme, if you have a job and we can deduct regularly from your income under this scheme, the National Rent Assistance scheme will give you a loan to pay your rent allowance but it is to the landlord. You need to have formal employment, he noted.



Going forward, Dr Bawumia said government would partner the private sector to raise more funds for the sustainability of the scheme.



We are going to be putting in place a GH100 million for the National Rental Assistance scheme and work with the private sector to accrue more funds, so that we can get this done to bring relief to a lot of people in the burden of renting.



Dr Bawumia said government would also work to digitise the rent control system and pass the rent act to ease accommodation challenges.



On education, the Vice President indicates that the government would abolish the guarantor system where tertiary students would be required to provide a guarantor before loans were approved for them by the Student Loan Trust Fund.



The guarantor system, he observed was depriving many tertiary students from accessing the students loan.



The problem for many tertiary students, he noted was the current scheme which requested for guarantors of which a lot of people were not willing to risk their pensions to access the loan.



One will only need the national ID card when the new system came into force, he said.

Source: GNA









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SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. - Three massive wildfires chewed through parched Northern California landscape Sunday as firefighters raced to dig breaks and make other preparations ahead of a frightening weather system packing high winds and more of the lightning that sparked the huge blazes and scores of other fires around the state, putting nearly a quarter-million people under evacuation orders and warnings.

At the CZU Lightning Complex fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains, south of San Francisco, authorities announced the discovery of the body of a 70-year-old man in a remote area called Last Chance. The man had been reported missing and police had to use a helicopter to reach the area, which is a string of about 40 off-the-grid homes at the end of a windy, steep dirt road north of the city of Santa Cruz.

The area was under an evacuation order and Santa Cruz Sheriffs Department Chief Deputy Chris Clark said it was a stark reminder of the need for residents to leave the area.

This is one of the darkest periods weve been in with this fire, he said.

The fatality was the first for the CZU fire and seventh fire victim in the state in the last week that has seen 650 wildfires across California, many of them sparked by the more than 12,000 lighting strikes recorded since Aug., 15. There are 14,0000 firefighters. 2,400 engines and 95 aircraft battling the fires.

The Santa Cruz fire is one of three complexes, or groups of fires, burning on all sides of the San Francisco Bay Area.. All were started by lightning.

Fire crew made progress during the weekend, which saw a welcome break in the unseasonably warm weather and little wind. that allowed firefighters to increase what had been precious little containment.

But the forecast late Sunday was ominous  the National Weather Service issued a red flag warning through Monday afternoon for the drought-stricken area, meaning extreme fire conditions including high temperatures, low humidity, lightning and wind gusts up to 65 mph (105 kph) that may result in dangerous and unpredictable fire behaviour.

Mark Brunton, a battalion chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), said while hes confident firefighters did the most with the time they had to prepare, hes not sure what to expect.

Theres a lot of potential for things to really go crazy out there, he said.

The LNU Lightning Complex fire in wine country north of San Francisco and SCU Lightning Complex southeast of the city have within a week grown to be two of the three largest fires in state history, with both burning more than 500 square miles (1,295 square kilometres). The LNU fire has been the most deadly and destructive blaze, accounting for five deaths and 845 destroyed homes and other buildings. Three of the victims were in a home that was under an evacuation order.

Officials surveying maps at command centres are astonished by the sheer size of the fires, Cal Fire spokesman Brice Bennett said.

You could overlay half of one of these fires and it covers the entire city of San Francisco, Bennett said Sunday.

In Southern California, an 11-day-old blaze held steady at just under 50 square miles (106 square kilometres) near Lake Hughes in northern Los Angeles County mountains. Rough terrain, hot weather and the potential for thunderstorms with lightning strikes challenged firefighters on Sunday.

Authorities said their firefighting effort in Santa Cruz was hindered by people who refused to evacuate and those who were using the chaos to steal. Santa Cruz County Sheriff Jim Hart said 100 officers were patrolling and anyone not authorized to be in an evacuation zone would be arrested.

What were hearing from the community is that theres a lot of looting going on, Hart said.

He and county District Attorney Jeff Rosell expressed anger at what Rosell called the absolutely soulless people who seek to victimize those already victimized by the fire. Among the victims was a fire commander who was robbed when he left his fire vehicle to help direct direct operations.

Someone entered the vehicle and stole personal items, including a wallet and drained his bank account, said Chief Mark Brunton, a battalion chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).

I cant imagine a bigger low-life, Hart said, promising to catch him and vowing the DA is going to hammer him.

Holly Hansen, who fled the LNU fire, was among evacuees from the community of Angwin allowed Sunday to go back to their homes for one hour to retrieve belongings. She and her three dogs waited five hours in her SUV for their turn. Among the items she took with her were photos of her pets.

Its horrible, I lived in Sonoma during the (2017) Tubbs Fire, so this is time No. 2 for me. Its horrible when you have to think about what to take, she said. I think its a very raw human base emotion to have fear of fire and losing everything. Its frightening.

___

Baker reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press journalists Christopher Weber and Aron Ranen contributed, respectively, from Los Angeles and Angwin, California.
More than a month after China reopened domestic theaters, the 10th Beijing International Film Festival kicked off on Aug 22, attracting nearly 5,000 movies from 90 countries and regions to contend for its top honors.

Due to COVID-19 prevention and control measures, the festival canceled the opening ceremony and red carpet, usually a dazzling moment to bring stars together. Instead, it held a launch ceremony in Beijing Yanqi Lake International Convention and Exhibition Center.

The festival will conclude on Aug 29 with the presentation of Tiantan Awards, its top honors, to winners ranging from best picture to actors selected by nearly 50 Chinese and foreign filmmakers.

Attending the launch ceremony were director Zhang Yimou, actor-filmmaker Wu Jing and actor Chen Daoming, also chairman of China Film Association.

"The epidemic is not over. Life is not easy, not for art creation either. Although cinema is not all our life, it could be a mirror to reflect the life," said Zhang.

"There are many Chinese stories that we need to tell on big screen and spread to the world. Chinese filmmakers need to keep working on producing new touching stories, bringing strength to the audience," added the renowned director, known for the martial arts epic Hero and Shadow.

Wu Jing, best known for Wolf Warrior franchise and The Wandering Earth, said he believes Chinese audience will be more enthusiastic and picky for quality films after "the separation", caused by the six-month-long COVID-19 closure of all the country's theaters, and predicts the emotion will turn into a stress to encourage domestic filmmakers to polish their works.

Fu Ruoqing, vice-president of China Film Co Ltd and chairman of Huaxia Film Distribution, said the Chinese movie market is recovering graudually.

"As of today, China has resumed more than 8,500 cinemas, and a string of high-profile new films and classic blockbusters are set to release. With the effort of all industry insiders, the domestic film industry will keep developing," he said.

As one of the most appealing sector for movie fans, the Beijing Exhibition sector is screening more than 300 acclaimed films through multiple platforms, including cinemas, the streaming site iQiyi and TV channels. Besides, somewhat a childhood memory for most fans who were born in 1970s or earlier, outdoor screening is returning as a measure to contain the pandemic.

Latest figures show that up to 72 percent of all the exhibition tickets were sold out in just 10 minutes after the festival started online presale on Aug 19. The most sought-after films include the 1988 Italian classic Cinema Paradiso, Japanese animated film Akira, and the American sci-fi hit The Matrix.

Perhaps the most anticipated sector for insiders, this year's masterclass has invited director Ang Lee to share his views about the digital technique and oriental narrative. Hong Kong director Stanley Kwan Kam-pang and Austrian director Jessica Hausner will also share their experience, respectively on Hong Kong cinema and female directors' exploration.
The changes in glaciers in the Nanda Devi region of Central Himalayas in Uttarakhand in the last three decades have majorly affected the lifestyle, culture and agricultural practices of people living in nearby villages, says a study carried out by experts from major institutes including IIT Kanpur, Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology (WIHG), Uttarakhand Space Application Centre (USAC) and HNB Garhwal Central University in Uttarakhand.

The research conducted on the changes in glaciers and associated drivers for the last three decades, Nanda Devi region, Central Himalayas was done by studying the state of glaciers from 1980 till 2017 through extensive ground surveys and satellite imagery.

During the study, which started in 2002 and was completed in 2018 before getting published in a science journal last month, it was found that about 26 sq km of the glaciated area of the Nanda Devi region was lost in 37 years which affected the people living in nearby areas.

MPS Bisht, director of USAC, who was among the researchers involved in the study said, The changes in the glaciated areas had a major effect on various aspects of the life of people living in about 47 villages in the buffer zone of the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve hosting the Nada Devi glaciers.

It was found that the people in those villages who used to wear heavy winter clothing due to low temperatures, had stopped wearing them due to climatic changes in the last few decades which have caused the receding of glaciers there, said Bisht.

Agricultural practices and housing changed

The locals in the region were now growing a wide variety of vegetation which points to a change in the agricultural practices as well.

Their agricultural practices have also changed as earlier they used to grow only buckwheat, potato and kidney beans. But now they have started growing green vegetables also due to the change in temperature and climate over the last three decades, Bisht added.

During the ground surveys for the study Bisht and other researchers also found that food habits and housing designs have also changed.

First they used to build houses with logs and grass on the roofs to bear the snowfall. But now, due to the climatic changes, the snowfall has stopped but rains have started due to which they are now using tiles on the roofs which used to be unthinkable a few decades ago, he said.

Also Read: Report urges action on tidal flooding, beach erosion due to environmental damage

On the food habits, he said the locals used to have ghee-mixed tea to keep warm earlier but now that has been replaced by normal tea.

Major effect on the cultivation of apples

Bisht informed that one of the major effects has been on the cultivation of apples in the area and livelihood of the people in the villages.

Earlier the chilled variety of apples like Golden delicious was cultivated in those areas but it has now stopped because of rise in temperatures due to which those apples could not grow. Similarly, the locals in those villages used to collect medicinal herbs from the jungles and sell for their livelihood. That has been also affected as those herbs are now growing less due to climatic changes, said Bisht.

The areas vacated by the glaciers are now occupied by vegetation which used to grow in lower regions.

During the study, the team of researchers examined eight glaciers in the Upper Rishi Ganga catchment in Nanda Devi region.

In 1980, the Upper Rishi Ganga catchment which covers an area of 690 sq km had a glaciated area of about 243 sq km, about 35% of the total area. In 2017, it reduced to 217 sq km, a loss of 26 sq km. Now the total glaciated area is only 26% of the total area, Bisht said on the receding snowline.

Srikrishna Nautiyal, another researcher involved in the study, said, The study also suggested that the glaciers in the region have responded to deprived precipitation conditions since 1980, overlapping our understanding of glacier retreat due to temperature increase in the context of global warming scenario.

Also Read: Why climate scientists believe natural gas wont avert environment disaster

He informed that it was found that the largest glacier of the region, UND glacier covered an area of 71.42 sq km in 1980 which was reduced to 63.72 sq km in 2017.

Similarly, the smallest one, Changbang which occupied 7.85 sq km in 1989, had shrunk to 5.95 sq km in 2017. It was also found that the north-facing glaciers such as Trishul, DRB and Raunthi lost the minimum percentage area compared to south-facing ones like Changbang and Ramni, said Nautiyal.

This shows that the slope and aspect play a very important role in glacier change variability, Nautiyal added.

Non-climatic factors also play a role in variable loss of glaciers

Nautiyal also informed that the study also suggested that The dynamic response of glaciers to climate is strongly dependent on glacier size and geometry.

It can be suggested that besides global warming, the local climatic and non-climatic factors like aspect and slope, play an important role in variable loss and dynamics of glacier snouts even in the same valley, he said.
The Mumbai Police have booked a Pune jeweller for duping a Mumbai-based jeweller of 2.89 crore.

The accused had borrowed jewellery pieces from the victim jeweller under the pretext of showcasing them in an exhibition. However, after the exhibition, the accused ran away with the jewellery.

The complainant Dineshbhai Vasant Jadhav alias Dadabhai, 41, is a Kurla resident and runs a jewellery business, in partnership with another jeweller and has a shop at Mumbadevi.

Jadhav, in January 2019, through common business friends came in contact with Hitesh Solanki, who owns Vardhman Jewellers in Pune.

The complainant in his statement said, Solanki had convinced Jadhav that he would buy the jewellery from him at a good price. Jadhav and along with his partner then sold the jewellery for the first three months. Solanki made the payment in gold, and Jadhav earned good profit.

After gaining their trust, Solanki requested them for some jewellery pieces to showcase them at an exhibition in Pune, the police said.

Jadhav initially refused, but Jadhav and his partner agreed after Solanki insisted. They gave him jewellery worth 2.89 crore and secured, receipts, telephonic conversations and text messages between them in case of any future dispute, said a police officer.

A few days later, when Jadhav tried to contact Solanki he did not respond. After repeated attempts to contact him, Jadhav and his partner visited Pune and met Solankis father and brother who told them that Solanki had cheated many jewellers in past, Jadhav stated in the FIR.

Jadhav then approached the LT Marg police and registered a case.

The police have booked Solanki for criminal breach of trust and cheating of the Indian Penal Code. Solanki is absconding.
A six-member panel formed by the ruling Nepal Communist Party to resolve the bitter intra-party rift has suggested that Prime Minister K P Oli should complete his five-year tenure, while executive chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' be allowed to exercise full executive power over party affairs, a senior party leader said on August 23.

The task force, formed by Oli and Prachanda on August 15 and later endorsed by NCP's powerful Central Secretariat on August 17, was led by the party's General Secretary Bishnu Poudyal.

The panel, which submitted its report to Oli and Prachanda on Saturday, includes Standing Committee members Shankar Pokhrel, Janardan Sharma, Bhim Rawal, Surendra Pandey and Pampha Bhusal.

Although the details of the report has not been made public, it is expected to pacify the intra-party rift which deepened further after Prachanda and senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal demanded Prime Minister Oli's resignation.

According to senior NCP leader and Standing Committee member Ganesh Shah, the panel in its report has suggested that Prime Minister Oli should remain in power for a full five-year term, whereas Prachanda should have full executive power over the party's affairs.

When Oli became prime minister two-and-a-half years ago in 2018, he and Prachanda had reached a tacit understanding to share the prime minister's position turn-by-turn.

The panel has suggested the top leaders of the party to adhere to one-man-one-post principle and to promote coordination and collaboration between the two top leaders, Shah said.

However, the report needs to be ratified in the Standing Committee meeting, which is likely to be convened this week, he said.

There is no other way to maintain unity in the party at this moment, said Shanker Pokharel, one of the panel members.

However, it is to be seen how the suggestions of the panel will be implemented, Shah said.

According to party insiders, Prime Minister Oli is likely to reshuffle his Cabinet as soon as the Standing Committee meeting of the party endorses the panel's report to strike a power balance with Prachanda.

Oli and Prachanda have held about a dozen meetings to sort out the differences between them. But, as the Prime Minister did not accept the condition of a one-man-one-post, the talks failed. Oli has refused to give up his post as prime minister as well as a co-chairman of the NCP.

A bitter internal feud has been brewing in the ruling NCP after top party leaders, including Prachanda, demanded Oli's resignation, saying his recent anti-India remarks were "neither politically correct nor diplomatically appropriate."

They are also against Oli's autocratic style of functioning.

The differences grew further after Oli said that some of the ruling party leaders are aligning with the southern neighbour to remove him from power after his government issued a new political map incorporating three Indian territories of Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura.

The two leaders are also engaged in tightening their grip within the party with the escalation of the intra-party feud.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak is planning to ditch the 'Facebook tax' on big tech companies after concluding that it is 'more trouble than it is worth', The Mail on Sunday understands.

The Digital Services Tax, which came into effect last April, is likely to be axed after Mr Sunak concluded that the 500million a year it is expected to raise is a pinprick compared with the hundreds of billions of pounds dent to the nation's finances caused by the coronavirus epidemic.

The tax is also an impediment to the trade talks with Washington, conducted by International Trade Secretary Liz Truss, with the US government insisting it unfairly targets American tech firms.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak is planning to ditch the 'Facebook tax' on major tech companies after concluding that it is 'more trouble than it is worth'

Donald Trump insisted the tax, which was designed by Philip Hammond to ensure international tech companies pay some tax on revenues made in Britain, unfairly targets US tech firms

One source told The Mail on Sunday: 'At just half a billion quid, Rishi has concluded it is just more trouble than it is worth, given the anger of Trump and the Washington establishment.'

Previous Chancellor Philip Hammond designed the tax, which is levied at a rate of two per cent of sales, to ensure international tech companies pay at least some tax on revenues, if not the profits, which they make in Britain.

The limitations on the tax put in place by the Treasury ensure that almost all of the revenues will come from US tech companies.

Only companies with 25 million of revenues are covered by the tax, and the list of affected businesses includes Google, Facebook and Amazon.

European digital successes such as Spotify and Monzo are excluded because they do not operate 'search engines, social media services and online marketplaces'.

And while the DST polled well in Treasury surveys prior to its introduction, critics have warned that internet giants will pass its costs on to customers.

Earlier this month, Amazon announced it would increase seller fees from September after talks with the Government on the DST failed to progress.

Amazon said it had taken on the impact of the DST since it became law, but would now pass on costs via various fees from September 1.

The Digital Services Tax is an impediment to International Trade Secretary Liz Truss's trade talks with Washington, as the US government insist it unfairly targets American tech firms

Ms Truss is understood to have asked her US counterparts in trade talks whether they would drop their insistence on the UK allowing substandard food products such as hormone-injected beef if the tax was dropped.

Members of the US Senate committee overseeing trade this month urged the UK to 'reconsider this punitive action against its ally' and in January President Trump's administration threatened to impose tariffs on British car exports if the UK went ahead with the DST.

US officials have been both privately and publicly raising the issue of the DST for months as a stumbling block to a trade deal.

A Treasury spokesperson said: 'We've been clear it's a temporary tax that will be removed once an appropriate global solution is in place  and we continue to work with our international partners to reach that goal.'

Various countries worldwide have decided to introduce their own levies on internet giants after talks over a global digital tax stalled.

In June, the US called a halt to the international discussions on the issue.
A leading independent newspaper in Nigeria, DAILY TRUST, has called for nominations of exemplary personalities for the coveted African of the Year 2020. Nominations are open from August 24, 2020 to midnight of October 24, 2020.

In a statement issued at the weekend, Ag. CEO of Media Trust Limited, publishers of DAILY TRUST, Mr. Nura Daura, said ideal nominees should be ordinary Africans who have made extra-ordinary contributions to humanity in any field from any part of the continent.

Mr. Daura disclosed that the award consists of three components, namely, a permanent plaque, a certificate of merit and a cash reward in aid of the awardee or his/her chosen charity project.

Valid entries for the 2020 award will be for works, events or activities undertaken by the nominee between October 1, 2019 and September 30, 2020 and nominations are to be made online at award.dailytrust.com. The eventual winner will be selected by a seven-member prize committee chaired by His Excellency, Mr. Festus Mogae, former President of Botswana.

Other members of the Committee who represent Africa's regional blocs are: Ambassador Mona Omar (North Africa), Mr. Amadou Mahtar Ba (West Africa), Ms. Gwen Lister (Southern Africa), Mr. Pascal Kambale (Central Africa) and Professor Sylvia Tamale (East Africa). The Chairman of the Board of Media Trust Limited, Mr. Kabiru Yusuf represents the award promoters.

The DAILY TRUST Ag. CEO, emphasised that a winner will emerge, strictly based on the selection criteria and not the number of entries submitted on his/her behalf.

Mr. Daura also disclosed that the presentation ceremony for the 2020 edition of the African of the Year Award will still hold in Abuja, Nigeria, in January, 2021, despite the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic, but in adherence with internationally established protocols for convening events under the corona virus atmosphere.

Now in its 13th edition, the African of the Year Award was inaugurated in 2008 by DAILY TRUST in fulfilment of the newspaper's commitment to African unity and sustainable development across the continent.

With this annual award, Mr. Daura said the newspaper hopes to entrench the culture of selflessness among Africans with the aim of creating a pool of role-models for others to emulate.

The maiden award was presented to a Congolese gynaecologist, Dr. Denis Mukwege, in recognition of his exemplary humanitarian offer of free reconstructive surgery to victims of rape in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC. He also won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018, which is 10 years after DAILY TRUST recognised his remarkable humanitarian gesture.

Last years award was won by popular South African humanitarian, Rosalia Mashale, for her commitment to providing loving care to the orphans from Khayelitsha, a community afflicted by the severest AIDS epidemic in the world.

Issued by:

Nura Daura, Ag. CEO, DAILY TRUST.

Email: [email protected]

Sunday, August 23, 2020
Some fear cells collected from nasal and throat swabs for coronavirus testing can also be used to generate DNA profiles.

Hong Kong has been at the forefront of the coronavirus pandemic and is now joining the global race for a vaccine.

The city is also launching voluntary mass coronavirus testing next month to combat what is being seen as a third wave.

The government has enlisted the help of medical experts from mainland China, but, as Al Jazeeras Divya Gopalan reports, not everyone supports the move.
The Prominent Civil Rights Advocacy group- HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has called for a judicial commission of inquiry to be constituted by the government of Enugu State South East of Nigeria to investigate the widespread reports that a combined team of Department of States Services (DSS); Military and armed Mobile Police committed massive killings of unarmed civilians that gathered at a school compoind in Emene near Enugu under the auspices of the self determination group- the Indigenous peoples of Biafra (IPOB).

The Rights group said it is a Crime against humanity for armed security forces to open fire with lethal weapons and live bullets in their attempt to quell a gathering of totally unarmed civilians in the 21st century Nigeria which paints Nigeria graphically as a killing field whereby armed security forces rather than deploy law- based approach in their law enforcement mechanisms have rather unfortunately chosen to go the way of deployment of brute force in their efforts to ensure maximum physical damage of the members of the banned Indigenous peoples of Biafra (IPOB). "This action of the killer security forces is crude, brutal, despicable, reprehensible and odious. The killers must not go unpunished".

In a statement by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf, HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) said it was completely unacceptable that armed security forces could open fire in a crowd of people in which women, Children and even the elderly gathered instead of the security forces to adopt civilised instrument of negotiations and persuasions to dismantle the gathering or at best to use rubber bullets but these crudely trained security forces decided to shoot at sight and to slaughter scores of civilians as if these persons are animals.

"In as much as we do not condone disrespect of constituted authority, we think the punishment for failure to comply with the so called sanction of judicial ban of the Indigenous peoples of Biafra in Nigeria which is being contested in the Court of law, is not to use lethal weapons and kill persons the armed security forces suspect to be members of this group. Even in the face of provocation, these persons who are totally unarmed ought not to have been killed as if the sanctity of their lives is eroded by their membership of a banned group. These killings must be investigated. The HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) absolutely condemns this despicable crime against humanity committed by the Nigerian security forces in Emene near Enugu and we hope the relevant authorities in Enugu will rise up to the challenge of defending the fundamental human rights of their people".

HURIWA recalled that scores of persons may have died Sunday morning at Emene, Enugu, following a violent clash between security agents and members of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.

The clash reportedly threw the whole Emene and environs into chaos and disrupted church services as worshippers of the various churches in the area ran helter-skelter to escape being caught in the crisis.

HURIWA quoted the media as quoting an eyewitness account as saying that the trouble started at about 7.00 am when some police officers invaded the Community Secondary School Emene where members of IPOB were meeting, to disperse and arrest them.

According to the account, the attempt was resisted, turning the encounter bloody with IPOB members reportedly overpowering the security operatives.

In a swift reaction, a large reinforcement was called and over a dozen patrol vans loaded with armed security agents comprising police, army and DSS arrived the scene and faced the Biafran agitators.

Sounds of gunfire and teargas fumes filled the area, particularly between St Patrick Secondary School and St Joseph Catholic Church along the old Abakaliki Road.

One account lamented that the premises of St. Patrick Secondary School was flowing with blood as fleeing IPOB members were pursued into the school by security operatives
Updates listed below in EST:



11:20 p.m.

Joe Biden closed his speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention with a call to action to Americans this November to get "united in our love for each other."

"Let us begin you and I together one nation under God, united in our love for America, united in our love for each other. For love is more powerful than hate. Hope is more powerful than fear, and light is more powerful than dark. This is our moment. This is our mission," Biden said.

The former vice president wants history to "say that the end of this chapter of American darkness begin here tonight as love and hope and light join in the battle for the soul of the nation."

"And this is a battle we will win, and we'll do it together," Biden said.



11:05 p.m.

Joe Biden laid out his plan to combat coronavirus on Thursday, telling voters that President Donald Trump has failed in his most basic duty to protect Americans from the virus.

Ever since the first cases of coronavirus broke out in the United States earlier this year, the 2020 campaign has been dominated by the pandemic, forcing both Biden and Trump to pivot their campaigns to the issue.

Biden dedicated a significant portion of his acceptance speech on Thursday to how he, as president, would combat the virus.

Biden, in a stark rebuke of Trump, said he would deploy rapid tests for the virus, make personal protective equipment in the United States so we will never again be at the mercy of China or other foreign countries, make sure that schools have the resources they need to reopen and put politics aside, take the muzzle off our experts.

Biden also pledged to impose a national mandate to wear a mask.

In short, we will do what we should have done from the very beginning, Biden said. Our current president has failed in his most basic duty.  That is unforgivable.



10:55 p.m.

When Joe Biden accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night, he said in Delaware that "united we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America."

"The current president's cloaked America in darkness for much too long," Biden said in an opening that targeted President Donald Trump.

"Too much anger, too much fear, too much division. Here and now, I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. I'll be an ally of the light, not the darkness. It's time for us  for we the people  to come together," Biden said.



10:45 p.m.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has accepted the nomination as the Democratic candidate for president of the United States of America.



10:20 p.m.



When Joe Biden, in a nationally televised interview, said he supported same-sex marriage, he put President Barack Obama, who had not publicly backed gay marriage, in a tough position and later had to privately apologize to him.

For Pete Buttigieg, Bidens statement was a sizable step in making his marriage possible, a fact he recalled in his speech to the Democratic National Convention on Thursday.

The very ring on my finger  a wedding we celebrated here where Im standing  reflects how this country can change, Buttigieg said, speaking from the event space where he held his wedding reception with his husband.

"Love makes my marriage real, but political courage made it possible  including that of Joe Biden, who stepped out ahead of even this party when he said that marriage equality should be the law of the land," he said.



Buttigieg, the first out gay candidate in American history to win a major partys presidential primary contest, said that the changes in LGBTQ acceptance and rights between 2010 and 2020 show the broader progress America can make together if Biden is elected in November.

It starts here  with the choices we are going to make in just a few weeks, Buttigieg said. Decisions not just about who will lead us, but about who we are."





10:15 p.m.

Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth did not mince words when hitting President Donald Trump on Thursday: He is the coward in chief, she said.



Duckworth, a finalist to be Bidens running mate, used her speech to the Democratic convention to tout Bidens understanding of the sacrifices made by military families.

It was a personal message for Duckworth, a US Army veteran who lost both of her legs while serving in Iraq. Her speech opened with a shot on her two prosthetic legs.

Military service doesnt just take courage and sacrifice from those in uniform  theyre required from their families, too, Duckworth said Thursday. Joe Biden understands these sacrifices, because he has made them himself. When his son Beau deployed to Iraq, his burden was shouldered by his family as well.





10:10 p.m.

Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin made a progressive populist argument for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Thursday night, talking about the illness she suffered as a child and how it left her with the label, child with a pre-existing condition.

That was before the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act, which required insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions. The law is being challenged now in court with the Trump administrations backing.

We all have stories like this. Stories about a time when the system was rigged against us. When we were counted out, left out, pushed out, Baldwin said.

10:05 p.m.

Dr. Vivek Murthy, the former U.S. surgeon general under President Barack Obama, said the nation is missing leadership in combating the coronavirus pandemic in a DNC speech Thursday night.

Murthy has advised Biden's campaign on policy proposals to respond to the pandemic, as well as how Biden and his staff can safely hold events and reach out to voters during the crisis.

Featuring a doctor was unusual for a political convention, but it was part of Biden's campaign's effort to underscore that he if elected, he would be guided by experts on policy matters.

He said he has seen "how he sits with people in their pain and holds them in his heart; how he pores over COVID briefings, asking smart questions, letting science guide his way, just as he did when managing the Ebola crisis."

"We need a leader who works with states to ensure that everyone who needs a test gets one and gets results quickly; a leader who secures a safe, effective vaccine and distributes it quickly and fairly; a leader who inspires us to practice distancing and wear masks, not as a political statement but as a patriotic duty, a commitment we make to one another," Murthy said.





9:55 p.m.

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker assailed the economy under President Donald Trump, saying that "he has failed us."

"Working people are under attack, the wealth gap grows, our middle class shrinks, and poverty persists," the one-time 2020 Democratic presidential candidate said. Pointing to millions of Americans who have lost their health care and face economic hardship as a result of the pandemic, he said of Trump, "He has failed us."

Booker spoke of his grandfather, who he said left the South during the Jim Crow era and moved to Detroit, where he got a union job on an assembly line during World War II.

"Together, with Joe and Kamala in the White House, well raise the minimum wage so no one who works a full time job lives in poverty. Together, well fight for those who keep us healthy; who keep us safe; who teach our kids," Booker said. "Well stand for those who cook, and serve and clean; who plant and harvest; who pack and always deliver, whose hands are thick with callouses like my grandads, who held mine when I was a boy."





9:45 p.m.

Rep. Deb Haaland, one of the first Native American women ever elected to Congress, urged Americans to vote this November because "our Constitution is under attack."

"I know we can't take our democracy for granted, especially now, as people are dying, as our land is abused, as our Constitution is under attack. We must work for it by getting involved, by registering voters, by voting. Voting is sacred; my people know that," she said during tonight's Democratic National Convention programming.





9:20 p.m.

Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, a close Joe Biden ally, called the former vice president "a man of faith and conscience" who "knows the power of prayer" in a speech that focused on Biden's Catholic faith.

"I'll never forget how Joe took the time to offer me words of comfort as my father lay in hospice," Coons said. "Time and again, I've seen him stop everything and listen, really listen to someone who needs a shoulder to cry on or a partner in prayer. That compassion, that empathy is part of his character."





9:05 p.m.

Former Democratic candidate Andrew Yang followed up endorsing Joe Biden, and encouraging voters skeptical of real change that Biden is the candidate for them.

I know many politicians promise and then fail to deliver, Yang said. I have gotten to know both Joe and Kamala on the trail over the past year  the way you really get to know a person when the cameras are off, the crowds are gone, and its just you and them. They're real people. They understand the problems we face.

9:00 p.m.

Tom Perez, Chair of the Democratic National Committee, opened the evening. He thanked the staff and production for putting the virtual convention together, and said he hoped the Republican National Convention kept public health in mind as much as the DNC had.

He then advised Americans to consider their vote in November, and the consequences of whom they vote for, before turning it over to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Newsom talked just 1 mile away from the wildfires raging in his state, and said that climate change has worsened the blaze. He criticized the administration of President Donald Trump for its relaxing of environmental regulations, and blaming previous forest fires in the state on not raking leaves, a claim he reiterated today.

Original story:



Democratic Party luminaries, rising stars, former presidents and presidential contenders have been making a pitch for Joe Biden over three days of an atypical convention. Now the presidential nominee will make his case himself.

Biden will speak Thursday night from Wilmington, Delaware, as he closes out the fourth night of the virtual Democratic National Convention, starting at 9 p.m. ET.

The novel coronavirus forced organizers to put on a remote event with delegates and politicians beaming in via video from around the country, zapping the energy from whats usually a political jamboree. But the event has also given Biden a chance to present a curated vision of his party and principles, showcasing a diverse Democratic coalition and a still-open door to bipartisan governing that many see as a relic of a different Washington.

The theme for Thursday night is Americas Promise and the programming includes musical performances by The Chicks, John Legend and Common.

What to watch on the last night of the convention:

BIDENS MOMENT

With no physical gathering place, Biden will deliver his speech as the Democratic presidential nominee without a cheering crowd, a standing ovation or waves of balloons and confetti breaking over his head. Bidens been boxed into a more subdued position because of a virus that has shocked the U.S. economy and killed over 170,000 Americans. To persuade voters to put in him charge, expect him to use his speech to underline the gravity of the virus and the moment and draw on lessons of tenacity over tragedy that hes experienced in his own life.

TRUMP

Throughout the week, President Donald Trump has worked to counter the Democratic program with trips and jabbing at Biden. On Thursday, he traveled to Pennsylvania, the state of Bidens birth, ahead of the Democrats acceptance speech.

Trump wasn't laying low during the Democratic National Convention. Hes mocking Biden and blaming him for supporting trade policies that he says resulted in manufacturing job losses.

Trump also attempted to frighten voters about the future of their retirement investments if Biden is elected.

Hes also evoking images of violence in some of the nations biggest cities during his own presidency, saying it will only spread if Biden is elected.

BLOOMBERG

Billionaire and former Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg, who spent more than $500 million of his own fortune on a short-lived presidential run, is billed to speak shortly before Biden.

The 78-year-old moderate and former Republican being given a spot to help to close out the Democratic convention is striking. The party has promoted its diverse coalition and embraced a national reckoning on systemic racism and sexual misconduct.

One of the former New York mayor's most notable appearances during the presidential campaign came as he was pilloried on the debate stage by Democrats over his past support for the controversial stop-and-frisk policing practice and its disproportionate effect on minorities and nondisclosure agreements his company struck with women alleging discrimination or harassment.

The businessman has built up goodwill on the left for having poured hundreds of millions of dollars into fighting climate change and gun violence, two issues he will likely touch on.

FORMER CANDIDATES AND CONTENDERS

Three of the Democrats who also sought the White House this year will speak. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg will speak early, followed later in the evening by Andrew Yang, whose outsider presidential campaign was marked by a buzzy online following and a platform to give Americans a universal basic income. Several women who were considered potential running mates for Biden are also slated to appear: Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth. Other speakers include California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Delaware Sen. Chris Coons and members of the Biden family.
<! Aisha Buhari on arrival in Nigeria on Friday >

First Lady Aisha Buhari has revealed a near plane mishap on her return to Nigeria from the United Arab Emirates, where she went for medical treatment.

In her own own words she said, the Nigeria Air Force plane bringing her home encountered a violent clear air turbulence.

But after the storm, came the calm.

She said the storm was navigated safely and professionally by the Captain and crew of the Flight.

She effusively appreciated the Air Force.

I want to commend and appreciate the courage and professionalism of the Captain and his crew, the wonderful gallant service men and women of the entire Nigerian Air force for their dedication to duty and the quality of maintenance of its Fleet, she said.

Aisha revealed her experience today, in a statement in which she also thanked all Nigerians for their prayers and well wishes while away for the medical treatment .

I am well now and fully recovered and have since returned back home, Nigeria.

Apparently responding to criticism that she took her health problem, a stiff neck, to Dubai, She enjoined healthcare providers in Nigeria to take advantage of the CBN facility to boost capacity.

I recall hosting the private healthcare Providers earlier in the year and we had a very productive engagement where the issue of building the capacity of Nigeria health sector was the major focus, and funding was discovered to be the major challenge.

I therefore call on the healthcare providers to take the advantage of the Federal Governments initiative through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) guidelines for the operation of NGN100 Billion Credit Support for the Healthcare Sector as was released recently contained in a circular dated March 25, 2020 to the Commercial Banks. This will no doubt help in building and expanding the capacity of the Nigerian health sector and ultimately reduce medical trips and tourism outside the Country.

Once again, I thank our frontline workers and all Nigerians for their steadfastness as we navigate the challenges facing the entire world, she said.

Related
Cairo, Aug 23 : Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry discussed with his German counterpart Heiko Maas the recent developments in war-torn Libya and Palestine.

During a phone conversation, the top diplomats discussed the statements issued on Friday by UN-backed Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj and Speaker of the east-based House of Representatives Aguila Saleh in which they called for cease-fire in the country, according to a statement released by the Egyptian foreign ministry on Saturday, Xinhua news agency reported.

Both stressed the importance of benefitting from this important step to reach a comprehensive political settlement in Libya that would help restore security, stability in the country as well as ending foreign interventions.

On Friday, Serraj and Saleh announced, in separate statements, a cease-fire and the end of all hostilities in Libya, calling for presidential and parliamentary elections and resumption of oil exports.

Libya has been locked in a civil war since the ouster and killing of its 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 based in the capital Tripoli and the other in the northeastern city of Tobruk allied with the Libyan National Army led by Khalifa Haftar and the east-based House of Representatives.

Also on Saturday, Shoukry and Maas discussed the recent developments in the Palestinian cause.

Shoukry highlighted the importance of building on the latest developments to preserve the two-state solution and achieving a just peace within the framework of restoring legitimate Palestinian rights in accordance with the international legitimacy decisions.
The Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has postponed a meeting scheduled for Monday in view of the continued detention of its some leaders.

"We had convened a meeting tomorrow to discuss the prevailing situation in Jammu and Kashmir, but it has now been postponed as authorities have refused to allow some of the leaders to move out of their houses," leader Waheed Para said.

He said the party is mulling legal action for the release of the leaders as there are no formal detention orders for them.

"As and when all the leaders will be available, we will again convene a meeting," he said.

A senior leader, seeking anonymity, said the initiative to hold the meeting was taken at the instructions of party president Mehbooba Mufti, who is also under detention at her official residence here.

"As the mainstream parties have put up a united front against the unconstitutional moves made by the Centre with regard to Jammu and Kashmir last year, we will make our contribution to this struggle," he added.

Making it clear that there can be "nothing about us without us" in Jammu and Kashmir, six mainstream political parties, including the Conference and the PDP, on Saturday released a resolution terming the abrogation of special status of the erstwhile state a "spitefully shortsighted" and "grossly unconstitutional" move and pledging a combined effort for restoration of the pre-August 5 position of last year.

(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.)
(Natural News) State agencies in Florida have greenlit plans to release a horde of engineered mosquitoes in the Keys island chain. The mosquitoes, called OX5034, are set to be released in batches to control the local populations of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that transmit diseases like dengue and (faked) Zika.

Despite strong objections from residents, officials in the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD) permitted the release of 750 million of the modified mosquitoes in 2021 and 2022. One group condemned the plan as a public Jurassic Park experiment that has used tax dollars and state resources.

Oxitec, an Oxford-based genetic engineering firm, has targeted the U.S. as a testing site for their latest strain of engineered mosquitoes. The mosquitoes are designed to pass on a lethal gene to female mosquito offsprings, causing them to die before adulthood. The gene has no effect on male mosquitoes, which do not bite.

Genetic engineering for disease control

Florida is no stranger to local outbreaks of dengue, a painful and debilitating disease. But despite the fact that the A. aegypti species, the main carrier of the disease, constitutes just one percent of its mosquito population, the states annual cost of fighting dengue amounts to more than $1 million.

In fact, in 2009 and 2010, local outbreaks of dengue left the FKMCD desperate for options to control the population of mosquitoes. Despite their best efforts, from rampant insecticide use to the release of mosquito-eating fish, local authorities had failed to contain dengue mosquitoes.

In 2012, state officials had reached out to Oxitec for help. The firm has been creating modified insects since its founding in 2002 to assist in insect control. The modified populations are designed to act as biological insecticides. This approach eliminates the health risks that insecticides pose to human and animal health.

Nonetheless, the recent decision garnered prompt backlash from residents and local groups. In fact, a petition on Change.org slamming Oxitecs plan to use the U.S. as a testing ground for its modified insects listed almost 240,000 signatures.

In addition, officials from the non-profit bi-partisan organization called the International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA) are condemning the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its support of Oxitecs proposal, claiming it had refused to conduct serious risk assessments of the experiment.

The EPA has been conducting risk assessments on the proposed modified mosquitoes for almost a decade since Oxitecs first modified mosquito proposal in 2012. But the firm was able to create a second batch of mosquitoes amid the risk assessment and rescinded their initial proposal.

The second batch of modified mosquitoes, called OX5034, has since been released to much success in Panama and Brazil. One trial in Brazil reported an incredible 95 percent reduction of the areas dengue mosquito population.

Florida has also been conducting public relations campaigns to remind residents that the modified mosquitoes are not going to pose health threats to humans. The female mosquitoes are set to die before adulthood, and the remaining males feed on nectar, not blood.

Nonetheless, these campaigns had little effect. Residents have continued to call for the rejection of the proposal, refusing to be treated as guinea pigs.

Federal agencies also greenlighted Oxitecs proposal to release the modified mosquitoes in Texas beginning in 2021.

Independent research team raises alarms

To ensure that none of the female mosquitoes reach adulthood, the EPA permit requires Oxitec to conduct tests for at least 10 weeks. The firm is also required to alert state officials 72 hours before releasing the insects.

But despite these safeguards, an independent research group raised alarms in 2019, questioning the reported success of the firms earlier release of the modified mosquitoes.

Their findings, published online in the journal Scientific Reports, indicated that some of the female offspring of the engineered mosquitoes matured and produced offspring, too.

Local mosquitoes, the group claimed, then inherited pieces of the genomes of the modified mosquitoes, effectively creating a hybrid.

Nonetheless, both the papers authors and Oxitec officials agreed that there is not enough proof to suggest that these hybrids pose a significant danger to humans and animals.

The salient point to note from this is that something unanticipated happened, said Jeffrey Powell, a population geneticist from Yale University in Connecticut and a member of the research team.

Commenting on the findings, Oxitec officials said that it anticipated beforehand that the lethal gene was not 100 percent lethal.

Their earlier lab tests demonstrated that when some of the engineered male mosquitoes mated with wild female mosquitoes, about three percent of their offspring reached adulthood.

The paper is not without faults, and some scientists not affiliated with Oxitec had also expressed concerns regarding its findings.

For instance, Jason Rasgon, a scientist from Pennsylvania State University who specializes in insect-borne diseases, said that although the papers genetic findings are important, its strong assertions might fuel unfounded suspicions about the modified organisms.

Learn more about the environmental impact of GMOs at BioTech.news.

Sources include:

StrangeSounds.org

ScienceMag.org
A rsenal are closing in on the signing of Gabriel Magalhaes for a fee in the region of 25million.

Mikel Arteta is keen to shore up his back line ahead of the 2020-21 season and Lille's Gabriel is set to become the second defensive arrival after William Saliba returned from a season on loan at Saint-Etienne.

The 22-year-old is expected in London this week to finalise his move to the Premier League club on a five-year deal until 2025.

Arsenal have won the race for the Brazilian amid interest from Napoli and Manchester United.

He will become Arsenal's second senior summer signing following compatriot Willian's move from London neighbours Chelsea on a free transfer.

It is turning into an impressive transfer window for the Gunners, who are set to tie down Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. The Gabon international has just one year left to run on his current deal but is expected to sign a new three-year deal worth 250,000-a-week.

Arteta is still keen to add a midfielder and a forward to his squad.
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Washington, United States  Sun, August 23, 2020 11:02 515 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066fc92d8 2 Entertainment united-states,music,Red-Hot-Chili-Peppers,Jack-Sherman Free

Jack Sherman, a rock guitarist who played on the first album by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and co-wrote several of the Grammy-winning group's early songs, has died at age 64, the group announced Saturday.

The group listed no cause of death.

"We of the RHCP family would like to wish Jack Sherman smooth sailing into the worlds beyond, for he has passed," the Chili Peppers said on Twitter.

"Jack played on our debut album as well as our first tour of the USA."

The Chili Peppers paid further homage in a second tweet, saying, "He was a unique dude and we thank him for all times good, bad and in between."

In 1984, Sherman replaced guitarist Hillel Slovak for the group's first album, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and he collaborated on the second, Freaky Styley in 1985, according to the Deadline website.

Read also: Red Hot Chili Peppers rock Egypt's pyramids

Slovak later returned to the popular group, replacing Sherman.

The Chili Peppers went on to sell more than 80 million albums.

In 2012, when the group led by Anthony Kiedis was inducted to the prestigious Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Sherman was excluded, despite his early involvement with the group.

The decision, he said, was "really painful," adding, "I'm being dishonored, and it sucks."

Sherman went on to play on albums by Bob Dylan and funk star George Clinton, according to the Guitarworld website.
T ower Bridge has reopened for vehicles after being shut for over 24 hours due to a "mechanical fault".

The landmarks Twitter account confirmed on Sunday evening that motorists could start using it again.

It had been shut to drivers since Saturday afternoon when the bridge failed to close after allowing a ship to pass along the River Thames.

Queues of motorists and pedestrians were left waiting in both directions.

It was reopened for pedestrians on Sunday morning, with pictures showing some posing on the space usually occupied by vehicles.

A witness said: "According to the security radios we overheard there are multiple failures.

Engineers rushed to fix the bridge after the fault occurred as drivers were urged to avoid the area.

The bridge reopened to vehicles on Sunday evening / AP

City of London Police thanked motorists for their patience while the error was fixed.

In 2005, police closed the bridge for 10 hours after a technical problem meant the arms could not be lowered.
As part of the central governments continuous measures to halt the spread of the malignant novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the ministry of education (MoE) and the Ghana Education (GES), in partnership with waste management expert, Zoomlion Ghana Limited (ZGL), has begun disinfecting tertiary institutions in the Ashanti Region.



The three-day exercise, which started yesterday, is expected to end tomorrow (Sunday, August 23, 2020). It will cover both public and private universities, polytechnic universities and health facilities in the region.



The exercise follows the directive by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in his 15th national address on measures being taken against the spread of COVID-19 for tertiary institutions in the country to reopen on August 24th, 2020 to allow continuing students complete their academic calendar.



To this end, the president said the government through the MoE and the Ghana Education Service (GES) will ensure that all tertiary institutions in the country were disinfected.



On day one of the exercise in the Ashanti Region, Zoomlion disinfected institutions including the Seventh Day Adventist College of Education (SDACOE), Agona, ST. Monica's College of Education, Mampong and Mampong Technical College of Education among others. Facilities of these institutions that underwent disinfection were halls of residences, lecture halls, various faculties, administration blocks and offices.



The Zoomlion disinfection crew also used foggers to disinfect the open spaces and other surfaces in all of these institutions.



Speaking to the media after the exercise, the Principal of Seventh Day Adventist College, Dr Peter Ofori Atakorah, underscored the importance of the exercise, adding that so far his college had not recorded any positive case of the virus.



He praised the government and its partners for the second round of disinfection in tertiary institutions. According to him, the exercise will help keep the schools environment safe from the virus.



In addition, Dr Ofori Atakorah said the school had put in place adequate safety measures to protect the returning continuing students against the virus. These, he said, included putting Veronica buckets and alcohol-based hand sanitisers at vantage points to be used by the students.



We will also enforce the use of nose masks by the students, the teaching and non-teaching staff members, he said.



It would be recalled that a similar exercise was conducted in mid-June, this year when the president directed that all schools and universities to be re-opened for final year students to write their exit examinations.

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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Sunday 4:30 p.m.

The National Weather Service now expects Hurricane Marco may not make landfall Southeast Louisiana Monday as previously predicted. Projections show the storm going along the Louisiana coast and weakening to a tropical storm before making landfall in South/ Southwest Louisiana.

The NWS said there has not been much change in Tropical Storm Laura's trajectory. The storm has strengthen since earlier afternoon. The forecast still shows Laura upgrading to a category 2 hurricane, but the NWS said the storm strengthening to a category 3 is "within the realm of possibility."

A meteorologist said those who live within the cone, which stretches from Eastern Galveston Bay to Eastern Louisiana, should begin making plans to evacuate. No counties have issued mandatory evacuations as of Sunday afternoon.

Sunday 1:45 p.m.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 23 of the state's counties Sunday. Abbott issued the declaration for the 22 coastal surge counties as well as Bexar County, which was included for staging and sheltering.

Sunday 10:45 a.m.

Jefferson County Judge Jeff Branick has issued a disaster declaration for the county due to the "imminent threat of suffering widespread of severe damage, injury, or loss of life or property resulting from Hurricanes/Tropical Storms/Depressions Marco and/or Laura."

The declaration went into effect at 10:39 a.m. Sunday.

Sunday 10 a.m.:

The National Weather Service has shifted the projected path of Tropical Storm Laura more west, putting Southeast Texas in the center of the cone. The service predicts Laura to become a hurricane prior to making landfall later this week. The storm is currently over Cuba.

From the NWS:

"Laura's forecast has shifted west - and stronger. Currently we are projecting a category 2 hurricane at landfall in southwest Louisiana late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning.

After landfall in southeast Louisiana Monday, Marco's forecast shows it moving west across south central Louisiana as a tropical storm early Tuesday, before weakening to a tropical depression in southwest Louisiana and southeast Texas Tuesday afternoon and Tuesday night."

The NWS has a Facebook live event scheduled for 10:30 a.m..

Sunday 9 a.m.:

With Marco projected to become a hurricane this morning, forecasters believe that the storm will make landfall somewhere in eastern Louisiana around 1 p.m. Monday. The National Weather Service in Lake Charles showed a slight shift west in Tropical Storm Laura's path.

According to Space City Weather, the path could shift more to the west, putting Southeast Texas in the cross hairs before it makes landfall. Laura is expected to become a hurricane as it moves into the Gulf of Mexico.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak is facing questions about how he plans to support the restaurant industry when the scheme ends in September. Photo: Jeff J Mitchell/PA Images via Getty Images

As the month-long government Eat Out to Help Out scheme comes to a close at the end of August, there have been increasing calls by businesses and industry leaders for an extension.

The scheme, which is backstopped by the government, gives diners a 50% discount at participating restaurants and pubs on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, to a maximum of 10 per head, has thrown a lifeline to many businesses that were forced to close during coronavirus lockdowns.

According to government data released on Tuesday, over 35 million discounted meals have been claimed across the UK in the first two weeks of the scheme.

More than 85,000 eateries have signed up to participate, including high-street chains as well as thousands of small independent businesses. As part of this more than 48,000 claims have been made by participating restaurants so far.

The first two weeks of the dining scheme has seen the number of people eating in restaurants from Monday to Wednesday increase by an average of 27% year-on-year, according to data from OpenTable.

Hospitality has been one of the hardest hit sectors by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown. Around 80% of hospitality firms stopped trading in April, with 1.4 million people in accommodation and food services furloughed, according to the Treasury, the highest of any sector.

And with a second wave of coronavirus cases threatening to break in the coming months, pub and restaurant chiefs are asking for help.

Calls to extend

Some chains have already pledged to continue the scheme into September and fund it themselves regardless of moves by the government, including tapas restaurant Brindisa and steak joint Gaucho.

Alongside this, industry bodies such as UKHospitality have backed calls for an extension. CEO Kate Nicholls said: The benefit to consumers, the importance to businesses shows the need to continue it for another month to get the remaining 50 percent of restaurants and pubs reopen and successfully trading.

Story continues

Sacha Lord, the night time economy advisor in Manchester, chimed in: Stopping this next week, combined with rents due and the phasing out of furlough will be a combination leading to closure for many restaurants across the UK.

Pub bosses have also said their businesses will struggle without it as the economy is still on its knees.

Recovery more pronounced in seaside towns

Analysis by think tank the Centre for Cities has found that seaside towns like Bournemouth, Southend, Blackpool, and Brighton have all seen large increases in dining out on Monday to Wednesday so far in August because of the scheme. The increase is not offsetting activity later in the week, meaning overall spending appears to be rising.

Despite a general rise, some of the smallest increases found by the centre were in larger cities such as Manchester, Sheffield, and London. London saw an increase of just 3% in early August, compared to a 23% jump in Bournemouth. The average increase across the UK was 8%.

What were seeing is that small and medium city centres are seeing quite a strong recovery in terms of footfall and in spend, whereas large city centres and central London have not seen that recovery, Paul Swinney, director of policy and research at the Centre for Cities, told Yahoo Finance UK on Friday.

Swinney said seaside towns were enjoying a particular boost thanks to the rise in staycations.

High street collateral

While the government has been trying to work out a way to protect businesses, many chains have felt the pain of the pandemic.

Sushi and bento chain Wasabi was the latest casualty, announcing last night it would enter a company voluntary agreement (CVA) to help save its business.

Recently, YO! Sushi also said it is preparing to slice hundreds of jobs and close 19 of its sites.

The chain, which has 59 restaurants and 10 concessions across the UK, launched a CVA, which will allow it to shut its loss-making sites.

Pizza Express also announced last week it could close up to 67 of its restaurants and cut up to 1,100 jobs.

In July, Zizi and Ask Italian added to the list, saying they would be closing 75 of their restaurants, risking the loss of up to 1,200 jobs.

Byron Burger also shed 650 jobs and around half of its restaurant footprint.

Whats next?

Rishi Sunak has extended a number of other government schemes and increased government spending as the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the economy.

Whether he will listen to calls in the hospitality sector for more help remains to be seen, as the furlough scheme also winds down and looming job losses threaten.
Parish, N.Y. -- Six people were taken to Upstate University Hospital after a Saturday afternoon head-on crash in Oswego County, according to New York State Police.

Troopers responded to the crash on State Route 69 in the Town of Parish at about 3 p.m., police said.

A 2006 Ford SUV being driven eastbound by Kenneth R. Horning, 57, of Parish, on State Route 69 when he crossed into the westbound land and hit a 2018 Kia SUV head-on, police said.

Horning and a 7-year-old passenger in his car were taken to Upstate for non-life threatening injuries, police said.

Amanda L. Hughes, 36, of Camden, was driving the KIA, police said. Hughes, a 42-year-old man and two 1-year-old children were taken to Upstate University Hospital for non-life threatening injuries, police said.

Police are continuing to investigate the crash.

Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact Chris Libonati via the Signal app for encrypted messaging at 585-290-0718, by phone at the same number, by email or on Twitter.
Earlier this week, Dharmanand Das, 45, resident of Jokihat in Bihars Araria left for Punjab with a resolve to earn enough for his daughters marriage.

Here you cant get a job, only assurances, he said. Even though we pay twice the fare to transporters carrying us to Punjab and Rajasthan, we are hopeful that we will earn more there.

Afroz Alam (40), of Kamaldaha village in Araria has a similar story. He too plans to get his daughter married with the money he would earn in Rajasthan. I waited here for over two months but was unable to get any meaningful employment so I decided to leave for Rajasthan, he said.

Over 100 buses, each carrying 50-60 migrant labourers, have left from Araria for Punjab and Rajasthan in the last month.

But the promised job and transportation comes with a price. We have to give a fixed share of our daily income to the contractor (middleman) who is arranging jobs for us. Earlier also we used to pay a part of our income, said Das.

However, what is new this time is that during the initial days of lockdown, when employers from different states were providing free tickets to migrants, now those willing to go back have to cough extra money for tickets to these middlemen.

Most of the people, who left from Araria, alleged that they have to pay 2,500 to 3,000 for a seat in the bus while earlier it was just 1,500.

Earlier the bus charged a maximum of 1,500 but after lockdown the same bus charges 3,000 for a seat), Narayan Sada, of Dabhrha village under Araria sadar block said.

After lockdown we are charged by two agents - one transporters agent for a seat and the other by contractors of labourers for a job Mangan Rishi, 40, of Palasi lamented.

Reports from various corners of Seemanchal comprising four districts -Purnia, Kishanganj, Katihar and Araria - suggest that over 10,000 to 12,000 labourers have already left for Punjab and Rajasthan. A bus charges 1, 50,000 for a trip and about 2 lakh is collected from migrant labourers.

contractors of the labourers pay for those who cant pay, and later the money was collected from them in their work place, Das alleged.

Labourers also alleged that the work under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme has sunk into corruption depriving them of their wages.

Everybody knows about the corruption but nobody comes forward to check it, they said alleging The work is done by JCB machines and wages sent to accounts of the labourers having labour cards and later they have to return the money to the contractors.

Kursakanta block development officer (BDO) Madhu Kumari denied there was corruption in providing jobs to labourers.

We are providing jobs to workers under various schemes under PM Garib Kalyan Yojna, she said.

She, however, added that the administration couldnt stop anyone from going to other provinces.

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Midland County recorded 11 new confirmed coronavirus cases since Friday, according to weekend reports, with daily state case counts higher than usual Saturday and Sunday because of a state reporting glitch.

The three-day period also saw Isabella County add 49 cases; 38 of which, as of Saturday morning, were associated with Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, according to Steve Hall, health officer for Central Michigan District Health Department. Fall on-campus classes began last Monday at CMU.

"Over the past week, Central Michigan District Health Department has seen a large increase in positive cases in Mount Pleasant and surrounding areas, associated with the return of students to Central Michigan University," a health department release stated. "Our investigations have shown that many individuals that have tested positive live with several roommates or have attended large social gatherings."

CMU, on its website, said it will remain open for face-to-face instruction for as long as officials are able to manage and mitigate the risks related to COVID-19.

"There is no set threshold or number of cases that would trigger a shift to remote instruction," said a statement on CMU's website. "If we reach a point in which it is no longer safe to offer in-person instruction, we have prepared for a variety of scenarios and possible futures, including a shift back to remote-only instruction. We will monitor our situation carefully and make adjustments and decisions appropriately as we move forward."

Hall urged students to take coronavirus seriously and practice all precautions, including wearing face masks, staying six-feet away from each other, avoiding large gatherings, staying home when sick and washing hands frequently.

Prior to CMU opening, the university was reporting 25 positive cases since June 15, five of them during the week before classes started on Aug. 17.

The state on Friday announced an issue with the reporting of electronic lab results and said higher than expected numbers of daily case counts should be expected for a few days as the valid results are processed and entered into the reporting system.

With the three-day state results, Midland County's pandemic total now is at 296 confirmed cases, 84 probable cases and 10 deaths.

Friday-Sunday, Aug. 21-23 daily numbers

Bay County: 19 cases and three deaths were added; pandemic total stands at 688 cases, 82 probable, 39 deaths.

Gladwin County: Two cases were added; pandemic total stands at 67 cases, seven probable, two deaths.

Isabella County: 49 cases were added; pandemic total stands at 257 cases, 41 probable, nine deaths.

Saginaw County: 96 cases were added; pandemic total stands at 2,216 cases, 142 probable, 127 deaths and three probable deaths.

The state on Saturday added 953 new cases and 11 deaths, eight from vital records reviews. The state on Sunday added 768 new cases and four deaths. The state on Friday added 374 and 10 deaths.

Overall, Michigan is at 96,792 cases and 6,393 deaths.

Testing

The state report shows as of Aug. 23, Midland County has performed 10,191 diagnostic tests and 743 serology (antibodies) tests, totaling 10,934 tests. Gladwin County is listed as having administered 3,984 diagnostic tests and 127 serology (antibodies) tests, totaling 4,111 tests.

Midland County's seven-day rolling positivity rate on Aug. 19 was listed at 1.7%, and low risk of spread. Gladwin County was listed at 1.1% and low risk. The Saginaw region, which includes 12-counties including Midland, Gladwin, Bay and Saginaw counties, was listed at 3.6% and medium risk and Michigan at 3.4%, a medium risk. A positivity rate of less than 3% indicates a lack of community spread, according to Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, Department of Health and Human Services chief medical executive.

As of Aug. 18, MidMichigan Health  which covers a 23-county region and has medical centers at seven sites, including Midland  has completed a total of 17,532 tests. Of those, 16,646 were negative, 224 positive and 662 are pending.

Nursing Homes

Brittany Manor in Midland is listed in the state report as having four cumulative cases and one death among residents as of Aug. 20, and five cumulative cases and no deaths among staff. Midland King's Daughters is reporting one cumulative case among staff and Medilodge of Midland is reporting two cumulative cases among staff. The other reporting facility, Stratford Pines, is reporting no cases.

Gladwin Pines Nursing Home is listed as having two cumulative confirmed cases and no deaths among residents as of Aug. 20, and one confirmed case and no deaths among staff. Gladwin Nursing & Rehabilitation Community, the other long-term health facility reporting to the state, is reporting one cumulative confirmed case among residents and three cumulative cases among staff.

Recovered

As of Aug. 20, the Midland County health department website lists 259 recovered cases and 28 hospitalizations since the pandemic start.

The state lists the total recovered at 72,580 cases, as of Aug. 21, which represents COVID-19 confirmed individuals with an onset date on or prior to July 22, according to the state website, mich.gov.

Midland County Health Department data

People younger than 40 make up 57.2% of total Midland County cases, confirmed and probable, as of Aug. 20.

Of Midland County's 369 confirmed and probable cases, 79 cases are in 0-19 age range; 74 in 20-29 age range; 58 in 30-39 age range; 53 in 40-49 age range; 50 in 50-59 age range; 22 in 60-69 age range; 19 in 70-79 age range, and 14 in 80+ age range, as of Aug. 20.

Of Midland's 10 deaths, five have been female and five male. One was between the ages of 50-50; three were between ages of 70-79, and six were 80 years and older.

As of Aug. 20, 81.9% of cases have fallen within the 48640 and 48642 (mostly Midland) zip codes. Next highest were 48657 (Sanford) with 7.% of cases and 48618 (Coleman) with 6.2% of cases.

Cases by race, as of Aug. 20: 87.9% were listed as caucasian; 2.3% as Black; 4% as Asian; 1.1% listed as two or more races; and 6% were unknown.

MidMichigan Health statistics

Patient census: MidMichigan Health system is listed as having eight COVID-19 patients, including one COVID-19 patient in ICU, and 72.8% bed occupancy, as of Aug. 20.

PPE days on hand as of Aug. 20: The health system reported 7-14 days for N95 masks; 0-6 days for surgical masks; 15-21 days for surgical gowns; 21+ days for shields and 7-14 days for gloves.

Recommendations for public

 Socially distance at least 6 feet from non-household members.

 Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth.

 Wash hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after going to the bathroom, before eating and after blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing.

 If soap and water are not readily available, use an alcohol based sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol.

 Always wash hands with soap and water if hands are visibly dirty.

 Wear face coverings in public.

 Stay home when sick.

 Covering coughs and sneezes.

 Throw used tissues in the trash right after use.

 Routinely clean frequently touched objects and surfaces using a regular household cleaning wipe or spray.

If you think you've been exposed to COVID-19 and develop a fever and symptoms such as cough or difficulty breathing, call your health care provider for medical advice. If he/she isn't available call MidMichigan Urgent Care in Midland at 989- 633-1350 or MidMichigan Medical Center's Emergency Department in Midland at 989-839-3100.

MidMichigan Health has a COVID-19 informational hotline with a reminder of CDC guidelines and recommendations. The hotline can be reached toll-free at 800-445-7356 or 989-794-7600. Michigan Department of Health and Human Services also has a hotline number for Michigan residents for questions about COVID-19. The number is 1-888-535-6136 and is available seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Residents can also send an e-mail to: COVID19@michigan.gov. E-mails will be answered seven days a week between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

If you are feeling anxious, stressed, depressed and feel you need to talk to someone, reach out to Community Mental Health for Central Michigan by calling 800-317-0708.
RTHK: Thousands mass in Minsk as protests continue

Demonstrators massed in central Minsk on Sunday after opposition leaders called for a huge rally to demand the resignation of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, the latest in a wave of protests against his disputed re-election.

The authoritarian leader dispatched his notorious riot police to disperse spontaneous rallies that erupted after he claimed a sixth presidential term in an election two weeks ago that critics say was rigged.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators draped in the red-and-white flags of the opposition flooded Independence Square and marched through the capital chanting "freedom" and "we will not forget, we will not forgive" as passing cars honked in support.

"We have just two demands: fair elections and stop the violence," said 32-year-old Igor.

Officials issued a warning to Belarusians against participating in "illegal demonstrations" and local news outlets published videos on social media showing water cannon and riot police with shields moving towards Independence Square.

The defence ministry said it would intervene to protect "sacred" World War II memorials and several metro stations in Minsk were closed.

Opposition-leaning media and Telegram channels reported that more than 100,000 protesters had convened for the second Sunday in a row and smaller demonstrations erupted in provincial cities.

"Lukashenko wants everyone to leave and live like it was. But it won't be like it used to be," said Nikita, a 28-year-old protester.

Solidarity rallies were also due in neighbouring Lithuania, where demonstrators planned to form a human chain from Vilnius to the Belarus border, three decades after residents of the Baltic states joined hands and linked their capital cities in a mass protest against Soviet rule.

The EU has rejected the results of the election and has vowed to sanction Belarusians responsible for ballot fraud and a police crackdown that saw nearly 7,000 people arrested and sparked gruesome allegations of torture and abuse in police custody.

Top EU diplomat Josep Borell warned that Belarus should not be allowed to become a "second Ukraine" and said it was necessary to deal with the 65-year-old Lukashenko, Europe's longest serving leader.

The man branded "Europe's last dictator" has brushed aside the calls to go, dismissed the possibility of holding a new vote and instructed his security services to quell unrest and secure the borders.

His judiciary opened a criminal investigation into the opposition's Coordination Council that is seeking new elections and the peaceful transition of power, after he said opponents wanted to "seize power".

The former collective farm boss ordered the military into full combat readiness during an army inspection on Saturday near the border with the EU and warned about NATO troop "stirrings" in neighbouring countries.

"The fatherland is now in danger. We cannot joke," Lukashenko said.

Lithuania's President Gitanas Nauseda said Lukashenko was trying to "divert attention" from unrest at home, while NATO dismissed the claims as baseless.

The unlikely leader of Belarus's opposition, 37-year-old Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, fled to Vilnius fearing reprisals for mounting the greatest challenge to Lukashenko and claiming election victory.

In an interview ahead of the demonstrations, she urged protesters to continue to exert pressure on the authorities, saying it was "important to continue to be united in the struggle for the rights".

The authorities have to understand "we are not a protest movement... we are a majority and we will not step away. We are not afraid of them any more."

Lukashenko's opponents have organised strikes and the largest protests in the ex-Soviet country's recent history over his re-election, with more than 100,000 people turning out in Minsk alone last weekend.

Yet fewer workers at state-run factories - usually a bastion of support for Lukashenko - have continued to strike, with activists citing pressure from the authorities.

The president has threatened from Monday to shut down production lines where workers have put down their tools.

Staff at state-run media outlets have also staged walkouts and Lukashenko admitted this week that journalists from Russia had been flown in to replace them.

His powerful ally, Russia, has warned European leaders against interfering in Belarus and the Kremlin has said it would intervene in the post-election unrest if necessary.

US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun will visit Lithuania as part of a trip next week that will also include a stop in Russia for talks on the election fallout.

He is planning to meet with Tikhanovskaya. (AFP)

This story has been published on: 2020-08-23. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 10:02:28|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Mei Xiang and her new cub appear to be "very healthy," Laurie Thompson, assistant curator of giant pandas with the Smithsonian's National Zoo here, told Xinhua on Saturday.

"I would say it appears that they're healthy," said Thompson, who was staying up all night with her colleagues monitoring Mei Xiang and the cub. "The cub was constantly vocalizing throughout the night. Short periods of breast, but not very long. And that's kind of what we want to see."

Mei Xiang, 22, gave birth to the cub on Friday evening after more than three hours of labor, the seventh since she and male giant panda Tian Tian began living in the zoo in 2000. Three of her cubs have survived to adulthood.

As an experienced and healthy mother, Mei Xiang was taking care of her new cub "all night long," said Thompson, adding that the giant panda team has not been able to get hands on it because they want to wait until Mei Xiang is ready to leave the cub, which usually takes place "within a week or so."

"She will go to eat, leave the den to eat, and then we can go in and retrieve the cub to do a cub exam," the curator explained.

The new cub was quite a surprise, even for giant panda professionals, as Mei Xiang is of an advanced maternal age.

"I think we're all still a little bit in shock. I think we all were hopeful that she would have a cub but we didn't really expect it considering her age," Thompson said.

"This is a really special thing that she was able to get pregnant and have another child at her age," she added. "There's a lot to learn about that ... We get to see, you know, how an older mother interacts with a young cub."

Thompson traveled to Chengdu, China in November 2019 on a trip that sent four-year-old Bei Bei, Mei Xiang's third surviving offspring, back to the hometown of giant pandas, as per an agreement between the U.S. national zoo and the China Wildlife Conservation Association.

Saturday is Bei Bei's birthday, a day after that of his younger brother. And Sunday is the birthday of their sister Bao Bao, born in 2013. Mei Xiang "apparently likes this week to give birth," Thompson jokingly said.

Calling the birth "definitely some happiness," the curator also said "everybody can use a panda cub right now" to cheer him or her up "certainly with everything that's going on in the world." Enditem
Pakistan has issued sweeping orders enforcing financial sanctions against Afghanistans Taliban, just as the militant group is in the midst of a U.S.-led peace process in the neighboring country.

In a statement late on August 22, Pakistan's foreign ministry said the sanctions are not new but rather are laid out in 2015 U.N. regulations. The orders, which were issued on August 18, enforce the U.N. regulations and are issued routinely, the statement said. A similar order was issued in 2019.

The U.N.-imposed penalties target dozens of individuals including Taliban chief peace negotiator Abdul Ghani Baradar and several members of the Haqqani family, including Sirajuddin, the current head of the Haqqani network and deputy head of the Taliban.

Many Taliban leaders, including those heading the much-feared Haqqani network, have lived in Pakistan since the 1980s. In those years they were part of the Afghan mujahedeen and allies of the U.S. to end the 10-year invasion by the former Soviet Union. It ended in February, 1989.

Many of the groups leaders are known to own businesses and property in Pakistan.

The list of sanctioned groups included others besides the Taliban and is in keeping with a 5-year-old United Nations resolution sanctioning the Afghan group, freezing their assets and restricting their travel. The foreign ministry statement said the new orders reflect the U.N. sanctions.

The timing of Pakistans decision to issue the orders again could be seen as a move to pressure the Taliban into a quick start to intra-Afghan negotiations, the next step in a peace deal signed in late February.

On August 22, Taliban political spokesman Suhail Shaheen said that the financial sanctions have been in place for some time. But he said any tightening of a ban on travel could hurt peace negotiations. While the first round will be held in Doha, Qatar, subsequent talks will be held elsewhere. Several countries, including Germany, have offered to host.

It will hamper the peace process if there is a travel ban on all members, Shaheen said in an interview. There is a need for a relaxation of such curbs and embargoes because we are entering into another phase of (finding a) peaceful solution of the Afghan issue.

The orders were issued as part of Pakistan's efforts to avoid being blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force, which monitors money laundering and tracks terrorist groups' activities, according to security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Last year, the Paris-based group put Pakistan on a grey list of countries with a high risk of money laundering and terrorism financing but which have formally committed to working with the task force to make changes. Currently, only Iran and North Korea are blacklisted, which severely restricts a country's international borrowing capabilities. Pakistan is trying to get off the grey list, said the officials.

Pakistan has denied giving sanctuary to Taliban members following their ouster in 2001 by the U.S.-led coalition but both Washington and Kabul routinely accuse Islamabad of giving them a safe haven.

Still, it was Pakistan's relationship with the Taliban that Washington eventually sought to exploit to move its peace negotiations with the insurgent movement forward.

The U.S. signed a peace deal with the Taliban on Feb. 29. The deal is intended to end Washington's nearly 20 years of military engagement in Afghanistan and has been touted as Afghanistan's best hope for peace after more than four decades of war.
Baba Suwe

Babatunde Omidina, the veteran actor and comedian popularly known as Baba Suwe has debunked the rumour of his death, describing the development as sad and uncalled for.

The rumour death news filtered into social media space in the early hours of Friday with friends and fans of the Baba Londoner, Obe Lomo, Elebolo star-making efforts to reach out to him.

Debunking the death rumour, the Omolasan and Iru Esin actor in a chat, said he was informed about the death rumour, adding that he was surprised that people could go to any extent to wish death on their fellow human beings.

He expressed sadness over the calls he had received from family and friends, who according to him were worried about the death rumour.



Anybody that wants me dead should be ahead of me and wait for me in heaven. It is very disturbing that people could wake up spreading false news about you, especially sensitive and wicked news at that. I am alive, I am well; I will be fine, I am not dead. I dont think a dead man could be talking to you as I am right now, he said.

Asked about his health, the Baba Jaiye Jaiye producer said he was doing fine, even though his voice was hazy when speaking on the phone, adding he was getting better and would not want to bother the public about his health condition, as he would love to keep his health issues private.

The actor of numerous credits was in April 2019 flown to the United States of America, where he went for treatment after falling ill to diabetes with the support of Rev Esther Ajayi, who supported the oversea medical treatment with a sum of N10million.

Actor Yomi Fabiyi had on February 24, 2019, announced that the sum of N10 million donation was received from Rev. (Mrs.) Esther Ajayi through actor and producer, Gbenga Adewusi aka Bayowa for the treatment of Baba Suwe in the United States of America.

Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo had on February 21, 2019, donated the sum of one million Naira to support the actors medical treatment. The donation was made through the Office of the Youth Organising Secretary, APC Lagos, Aregbe Idris.

The actor was on October 12, 2011, detained by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) on suspicion of drug trafficking after a body scanner at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport Lagos identified suspected drugs in his stomach.

With the assistance of his lawyer, the late Bamidele Aturu, a human right activist, the allegation was described as false and defamatory by the ruling of a Lagos High Court. This saw his fans and supporters cheered him as he left the court building after the hearing.

Since these incidents actor has not been active for years due to his failing health, which many attribute to his incarceration by the NDLEA.
Mm Capital, an Irish property development company founded in 2013 by Peter Leonard and Derek Poppinga, has acquired an 18.66-acre site in Shrewsbury, England, which was put on the market for 8.65m (9.6m).

According to local reports, the move could bring new jobs and inward investment into the site, which was previously occupied by sheet metal fabricator Stadco. Mm Capital plans to break up the site into smaller industrial units, with yard space ranging from 10,000 sq ft to 150,000 sq ft.
Despite calls for a non-Gandhi Congress chief, a number of senior leaders on Sunday said that the family should continue leading the grand old party as it needed a "leadership that is acceptable to all" and a move that "does not create divisiveness".

Congress leader and Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said that the reason NDA succeeded is "absence of a strong, united Opposition", and a "rehaul of the party at this critical juncture would prove detrimental". He further said that the Gandhis were the "right fit for the role" as the family has made "immense contribution to the countrys progress since it achieved freedom from the British rule".

"The NDA's success was attributable to the absence of a strong and united Opposition, and the move by these Congress leaders to demand a rehaul of the party at this critical juncture would be detrimental to its interests, and the interests of the nation. India is currently facing not just external dangers from across the border but also internal threats to its federal structure," Singh said, adding that a unified Congress alone could protect the country and its people.

"What Congress needs is a leadership that is acceptable not just to a few but to the entire party, through its rank and file, and the nation at large. And the Gandhis are the right fit for this role. Sonia Gandhi should continue to helm the Congress as long as she wanted. Rahul should thereafter take over as he was fully competent to lead the party," the senior Congress leader further said.

The chief minister pointed out that there was not a single village in India which did not have a Congress member to carry forward its ideology of upholding the constitutional principles, rights and freedoms. He said the credit for that went to the Gandhis, without whose "selfless commitment, dedication and unimaginable sacrifices", the party would not have stood like a rock in the path of the BJP and its "Sanghi ambitions to divide the country on the lines of caste and religion".

"At a time when the very bedrock of India's constitutional strength is under threat, it is important for every Congress man and woman to stand firmly and unitedly behind the Gandhis, who had held the party together all these decades and could continue to do so," he said.

Ahead of the Congress Working Committee meeting on Monday, different voices have emerged within the party with one section comprising sitting MPs and former ministers demanding a collective leadership, while another group has sought the return of Rahul Gandhi to the helm. Some Congress leaders, including ex-ministers, have written to party president Sonia Gandhi for the overhaul of the organisational structure and changes to the leadership.

The letter by former ministers and some MPs was believed to have been written a few weeks ago and sets the stage for a stormy Congress Working Committee meeting on Monday where issues flagged by dissenters are expected to be discussed and debated.

Rajasthan CHief Minister Ashok Gehlot, who recently survived a blow to his government after his former deputy Sachin Pilot rebelled with a few MLAs, said the news of the letter is unbelievable and if true, it is unfortunate, adding that Sonia Gandhi should lead the party at this crucial juncture.

However, he added that if she has made up her mind in this regard, then Rahul Gandhi should come ahead and become the party president.

"News of 23 senior most Congress leaders writing letter to Honble CP is unbelievable and if it is true - its very unfortunate was no need to go in media I strongly believe that Honble CP Smt Sonia Gandhi ji should continue to lead the party at this crucial juncture Where the fight is to save the ethos of our Democracy. She has always taken challenges head on. But if she has made up her mind -I believe @RahulGandhishould come ahead and be the Congress President as country faces the biggest challenge to save our Constitution -Democracy," he wrote on Twitter.

Maharashtra Congress chief and state minister Balasaheb Thorat urged Rahul Gandhi to come back as not just the party, but the entire country needs him. "Come back, Rahulji". Not only the Congress party but the entire country needs you.@RahulGandhi @INCIndia," Thorat said.

Stating that the crisis that the country is going through can only be dealt with under the leadership of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel said the entire nation and party workers stood with the mother-son duo.

Baghel posted a copy of his letter to Gandhi on his Twitter account wherein he wrote, "Gandhi-Nehru family hasmade significant contributions in transforming India from apoor nation to a modern country. Their sacrifices for the country are unforgettable. Despite facing several crises inthe past, millions of workers of the 135-year-old Congressparty had always shown faith in the Gandhi-Nehru family."

Former Union minister Salman Khurshid said Rahul Gandhi enjoys the "full support" and "endorsement" of party leaders and workers, and it does not matter whether he wears the label of a president or not. He also suggested that the party should give consensus a chance instead of elections which create divisiveness.

"I have said very clearly that the Gandhis are leaders of the Congress. Nobody can deny this, even the opposition cannot deny this. I am quite happy having a leader, I don't worry about whether or not we have a president, we have a leader (in Rahul Gandhi) and that is comforting for me," the former Union minister told PTI in an interview. His remarks assume significance as they come just ahead of the meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party's highest decision making body, which is likely to deliberate on the leadership issue that is in the spotlight with Sonia Gandhi completing a year as interim chief. Also, 23 Congress leaders, including some ex-ministers have written to party president Sonia Gandhi for the overhaul of the organisational structure.

Asked about the section of party leaders calling for elections to the CWC and presidency, Khurshid hit out at those asking for internal polls, saying why are people so anxious to make these demands in the Congress when they are not made in any other party. "I am very surprised. I have not heard a single demand being made in the Communist party or in the regional parties or in the BJP. I have not heard about demand for elections in any of those parties," Khurshid said.

"Elections are important, but the historical context in which elections have to be held, circumstances, have to be taken into account. Consensus has been an important part of the political process in the Congress," he said. Giving up consensus and opting for elections, without reflecting upon the implications and consequences might be running into "unknown, unchartered territory", he said.

Khurshid also said that such issues should be discussed within the party and not outside it. His comments come days after Shashi Tharoor had said that he has been advocating elections to the CWC and for the post of the president as it would certainly have a number of beneficial outcomes for the party. Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit had also said recently that it is "high time" that the Congress appoints a full-time president by "selection or election".

Asked if consensus was the way forward instead of internal polls, Khurshid said, "My instinct says this. My understanding of the Congress says that consensus is extremely important." "People react to that by saying that you are being anti-democratic. I don't know if consensus is in some way an undemocratic thing to happen. It should be a genuine consensus. Of course it should not be a forced consensus. I think we should give consensus a chance," he said. On whether polls can lead to divisiveness in the party, Khurshid said elections do divide.

Elections, in the right spirit, should not divide, but the ground reality is that elections do divide, he said. "So, let us just hope we gradually mature to a stage where elections will not divide," he said.

Asked if Rahul Gandhi should come back as party chief, Khurshid said it was up to him to make his decision and leaders should allow him to take a call. "When you give someone your allegiance as a leader then you have to listen to the leader and whatever the leader wants to do. There is a view in a large number of people that he should not stay away from presidentship of the party," he said.

Noting that Gandhi has his own reasons to keep himself away from the presidentship, Khurshid said party leaders should respect his decision and not in any way create a situation that becomes difficult for him. "Let us wait for him to take a call, I think he understands what people's expectations and hopes are and I think he will respond to those hopes," he said.

Asked about Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's remarks carried in a book endorsing Rahul Gandhi's views that the party should have a non-Gandhi president and whether that person would be under pressure of the Gandhis, Khurshid said where is the question of pressure as there "may be a president who is a non-Gandhi, but there will also be a leader who is a Gandhi". "Even the president will have to accept 'the leader' Gandhi. You cannot choose a leader who is already chosen. People have given full support and have given their endorsement to Mr Rahul Gandhi and that will remain a fact," he said.

"Whether he (Rahul) wears the label of a president or he doesn't wear the label of a president, he remains a leader," Khurshid said. If Rahul Gandhi is a leader, surely, he should also be respected for his views on what the presidential structure or what the organisational structure should be in the future, he said.

Khurshid said if Rahul Gandhi is the leader and he gives respect to a president, everybody will give respect to the president, he said. The party should not be breast-beating about the leadership issue and it will get resolved, Khurshid said.

Assam Congress president Ripun Bora has also written to Sonia Gandhi requesting her to give the responsibility of heading the party to Rahul Gandhi "so that he can lead the party and fight the BJP and RSS from the front".

Senior party leader Rajiv Shukla said he believed Sonia Gandhi should continue as Congress president. "I am of the strong view that Sonia ji should continue as congress president. Those who want to air their voices can always do it within the party forum. She is capable of giving the strong leadership at this crucial time @INCIndia," Shukla said on Twitter.

(With inputs from PTI)
The market gradually marched higher with benchmark indices rising around a 1.5 percent each amid consolidation in the week ended August 21, largely backed by global cues and FII inflow. Auto, banking & financials, metals and infra stocks participated in the weekly run, but defensives - IT and pharma saw underperformance.

Sensex rallied 557.38 points to 38,434.72 and Nifty50 climbed 193.20 points to 11,371.60, but the real activity was seen in broader market which outperformed frontliners by wide margin. The Nifty Midcap index was up 3.66 percent and Smallcap rallied 5.4 percent amid noticeable interest.

Given the consolidation in benchmarks which already went closer to six-month high, disparity in risk-reward ratio, consistent outperformance of broader markets over benchmarks and the almost end of major June quarter earnings, experts feel the time has come to be cautious though bulls are getting strong support on every dip, and also expect some August F&O contracts expiry-led volatility in the coming week.

"Indian markets are showing strong correlation with the global markets. The markets, globally, are currently running on hope and liquidity. The expectation of economic activity picking up and earnings normalising will have to translate into reality or at least show signs of it, for the markets to sustain the current momentum. Until then investors are advised to remain cautious while trading and remain stock specific," Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services told Moneycontrol.

Nirali Shah, Senior Research Analyst at Samco Securities also said investors should abstain from deploying fresh monies and even consider to book profits at higher levels.

Here are 10 key factors that will keep traders busy next week:

Earnings

Earnings from majority of leading firms across segments are almost over, but as companies are allowed to declare their June quarter earnings till September 15, more than 300 companies will declare their quarterly earnings in the coming week. Hence experts feel largely there could be more of a stock specific action next week.

Important amongst them to watch out for would be IRB Infrastructure, Indraprastha Gas, LIC Housing Finance, Suzlon Energy, Aarey Drugs, Can Fin Homes, IRCON International, Procter & Gamble Hygiene, Phillips Carbon Black, GMDC, Edelweiss Financial Services, GMR Infrastructure, HCC, Himatsingka Seide, ICRA, IDFC, NMDC, PNC Infratech, Kohinoor Foods, SJVN, Techno Electric, Vivimed Labs, Wockhardt etc.

Coronavirus

Novel coronavirus will continue to be in headlines till we get a vaccine. India has reported more than 30 lakh confirmed COVID-19 infections with over 56,000 deaths so far. Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh have the maximum cases, while globally, there are more than 2.3 crore confirmed cases with around 8 lakh deaths, as per Johns Hopkins University.

But now the key focus is on the rising recovery rate which is around 75 percent against 71.5 percent last week and that is most soothing part though the final vaccine is yet to come. Globally 4-6 vaccines are in Phase 3 where the testing is done on thousands of patients, while in India, Serum Institute has started the Phase 2 & 3 clinical trials for its vaccine. Another key thing to note is that the daily tests count increased over 10 lakh now, though we are reporting average daily infections of over 60,000 from the passing week.

FII Flow

The rising FII inflow has also been a supporting factor for the market and will be key to watch out for. The month of August so far reported (Rs 33,386.92 crore) highest ever monthly FII inflow since March 2017 (Rs 33,781.93 crore), whereas DIIs remained net sellers to the tune of over Rs 8,600 crore so far in August in addition to Rs 10,000 crore outflow in previous month.

"FIIs' interest in India continues despite the premium market valuation. This is aided by hopes emanating from the upcoming festival season, further re-opening of the economy and the government's plans for a second COVID fiscal stimulus," said Vinod Nair of Geojit.

In the passing week, FIIs net bought Rs 2,068.18 crore worth of shares, whereas DIIs net sold Rs 2,117 crore shares.

GST Council Meeting

The meeting of Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council will be held on August 27, which was delayed due to COVID-19 situation. Senior government official said the council will discuss the single-point agenda of compensation to states.

The council will try to reach a consensus on the issue of market borrowing to solve the compensation problem instead of going for raising tax or cess rates.

Midcap and Smallcap in Focus

The performance of Midcap and Smallcaps will also be closely watched in the coming week as both indices outperformed benchmark indices from its March lows as well as year-to-date basis after underperformance seen in 2018 and 2019 Some of FIIs money flowing into these stocks, while June quarter earnings performance, improvement in economic data points amid unlock process and progress in vaccine also supported the rally.

The Nifty Midcap and Smallcap indices gained 54.5 percent and 68 percent from March lows, and fell 0.7 percent and 3 percent year-to-date respectively against 49.5 percent rally and 6.55 percent fall in Nifty50 in same period.

Technical View

The Nifty50 gained half a percent on Friday but formed bearish candle on daily charts, while it reported a 1.7 percent gains during the week gone by amid volatility and formed small bullish candle which resembles a Spinning Top kind of pattern on weekly charts.

Experts remain positive on the market in short term, but given the rising volatility for past few weeks, they feel the upside seems to be limited from hereon.

"Nifty continued to make a higher top and higher bottom formation on the daily chart, which indicates that the recent low of 11,111 will act as crucial support whereas the immediate resistance of a previous swing is placed at 11,460 levels," Nilesh Jain of Anand Rathi told Moneycontrol.

"The Nifty index is hovering near its 78.6 percent retracement of the entire fall which is placed at 11,400 levels and a decisive move above the same will take Nifty towards 11,500 levels," he said.

F&O Expiry Week

The August derivative contracts will get expired on coming Thursday and trading positions will roll over to next series, hence there could be some volatility next week. Options data indicated that the Nifty could be in the range of 11,200-11,600 levels in coming days.

Huge amount of Put writing was seen at 11,200 and 11,300 strikes where the second highest open interest was placed at 11,200 strike, which is likely to act as immediate support in the coming week followed by 11,000 strike.

A fresh call writing was seen at 11,500 strike which also holds the maximum open interest followed by 11,600 strike. "If Nifty breaks above 11,500 then we can expect some short-covering move towards 11,600 levels, Nilesh Jain said.

The falling volatility continued to give comfort to bulls. The volatility index IndiaVIX fell by 9 percent to end below 20 levels making a lower top and lower bottom formation, which is a positive sign for the markets, experts feel. The only cause of concern would be if India VIX moves above 25-30 range.

Corporate Action

Here are key corporate events taking place in the coming week:

Among other data points, deposit and bank loan growth for week ended August 14, and foreign exchange reserves for week ended August 21 will be released on August 28.

Rights Issue

The Rs 250-crore rights issue of Minda Industries, the auto components manufacturer, will open on August 25 till September 8 and the trading in Rights Entitlement will also take place simultaneously.

Satin Creditcare Network's Rs 120 crore rights issue, which opened on August 12, will close on August 26. Investors will have to pay Rs 15 (out of issue price of Rs 60) per share on application.

Global Cues

Here are key global data points to watch out for next week:

Apart from above mentioned data points, the 44th Annual Economic Policy Symposium will also be held online on Thursday and Friday, in Kansas City. The year's theme is "Navigating the Decade Ahead: Implications for Monetary Policy," said the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
As we stood there talking, the world seemed full of possibility. The random encounter reminded me of something I'd been missing. The previous afternoon, I'd stepped down from my position as Acting Home-School Principal to my two children and fled to the mountains. I needed space. Like everyone else, I'd been stuck inside for weeks. The invisible virus was everywhere. The most simple and mundane acts had become fraught with danger. What I'd missed, I realised, was other people. Not just friends, but crowds and strangers. "We're all in this together", but we were also all apart  sharing food pics from our kitchen islands. And yet, as he opened up to me, I held back. I could have told him that my dad had a stroke several years ago and was now dead. Or that, like him, I had my own relationship issues. I could have said that, as he did, I sometimes wondered about the line between friendship and love. Instead, we talked about rocks. I said that the mountains felt ancient; he said he'd studied geology. We were standing on the remains of an eroded plateau. The oldest rocks were older still  created from the debris left by a shallow sea. Enormous pressure and the action of time had left these dramatic escarpments, gorges and caves. My new friend talked excitedly about a secret spot near Lithgow where you could find sapphires as big as grapes. It was getting late; the shadows deepening across the valley. In the city, people were fighting over toilet paper. After half an hour, I realised that I was starting to get cold. Actually, I was very cold. In the mountains in autumn it can be lovely in the sun, but as soon as the shadows hit it's absolutely freezing. I was also out of water, and needed to get back to the car before it got dark. I said my goodbyes and walked away. He remained at the railing, as though waiting for the next walker.

About three weeks later, back in my little city flat, I stumbled upon a Facebook post by Katoomba/Leura RFS: It was a notice about a missing person, and there on my phone was a photo of the man I had met. Loading He'd been last seen on April 22  weeks after our meeting at the lookout. "It's believed he was going for a bushwalk," the post said. "However, he failed to return home and his friends and family have not been able to locate or contact him." It added: "Serious concerns are held for his welfare."

My friendly stranger, my fellow frequenter of deserted, forbidden lookouts in the mountains. I had no idea what to do. I thought about calling the police, but doubted that I had anything useful to offer. I kept a close eye on social media for updates. A few days later, the Blue Mountains Gazette had an article. A body had been found in bushland in Katoomba. It was thought to be the missing bushwalker. The circumstances of his death weren't suspicious and investigations were continuing, the reporter said, in what seemed cryptic double-speak. I asked a friend who works at a newspaper if that meant suicide. "It could be," she said, "but it could mean other things." Had he suffered another stroke and fallen over the edge? The road he'd been found near was Cliff Drive. The afternoon that we'd met, he'd told me he'd previously done the steep climb I'd just completed, but not since he'd had a stroke. It affected his movement on one side of his body and also meant that he slurred his words sometimes. This had led to him being refused service at pubs.

"Although it's possible that I actually was drunk on a few of these occasions," he'd added with a wry smile. A month later, I returned to the mountains, hoping this would help me remember the conversation more clearly. Most strangers are invisible to us. They're anonymous blurs that we don't remember and rarely truly "see". There was something about that moment and that place that had brought this one particular person into sharp focus. While it was hard to comprehend the human tragedy of the pandemic, the thousands dead, the loss of this one person had affected me deeply. At Three Sisters, I got out and walked along the cliff to the lookout. When I was almost there, I found the way was blocked. A police car was parked right across the track. Through the windscreen, two officers were keeping watch. There was no way back to the lookout. I stood on the track on my own and wondered what to do next. Eventually, I drove back down to Sydney.

A few weeks later, I found the man's son on Facebook. He'd published a few posts about his dad's passing. There was a photo his dad had taken two hours before he died. It was a familiar landscape; an ocean of trees and blue sky. It wasn't taken where we met, but the view was essentially the same. It looked like a perfect day. I wondered what he'd seen when he looked out into all that space. Loading In another post, the son described visiting the morgue. His father's body was entirely covered except for his left arm. He said that it looked waxy but was somehow characteristically "his". He also posted about what he'd said to his dad in the morgue, to say goodbye: "You've totalled your Hyundai and I am a little bit envious of you surfing that cosmic skyway right now. I wish I could see it."
With community spread of the novel coronavirus still a threat in Iowa, administrators and school board members have decided whether facial coverings should be required or simply recommended for pupils, teachers and staff now that school has begun in late August.

Throughout the tri-state area, some people have said wearing masks all day would be derogatory health-wise for students, while others have countered that public health officials have said that is not so.

The Journal emailed each school district with a high school in Siouxland, and compiled the answers from those superintendents and principals who responded.

IOWA

Alta-Aurelia: Masks are required by students when in hallways and not able to social distance, and in other instances are not required for teachers and pupils.

Bishop Heelan Catholic Schools: Students and instructors are required to wear masks or face shields in classrooms, hallways and buses.

Denison: Students and instructors are required to wear masks in classrooms, hallways and buses during times they cannot be socially distanced at six feet apart.

Kingsley-Pierson: Students in grades 5-12 are required to wear masks on buses, in hallways, commons area, restrooms, and where social distancing cannot take place. Masks are encouraged, but not required for K-4 students. Teachers and staff have been asked to model the wearing of masks, so students might follow their lead.

Lawton-Bronson: Masks are required on buses and in buildings for staff and students in common areas such as hallways and lunchroom. They are not required in classrooms when social distancing can be achieved.

Le Mars: Students and teachers are required to wear masks in classrooms, hallways and buses.

Maple Valley Anthon-Oto: Masks are required on buses and in buildings when social distancing is not possible for students and staff.

MOC-Floyd Valley: Masks are not required for pupils or staff, but recommended in all settings where social distancing is not feasible. Visitors to the building are required to wear masks.

MMCRU: Students are required to wear masks on buses, and in buildings they will only be required by pupils and teachers when unable socially distance in classes and hallways.

OABCIG: Students are not required to wear masks on buses, and in buildings they will only be required in the classrooms where a teacher has health concerns.

Sergeant Bluff-Luton: Masks are required on buses. Within buildings they are required for teachers and students in grades 6-12 when social distancing is not possible, and in the lower grades they are encouraged when distancing not possible.

Sheldon: Masks are required on buses, since social distancing is not possible. In buildings, masks are recommended for students, but not required. For employees, bus drivers and cafeteria staff are required to wear masks, while they are recommended for other workers such as teachers.

Sibley-Ocheyedan: Masks are not required for pupils or employees, but recommended in all settings where social distancing is not feasible.

Sioux Center: Students and instructors are required to wear masks in classrooms, hallways and buses.

Sioux Central: Masks are required for students in hallways and the lunch line, and recommended in buses and school settings where social distancing is not feasible.

Sioux City: Students and instructors are required to wear masks in classrooms, hallways and buses.

Siouxland Christian: Wearing a mask is recommended, but not required for students and staff in buildings.

Spencer: When social distancing is not possible in classrooms, hallways and buses, face masks are required for students and staff.

Spirit Lake: Students and staff are required to wear face masks in hallways and buses, and since they will be socially distanced in classrooms, masks are recommended but not required there.

Storm Lake: Students and instructors are required to wear masks in classrooms, hallways and buses during times they cannot be socially distanced at six feet apart.

Storm Lake St. Marys: Masks are required on buses, and in the school building for students and staff when social distancing is not possible.

Trinity Christian (Hull): Masks are not required for pupils or employees.

West Monona: Masks are required on buses and in buildings when social distancing is not possible for students and staff. For younger students, the larger elementary classrooms will often allow for pupils to not wear masks a majority of the time.

Woodbury Central: Wearing a mask is recommended, but not required for students and staff in buildings. They are required on buses, since students cannot adequately socially distance.

NEBRASKA

Allen: Masks are required on buses and in buildings when social distancing is not possible for students and staff.

Emerson-Hubbard: Students and staff are required to wear a face mask or covering whenever they are unable to maintain six feet of social distancing in classrooms, hallways and when riding in school vehicles.

Hartington-Newcastle: Masks are required on buses, in hallways and in the lunch room, and only required in classrooms when social distancing by teachers and pupils is not possible.

Lyons Decatur Northeast: Masks are required by teachers and pupils on buses and in buildings, unless parents ask for their children to be exempted.

Ponca: Masks are required by students in hallways, classrooms and buses only when they are not able to socially distance.

South Sioux City: Facial coverings are required for all teachers, staff and students in all buildings and on buses.

Walthill: Students and instructors are required to wear masks in buildings and buses.

Wayne: Students and instructors are required to wear masks in buildings and buses.

SOUTH DAKOTA

Alcester-Hudson: Wearing a mask is recommended, but not required for students and staff in buildings and buses.

Dakota Valley: Staff members are required to wear masks and students must wear them on buses. Within buildings, masks are generally required, such as older students must wear masks when they cannot socially distance, while younger students do not move among several classrooms, so they do not have to wear masks when they are able to stay within their own classroom with their own section of classmates, but must wear them in hallways.

Elk Point-Jefferson: Masks are required on buses, and required within buildings by teachers and pupils only when social distancing is not possible.

Vermillion: Students and instructors are required to wear masks in classrooms, hallways and buses. The only exception is for people with health conditions that are exacerbated by masks.

Yankton: Students and instructors are required to wear masks in classrooms, hallways and buses.

NOTE: School districts that did not respond to Journal inquiries by Thursday's deadline include: Boyden-Hull, Central Lyon, Cherokee, George-Little Rock, Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn, Harris-Lake Park, Hinton, Le Mars Gehlan, Newell-Fonda, Okoboji, Remsen St. Mary's, Ridge View, River Valley, Rock Valley, South O'Brien, Spencer, East Sac, Unity Christian, West Lyon, Western Christian and Westwood; and Bancroft Rosalie, Wakefield, Laurel-Concord-Coleridge, Winnebaqo and Hartington Cedar Catholic in Nebraska.

Photos: 42 historic images of Sioux City schools
More dictatorship than democracy Riley Brown (Letters, August 22-23) describes as "ridiculous hyperbole" the claim that Trump's re-election would imperil democracy. Does this form of democracy allow the President to sack anyone who disagrees with him, install family members to important government positions, label all critical news as "fake news", claim that the ballot is fraudulent if he loses, oversee the crippling of the postal service to hinder postal votes and tweet policy without consulting elected government members? Sounds more like a dictatorship. - Greg Marshall, Bonny Hills Riley Brown misses the point. Democracy in that country has been in peril for a long time, thanks to its convoluted and corruptible voting system. The anti-monarchist intent of the Founding Fathers has been carefully converted into an authoritarian and unaccountable regime. It is a pity the constitution does not give as much weight to the right to vote and its necessary government support as it does to the right to bear arms. - Alan Johnson, Seaforth Sorry, Riley Brown, but I think you will find that democracy is indeed in peril in the United States regardless of whether Trump or Biden is elected. The dirty tricks from both sides (but mainly from the Republicans) are mind-boggling. Both sides are guilty of gerrymandering congressional boundaries to a ridiculous extent, ensuring they are almost impossible for the opposition for win.

Theres also the mass exclusion of mainly black voters from electoral rolls and inadequate numbers of voting stations, making it harder to vote in traditional Democrat-leaning areas. Add to that a president who is making noises about refusing to leave the White House should he lose and the ongoing politicised stacking of the Supreme Court. This is not ridiculous hyperbole; it reflects the erosion of a system once admired throughout the world. - Denis Minehan, Cooma The Republican party, headed by Trump, seeks to disenfranchise particular groups of voters rather than create policies that appeal to a wider circle of voters. Voting is the basis of democracy, and deliberate disenfranchisement of voters certainly imperils it. How lucky are Australians to have mandatory voting. - Joanne Jaworowski, Cooks Hill

A nation divided The Australian Federation is gravely ill. The Commonwealth is behaving as a collection of eight separated pseudo "countries". There is very little demonstration at a political leadership level of the much-vaunted catch-cry "we are all in this together. Instead, bloody-minded attitudes persist. We see premiers sniping at each other through the media, using passive-aggressive language and behaviour. Government bodies seem more content with dodging and passing blame, avoiding any notion of responsibility. The whole farce is being overviewed by an impotent, all most non-existent federal Parliament. - Stewart Ison, North Macksville Some concerns are more equal than others Tom Switzers (and Robert Carlings) concern about infringement of Clive Palmers legal rights may be well placed (Allow tyranny for friendless Palmer, next we're all at risk, August 22-23). What a shame that concern doesnt extend to far more serious examples of the same thing. Switzer and his right-wing think tank apparently care little about the robo-debt disgrace, draconian union-busting laws, and the steady erosion of all our rights under the guise of national security. Switzer is also on record in this paper dismissing the historical trampling of Indigenous rights as merely a few distasteful episodes. Unionists, welfare recipients, whistleblowers and Indigenous Australians are apparently fair game. But its all hands to the barricades to protect a cashed-up corporate bully boy shamelessly using the law to safeguard his wealth. - Michael Hinchey, New Lambton The rule of law and defence of ownership is promoted so gallantly by Switzer and Carling. I do expect this issue is promptly placed in the queue with all the 'friendless' Aboriginal Land Council claims for ownership. The extinguishing of land entitlements is indeed an unforgivable abuse of power. Always was, always will be. - Bob Johnson, Paddington

Deadline in the headlines Phew! So our super-Treasurer waited until the last 23 minutes before the deadline in June this year for approving a $4 billion bailout for the Treasury Managed Fund, a fund which inter alia insures the workers' compensation liabilities for public sector employees ("Perrottet's $4b bailout OK came at last minute", August 22-23). You get an exaggerated mind-picture of treasury minions scouring the better lunch-time restaurants of Sydney trying to track him down, in order to remind him of the urgency of the matter. I do hope that, when he finally hands in his Treasurers pocket calculator and heads for greener pastures in commerce, he hasnt any aspirations of landing a plum job in the world of finance, where senior executives who indulge in extreme examples of financial brinkmanship with other peoples money might excite the unwanted attentions of APRA or ASIC. - Ian Jackson, Freshwater No necessary explanation George Megalogenis is correct: Mr Morrison did rise to office without needing to explain himself, apart from his self-serving talk whilst serving as the Minister for stopping the boats ("The great defender, August 22-23). This is partly the fault of the media  of whatever form  because, at the 2019 election, he was allowed to present himself, as a free-standing quasi-president (not as leader of an odiously-divided conservative Coalition), the alternative, not to the Labor Party, but to the untrusted Mr Shorten. He thereby cunningly evaded the force of the Australian political truism, that the electorate will not support a divided party, by concealing his links with that fractured party. He used the salesmans negative skills of captiousness and denial. His campaign became, in short, an example of Letat cest moi and such sales exercises avoid a serious scrutiny of the state: that would be altogether too uncomfortable. He, thereby, got what he sowed. - John Carmody, Roseville Crying out for song

I have been teaching music all the way through the pandemic, either in class groups in primary school or as a cello teacher. Every child I see at the moment is anxious, understandably so. These little people absorb more that we grown-ups like to think. As a music teacher, if I can do my job properly, my job is to make children less anxious. Singing releases dopamine  one of the chemicals that make you feel good. It also makes you feel part of a community  something else that is lacking in this time. There is little evidence that singing spreads COVID-19 any more than speaking. And at this time, with our countrys childrens mental health more and more on a knife-edge, why is it being stopped? Children in primary schools are sharing play equipment and technology. They are eating and socialising together. They are playing group sport on weekends. But no singing? Thats the thing thats being stopped? Respectfully, who on earth came up with this rule? - Rachel Scott, Earlwood Sour grapes Psychiatry can help put the beleaguered Chinese wine industry out of self-imposed misery ("Chinas wine-dumping allegations leave a bitter taste", August 22-23). Like the patient accused of an inferiority complex getting the diagnosis after expensive psychoanalysis, there is good news  and bad. The good news is that Chinese don't have an inferiority complex about their local wine. The bad? It is inferior. - Ramani Venkatramani, Rhodes That's a bonus It is bewildering when an employee of a large public company  AMP  is penalised $500,000 after settling a sexual harassment complaint and is then promoted to chief executive of AMP Capital ("AMP's behaviour 'unacceptable': lawyer", August 22-23). Perhaps even more disturbing and questionable for those who take allegations of sexual harassment in the workplace seriously, is that the employee, Boe Pahari no doubt on a substantial remuneration, was still awarded a $1.5 million annual bonus. - Christina Foo, Wahroonga

Replacement recommended Surely, after Senator Richard Colbecks incompetence on display at the Senate inquiry, he must be replaced as Minister for Aged Care ("PM flags funds, backs minister after fumble", August 22-23). But even his removal will be cold comfort to the many families mourning the premature loss of their loved ones in aged care facilities. - Margot Alaba, Balgowlah Heights Doesn't add up An experienced childcare worker's minimum wage is $28.01 per hour, making a net wage of $47,765 a year. Should they save their total wage, it will take them 363 years to buy a certain residence in Mosman, let alone be able to live in Tuscany for part of the year, having a property in the Southern Highlands, superyacht and helicopter ("Sale to seal deal for Southern Highlands move", August 22-23). Do these people have a conscience? Do they not realise the immense responsibility and demanding attention the childcare workers need to look after their charges. I think that the government subsidises the wrong people in the childcare industry. - Cettina Borg-Musin, Balmain Tuned in

Interesting appraisal of America's political mayhem by Bill Wyman ("Beyond the burbling chaos: Biden's to lose", August 22-23). Does he play bass? - John Grinter, Katoomba Corporate speak John Crowe, we were happy to hear your accommodation issue was satisfactorily resolved after it was identified, upscaled, escalated and finally kicked upstairs to a team leader (Letters, August 22-23). Please stay on the line for a short survey to tell us how we did. - Nick Andrews, Bellevue Hill John Crowe, is "onboarding" connected to waterboarding? Sounds to me like another way for the government to torture us. - Patrick J Russell, Sanctuary Point Money trouble

So this tycoon's company collapsed under debts exceeding $200 million and he is fighting a bankruptcy order ("Sydney tycoon's mystery $200m", August 22-23). Not quite my understanding of what a tycoon is. Perhaps he's more a typhoon. - Tony Moo, North Sydney Odd socks Richard Glover ("Mick's trick? Socks in his jocks", August 22-23), while most socks fit either the left or right foot, it's cold comfort knowing later on that they were put on upside down first thing in the morning. - Col Shephard, Yamba Over and out Mamamia, there they go again ("Freedman to be evicted from $12 million home", August 22-23). - Allan Gibson, Cherrybrook
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 20:00:39|Editor: huaxia

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MOSCOW, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Russia and Turkey have signed a contract to deliver a second regiment of S-400 air defense systems to Turkey, the Russian state arms exporter Rosoboronexport said Sunday.

Rosoboronexport Director General Alexander Mikheev did not disclose further details when speaking to RIA Novosti news agency.

In 2017, Russia and Turkey finalized a deal worth about 2.5 billion U.S. dollars to supply Ankara with S-400 systems, and delivery was completed in 2019.

Turkey is the first member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to purchase such air defense missile system from Russia.

The S-400 missile system is considered the most advanced of its kind in Russia, capable of destroying targets at a distance of up to 400 km and a height of up to 30 km. Enditem
France's decision to send warships to help Greece in its Mediterranean standoff with Ankara was adding "fuel to the fire", according to Turkish rear admiral Cem Gurdeniz, who warned President Emmanuel Macron not to engage in threats which could jeopardize the Nato partnership.

As warships from France, Greece and Turkey converge on a disputed patch of the eastern Mediterranean Sea, Rear Admiral Cem Gurdeniz launched into an open criticism of French President Emmanuel Macron's handling of the affair.

"I'm fed up with Macron's everyday verbal threats," the 62-year-old Francophone and Francophile Gurdeniz told AFP.

"For many Turks now, France is acting like an 'enfant terrible'. Can you imagine, they are threatening Turkey?" he asked.

The discovery of major natural gas deposits in waters surrounding Cyprus and the Greek island of Crete has triggered a scramble for energy riches and revived old regional rivalries.

Secure maritime navigation

On 1 August, a Defence Cooperation Agreement between France and Cyprus, signed three years earlier, came into force.

On 13 August, the French Ministry of Defence said in a statement that France would "temporarily strengthen" its military presence in the Mediterranean, participate in naval exercises with the Greek navy and aim to help "secure maritime navigation" in the region.

"If France continues such provocative actions... that would not serve regional peace and stability -- that would add fuel to the fire and France should avoid that," Gurdeniz retorted.

End of Nato?

The biggest tensions are between historically uneasy NATO allies Turkey and Greece, which almost went to war over some uninhabited islets in the Aegean Sea in 1996.

Gurdeniz, now retired, helped craft the Mavi Vatan, or "Blue Homeland" vision over a decade ago which is now becoming a reality for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he stakes his claim in the region.

Story continues

EU foreign ministers convened an emergency video conference last week after Greek and Turkish warships collided in hotly disputed circumstances.

"If Greece pulls the trigger, it will be the end of NATO," Gurdeniz said, implying that Turkey would then withdraw from the Cold War-era military alliance.

"European countries should put pressure on Greece so that it abandons" some of its maritime claims, he said.

'Cold blood'

Erdogan has tempered his heated rhetoric with calls for talks, which have been spearheaded with sporadic success by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Germany's mediation effort between Turkey and Greece aims to defuse the tension over the disputed continental shelf areas in the eastern Mediterranean ahead of the European Unions informal foreign ministers meeting on 27 August, according to the English version of the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet Daily News.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas will be visiting Athens and Ankara on 25 August to meet first with his Greek counterpart, Nikos Dendias, and then Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, according to the paper.

Gurdeniz welcomed the move towards diplomacy and said that "we should think with cold blood, soberly, prudently."

But he saw no need for outside mediation, suggesting that hostilities will only end when Greeks and Turks sit down and frankly talk their problems out.

Tough line

Gurdeniz overwhelmingly approves of Edrogan's tough line, but also regrets Turkey's growing diplomatic isolation in the increasingly volatile region.

He called Turkey's decision to rupture its relations with Egypt following the army's ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 "a mistake".

"Turkey could have won over Egypt. Also, starting with Egypt, we could have made some gains with Israel too," Gurdeniz said.

But his eyes lit up and his easy smile broadened when talking about the "growing interest of young people" in Turkey's maritime claims.

"I do a lot of interviews with YouTubers," said the retired admiral, pointing out that the annual enrolment of new cadets in navy schools is steadily rising.

He also pointed out that the Mediterranean accounted for just "one percent" of the world's oceans and seas.

"I always stress that Turkey should go beyond this one percent: the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea and the Atlantic," Gurdeniz said.

"Turkey should have a presence down there. This is the reflection of a growing power."
A 54-year-old man apparently shot himself to death Saturday night in Pleasanton after an hourslong standoff with law enforcement, Pleasanton police said.

Officers responded to the Bonita Creek RV Park on Oakhaven Road shortly before 7 p.m. after receiving a report of shots fired.
Tensions have been rising between Greece and Turkey, both of whom have warships in the eastern Mediterranean after Turkey sent a vessel to conduct seismic research. Turkeys big ambition to become a maritime powerhouse by pushing into the eastern Mediterranean with controversial gas drilling, warships and harsh rhetoric is rooted in a vision of Blue Homeland that takes over waters claimed by EU neighbours.

As per several reports, Turkish officials responsible for Blue Homeland (Mavi Vatan in Turkish) state that Greece's demands based on a handful of tiny islands are unfair since Turkey has larger territory in the eastern Mediterranean. The Blue Homeland doctrines author is Cem Gurdeniz. He first used the term Mavi Vatan in 2006 when he was heading the nations navy plan and policy division.

Blue Homelands vision covers over 460,000 square kilometres of Turkey's maritime borders, including the water surrounding some of the Greek islands. Reportedly, Gurdeniz said that Blue Homeland is a concept which aims to define maritime jurisdiction areas surrounding Turkey. He also added that the nation needs to secure these areas for its defence, security and welfare.

As per several reports, Turkey had sent a research vessel and a small navy armada into seas that Greece views as its own which has escalated tensions between the two countries in the last week. Turkey has prompted fears of being denied a fair share of the regions natural gas wealth. On August 21, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the discovery of the biggest-ever natural gas reserve off the Black Sea coast in countrys history.

Speaking about the discovery, Erdogan at a press conference said that Turkeys drilling vessel Fatih found 320 billion cubic meters of the natural gas reserve during the exploration operations in the Tuna-1 sector in the western Black Sea. However, the new discovery has infuriated Greece and has also received repeated warnings from the European Union.

Read: Greek FM: Turkey Threat To Peace In Mediterranean

Read: Erdogan Announces 'largest-ever' Gas Discovery In 'Turkey's History' Off Black Sea Coast

US Senators' call for sanctions on key sectors

France, which is already in a dispute with Turkey over Libya and parts of the Middle East, has deployed ships to the eastern Mediterranean. Erdogan has warned that he would hit back against any attack after France sent ships to help Greece. Recently, US Senators urged State Secretary Mike Pompeo and the EU to impose sanctions on key sectors of the Turkish economy for its illegal drilling operations in the eastern Mediterranean.

Bob Menendez, a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen wrote to Pompeo, urging him to start working with the EU on a response to Turkeys increasing provocations and illegal actions in the eastern Mediterranean.

(Image credit: AP)

Read: US Senators Call For Sanctions On Turkey Over 'illegal' Drilling In East Mediterranean

Read: Turkey Issues Advisory To Carry Out A Seismic Survey In Mediterranean
Moscow, Aug 23 : The fifth and final volume of a report released by the US Senate Intelligence Committee on the alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 American presidential election fails to present facts and evidence, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.

"Like the previously released sections of the report, the last part does not contain real facts or evidence," Xinhua news agency quoted Zakharova as saying in a statement on Saturday.

"In fact, it repeats the unfounded accusations we have been familiar with since the Muller report and other US documents came out, including the alleged hacking of the servers of the Democratic Party, the contacts of Trump's staff with Russian citizens, and Russia's desire to undermine the US democracy, etc.," she added.

The spokesperson said Russia had repeatedly noted the unsubstantiated nature of those American claims, adding that the whole story about Russian interference was "from the very beginning invented in the course of the internal political struggle between various forces in the US".

Moscow regrets the damage done to its relationship with the US and warned Washington against spreading "anti-Russia myths", she added.

In the report released on August 18, the Senate Intelligence Committee offered new details Ton the roles played by US President Donald Trump's campaign advisers and their willingness to take advantage of a Russia-directed attempt to undermine the candidacy of then Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, reports USA Today.

Across nearly 1,000 pages, the Republican-led Senate panel not only documented the interactions of Trump campaign officials with Russian contacts but faulted the FBI, in part, for providing a "veneer of credibility" to an uncorroborated dossier that sought to disparage Trump in the run-up to the 2016 election.

The report at a time when the intelligence community has warned that Russia is once again seeking to interfere in the November 3 presidential election and Trump has continued to try to undermine Moscow probe findings and prosecutions during his re-election campaign.
Nearly five months after it was set to close, conditions at the Alabama Street homeless encampment have become inhumane, according to local officials and service providers.

The site appears to be overflowing with debris and its population has doubled to more than 100 since opening in December.

Richard Lamp, who has lived at the camp for months, said it was set up to fail. In the beginning, residents tried to organize but its difficult to get everyone on the same page, he said.

The site has no running water, no electricity, and Lamp is also concerned about wood pallets and other debris posing a fire hazard.

Lamp said other tent cities hes seen in Seattle softened the blow of being homeless without being a destination for people. The Longview camp is nothing like that, he said.

Everyone here doesnt want to live like this, he said. Were not campers. We have nowhere to go.

Although people on all sides of the debate seem to agree the site  in its current condition  isnt good for residents or neighbors, the COVID-19 pandemic and lack of an alternative have kept it open as officials pursue plans to establish a managed site. However, it remains unclear when the proposed alternative will materialize.

The city of Longview established the Alabama Street site in December to move homeless people away from City Hall and enforce its new ordinance banning camping on city right of way during the day. The city can also ask people to leave the right of way at night since it established a separate camping site, which was required by a federal court ruling that determined sleeping in public places in not a crime.

When the site opened, some homeless people said it was better than staying outside City Hall because it was located off a main road and there was now access to portable toilets. As an unhosted site, the camp has few rules or guidelines.

In December, the county created a committee to identify alternative sites for a hosted site that would rotate locations every 90 days. After months of reviewing 13 potential locations, and then being delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the committee disbanded in June without making a recommendation.

Earlier this year, Longview City Manager Kurt Sacha said the city would close the camp even without establishing a new site because the Alabama Street camp needed to be cleaned. However, on Wednesday, Sacha said he now wont recommend closing the camp without an alternative in place because of the pandemic.

Although the encampment has had no confirmed COVID-19 cases, the number of people who would be needed to assist with the move would put both groups at risk, Sacha said.

Debbie Horimoto, co-owner of Dans Trans and Auto Repair, believes the city is using the pandemic as an excuse not to take action. She said she and other business owners near the Alabama Street site are angry with the city and its lack of progress.

Horimoto said one of the major problems with the camp is the piles of wood, garbage and other items stacked up in the camp and near the trash cans on the curb. The camp also brings unwanted traffic to the block, including drug dealers, she said.

Several customers told the shop owners they were uncomfortable leaving their vehicles at the business, which is just down the street from the camp, Horimoto said. Any new site should be far away from businesses and residences, she said.

Its messing with peoples livelihoods, she said. The fact that people will lose money because of it, thats not fair.

A manager at another nearby business, who didnt want her name used, said they are constantly picking up trash thats blown on their property from the camp and that some homeless people have harassed staff and customers. The city needs to uphold the law and have people move along if they dont want services offered, she said.

Sacha said the city will discuss increasing enforcement to address concerns from neighbors and would alert staff about the garbage.

Longview Police Interim Chief Robert Huhta said in an email that police have responded to 183 calls to the camp, mostly for disputes, assaults and miscellaneous complaints. Response numbers for the surrounding neighborhood were not immediately available. Huhta said the department also has received drug-related calls and information about drug dealing and use in the camp.

Sacha said at a council workshop Thursday that some bad actors have created a mess, preying upon those most vulnerable at the camp. When police try to rectify a situation no one talks because they live in fear and they know that if they were to respond harm could come to them, he said.

Their every bit of energy is just in surviving

Several social service organizations and volunteer groups regularly go in the camp to reach out to clients, as well as hand out food and other resources.

Cowlitz Family Health Center received two grants from the county totaling $50,000 in federal CARES Act funding to provide public health needs for homeless people during the pandemic. The organization collaborated with Love Overwhelming to distribute hygiene bags, sunscreen, water, masks and hand sanitizer to encampment residents, CEO Dian Cooper said. The group also received donations of money, water and other items to hand out from managed care plans, but its still not enough, she said.

Cooper voiced similar concerns about the camp conditions, and said the homeless people there are also at risk from several other diseases along with COVID-19.

Family Health Center is pretty much in emergency mode trying to meet the basic needs of the homeless people at the camp, rather than engaging them to get lives in order and get out of homelessness, Cooper said.

Its awfully hard because these folks are in total basic survival mode, she said. We offer services but its hard to engage them in services when their every bit of energy is just in surviving.

Cooper said she hopes to see a low-barrier, hosted site with reasonable rules that the homeless residents have input in creating. She said she believes every agency in town is willing to do its part at a hosted site to deliver services and better engage homeless people, but there needs to be a place where workers can safely meet with clients.

What I would hope to see is that we dont give up on these folks, Cooper said. Everybody needs to recognize how hard it is for people who are barely surviving to keep taking steps forward in a short or even medium period of time to become working, contributing members of society aspiring to middle class she said. It takes constantly asking people, Are you ready yet? What can I do for you today to get you a baby step closer? And never giving up on them because sooner or later most people will say, OK, Im ready. 

Chuck Hendrickson, executive director for Love Overwhelming, wants to see some sort of facility as part of the hosted site that would provide a space for staff to meet with residents, as well as toilets, showers and laundry services.

Nic Mather, pastor at St. Stephens Episcopal Church, said theres a misconception that getting out of homelessness is easy if the person wants to.

Thats just not how it works, he said. Thats why theres a need for wraparound services, why its important to provide people services where they are because its really hard to move from homelessness to being housed. Theres a number of barriers, including availability of places to live.

Officials plan for hosted site

The city and county have expressed support for a hosted encampment, and the county commissioners have said they will pay for a site with county funds dedicated to homelessness and housing.

Sacha said while any new site would not be like the Alabama Street camp, the city and the county havent done a good job communicating to the public what that different model would look like. There needs to be a demonstration of a hosted site to see if it would work here, he said.

I would think it would be much more manageable from what we currently have, Sacha said. It would be worthwhile to give that an opportunity to showcase itself to the community to really to see how a model like that could work.

Cowlitz County Commissioner Dennis Weber said looking back on the ad hoc committee, he and the other members did things backwards. They should have chosen a site and provided a demonstration of what the a hosted encampment would be like before confirming other locations to rotate between. A demonstration of a hosted site would help neighbors see they dont have to be afraid of the Alabama Street site being duplicated, Weber said.

Im pretty confident the hosted site will alleviate a lot of the problems automatically associated with an encampment, he said.

The commissioners directed the county human services manager to work on a plan for a hosted site but its unclear when it will be complete, Weber said.

The proposal will outline site regulations, a security plan, and what services would be offered, including sanitation, health care, and a triage system to help people get their lives back together, Weber said.

The county would look for an organization with expertise in helping people get into housing to host the site, Weber said. Other agencies that offer health care and mental health services would also be involved, he said, adding that someone would always need to be present at the site to enforce the rules and provide security.

Weber said the site should also have defined spaces for each tent, as well as potable water, showers, restroom facilities and garbage disposal services.

It has been difficult to set a timeline for creating the new site because there are many moving parts, Weber said. In the meantime, Weber said he and the other commissioners reaffirmed their promise to pay for costs of putting together a hosted site.

Im more optimistic about moving forward with this than I have been for some time, Weber said. I think weve done a pretty good job listening to concerns of people on all sides and the solution well come up with is the best one to make some progress in transforming lives and helping people ... closer to normalcy.

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The woman at the centre of AMP's sexual harassment scandal says she welcomes the resignation of chairman David Murray and the demotion of AMP Capital boss Boe Pahari but has renewed her calls for the wealth giant to release details of her complaint.

"It gives me some comfort to see that AMP has today acknowledged the seriousness of my complaint and is moving to try and address the culture of the company," said former AMP executive Julia Szlakowski, who accused Mr Pahari of harassment in 2017.

AMP chairman David Murray has resigned. Credit:Louie Douvis

"That work, however, still has a long way to go, and thats why I am continuing to call for AMP to release my complaint, the findings document and all other documents relating to the reports commission."

The sudden departure of Mr Murray and AMP director John Fraser, a former Treasury secretary, came after AMP's major shareholders banded together last week, threatening to call a special company meeting to oust Mr Murray from the board. The shareholder threat came after weeks of mounting political and investor pressure over AMP's handling of the issue.
JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Sunday that he had accepted a proposal to extend budget negotiations, preventing the government from collapsing and plunging the country into a new election.

In a nationally televised address, Netanyahu said that now was not the time to drag the country into a fourth parliamentary elections in less than two years.

Now is the time for unity. Not for elections, he said.

Netanyahu and his rival and coalition partner, Benny Gantz, had faced a Monday night deadline to agree on a budget. Otherwise, the government would have collapsed and automatically triggered a new vote.

Netanyahu said that following a historic agreement to establish official relations with the United Arab Emirates, and with the country struggling with a coronavirus outbreak, he felt it was wrong to to go to elections.

He said he accepted a compromise that would give the sides an additional 100 days to reach a budget deal, and in the meantime direct spending to struggling areas of the economy and society.

His announcement came after Israeli lawmakers spent much of the day unsuccessfully trying to agree on a compromise.

The current political crisis pitting the prime minister against rival-turned-partner Gantz is ostensibly over the countrys national budget.

But the crisis has deeper roots in the troubled partnership between Netanyahu and Gantz, economic troubles stemming from the countrys coronavirus outbreak and the prime ministers ongoing corruption trial. Critics accuse Netanyahu of using the budget battle to force a new election in hopes of securing a friendlier parliament that could help solve his legal troubles.

After three deadlocked elections, Netanyahu and Gantz reached a power-sharing agreement in April to form a government to address the virus crisis. As part of their coalition deal, Netanyahus Likud party and Gantzs Blue and White agreed to pass a two-year budget.

But Netanyahu has insisted on passing a budget to cover only the remainder of 2020, saying it will provide immediate assistance to the economy. Gantz is adamant that the government honour its agreement and pass one for 2020 and 2021. Their disagreement has again brought the country to the brink of political meltdown.

The Knesset, or parliament, must pass the legislation in two rounds of voting in parliament before Monday nights deadline.

But pushing back the deadline would only kick the budget crisis down the road. The two parties are at loggerheads over several key issues  including judicial appointments and the annexation of West Bank settlements  and the government has been beset by infighting. Gantz also complained that Netanyahu left him and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi in the dark about the deal announced earlier this month to normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates.

If the budget deadline is not deferred, and new elections are triggered, it would plunge the country into political chaos during a deep economic and public health crisis and while the prime minister is on trial for corruption.

Netanyahu is charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases. His criminal trial began in June, but he has refused to step down from office and denies any wrongdoing.

At the same time, Israel has recorded more than 100,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 800 deaths. Unemployment remains over 20 per cent despite the governments reopening of the economy in May, following a more than month-long lockdown.

Netanyahu has faced intense criticism over his governments handling of the crisis, and the largest sustained protests against his rule in nearly a decade. On Saturday, an estimated 10,000 people took part in a weekly protest outside the prime ministers official residence in Jerusalem, calling on Netanyahu to resign.

Nonetheless, recent polls indicate Netanyahu would score a sizable victory if snap elections were held. By dissolving the government, Netanyahu would avoid giving Gantz the premiership in November 2021 as required by the coalition agreement.

Netanyahu appears determined to remain prime minister  and therefore not legally obligated to resign while under indictment  through the duration of his trial, which is expected to last several years.

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The boss of the country's biggest ATM operator is calling for an urgent overhaul of the way the country's cash machine network is funded so that access to money is maintained nationwide.

The plea from Marc Terry, head of Cardtronics, comes as experts examine ways of ensuring cash is not made obsolete by the rise of contactless payments and the closure of bank branches and ATMs.

Cardtronics operates 17,500 cash machines, but is being prevented from expanding its network by the refusal of banks to pay a 'fair' fee when their customers use one of its ATMs. This is known as the 'interchange' fee and it has been cut in recent years, making it increasingly difficult for providers such as Cardtronics and NoteMachine to survive.

Overhaul: Cardtronics has been forced to cull its ATM network from a high of 22,000 while making half of its machines fee charging rather than free-to-use

Cardtronics has been forced to cull its ATM network from a high of 22,000 while making half of its machines fee charging rather than free-to-use.

Terry believes that for consumers to continue to be offered payment choice, the interchange fee should be increased.

He says: 'There is a massive anti-cash campaign going on  orchestrated by the banks  and we need to fight back.

'I am pro choice and that means a nationwide ATM network spread across towns, urban and metropolitan areas. That can only happen with a higher interchange fee.'

In 2018, the fee Cardtronics received from banks whose customers used its machines was cut from 28.3p to 25.9p. A recent study by consultants KPMG suggested that the charge should be increased to just above 29p. But it has not been acted upon by Link, which oversees the fees system.

Terry would also like to see the greater use of 'zonal' pricing, with these fees varying according to an ATM's location. So cash machine operators in cities would be paid a much lower fee than those running them in rural areas. Such pricing variation does currently exist, but not to the extent that Cardtronics would like.

The Government has promised to legislate to ensure guaranteed free access to money. Cash czar Natalie Ceeney is overseeing a number of pilot schemes designed to keep money on the high street.

Link says: 'It should not be down to banks and commercial ATM companies to decide whether a community gets free cash access, which is the position today.'
Zeke Simmons is a 10-year-old whose world these days often feels confined to his living room. Zeke used to love school. Now he tells his mother, Tiffany Rose, a former high school teacher, that he wants to drop out of the sixth grade. The two of them live in a small, two-bedroom apartment in Alameda with Tiffanys boyfriend, who has taken over the couples bedroom and is always on calls. Sometimes, when Zeke is feeling really upset, he tells her he wishes it was just the two of them  so he didnt have to be so quiet, so he wouldnt feel as trapped.

Earlier this year, for the first time in more than two months, Zeke, who will turn 11 this month, got to see his best friend. Their parents kept telling them to distance. But then Zeke just did it.

I cant handle it anymore, Zeke told his mom as he took his friend into his arms. I just need to give him a hug.

Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

For most people, the world rapidly shrank in March. In the absence of the macro, our homes  and microworlds  became the focal space of our universe, the settings for work, intimacy, education and play.

Nearly six months into the pandemic, as some of our cities have begun to open up  with freer travel, the return to work, sidewalk dining and bustling bar scenes  some of that spatiality is on its way to being restored. But children, who lack the agency to make their own risk decisions, are still facing a profoundly shrunken world.

These new perimeters  where kids can go and whom they can see  have troubled parents from the beginning of the pandemic. They watched their children sink into uncharacteristic withdrawals, sob over faraway friendships and ask pointed questions about an increasingly opaque future. As the situation persists, experts wonder about the longterm impacts of childrens shrinking worlds.

Theres no easy answer, said Ian Gotlib, a psychologist and professor of psychology at Stanford.

How to make things better for kids right now Kids thrive on routines, so finding ways to implement helpful routines, like waking up and going to bed at the same times and eating meals together can be helpful for kids, especially when school starts back up. Parents can help their children by finding ways to create newness so kids have access to experiences that can excite them, like day trips on the weekends, backyard movie nights, treasure hunts around their neighborhood, finding interesting things to bake and cook together. This can all provide new stimulation and learning opportunities even amid the mundanity. Balancing caution with optimism. Children can be very sensitive to their parents' emotions and moods, and they pick up on anxiety even if they don't fully understand it. Reminding children that this moment, even though it feels endless, will end and that the health guidelines - wearing a mask, socially distancing - can have a global impact and come out of a collective goal to keep each other safe can be reassuring. See More Collapse

The extent to which COVID-19 may change childrens lives indefinitely will depend on so much: whether they or family members have fallen ill, the quality of time with their families, their relationship to school, their ages. And the constriction of their worlds is vastly different depending on class, geography and physical space.

Children are not necessarily isolated  especially if theyre spending a lot of time with their families  but their ties to much of the world, and their peer relationships in particular, have been cut off.

The shrinking world is important, said Gotlib, whose lab team studies how early stressful life experiences can affect childrens brains in ways that make them more vulnerable to stressors later in life. Theyre wired to focus on doing rather than stopping  and so this is just the opposite of all of that.

The children in his teams study  the ones that went through stressful experiences early in life  are now reporting higher levels of depressive symptoms and anxiety during the pandemic, supporting the teams findings that the stressors make children more vulnerable to stressors later on. Imagine if we start this study three years from now, and the stress they experience was from this pandemic, Gotlib said. Theres absolutely no reason to think that (the pandemic) wont have that same effect, or worse, because of how prolonged it is.

Its possible, in other words, that childrens relationships to others and all that contact provides  a sense of self, the development of social and motor skills, companionship  will have been fundamentally altered.

Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

When Angie Martinezs world shrank to the confines of a three-bedroom condo in Greenbrae, chaos ensued. Her 4-year-old son, Anas, who is on the autism spectrum, became more aggressive than shed ever seen him. He just didnt know what to do with himself, Martinez said. He broke so many things she started making a list: the TV, the toilet, a Chromebook.

Martinez was trying to work full time at home as a programmatic media manager while taking care of him and her daughter, Alana, who is 14; her husband, a buyer for Whole Foods, was gone most of the time working.

Over the summer, Martinezs son got a glimpse of normality through an in-person summer program. She was astounded when his behavior instantly improved. It was literally like a light switched on, she said. The regression that happened is real, and if they continue to be kept from spaces and structures and routine, the regression will continue. Ive seen some moms that (dont) think their kids will ever come back.

In his Oakland clinical psychology practice, Nathan Greene is seeing the potent ways the pandemics narrowing spheres are affecting his clients. Families whose children felt good enough to leave therapy prior to the pandemic are returning. Many of the kids who had stopped speaking in baby talk or sleeping in their parents beds, or had started going to the bathroom themselves, have regressed. One of the kids he works with recently described having a nightmare where their memory was wiped out and they ceased to exist; they were walking in a universe where they didnt know themselves anymore and people they were supposed to know didnt know them either.

We talked about  how its hard to integrate who we were before this with who we are now, especially in the life of a child, where six months is a very long time, said Greene. Its like a foreclosure on the future.

Hes worried about the lingering impacts the pandemic might leave on important developmental processes like navigating physical intimacy, connections and play. His own niece, who is 2, recently watched a Daniel Tiger show about friendship and, afterward, asked her mother: What is a friend, and do I have any?

Grace Sobieskis 2-year-old daughter, Josie, has become fixated on other people being sick. Shes very confused about why she needs to wear a mask, said Sobieski, who also has a 10-month-old daughter, Desiree. She thinks shes immune from it.

Sarahbeth Maney/Special to The Chronicle

Sobieski, who runs a day care, is worried about all the behavioral modifications required in Josies world. Its a lot of negativity in general: Dont do that, mask on, stay back, Sobieski said. All that sits with them.

Shes heard her daughter telling her dolls: Youre not wearing your mask, and tell them to stay back, to give space.

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.

I think one of the most underrated but powerful emotions in kids is a state of confusion, said Abigail Levinson Marks, a clinical psychologist in San Francisco who specializes in families managing illness and loss. Levinson Marks has been talking to a lot of her clients about the idea of ambiguous loss  that sometimes we cant grab hold of exactly what it is that weve lost, but the grief is still there.

Shes noticed her teenagers  whose main developmental tasks are establishing independence from their parents and exploring risk  have been hit the hardest. Shes seeing a lot of low-grade and deeper depression and restricted eating. Teenagers bounce themselves off of other people to grow, she said. If you picture teenagers as little molecules or atoms bumping against each other, they cant do that, Levinson Marks said. Theres no randomness to social interaction.

Sarahbeth Maney/Special to The Chronicle

Enola Talberts world shrank away in March, so she decided she would, too. The 17-year-old took apart her bed, used the box spring and mattress to make a fort and closed herself in. She and her friends had cry sessions on the phone. But she still felt kind of numb.

Before the pandemic my world was kind of small, said Enola, who is a senior at Mountain View High School. Now, its not so much smaller  but less alive.

There was a turning point recently, when she started spending time with an elderly neighbor. They were friendly but never close, and when quarantine started, Enola started wondering how the neighbor and her husband were doing. But one day, she saw a nurse outside of the house, and after that, an ambulance. Then, she saw the woman sitting outside, alone, bearing a sadness that felt like it reached Enolas door.

Isolated from her own world and friends, Enola started spending time with her neighbor, making ceramics with her and listening to stories about her neighbors childhood in the South. Enola doesnt talk much about her own life; shes mostly there to listen.

I think people underestimate the depression that my generation feels, she said. Before the pandemic, my friends would ask each other how we were doing, and wed say, Oh Im good, dying inside, ha ha ha. And it wouldnt necessarily be not true.

When she thinks of a future in which nothing is certain, there is a sense that all that uncertainty is still a shared experience, something that binds her and her world to so many others. Her world is a bit empty right now, but there is potential for it to be full again, for her and her friends to move to Iceland as theyve dreamed, where theyll pet fuzzy horses and hug each other again.

So far, there are 25 people she has plans to hug when all of this is over. Theyre all written down on a list, in order.

Sarahbeth Maney/Special to The Chronicle

Annie Vainshtein is a San Francisco Chronicle arts and entertainment reporter. Email: avainshtein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @annievain
After meeting Israeli PM in Jerusalem, US secretary of state to visit senior figures in UAE, Bahrain and Sudan.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said he hoped more Arab countries would establish diplomatic ties with Israel, as he arrived in Jerusalem to start a five-day Middle East tour on the back of a US-brokered deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

Speaking to reporters after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday, the top US diplomat said: I am hopeful that we will see other Arab nations join this.

The opportunity for them to work alongside, to recognise the state of Israel and to work alongside them will not only increase Middle East stability, but it will improve the lives for the people of their own countries as well, Pompeo said.

In the coming days, he will also visit Sudan, Bahrain and the UAE, according to State Department statement. Officials said stops in Oman and Qatar are also possible.

Washington and its close ally Israel hope the Jewish state will soon be able to normalise ties with other regional countries, including several that share their deep animosity with Iran.





Both Pompeo and Netanyahu criticised the lack of international support for the US demand for the restoration of UN sanctions against Iran.

After failing to extend an arms embargo on Iran, Washington has been pushing at the Security Council to have snapback sanctions imposed over what Washington says is Irans violation of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

US President Donald Trump withdrew Washington from that agreement in 2018.

We are determined to use every tool that we have to ensure they cant get access to high-end weapon systems, Pompeo said. The rest of the world should join us.

Betrayal

The US-sponsored deal between Israel and the UAE announced on August 13 was denounced by the Palestinians as a betrayal of their cause. It was only the third such accord Israel has struck with an Arab country, after Egypt and Jordan.

The two new partners have since said they want to promote trade, especially the sale of Emirati oil to Israel and Israeli technology to the UAE, as well as boosting tourism by establishing direct air links.

Key to that plan would be persuading Saudi Arabia to open its airspace to Israeli commercial airlines.





The surprise announcement of the Israel-Emirati pact sparked huge speculation on who might be next, with frequent mentions of Bahrain and Sudan.

Sudans foreign ministry spokesman was fired last week after he made allegedly unauthorised comments indicating contact had been made with Israel regarding normalising ties.

But the State Department said Pompeo would meet Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok during his tour to express support for deepening the Sudan-Israel relationship.

Sudan is eager to be removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism and normalising ties with Israel would be a step toward that goal.

However, removal from the terrorism list is also dependent on completion of a compensation agreement for victims of the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. A tentative deal struck several months ago is still awaiting finalisation.





Immediate breakthroughs?

Pompeo will also meet Bahrains Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa before meeting UAE foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan to discuss the Israel deal, according to the State Department.

He is expected be followed to many of these destinations by Jared Kushner, President Donald Trumps senior adviser and son-in-law.

Saudi Arabia, in keeping with decades of policy by the majority of Arab states, has said it will not follow the UAEs example until Israel has signed a peace deal with the Palestinians.

Neither Pompeos nor Kushners trip is expected to result in announcements of immediate breakthroughs, but both are aimed at building on the success of the Israel-UAE agreement by finalising at least one, and potentially more, normalisation deals between Arab countries and Israel in the near future.

The administration has forged ahead with those efforts over Palestinian objections and without any indication the Palestinians are willing to enter negotiations with Israel.

The Arab world had long held that a settlement to the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a prerequisite for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.
The municipalities of Tshwane and Kouga are looking at ways to turn network infrastructure, particularly fibre cables, into a utility that they can earn revenue from.

Last year Tshwane introduced a new set of tariffs that would allow the municipality to charge network operators an annual fee of R211 per kilometre of network cable in the road reserve.

Both cellular and fibre network providers lay cable along municipal roads, meaning these tariffs would affect every network provider in South Africa  from the smallest new entrant in the fibre connectivity space to MTN, Vodacom, Telkom, and Vumatel.

An even higher tariff of R1,055 per kilometre per year was published for companies who lay their cable along sewers and stormwater drains.

Tshwane has adjusted these tariffs for the 2020/21 financial year. In the tariff book published in the government gazette on 5 August, the road reserve fee was increased to R220 per kilometre per annum, while the sewer and stormwater fee was decreased to R1,000.

Local governments want new revenue streams

Speaking to a senior official at the Kouga municipality, MyBroadband learned that committee members responsible for the financial health of local governments are under pressure to find additional revenue streams.

In Jeffreys Bay, in particular, municipal revenues from traditional utilities like electricity and water are not growing in-line with their population.

The official explained that municipalities like Kouga are less dependent on government grants as it generates most of its own revenue. In places like Jeffreys Bay and St Francis Bay, they generate 84% of their own revenue.

While rates do form a sizeable chunk of this revenue, the Kouga official explained that the main source of money for the municipality is actually electricity sales.

During the 2018/19 financial year, property rates made up around 21% of Kougas total revenue. Service charges accounted for R413 million, or 47%, out of total revenue of R880 million.

Of the total service charges, electricity sales alone was close to R243 million  nearly 28% of the municipalitys total revenue.

This is significant, the official told MyBroadband, because over the past ten years, Kougas revenue from electricity sales has been flat. It has seen a lack of growth in this important source of revenue despite more people moving to Jeffreys Bay and developments in the municipality.

Were not growing revenue through traditional streams, so we need something else, the official said.

For this reason, Kouga has considered a system similar to Tshwanes, where network operators pay a recurring fee to use municipal infrastructure such as the road reserve and stormwater drains.

In the 2020/21  2022/23 annual budget for Kouga, executive mayor Horatio Hendricks stated: We will be investigating the possibility of introducing fibre as a fifth utility as part of our efforts to Keep Kouga Smart.

In addition to shoring up the budget of the local municipality, the official said that the money would also be put towards fixing up their infrastructure when network operators damage roads and paving in the course of rolling out fibre.

Security deposits and wayleaves

Another approach the Tshwane metropolitan municipality recently adopted, in addition to its per-kilometre tariffs, is asking network operators to provide substantial security deposits before they are allowed to begin digging.

It first introduced these refundable security deposits in 2018, asking operators to put up R250,000 in cash per wayleave that they apply for.

Following the backlash from the telecommunications industry regarding this requirement, Tshwane has introduced the ability for operators to provide bank guarantees.

If you require more than five wayleave applications in a financial year, you may submit a bank guarantee of R3 million. This guarantee can only expire after all completion certificates are correctly signed and handed it.

In August, Tshwane added a bank guarantee option for operators who require fewer wayleave applications in a financial year  R2 million for five or fewer wayleave applications in a financial year.

The page from Tshwanes latest tariff book which details the fees for wayleaves for work done on public roads is embedded below.



Now read: Municipalities are milking fibre companies to balance their budgets
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Kim Kardashian showed off her sculpted summer body in a skintight wetsuit while taking her daughter North paddle-boarding this weekend.

The 39-year-old reality TV bombshell was joined on her outing by her husband Kanye West and elder sister Kourtney Kardashian.

She fired up her Instagram page on Saturday to regale her staggering 185 million followers with a string of pictures showing her outdoor escapades.

Family time: Kim Kardashian showed off her sculpted summer body in a skintight wetsuit while taking her daughter North paddle-boarding this weekend

In one snap she and her svelte sister could be glimpsed posing up a storm beside Kanye and a man who may have been their instructor.

Kourtney put her trim figure on display in a clinging metallic top that showed off her cleavage as she grinned at the camera.

Meanwhile Kanye was in a pair of dark shorts and a bright red hoodie, squatting on the ground beside his wife for the snapshot.

Kourtney's son Mason, 10, one of the three children she shares with her sizzling ex Scott Disick, appeared to have joined the trip too.

So much fun: The 39-year-old reality TV bombshell was joined on her outing by her husband Kanye West and elder sister Kourtney Kardashian

'Kimye' married in Florence six years ago and share four children - North, seven, Saint, four, Chicago, two, and Psalm, one.

The family recently returned to Los Angeles after a recent Caribbean trip that was reportedly to save their marriage amid his alleged bipolar struggle.

A People insider has claimed Kanye had been self-isolating at his Wyoming property away from his wife and children before the Caribbean trip and 'wants to live' there.

However a DailyMail.com source clarified that Kanye, who is running for President Of The United States this year, was 'never living apart' from Kim.

Fun in the sun: She fired up her Instagram page on Saturday to regale her staggering 185 million followers with a string of pictures showing her outdoor escapades

This insider explained: 'He does a lot of work in Wyoming and she works in LA. They're focused on their family now and rarely talk politics.'

'They had a good family week in the Dominican Republic,' an insider dished to People after the family returned to America.

'Kim and Kanye are getting along. They both seem much happier,' continued the insider on August 9, the day the family arrived in Miami.

A source shed light on Kim's state of mind: 'Between the kids, work, and dealing with Kanye's bipolar episodes, it's been hard for her to think clearly.'

So much fun: Kourtney's son Mason, 10, one of the three children she shares with her sizzling ex Scott Disick, appeared to have joined the trip too

Kanye praised Kim's mother Kris Jenner on Twitter after his return to America, just weeks after denouncing her on Twitter as 'Kris Jong-Un.'

'My mother in law Kris Jenner ... makes the best music playlist,' wrote Kanye, who slammed her multiple times on Twitter last month.

During the Caribbean trip a The Sun insider said Kim 'offered to fully support a 2024 run for president if he got help and listened to the political consultants they hired.'

However the source also claimed that he refuses to budge from the idea of running this year, saying: 'Kanye seems set on what he calls "God's plan" - that he becomes president. He's saying it's a higher calling.'

As seen in 2018: Her latest post comes after she, Kanye and the children returned to the United States following a trip to the Caribbean that was allegedly to save the marriage

Kim flew to Wyoming on July 27 for marriage crisis talks with Kanye and then returned home to Los Angeles while he stayed put.

After his presidential campaign rally on July 19 in which he tearfully revealed he and Kim considered aborting North, he launched into a days-long string of Twitter rants denouncing his wife and his mother-in-law.

He claimed Kim and Kris tried to have him committed and accused his wife of having an inappropriate relationship with the rapper Meek Mill.

Kanye, who called Kris a 'white supremacist' in one of his outbursts, also posted and deleted a tweet claiming he was 'trying to divorce' his wife.

Family matters: 'Kimye' married in Florence six years ago and share four children - North, seven, Saint, four, Chicago, two, and Psalm, one

Amid her husband's Twitter outbursts Kim, who was reportedly livid that he shared the abortion story publicly, made a statement saying the family was 'powerless' to intervene in Kanye's bipolar disorder issues inasmuch as he is an adult.

Kanye eventually suspended the tweet storms, apologizing to his wife 'for going public with something that was a private matter.'

However a few days after his crisis talks with Kim he broke his silence on the social media platform to address the campaign rally.

'Photo Booth fun!': Kim recently shared an Instagram post co-starring her childhood pal Allison Statter with whom she is releasing a new makeup collection for her beauty line

'I cried at the thought of aborting my first born and everyone was so concerned about me... Im concerned for the world that feels you shouldnt cry about this subject,' wrote the Power rapper.

He followed that up with a Tweet that claimed: 'There is a tactic of 4 Ds Distract Discredit Dismiss To Destroy.'

Kanye continued in the same tweet: 'I am quite alright Take a second and think about what is being projected here.'
Islamic preacher Zakir Naik has called on Indian Muslims to unite and form a party exclusively for Muslims.

The controversial preacher said there was an onslaught on Muslim minorities in India over the last four-six years and noted that Indian Muslims were divided along sectarian lines fighting and criticising each other. He further said the community lacked political leadership, adding that the division was splitting Muslim votes.

In a video message uploaded to his official Facebook page on August 21, Naik was answering a followers question on how Indian Muslims should respond to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led governments "harassment and oppression.

He repeated his contested claim of the Indian government suppressing the number of Muslims in the country and said: Muslims should make another party exclusively for Muslims  and join hands with other political parties that are not fascist or communal.

Citing the example of Babasaheb Ambedkar, who liked Islam but chose Buddhism as the former did not accept him, Naik suggested the new party should join forces with dalits as dalits are not Hindus and their political alliance would represent nearly 600 million people.

Commenting on lynching and attacks, Naik says Indian Muslims should do Hijira (flight to avoid religious persecution) if they cannot practise their faith, but added he does not expect all to flee.

He further called Kerala as the best state he could think of to flee to as followers of all three major religionsHindus, Muslims and Christians accounted for about one-third of the population each, in the southern state. "The people of Kerala are not communal in nature ... live harmoniously (and) there is no friction between different religions, he argued.

In a jibe to the ruling party, he added that this government doesn't have much hold in the state of Kerala. He also named Bombay (Mumbai) and Hyderabad as other options.
WASHINGTON  Whenever I called my mom to tell her something bad had happened, she said, I know.

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously put it, To be Irish is to know that, in the end, the world will break your heart.

Joe Biden has had his heart broken again and again and again.

And yet somehow  against all odds, in one of the most remarkable resurrections in political history  Biden stood with a full heart before an empty hall to accept his partys nomination.

This is our moment to make hope and history rhyme, he said, using the Seamus Heaney line alluding to the Irish finding a way beyond the Troubles to peace.

But theres another Heaney line, the one the Nobel laureate chose for his gravestone in County Derry, that suits the moment even better: Walk on air against your better judgment.
The Navy may be needed to prevent British fishermen clashing with European boats if a second coronavirus crisis coincides with a no-deal Brexit, according to a leaked government document.

The RAF could also be required to drop food on the Channel Islands, according to a Cabinet Office reasonable worst-case scenario paper seen by The Sun newspaper.

Troops may also have to be drafted on to the streets if the economic fallout triggers public unrest, shortages and price rises.

The EU warned last week that Brexit negotiations were going backwards and the UK was running out of time to prevent a no deal.

Cabinet office minister Michael Gove is said to be working flat out to prepare in case the UK leaves the EU without a future trade agreement.

The classified document, from July, also warns parts of the UK could face power and petrol shortages if a no-deal Brexit leaves thousands of lorries stranded in Dover.

The same problem could lead to medicine shortages which could cause animal diseases to spread.

The addition of floods and flu as well as another coronavirus wave could see hospitals overwhelmed.

A government spokeswoman said the document reflects a responsible government ensuring we are ready for all eventualities.

The government has warned the UK has to be braced for a potential second wave of Covid-19 this winter.

Mr Gove said the UK had to be ready come what may.

He said: We got Brexit done with a great deal in January and we are working flat out to make sure the United Kingdom is ready for the changes and huge opportunities at the end of the year as we regain our political and economic independence for the first time in almost fifty years.

Part of this work includes routine contingency planning for various scenarios that we do not think will happen, but we must be ready for come what may. Whether we trade with the EU on terms similar to Canada or to Australia, a brighter future awaits as we forge our own path.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 11 January 2022 A couple walk underneath an umbrella during wet weather on Westminster Bridge in central London PA UK news in pictures 10 January 2022 A jogger passes the Covid Memorial Wall in London AP UK news in pictures 9 January 2021 The sun rises over horses at Seaton Sluice in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 8 January 2022 Riders compete during the Veterans Men's race at the UK Cyclo-Cross National Championships 2022 in Ardingly, south of London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 7 January 2022 A dog looks out of a car window at the wintry conditions in Killeshin, Co. Laois PA UK news in pictures 6 January 2022 People walk through frost and mist alongside a frozen lake during sunrise in Bushy Park, London REUTERS UK news in pictures 5 January 2022 A skier jumps on the slopes at Allenheads in the Pennines to the north of Weardale in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 4 January 2022 Freshly-fallen snow covers houses in Corbridge, near Hexham in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 3 January 2022 Dean Morrison, 13, receives his Covid-19 vaccine from student nurse Anthony McLaughlin during a vaccination clinic at the Glasgow Central Mosque PA UK news in pictures 2 January 2022 Konastantinos Tsimikas of Liverpool with Chelseas Mason Mount during the Premier League match at Stamfrod Bridge Liverpool FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 January 2022 New Years Eve Lasers, drones and fireworks illuminate the sky in front of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich shortly after midnight in London EPA UK news in pictures 31 December 2021 Competitors in fancy dress run across the Pennine tops near Haworth, West Yorkshire, in the annual Auld Lang Syne Fell race which attracts hundreds of runners every year PA UK news in pictures 30 December 2021 Sunrise at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 29 December 2021 The Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, looks at Becket, a six month old red-billed chough as he visits Wildwood Wildlife Park in Kent on the anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket PA UK news in pictures 28 December 2021 Troops of the Household Cavalry are seen reflected in a puddle during the changing of the Queens Life Guard, on Horse Guards Parade, in central London PA UK news in pictures 27 December 2021 A pedestrian walks past a winter sale sign outside a John Lewis store on Oxford street in London Getty UK news in pictures 26 December 2021 Riders take their bikes through the snow near Castleside, County Durham PA UK news in pictures 25 December 2021 Patrick Corkery wears a santa hat and beard as waves crash over him at Forty Foot near Dublin during a Christmas Day dip PA UK news in pictures 24 December 2021 People stand inside Kings Cross Station on Christmas Eve in London Reuters UK news in pictures 23 December 2021 Christmas shoppers fill the car park at Fosse Shopping Park in Leicester PA UK news in pictures 22 December 2021 The sun rises behind the stones as people gather for the winter solstice at Stonehenge. Getty UK news in pictures 21 December 2021 People take part in a winter solstice swim at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to mark the solstice and to witness the dawn after the longest night of the year PA UK news in pictures 20 December 2021 An auction employee displays poultry to buyers and sellers attending the Christmas Poultry Sale at York Auction Centre in Murton PA UK news in pictures 19 December 2021 Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers looks on during the Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea at Molineux Getty Images UK news in pictures 18 December 2021 Freight lorries queuing at the port of Dover in Kent PA UK news in pictures 17 December 2021 Newly elected Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, bursts 'Boris' bubble' held by colleague Tim Farron, as she celebrates following her victory in the North Shropshire by-election PA UK news in pictures 16 December 2021 Brussels sprouts are harvested by workers as they prepare for the busy Christmas period near Boston in Lincolnshire PA UK news in pictures 15 December 2021 Lewis Hamilton is made a Knight Bachelor by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 14 December 2021 The Royal Liver Buildings surrounded by early morning fog in Liverpool PA UK news in pictures 13 December 2021 People queue outside a walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in Westminster Getty Images UK news in pictures 12 December 2021 People take part in the Big Leeds Santa Dash in Roundhay Park, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 11 December 2021 People arrive at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at Elland Road in Leeds, PA UK news in pictures 10 December 2021 Stella Moris speaks to the media after the US Government won its High Court bid to overturn a judges decision not to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange PA UK news in pictures 9 December 2021 Camels are lead around Salisbury Cathedral during a rehearsal for the Christmas Eve Service PA UK news in pictures 8 December 2021 Margaret Keenan and Nurse May Parsons, a year after Margaret was the first person in the UK to receive the Pfizer vaccine PA UK news in pictures 7 December 2021 Snowfall in Leadhills, South Lanarkshire as Storm Barra hits the UK with disruptive winds, heavy rain and snow PA UK news in pictures 6 December 2021 A person tries to avoid sea spray on New Brighton promenade in Wallasey as the UK readies for the arrival of Storm Barra Getty UK news in pictures 5 December 2021 People release balloons during a tribute to six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes outside Emma Tustin's former address in Solihull, West Midlands, where he was murdered by his stepmother PA UK news in pictures 4 December 2021 People walk through a Christmas market in Trafalgar Square Reuters UK news in pictures 3 December 2021 A pedestrian carries a dog as they dodge shoppers on Oxford Street in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 2 December 2021 Duchess of Cambridge inspects a Faberge egg at the Victoria and Albert Museum Getty UK news in pictures 1 December 2021 Meerkats at London Zoo with an advent calendar PA UK news in pictures 30 November 2021 Workers put the finishing touches to the Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree ahead of the lighting ceremony later in the week PA UK news in pictures 29 November 2021 Home Secretary Priti Patel is greeted by a police dog at a special memorial service for Met Police Sergeant Matiu Ratana Getty UK news in pictures 28 November 2021 Riyad Mahrez of Manchester City battles for possession with Aaron Cresswell of West Ham United during a match at the Etihad during snow Manchester City/Getty UK news in pictures 27 November 2021 Residents clear branches from a fallen tree in Birkenhead, north west England as Storm Arwen triggered a rare red weather warning AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 December 2021 An aerial picture shows a worker using a quad bike and trailer to transport freshly harvested trees at Pimms Christmas Tree farm in Matfield, southeast England AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 26 November 2021 A shopper browses Christmas trees for sale at Pines and Needles in Dulwich, London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 November 2021 A murmuration of hundreds of thousands of starlings fly over a field at dusk in Cumbria, close to the Scottish border PA UK news in pictures 3 December 2021 A pedestrian carries a dog as they dodge shoppers on Oxford Street in central London AFP/Getty

A government spokeswoman added: At the end of the year we will be outside the single market and the customs union, whatever the outcome of negotiations, and intensive planning is under way to help ensure that businesses and citizens are ready to take advantage of the opportunities and changes that will bring.

This includes launching a comprehensive communications campaign to make sure everyone knows what they need to do to prepare.

As a responsible government we continue to make extensive preparations for a wide range of scenarios, including the reasonable worst case.

This is not a forecast or prediction of what will happen, but rather a stretching scenario. It reflects a responsible government ensuring we are ready for all eventualities.
The post office is high on the minds of editorial cartoonists this week.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testified at a Senate hearing Friday, defending changes he has made at the U.S. Postal Service as necessary to cut debt and improve efficiency. DeJoy said removing mail sorting equipment and mailboxes was routine. He suspended those activities until after the Nov. 3 election to allay concerns the Trump administration is trying to suppress voting by mail. DeJoy said the post office will prioritize delivery of ballots this November and can handle the expected increase in election mail volume.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly sowed doubts about the security of voting by mail, even though he does it himself. State elections officials point to scant evidence of voter fraud, and note that five states (Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington) had universal vote-by-mail even before the coronavirus pandemic.

The other big story was the four-day Democratic National Convention. It was supposed to be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but happened mostly virtually due to the pandemic. In a roll call vote that spanned all 57 states and territories, Joe Biden was nominated to run for president and Kamala Harris was nominated for vice president. Former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama were among speakers taking the fight to Trump.

The president is expected to give as good has he got this week at the Republican National Convention. Republicans are already painting Biden as a Trojan Horse for the more liberal wing of the party represented by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A couple of cartoonists picked up on that imagery.

Cartoonists also commented on college students already returning home after coronavirus infections spike at their colleges; more worries about returning to K-12 schools; former Trump campaign manager Stephen Bannons indictment on fraud charges for allegedly siphoning donations from a private effort to build a border wall; and Congressional inaction on coronavirus relief for hurting Americans.

Cartoons were drawn by Bill Bramhall, Dan Wasserman, Dana Summers, Drew Sheneman, Walt Handelsman, David Horsey and Joey Weatherford of Tribune Content Agency; and A.F. Branco, Mike Luckovich and Michael Ramirez of Creators Syndicate.

View more editorial cartoon galleries.
A win aboard Caviart Sundance in the 10th race on Sunday (Aug. 23) at Clinton Raceway secured Travis Henry's spot in the upcoming 40th Annual Charity Drivers' Challenge.

Alongside top Clinton drivers Brett MacDonald and Austin Sorrie, Henry will join the likes of Jody Jamieson, Sylvain Filion, Doug McNair, Bob McClure and Trevor Henry to compete and raise funds for the Royal Canadian Legion, Clinton Branch 140.

Henry's additional wins came in the opener with Mostly Dali and Allstar Seelster in the seventh.

The Charity Drivers' Challenge, will wrap up the 2020 Clinton season on Sept. 6.

J.R. Plante registered a driving grand slam on the 11-race card, winning race three with Dashiki, race five with Myinsidevoice, race nine with Down On My Luck, and rounding out the day in the 11th with trotter Pinecone Pete.

Handle remained strong, with $67,000 wagered at the Huron County Oval.

Next Sunday (Aug. 30) will feature the fifth annual $15,000 Vic Hayter Memorial Trot. Post time is 1:30 p.m. Watch and wager online by visiting www.clintonraceway.com.

To view Sunday's complete results, click the following link: Sunday Results  Clinton Raceway.

(Clinton Raceway)
In "The Living Dead," a new novel, the late George A. Romero explores the bigger world of the mayhem he begat in his 1969 film, "Night of the Living Dead."

But Romero  who died of cancer in 2017  did not finish the book. Chicago author Daniel Kraus picked up the threads of his partial manuscript and, using the horror auteur's notes and an unearthed short story, finished "The Living Dead."

"I was just thinking the other day I should have gotten a little bracelet that said WWGD What Would George Do?" Kraus said in a phone interview. "Because there were months and months of preparations that were about really getting into George's head and being able to anticipate his reaction to certain plot elements."

Kraus was a "Living Dead" fanboy from childhood, and his reverence for the late filmmaker is apparent. Yet this is his book as much as Romero's.

"This is a Romero-Kraus book and there is no way around that. He didn't write enough that I wouldn't have to put a lot of myself in it."
Pastor Andy Stanley explains why North Point is suspending services until 2021

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Responding to some members who accused him of bowing to Caesar, Pastor Andy Stanley of Atlantas North Point Community Church explained why his church decided to suspend services until 2021. The decision, he said, is not left-wing, Marxist agenda, but based on whats central to the Christian faith.

In a video message, Stanley said the megachurchs decision is based on the true stance of the Christian faith.

We did not suspend services because of government pressure; there was none," he emphasized. "Were not afraid, were not bowing to social, cultural or political pressure.

Theres a storm of confusion right now due to three things, the leader of the multi-campus church pointed out.

One, everything is politicized, he said. There are no neutral topics right now  from school reopenings to masks and the virus; everything is politicized and no one is neutral, he explained.

Two, he said, cancel culture is prevalent. If you say something I dont like  or agree with, Id discount everything youve ever said and everything youve ever accomplished in your life, he noted.

Stanley told church members hes been at the receiving end of the cancel culture.

Ive gotten quite a few voicemails, emails and actual letters to my home from longtime church attenders who are leaving or whore telling me they are leaving our churches because of our decision to suspend services for the remainder of this year, he said.

Some have said hes bowed to Caesar and adopted a left-wing, Marxist agenda, and therefore theyre leaving the church.

Stanley added that hes been calling almost everyone whos responded in such a way and whose numbers he could find. He said when he convinces them that its wise to suspend services, they acknowledge how much the church means to them and their children.

Every such conversation ends on a friendly note, the pastor said, adding that he hopes they dont actually leave the church.

Three, theres a version of Christianity that Ive worked very, very hard to help avoid. And thats "culture-war Christianity."

This is the version of Christianity consumed with winning, he explained. Its a version that sees itself perpetually under attack and consequently feels the need to attack back. It requires an enemy for sustainability.

He said he knows this version well because he grew up with this version.

It is a perversion of our faith, he stressed, adding that it also sets the church up to be a tool of politicians rather than the conscience of the nation. This type of Christianity is more concerned about winning than loving.

During His earthly ministry, everybody wanted Jesus to take their side. But Jesus refused to do so. Quoting Philippians 2:6, the pastor said, Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.

Unlike the 21st century people, Jesus did not play to win, he said. Jesus played to lose.

And thats because He was playing a completely different game that had completely different rules with a completely different win.

Jesus played to lose so that the other team, which includes you and I, could win, Stanley added.

The pastor then read Philippians 2:7, Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

He explained, The church looks more like Christ when we are defending other peoples rights, rather than our own.

He said his church has chosen to suspend services not because thats best for us.

The best thing for me (or for us) is to open up as soon as possible, he said. That would be a win for us. That would be a loss for our community both in terms of what could happen and in terms of the message it sends.

While making the announcement about the suspension of services last month, Stanley said, Based on the uptick in COVID-19 cases, the results of our attendee surveys and the experiences of churches that have already reopened weve decided to suspend in-person adult worship services for the remainder of the year.

Writing on Facebook, he explained that it was a difficult decision to make as the church was hoping to start gathering again on Aug. 9 but the pandemic disrupted that plan.

Now as you would imagine, that was not a casual decision. In fact, back in May when we announced a possible August 9 reopening, the COVID numbers were actually moving in the right direction. That has changed. Consequently, we cannot guarantee your safety and thats a big part of this decision, Stanley said at the time. Even if we did reopen, we certainly would not be able to create a quality adult or childrens worship experience with social distancing protocols in place.

The Summit Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in Durham, North Carolina, whose pastor is the denomination's president, has also announced that it won't be holding services for the remainder of the year due to COVID-19. Instead, it will be hosting small home-based gatherings in a push toward making disciples.
The compensation would be paid with the boundaries of international laws, Zanqeneh said.

Head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization voiced Iran's full preparedness to negotiate with Ukrainian officials as the next round of talks between the two countries' aviation officials will be held in October in the capital city of Tehran.

In an exclusive interview with IRNA, Touraj Dehqani Zangeneh elaborated on the latest situation of talks between Iran and Ukraine with the aim of paying compensation for the incident of the Ukrainian passenger plane which was shot down in late January 2020, the IRNA news agency wrote.

"Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Mr. Baharvand, heading a delegation comprising representatives of different sectors, has held different meetings with the Ukrainian officials," Dehqani Zanqeneh said.

He recalled that the talks on the issues pertaining to the crash of the Ukrainian passenger plane, including the issue of paying compensation have been reviewed and the next meeting will be held in Tehran in October.

"What is evident is that Iran has accepted the responsibility for its mistake and therefore the country is ready for negotiations on paying full compensation for what is had done," Dehqani Zangeneh added.

He pointed out that paying preliminary compensation in technical and legal areas will bear the result and it will take place on the basis of agreement.

Asked about the time for paying compensation to the beneficiaries Tehran-Kyiv flight plane crash, Dehqani Zangeneh said that the compensation would be paid with the boundaries of international laws and without discrimination while it will include any group that has been affected in the incident.

PS752 downing in Iran: background
Pro-police demonstrators and others, left, and counter-protesters, fire pepper spray and hurl objects at each other in front of the Multnomah County Justice Center in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 22, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Groups Clash in Downtown Portland, No Arrests Made

Demonstrators and counter-demonstrators clashed in Portland on Aug. 22, spraying each other with pepper spray and repeatedly engaging in physical fights. No arrests were made.

Video footage and photographs show a chaotic scene that played out in the early afternoon as people fired paintballs and brawled with weapons such as bats and shields.

At one point, a man appeared to pull out a gun but fired no shots.

The Portland Police Bureau (PPB) stated it identified the male suspect and is investigating, asking anyone who was a victim or an in-person witness to come forward.

The people on one side included far-left anarcho-communist Antifa members. The other side included pro-police demonstrators and the Proud Boys, an all-male group that has in the past fought with Antifa members.

Pro-police demonstrators and others (L) and counter-protesters (R) in front of the Multnomah County Justice Center in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 22, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Pro-police demonstrators and others (L) and counter-protesters (R) in front of the Multnomah County Justice Center in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 22, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

The clashes were difficult to deal with because many officers had already worked into the early hours of the morning, policing a riot at the bureaus North Precinct, the bureau stated. There, agitators assaulted police officers and severely damaged police cars and a Boys and Girls Club van, leaving one police officer with a laceration on her leg and another with a sprained ankle. Nine arrests were made.

Other officers were pulled away just after noon after receiving a report of a man who assaulted his mother with a saber. It was ultimately determined that the male had a shaver, not a saber. He was arrested.

At one point during this call, there were only 4 available police cars in the entire City to respond to emergency calls for service, the bureau stated in an incident summary, explaining why a riot wasnt declared during the clashes downtown.

Shootings have spiked in Portland this year, and the city has been dealing with nearly three months of near-nightly unrest by Black Lives Matter activists and other demonstrators. More than 500 have been arrested, not including arrests made by federal officers outside the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse.

President Donald Trump offered earlier on Aug. 22 to send the National Guardan offer hes made regularly. State and city officials havent responded to inquiries about how they plan to quell the unrest or whether theyll eventually accept Trumps offer.

Hundreds of people were involved in the clashes on Aug. 22. Many were armed. Additionally, the groups contained individuals who appear to be willingly engaging in physical confrontations for short durations, police stated.

Anti-police demonstrators burn an American flag in front of the Multnomah County Justice Center in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 22, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

A man walks in front of the Multnomah County Justice Center in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 22, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

The mayhem began dying down before 3 p.m., as federal police officers assisted local officers in dispersing the crowds.

Crowd management events are complex, especially when they involve groups with differing ideologies with members who wish to engage in physical confrontations, Police Chief Chuck Lovell said in a statement.

PPB had to be judicious with our limited resources today especially since many of our members worked during the riot this morning and had very little sleep. Our resources are finite and we also have emergency calls for service to manage across the city. We are investigating criminal acts when we are aware of them and ask for any victims to come forward so we can build the best case we can for enhanced outcomes for prosecution.

Prior to the demonstrations, Mayor and Police Commissioner Ted Wheeler, a Democrat, urged everyone attending the demonstration and counter-demonstration to peacefully exercise their First Amendment rights.

Neither hate speech nor violence are welcome in Portland, he said.
AFP via Getty Images

The House of Representatives has passed a $25bn relief package for the US Postal Service in response to sweeping cuts and operational changes that Democrats fear could harm the organisation's ability to handle mail voting in crucial November elections.

Legislation from New York congresswoman Carolyn Maloney gives what Democrats have argued is a sorely needed injection of cash into the agency.

The Delivering For America Act also aims to prohibit the removal of mail-sorting machines and public mailboxes, halt any changes that have slowed deliveries, and ensure that all election-related mail be prioritised.

But the bill is unlikely to pass the Senate, where Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell has refused to bring a standalone bill for the post office. Donald Trump has also threatened to veto the measure.

Democrats have feared that recent cuts have also jeopardised prescription drug deliveries, Social Security checks, rental and credit card payments and other bills and critically needed mail.

Roughly 180 million voters are eligible to vote by mail through absentee ballots, rather than potentially risk coronavirus infection or transmission by entering a voting precinct on Election Day this fall. Millions of Americans already participated in elections using mail-in ballots.

"It makes absolutely no sense to impose these kinds of dangerous cuts in the middle of a pandemic and just months before the elections in November," Congresswoman Maloney told the House on Saturday. "The American people do not want anyone messing with the Post Office. ... They just want their mail, they want their medicines, and they want their mail-in ballots delivered in a timely way."

The hearing followed a US Senate committee's grilling of postmaster general Louis DeJoy, a donor to the president's campaign who was appointed to lead the agency in June. He said the USPS would have "no issue" handling election mail and claimed that the agency is "fully capable and committed to delivering the nation's election mail securely and on-time."

Story continues

Several House Republicans cast the legislation as a "smokescreen" to prevent legislation on the GOP's agenda, and a "manufactured crisis" to "score points" following the 2020 Democratic National Convention to criticise the president, cast as a victim of another "election hoax" not unlike the Democrats' impeachment.

Republicans also dismissed Democrats' concerns that prescription drugs to veterans, who rely on the USPS for deliveries, as well as Social Security checks have been delayed.

Indiana congressman Greg Pence, brother of vice president Mike Pence, cast the legislation as a political "sham", while Republican congressman James Comer of Kentucky said Democrats are promoting "conspiracy theories" and have sought to "simultaneously hamstring and bail out the Postal Service" by reversing cuts and pumping the agency with unnecessary funds.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee revealed that internal documents from the USPS showed a significant drop in service since the beginning of July, including first-class mail deliveries.

Republicans argued to defer action at least until they hear from the postmaster general at a scheduled House Oversight Committee meeting on Monday.

"You've had a hearing  you've had a hearing from the American people," said Democratic congresswoman Maxine Waters, who argued that the USPS is being "sabotaged by a desperate president in order to cheat in the 2020 election."

The president has repeatedly claimed that vote-by-mail efforts are vulnerable to mass fraud, an assertion that his campaign has not backed with any evidence, according to court documents related to the campaign's federal lawsuit to block drop-off ballot boxes.

"They want $25bn for the Post Office," he told Fox News this month. "They need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots. Now, in the meantime, they aren't getting there. But if they don't get those two items, that means you can't have universal mail-in voting because they're not equipped to have it."

Mr Trump participates in mail-in voting; he submitted his absentee ballot for Florida's primary elections through a third party, a practise that many Republicans, including the president, said should be illegal.

Before the vote, the president lashed out on Twitter: "This is all another HOAX by the Democrats to give 25 Billion unneeded dollars for political purposes, without talking about the Universal Mail-In Ballot Scam ... that they are trying to pull off in violation of everything that our Country stands for."

Saturday's hearing arrived 100 days following House Democrats' passage of the HEROES Act, which Senate Republicans and the White House have refused to touch. The $3.4tn measure included post office funding and efforts to boost voter participation, along with one-time stimulus checks, extended federal unemployment relief, eviction moratoriums and school funding. Republicans have argued for a narrower relief bill.

After Speaker Pelosi called the House back in session on Saturday, Democrats urged that the body consider passing a coronavirus relief package, following criticism that Congress had adjourned without renewing unemployment payments or halting evictions despite desperate pleas from millions of Americans. The House was not set to return until 14 September.

More than 100 Democrats signed a letter urging congressional leaders to take up additional legislation during Saturday's emergency session.

Ahead of Saturday's vote, the House Speaker said the USPS is "as American as apple pie, motherhood, baseball, you name it."

Unmoved by the postmaster general's claims that service would not be interrupted ahead of November's election, she called his assurance "wholly insufficient" relative to the "damage already wrecked" by cuts.

Speaker Pelosi, who spoke privately with the postmaster general, said that he "frankly admitted that he had no intention of replacing the sorting machines, blue mailboxes and other key mail infrastructure that have been removed and that plans for adequate overtime, which is critical for the timely delivery of mail, are not in the works."

"Not receiving your mail in a timely fashion hits home," she said. "Not receiving your prescriptions, especially for our veterans, hits home in a way that is harmful to our country."

Read more

Exclusive: Carter Centre to launch first-ever US election initiative

Head of USPS says he will not reverse changes which caused delays

Mail delays in US now slowing down delivery of vital medicines

Trump campaign targeting ballot boxes in battleground states

Inside Donald Trumps campaign to sabotage the postal service
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 00:22:40|Editor: huaxia

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KABUL, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Afghanistan's President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani on Saturday met with NATO's Senior Civilian Representative in Afghanistan Stefano Pontecorvo and discussed issues including the peace process in Afghanistan, the Presidential Palace said.

In the meeting attended by National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib, the two sides exchanged views on the peace process, strengthening and equipping Afghan national security and defense forces as well as NATO support to the government programs, particularly on the peace and reconciliation process, the palace said in a statement.

Pontecorvo reaffirmed NATO's commitment for supporting lasting security and stability in Afghanistan, said the statement.

The meeting came as violence lingers in the war-torn country after a peace deal was signed between the United States and Taliban in Qatar in February, which paved the way for a phased U.S. force withdrawal.

According to the agreement, some 10,000 U.S. and NATO forces stationed in Afghanistan will be withdrawn by July next year. Enditem
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 08/23/2020



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[ Spoiler Warning: This report contains spoilers revealing if Kalani and Asuelu are still together or if the : Happily Ever After? couple has split up.]

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Did Kalani and Asuelu survive all the family drama or did they break up -- and is the couple still together now?

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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

couple Asuelu Pulaa and Kalani Faagata have united against Asuelu's family on Season 5 of : Happily Ever After?, but did their relationship last or are they still together now?After meeting in July 2016, Kalani, a 31-year-old from Orange County, CA, and Asuelu, a 24-year-old from Samoa, appeared on Season 6 of in 2019.The pair met when Kalani was visiting a resort where Asuelu worked as the activities director, and they continued dating once Kalani returned to America.Kalani later flew back Samoa and lost her virginity to Asuelu, which resulted in a surprise pregnancy Kalani didn't seem ready for.Kalani's Mormon family was disappointed given Kalani didn't wait until marriage to have sex and her father Low never wanted one of his daughters to end up with a Samoan man like himself.Despite her family's concern, Kalani applied for a K-1 visa so Asuelu could move to the United States and become the husband and father she hoped he would be. At the time, their son Oliver had turned five months old.Once Asuelu moved to the U.S., he and Kalani tied the knot in September 2018, and 's sixth season ended with Kalani and Asuelu's wedding as well as Kalani learning she was pregnant with her second child.Kalani and Asuelu found out they were expecting Baby No. 2 together less than a year after she had given birth to Oliver, which was another big surprise!Kalani and Asuelu are now parents of two sons: Kennedy, who was born in May 2019, and Oliver, whom the couple welcomed in January 2018.In a September 2019 poll on her Instagram, Kalani suggested Asuelu wasn't helping her with the kids and she felt overwhelmed.While she did not name Asuelu directly in her Instagram post, she made it clear she was venting about her husband's alleged laziness and his unrealistic expectations of her as a wife and mother of two."Do all husbands expect their wives to pay bills, clean the whole house, do all the laundry, feed/watch the kids 24/7 (unless said husband is in public or wants a selfie)?" Kalani asked in the poll. "Asking for my gottdamn self. Is this normal?"Apparently 70 percent of Kalani's followers who participated in the poll answered "No."However, the couple appeared to be a very happy family at Christmas time in December 2019.On : Happily Ever After?'s fifth season, Asuelu was shown at work passing out free samples. The couple had been married for one year and three months at the time of filming.Kalani suggested her marriage was suffering and she was exhausted all the time, so her parents moved in with the couple to help them out with the boys, which apparently upset Asuelu because he no longer was the man of the house.Kalani believed Asuelu would rather play volleyball or video games after work than spend time with his family and take some responsibilities off her plate. She also complained they hadn't been on a romantic date in four months."I just wish that Asuelu and I could get back to the point where we were in the beginning of our relationship, where we loved to be around each other. I just miss that, and if Asuelu refuses to change, I don't know if I can keep doing this anymore," Kalani said in a confessional.Kalani's dad Low also wanted Asuelu to "step up" and stop "f-cking around." Low said Asuelu would get his "ass whooped or sent back to Samoa" if things didn't change for the better.But Asuelu and Kalani's relationship remained tense for a while.Asuelu was angry with his wife when she turned down an opportunity for them to travel to Samoa and allow their kids to see where Asuelu grew up.Not only would the trip cost thousands of dollars in plane fare alone, there had also been a Measles outbreak recently -- and children in Samoa were dying from it.Asuelu and Kalani's son Kennedy also wasn't vaccinated and wasn't supposed to get that MMR vaccine until 12-24 months old, according to his doctor.Given Kennedy was only seven months old at the time, Kalani was worried and decided to postpone the trip.Instead of going to Samoa, Kalani drove her family to California in order to celebrate Oliver's second birthday, but Asuelu was noticeably in a bad mood and called Kalani's job as a mother "easy.""I think Kalani can't do what mother in Samoa do," Asuelu said.Kalani argued that she was the one up all night with both of their sick kids when she was sick too and did "everything for them," and Asuelu called her out for being "annoying" as well as a "lying b-tch."Kalani's mother was driving the car and scolded Asuelu for talking to her daughter that way, which only made Asuelu more frustrated."I don't know how your husband talk to you when you guys been together. But it's my wife; I can talk whatever," Asuelu said. "Your daughter asks stupid questions."Kalani's mother called Asuelu "disrespectful," and Kalani felt Asuelu was trying to sabotage the weekend and ruin it for everyone as a way to get back at her for canceling their trip to Samoa."It just shows me that he doesn't really care about me and the boys and he's just No. 1 to himself," Kalani complained in a confessional, later adding that she'd never be "subservient" to a man.During a heated confrontation in the backyard, Kalani called Asuelu "a manipulator" because of his attempts to change the subject every time he wanted to back himself out of an uncomfortable conversation. She desired "an equal partnership."Since the pair couldn't reach a resolution and Asuelu felt Kalani didn't respect what he contributed to their family, Asuelu took off with his suitcase by boarding a bus to Utah.That night, Asuelu apparently sent Kalani three false locations to drive to in order to pick him up, and once she was ready to give up, he finally gave his actual location.Kalani's sister Kolini said Asuelu "sucked the life" out of her sister and it was hard to see, and Kalani's whole family thought Asuelu was "in the wrong" and had behaved rudely.Asuelu even refused to attend Oliver's birthday party at first and hid in a bedroom.Low told Asuelu that he needed to be there for his son's birthday and put his issues aside, so Asuelu ultimately joined the party but Kalani's sister Kolini thought he was just "putting on a show for everyone, which is what he does."A few days after Kalani and Asuelu returned home from California, Asuelu said things between Kalani's family and himself were very "tense" and nobody wanted to talk to him -- probably because he didn't want to talk to any of them either.Low acknowledged men in Samoa want to control their wives and that's the culture, but he said he didn't raise his daughters to put up with that behavior and be submissive.Low told Asuelu that swearing at Lisa and Kalani was "unacceptable," and Asuelu confessed to "doing really bad things."Low was apparently fed up with giving Asuelu second, third and fourth chances. Low was trying his best "not to get violent," but he demanded, "You need to learn how to treat your wife, because I'm not having that."Asuelu insisted he was really sorry and intended to be more careful with his words and actions.Asuelu later apologized to Kalani, admitting he was "so wrong in saying that a woman in Samoa is better" than Kalani.Kalani said Asuelu's apology meant a lot to her but he needed to change his actions. And in order to make Asuelu happier in their marriage, she agreed to visit his mother and two half-sisters in Washington State.But Asuelu's mother was asking for $1,000, and Asuelu said he didn't have that much money -- and then blamed it on Kalani.Kalani got upset because she said she hated being the bad guy, and she couldn't believe Asuelu had thrown her under the bus like that.Kalani agreed to let Asuelu buy $200 worth of gifts, but she only agreed to giving his mother an additional $100 cash. Kalani told Asuelu they needed to be realistic about their finances since Asuelu only worked part-time.Kalani figured Asuelu was "trying to buy his family's love" and it was no longer "a cultural thing."Asuelu threw a little fit when Kalani insisted their family spend their first night in Washington State in an AirBnB so their kids could rest, but Asuelu apologized to her off-camera for the outburst.It had been about a year since Asuelu last saw his mother and sisters Tammy and Rosa, and it didn't take long for the women to bring up money.Asuelu's mother was shocked he only had $100 for her, and Tammy advised Asuelu to step up like a man and work full-time.Lesina argued, "Where is your mind?! Kalani's parents have a lot of money. They will take care of the kids."Tammy told Asuelu they needed to put their parents first "no matter what.""Well do you send money home?" Kalani asked.Tammy was quiet for a moment and said, "It's none of your business." But Kalani argued it was her business, suggesting she and Asuelu shouldn't be held responsible for something Tammy didn't even do herself.Asuelu told the cameras he didn't have money for his family because he had to support his children and wanted to be an American man.Asuelu said he no longer wanted to act like a Samoan man, and so he went to see his family alone, without his wife, to talk things through.Asuelu gifted his mother, Lesina, and his sister things he had purchased for them at a store with Samoan clothing, and then he explained how he wanted them to still love him even if he couldn't give them money.Asuelu's sister Tammy said she sent their parents money all the time, and Lesina said they weren't asking for Kalani's money -- just Asuelu's money. Tammy accused Asuelu of letting Kalani control him."I love my family. I love my wife. And I think that I can't have both," Asuelu said.The next day, Kalani, Asuelu and the kids met Lesina at a goat farm for a day of fun, and Asuelu just hoped for a peaceful gathering.When Lesina and Asuelu were alone, Lesina said she couldn't work anymore and was too old, but Asuelu said he needed to take care of his kids first and Oliver and Kennedy were his priority.Asuelu broke down into tears, saying he couldn't support his kids if he sent money to Samoa."They will die. I don't want that to happen. I love my family," Asuelu cried to Lesina.Lesina said she still wanted Asuelu to send money to his parents in Samoa, and Kalani was shocked and called "this b-tch crazy." Kalani told Lesina that Asuelu couldn't give what he didn't have, but Lesina demanded respect."I think they must work harder and have money for me, because this is America... We have different minds. But I just want to remind you of the love and the way we grew up in Samoa," Lesina said, suggesting love is money.Asuelu is still working at the same nutrition store in Utah -- which is near the home he shares with Kalani -- where he was shown passing out free samples on an episode of : Happily Ever After?.Also, the pair definitely appear to still be married based on their social-media activity.In late July, Asuelu captioned a series of photos of his family in Pine Valley, UT. They appeared to do some hiking by a lake."Family Adventure #blessed #love #utahcheck," Asuelu captioned the slideshow.Asuelu also posted a TikTok video of himself dancing in the couple's kitchen about a week earlier, and Kalani can be seen in the background preparing food for her family.Asuelu captioned the video, "Morning routine after riding the bus."In early July, Asuelu wished Kalani a happy birthday on his Instagram account by posting a video of his wife and son. He wrote over the video "love of my life."And in the caption, Asuelu gushed, "My wife's birthday. Cheers for 32nd years my love @kalanifaagata and many more to come."Not only has Kalani also posted recent photos with Asuelu on Instagram, but the couple has additionally shared two YouTube videos on their channel in the last month after not uploading anything on their channel for almost a year.As recently as June 30, Kalani posted a sweet photo of Asuelu cuddling with their boys on Instagram Stories.One week earlier, Kalani posted a smiling selfie with Asuelu, a video of Asuelu laughing in a massage chair, and brief throwback clips of the couple's axe-throwing date.Kalani uploaded the photos and videos shortly after the June 21 episode of : Happily Ever After? aired on TLC, and she captioned the slideshow, "BTS of tonight's episode. What'd y'all think?"On May 24, Kalani posted a video clip on Instagram of Asuelu and herself talking about how they had once walked through a jungle in Samoa and explored a cave together.The couple was promoting a video they had posted on YouTube."In honor of #samoanlanguageweek, we posted a YouTube video where I butcher basic Samoan, and we talk about our dating life in Samoa (pictures included)," Kalani wrote on Instagram.A couple of weeks earlier on May 8, Kalani and Asuelu posted a YouTube video of how they celebrated Kennedy's first birthday.Kalani and Asuelu enjoyed many laughs as Kennedy was spoiled with a fun pool day, gifts, cake, bubbles and a pinata.On April 27, Kalani posted a slideshow of photos with Asuelu and captioned the post, "Pretending we're in Samoa."And going back to March 1, Kalani uploaded a photo of the married pair, revealing they had met Robyn and Kody from TLC's Sister Wives.The two couples met each other while enjoying brunch at a restaurant and Kalani mentioned they should double-date soon.Want more spoilers or couples updates? Click here to visit our homepage!
The senior pastor of Awaiting the Second Coming of Jesus Christ Ministry, Adewale Giwa says the dream of President Muhammadu Buhari to contr...

The senior pastor of Awaiting the Second Coming of Jesus Christ Ministry, Adewale Giwa says the dream of President Muhammadu Buhari to control the church through the Company and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) cannot come true.

The cleric in a statement to newsmen on Saturday specifically urged President Buhari not to flex his muscles at the church because nobody owns it.

Reacting on Saturday, Giwa wondered why President Buhari would not focus his energy on security, corruption and Nigerias bad economy.

The pastor alleged that the President is doing everything possible to silence the church of God.

The outspoken clergy, however, advised President Buhari to control the killings and other terrorist groups in the country before fighting the church.

President Buhari wants to use the CAMA law

to silence us from speaking against injustice, maladministration and killings under his administration.

Its not possible because the Lord has declared the bill dead. Who controls his finances?

How dare President Buhari and his agents fight the church? I think he should flex his muscles at fixing Nigeria instead of flexing his muscles at the church.

Nobody owns the church, I believe his vice president who is a Christian should educate him. If you are fighting the church, you are fighting God, and no one can fight God.
For many Americans, the enemy is the conservative patrimony of individual agency, traditional marriage, competitive achievement, historical memory, freedom of thought, expression and peaceful assembly, and the morality of public reciprocity. The handshake has been replaced by the clenched fist, a communist salute and emblem adopted by BLM. The virus of collectivism has taken hold among the young, and equality of personal opportunity has yielded to equality of forced outcome.

A BLM riot in Portland (YouTube screen grab)

This is no less than a revolution of sensibility, aggressively promoted by the big digital platforms and the open sewer of social media where the scourge of rampant vigilantism, infantilism run amok and mob justice has infected the entire culture and eroded the principle of legal justice by the politics of indiscriminate revenge for evils real and imagined. Twitter, of course, has now become the major conduit for the neural filth of the nation to disgorge into the mainstream.

The responsible and literate individual is gradually disappearing into a featureless mass. The mob and its movers prevail. The result is an epidemic of iconoclasm (destruction of images and statues), antinomianism (rejection of laws and customs), and the degradation of rational thought. Americas foreign enemies and competitors can scarcely contain themselves as they watch the country implode, a pervasive leftist fifth column doing their work for them.

What we are plainly observing is the resurgence of socialist doctrine and practice characterized by radical egalitarianism, the expansion of welfare dependency, the destruction of the nuclear family, and the gradual emergence of single-party rule, associated with the Democrats. The ideals of liberty, personal responsibility for ones choices, love of country, property rights, civil order, historical continuity, an enduring moral order, economic prudence, voluntary community and restraint upon government power, were expounded by Russell Kirk in The Politics of Prudence. They constitute the essence of what we once understood as the American experiment in republican governance, but now are denounced as a right-wing conspiracy to suppress the poor, the marginalised and a proletariat of assorted victims suffering under the iron rule of a colonial oligarchy. As many observers have commented, the cold war was really won by the Soviets. In the words of Alexander Markovsky from Liberal Bolshevism, America did not defeat communism, she adopted it.

What is currently libeled as far right or fascist is actually responsible conservatism struggling to preserve the philosophy and tradition of classical liberalism associated with resonant names like John Milton, John Locke, Edmund Burke, Matthew Arnold, John Stuart Mill and Benjamin Disraeli, and today with Richard Weaver, James Burnham, Robert Bork, Russell Kirk and Roger Scruton. But in the fevered minds of an ignorant rabble now dominating the Internet and festering in the Democratic Party, these luminaries are no match for Stalin, Mao, Castro, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un or homegrown Marxists like Saul Alinsky, Bill Ayers, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton -- and, of course, Joe Biden.

There can be no doubt that a Biden victory at the polls would be a devastating blow to Middle America -- flyover country, suburbia -- and to the fragmented conservative movement in the U.S. As Stacy Lennox points out in an article for PJ Media, echoing Antonio Gramscis Prison Notebooks, The radical left has conducted a long and successful march through our educational, cultural, and bureaucratic institutions. Their takeover of the Democrat party will be complete if Joe Biden wins in November. His intent is obvious to all even though few can make any sense of Bidens refried beans.

These are some of the changes that must take place if we are to save our way of life. A few can be accomplished by Executive Order, others require legislation, and success demands a concerted effort to turn around the cultural and social tide, on our own long march through the institutions. With courage and moral determination, they can be accomplished.

 With the exception of the STEM disciplines, Medical faculties and Business Administration, federal funding of the universities must be suspended. We have more than enough lawyers, social scientists, Middle East specialists, Political Science majors and literary theorists. They are for the most part a futile bunch. The proliferation of Studies programs -- Gender Studies, Black Studies, Queer Studies, Race Studies, Peace Studies, Fat Studies, etc. -- must be left to die a natural death, if only to avoid unleashing a horde of resentful students unprepared for the job market and intent on mischief. Universities must become competitive, lower their tuition rates, reduce the bloat of costly administrations and so-called Diversity Officers, and enshrine the principle of meritocracy both in admission standards and graduation filters, before funding can be reconsidered. Unsustainable student debt will soon begin to shrink to manageable proportions. Why spend a fortune to be unemployable and socially useless? Moreover, campus tribunals adjudicating cases of sexual misconduct must be immediately terminated. This is a matter for the courts, not for a cadre of juridical amateurs, radical feminists and political ideologues who have no training or expertise in the dispensation of legal justice.

 The identity hyphen should be gradually abolished. The vast majority of African-Americans, for example, have never been to Africa and know little about it, any more than Polish-Americans, Irish-Americans, Greek-Americans. Jewish-Americans, Asian-Americans or any other citizen hybrid may ever have visited the home country or have been schooled in its history and ancestral lore. There are only Americans, of whatever race, ethnicity or creed. The politically correct hyphen has no place in an e pluribus unum democratic polity. It should begin to be phased out of common usage.

 The big digital platforms engaged in predatory actions and massive censorship of viewpoints which do not agree with a prior political orthodoxy must lose their privileged status under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and be treated as publishers or public utilities responsible for their behavior. David Cicilline, chair of a Congressional subcommittee investigating the tech giants, said: This hearing has made one fact clear to me -- these companies as they exist today have monopoly power. Some need to be broken up; all need to be properly regulated and held accountable. We need to ensure the antitrust laws first written more than a century ago work in the digital age.

 Organizations such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter, the first clearly fascist, and the second avowedly communist and no friend to the black community -- indeed, it is an insurrectionary movement funded by dissident white organizations -- must not only be designated as domestic terrorists but must absorb the full force of the law, leading to citations, arrests and long prison sentences. They are variously reminiscent of totalitarian entities like the Brownshirts, the Weather Underground, the Red Brigades and Baader Meinhof. Additionally, the funders of these groups must be identified and subject to the punitive might of the law.

 Though legislation is neither possible nor desirable, the message should go out, if only by repeated example, that the dictatorship of political correctness needs to be resisted. One should use the real names of things in speech and writing regardless of blowback, and never apologize for doing so. It is more important to be correct politically than politically correct. People should be allowed to joke about cultural stereotypes even if some offense is given. Non-partisan comedians, for example, like medieval jesters, have a truth to tell us about society and about ourselves. As Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper points out in his study of Plato and the sophists Abuse of Language-Abuse of Power, if the word becomes corrupted, human existence itself will not remain unaffected and untainted. The corruption of communication goes hand in hand with the corruption of relationship to reality. Absolutism, agitptop and mass-media offer us fictions we mistake for truth, at the price of our liberty. When enough people have the courage to speak truly, to call things by their true names, and to wield the satiric rapier, a critical mass may one day be reached and the virus of PC can be turned back. At some point the lying has got to stop before the culture becomes a hollow shell inhabited by a swarm of human bots, that is, before it becomes a humorless and repressive totalitarian regime.

 Public officials of whatever rank and authority who have engaged in illegal or treasonous actions -- one thinks of Fast and Furious, the IRS scandal, the Benghazi scandal, Spygate and other malfeasances -- should be brought to justice whatever the consequences. There is no room for timidity, deferral or exemption here. There cannot be two distinct and incompatible systems of justice, one for the common people and one for the wealthy, the powerful and the political elite. No nation can expect to indefinitely survive so gross a miscarriage of the principle of legal fairness and impartiality. When one sees, as Ayn Rand deplored in Atlas Shrugged, men who produce nothing, who deal in favors, and who get rich by graft and pull, and then realizes that your laws dont protect you against them, but protect them against youyou may know that our society is doomed. Similarly, Hannah Arendt writes in The Origins of Totalitarianism, The nation-state cannot exist once its principle of equality before the law has broken down. Its only a matter of time.

Some will no doubt argue that these initiatives are unrealistic, and they may be right. But as proposals they are at least theoretically conceivable under Trump but would be anathema to any Democratic candidate, whose agenda is to perpetuate dysfunction, lawlessness, corruption, mendacity and indoctrination. The fundamental issue at this historical juncture comes down to the election. Do we want Trump or Biden? As Andrea Widburg comments on American Thinker, Trump provides a marked contrast to Joe Biden, whose mental acuity visibly deteriorates on a day-by-day basisI know which one Id rather have seated across the table from presidents Xi or Putin. The Xis and Putins of the world may not understand a word Biden is saying, but this is no consolation. They would have their will.
When her daughters toes and fingers started turning blue, San Juana Rios knew it was time for drastic action.

The 9-year-old had been having fevers on and off since late July. Twice, Rios had taken daughter Makayla Rodriguez to an emergency room in Laredo, where the family lives. Could the cause be the coronavirus?

The blue color alarmed Rios. She called an ambulance. The paramedic told her if he was Makaylas parent, he would take her to a hospital in San Antonio.

William Luther /Staff photographer

The trip normally takes two-and-a-half hours, Rios said. I got there in a little over an hour.

On Aug. 6, Makayla was admitted to Methodist Childrens Hospital at the Medical Center. She tested positive for the virus and would undergo treatment for 11 days.

Her experience was unusual in that most children with COVID-19 dont wind up in a hospital with such severe symptoms and for that long. Still, Makayla had joined the growing ranks of children infected by the virus, sometimes unknowingly.

The proportion of children in Bexar County infected by the virus has doubled over the last two months, officials reported last week. People 19 and under now account for 12.6 percent of all coronavirus cases, up from 6.4 percent in mid-June.

Lisa Krantz /Staff photographer

Similarly, pediatric hospitalizations related to COVID-19 have increased from 1.8 percent to 3.7 percent of all hospitalizations.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports the same trend nationally, with the number and rate of coronavirus cases in people ages 17 and under rising steadily from March to July.

A joint report by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Childrens Hospital Foundation found more than 380,000 children were infected in the nation by the end of July  8.8 percent of all COVID cases.

Lisa Krantz, Staff / Staff photographer

Now, health officials and others are bracing as schools and colleges reopen here and across the country, worried that the spread of viral cases among younger people will only get worse. It took just days for a number of schools elsewhere in the U.S. to open for in-person instruction then shut due to a rash of positive cases.

On ExpressNews.com: Young adults in Bexar County contracting the virus at higher rates

In San Antonio, some important indicators of the virus presence are moving in a hopeful direction of late, but not far enough to allow students, teachers and staff to return fully to schools and campuses yet.

Lisa Krantz /Staff photographer

Assessing the risks is complicated by the many unknowns when it comes to kids and COVID, medical experts say.

They are confident that children, as a rule, dont contract the virus as readily as adults. When they do, they dont get as sick. Many dont show symptoms at all.

What we dont know

But how adept are children and teens at spreading the disease?

Dr. Dina Tom, associate professor of inpatient pediatrics at UT Health San Antonio said the general assumption is that children dont give or get the virus as easily as adults.

Lisa Krantz, Staff / Staff photographer

But more definitive studies are works in progress. Tom said there hasnt been widespread, universal testing of children. When adults and teens get tested, its because they have symptoms. When younger children are tested, its often because they have something unrelated, such as a skin infection or trauma. When theyre screened for the virus, it comes back positive. So far, many of these children are asymptomatic, Tom said.

So its difficult to know really how prevalent COVID is among children and adolescents.

On ExpressNews.com: Review of 100 studies show kids dont suffer much from virus

The other thing is, we dont have a good sense of how long kids are carriers, she said. They may carry the virus around in their nasal cavity longer than teens or adults, but we dont know if thats significant or not.

Lisa Krantz /Staff photographer

When asymptomatic kids under age 10 go back to school, she said, they may have a lower risk of spreading the virus, but the concern is that a child might spread it to one staff member or teacher, and then that person develops symptoms and spreads it among the adults.

Tom said there are theories why children dont catch and spread the virus as easily. They may have a partial immunity from all the vaccines they receive for other illnesses. They may not cough as forcefully as adults, and so spread fewer aerosol droplets, the main way of transmission.

Children tend to have fewer underlying conditions  diabetes, hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and so on  than adults do.

Lisa Krantz /Staff photographer

They are far less likely to die from the virus, she said. Of local COVID-related deaths, 0.6 percent were people under age 19  three out of more than 700.

The increase in more children testing positive in Bexar County may stem from hospitals and other places doing more widespread testing  including testing kids if their adult family members test positive  as well as testing requirements connected to summer activities, such as camps.

When schools fully reopen with in-person instruction, the number of children being exposed to the virus will go up simply because of more social interactions, Tom said.

Lisa Krantz /Staff photographer

Children age 4 to 7 or 8 might not be as susceptible to infection, she said, because theyre more likely to wear masks, wash their hands and not be constantly in close proximity to adult caregivers.

Children younger than that are much more likely to be in their caregivers faces, with their diapers being changed and such, and are much more likely to come into contact with secretions, Tom said.

But as children reach age 10 or older, transmission begins to look more like how adults spread the virus, she said.

Learning to live with the virus

Dr. Alvaro Moreira, a neonatal intensive care pediatrician at University Hospital and faculty member at UT Health San Antonio, said some studies suggest children 10 and older may have more receptors in their noses for the virus to bind to. This may explain why older children may not only have more symptoms, but are more likely to be hospitalized.

We know that a lot of children who are getting the disease have co-morbidities, such as being overweight or obese, he said. Potential reasons why this subset of children are at higher risk is that fat cells have more receptors to the novel coronavirus. This may also explain why obese adults are at increased risk for death.

Moreira said that currently, the most common way a child catches the virus is through an infected family member. Studies from the CDC also show that Black and Hispanic children are much more likely to be hospitalized, and develop a severe inflammatory form of the disease, than white or Asian children.

Moreira said a number of things could account for that  genetic factors, socioeconomic factors and an increased risk of underlying conditions in Black or Hispanic kids. Some theorize that the cultural tradition in communities of color to have multiple generations living in the same household could account for more  and more intensive  exposure to the virus.

Moreira said he hates to sound like a broken record, but when it comes to protecting children from the virus, everyone should know the drill by now: Masks. Social distancing, be it at home or school. Hand washing. If a child has a fever or symptom like a cough, they should stay home.

And children should get a flu shot this year, he said.

Dr. Robert Sanders is a pediatrician with PediExpress, an urgent care clinic with the University Health System at the downtown Robert B. Green Campus.

He said his clinic has been all coronavirus, all the time since March.

Ever since the beginning of the pandemic, weve been seeing children with COVID in the clinic on a daily basis pretty much, he said.

He said patients range in age from one month to 18 years. In mid-May, the pediatric patients had a viral positivity test rate of almost 30 percent, at a time when adults visiting the urgent care clinic were testing positive about 50 percent of the time.

That has tapered off quite a bit, Sanders said. Were now seeing 1 to 2 percent positivity rate among kids in the clinic, where we only test patients if theyre having symptoms.

Those symptoms range from the mild sniffles up to what youd expect with the flu  fever, body aches. Teens especially struggle with headaches and a flu-like malaise, he said.

Sanders has his own theories as to why kids might not be as affected as adults.

Children are exposed to viruses, including coronaviruses (such as the common cold) more frequently, and may have some potential innate immunity to the virus, he said.

At the height of the pandemic, his clinic was seeing 30 or 40 pediatric patients a day. Now its down to five to 10, he said.

The goal is to learn to live with this thing, because were not going to be able to eradicate it for a while, Sanders said.

The virus attacks an entire family

The virus tore through Zenaida Jeana Tijerinas family, infecting her and all four of her children, three of whom would go on to develop symptoms.

One child, Gabriel, 12, ended up at Methodist Hospital South in Jourdanton, where he received IV treatment for four hours when his fever refused to break.

He had an almost constant fever for 10 days, said Tijerina, who works in the health care field and lives in Poteet.

Nah, I didnt really feel it, said Gabriel, grinning as he hung out with his siblings at home on a recent afternoon. I just kept playing video games.

Tijerina said she worried that her sons high fevers were going to trigger seizures in him. Her other children had less severe symptoms, she said - headaches, body aches.

Tijerina lost her sense of taste, which, weeks after everyone recovered, is only now returning. Her son Derrin, 11, has recurrent headaches.

Tijerina herself ended up in the hospital after recovering, with complications from a pre-existing kidney ailment, dehydration and mental fogginess, which doctors told her could be a case of post-COVID.

Tijerina said she kept her kids home ever since the pandemic broke, and she only left their home to go to H-E-B. She thinks she picked up the virus while waiting for one of her kids prescription medications.

She brought the disease home in mid-July.

It was so hard, because even though I was sick I still had to take care of them, she said. Im all they have and they really depend on me.

She has been able to work only part-time since the illnesses and is behind on her car payment and other bills. Her children receive health care under Medicaid. During the worst of their illness, family and friends brought casseroles and other food and left it on the front porch of Tijerinas modest home.

Tijerina is studying to become a paramedic. She says she was so traumatized by the virus that she checked her kids temperature and oxygen level every four hours when they were ill. But she does plan to send them back to in-person school, when that becomes an option, so she can get back to work.

Plus, I figure that theyre immune, at least for the next three months, she said.

A mothers fury

Once in San Antonio, Makayla, Rios daughter, would end up receiving a number of medications through an IV, including a blood thinner to prevent blood clots, one possible complication of COVID-19.

Rios thinks Makayla contracted the virus from her grandmother, with whom Rios and her four children live, and who had tested positive during weekly checks for her home health job, although she had no symptoms.

When Makaylas fevers started, Rios took her to a hospital emergency room, where doctors didnt test her for the virus. They sent her home with Tylenol.

The fevers continued, so Rios got tested, along with all of her kids. Only Makaylas 14-year-old sister tested positive. She had mild symptoms  a headache and occasional chills.

Makayla continued to spike fevers, some dangerously high. A doctor prescribed antibiotics over the phone.

More fevers. A second trip to the emergency room showed the girl had mild pneumonia. She was tested again for the virus and sent home, to await the results. The next morning, her toes and fingernails were blue, a sign she wasnt getting enough oxygen.

Then came the frantic drive to San Antonio.

Dr. Kelly Spence, a hospitalist with Pediatrix Medical Group of Texas, affiliated with Methodist Children's Hospital, was Makaylas physician.

She said she first started seeing COVID pediatric patients in May, and that their numbers increased over the summer but have since plateaued.

Methodist Childrens has treated 52 patients ages 17 and under during the last four months  two in May, 16 in June, 24 in July and 10 in August, said a hospital spokeswoman.

The average length of stay for pediatric COVID patients is four days, she said. So far, none has required the use of a ventilator or other extreme measures.

Most of the hospitals COVID pediatric patients are older teens  15 to 17  and many have underlying health problems, such as diabetes and obesity, Spence said. Most of the pediatric patients in the hospital are asymptomatic - they were admitted for unrelated issues or illnesses and then tested positive, she said.

Makayla was in the hospital for an uncommonly long period, Spence said. But it speaks to the unpredictable nature of the disease and how the symptoms progress in each person.

Rios still cant believe her daughter caught the virus and became so seriously ill. From the start of the pandemic, like Tijerina, she made sure to keep the whole family home, except for trips to the grocery store or Walmart.

The whole time Makayla was being treated in San Antonio, Rios stayed quarantined with her in her hospital room. She looked on as the nurses took care of her daughter, praying over her when her fever triggered hallucinations.

It was so super-scary, said Rios, an optometrists assistant who hasnt been able to work.

Rios said she plans on homeschooling her kids this fall. Shes not about to send them out into the world. Not yet.

Makayla now is on a steroid and long-term inhaler to help mitigate any lung damage the virus caused and will continue to see a lung specialist.

Her prognosis is unknown at this time.

I dont think any of us know long-term what is going to happen with these children, who present with significant respiratory symptoms, Spence said.

Rios becomes infuriated when she sees clips on the news of people gathering in large crowds for parties and cookouts.

Theyre not going to get it until their own kid is in a hospital bed, having hallucinations, she said. Then maybe theyll understand.

Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje is a general assignment reporter covering breaking news, cultural trends and interesting people and goings-on around San Antonio and Bexar County, as well as all across South Texas. To read more from Melissa , become a subscriber. mstoeltje@express-news.net | Twitter: @mstoeltje
Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is working to create a vaccine portal where updates about the Covid-19 vaccine will be posted. The portal is likely to go live by next week.

In a first in India, the countrys top medical research body is working to create an Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) vaccine portal, as a repository for all information related to vaccine development in India. The ICMR vaccine portal would be made public by the next week.

In the first stage, the ICMR vaccine portal will reflect the information on COVID-19 vaccine in India. However, with time, the web portal will be strengthened with data available for all the vaccines used to prevent various diseases.

Dr Samiran Panda, Scientist G & head of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases (ECD), Division at ICMR told ANI that people could get all the update for a vaccine in India under one roof, as of now, all the information was scattered. She added that after the directions from DG, they were working to develop the ICMR vaccine portal. She said that initially, the website would show data for COVID-19 vaccine, but, in further, they would update the website with information for other vaccines too as ICMR is an institute of biomedical research.

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The Central government along with the ICMR is making all best efforts to combat coronavirus pandemic. Wearing masks, hand-hygiene and social distancing are preventive measures but at the same time vaccine development is another important aspect which will be updated on the ICMR vaccine portal, said Dr Panda.

The scientist added that the ICMR vaccine portal will be made public by the next week. It may be noted that three COVID vaccine candidates are in India which are in different phases of the clinical study. The first isinactivated virus vaccine, which is the Bharat Biotech Vaccine, being developed in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

Similarly, the second is a DNA vaccine of pharma giant called Zydus Cadila. The third is a Recombinant Oxford University vaccine manufactured by Serum Institute of India (SII) got approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) to conduct phase 2 and phase 3 clinical study in the country.

According to the scientist, the ICMR vaccine portal will have sections like-COVID-19 vaccine, Indias initiative, International Symposium and FAQ for the general public (which would be presented in regional language).

The vaccine portal will also fetch the information related to COVID-19 vaccine from the World Health Organisation (WHO) as available on their website.

So far, India has reported 29,75,702 coronavirus cases with 55,794 people died due to the infection. In the last 24 hours, the country has seen 69,878 cases and 945 deaths as per the Union Health Ministry data.

Also read: Indian Railways tender for 44 Vande Bharat trains cancelled
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 19:51:07|Editor: huaxia

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CHONGQING, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Premier Li Keqiang has stressed solid work in flood control and relief as well as restoration and reconstruction, and continued efforts to consolidate the economic recovery momentum amid reform and opening up.

Li, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks during a recent inspection tour in the flood-hit Chongqing Municipality in southwest China. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 19:52:59|Editor: huaxia

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KABUL, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Ten Afghan civilians were killed in two separate improvised roadside bomb explosions in Afghanistan on Sunday, local sources confirmed.

Seven civilians were killed in a roadside bomb explosion midday on Sunday in Ghazni province, eastern Afghanistan, while three civilians were killed in a similar incident on Sunday morning in Jawzjan province, north Afghanistan, according to spokesmen of local governments in the two provinces. Enditem
CLEVELAND -- A lot can happen in just a few months. Its hard to believe that, in early March, Ohios job market was at full employment and businesses were hard-pressed to find the skilled workers they needed. Then came COVID-19, and within weeks, nearly a million Ohioans found themselves out of work and businesses across the state were struggling to survive Americas first major recession in a dozen years.

The impact of the virus is being felt across the state and will undoubtedly affect Ohio workers, their families and Ohio businesses for a long time after the pandemic subsides. Perhaps most affected are young Ohioans just entering the job market and older workers who had their sights on a higher-paid career.

Coming out of recessions, highly skilled workers historically fare better than those who have only a high school education and lack the additional college degree or professional certification to qualify for well-paying jobs that are most in demand. For this reason, the economic well-being of Ohioans, our communities and our state depends in part on how well we come together to continuously learn new skills and become the well-educated workforce it takes to compete in the global marketplace.

Joseph D. Roman is the president and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Partnership and chairman of the board of Ohio Excels.

In short, the more intellectual capital that Ohio has, the better we will all do in times of economic crisis.

While we have made steady progress in positioning more and more Ohioans to earn some type of high-quality credential beyond high school, our progress has lagged other states', and the results of our efforts have fallen far short of whats needed to compete in todays technology-driven economy. The most recent statistics show that 49.2% of Ohioans have a certificate or degree beyond high school  two points lower than the national average and 31st in the nation. Those rankings shouldnt be good enough for Ohioans in strong economic times but are even more concerning for us now when we all hope to recover from this latest recession as soon as possible.

Economists say reaching an attainment rate of at least 65% is critical to keeping Ohio competitive in the future.

To help Ohioans make more progress, a public-private coalition of more than 40 employers, educators, state agency leaders, trade association, philanthropic and community leaders have formed a coalition  Complete to Compete Ohio  to develop an action plan for helping to increase the number of Ohioans earning a degree, certificate or industry-recognized credential.

Ohio Excels is proud to have been an active partner in Complete to Compete Ohio and to have had a hand in producing Bridging Ohios Workforce Gap, the coalitions recommendations for proven strategies that can help Ohioans upskill at this critical time and rebuild the states workforce.

This comprehensive plan includes initiatives to make higher education more accessible and affordable by increasing the number of students completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, and receiving student aid. The plan also advocates for additional advising and other supports for students when they arrive on campus. One example cited by the plan is the Community College Acceleration Program, which to date has nearly doubled graduation rates for students at Cuyahoga Community College and Lorain County Community College. To improve the skills of Ohioans already in the workforce, the plan advocates for the expansion of TechCred, a new state grant program that provides current workers with a fast track to new technology credentials.

Margie Wright-McGowan is senior vice president of human resources, diversity and inclusion at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and a member of the board for Ohio Excels.

The plans proposals are many and detailed, but connecting them all are two important truths: Employers and educators have an obligation to work together for the good of Ohioans and their communities; and more needs to be done to help Ohioans learn about the benefits of advanced training and the pathways to achieving it.

Ohio Excels, along with our Complete to Compete Ohio partners, is committed to supporting collaborative efforts that improve opportunities for Ohioans and their families and the economic vitality of our region and state. Together, we can overcome the uncertainty and adversity we now face and help all Ohioans find successful paths forward for themselves and their families.

Joseph D. Roman is president and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Partnership and chairman of the board for Ohio Excels. Margie Wright-McGowan is senior vice president of human resources, diversity and inclusion at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and a member of the board for Ohio Excels.

Have something to say about this topic?

* Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication.

* Email general questions, comments or corrections on this opinion column to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at esullivan@cleveland.com.
A dog that ran off after someone shot her last week in Monroe County has been found and is recovering.

The pit bull was shot last week in Stroud Township and was the subject of a search by a group of volunteers from the Hound Hunters of NEPA, WNEP is reporting.

Officials with the Delaware Water Gap Fire Department posted on social media that the dog  now named Phoenix -- was found early Saturday.

Neighbor Tara Fuls told WNEP on Wednesday that someone shot the dog in the front left leg, and she and volunteers started searching the neighborhood her.

Phoenix was found Saturday, was treated for a bullet wound and is now recovering at an area animal shelter, reports indicate.

State police are investigating but have not indicated whether or not charges would be filed against the person who shot the dog, WNEP is reporting.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 01:17:27|Editor: huaxia

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RIYADH, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Saudi Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development announced on Saturday that government employees will return to work starting Aug. 30, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

The decision was based on the health reports of the kingdom's cities and governorates, the ministry said, adding employees must follow anti-coronavirus precautions during their working hours.

The decision excludes high-risk employees, and no more than 25 percent of staff in each department will be allowed to work remotely.

It is worth noting that Saudi Arabia ordered the closure of working places in most government and private sectors during the early spread of the virus.

Earlier in the day, Saudi Health Ministry announced the registration of 1,184 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total number to 306,370.

The recoveries rose to 78,441 with 1,374 new recovered cases, while the death toll reached 3,619 after 39 fatalities were added in the past 24 hours. Enditem
Turkey opposition party MPs petition for parliamentary inquiry into Hrant Dink assassination

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A New Jersey committeewoman is claiming the townships Office of Emergency Management coordinator tried to run her over with his car in retaliation for her supposedly leaking embarrassing photos of his son.

Rochelle Park township committee member Linda Boniface, 56, filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of Bergen County claiming that former township fire chief Peter Donatello, 65, purposely tried to run over her with his car on November 5, 2019.

In the lawsuit, which was filed August 15, Boniface said that Donatello - the current township Office of Emergency Management coordinator - drove towards her 'with malice forethought' as she flattened herself against her parked truck, according to NJ.com.

Linda Boniface, 56 (left), filed a lawsuit claiming that former township fire chief Peter Donatello, 65 (right), purposely tried to run over her with his car in November 2019

During the incident, which supposedly took place on Election Day at about 8pm, Boniface said that Donatello and his wife, Patricia, were in their car when they saw her outside the Rochelle Park municipal building.

Boniface claims that as she was walking to the driver's side door of her pickup truck, the Donatellos swerved at her, causing her to press herself up against her car door.

The Donatellos' car's side mirror hit her hand during the incident, causing her pain and swelling, she claimed in the lawsuit, adding that the couple had driven towards her with the intent of either trying to injure or terrorize her.

Following the incident, Boniface and the Donatellos went to the police station to report what happened, but police eventually said surveillance camera footage didn't show the complete incident so the Donatellos were not prosecuted, according to the lawsuit.

In her lawsuit, Boniface said that the Donatellos told police a 'false version of events to the police to cover their tracks' by suggesting that Boniface had 'turned into their vehicle to stage an incident, which is absolutely ridiculous.'

Boniface claims that Peter Donatello and his wife, Patricia, believe that she is responsible for leaking images of their son, Peter III, wearing a yarmulke at a party (pictured)

Boniface claimed that she believes Peter Donatello (right) and his wife think that the leaked photo stopped their son (left) from getting promoted past sergeant in his police department

Boniface claims that Peter Donatello (right) and wife Patricia (left) purposely swerved their car towards her when she was in a parking lot, hitting her hand with their side mirror

The lawsuit claims that Boniface and the Donatellos have been at odds for a while, coming to a head after photos of the Donatello's son, Peter Donatello III, were anonymously leaked to the Rochelle Park committee in early 2019.

In the photos - taken in December 2018 - Donatello's son can be seen wearing an apparent yarmulke, complete with long, side curls. The images were supposedly taken at a going away party and posted on Facebook.

At the time, Donatello's son was the Rochelle Park fire chief and a Maywood, New Jersey, police officer.

The person who leaked the photos said in an accompanying letter that they had Jewish relatives.

The letter writer claimed that although no one else was in at the party, Donatello's son 'decided that it would be funny to wear a make-shift Yamaka (sic) and parade around the Firehouse with it on and make fun of the Jewish Faith,' according to NorthJersey.com.



The photo leaker also noted that 'It's bad enough to parade around a building, but to put it out for the Public to fully see is another issue' and that Donatello's son being both a fire chief and a police office, he 'should have known better with what he was doing.'

The fallout from the picture incident included the photos being turned over to the Maywood Police Department's Internal Affairs department and the mandate that Rochelle Park fire department volunteers attend a sensitivity and anti-harassment training session.

It's unclear whether Dontello's son faced any departmental reprimands or punishments over the photos.

NorthJersey.com reported that prior to the photo incident, Donatello and Boniface had quarreled with each other frequently, although it's unclear what their arguments stemmed from.

Boniface's lawsuit claimed that Donatello and wife Patricia believed that Boniface had leaked the yarmulke photo of their son and it was what had stopped their son from getting promoted beyond the position of sergeant in his police department.

She now claims that the car incident left her 'emotionally and psychologically traumatized' and exacerbated a 'pre-existing psychological condition' she has, although it's unclear what the condition is.

The lawsuit is asking for unspecified damages and court costs.

Peter and Patricia Donatello, who are named in the lawsuit, have not commented publicly about it yet.
It's Wednesday evening and wind speeds are picking up along the north Clare coast as Storm Ellen starts to track across the country. Donal Minihane, general manager of Hotel Doolin, keeps an eye on staff removing the coverings sheltering the courtyard garden, but seems more concerned about the financial storm coming his way.

Most of the hotel's revenue is generated by weddings and, two years ago, the operation invested 1.2m in a large eco-barn. But since February, some 60 weddings - worth a combined 2m to Hotel Doolin - have been rescheduled due to lockdown and a subsequent uncertainty this summer over how many guests wedding venues could host.

That uncertainty was heightened last week amid contradictory Government guidance on the number of attendees allowed at organised gatherings following Tuesday evening's Cabinet briefing on new measures aimed at halting the spread of Covid-19. The Government decided to keep the number of indoor wedding guests at 50 but said that figure will be reviewed.

The Cabinet announcement was "absolutely ridiculous", Minihane says. "This type of confusion meant I spent all day [Wednesday] with couples asking me whether they could go ahead with a wedding for 50 people. We didn't know if we could have an indoor concert for 50 people and an outdoor concert for 100 people. We need some kind of certainty that allows us to plan."

While the hotel occasionally hosts socially distanced gigs, "weddings were our lifeline", Minihane says. "When the revised roadmap was announced, 100 people were supposed to be allowed at indoor weddings from August 10. Couples were happy to go ahead with 100 guests and we managed to hold onto some weddings for the rest of the summer and the autumn. We thought we might be able to survive.

"But in early August, the Government reduced that number to 50 people indoors and said this week they would keep that under review. That figure was too small for couples, because they couldn't have both their families there.

"Now there are no tourists for the winter and there is no alternative business we can attract. Any money we did have, we spent on adapting our business to move as much as we could outdoors. We covered half our lawn, invested in tills for outside, and built an outdoor stage and bar."

Because of a ban on mass gatherings, the traditional big white wedding is off the cards during what should have been peak wedding season. The once-booming industry was valued by the Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) at 1.5bn, a figure not confined to hotels; the disparate industry includes suppliers such as florists, caterers, photographers, cake-makers, wedding planners, chauffeurs, DJs, bridal shops, jewellers, hair stylists, and suppliers of marquee rentals and groomswear. Many are small enterprises worried that they won't have enough cashflow to survive until a hoped-for recovery in mid-2021.

Kevin Kheffache, a wedding photographer and president of the Irish Professional Photographers & Videographers Association, says a survey carried out by the association found that 62pc of its members had no business revenue at all since the Covid-19 restrictions began. Around 70pc of the association's members expect it will take "a couple of years" before their business will be financially viable again.

Dublin-based Suzanne Brady from Cove Cake Design, whose bespoke cakes have featured in prestigious wedding magazines worldwide, said she only made her first post-lockdown cake in mid-July and that couples are requesting smaller cakes.

"They're small cakes for intimate gatherings, whereas my average cakes, which have three to four tiers, would serve 100 to 150 guests," Brady says. "The restrictions on indoor gatherings have meant that clients have had to postpone until next year or largely reduce their guest numbers, meaning a large cake is not required.

"The travel restrictions have had a similar effect. I have a lot of clients who live abroad - either Irish couples coming home to get married or foreign clients coming to Ireland for a destination wedding. Travel restrictions have made their events here impossible at the moment so they have either postponed or cancelled."

A January survey from Weddingsonline.ie found that the average budget for an Irish wedding was 29,624, up from 28,462 a year earlier. There were 20,313 marriage registrations in Ireland last year, with August the most popular month for weddings, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

Those CSO figures don't include those who marry abroad and hold a reception and another ceremony or blessing in Ireland, says Tara Fay, who has been planning weddings for 27 years. She pointed out that in December, Harper's Bazaar listed Ireland as fourth among the world's leading destination wedding locations, after the Amalfi Coast, Lake Como and Puglia. Just like in Italy, local economies in Ireland are heavily dependent on income generated from wedding venues and suppliers.

"I would use between 20 and 40 individual suppliers for every wedding and now I feel like I'm operating a helpline for suppliers; the industry doesn't have a central body like the IHF," says Fay.

"Suppliers are in essence part of the hospitality industry, but they don't get the benefit of the 13.5pc Vat rate for the sector, even though weddings are the one event type that will keep hotels and venues going for the next few months. In Northern Ireland there is a lower Vat rate and they allow larger gatherings indoors, so some couples are considering moving their wedding to the North, which would be a shame for suppliers in Ireland."

After last Tuesday's Cabinet briefing, Fay fielded messages, including DMs through Twitter, from couples worried about what the rules meant for them and their wedding. Couples have the added worry that their financial circumstances may have changed since they first paid a deposit as the economy slumps.

Fay says: "During the last recession, someone could make a decision on their wedding based on one set of circumstances, but now those circumstances are constantly changing. The industry needs to know for the next three, six and 12 months what number of people will be allowed at indoor gatherings so that couples and the industry can plan ahead."

Last month, Aiden Murphy, corporate recovery partner at Crowe Ireland, estimated that hotels faced a 200m revenue hit between mid-July and the end of September as a result of the cancellation or postponement of thousands of weddings. That is in addition to the estimated 60m worth of weddings already lost during national lockdown by the 60 or so hotels that rely on weddings for at least half their turnover. The estimate was made before a localised lockdown in counties Kildare, Offaly and Laois.

Elaina Fitzgerald Kane, president of the IHF and a director of the Fitzgeralds Woodlands House Hotel & Spa in Adare, says the IHF expects revenue in the hotel industry to slide 71pc this year, due to closures during lockdown, the loss of foreign tourists and weddings, and the need to operate at a reduced capacity amid social distancing rules.

"Weddings are typically the mainstay of regional hotels," she says. "Now we have continued restrictions on international visitors, we are coming to the end of the traditional school holidays, and we have mixed messages this week about gatherings and whether the over-70s can attend hotels. So the IHF is advocating for a roadmap that will outline for the next nine months the number of people allowed at weddings so that couples can plan ahead.

"We have hosted five weddings in our hotel, with a maximum of 42 guests, even though our ballroom is nearly 500 sq m. Some 135 excited couples were due to host their weddings with us this year and weddings account for 36pc of our business. I had one couple who had four contingency dates with us."

Fitzgerald Kane points out that the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS), paid since March to staff whose employers were affected by the pandemic, will be replaced on September 1 by the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS), if businesses can demonstrate an expected 30pc reduction in turnover or orders. Under the new scheme, employers will receive a flat rate subsidy of either 151.50 or 203 per worker, down from around 350 on the TWSS.

Fitzgerald Kane says: "We have 140 people back at work in our hotel, but all of a sudden, we have to find 150 for each worker's wages when we're not even sure if we will have enough work this winter. Wages are 40pc of a hotel's costs and the difference between 203 and 350 at the beginning of September is very significant when you multiply that across tens of thousands of hotel workers. The wage subsidy scheme is the difference between staying open and closing for the winter."

Fitzgerald Kane says Adare is often known as the "wedding capital of Ireland". The village has three hotels - her own as well as the recently renovated Adare Manor and The Dunraven Arms - as well as three churches.

This is what prompted Ann Gilvarry to open her bridal boutique, Aibheil of Adare, in the upmarket village back in 2003.

Now she is hoping the business can "tread water" until next year's wedding season begins.

Aibheil has experienced a slump in sales since early August because brides have been unsure when their wedding can go ahead and how many guests they can invite.

"Over the last couple of weeks, people haven't been committing to a dress because everything is up in the air," Gilvarry says.

"In the bridal industry, we invest heavily in stock in autumn and in September 2019, we placed all our orders for new collections. This new stock arrived in December and January. March 14 was our last day of business and the shop just remained closed for the best part of four months.

"The first couple of weeks after we reopened were quite busy, but then it died down. So now I have all this stock just sitting here and I might have to put it on sale and get my money back or sell it at a loss. I just plan on trying to make it to the end of 2020 and starting again next year," she adds.
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Rome, Italy  Sun, August 23, 2020 07:07 515 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066fc500b 2 Food Italy,wine,coronavirus,COVID-19,alcohol Free

Exports of Italian wine are drying up as the coronavirus batters demand on a level not seen for 30 years, the agricultural trade union Coldiretti said on Friday.

Exports have slumped 4.0 percent so far this year after the virus forced the closure of restaurants in Italy and elsewhere, leaving domestic producers on the rack and exporters also hit badly.

Consumption of Italian wine in China, where the virus first emerged in December, nosedived 44 percent in the period between January and May, data compiled by the national statistics institute Istat showed.

In France, it dropped 14 percent and in Britain -- where uncertainty over Brexit also played a role -- it fell 12 percent.

By contrast, exports to Germany and the United States -- where punitive customs duties could cloud the trend in future -- were stable over the same period, slipping by just one percent, Coldiretti said.

Read also: France to transform surplus wine into hand sanitizer

Wine is Italy's main agricultural earner in the US, with exports amounting to 1.5 billion euros ($1.8 billion) annually.

In 2019, Italy exported a total 6.4 billion euros worth of wine overall.

"With almost four out of 10 producers in difficulty after the (coronavirus) crisis, we must swiftly intervene to support exports, reduce costs and cumbersome administration," said Coldiretti chairman Ettore Prandini.

In June, the Italian government adopted a decree allowing some 70 million bottles of surplus wine stocks to be turned into hand sanitizer gel to ease shortages as the virus took hold.
Ala. church starts 'Jesus 2020' campaign: We want Jesus in front of everybodys thoughts

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Just a month after members of a church in Alabama launched the Jesus 2020 campaign, thousands of signs displaying the slogan have popped up all across the country.

Sampey Memorial Baptist Church in the small town of Ramer, Alabama, located just outside of Montgomery, has set itself up as the Jesus 2020 campaign headquarters. The campaigns organizers explained the rationale for launching the movement in a Facebook post last month, one day after the creation of the Jesus 2020 Facebook page.

We originated this idea so people would know that we believe this country and the whole world needs Jesus! the July 16 Facebook post reads.

The organizers elaborated further on their campaign in a subsequent Facebook post on July 26, adding, We wanted to take a stand and revive hearts that have felt despair and hopelessness as a result of todays politics and events.

Joyce Hubbard, one of the Jesus 2020 organizers, discussed the campaign in more detail in an interview with The Christian Post.

Were in a small town, and our church probably has less than 200 members. And weve probably had 20 to 30 people [attend] since the coronavirus, Hubbard said.

But we just decided that we could do something, she added. We dont have to be a big church; we dont have to be a megachurch to do something. We can get a spark. It just takes a spark to get  a fire started all around the country, so thats what we decided to do.

Wells Printing in Montgomery, Alabama, has worked with the organizers to produce Jesus 2020 campaign signs, as well as T-shirts, car magnets, and decals. Those interested in purchasing Jesus 2020 merchandise can visit the website.

While the Jesus 2020 campaign has already distributed more than 5,000 yard signs, organizers say they haven't come close to meeting their ultimate goal. Our mission is to have a JESUS 2020 sign in every yard across America!, the campaign's Facebook page proclaims.

When asked about the future of the Jesus 2020 campaign, Hubbard told CP that she and her co-organizers, Martha Sikes and Susie Halse, plan on continuing it through at least the election but haven't ruled out extending it beyond Nov. 3. 2020 doesnt end until December 31, so were going to do it as long as we feel its needed, she said.

Despite the Jesus 2020 movements use of campaign signs normally associated with politics, Hubbard stressed that the group was not political.

Our focus is on Jesus, she declared. This is not political. Its not denominational. Weve had all denominations, all races of people all want signs.

We feel like Jesus is so important, Hubbard added. Hes been left out of so much and has been pushed out of so many things that we just feel like  we want Jesus out there  forefront in front of everybodys thoughts.

Regardless of what happens in the 2020 presidential election and every other election, Hubbard believes Jesus is always the winner.

Hes always the one thats going to keep His promises; Hes the one whos going to lead us, she added.
Cao, who grew up in Shanghai, China, a city of more than 24 million people, said she became sold on State Street for her business because of the foot traffic outside and its close proximity to UW-Madison.

Cao, whos husband has family in Wisconsin, opened the shop on Aug. 13 after investing about $500,000 in the business. Shes not concerned about the potential for more unrest and damage to her business.

We didnt get scared. We still hold confidence in the business, Cao said. We take a lot of risk but the location is very important and we have a lot of passion about the food.

A block away, Colin Smith opened 7 Iron Social in January. Its a sports bar with five simulators that each host 12 different sports, on the second floor of 508 State St. The business has been closed for all but two weekends since March but is scheduled to reopen Aug. 28.

Smith also works for JD McCormick, a property management and development company with several State Street properties. One of Smiths current projects is trying to find a tenant for 506 State St., formerly home to Lotsa Stone Fired Pizza, which closed in 2018. The windows were smashed during the riots but have since been replaced.

Trying to fill it has been really hard. Just trying to get people to look has been tough, Smith said. A lot of businesses are struggling, so I think that $300,000 (from the Downtown Madison Fund) will really help out.

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Pakistan has for the first time acknowledged the presence of Dawood Ibrahim on its soil after the government imposed sweeping sanctions on 88 banned terror groups and their leaders which also included the name of the underworld don wanted by India.

There was no official confirmation on Pakistan government including Ibrahim's name in the list of terror groups and its leaders on whom fresh restrictions have been imposed. But if Pakistani media reports are true, this could be the first time Islamabad has acknowledged the presence of Ibrahim on its soil.

Seeking to wriggle out of the FATF's grey list, Pakistan on Friday imposed tough financial sanctions on 88 banned terror groups and their leaders, including Hafiz Saeed, Masood Azhar and Ibrahim, by ordering the seizure of all of their properties and freezing of bank accounts, Pakistani newspaper 'The News' reported on Saturday.

Ibrahim, who heads a vast and multifaceted illegal business, has emerged as India's most wanted terrorist after the 1993 Mumbai bombings.

It is for the first time that Pakistan has admitted the presence of the underworld don in the country.

In 2003, the US declared Ibrahim as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.

India has repeatedly asked the Government of Pakistan to hand over Ibrahim to India so that he can be prosecuted for the crimes committed by him. It is reported that Ibrahim is based in the southern port city of Karachi.

The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) put Pakistan on the grey list in June 2018 and asked Islamabad to implement a plan of action by the end of 2019, but the deadline was extended later due to Covid-19 pandemic.

The government issued two notifications on August 18 announcing sanctions on key figures of terror outfits such as 26/11 Mumbai attack mastermind and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Saeed, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Azhar, and underworld don Ibrahim.

The Pakistan government has proscribed 88 leaders and members of terrorist groups, in compliance with the new list issued by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) recently, The News reported.

The notifications announced sanctions on key figures of terror outfits such as the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), JeM, Taliban, Daesh, Haqqani Group, al-Qaeda, and others.

The government ordered the seizure of all movable and immovable properties of these outfits and individuals, and freezing of their bank accounts, the report said.

These terrorists have been barred from transferring money through financial institutions, purchasing of arms and travelling abroad, it said.

The notifications ratified a complete ban on all leaders and members of defunct Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) hiding in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas.

The paper reported that Saeed, Azhar, Mullah Fazlullah (alias Mullah Radio), Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Muhammad Yahya Mujahid, Abdul Hakeem Murad, wanted by Interpol, Noor Wali Mehsud, Fazal Raheem Shah of Uzbekistan Liberation Movement, Taliban leaders Jalaluddin Haqqani, Khalil Ahmad Haqqani, Yahya Haqqani, and Ibrahim and his associates were on the list.

The notifications said that leadership of the defunct TTP, and other organisations including Lashkar-e-Taiba, JeM, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Tariq Geedar group of TTP, Harkatul Mujahideen, Al Rasheed Trust, Al Akhtar Trust, Tanzim Jaish-al Mohajireen Ansar, Jamaat-ul Ahrar, Tanzim Khutba Imam Bukhari, Rabita Trust Lahore, Revival of Islamic Heritage Society of Pakistan, Al-Haramain Foundation Islamabad, Harkat Jihad Al Islami, Islami Jihad Group, Uzbekistan Islami Tehreek, Daesh of Iraq, Emirates of Tanzim Qafqaz working against Russia, and Abdul Haq of Uyghurs of Islamic Freedom Movement of China have been banned.

Though various sanctions were in place against almost all of those listed by the UNSC, the government through the new notifications consolidated and documented the previously announced measures, the report said.

The UNSC Sanctions Committee deals with sanctions on entities and individuals declared as terrorists. All states, including Pakistan, are bound to implement the sanctions which include assets freeze, an arms embargo, and travel ban.

It is believed that the latest move by the Pakistan government is part of its efforts to wriggle out of the grey list of the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog FATF.

On August 12, Pakistan Parliament's lower house passed four bills related to the tough conditions set by the FATF after the government and the Opposition reached a consensus.

The legislation was part of the efforts by Pakistan to move from the FATF's grey list to the white list.

In its third and final plenary held virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic in June, the FATF decided to keep Pakistan in the "grey list" as Islamabad failed to check the flow of money to terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). The plenary was held under the Chinese Presidency of Xiangmin Liu.

With Pakistan's continuation in the 'grey list', it will be difficult for the country to get financial aid from the IMF, World Bank, ADB, and the European Union, thus further enhancing problems for the nation which is in a precarious financial situation.

If Pakistan fails to comply with the FATF directive by October, there is every possibility that the global body may put the country in the 'Black List' along with North Korea and Iran.

The FATF is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 to combat money laundering, terrorist financing, and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.

The FATF currently has 39 members including two regional organisations - the European Commission and Gulf Cooperation Council.
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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 23:33:38|Editor: huaxia

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ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa surged to 1,178,770 as the death toll from the pandemic rose to 27,592, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said on Sunday.

The number of people who recovered from their COVID-19 infections rose to 899, 802 as of Sunday, said Africa CDC, a specialized healthcare agency of the African Union (AU) Commission, in its latest situation update.

South Africa currently has the most COVID-19 cases, which hit 607,045. The country also has the highest number of deaths related to COVID-19, at 12,987.

Egypt, which has the second highest COVID-19 cases in the continent, neared the 100,000 mark on Sunday. Egypt confirmed 97,237 COVID-19 cases and 5,243 deaths, followed by Nigeria with 51,905 cases and 997 deaths, Africa CDC said.

Ghana and Morocco also represent the fourth and fifth spot in terms of positive cases, it was noted.

The southern Africa region is the most affected area in terms of confirmed cases, followed by northern Africa and western Africa regions, it said.

On Saturday, the Africa CDC urged the continent to avoid coronavirus "prevention fatigue."

The urgent call was made by John Nkengasong, Director of the Africa CDC, who noted "a slight decrease" in COVID-19 infection rates on the continent, and said this "gives some signs of hope that we are beginning to bend the curve slowly," an AU statement issued on Saturday quoted Nkengasong as saying.

The Africa CDC Director, however, cautioned the continent "to maintain and increase the use of masks, social distancing, and to ramp up testing, even as countries begin to ease lockdown measures."

"We do not want the population to show prevention fatigue," Nkengasong said, adding that "we are dealing with a delicate virus that can easily flare up again very quickly, as has been witnessed in other parts of the world."

The Africa CDC, specialized healthcare agency of the AU, also announced this earlier week that Africa is working towards "trusted testing" for COVID-19 to protect travel and borders.

This will entail mutual recognition of certified COVID-19 testing among all member states, to allow for smooth movement across the continent.

Nkengasong said the Partnership for Increased COVID-19 Testing (PACT) "will be used to enhance surveillance in different economic sectors."

The continental PACT initiative, which was rolled out in June when the continent had conducted under 400,000 tests, had a target of 10 million tests across the continent. Enditem
She became a household name as the mother-of-two, Gabrielle Solis, on Desperate Housewives.

But Eva Longoria has been fulfilling her motherly duties outside of the soap drama as she cradled her son Santiago Baston on their coastal vacation last week.

The actress, 45, displayed her ageless beauty in a series of candid snaps as she made the most of a beach getaway with her family on Monday.

Family matters: Eva posted a heart-warming picture of her on the beach as she held her toddler son Santiago Baston in her arms during their family getaway on Monday

For an adorable family snap, she cuddled her two-year old son while wearing a scarlet bikini set from the fashion brand, Melissa Odabash.

Her water-drenched tresses were swept away from her face, and her natural beauty shone through in the makeup-free image.

The mother-and-son duo looked happier than ever as Eva aptly captioned the image: 'Smiles all around.'

Serenity: The Desperate Housewives actress, 45, appeared to be blissfully happy and care-free as she shared a series of candid snaps from her holiday to her 7.9 million Instagram followers

In another image posted to her social media account, the beauty displayed her eye-popping curves in a plunging swimsuit.

Eva oozed glamour and sophistication in the black number the featured studded detailing around the revealing neckline.

She looked completely radiant as she showcased her summer tan and sported a flawless rose gold makeup look.

Youthful beauty: Eva showcased her ageless good looks and radiant complexion as she rocked a plunging black swimsuit that featured stud detailing

Eva also shared another image of her sweet toddler who was staring at a turtle which amusingly was almost as big as him.

He wore a turquoise polo shirt and navy striped shorts as he stretched out his arms in amazement at the reptilian animal.

In June 2018, Eva revealed that she had welcomed her first child into the world with her husband Jose 'Pepe' Baston, who she tied the knot with in 2006.

Blown away: On their trip her two-year old appeared amazed when he came across a giant turtle that was almost the same size of him and was walking across the decking

During an interview with People magazine, she opened up about her struggles with the current coronavirus pandemic and admitted she is glad her son is too young to understand what is fully going on.

She explained: 'I'm lucky cause my son is so little, he's not in school yet and he's not quite a baby so he's just in the sweet spot of 'has no idea what's going on' and just loves that Mom and Dad are home all day long.'

She's also determined to keep the tot occupied during the lockdown.

'I have like his whole day planned, like we're going to paint in the morning for an hour and then we're going to do flashcards and we're going to do the alphabet,' she said. 'Then he'll find a box and play with that for five hours, and I'm like, okay, all my planning goes out the door.'
By Matthew Wellington and Maura R. McLaughlin

Wellington is Public Health Campaigns Director for the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups. McLaughlin is a family physician and founder of Blue Ridge Family Practice in Crozet.

Virginia just passed the grim milestone of 100,000 COVID-19 cases, with more than 2,000 deaths from COVID-19 recorded in our state.

Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), warns that unless we get the novel coronavirus under control now, we could face the worst fall, from a public health perspective, weve ever had in the United States.

We can avoid more needless suffering and death, and get our economy back on track more quickly, if Gov. Ralph Northam orders the state to shut down, start over, and do it right this time.

Gov. Northam has said, Well never recover economically unless we get the health crisis under control and behind us. Economists have reinforced the message that theres no trade-off between saving lives and saving the economy.

Since states began their shutdowns in March, health experts have said to reopen safely, we need to both dramatically reduce cases and implement a robust testing and contact tracing program designed to contain new outbreaks.

Virginia did well with its initial stay-at-home order and public health measures. By June, we brought the R0 of SARS-CoV-2 below 1, meaning each infected person, on average, spread the virus to less than one other person. However, we relaxed too quickly. Our new daily cases now are on par with our May peak. As students return to schools and colleges, and cooler weather drives people indoors, daily case numbers, hospitalizations, and deaths are expected to increase.

Health experts cite two important metrics for determining if its safe to start reopening  the rate of new daily cases should be less than 1 per 100,000 people, and less than 3 percent of people tested should test positive.

In Virginia, our average case rate during the last week was more than 10 per 100,000 people, and the positive test rate was more than 5 percent.

Its time to hit the reset button.

First, we need to thwart the virus spread. We should enforce and comply with Gov. Northams executive order requiring public mask-wearing. But thats not enough. Gov. Northam needs to reinstate a proven strategy: stay-at-home orders.

Restaurants should only offer take-out and delivery. Non-essential businesses should operate limited pick-up or delivery options, and should close temporarily if they cannot. Then, we need to financially support businesses and individuals who struggle under these restrictions. Theyre doing society a service by staying at home.

No one should go out except for essential work, to get groceries or medicine, go to the doctor, or exercise outdoors. This will be difficult. But this is not about what we want; it is about what we need. If a less-painful intervention would help the long-term health of our people and economy, we could do that instead. But there isnt one right now. Every day we delay this decision leads to more unnecessary deaths and further slows our recovery.

A national stay at home order would be best, but we know by now that is unlikely to happen. This must be done state by state, and would be most effective if several governors acted together. We need Gov. Northam to lead right now.

While shutdown measures slow viral transmission, we need to provide appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) to all essential workers, from health care professionals to grocery store clerks to poultry processors, so they can safely keep saving lives and keep critical services running. Right now, we have inadequate PPE across the country and state.

We also need to rapidly expand testing, contact tracing, and isolation/quarantine efforts. Currently, Virginia has just over half of the testing capacity recommended for containing outbreaks and less than half of the estimated contact tracers required. If we get our total cases down significantly, our testing and tracing capabilities will be more effective.

Once the rate of people testing positive drops below 3 percent and we have less than 1 new daily case per 100,000, we can gradually lift public health measures, while limiting the spread of the virus through robust testing and tracing protocols.

This will be neither easy, nor smooth. But if we have the courage and strength to do this, we will save both lives and the economy. In the years to come, we will be able to look back proudly on how we responded in this unparalleled, challenging time.

We have a second chance, right now, to get this right. We may not get a third.
Borders remain a top priority for the federal government, which has asked the states asked to apply common sense to coronavirus restrictions on farmers.

Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud says arbitrary restrictions placed on regional and rural Australia are having serious impacts.

Premiers need to figure out practical solutions to get food on tables, and also consider the wellbeing of those in the agricultural sector, Littleproud told ABC News on Aug. 22.

Im just asking them to use common sense, he said.

Australias medical expert panel continues its attempts to define a coronavirus hotspot to provide clarity on when states should close their borders.

The term is being used to restrict travel but there are no guidelines on its meaning and the measures are having impacts including on people accessing health care, and agricultural supply chains.

National cabinet is due to develop an agricultural workers code for cross-border travelsimilar to arrangements already in place for truck drivers when leaders meet again in two weeks time.

Tourism businesses have also said theyre at boiling point over the lack of clarity on closures.

Western Australia has no border opening in sight and Tasmanias borders will remain closed until at least Dec. 1.

Queensland has warned its borders could remain sealed for several months or until its infections have fallen to zero.

Victorias Spending

Meanwhile, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has said his state will exceed its share of national COVID-recovery stimulus spending.

The Labor leader of the state worst-hit by the pandemic on Saturday vowed people who have lost the most will get the support they need.

National cabinet was told by the Reserve Bank on Friday that states should lift their fiscal investment to two percent of GDP, or $40 (US$28.6) billion, over the next two years.

Our share of that would be about 10 (billion dollars), Andrews said.

Victoria reported another 182 virus cases on Aug. 22, and 13 deaths, bringing the national toll to 485.

Queensland and New South Wales each reported nine new cases on Aug. 22.

An additional NSW case emerged later on Aug. 22 after a security guard working at the Marriott Hotel in Circular Quay tested positive.

Six of the latest Queensland cases are linked to a youth detention centre cluster, prompting an immediate lockdown of aged care homes in the states southeast and caps on social gatherings in the area.

Australians trying to fly home will have to remain patient after a decision not to increase international arrival numbers.

Acting Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly said on Aug. 22 the cap on arrivals was to do with capacity and resources in quarantine hotels.

About 4,000 people are still returning to the country each week, and consular officials are supporting around 15,000 Australians abroad.
The race to win the Indian-America vote in the US Presidential elections of 2020, has begun. Both the Trump and Biden campaigns have tried different methods of securing this massive voting bloc.

On Saturday, the Trump campaign began the race for Indian-American votes. They released a video showcasing clips from various events like Namaste India and Howdy Modi, in an attempt to gain the Indian-American voting bloc for their campaign. The video sought to rally Indian-Americans for 4 more years of Donald Trump.

Kimberly Guilfoyle, national chair of the Trump Victory Finance Committee, and wife of the presidents eldest song, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted out the video, saying, America enjoys a great relationship with India and our campaign enjoys great support from Indian Americans!.

The video opens with a wide view of the massive crowds at the Howdy Modi event in September 2019.

ALSO READ :India slams China, Pakistan over interference in Kashmir matter

ALSO READ : ISIS terrorist held after exchange of fire, IEDs seized

It cuts to PM Modi introducing Trump who is standing with him on the stage. Mr President, you had introduced me to your family in 2017, Modi says in a clip from the event, and adds And today, I have the honour to introduce you to my family.

Then, the video showcases screenshots of Trump and Modi from Donald Trumps first visit to India in February of this year.

America loves India, Trump says in a clip from the event. America respects India, and America will always be a faithful and loyal friend to the Indian people.

This is the Trump campaigns most visible attemtp to woo the Indian diaspro to date. With over 1.2 million members, the Indian-Americna community will play a key role in the upcoming 2020 elections.

Nikki Haley, an Indian-American, and the former Ambassador to the United Nations, will be speaking at the upcoming Republican National Convention. She will also help to mobilize support from the Indian community.

Joe Biden Trumps Democratic challenegrs, is also trying to grabv the Indian-American vote share.

Biden had vowed to stand with India in its multiple border crisis, at a virtual Indian Independence Day celebrations. His campaign released an expansive agenda detailing how they would deal with the expansionist threats to Indias border and national sovereignty.

Both Trump and Biden are wooing the Indian American with an eye on the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida, which are likely to be won and lost by wafer-thin margins.

Also read: Indias Covid-19 tally surpasses 3 million mark, recovery rate at 74.6%


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WESTLAKE, Ohio -- City Council overrode Mayor Dennis Cloughs vetoes on six potential changes to the city charter at a special council meeting Aug. 19. The mayor was not present, but had previously defended his vetoes.

In a detailed press release Aug. 15, Clough said he vetoed the six ordinances because they proposed substantial changes to the citys charter and because some had not been recommended by the Charter Review Committee, which began a series of 12 meetings in March.

The committee originally made 15 recommendations. Committee members included Paul Schlosser; Richard Petrulis, committee chairman; Larry Yankow; Alan Olson; Brook Bright; William Leonard; Russell Ezolt; Amy Havelka; and Michelle Mindell. Three of the nine members of the committee were appointed by the mayor.

Some of the original recommendations were not adopted by council, and some were combined with others.

The mayor claimed that some of the six ordinances he vetoed would cause confusion among voters, some have been in place for a long time and some of the changes were due to the opinions of a few council members for political or personal reasons.

He said the charter, without the proposed changes, has served the city well since 1965.

He also noted in his statement: Council had been scheduled to be in recess through the end of August. I had therefore scheduled an out-of-town vacation in anticipation of this recess and am now unable to attend this special meeting on Aug. 19.

I have respectfully requested, as an ex-officio member of City Council, that council afford me the opportunity to explain my vetoes at the next regularly scheduled council meeting on Sept. 3, 2020.

The six recommendations that council passed as new ordinances and will be included on the November ballot are as follows:

 Ordinance 2020-82: to clarify the powers of the mayor

 Ordinance 2020-83: to clarify the procedures for the appointment of an acting mayor in the event the office of the mayor becomes vacant

 Ordinance 2020-84: to provide flexibility in the start time of council meetings

 Ordinance 2020-87: to clarify the requirements for the office of the director of law and clarify the procedures for the appointment of acting director of law in the event the office of the director of law becomes vacant

 Ordinance 2020-88: to provide for the merger of the Board of Building Appeals with the Board of Zoning Appeals and clarify terms of office for the board and various commissions

 Ordinance 2020-90: to rename the charter review committee, include a residency requirement and provide for two additional members.

See https://www.cityofwestlake.org/DocumentCenter/View/11028/Press-Release for the complete text of the mayors statement on each of the ordinances.

Read more from the West Shore Sun.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was in a coma but 'stable' after being flown to Germany after his suspected poisoning.

The politician, a corruption investigator and one of Russian president Vladimir Putin's fiercest critics, is feared to have drunk tea laced with poison.

His supporters believe the Kremlin is behind his illness and a delay in letting him go to Germany after he was admitted to intensive care in the Siberian city of Omsk on Thursday.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma but 'stable', Charite hospital in Berlin have confirmed. Pictured, the politician arrives at the German hospital on August 22

The politician is feared to have drunk tea laced with poison after he became ill on a flight to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday. Above, the last picture of Mr Navalny before he collapsed

The 44-year-old was flown to Berlin's Charite hospital at the weekend.

The hospital said it would not comment on his illness until test results were evaluated, only confirming he was still in a coma but 'stable'.

The news comes as Mr Navalny's wife Yulia Navalnaya arrived at Charite hospital on Sunday to visit her husband.

Top aide Leonid Volkov also visited the Russian opposition leader at the Berlin hospital, but did not speak to reporters.

Mr Navalny became ill on a flight to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday and was taken to hospital after the plane made an emergency landing.

While his supporters and family insist he was poisoned, doctors in Omsk said a metabolic disorder was the most likely diagnosis.

His supporters insist he was poisoned, but doctors in Omsk said a metabolic disorder was the most likely diagnosis. He is pictured on a stretcher in Omsk prior to his transfer to Germany

His wife Yulia Navalnaya made an appeal to Vladimir Putin to permit Mr Navalny's medical evacuation to Germany after Russian health authorities initially said he was too ill to fly

Russian health authorities said tests had not shown poison in his system and initially resisted a transfer to Germany, saying he was too ill to fly.

The dissident's supporters said this was a ploy to allow the poison to leave his system.

An independent Russian news report at the weekend cited sources in security agencies who said Mr Navalny under intense surveillance during his trip to Siberia.

Moskovsky Komsomolets published details of the surveillance of his every movement, including what he and his associates ate, who he met, his credit card records, shopping receipts, where he stayed, what vehicles he travelled in and even a night time swim in a river.
For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology. For the first time, crusading filmmaker ALEX JONES reveals their secret plan for humanity's extermination: Operation ENDGAME.

Jones chronicles the history of the global elite's bloody rise to power and reveals how they have funded dictators and financed the bloodiest warscreating order out of chaos to pave the way for the first true world empire.

Watch as Jones and his team track the elusive Bilderberg Group to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III.





to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. Learn about the formation of the North America transportation control grid, which will end U.S. sovereignty forever.





Discover how the practitioners of the pseudo-science eugenics have taken control of governments worldwide as a means to carry out depopulation.





View the progress of the coming collapse of the United States and the formation of the North American Union.

Never before has a documentary assembled all the pieces of the globalists' dark agenda. Endgame's compelling look at past atrocities committed by those attempting to steer the future delivers information that the controlling media has meticulously censored for over 60 years. It fully reveals the elite's program to dominate the earth and carry out the wicked plan in all of human history.

Endgame is not conspiracy theory, it is documented fact in the elite's own words.




THE LIMERICK director of Wigmore Hall in London is looking forward to holding concerts with live audiences again but he misses his family in Castleconnell terribly.

John Gilhooly says he is in touch every day with his family on the phone and other means.

We are, of course, sad not to be able to see each other but at least were talking. I miss everybody terribly but the beauty of modern technology means we can talk on things like Facetime, said John, who has the massive responsibility of steering one of the worlds great concert halls through the Covid-19 crisis. He hasnt been home since March, and will be leaving it for a while. John says, with massive understatement, that he is needed in London for various things at the moment.

For all sorts of reasons I havent done any travel since February, where I just had come back from Italy, and thankfully tested negative for the virus, said John, who has received an OBE for services to music.

Wigmore Hall has already had concerts held in an empty auditorium in June, which were broadcast worldwide to millions. John said that was deeply moving but now the plan is to have concerts with live audiences commencing on September 13. It will be a series of 100 concerts until December 21.

Most will be open to live audiences as the auditorium capacity is reduced to 56 (10% of full capacity).

The health and safety of our audiences, musicians, and staff will always be our foremost concern. After the overwhelming responses to our June broadcast series that touched minds and hearts around the world, I am thrilled to be welcoming audiences through the doors to our beautiful auditorium again.

We are awaiting the final government sign-off on having a small public in September for our next series, otherwise these concerts will just be broadcast from an empty hall again as they so happily were in June, said John.

He says his heart really goes out to musicians who havent been able to work since March.

By broadcasting concerts even from an empty hall we are doing what we can. Nothing will be normal until we have a vaccine or some sort of therapeutic drug that makes this terrible virus less lethal. I cannot see a return to normality for at least 12 months. Times are very tough for an industry worth 111 billion to the UK, said John.

And the same can sadly be said in Ireland.
Tropical Storm Laura over Puerto Rico and approaching Haiti; and Tropical Storm Marco between Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula: NOAA/GOES/AFP via Getty Images

Two tropical storms are advancing across the Caribbean posing potentially historic threats to the US Gulf Coast, with both projected to reach the coast at or close to hurricane force.

The current projected track for Tropical Storms Laura and Marco by the US National Hurricane Center puts both storms together in the Gulf on Tuesday, with Marco set to hit near the Texas-Louisiana border and Laura set to make landfall a little less than a day later.

Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University, said two hurricanes had never appeared in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time, according to records going back to at least 1900, and the last time two tropical storms were in the Gulf together was in 1959.

Mr Klotzbach added that the last time two storms made landfall in the US within 24 hours of each other was in 1933.

On Saturday morning, Laura began flinging rain across Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, with the Dominican Republic, Haiti and parts of Cuba expected to be drenched during the day as it moves westwards.

Wanda Vazquez, Puerto Ricos governor, declared a state of emergency and warned the flooding could be worse than what Tropical Storm Isaias unleashed three weeks ago because the ground was now saturated.

No one should be out on the streets, Ms Vazquez said.

Officials said they were most concerned about the thousands of people in Puerto Rico who were still living under blue tarps after 2017's Hurricane Maria and the hundreds of families living along Puerto Rico's southern coast in homes damaged by a string of strong earthquakes this year.

Meanwhile, Marco was strengthening with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph (100 kph) and was expected to become a hurricane later in the day.

The Hurricane Center said it expected the storms to stay far enough apart to prevent direct interaction as the region braces for the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, which is forecast to be unusually active.

Both storms were expected to bring 3 to 6 inches (8 to 15 cm) of rain to areas they were passing over or near, threatening widespread flooding across a vast region.

Story continues

A lot of people are going to be impacted by rainfall and storm surge in the Gulf of Mexico, Joel Cline, the tropical programme coordinator for the National Weather Service, said.

Since you simply don't know, you really need to make precautions.

It is still not clear whether Laura will weaken as it passes over Puerto Rico and the mountains of Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Cuba before it enters warm Gulf waters which are conducive to growth.

On Friday, Louisianas governor John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency citing both storm systems.

It is too soon to know exactly where, when or how these dual storms will affect Louisiana, but now is the time for our people to prepare for these storms, Mr Edwards said in a statement.

Officials in the Florida Keys, which Laura could pass over on its route into the Gulf, declared a local state of emergency on Friday and issued a mandatory evacuation order for anyone living on boats, in mobile homes and in campers.

Additional reporting by AP

Read more

Hurricane Isaias makes landfall in North Carolina bringing 85mph winds
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting with senior ministers and officials to discuss ways to boost manufacturing and global imprint of Indian toys on Saturday.

"India is home to several toy clusters and thousands of artisans who produce indigenous toys which not only have cultural connect but also help in building life-skills and psychomotor skills among children at an early age," said PM Modi.

He said such clusters should be promoted through innovative and creative methods.

Toys mould a child's mind and should be aligned with Indian values, according to the Prime Minister. He said toys should be used as pedagogical tools at Anganwadi centres and schools for all-round development of children, according to an official press release.

According to the release, the Indian toy market has huge potential and can bring a transformative change in the industry by promoting 'Vocal for Local' under Aatma nirbhar Bharat campaign. The Prime Minister said the focus should be on the use of technology and innovation and also towards manufacturing quality products that meet global standards.

He discussed the impact of toys on psychomotor/cognitive skills of children and how it can become a means for societal change thereby helping shape the future generation of the nation.

He even suggested that youth should be engaged to come up with innovative designs and toys that can instil a sense of pride towards national goals and achievements.

The Prime Minister said toys can be an excellent medium to further the spirit of 'Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat' and exhorted that toys should reflect India's value system and culturally established environment-friendly approach.

He suggested using tourism as a tool to promote India's culture especially in regions which are renowned for handcrafted toys.

The Prime Minister also emphasised on the need to organise hackathons for youth for innovations in toy technology and design, including online games, to reflect Indian ethos and values.

Laying emphasis on fast-growing digital gaming arena, Prime Minister said India should tap the huge potential in this area and lead the international digital gaming sector by developing games that are inspired by Indian culture and folk tales.
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows issued a vociferous defence of Donald Trump on Sunday after an audio recording emerged of the presidents sister saying he was a rampant liar with no principles.

She also alleged that he did not take his own SATs, tests widely used by universities in their admissions process.

In an interview with ABCs This Week on Sunday, Mr Meadows rejected a claim that has been repeatedly levelled at Mr Trump: that he doesnt read.

You may see it when he goes to Marine One  theres a cardboard box that is brought on Marine One. Whats in there are clippings and clippings, each and every day. He reads probably more than anybody I know which causes me to have to read more because every morning hes given me a to-do list, every evening hes given me a to-do list, Mr Meadows said.

The audio recording Mr Meadows was responding to, first reported by The Washington Post, contains snippets of more than 15 hours of face-to-face conversations between the presidents niece and sister, Mary Trump and Maryanne Trump Barry, respectively.

All he wants to do is appeal to his base, Ms Barry, a retired federal judge who is nine years older than her brother, said in a conversation secretly recorded by her niece.

When asked by Mary Trump what the president reads, Ms Barry was blunt: He doesnt read, she said.

Mr Trump has been accused by unnamed White House staffers in numerous reports of not reading daily intelligence briefings, which outline major threats to national security. This has been blamed for the presidents slow response to the coronavirus, and inaction over reports that Russia was paying bounties to Afghan militants to kill US troops.

I can tell you this, the president is committed to this country, loves this country ... The one principle that he ... talks to me about is, What can we do to serve the American people better? And hes been very consistent in that, Mr Meadows said.

So listen, this is politics as usual, by a niece that was written out of a will, that apparently just has an axe to grind because she wants Joe Biden to be president, he added.

In the tape, Ms Barry said her brother has no principles. None. None. And his base, I mean my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this.

She also derided Mr Trump for his behaviour as president.

His goddamned tweet and lying  oh my god, she said. Im talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy sh*t.

The recordings were released just a day after a White House memorial service for Robert Trump, the younger brother of the president and Ms Barry.

The president was dismissive of the recordings, in a statement issued by the White House attributed to him.

Every day its something else, who cares. I miss my brother, and Ill continue to work hard for the American people, Mr Trump said.

Not everyone agrees, but the results are obvious. Our country will soon be stronger than ever before, he said.

Mary Trump, who authored a book released in July that chronicles the family life of Mr Trump, recorded her conversations to protect herself from family members with a penchant for lying under oath, her lawyer said.

Mary realised members of her family had lied in prior depositions, her spokesman, Chris Bastardi, said.

Anticipating litigation, she felt it prudent to tape conversations in order to protect herself.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The family of Eric Garner may soon learn whether it will succeed in its efforts to bring Mayor Bill de Blasio, former NYPD Commissioner James ONeill and FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro in front of a judge to answer questions on unresolved factual issues regarding the Staten Island mans death.

The petition was filed last year under New York City Charter Section 1109, which allows at least five citizens who are taxpayers in New York to file a request to bring any city employee before a judge to answer allegations of misconduct.
Church leaders across the island of Ireland have come together to issue a joint statement with guidance on the wearing of masks at religious services.

The statement has been issued by the Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland Primates of All Ireland, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and the President of the Methodist Church in Ireland.

It states that while wearing of face coverings has not been made mandatory in the Republic or Northern Ireland, church leaders are formally recommending and encouraging the use of face coverings at all services of worship, along with the ongoing maintenance of 2 metre physical distancing from August 30, and earlier if practicable.

The full statement issued by The Most Revd Eamon Martin (Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland), The Most Revd John McDowell (Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland), The Rt Revd Dr David Bruce (Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland) and The Revd Dr Tom McKnight (President of the Methodist Church in Ireland) reads:

At this time, both in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland, the governments have not formally made mandatory the wearing of face coverings at services of worship. This is, in part, due to the fact that as churches we are committed to maintaining 2 metre physical distancing between household groups and strict adherence to all government guidance on hand hygiene, cleaning, ventilation etc.

It, however, remains our responsibility to ensure that our services of worship are safe places for all who join with us. It has become increasingly clear that the wearing of face coverings, in conjunction with hand washing etc., is likely to reduce the spread of coronavirus, thus helping to protect others. Their use is therefore one way in which we can evidence protection for the most vulnerable, support for our health workers, and practical love for our neighbours.

Following further recent consultations with public health authorities, we join with Christian church leaders all over this island in formally recommending and encouraging the use of face coverings at all services of worship, along with the ongoing maintenance of the two metre physical distancing, from Sunday 30 August 2020, and earlier if practicable.

We understand that some people are exempted from the wearing of face coverings, as outlined in the two jurisdictions.

We also recognise that whilst it may not be appropriate for those who are leading from the front during worship, including preaching, to wear face coverings, they should at all times continue to maintain at least two metre physical distancing from one another, and four metre physical distancing from the front row of the congregation.
Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW: After a huge haul of explosives from the house of suspected ISIS operative Abu Yusuf alias Mustaqeem in Balrampur district of central UP, the Delhi police in a joint operation with UPAnti-Terror Squad (ATS) arrested Yusufs father Kafeel Ahmad and three of his relatives on Sunday.

The police teams recovered a jacket and an explosive-studded belt besides gunpowder and other material be used in a possible fidayeen (suicide) attack.

Notably, suspected operative of ISIS Abu Yusuf, 36, who had left home in Balrampur on Friday for Rath, was arrested Ridge Road area in central Delhi on Saturday following a brief exchange of fire with the police. However, Delhi police and UP Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) recovered explosives including IED from his house during night long raids in his ancestral village in Balrampur on Sunday.

Additional Superintendent of Police Arvind Kumar claimed that the recovery of the explosive was done on the tip off given by Yusuf himself who was brought to Balrampur by the Delhi police team on Saturday evening. Following the hints given by Yusuf, the cops recovered two more jackets used in Fidayeen attack from a village pond.

ALSO READ: Could have never imagined he would take to terrorism, says Father of ISIS operative held in Delhi

Moreover, the police also recovered objectionable Islamic radical literature besides explosives from his house in huge amount. The Delhi police team and UP ATS are camping Ysusfs village in Balrampur. The cops have sealed the boundaries of Badhya Bhasayeen village and are interrogating the near and dear ones of the suspected ISIS ultra.

As per the police sources, Yusuf had planned a lone wolf terror strike in a high footfall area in Delhi using a high-intensity pressure cooker-based improvised explosive device (IED). The police sources had claimed that they had recovered two pressure cooker IEDs weighing around 15kg, a.30 bore pistol and four cartridges that Khan was carrying in a bag. Khan was on a white TVS Apache motorcycle at the time of his arrest.

In a press statement, police said Khans interrogation had revealed that his original plan was to carry out the IED blasts during the Independence Day celebrations on August 15. However, because of the heavy security arrangements, Khan could not enter the city and had to drop the terror strike plan. Khan has reportedly confessed to the police that he tested the explosive device at his village a few months ago.

Meanwhile, those interrogated in his village include Yusufs wife Ayesha, father Kafeel Ahmad, his siblings, children and other relatives. However, the villagers were stunned over the revelation of his association with ISIS and the plan to conduct a fidayeen attack.

As per the key sources, Yusuf had been involved in accumulation of explosives for the last two years. He used to move in Hasimpara market area of Utraula in the garb of a bangle seller and was collecting and storing explosive but the local police had no clue about it.

During the interrogation, Yusufs wife Ayesha admitted her husbands involvement in suspicious activities for the last two years, said the sources. She reportedly told the cops that he used to take her money also to buy terror related literature and explosives. She admitted that Yusuf used to store

explosives in an empty box in small amounts over a period of two years. She objected but he never listened to her, claimed Ayesha.

Pleading for his mercy, Ayesha said she had four children to nurture, how would she manage life after Yusuf. However, she claimed that she did not know about the sources where Yusuf got radicalised from.

Even Yusufs father, now in police custody, regretted his sons activities but urged police authorities to forgive him once. He also claimed that he was ignorant of his sons movements and his terror related activities. Besides, his father, two other relatives of Yusuf  nephew Farooq and another relative Wasim-- were also picked up by the police team from Idgah on Utraula road. They were being interrogated in Utraula police kotwali.
Iraqis walk beneath a web of electric wires in the Syed Sultan Ali area of the capital Baghdad, on July 13, 2020, used to draw electricity from private generators due to an unreliable national electricity supply amid high temperatures. (SABAH ARAR/AFP via Getty Images)

Connecting Iraq With Gulf Electric Grids Seeks to Change Middle East Politics

The Trump administration is trying to support Iraq in developing good relationships with the Gulf countries to help it meet its energy needs and to reduce its dependence on Iran.

That way the United States isnt only helping Iraq reduce Iranian influence and build better relationships to meet its energy and economic needs, but by doing so is also drawing Iraq closer geopolitically, experts say.

Esra Serim, a doctoral candidate in political science at Aix-Marseille University in France, told The Epoch Times in an email that the Trump administration thinks that Iraq should reduce its energy dependence on Iran, and because of that, it pushes both Iraq and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) toward each other.

Recently, the U.S. fully backed a plan to connect Iraq to the GCC electric grid and mediated between Baghdad and six Arab Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and the UAE, to reach an agreement. This plan means that Iraqs electric capacity will increase dramatically, Serim said.

Iraqs state coffers were drained because of an economic crisis spurred by falling oil prices and the pandemic, leaving little for investment to maintain the countrys aging electricity infrastructure.

In the scorching summer months in the countrys oil-rich south, where temperatures topped 125 degrees Fahrenheit (52 degrees Celsius) in early August, people were left with painful new choices in the age of the pandemic: Stay at home in the sweltering heat with no electricity for hours, or go out and risk the virus.

An Iraqi man rides a bicycle beneath a web of electric wires in the Syed Sultan Ali area of the capital Baghdad, on July 13, 2020, used to draw electricity from private generators due to an unreliable national electricity supply amid high temperatures. (SABAH ARAR/AFP via Getty Images)

Connecting Electric Grids

The project of the Gulf Cooperation Council Interconnection Authority (GCCIA) to connect the electric grids of Iraq with GCC aims to provide electricity to the suffering people of Iraq, mostly in the southern provinces, according to a joint statement released by the United States, GCC, and the Republic of Iraq on July 16.

The Government of Iraq, Gulf Cooperation Council, and the United States look forward to increased close economic and energy cooperation between the United States, Iraq, and the GCC countries, as a basis for peace, development, and prosperity in the region, the State Department said in the statement.

In a recent development, UAE has offered to provide Iraq with electricity for more than $1 per kilowatt, which Iraq currently imports at more than $5 from Iran, according to Maan Habib, a news anchor with AlhurraIraq, an Iraqi TV channel.

Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center, told The Epoch Times in an email that the United States is using two issues to draw Iraq into a closer geopolitical relationship.

A serious problem that Iraq faces in electricity supply, and the U.S. interest in Iraqi energy, said Sayigh, whos based in Beirut.

While Iraq is the second-largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), its forced to import gas and electricity from Iran because its electricity sector cant meet demand due to lack of investment and rehabilitation, according to The Arab Gulf State Institute (AGSIW) in Washington.

But first and foremost, the U.S. administration is using these two issues to try to draw Iraq into a closer geopolitical relationship. Integrating Iraq into GCC electricity networks is a way of cementing a strategic reorientation, as leaving the grid at a later date would be costly, Sayigh said.

When a high-level Iraqi delegation led by Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi met with the Trump administration on Aug. 19 and 20 in Washington, the issue of connecting Iraq with the electric grid in the Gulf countries was discussed again.

The two governments plan to continue cooperation with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member-states and Gulf Cooperation Council Interconnection Authority on Iraq/GCC electricity connections and energy investment, the State Department said in a statement released after the strategic meeting on Aug. 19.

U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo (R) meets with Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein during a press conference at the State Department in Washington on Aug. 19, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Re-integration Into Arab World

Ranj Alaaldin, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center, said in an analysis published on Aug. 19 that the relationships between Iraq and the Gulf countries havent been good, due to a complex array of factors.

With U.S. support and leadership, Iraq can become re-integrated into the Arab world, re-invigorate a relationship with the Gulf that is based on mutual interests to help revive the Iraqi economy, and reduce its dependence on Iran in the process, he said.

Serim said the Iraqi government also is eager for the United States to play its role in restoring its ties with the GCC.

Creating a set of economic/financial and diplomatic incentives between Iraq and the GCC would pave the way for overcoming their past conflicts and seducing more American allies to invest in Iraq, and will also help to alienate Iraq from Iran, Serim said.

Alaaldin said the U.S. administration should create a framework to give direction to the IraqGCC relationship.

What the U.S. can and should devise is a set of guiding principles, a framework for forging what would effectively be a U.S.-GCC axis in Baghdad and a GCC-aligned political coalition in Baghdad that creates a sense of direction and a synergy between the extensive ties that some political actors already have with the Gulf, he said.

A general view taken on Sept. 13, 2017, shows the Electric Power Station in Baghdad.

(AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP via Getty Images)

Sanctions on Iran

Serim said applying pressure and sanctions on Iran is lying at the bottom of the U.S. project to connect Iraq with the Gulf electric grid.

Because U.S. sanctions forbid other countries from purchasing Iranian energy, except for when a waiver is provided [when asked from Washington], said Serim.

Kate Dourian, a non-resident fellow at the AGSIW, wrote in an analysis that Iraqs reliance on Iran for energy is challenging because it needs to apply for waivers from sanctions imposed on Iran.

Waivers have been granted on the condition that Iraq increases its efforts to attain energy self-sufficiency, she said.

The State Department in March designated 20 entities for diverting funds from the Iraqi economy to Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, saying that these entities undermine the Iraqi governments efforts for energy dependency by increasing its reliance on electricity imports from Iran.

Under a U.S.-issued sanctions waiver, Iraq is permitted to engage in financial transactions related to the import of electricity from Iran. The purpose of this waiver, which the United States is renewing today, is to meet the immediate energy needs of the Iraqi people, department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in the same statement.

An Iraqi man shops at a store selling power generators in Baghdad on April 7, 2018. (SABAH ARAR/AFP via Getty Images)

Challenges

After the recent second round of strategic talks between the United States and Iraq last week, the Iranian regime called Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi a traitor and said that he betrayed Qasem Soleimanis sacrifice, according to the Utv Iraq.

Sam Bazzi, an independent Middle East expert and the founder of the Hezbollah Watch project, told The Epoch Times in a chat message that in its recent message, the Khamenei regime compared Kadhimi with the men who betrayed Imam Husayn in Iraq 14 centuries ago.

This is a severe insult, Bazzi said, adding that its an indirect death threat to Kadhimi.

The United States can help in paving the way for its regional friends and allies to enhance existing, and establish new, commercial ties with Iraq, and participate in the development of Iraqi infrastructure and industry as an alternative to relying on Iran and China, but the success of such an undertaking remains dependent on the cooperation of the Iranian regime and the pro-Tehran Khomeinist Iraqi militias, Bazzi said, in explaining the persisting challenges.

Linking Iraq with GCC will help, but the United States needs to be mindful that the Iraqi society is in a very unhealthy state, Alex Vatanka, the director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, told The Epoch Times over the phone.

He said its ideal to want Iraq to have healthy relationships, but, currently, the entire Middle East is mired with competing states.

In the reality of 2020, that is not where the Middle East is at.

Associated Press contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump speaks to the 2020 Council for National Policy Meeting, in Arlington, Va., on Aug. 21, 2020. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo)

Trump to Reveal Major Breakthrough on Therapeutic for Virus From China: White House

President Donald Trump and top health officials in his administration are poised to reveal a major therapeutic breakthrough on the new virus from China, the White House said.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump, Health Secretary Alex Azar, and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn would hold a press conference regarding the breakthrough on Sunday.

Trump said in a social media statement that the briefing would be held at 5:30 p.m., teasing Very good news!

SARS-CoV-2, or the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, causes COVID-19, a disease that kills a small percentage of patients.

Scientists around the world have been scrambling to identify treatments for the disease while others work on developing a vaccine against the virus.

Earlier Saturday, the president accused the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics.

Its obvious that the people there want to delay until after the Nov. 3 election, Trump said.

Must focus on speed, and saving lives! he added on Twitter, tagging Hahns account.

President Donald Trump speaks to the 2020 Council for National Policy Meeting, in Arlington, Va., on Aug. 21, 2020. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo)

The FDA didnt respond to a request for comment.

Weve looked a number of people that are not being as diligent as they should be, in terms of getting to the bottom of it, Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, said Sunday during an appearance on ABCs This Week. Its difficult to fire government employees, he added.

We really need to make sure that we have good science and the proper protocol, but we also cant wait around and assume that this virus is going to go away. This president wants real results. And thats why he took to Twitter, Meadows said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called the remarks scary, telling reporters in Washington Saturday that the FDA has a responsibility to approve drugs with judging on their safety and their efficacy, not by a declaration from the White House about speed and politicizing the FDA.

Rubber stoppers are placed onto filled vials of the investigational drug remdesivir at a Gilead manufacturing site in March 2020. (Gilead Sciences via AP)

Few medicines have proven effective against COVID-19.

Remdesivir, made by California-based Gilead Sciences, showed some efficacy in clinical trials, but costs thousands of dollars for a course. Hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial, has worked when given early, but the FDA withdrew emergency use authorization in June because of concerns of side effects and effectiveness.

Researchers last month said a cheap steroid thats widely available, dexamethasone, appeared to help patients recover from severe COVID-19 cases.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched a clinical trial on Aug. 4 evaluating the safety and efficacy of potential new therapeutics, including an investigational one based on synthetic monoclonal antibodies. The trial is part of the agencys effort to accelerate both treatments and vaccines through a public-private partnership program.

Developed by Eli Lilly and Companys collaboration with NIHs National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the monoclonal antibody was isolated from a blood sample from a recovered COVID-19 patient before being synthesized in a lab.

Using an antibody generated by the immune system of a recovered COVID-19 patient gives us a jump start on finding a safe and effective therapeutic, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the institute, said in a statement. Investigating a variety of different therapeutics, including monoclonal antibodies, will help ensure that we advance towards an effective treatment for people suffering from COVID-19 disease as quickly as possible.

Allen Zhong contributed to this report.
TikTok raises the stakes in tech war with the US by announcing it will sue the Trump administration over a ban. Photo: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Chinese-owned app TikTok has said it plans to take legal actions to challenge a ban imposed by US president Donald Trump  with owner ByteDance announcing it will officially file a lawsuit on 24 August.

The US president has been waging a trade war against China since taking office, as well as challenging Beijing on technology, military and economic fronts.

On 14 August Trump issued an executive order that gives TikToks owner ByteDance 90 days to divest the US operation of TikTok; it has until 12 November.

Previously, Trump gave TikTok and messaging app WeChat 45 days to find American buyers before threatening to ban US businesses from doing any transactions with the Chinese-owned apps.

Tech giants Microsoft (MSFT) and Oracle (ORCL) are thought to be frontrunners for a possible sale, while Twitter (TWTR) also threw its hat in the ring in early August.

READ MORE: Microsoft reveals talks to buy TikTok, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand

TikTok said that it has tried to engage with the US for nearly a year, but it was met with a lack of due process and that the Trump administration paid no attention to the facts.

"To ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and users are treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the executive order through the judicial system," the company said.

While the video-sharing app, which has 80 million active users in the US, is best known for its anodyne videos of people dancing and going viral, it was accused by the Trump administration of passing data on American users to the Chinese government.

TikTok denies handing over US data to the Chinese authorities, with China blasting Trumps ban as political.

Trump, raised the possibility of decoupling from China  a major purchaser of US goods in an interview with Fox News, saying the US was not obliged to do business with the country.

Meanwhile, US treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said in June that a decoupling could happen if US companies were not allowed to compete on a level playing field in China.

Story continues

China recently agreed to buy at least $200bn (153bn) worth of American goods and services between 2020 and 2021. The two-way trade between the economic powerhouses in 2019 was almost $559bn.

READ MORE: Trump steps up Chinese tech war with new TikTok and WeChat executive order

In July, the US senate voted unanimously to approve a bill prohibiting federal workers from using TikTok on government-issued devices, amid security fears of data collection.

Shortly after announcing the executive order against TikTok in early August, Trump also slapped sanctions on Hong Kong chief Carrie Lam over the Chinese security clampdown following last years pro-democracy protests.

TikTok amassed more than one billion downloads after shooting to popularity, particularly with teenagers who were in lockdown due to the coronavirus. Users posts short video clips on a variety of topics from dance to international politics.

Trumps moves come ahead of the 3 November elections in which the US president, who lags behind rival Joe Biden in the polls  is rigorously campaigning on an increasingly boisterous anti-China message.

The apps legal suit will raise the stakes of the geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing and is sure to provoke the US president to retaliate with aggressive counter-measures.
The Emergency Palace in the early 1900s  neglected and abandoned. Courtesy of Hyunuk Park



By Robert Neff





Detail of the Emergency Palace in the early 1900s. Courtesy of Hyunuk Park

"[Namhansanseong] was in the past the favorite retreat for the [Joseon] King," declared Ensign George C. Foulk when he visited the site in October 1884 and then went on to add:



"This most notable occupancy was during the last Chinese invasion of Korea, when it was vainly besieged by a Chinese army while defended by its villagers and 120 soldiers. The Queen and Prince having been captured at [Ganghwa Island] and the people at large at the mercy of the Chinese, [King Injo] voluntarily left the fortress and sued for peace."



Foulk's description of the incident seems over-simplified and, perhaps, a little biased and we are left to wonder where he acquired his knowledge. Perhaps it was from the official who met him in front of the emergency palace.



The official, whom Foulk described as being "dressed [in] flowing silk robes of blue, yellow, and crimson, with a retinue of uniformed soldier priests and a native band of boy musicians," served as his guide. Unfortunately, part of the tour does not appear to have been the emergency palace.



In his notes, Foulk wrote:



"Ascending the hill back of the palace slowly over a narrow path in the pine forest to the weird music of the boy band, we came to a graceful [pavilion] raised above the wall  the stand of the military commandant."





Oehaengjeon  the king's office  at the Emergency Palace, May 2020. Robert Neff Collection



This was probably Sueojangdae, where King Injo commanded his small army, and Foulk seems to have been fairly impressed with its location and, compared to the rest of the fortress, wrote quite a bit about it.



"From here a most wonderful panoramic view of the whole river drained area as far as [Ganghwa] was presented. From this elevation (1350 feet) the dark outline of the capital seemed to be directly under Samgak mountain and the river but a winding silver thread in which the distant junks seemed but dots.



"To the west and south was an endless area of hilly country in which the valleys appeared as innumerable dark lines to the eastward and south-eastward craggy frowning mountains rose one above the other from close at hand to as far as the eye could reach bring to them compactness of size and close sites under mountains and hills, habitations were not visible at all except in the flat plain close below; here I counted in one small area, partly broken by sparse hills, seventeen villages."





The throne room at the Emergency Palace, May 2020. Robert Neff Collection



While on the tour he noticed "a reservoir for holding water to be used in time of siege, there long storehouses for food, and a field of jars filled with bean sauce for the garrison. Beyond these came the main part of the village with small fields below it on which enough can be produced to supply the fortress vassals in case of siege."



In addition to the walls of the fortress, there were "nine Buddhist temples with arsenals attached; in these live 120 soldier priests. To the east of the [village] on a second mountain crest is a small walled retreat guarded likewise by Buddhist priests."



The village in front of the emergency palace had (according to Foulk) "no products worth mentioning and no evidence of trade  the inhabitants being simple peasants [ who] seemed singularly docile, kind to each other, and markedly less rough in general conduct than at any other cities" he had visited.





Sleeping quarters at the Emergency Palace, May 2020. Robert Neff Collection



Foulk claimed  perhaps rightfully so  he was the first Westerner to visit the fortress and found the villagers "evinced much curiosity about him" but also "seemed desirous to do all in their power to make my visit pleasant." When he returned to his palanquin, he found it decorated with brilliant red maple branches.



Despite the docile nature of the villagers, the governor and his immediate subordinates did not deign to live among them. In the areas surrounding Seoul, most high officials lived in Seoul and only occasionally visited their posts to transact business.



Content with his short tour, Foulk resumed his journey to Seoul so that he could prepare for his epic journey the following month throughout the southern part of the peninsula.



Namhansanseong is a great day trip for tourists and residents of Seoul. Unfortunately, due to COVID 19 and restoration projects, many of the buildings  such as Sueojangdae  are not open. However, if you enjoy a good hike and a beautiful view (now that the skies are clear)  this is a place to go.





View from the palace, May 2020. Robert Neff Collection





Iwijeong Pavilion at the Emergency Palace, May 2020. Robert Neff Collection





Sueojangdae in the early 1900s. Courtesy of Hyununk Park





The view of Lotte Tower from the walls of Namhansanseong near Sueojangdae, May 2020. Robert Neff Collection
By Trend

Military units of the armed forces of Armenia violated ceasefire 37 times throughout the day in various direction of the front, using large-caliber machine guns and sniper rifles, Trend reports referring to Azerbaijani Defense Ministry.

Armenian armed forces, located in Mosesgekh and Chinari villages of Berd region and on nameless hills in Chambarak region subjected to fire the positions of the Azerbaijan Army located in Aghdam and Kokhanebi villages of Tovuz region and in Zamanly village of Gadabay region.

The positions of Azerbaijan Army were also fired from the positions of Armenian military units located near the occupied Yarymja village of Terter region, Saryjaly village of Aghdam region, Kuropatkino village of Khojavend region, Ashaghy Seyidahmadli, Gorgan, Horadiz villages of Fuzuli region, as well as from the positions located on nameless hills in Goranboy, Terter and Khojavend regions.
You dont need to spend a fortune but sometimes you want to!

Theres a beauty star for every budget! These are the ones my bathroom shelves are loving right now

So the question this week is how high (or low) should you go when it comes to a price tag? The truthful answer is: whatever you like. You dont have to spend a fortune  theres plenty of great choice at the lower end of the price spectrum. Equally, occasionally you just want a bit of a luxury and sometimes top quality comes with top expenditure. But, honestly, dont we all like a little of both, a great bargain and a haute option? Just as we do with fashion, its all about the mix, so here are my current high/low shelfie picks.

Top shelf

1. Susanne Kaufmann Essence Mineral Body Lotion (97, susannekaufmann.com). Not an everyday lotion at this price, I grant you. But this is a nifty formula made with mineral salts to relax and potent natural ingredients to help with skin tone. It feels rich but sinks straight in and has a gorgeous fresh aroma.

2. Cartier Pur Magnolia Eau de Toilette (250, selfridges.com). Yes, even for modern high-end fragrance prices this is high. But, gosh, its an exquisite concoction created by Cartiers in-house nose Mathilde Laurent. Rather than being about a complex, knock-em-dead formula, this is very pure (and pure class), simple and totally splendid. Its fresh and clear, like walking past a magnolia plant.

3. Sisley Paris Black Rose Eye Contour Fluid (108, sisley-paris.com). An extension of the brands popular and brilliant Black Rose range (the face mask is an eternal favourite). There are far cheaper eye creams but this has a wonderfully light texture. Ive found it has really helped with fine lines and even dark circles, and the applicator tip stays cool, which is great for de-puffing.

4. 320MHz Age Rejuvenation Bio-energetic Yuzu Cleanser Serum (78, 320mhz.com). This British organic and vegan brand eschews mass production believing it damages the plant powers they want to harness. They also support the biodiverse regions where those ingredients are farmed. And this stuff elevates a daily cleanse with luscious-smelling rose otto and a blend of seed oils, so it hydrates as it goes. I love it.

5. Westman Atelier Eye Love You Mascara (58, net-a-porter.com). This is like the mascara version of your finest lace underwear rather than a big-night-out push-up bra. In other words its great and elegant but understated rather than in your face. So it gently coats and gives lashes a lift but is more about making what youve got look great than trying to fake anything. It has never clumped with me, lasts well and one coat does the trick. Plus its made from 96 per cent natural ingredients and comes in seriously swanky packaging.

BOTTOM SHELF

6. Dove Derma Spa Summer Revived Body Mousse Gradual Self-tan (4.90, superdrug.com). This gives a very natural hint of sunkissed colour to skin, but on my pale complexion I had to apply it over three consecutive days to build up to a noticeable level. Doesnt rub off on sheets and has just a faint self-tan smell.

7. NYX Professional Makeup Epic Wear Waterproof Eye & Body Liquid Liner (9, boots.com). They call this a waterproof eyeliner and, boy, they really arent kidding. Keep eyelids lowered for a few moments after application so it doesnt transfer, but once this dries (it takes seconds) it isnt going anywhere. Youll need an oil-based cleanser to remove.

8. Typology Lab-1002 Vitamin C 11% (11.80, uk.typology.com). A great little radiance boosting serum from this cool French brand, which is also vegan and fragrance-free. Has a slight tackiness after application.

9. LOreal Paris Infallible Matte Lip Crayon (9.99, boots.com). Even my dry lips loved this. It gives good coverage, lasts well and the creamy formula isnt dehydrating. Comes in 14 shades.

10. Altruist Dermatologist Dry Skin Repair Cream (5, amazon.co.uk). Whats not to love? Formulated by a top dermatologist, this contains ten per cent urea, which is great for repair without irritation, and works wonders on dry skin.
DamThi Minh Trang from the Le Hong Phong Gifted High School in the northern province of Nam Dinh was one of four Vietnamese contestants to win gold medals at the 52nd International Chemistry Olympiad held online in Istanbul.

Her gold was also a first for Nam Dinh at an International Chemistry Olympiad.

This years contest was a different experience for the 235 participants from 60 countries and territories, as it was organised online for the first time in its history due to the coronavirus pandemic. The contest therefore included only a theory section.

Competing at an international contest while remaining at home, Trang and the other members of the Vietnamese team performed to their best over the course of a gruelling five hours, from 4pm to 9pm, on July 25. Trang scored a mark of 91.38/100 for her efforts.

The key to her high score, she believes, is her level of concentration while studying, which allows her to readily take on new knowledge and research a topic further to extend her understanding.

She used to specialise in maths at high school, she explains, but then decided to focus her endeavours on chemistry.

My family and teachers were surprised at my decision, because the chemistry class at Le Hong Phong only offers places to 10 per cent of candidates from math-specialised classes, she says.

Despite her parents concerns when she sat for one of the most important exams in her life, Trang felt quite comfortable and posted a score beyond her expectations, finishing among the top students.

Ive been interested in maths since I was small, but then became attracted to chemistry after learning a little about it, she recalls. Knowledge of chemistry helps explain many phenomena in the real world, so Ive been determined to study as best I can.

It was difficult early on. I had what amounted to a basic understanding of the subject, while studying in a specialised class meant acquiring a deeper level of knowledge.

Such difficulties didnt ever dampen her spirits, however, and actually have driven her to conquer chemistry. Under the dedicated guidance of her teachers, she spends a great deal of time researching chemical theories, reviewing lessons, and tracking down references.

Her patience and determination have paid off so far. She won a silver medal in chemistry at a competition for gifted students in Vietnams north when she was in Grade 10, followed by first prizes at national chemistry contests in subsequent years.

Ive also been focused on improving my English, by frequently listening to videos and sharpening my pronunciation and vocabulary, as English is a key to human knowledge, Trang says, explaining that English gives her access to a treasure trove of information online. The Olympiad winner is now fluent in the language.

When she graduates from high school, Trang plans to apply for the Hanoi Medical University and eventually realise her dream of becoming a doctor. She is now taking a break after the tense graduation exams and the Olympiad, to continue to improve her knowledge, particularly English, for further in-depth study.

Trang is particularly determined, says Vu Van Hop, her high school chemistry teacher. She always seeks the best and most creative solution to a problem in the shortest possible time, and all by herself.

According to Bui Thai Hoc, vice principal of the Le Hong Phong Gifted High School, Trangs gold medal at the International Chemistry Olympiad is not only evidence of her passion and zeal but is also significant as the school approaches its 100th anniversary.

Trangs achievements will inspire, motivate, and encourage other students to study and be creative, promoting the tradition of greater learning at the Le Hong Phong Gifted High School and in Nam Dinh Province, he says.

VNS

Student offered scholarships from 15 US universities Duong Bao Tien, a 12th grader majoring in English at Luong Van Chanh High School for the Gifted in Phu Yen province, has been offered scholarships from 15 schools in the US.
The political temperatures in Assam, which is ravaged by the raging coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and the annual flood fury, are gradually rising as the assembly polls are less than eight months away.

New political outfits are being announced, old alliances are firming up and fresh alignments are taking shape with parties and politicians to woo the states 217,000 registered voters (going by the figure of last years parliamentary election).

In April 2016, the states voters sprang a surprise by ousting the 15-year-old Congress regime and replacing it with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who formed the government with the support of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and Bodoland Peoples Front (BPF).

Both the BJP are the AGP are likely to stick to the alliance in the next years assembly polls as well.

But theres no clarity yet from the BPF, a strong player in Bodo-populated four districts of lower Assam.

The BPF is upset with BJP over the deferment of the election to the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC), which was under the BPF rule, due to Covid-19, and also because of the imposition of Governors rule in the four districts administered by it.

In the 2016 polls, the BJP had won 60 of the 126 assembly seats, while AGP and BPF had wrested 14 and 12 each, respectively. The Congress had secured 26 seats and All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) got 13.

For 2021, we are looking at bagging 100 plus seats along with our alliance partners, which could be the AGP, the BPF or any other party. The decision of selecting alliance partners and seat-sharing arrangements with them will be taken by the partys central leadership, said Assam BJP president Ranjeet Kumar Dass.

While the BJP is aiming for another five-year term at power, the opposition Congress and the AIUDF sealed a grand alliance on Saturday for the next years assembly polls and hopes to bring the Left parties and others to unset the BJP-AGP-BPF coalition.

We have formally decided to form a grand alliance against the BJP for next years polls. The Congress will play the role of a big brother in the alliance. We welcome others to join us. Decisions on seat-sharing arrangements and other issues will be taken later, Ripun Bora, president, Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC), Assam and a Rajya Sabha (RS) member, told media persons on Sunday.

In recent weeks, BJP leaders have been targeting the Congress over its bid to tie-up with the AIUDF that was formally announced on Saturday.

State minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who holds multiple portfolios, stated the alliance would turn the grand old partys office in Guwahati, Rajiv Bhawan, into Ajmal Bhawanafter AIUDF chief and perfume baron Badruddin Ajmal.

Its an unholy alliance. AIUDF was formed with the intention of safeguarding the interests of suspected foreigners and the Congress has also been dependent on that section of voters. The coming together of these parties is a dangerous sign for all self-respecting Assamese and Indians at large, BJPs Dass said.

AIUDFs organising secretary Md. Aminul Islam said that contrary to BJPs allegations, the party would not have a chief ministerial candidate of its own and would support the Congress candidate for the post. A common minimum programme (CMP) of the grand-alliance will be announced later, he said.

Besides the BJP and its coalition partners and the Congress-AIUDF grand alliance, several other parties are also planning to make a debut this time to catch in on the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019, sentiment that had resonated across most parts of the state last year.

Also Read: Narendra Modi is scared of Rahul Gandhi only: Assam Congress leader

All Assam Students Union (AASU) and Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuva Chatra Parishad (AJYCP) have constituted a 16-member advisory committee to recommend on the likely formation of a political outfit by the two influential organisations.

Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS), another outfit that spearheaded the anti-CAA stir, has announced its plan to launch a political party. The outfits leader Akhil Gogoi, who is lodged in Guwahati Central Jail since last December for his alleged role in the anti-CAA stir, is likely to be its CM face.

Also Read: Together, we shall overcome: Assam Police tweets tribute video to celebrate brave corona warriors

Journalist-turned-politician Ajit Bhuyan, who became a RS member earlier this year with the combined support of the Congress and the AIUDF, has also floated an outfit called Anchalik Gana Morcha (AGM).

The grand alliance and formation of new parties wont affect our vote bank. We have 4.2 million dedicated workers in Assam. If each one of them is able to bring an additional vote, we will have 8.4 million votes, which would be sufficient to bring us back to power, claimed Dass.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Utpal Parashar Utpal is an assistant editor based in Guwahati. He covers all eight states of North-East and was previously based in Kathmandu, Dehradun and Delhi with Hindustan Times . ...view detail
Balasaheb Thorat, Maharastra Pradesh Congreess Committee President, says Rahul Gandhi should now lead the party.

"Rahulji should now lead the Congress. To have a courageous, sensitive and intellectually committed leader is not only the need of the Congress party, but the need of the entire country as well," he said in a press statement. He also requested "Come back Rahulji", while respecting his sentiments about the matter.

While requesting Rahul Gandhi to come back, Thorat also said under Gandhi's leadership, Congress would be the voice of millions of Indians and are determined to make history.

Noting on some of the achievements made by Sonia Gandhi during her time as president, Thorat said, "Soniaji has taken care of the large Congress family selflessly and made innumerable sacrifices for it. Under her leadership and guidance during the UPA revolutionary decisions were taken keeping the interest of the people supreme,"

Thorat also said that until Rahul Gandhi takes over as president, that Sonia Gandhi should continue as the party's leader.
The president has said he got into what was then called the Wharton School of Finance at Penn  which he called one of the hardest schools to get in to  because he is a super genius. The Post reported last year, however, that Marys father, Fred Jr., was close friends with a Penn admissions official. That official, James Nolan, told The Post that Fred Jr. asked him to interview his brother for admission, which he did. He was granted a place at the school, which Nolan said was not very difficult because more than half of applicants at the time were accepted, compared with last years 7.4 percent rate.
By Trend

Yesterday, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan held inter-ministerial political consultations via video conference, Trend reports citing Kabar.

The consultations were chaired by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Zohir Saidzoda and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Marat Syzdykov.

The parties discussed the state and prospects of bilateral Tajik-Kazakh relations in the political, trade, economic, cultural, and humanitarian spheres, and exchanged views on cooperation in combating the COVID-19 pandemic and interaction between countries within the framework of international organizations.

They also confirmed their readiness to further develop the relations of friendship and strategic partnership in all areas.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
The prices of both raw and cashew nuts are falling dramatically, while requirements on exports have become increasingly strict.

Many cashew processors say that they are incurring big losses as they bought materials in the past at high prices and are exporting finished products at low prices now.

Cashew processing enterprises stockpiled materials by importing cashews late last year for production this year.

At the end of 2019, the import price was relatively high, at $1,200 per ton. But the price unexpectedly fell to $1,000 per ton earlier this year and to $900 at some moments. The export price of finished products has also decreased, causing exporters to suffer.

Even with the export price decreases, it is difficult to find buyers. A client signed a contract at $6,000 per ton, but later demanded to lower it to $5,500.

At the end of 2019, the import price was relatively high, at $1,200 per ton. But the price unexpectedly fell to $1,000 per ton earlier this year and to $900 at some moments. The export price of finished products has also decreased, causing exporters to suffer.

According to the Vietnam Cashew Association (Vinacas), Vietnam imported 635,000 tons of raw cashew, a 12 percent decrease compared with the same period last year, 10-year low. Because of Covid-19, the transportation of goods from West Africa is interrupted regularly.

Deputy chair of Vinacas Dang Hoang Giang said the unexpected decrease of both raw and cashew nut prices has made it impossible for enterprises to balance production costs. As a result, they have had to cut the processing output or suspend operation.

Not only processors, but farmers have also suffered. Vinacas reported that the domestic raw cashew output increased in the first seven months of the year, but farmers incomes decreased considerably because of market price fluctuations.

In Binh Phuoc, the current cashew price is VND18,000-21,000 per kilogram, while it was VND30,000-32,000 in the same period last year.

Despite Covid-19, Vietnams cashew nut exports increased by 16 percent in H1 to 232,000 tons. However, the average export price decreased by 14 percent to $6,606 per ton.

The exports to the US, which buys 32 percent of Vietnams total exports, increased by 25 percent in quantity and 10 percent in value. Meanwhile, exports to China dropped by 30 percent and export turnover by 44 percent.

The US, China and Europe are the three biggest markets for Vietnams cashew nut exports.

Analysts said that the figures about exports in H1 did not truly reflect the market situation. The volume of export products with no specific destinations put in bonded warehouses is very high.

As clients tend to be choosier in quality, trade dispute cases have occurred and many export consignments were refused.

Vinacas said global demand is now unpredictable because of Covid-19, and cashew nuts are not essential goods.

Ngoc Ha

Small cashew nut processors shut down as raw material becomes too expensive Vietnams cashew industry has suffered heavily as raw material prices have increased sharply, while the finished product prices have decreased.
Mumbai, Aug 23 : A day after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probing Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death case, recreated the crime at his flat in Bandra, a team of the federal agency on Sunday visited a resort where he spent two months and also continued questioning his flatmate and the personal staffs.

The CBI team on Sunday morning arrived at the Waterstone resort and spent more than two hours.

During investigation, the SIT officials tried to determine how Sushant was behaving when he was at the resort.

Meanwhile, a team of forensic doctors arrived at the IAF DRDO guesthouse in Santacruz area.

Agency sources said that the doctors of the forensic team discussed the details of Saturday's findings from the late actor's flat and the doctors of Cooper hospital where his post-mortem was conducted on June 15.

The sources also said that Sushant's flatmate Siddharth Pithani, his cook Neeraj and helper Dipesh Sawant were also being questioned by the CBI team.

The CBI has questioned Pithani thrice earlier and Neeraj thrice since Thursday after the team arrived in Mumbai from Delhi.

The team is soon expected to also question Sushant's girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty and her family members in the coming days.

An agency source also said the CBI will ask for the call detail records of Sushant, Rhea and others.

The CBI and CFSL teams reached Mumbai on Thursday evening and were exempted from the mandatory quarantine by the BMC.

On August 6, after a recommendation by the Bihar government, the CBI had taken over the probe from the Bihar Police on the orders of the Central government following an FIR lodged by the deceased's father at Patna's Rajiv Nagar police station.

The case was registered against Rhea, her father Indrajit, mother Sandhya, brother Showik, Sushant's former manager Shruti Modi and house manager Samuel Miranda and unknown persons on the basis of K.K. Singh's complaint which was filed on July 25.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is also probing a money laundering angle into the death since July 31.

On Friday, the ED recorded the statement of Sushant's sister Priyanka Singh in Delhi.

Earlier, the financial probe agency had recorded the statement of Sushant's father, another sister Meetu Singh, besides Rhea, Showik, Indrajit, Miranda, Shruti Modi, Pithani, Rumi Jaffery and several others.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
Opioid-related drug-harm cases are sharply on the rise this year with potential opioid overdoses reaching record highs in the first six months of 2020 according to data from Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, Population and Public Health and Winnipeg Fire and Paramedic Services.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/8/2020 (515 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The opioid use really across the board has increased dramatically, really from about April-ish, April, May, to about now, said Cory Guest, public education co-ordinator with the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service. And the lethality of the drugs that were seeing is something that weve never seen before. (Graeme Roy / The Canadian Press files)

Opioid-related drug-harm cases are sharply on the rise this year with potential opioid overdoses reaching record highs in the first six months of 2020 according to data from Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, Population and Public Health and Winnipeg Fire and Paramedic Services.

More than 550 cases required Winnipeg Fire and Paramedic Services to administer naloxone  a drug administered to block the effects of an opioid overdose  between Jan. 1 and June 27 this year, the highest on record according to the August 2020 report. Apparent opioid overdoses reached all-time highs in May and June with more than 150 cases recorded each month.

More than 90 per cent of opioid overdoses were reportedly attributed to non-pharmaceutical opioids such as fentanyl, heroin and "down."

By contrast, the first six months of 2019 saw 212 opioid-related drug-harm calls, according to annual WFPS data, already a sharp increase from 64 calls in the first half of 2018.

WFPS reports administering naloxone to 909 patients thus far in 2020, already above the full-year total of 789 patients in 2019.

Cory Guest, public education co-ordinator with the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service told the Free Press earlier this month the WFPS has seen significant increases in drugs such as fentanyl since the beginning of this year.

Guest stopped short of connecting the 2020 opioid spike to the COVID-19 pandemic, though acknowledged it would be naive to think the crisis has not made an impact.

"The opioid use really across the board has increased dramatically, really from about April-ish, April, May, to about now," Guest said. "And the lethality of the drugs that were seeing is something that weve never seen before."

Guest noted while the drugs WFPS are encountering are not new, polysubstance use  when people use more than one drug at once  has been on the rise as well. The increased drug use and increased lethality has posed a challenge for paramedics, who have had to increase the starting dosage of naloxone to 10 times the level that would have been administered just two years ago.

Guest said drug use fluctuates over the years, with "high highs and low lows," so he isnt surprised by the surge in fentanyl cases.

Healthy Sexuality and Harm Reduction (HSHR), who track community-reported opioid overdoses, indicated in the report that 169 apparent overdoses were treated with take-home naloxone kits between Jan. 1 and Aug. 6. More than 60 per cent of apparent overdoses recorded this year involved men, the WRHA said, and over 90 per cent took place in private residences.

The release noted in nearly half of all overdose events reported by community members, 911 was not called, something the citys health officials cautions against.

The WHRA recommends drug users and those who support them call 911 if witnessing or experiencing a drug overdose. The Good Samaritan Overdose Protection Act protects those involved from drug possession charges and breach of probation charges.

Health authorities also recommend having a take-home naloxone kit and getting overdose and naloxone training.

After losing her son to a fentanyl overdose in 2014, Arlene Last-Kolb of Overdose Awareness Manitoba has been advocating for supports for drug users, including a push to have naloxone designated as an unscheduled substance, which would make the drug readily accessible over-the-counter for those who need it.

"We need to unschedule naloxone so that people dont have to worry about only getting one or two kits," Last-Kolb said Saturday.

"It has to be much, much easier for peers (of drug users) to get it. So when I look at this paper, what I see is I see a lot of people that arent using alone because obviously somebodys been able to phone for help. But what we dont see is the fatalities, and those people could be people that are using alone."

As the drugs get more fatal, Last-Kolb worries the dosage in a take-home naloxone kit may not be enough to stop an overdose, which is part of why shes advocating for the drug to be more widely available.

"It is not good enough to tell us that there is an increase in overdoses and then not do anything about it. So what you need to do is you need to say, OK, we have a lot of overdoses. We need naloxone. It needs to be everywhere," she said.

"If youre not going to offer a safer supply or something safer, or deal with it in some way, then you have to give people the life-saving antidote. And it has to be out and around for everybody to see."

Last-Kolb notes the uptick in overdoses is likely connected to the COVID-19 pandemic and availability of CERB, and said families of drug users have been "going through a lot of hell" as the drugs get more unpredictable.

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"(The report) is just telling us about how many people use drugs and overdose, but we really dont care enough to give them the antidote or to give them as much as they need," Last-Kolb said.

"So why are you telling us? What is the point? We know that CERB has something to do with it, obviously, right. We know all of that. So again, nobodys blaming anybody. All were saying is just make the antidote unscheduled and you know, its easy peasy."

The WRHA recommends those who use drugs do not do so alone, and to start with the most unpredictable substance at reduced dosages if using more than one.

with files from Katie May

julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jsrutgers
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-24 04:21:59|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump will be speaking every night of the upcoming 2020 Republican National Convention (RNC), a campaign official said on Sunday.

"You'll have President Trump speaking at various parts for each of the nights," Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller said during an appearance on NBC News' "Meet the Press."

Miller said the RNC, which will run from Monday to Thursday, will focus on what he called "all the accomplishments that we've had over the last four years with President Trump and what the president's second-term vision is going to look like."

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are expected to be in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the RNC's first night Monday when party delegates officially nominate them for the 2020 Republican presidential ticket.

On Thursday, Trump will formally accept the nomination in a speech from the South Lawn of the White House, while Pence will deliver his acceptance speech at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland.

Shortly after Miller's interview, the Trump campaign announced speakers for the RNC, including other members of the Trump family -- first lady Melania Trump, the president's adult children: Ivanka, Tiffany, Donald Jr., and Eric -- and Eric's wife Lara Trump.

Other speakers will include Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and former Governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley, and former New York City Mayor and Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani.

The four-day 2020 Democratic National Convention (DNC), which was held virtually, concluded last week, in which former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden formally accepted the party's presidential nomination this year.

Viewership for the DNC was down about 17 percent on average this year across all four nights compared to 2016, according to Nielsen Media Research, a U.S. firm that measures media audiences.

Biden's campaign press secretary TJ Ducklo tweeted on Friday that more than 122 million people watched the DNC live across broadcast, cable and digital platforms, adding that the events had 128.7 million video views on social media. Enditem
The US President Donald Trump will hold a press conference on August 23 to announce "a major therapeutic breakthrough" regarding coronavirus, according to White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany.

McEnany said that President Trump will hold a press conference on Sunday night, which would be attended by the US Health chief Alex Azar and Food & Drug Administration (FDA) head Stephen Hahn.

"News conference with President @realDonaldTrump at 6 pm tomorrow concerning a major therapeutic breakthrough on the China Virus. Secretary Azar and Dr. Hahn will be in attendance," McEnany said in a tweet.

The US is worst-hit by coronavirus pandemic with 5,842,153 confirmed cases, while the death toll stands at 180,191, according to the Johns Hopkins University's tracker.

Earlier on Saturday, Trump had accused the Food and Drug Administration for trying to delay human trials of vaccine candidates against the coronavirus disease until after November 3, the day the United States goes to polls.

"The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives! @SteveFDA," he wrote on Twitter tagging FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn.

As per latest update on coronavirus vaccine development, a US pharma company has successfully tested a FDA-approved over the counter ointment as the first line of defence against the deadly virus. As per the lab report, no infectious virus was detected after 30 seconds of T3X treatment.

"We believe this will be a breakthrough that will reduce the likelihood of becoming infected with coronavirus through the nose, which is where most cases are contracted," said Dr Brian Huber, CEO and founder of Advanced Penetration Technology, which is based out of Indiana and Texas, reported PTI.

Also Read: US Presidential election 2020: Trump campaign releases 1st commercial for Indian-Americans featuring PM Modi

Also Read: TikTok to take legal action against trump administration over app's ban in US
Kathmandu: As China continues to wield its influence over various countries, Beijing's nexus with the top establishment in the Nepal government has raised serious doubts over the Himalayan nation's 'autonomy' and 'ability to take independent decisions', according to a report in Global Watch Analysis.

According to an article by Roland Jacquard, the author explains China's policy of corrupting the political class of a country, especially those who are not economically strong. He also details how the foreign policy of Nepal, the latest entrant to fall victim to China's strategic expansionism, has veered towards pushing the interests of Beijing.

In January last year, the day when China condemned United States' move to slap economic sanctions on Venezuela, the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) also issued a similar statement denouncing Washington and its allies for intervening in Venezuela's internal matters. This was probably the first time Kathmandu had taken a stand pertaining to US policies in Latin America.

Another worrying and trend noticed in Nepal is the deteriorating human rights condition of Tibetan refugees residing in Nepal. The Himalayan nation shares a long border with Tibet and is home to over 20,000 Tibetan exiles, many of whom coming into the country after the Dalai Lama took refuge in India in 1959.

According to a recent report submitted to the United Nations (UN), two human rights groups -- Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet and the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights -- have noted that the new arrivals of Tibetans to Nepal often face threats of being deported to China.

With the growing links between the Nepal government and China, Tibetan refugees are barred from holding elections to elect members of their refugee associations or celebrate the Dalai Lama's birthday, Jacquard writes in the article.

Attempts to protest against Chinese persecution are met with a heavy-handed response by Nepali authorities, says the writer.

To ensure that the top establishment of Nepal carries out China's bidding, the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu has been steadily building a network of loyalists, and doles are given out to them, many times on the pretext of legitimate jobs undertaken for the embassy.

For instance, the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu awarded a contract of 1.5 million Nepali rupees to Rajan Bhattarai, a member of the NCP and who is currently Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli's Foreign Affairs Advisor, for a research paper on Nepal-India relations. When the initiative started in October 2017, Bhattarai was a member of the Eminent Persons Group on Nepal-India Relations and the Chairman of the Nepal Institute for Policy Studies.

According to the contract, Bhattarai's wife Geeta Gautam while he would oversee the project. The payment for the duty was sent to Bhattarai's account in Nabil Bank.

"The contract was what the Chinese would call 'a win-win', as it not only found a way to engage a senior NCP functionary in a financial transaction, it also came with an added understanding of Nepal's policies towards India," the writer states.

Bhattarai was appointed as Foreign Affairs Advisor to Oli in November 2018. While it is not clear whether China played a role in his appointment, what is interesting to note that despite his position in the Prime Minister's Office, Bhattarai continued to keep contact with Li Yingqiu, a Chinese diplomat posted in the Nepali capital.

"With Nepal's Prime Minister's Office, including its senior advisors, known to have established a transactional relationship with China, it raises serious doubts about the autonomy of the government and its ability to take independent decisions," Jacquard says in the article.
United States-led international coalition troops withdrew from Iraq's Taji military base on Sunday and handed it over to Iraqi security forces, Reuters witnesses and the coalition said.

The base, 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad, had been the site of frequent rocket attacks by Iran-backed militias targeting US-led troops in recent months.

"The movement of coalition military personnel is part of a long-range plan coordinated with the government of Iraq," the coalition said in a statement, adding that Camp Taji has historically held up to 2,000 coalition members, most of whom have departed this summer.

Remaining coalition troops will depart in the coming days after finalising the handing over of equipment to Iraqi security forces, it added.

This was the eighth transfer of a coalition portion of an Iraqi base back to Iraqi forces, it said.

The withdrawal came days after US President Donald Trump redoubled his promise to withdraw the few US troops still in the country. The United States has had about 5,000 troops stationed in the country and coalition allies a further 2,500.

Iraq's parliament had voted this year for the departure of foreign troops from Iraq and US and other coalition troops have been leaving as part of a drawdown.

The vote came after a US air strike on Baghdad airport killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is headed to the Middle East, the first of two senior US officials to travel to the region this week as the Trump administration presses an ambitious Arab-Israeli peace push.

Pompeo departs Sunday for Israel, Gulf Arab states and Sudan. Hell be followed to many of the same destinations later in the week by President Donald Trumps senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, diplomats said.

The separate visits come as the administration seeks to capitalise on momentum from the historic agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates to establish diplomatic relations.

In addition to Israel and Sudan, the State Department said Pompeo would travel to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Officials said stops in Oman and Qatar are also possible.

The US commitment to peace, security, and stability in Israel, Sudan, and among Gulf countries has never been stronger than under President Trumps leadership, the State Department said in a statement announcing Pompeos trip.

Kushner and his team are expected to visit Israel, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Morocco on their trip, which is scheduled to begin at the end of the week, according to the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the itinerary has not yet been finalized or publicly announced.

In Israel, Pompeo will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss regional security issues related to Irans malicious influence, establishing and deepening Israels relationships in the region, as well as cooperation in protecting the US and Israeli economies from malign investors, the State Department said.

Malign investors is a reference to China, which is seeking to gain a commercial foothold in Israel.

In Khartoum, Pompeo will meet Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok to discuss continued US support for the civilian-led transitional government and express support for deepening the Sudan-Israel relationship, the department said. Sudan is eager to be removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism and normalising ties with Israel would be a step toward that goal.

However, removal from the terrorism list is also dependent on completion of a compensation agreement for victims of the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. A tentative deal struck several months ago is still awaiting finalization.

Neither Pompeos nor Kushners trips is expected to result in announcements of immediate breakthroughs, but both are aimed at building on the success of the Israel-UAE agreement by finalizing at least one, and potentially more, normalisation deals between Arab countries and Israel in the near future.

The administration has forged ahead with those efforts over Palestinian objections and without any indication the Palestinians are willing to enter negotiations with Israel. The Arab world had long held that a settlement to the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a prerequisite for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.

Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced on August 13 they would establish full diplomatic relations, in a US-brokered deal that required Israel to halt its contentious plan to annex occupied West Bank land sought by the Palestinians.

The agreement was a key foreign policy victory for Trump as he seeks reelection and reflected a changing Middle East in which shared concerns about archenemy Iran have largely overtaken traditional Arab support for the Palestinians.

Last week, the administration took the controversial step in the UN Security Council of triggering the restoration of all international sanctions on Iran, something that only Israel and the Gulf Arab nations have publicly supported. Thirteen of the 15 council members, including US allies Britain, France and Germany, have rejected the move.
Kolkata: The BJP will not project any chief ministerial candidate for West Bengal Assembly polls and bank on Prime Minister Narendra Modis development plank to fight against the TMC, the party's Bengal minder, Kailash Vijayvargiya, said.

The saffron camp will pick its chief minister, once voted to power, he said on Sunday.

"As of now, it has been decided that we wont project anyone as our chief ministerial face. We will fight under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and win the election. Once voted to power, the legislative party in consultation with central leadership will decide on its chief ministerial choice," Vijayvargiya told PTI.

Asked if the party has anyone in mind for the post, he said that "time has the answer".

"Right now, our target is to win 220-230 seats in the 294-member Assembly. We will achieve our target as we did in the Lok Sabha polls. The issue of projecting a CM face won't be a factor," he said.

Incidentally, in 2016, too, the BJP had fought the Assembly polls without any CM face. But a lot of water has flown under the Howrah Bridge over the last four years, with the saffron party having emerged as the prime challenger of the ruling TMC in Bengal, by pushing the traditional opposition parties -- the CPI (M) and the Congress -- to distant third and fourth positions.

The saffron camp reached its all-time high in Bengal politics last year when it stunned political pundits by bagging 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state, four less than the ruling TMC, and with a staggering vote share of 41 per cent.

According to BJP sources, the decision of anointing a chief ministerial face before elections could be a double-edged sword for the party, so it would "be wiser to rely on the negatives of the opposition camp" to win the elections.

"We will fight elections on the development plank of Narendra Modi and by highlighting the failures of the TMC government. Elections are won and lost depending on the performance of the incumbent government. That is what had happened in 1977 and 2011 when the Left Front was voted to power and also when it lost the polls," a senior BJP leader said.

In several states where the BJP has seized power, such as Haryana, Maharashtra, Manipur, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, the party didn't have any CM candidate during the polls, he said.

Noted political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty also echoed the same sentiments.

"If you take a look at elections, both at the state-level and the Centre, a face is not always that important, it's the negative votes and anti-incumbency against the present-day government that makes the difference," Chakraborty told PTI.

According to state BJP sources, a few names have been doing rounds in the party, but the leadership is yet to take a final call on the matter and will wait for the poll results.

"Dilip Ghosh tops the chart, as it is during his tenure as the state BJP chief that the party witnessed such a meteoric rise. He has a strong RSS background, too. The names of Swapan Dasgupta, MP and a noted member of the BJP intellectual cell, and Tathagatha Roy, former governor and ex-state president, have also been doing the rounds. But nothing has been finalized.

"Now, whether the party top brass has any hidden trump card up its sleeves, only time will tell," a senior state BJP leader said.

When contacted, Ghosh said, "The BJP in Bengal is not driven by an individual, unlike the TMC." Tathagatha Roy, who is hoping to make a comeback in active politics, and Dasgupta declined to comment.

According to BJP sources, the anointment of a chief ministerial candidate would open up a pandora's box in the party's state unit.

"The issue of zeroing in on a CM can cut both ways; if you anoint someone, he will have to carry the onus of both victory and defeat. Secondly, the other factions might not take it positively, and it might adversely affect our poll prospects," another senior state BJP leader said.

The Trinamool Congress, however, feels it would be tough for the opposition to dislodge the Mamata Banerjee government without projecting a credible face as her contender.

"Bengal has always voted for a credible leader, be it in the opposition camp or the ruling party. This has been the trend since the days of B C Roy, Siddhartha Sankar Roy, Jyoti Basu, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and now Mamata Banerjee. The BJP not having a credible face against Banerjee will be an added advantage for us," senior TMC MP and spokesperson Sougata Roy told PTI.

Senior state Congress leader Pradip Bhattacharya said a party needs to depend on its organizational strength and the "anti-government wave" to win elections, in the absence of a CM candidate.

The CPI (M), however, feels that more than the face, it is the "policies and the ideologies" of a party that make all the difference.

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 fire broke out at a chemical



company in an industrial area of Dombivli township here in on Sunday, a fire official said.

There was no report of any casualty, he said.

A motor at the crusher in the company's polymer department got overheated, resulting in the fire around 12.30 pm, fireman Maruti Khilari said.

The fire then spread to other departments of the unit located at the Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) area in Dombivli, he said.

There were at least four workers in the plant at that time and they ran out to safety as the fire spread to the other departments, he said.

Four fire engines were rushed to the spot and the blaze was brought under control after about two hours, he said.

Sparks from heated motors many a times cause fire, he added.

(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 story of how Netflixs ambitious new series, The Eddy (2020), came to be is every bit as beguiling as the eight-part series itself. It all began in 2014 with veteran Mississippi-born musician Glen Ballard, who co-wrote and produced Alanis Morissettes 1995 Grammy Award-winning album, Jagged Little Pill, and whose eclectic list of collaborators makes up something of a Whos Who of recent popular music (the Pointer Sisters, Annie Lennox, Michael Jackson, Katy Perry, and many more). A scene from the Paris-based, jazz-themed series The Eddy. Credit:Lou Faulon Drawing on a soulful song hed written called The Eddy, about a sanctuary where musicians could come together with an appreciative audience, he approached producer Alan Poul (Six Feet Under, MotherFatherSon) with the idea of developing it into a series. He and Poul (who ended up directing two episodes) then turned to composer-pianist Randy Kerber, who has contributed to hundreds of films (including The Color Purple and La La Land) and who ended up playing Randy in the series. Kerber and Ballard quickly got together to write more than 40 songs that might find a suitably intimate setting. Maybe somewhere in Paris, they thought. A place called The Eddy. With Poul pitching the project to Netflix Europe, which by happy coincidence was in the market for a multi-lingual co-production, the next step was to find a writer. Enter Englishman Jack Thorne (Dirt Music, the recent stage adaptation of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and The Accident, on ABC iView). Thorne listened to the songs, took on board the ideas, and went away and wrote the outline for an eight-part series centred on a jazz club in Paris 13th arrondissement and dealing with the daily struggles of the people who come together there.

Its an area that stands apart from the postcard Paris, and the series evokes it brilliantly, a place where wanderers from Eastern Europe rub shoulders with emigres from North Africa, the walls are plastered with bold graffiti and torn posters, and the sounds of construction are all around. A new world in the making for those who can survive the bedlam. Theres also a murder in the first episode. Serbian gangsters lurk. Alan Poul and Andre Holland on the set of The Eddy. Credit:Lou Faulon Next on board was Damien Chazelle, the French-American director of Whiplash (2014) and La La Land (2016), whod spent several years living in the 13th arrondissement. Chazelle cites his chief reference points for the series as Louis Malles Lift to the Scaffold (1958), with its Miles Davis score, Jean-Luc Godards Breathless (1960), and Jacques Demys melancholy musicals with Michel Legrand (most notably The Umbrellas of Cherbourg). And he was more than open to the idea of bringing the gritty home-made stylistics of the early French New Wave films to a contemporary subject. He happily took on the direction of the first two episodes, laying the foundations for the series free-wheeling, hand-held approach, before passing the baton on to Poul and two female directors with Moroccan connections, Laila Marrakchi (Marseille) and Houda Benyamina, for the remaining six. Amandla Stenberg and Andre Holland in The Eddy. Credit:Lou Faulon The cast assembled for The Eddy came from all over. Andre Holland (The Knick) plays the famous jazz pianist whos left the US to find a new way in Paris. Amandla Stenberg (The Hunger Games) is the troubled teenage daughter who arrives on his doorstep, having fled what she describes as WASP-town USA. Expatriate Australian Melissa George is her LA-based mother. Joanna Kulig (Cold War), the bands vocalist, has left her home in Poland to build a career; Leila Bekhti is the wife of the clubs business manager (played by her real-life husband, Tahar Rahim); and the band members are all played by accomplished musicians (Kerber, trumpeteer Ludovic Louis, bass player Damian Nueva Cortes, drummer Lada Obradovic, and saxophonist Jowee Omicil). None of them is a professional actor, but they perform live, and often.
We have some questions for you. Well, actually the federal government does, but your answers are important to all of us.

It will take less than 10 minutes of your time to the questions on the 2020 Census  and painlessly help your community for 10 years.

If you dont answer soon, a census taker will show up on your doorstep to do it face-to-face.

Theres still time to fill out the Census form online at www.2020census.gov. If you dont have a computer or Wi-Fi access, the Dauphin County Library System offers both for free. Information is kept strictly confidential and will not be used to check citizenship or other public records.

The national response rate for the census thus far is only 62.7 percent. Pennsylvanias rate is slightly better, at 65.8 percent; Dauphin Countys stands at 64.9 percent. We always aim for perfection, so we are shooting for a perfect score.

Every resident missed translates into more than $2,000 in federal funds for local needs lost.

This money is devoted to school lunches, health care, housing, jobs, and more.

The census headcount also brings representation to the Pennsylvania General Assembly and U.S. Congress, at a time when we are fighting for racial equityand our very existence.

Remember that all census canvassers will have IDs, and will NEVER ask for your Social Security number, money, credit card, or political donations. If they do, its a scam. Please learn more at https://2020census.gov/en/avoiding-fraud.html.

The final countdown is on. Instead of feeling like a number, feel like you matter. Remember, 10 minutes of your time means 10 years of federal help. Let everyone know how much Dauphin County matters!

Dauphin County Commissioners Jeff Haste, Mike Pries and George P. Hartwick, III
A team of Central Bureau of Investigation officials, along with forensic experts, visited the house of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput in Bandra on Saturday to reconstruct the sequence of events before he was found dead on June 14, people familiar with the developments said. The team, which was accompanies by Rajputs cook Neeraj Singh and roommate Siddharth Pithani, spent more than five hours in the actors flat, the people added. The three were present in the flat when Rajput was found hanging in his room. The team first went to the buildings terrace and then entered the flat.

From outside, they were seen clicking pictures of the bedroom and shooting video. The CBI team was investigating whether suicide was possible at the spot, said the official quoted above.

Earlier in the day, CBI officials visited Cooper Hospital at 11 am to meet the doctors who conducted the autopsy.

On Friday, investigators hadquestioned Neeraj Singh, the actors cook at the DRDOs guest house in Mumbai. Rajputs house manager Samuel Miranda was questioned in the guest house of a private company at Marol in Andheri. The CBI team also collected documents from Mumbai police including forensic report, post mortem report, statements of more than 60 people that Mumbai police has recorded in the case, and other material evidence, a police official said. The team als o collected the three mobile phones that Rajput used, his laptop, clothes, blanket, bedsheets, a green kurta, a glass used to drink juice and CCTV footage of his house and building.

On Wednesday, the SC allowed the CBI to continue with its probe into the case filed against actress Rhea Chakraborty and her family for allegedly abetting the suicide of Rajput.
This week, upon accepting her historic appointment to become the minister of finance, Chrystia Freeland encouraged women across Canada to keep going and continue to break glass ceilings of their own.

It will take more than hope and hard work for Canadian women to truly follow in Freelands footsteps  we need to get serious about child care as a national priority.

Canadian policy-makers must expand their thinking around the funding and oversight required to bring safe, affordable, and accessible child care for all. There is no equitable recovery plan that doesnt include game-changing short and long-term child care proposals.

Parents, political leaders of all parties, activists, policy experts, and business leaders are finally speaking in unison about child care as a national crisis requiring a national response.

Weve yet to successfully follow through on tackling child care with our collective power. Prime Minister Paul Martin came close with a funded national child care program that was signed onto by the provinces but that arrived at the very end of 14 years of Liberal governance.

Kathleen Wynne had an ambitious child care agenda in her 2018 budget but was defeated in the election later that year. The federal Liberals need to commit meaningfully to universal child care now and not at the very end of their mandate.

The COVID-19 pandemic has further complicated the informal intergenerational family care networks that once hid the faults in our publicly funded systems. Families have been left to struggle on an individual basis, and help is needed.

Landing safe and affordable child care shouldnt feel like winning the lottery. Wait lists for child care spots shouldnt be thousands of names long and require parents to register for child care the moment a doctor confirms they are expecting. While this is an issue that touches all parents, the gendered impacts cannot be ignored.

As Freeland is briefed on the competing economic interests across sectors, and considers the disproportionate impact on women, I hope she steers us toward unprecedented child care solutions. Her uniquely strong relationships with provincial leaders could help in co-ordinating the effort across jurisdictional lines.

So far the language Freeland is choosing demonstrates an understanding of the problem. She has made the values guiding her leadership known and spoken of the importance of a green and inclusive recovery. The language of our leaders matters, as does the delivery of good governance.

A budget is a values statement, and one that determines what our society will look like for years to come. Moving forward, child care must be a core pillar of our recovery planning.

In order to find and construct the necessary immediate space and long-term infrastructure, ensure those working in child care are appropriately protected through COVID-19 and compensated moving forward, and deliver streamlined and dependable service offerings across the country, urgent action is needed.

In the long journey in pursuit of a national response toward equitable child care delivery, perhaps it will be Freeland who is finally able to get us over the summit.

The great news is that the government need not reinvent the wheel on child care. Quebec, the second most populace province, already has an excellent universal child care system. A 10-year academic review concluded it, increased the labour force participation and annual weeks worked for mothers with at least a child aged 1 to 4 years compared to mothers in the same situation in the rest of Canada.

In Ontario, full day kindergarten has been implemented successfully and can serve as a foundation for a universal child care system. In British Columbia, the province with the third-lowest labour force participation for women with a child under 6, they are implementing a universal child care pilot program that has been so successful, the government is extending it to 2021.

When the speech from the throne is delivered a month from today, I will be listening closely for a clear statement placing child care as the central national priority it should have always been.

The trajectory of a generation of womens lives and careers  and in turn, our countrys economic future  depends on it.
Silver City is a hidden gem.

The Southwest New Mexico town has its own unique style. This is due in part to the number of artists living in the area, who push boundaries with imagination.

Though, like many other towns, Silver City has seen a big impact due to the pandemic as it banks heavily on tourism.

For Kevin Lenkner, executive director of Mimbres Arts Council, Silver Citys public art scene is huge.

The public art in Silver ranges from the painted murals to tiled mosaics to the architectural signs, Lenkner says. This is what really sets us apart from other towns. Its our unique personality.

Lenkner grew up in Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, where the public art scene is fantastic and full of big name artists.

Whats interesting about Silver is that the art seeps into everything, he says. Everything about the nontraditional is what makes it unique.

Take a day trip to Silver City and Lenkner says there will be plenty to see. Here are his choices  and of course they are outside, so visitors can properly socially distance.

1 and 2. Downtown Silver City is home to more than 20 murals. The youth mural program transforms the vision of local artists into an educational opportunity for the youth artists. Local professionals artists are brought in to work with the students in schools to design and produce the murals.

Lenkner says for each mural, students will conduct interviews of area residents and historians to incorporate their history and culture into the theme.

The mural project is one of those things that you cant just pick one, he says. The downtown area is full of the murals that give a sense of history and spark conversation.

3. In 2019, the finishing touches were put on the Kelly Street Project in Silver City. The project includes a mountain landscape to the north and a selfie wall on the south side.

Artist Jean-Robert P. Beffort was involved in the project.

He has this psychedelic style, Lenkner says. In one mural he incorporated some Billy the Kid images. He did a welcome to Silver City mural that has become a place where you can take selfies against the backdrop. Its innovative and draws a crowd.

4. Lenkner sees architecture as a form of public art as well.

One of the great theaters is the El Sol Theater, which is now owned by Virus Theater, he says. Its art deco. Its not as fancy as the KiMo Theater in Albuquerque. Theyve done a great job of restoring it.

El Sol Theater was built in downtown Silver City in 1934 as a movie theater but was abandoned in the late 1950s. Virus Theater purchased the building in 2015 and began fundraising to remodel it into a performing arts center. It is located at 406 North Bullard Street.

They also just re-did the gate to the theater, Lenkner says. It really compliments the newly repainted facade.

5. The last on Lenkners list is another theater  The Silco.

The theater began its life as the Airdome mid-1900s, and became the Princess in 1914. The Princess featured The Man from the West, one of several movies made in Silver City by Romaine Fielding, relying on local talent.

In 1923, the Princess was torn down and a new theater, The Liberty Theater, was built. To reflect the economic drivers of the community (Silver and Copper) the name was changed in 1926 and continued to operate as The Silco Theater until the early 1960s.

Silver City MainStreet re-opened the theater as a facility for events and meetings in January 2006, with a vision to restore The Silco to its 1926 Art Deco glory.

The amount of work that has been done to restore the theater to its glory is amazing, Lenkner says. The neon sign at night is a work of art in its own right. This brings back another time.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Editors note: The fourth Sunday of each month, Journal Arts Editor Adrian Gomez tells the stories behind some of the hidden gems you can see across the state in Gimme Five.
Catherine McGuffey, 59, stood waving American flags in front of the post office in Silver Spring, glad to feel like she was finally doing something after spending weeks glued to her phone. Even her husband had grown tired of her obsessive reading about the Postal Service. But she found it hard to think about anything else these days  especially when her 88-year-old father relies on the mail to receive prescription medicine and she had plans to vote by mail in November.
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd August, 2020) Qatar expects to develop military cooperation with Russia, Colonel Khaled al-Sayyid al-Khajeri, who heads the Qatari delegation at the sixth international defense industry forum Army-2020 in Russia, told Sputnik on Sunday.

"God willing, there will be cooperation," the military said when asked about prospects of military cooperation between Russia and Qatar.

The colonel noted that the Qatari delegation arrived to attend the forum for the first time at the invitation of the Russian Defense Ministry.

"We arrived to participate in the exhibition, the forum. The Qatari team will take part in the competition.

We will visit the exhibition and discover the latest equipment and Russian weapons that have been produced," al-Khajeri added.

Russia hosts the International Army Games annually for military teams from across the world to come together and compete in various disciplines, such as a tank race, a sniper shooting contest, a flight crews competition and a combat ship crews competition, among others.

This year, the event is scheduled to begin this Sunday and run through September 5, with over 70 countries participating in the forum. A total of 250 teams from across the world  about 5,000 people  are expected to take part in the event.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-24 05:59:36|Editor: huaxia

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Investigators work outside the nightclub where the stampede happened in Lima, Peru, Aug. 23, 2020. A botched police raid of a nightclub in Peru's capital Lima left at least 13 people dead and another six injured as panicked clients stampeded toward the exit, authorities said on Sunday. According to an Interior Ministry statement, about 120 people were gathered for a party inside the Thomas Restobar in the Los Olivos district, despite the current ban on social gatherings due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. (Xinhua)

LIMA, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- A botched police raid of a nightclub in Peru's capital Lima left at least 13 people dead and another six injured as panicked clients stampeded toward the exit, authorities said on Sunday.

According to an Interior Ministry statement, about 120 people were gathered for a party inside the Thomas Restobar in the Los Olivos district, despite the current ban on social gatherings due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Around 9 p.m. local time Saturday, "personnel from the National Police's Green Squad were alerted by the neighbors" to the illegal gathering and went to investigate.

"Faced with the police raid, which did not use any type of weapon or tear gas, those attending the party tried to escape through the only exit door, getting trampled and trapped between the door and a staircase in the premises," the ministry said.

Three of those injured were police officers "who were trying to free and help the trapped people," the ministry added.

"The Interior Ministry deeply regrets the death of 13 people as a result of the criminal irresponsibility of an unscrupulous businessman, and extends its deepest condolences to their families," the statement said.

Peru's President Martin Vizcarra lamented the incident, saying "I am sorry and sad for the people and the families of the people who lost their lives."

Vizcarra said he felt "anger and scorn" toward those responsible because "they are risking the lives of people" for profit, and called for "a rigorous investigation, and a fine for the owners and organizers of such events that will serve as an example."

The president noted gatherings are temporarily banned to contain the COVID-19 outbreak, which has infected some 585,236 people and killed 27,453 in Peru, according to the Health Ministry.

Officials arrested 23 people, and are looking to identify the owners of the club and the party organizers. Of the 23 people arrested, 15 tested positive to a rapid COVID-19 test, said Vizcarra. Enditem
New Zealand gunman to face victims at sentencing

The sentencing hearing for Brenton Tarrant, the Australian former fitness instructor who killed 51 people and wounded 40 last year at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, will begin on Monday.

The Christchurch courtroom where the proceedings will take place over four days will be filled with people whose lives he sought to destroy in an act of hate and terrorism unlike anything the country had ever seen.

At least 66 survivors plan to deliver victims statements, either read aloud or submitted in writing. Mr. Tarrant, who has pleaded guilty to murder, attempted murder and terrorism, may have the opportunity to address the families of the victims.

He is expected to be sentenced to life in prison, possibly without the eligibility for parole.

A message: Wasseim Alsati, 36, a barber who was shot along with his daughter Alen, 6, at the Al Noor mosque, said he wanted to give Mr. Tarrant a message: You didnt break us.
Sarah Edmondson in 'The Vow' Credit - HBO

NXIVM was the ideal tabloid story. A multi-level marketing company whose rhetoric of self-improvement and building a better world concealed a secret sex cult, the organization boasted a startling number of high-profile members: TV actors, acclaimed filmmakers, heiresses. At its center was Keith Raniere, an enigmatic guru known to his followers as Vanguard, who was convicted in 2019 of multiple feloniessex trafficking, racketeering, possession of child pornography and forced labor conspiracy among them. Nearly two years earlier, the full extent of NXIVMs abuses had come to light in a jaw-dropping New York Times report built around a nightmarish account of an initiation in which members of the alleged sex cult were held down and branded with a cauterizing device. The brand contained the initials of Raniere and his accomplice, Smallville star Allison Mack.

Along with concern for the victims, respect for the survivors who went on the record, and rage over the sexual exploitation of women that had already stoked a then-nascent Me Too movement, the expose generated plenty of schadenfreude. How could so many smart, beautiful, successful young women subject themselves to such transparently abusive behavior? Didnt joining a cult mean that something was, on a fundamental level, wrong with you? And wasnt this, when you really thought about it, precisely the kind of catastrophe you open yourself up to when youre selfish enough to pursue self-actualization at all costs? The Vowa humane and engrossing, if occasionally frustrating, HBO docuseries from filmmakers Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer (The Great Hack, The Square) that debuts on Aug. 23goes beyond the sensational headlines and the snap judgments to reveal how NXIVM came to wield such monstrous power over its most loyal adherents.

Participants in a NXIVM program Courtesy of HBO

NXIVM was, seemingly by design, a complex organizationone whose story must have been difficult to tell. It dates back to the late 1990s and involves small groups nested within larger divisions, each with its own hierarchy. It encompasses several cohorts of Raniere deputies and mingles a pyramidal business model with philosophical and psychological teachings, as well as the interpersonal bonds of sex, love and friendship. Noujaim and Amer make the vast narrative manageable by focusing on two protagonists who ascended to the top of the organization before uncovering its darkest secrets. Mark Vicente (who helped make the buzzy 2004 documentary What the Bleep Do We Know?, a mostly credulous dive into the controversial realm of quantum mysticism) was drawn into the world of NXIVM in the mid-00s via Executive Success Programs, its signature leadership seminars. Enchanted by its methods, he grew close to Raniere and was eventually appointed to the companys executive board. It was Vicente who recommended ESP to the series other main character, Canadian actor Sarah Edmondson, whose harrowing revelations about life in the so-called sex cult known alternately as DOS or The Vow anchored the Times report.

Story continues

Instead of diving straight into the tawdriest allegations, the directors concentrate in the first two episodes (out of nine total) on Vicente and Edmondsons happier years with NXIVM. This allows The Vow to reproduce the wonder they felt upon encountering Ranieres teachings, which seemingly owe much to Stoic philosophy and to Freuds belief that repression drives neuroses. ESP participants learned to lean into deep-seated fear, anxiety and discomfort, in order to overcome the so-called limiting beliefs that kept them from seizing control of their lives. One representative Keith-ism holds that comfort is like an addiction. It is imperative that viewers understand this before we can begin to imagine why otherwise intelligent women would offer up humiliating collateral in exchange for the privilege of serving as slaves to female masters, who controlled everything from the slaves bedtimes to their daily caloric intake, in a hierarchy that led all the way up to Raniere. If you believe that suffering is the key to strength, then sadomasochism can easily be sold back to you as a tool for empowerment.

Mark Vicente and Sarah Edmondson HBO

While they touch on other aspects of NXIVMfrom a quirky group social life that revolved around Ranieres beloved recreational volleyball games near its headquarters in New Yorks Capital District and an annual summer-camp retreat called V-Week to accusations that the company was a pyramid schemethe filmmakers spend the most time dissecting the collective psyche of a cult that claimed, paradoxically, to foster individualism and logical thought. In doing so, they craft a gripping, real-life psychological thriller that restores the dignity of Edmondson and the many other women who fell prey to DOS. As Barry Meier, who wrote the Times expose, explains to Noujaim and Amer, this isnt a story about people who are egregiously flawed or desperate or lonely or gullible. Its about how extraordinarily vulnerable we [all] are, as people.

The directors underscore this point with secondary characters who come across as especially sharp: Vicentes and Edmondsons spouses, a former romantic partner of Ranieres who helped him build ESP and even Catherine Oxenberg, the Dynasty actor, who introduced her daughter India Oxenberg to NXIVM before learning the truth and trying to rescue the young woman from DOS. An impressive archive of audio and video, which captures private conversations among Raniere and his flock along with seminars and casual hangouts, supplements footage the filmmakers began shooting in 2017, when they joined their subjects. Perhaps in part because Noujaim is also an alum of ESP seminars, empathy and respect suffuse each portrait.

Whats missing from this insider account (or, at least, the six episodes provided for review) is any broader perspective on NXIVM. The groups demographics are fascinatingnot just in terms of gender, but also in its appeal to upper-middle-class professionals and wealthy elites, the overwhelming whiteness of its membership as evident in archival footage and its apparently liberal politics. (One participant recalls hearing DOS framed, ridiculously, as a feminist response to the misogyny of the 2016 Presidential election.) When several interviewees remark that the support, camaraderie and commitment to living a good life that they found in their fellow travelers was like nothing theyd experienced before, it raises the question of whether Raniere was able to get away with his crimes for so long because the community he created was filling some sort of void at the center of contemporary existence. Interviewing a few outside experts in fields related to these topics might have helped to extract more universal resonance from this extremely specific saga. But even without that insight, The Vow does a service to its subjects by humanizing their plightand to its audience by helping us understand.
Over 9,200 candidates on Sunday will get a fresh chance to be employed as physical training instructors (PTIs) in Haryana, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling.

The controversial selections of 1,983 PTIs by the Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC) in 2010 during the Congress rule were set aside by the apex court on April 8, paving the way for a fresh recruitment process. The first step is the written exam on Sunday.

According to the apex court, selections will now be made from among the candidates applying for posts of PTI in 2006, including those who were hired.

Stringent measures are in place for conduct of exams with chief secretary Keshni Anand Arora recently speaking to the deputy commissioners and superintendents of police of Kurukshetra, Karnal, Panipat, Kaithal and Hisar to ensure everything goes smoothly.

Playing politics

The 2010 selections, the process for which began in 2006, remained embroiled in protracted litigation for a decade. Politics came into play once the apex court upheld the decision of the Punjab and Haryana high court to set aside the selections of 1,983 PTIs because of discrepancies in the hiring process.

Politicians of various hues came out in support of the ousted PTIs, holding khap panchayat meetings flouting social distancing norms and demanding enactment of a law to protect their jobs.

Former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda recently said that the Congress legislature party will bring a private members bill during the coming assembly session to facilitate the reinstatement of PTIs. Hooda said courts had set aside the selections only on technical grounds.

Independent MLAs like Balraj Kundu and Sombir Sangwan, both from the BJP stable, too have espoused the cause of the dismissed instructors.

The apex court had quoted a ruling of a Constitution bench to answer the plea that it is not equitable to throw out the PTIs after they had been employed for over nine years. It is very unfortunate that these persons should be uprooted after they had been appointed, but if equality and equal protection before the law have any meaning and if our public institutions are to inspire that confidence which is expected of them, we would be failing in our duty if we did not, even at the cost of considerable inconvenience to government and the selected candidates, do the right thing, the SC said.

Criminal case against former HSSC members

The state government on the other hand has got a criminal case registered against former HSSC chairperson and members by the vigilance bureau in July for allegedly misusing their positions and tinkering with the selection criteria to help certain candidates get selected as PTIs.

The sections invoked in the FIR pertained to punishment for false evidence in a judicial proceeding, public servant disobeying law, forgery of court record or public register, forgery for the purpose of cheating and criminal misconduct by a public servant.

The power to devise mode of selection and fix the criteria for selection was entrusted on the Commission to further the object of selection on merit to fill up posts in consonance with Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. When the alteration of criteria has been made, which has obviously affected the merit selection as we have found above, the allegations which have been made in the writ petition against the Commission in conducting the selection are allegations of malice-in-law and not malice-in-fact, the apex court said.

Directives of the courts

A single bench of the Punjab and Haryana high court had on September 11, 2012 set aside the 2010 selections on account of changes made in the selection process. An HC division bench had upheld the decision of the single bench. The Supreme Court on April 8 upheld the HC decision. It termed as arbitrary the Commissions decision of June 30, 2008, to cancel the written examination, the July 11, 2008 decision to call candidates eight times the number of vacancies on minimum percentage of marks for interviews and the decision of July 31, 2008 to call all the eligible candidates for interviews. These decisions were taken without any reason to change the selection criterion published in 2006, which downgraded the merit in the selection.

The SC also said that since the Commission was a multi-member body, all decisions pertaining to mode of selection and criteria were to be taken by the Commission itself, there being no rules or resolution delegating the said power to Chairman or any other member.  The decision of not holding written examination, to screen on the basis of eight times of vacancies and percentage of marks and to call all eligible candidates, were taken by the Chairman himself, and cannot be said to be decisions of the Commission, the SC said.

Quoting the HC findings on pattern of marks allocated to some selected and non-selected candidates, the apex court said the HC had observed that it cannot be a mere co-incidence that 90% of the meritorious candidates in academics performed so poorly in viva-voce that they could not secure even 10 marks out 30 or that the brilliance got configurated only in the average candidates possessing bare eligibility.

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Newly elected Conservative leader Erin O'Toole now faces the tough decision on whether to try to force early elections to challenge Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Canadian Conservatives on Monday announced their new leader, former air force navigator Erin O'Toole, who will quickly have to get the party battle-ready to challenge liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in possible snap elections.

Following a largely virtual campaign due to the coronavirus epidemic, O'Toole, 47, was proclaimed the winner early Monday after a record 175,000 voted in the party race.

The results were delayed for several hours after an envelope-opening machine damaged several thousand mailed-in ballots.

Former veterans affairs minister O'Toole faced three other candidates in the race to replace outgoing Andrew Scheer.

Peter MacKay, 54, who served as foreign, defence and then justice minister under former prime minister Stephen Harper, had been the favorite.

Two lawyers, little known to the general public, including the first black woman to run for the Conservative leadership, Leslyn Lewis, were also in the running.

O'Toole won in the third round after a close race with MacKay, picking up support of part of the religious right, which had supported Lewis, according to several analysts.

"We must continue to point out Liberal failings and corruption, but we must also show Canadians our vision for a stronger, more prosperous and more united Canada," O'Toole said in his acceptance speech in Ottawa.

"Canada can and must do better and Conservatives will work hard to earn the trust and confidence of Canadians in the next election."

A member of parliament for Ontario and less well-known than MacKay, O'Toole had twice previously run for the party leadership.

Both touted a need for the party to broaden its appeal to progressive voters, with a focus on jobs and the economy, but also to pitch a clear climate plan, which has been lacking from the Tories during the 2019 elections.

- Snap election challenge -

Like his three rivals, O'Toole also pledged to abolish the carbon tax put in place by Trudeau, while promising an environmental plan.

Story continues

O'Toole also wants to lift gun restrictions recently imposed by the Liberal government and further limit Chinese investment in Canada.

During a campaign conducted under relative media indifference, the favorite MacKay had presented himself as a moderate whose priority was to revive the virus-hit Canadian economy.

The new leader succeeds Scheer, who had to bear the consequences of his failure to beat Trudeau in fall 2019.

Scheer had, however, caused Trudeau's Liberals to lose their majority in parliament while the Conservatives increased their tally to 121.

In his farewell speech, Scheer said he had left the party in a strong position and called on it to rally behind whoever emerged as the new leader.

O'Toole will soon face a difficult decision over whether to force early elections to challenge the Liberals, which will be a hard sell in the midst of the worst economic crisis since World War II.

The next opportunity will be at the end of September when Trudeau seeks parliament's support for massive new social and environmental spending to steer Canada out of its economic slump.

Trudeau's minority government is embroiled in a new ethics scandal over the award of a major government contract to a charity that paid members of his family.

The Tories, however, would need the backing of at least two other parties to topple the Liberals, who have 155 seats in the 338 member parliament.

While Trudeau's popularity has waned in recent weeks due to the new ethics scandal, his Liberals, who have spent billions of dollars to help Canadians weather the pandemic, are still 5-6 points ahead in polls on voting intentions.

The Conservatives could wait until spring before attempting to force an early election, according to many political analysts.

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Multiple fires are burning in Contra Costa County, Alameda County, Santa Clara County, Stanislaus County and San Joaquin County. Cal Fire is referring to them collectively as the SCU Lightning Complex. "SCU" stands for Santa Clara Unit. Find official evacuation updates here and a map here.

LATEST, Aug. 23, 5:15 a.m. New evacuations have been ordered in Alameda County.

At 3 a.m., residents in the Sunol Regional Wilderness area were ordered to evacuate immediately. The order spans all areas south of Welch Creek Road to the fire perimeter and the Alameda/Santa Clara County line, along with anyone east of Calaveras Road at Welch Creek Road to the fire perimeter.

Aug. 22, 7:30 p.m. The SCU Lightning Complex is now 339,968 acres and remains 10% contained, Cal Fire said in a Saturday evening update. To start the day, the fire was 291,968 acres. It is now the second-largest fire in California history, followed by the LNU Lightning Complex currently burning in the North Bay.

Five structures have been destroyed and a further 20,065 structures are still threatened. Over 1,200 fire personnel are battling the enormous blaze.

"Hot air temperatures developed this afternoon with southwest winds keeping things active on the Canyon Fire [in Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties] as winds gusted to 15 mph over the ridges," Cal Fire said in its incident update. "Afternoon highs from 90-95 degrees were observed."

A red flag warning in the region goes into effect at 5 a.m. Sunday and is expected to last until 5 p.m. Monday.

Aug. 22 6:49 p.m. An evacuation warning has been issued Sunday evening that affects the following areas in Alameda County:

 East of the intersection of Mission Boulevard and Mission Road and south of the intersection of Mission Boulevard and Curtner Road

 East of Curtner Road and south along Interstate 680 to the Santa Clara County line

 South of Interstate 580 between Greenville Road and the San Joaquin County line to the Alameda/Santa Clara County line, south of the Livermore city limits, south of Highway 84 between Vineyard Avenue and I-680 to the fire perimeter and the Alameda/Santa Clara County line to the Livermore city limits, to Highway 84 to I-680

 North of the fire perimeter and the Alameda/Santa Clara County line to Highway 84, to the Livermore city limits, to I-580.

See a map of the affected areas here.

Aug. 22, 8:30 a.m. Firefighters battling fires in the SCU Lightning Complex got a reprieve overnight as humidity and lower winds slowed the spread of the flames, but Cal Fire expects an increase in fire activity Saturday.

The fires, spread across three different zones, expanded from 274,968 acres Friday to 291,968 acres on Saturday morning. Containment remains at 10%.

Cal Fire said that humidity at an elevation lower than 1,000 feet helped slow the blazes in the Deer and Calaveras zones, but conditions remained warm and dry in Canyon Zone, which is in an area with elevation greater than 1,000 feet.

"High clouds are already beginning to increase as tropical moisture spreads northward," Cal Fire officials wrote in an update Saturday morning. "Expect an increase in fire activity when the inversion lifts and smoke clears the area today."

The SCU Lightning Complex is now the third-biggest wildfire in California history, trailing only the LNU Lightning Complex in the North Bay and the 2018 Mendocino Complex. Because fires in the SCU complex are raging in mostly remote areas, only five structures have been destroyed to this point. That figure is much lower than the 500 destroyed by the LNU Lightning Complex and the 97 destroyed by the CZU Lightning Complex in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties.

Cal Fire stated the top priorities are protecting sensitive wildlife as well as critical power and communication infrastructure.

Many evacuation orders remain in effect. Go to Cal Fire's incident page for more detailed information on evacuations.

MORE WILDFIRE COVERAGE:

Map: See where wildfires are burning in Bay Area

Crews make gains on fire in Santa Cruz, San Mateo counties

'Significant growth' still expected for LNU Lightning Complex, now 2nd-largest California fire ever

What to do to keep wildfire smoke out of your house

Eric Ting is an SFGATE reporter. Email: eric.ting@sfgate.com | Twitter:@_ericting
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Shelley Luther, the Dallas salon owner who was jailed over reopening her business amid the coronavirus pandemic, said Saturday that she is running for Texas Senate.

Luther, who lives in Denton County, had been considering a run to replace state Sen. Pat Fallon, R-Prosper, in a yet-to-be-called special election now that he is poised to head to Congress.

"You better bet I'm putting my hat in the ring," Luther said during a "Back the Blue" rally supporting law enforcement in Denton County.

Luther became a hero to some on the right earlier this year after she was jailed for contempt of court for refusing to apologize for illegally reopening her salon. She was freed two days later after Gov. Greg Abbott removed the threat of jail time from an executive order and the Texas Supreme Court granted a motion for her release.

At the rally, Luther touted herself to a cheering crowd as someone who would "stand up and go to jail for you," saying she would "do it again and again because I'm gonna fight to keep our Texas values." She made the remarks in a video from the rally posted to her Twitter account.

Earlier this month, county and precinct chairs picked Fallon to replace former U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Heath, on the fall ballot now that Ratcliffe is the director of national intelligence. While there is a Democratic nominee, Russell Foster, Fallon is likely to win in November because the congressional district is overwhelmingly Republican.

The special election to finish Fallon's term in safely red Senate District 30 has not been set yet  and it cannot be scheduled until he vacates the seat. He could do that automatically by taking office in January as a congressman or by resigning early.

Fallon said Wednesday he is still figuring out when to vacate the seat but that he was intent on ensuring there is "not gonna be a gap where there's no senator."

Luther likely will not have the race to herself. Denton Mayor Chris Watts appointed a campaign treasurer for Fallon's seat shortly after he won the congressional nomination, and state Rep. Drew Springer, R-Muenster, is looking at a run for the state Senate seat.

Retiring state Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford, recently bought property inside Senate District 30 but conceded earlier this week he is ineligible to run. The Texas Constitution requires that people running for state Senate reside in the district a year before the election.
Increased testing is catching the disease earlier, and in contrast to spikes in March and April -- when the pandemic ripped through nursing homes -- authorities are doing a better job of protecting the elderly and other vulnerable people, according to scientists. France and Spain both recorded the highest numbers of new cases since April in the past week, while Italy reported its largest increase since May and Germanys daily rates have doubled in recent ...

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Our newsroom has answered many, many questions about wildfires over years. One of the most common:

Q: WHO NAMES THESE FIRES ANYWAY?

That honor goes to the dispatch center that sends the first firefighters to the scene of a fire, or sometimes to those firefighters themselves, according to CalFire. Fires are usually named for the area where they started: a local landmark, a street, a creek, a mountain, etc. The 2017 Thomas Fire, for example, was named for Thomas Aquinas College. The Skirball Fire, also in 2017, started near the Skirball Center, and the Apple Fire started near Apple Tree Lane in Cherry Valley. The Ranch2 Fire (initially named the Ranch Fire) began near North Ranch Road near Asuza.

That's the short answer.

On Sunday, Cal Fire released this video explanation that goes a bit deeper into the process. (Note: you can turn on captions if you want them using the gear icon).

MORE FAQ

Here are more answers to some of the most common questions we've gotten over the years. If you don't see the one you're looking for, please let us know.

Fire curiosities | Transportation | Evacuation | Preparedness

Q: WHAT HAPPENS TO WILD ANIMALS IN A WILDFIRE?

It really depends on the animal. National Park Service researchers studying the aftermath of the 2013 Springs Fire in the Santa Monica Mountains have found three things:

The animals that remained in burn zones a year after the fire were either mobile and escaped the flames, like deer, or they could eat a wide variety of food, like coyotes.

Some animals that had disappeared from burn zones were less mobile, like rabbits, meaning they died in the fire or starved to death afterwards in the charred, barren landscape.

Still other animals that had disappeared from the burn zones after the fire were picky about their habitat. Bobcats, for example, prefer dense, woody undergrowth, which disappeared in the burn.

Q: CAN FIREFIGHTERS USE SEA WATER TO PUT OUT THE FIRES?

According to Cal Fire, yes, but it's not ideal. Spokeswoman Debbie Strong says firefighters prefer freshwater, like lakes and reservoirs, but if that is not available, they can dip their buckets into the ocean. However, they have to clean their buckets out afterwards to prevent salt corrosion.

One reason firefighters prefer freshwater, Fire Captain Larry Kurtz told the Orange County Register in 2016, is that it is safer to hover close to the surface of the water than at sea.

Q: HOW FAR CAN AN EMBER TRAVEL?

Three to four miles! That's according to Robyn Broyles with the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. She says the distance depends on what kind of vegetation is burning and how strong the wind is blowing. Fires that burn in the crown, or top, of trees and bushes are the most likely to produce embers that can get carried by the wind.

In fact, it is wind-blown embers, not a huge wall of fire sweeping through a neighborhood, that generally cause houses to burn down, according to a trio of San Diego firefighters standing outside the smoldering remains of a house in a Ventura neighborhood. Many residents had chosen not to evacuate and instead were dousing their roofs with water, stamping out small fires that ignited in potted plants and on their decks and frantically cutting brush and dead vegetation so flying embers had less fuel to burn. For tips on how to fireproof your home from embers, read this.

Q: WHY DON'T FIREFIGHTERS USE THAT THICK FOAM LIKE THEY DO AT AIRPORTS?

We put this question to Cal Fire, and they said the foam used at airports to put out jet fuel fires just doesn't work when dropped from airplanes onto wildfires. Instead, they use three different kinds of firefighting chemicals, according to Shirley Zylstra with the U.S. Forest Service.

Gels, which are are similar to the chemicals found in baby diapers, allow water to stick to trees and bushes, creating a thick layer of fire protection. Gels are only useful until the water they contain evaporates: about an hour.

Foams are like a strong dishwashing detergent. They allow water to absorb more easily into trees and bushes, protecting plants from flames. Foams last even less time: no more than 20 minutes.

Retardants, the red liquid you often see falling from planes, are by far the most popular form of firefighting chemical because they can be dropped ahead of the fire line and last longer than foams or gels. They create a chemical reaction that pulls heat away from the fire, cooling it to the point where it can't sustain itself -- except when the wind is strong, causing flames to grow to 4 or 8 feet in length. In those situations, retardant is "not helpful," according to Zylstra.

EVACUATION

Q: HOW ARE PEOPLE NOTIFIED IF THEY ARE IN A NEW EVACUATION ZONE?

Unfortunately, there is no centralized alert system in Southern California to notify residents about fire evacuation orders. Instead, each county in the region - Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside -- has its own text alert system. Here's how you can opt in.

Q: HOW DO I CHECK TO SEE IF MY LOVED ONES ARE OKAY?

One way that police recommend is for those looking for missing family or friends to visit the American Red Cross's website, Safe and Well, where people can register themselves as safe.

Q: WHAT DO I DO WHEN I RETURN HOME AFTER A FIRE?

Check for fires on the drive back home. When you get there, walk around the inside and outside of your house checking for embers or dangers from downed power lines or gas. If you find fires during your checks, Cal Fire says to call 911 immediately.

DO

Wear a mask rated N-95 or better while cleaning up [Note: Because of COVID-19 these masks are now difficult to find.]

Walk carefully. When ash gets wet, it can be slippery.

Check for embers. Cal Fire suggests looking in the attic, rain gutters, on the roof, under decks, in crawlspaces and in any piles of debris for embers that might've floated in.

Give your pets a bath to get rid of ash.

Put on gloves, long pants and a long sleeve shirt.

Throw away frozen food that might've thawed during a power outage. Also, throw away food that was not in airtight containers, but was exposed to the air, like food stored in cardboard boxes. According to the County Department of Health, food in sealed glass jars and metal cans should be safe.

Toss plastic bottles, like bottles of water, that have ash on the caps. According to the County Department of Health, rinsing off the bottle caps is not enough to decontaminate the containers.

Put any ash you do collect into a plastic bag, so it doesn't blow away.

If using a generator, use an extension cord to plug appliances directly into generators -- no power strips, just one appliance per outlet, to avoid an overload that could shut the generator down

DON'T

Don't turn on your electricity if you see any damage to your meter.

Don't try to fix any damaged gas meters, gas lines or propane tanks. Instead, Cal Fire says to call your local utility provider.

Don't touch any downed wires. Again, call your utility provider.

Don't let kids play in the ash, whether its dry or wet.

Don't let ash linger on your skin. If ash does get on your skin, wash it off using warm water and soap.

Don't eat the food in your refrigerator if there was a long power outage.

Don't kick up more ash into the air. That means avoid using your leaf blower to clean up the ash. Instead, the County Department of Health suggests sweeping the ash carefully, and then using a wet mop.

Don't use too much water, though. As the County Department of Health explains, ash gets slippery when wet.

Don't use your average home vacuum cleaner to clean up ash unless it has a HEPA-filter. The Department of Health warns that regular vacuum cleaners will just blow the particles back into the air.

Don't plug a generator directly into your home's electrical panel or power meter -- the power can flow back out onto the wires on the street and give workers a bad shock.

You can read the complete list of precautions in both English and Spanish on the Dept. of Public Health's website. Cal Fire has also provides tips and guidance.

Q: IF WE LIVE OUTSIDE OF EVACUATION AREAS, DO WE NEED TO WEAR MASKS OUTSIDE?

The answer has less to do with whether you're in an evacuation area, and more to do with local air quality. This map, from the PurpleAir network of sensors, has real time information on particulate pollution in the air. If you're near an sensor that's colored orange, the elderly, children, or people with respiratory illnesses could begin to feel the effects of poor air quality and may want to consider wearing a mask. Once the sensor is red or purple, everyone will be impacted.

You can also sign up for text or email alerts about smoke and poor air quality here, and look at the South Coast Air Quality Management District's map here, although it's not as local as PurpleAir's.

In general: if you see or smell smoke, ideally you would wear an N95 respirator mask. Important caveat: They are now very difficult to find due to COVID-19. If you have a respiratory illness, you may want to take extra precautions.

Q: WHY DON'T WE HAVE A SIREN FOR EARTHQUAKES LIKE MEXICO CITY DOES? IS THERE A SIREN FOR FIRES?

Outdoor warning systems were used in Los Angeles in war-times - air-raid alarms in the 1940s and sirens for the event nuclear attack in the 1960s. But because there are so many different hazards in the region, (fires, earthquakes, mudslides and more) Jeff Reeb, director of emergency management in the Los Angeles County Chief Executive Office, says it wouldn't be clear what any one siren might signify.

The use of siren systems has fallen out of use in favor of county-specific Wireless Emergency Alerts that can provide specific instruction about what action to take. Reeb encourages people to keep the emergency alert feature active on their phones, despite the unnerving sound.

"There's no magic bullet," said Reeb. "It take a variety of ways to get out information."

Outdoor warning sirens are generally uncommon in the state, but there are some used to warn of tsunamis. In the Bay Area, Oakland does have a siren system with three distinct sounds - a steady tone that means shelter in place, a slow wail for a tsunami alert and a fast wail for a fire alert.

In Ventura County, the only siren system is in place is to warn of flooding near the Lake Casitas Dam.

As for earthquake alerts, there are a number of systems in development, including a cell phone-based system called Shake Alert that's in the beta-testing phase.

TRANSPORTATION

Q: HOW CAN I FIND OUT WHAT ROADS ARE CLOSED?

It depends where you live and what roads you're trying to find out about. CalTrans has closures of major roads and freeways listed here. The agency also has a mobile app you can download.

PREPAREDNESS

Q: WHAT AIR MASK SHOULD I BUY?

We tested five different masks, from the simple bandana (avoid that) to the hardcore respirator. You definitely want one that has the N95 label, which means it filters out 95% of airborne particles, including smoke, if you can access one in an exisiting fire kit or other means.

Q: IN L.A., WHAT CAN WE DO TO PROTECT OURSELVES FROM THE FIRES?

Let's break this into two categories: inside and outside the house.

Inside, it's really important to have a working smoke alarm. Also, have an evacuation kit ready to go in a portable container, like a backpack or a tub. It should include:

Three days of food and three gallons of water per person

Paper maps

Medication

Extra clothes

Glasses and/or contact lenses

Extra set of car keys, credit cards, and cash

First aid kit

Batteries and battery-powered radio

Flashlight

Copies of important documents

Sanitation supplies

Pet food and extra water

There are also number of things you can do outside your house and on your property to limit the risk of wildfire burning down your home. All cities and counties have different rules (here are the City of L.A.'s), but most require you to cut brush and grass within 100 or 200 feet of your home, remove all low branches on trees to keep fires from climbing into the canopy and remove tree branches hanging over the roof of your house. If you're a renter, ask your landlord to make sure this gets done.

Make sure you're signed up to receive messages from local emergency officials about evacuations. They may also come down your street or send you a notification using the Amber Alert system. Finally, when an evacuation order is given or if you see smoke or flames in the distance, grab your evacuation kit and go.

HAVE MORE QUESTIONS?
These are the eleven crime scene clues that sparked fears a mass murderer could be on the lose after key evidence from the brutal murders of elderly couples suggests a serial killer has been active in Britain since the mid-1990s.

Police fear that two suspected double murders - in the Cheshire town of Wilmslow - were the work of a criminal not known to authorities.

In both cases police believed that the wives had been murdered by their husbands, but after they were re-examined using modern techniques officers now think they were actually double murders, according to a special investigation by the Sunday Times.

A 179-page report written by Stephanie Davies, the senior coroner's officer for Cheshire, suggests that the two suspected double murders were in fact the work of a serial killer, known to police, having been active since the mid-1990s.

Bea and Howard Ainsworth were found dead in their bed in 1996 and the second case, involving Auriel and Donald Ward took place in 1999.

A number of clues - shown in the graphic below - have indicated that the killer could be roaming the streets of Britain.

1. Howard Ainsworth has his head covered with a plastic bag and ligature 2. Bea Ainsworth had a knife sticking out of her head and injuries from a hammer 3. The bag on Mr Ainsworth's head was covered in blood, suggesting he already had it on when his wife was attacked 4. Only a tiny amount of bloody was on Mr Ainsworth's pyjamas 5. Mr Ainsworth's body is in an odd position, suggesting it could have been moved 6. The tip of the knife in Mrs Ainsworth's head was shoved in with considerable force 7. The hammer was found washed in the sink, which would be an odd move for Mr Ainsworth to make if he was about to commit suicide 8. Another hammer is also at the scene 9. A possible second ligature is on the floor, potentially left by the killer 10. A bottle of pills was scattered on the floor, but it was a drug not prescribed to the couple 11. A suicide note, from Mr Ainsworth was found, but was he forced to sign it?

Bea and Howard Ainsworth (pictured) were found dead in their bed in 1996

Donald Ward, 72, and his wife Auriel, 67, were one of the couples found dead by police in the 1990s in Wilmslow, Cheshire. Police ruled their deaths as murder suicide

For example, the bag covering Mr Ainsworth's head was covered in blood, suggesting he already had it on when his wife was attacked. And an additional hammer was found at the scene, possibly left by the killer.

A bottle of pills was also scattered on the floor of their home, but the drug was not proscribed to either of the Ainsworths'.

Both the suspected double murders occurred in Wilmslow, Cheshire, in 1996 and 1999 and Cheshire police are now carrying out a review into the findings of the report.

The deaths of Howard and Bea Ainsworth and Donald and Auriel Ward were considered by police to be murder-suicides.

Both couples were discovered lying on blood-soaked beds in their nightclothes.

Similarities between the cases included the extremity of violence, with knives left in bodies at the crime scene; injuries to the head from a blunt weapon and stab wounds; and the fact that the women had been left with their nightdresses lifted.

The report points to "a number of inconsistencies which do not corroborate the original manner of death of being murder suicide".

Auriel was found to have been beaten, stabbed and suffocated, with her head partially covered by a pillow. Donald was found to have had a knife stabbed into his heart

Michael and Violet Higgins were found dead on February 21, 2000, in Disbury, Manchester and it has been suggested their deaths may be linked to the two re-examined cases from the 1990s

Eileen and Kenneth Martin's home on Broadway in Davyhulme, Greater Manchester, where they were both found dead on November 10, 2008. Their deaths have been suggested as being linked to the re-examined cases

The village of Wilmslow in Cheshire (pictured) was the scene of two murder suicides, one in 1996 and the other in 1999. However, a new report suggests that the deaths may have been the work of a serial killer known to police

Stephanie Davies had voiced her concerns about the similarity in the two cases to colleagues in 1999, but they did not lead anywhere.

Davies produced the report in her spare time by examining police files and crime scene photos and is supported by evidence from her predecessor and a US-based crime-scene analysis expert.

The report calls on the National Crime Agency and Interpol to review cases both in Britain and Europe to check whether other cases might be related.

Nazir Afzal, former chief prosecutor for the northwest, said: 'We could potentially have a serial killer in our midst. There needs to be a proper review of these cases and others which carry similar hallmarks.'

Three other cases have also been identified by Davies, in 2000, 2008 and 2011, which she believes are also related to the Wilmslow deaths.

Two of the cases took place in Greater Manchester and one in the Lake District and Greater Manchester and Cumbria police forces have now been alerted to the findings in the report.

In these three cases, police said that the husbands had stabbed their wives and hit them on the head before taking their own lives - just as had been said of the cases in the 90s.

A spokesman for Cheshire Police told The Sunday Times: "We are in receipt of the report and it is being reviewed. This is a piece of research which has been undertaken by the staff member, independently.

"As with any case that has been closed, where new information comes to light it is reviewed and acted upon if appropriate. We have notified Greater Manchester Police and Cumbria constabulary."
Stored in a walk-in freezer in the archives of the McLean County Museum of History, the Pantagraph Negatives Collection numbers some 1 million photographic images spanning the early 1930s to 2000, when the newspaper converted from film to digital photography.

Thanks to a state grant and a second, federal one, the not-for-profit history museum is in the process of digitizing about 50,000 of the oldest images. And the most exciting part of this project is that once scanned and processed, the images are posted for all to see on the Illinois Digital Archives website.

These newly digitized photos offer many welcome surprises.

Lester Pfister, for instance, will always be remembered in Central Illinois for Pfister Seeds, a hybrid corn company based in the Woodford County community of El Paso. The Pantagraph Negatives Collection, though, also contains many images of his work in agricultural machinery, and as such tells another side of his story. When asked, Pfister would say that creating new machines was just his hobby, but he developed two important tools for the corn industry  a corn detasseling machine and the Jitterbug corn grader.

Pfister grew up on a tenant farm in Woodford County with his father and mother until the age of 8, when his father died in 1905. His mother moved her six children to El Paso, where she worked to support the large family. Lester Pfister began his work as a farmer when he was 14, as a farmhand.

When interviewed for Country Home magazine in 1938, Pfister said it was a chance meeting in Iowa that led him to an entrepreneurial career in the corn breeding business. No one in Woodford County had seen anyone use the methods Pfister used. He covered both the tassel and silks on every corn plant in his test plot  nearly 400 stalks  to prevent accidental pollination. When the bags were full of pollen, he pulled them off and shook them onto the silk of the same plant, inbreeding the plant to expose its strengths or weaknesses.

After five years of painstaking work and scientific observation, he had the four seed varieties he wished to breed together. By that time his farm was failing, and his family was wearing rags and eating corn mush at every meal. Other farmers scoffed at him and said his methods were crazy.

That was the year the stock market crashed.

In 1930 Pfister was ready to plant the seed he had chosen. More years of patient record keeping and hand pollination followed. He sent his corn to fairs in Illinois and Iowa, and the farmers and breeders were impressed.

Between 1935 and 1938 Pfister made $1 million selling his seed corn.

Everyone wanted to hear his story and buy a bushel of his corn. He spoke to groups in Iowa, Illinois and Indiana, and on national radio broadcasts. After his story was published in Life magazine, he received letters from every place in the world where corn would grow, clamoring for his seed.

Once Pfister achieved financial success in seed corn, every aspect of his farming was considered noteworthy. The Pantagraph agricultural editor, Frank Bill, took dozens of photos of Pfisters mechanical creations and frequently published Pfisters opinions on corn farming. As Pfister shared his ideas and adaptations through newspapers, radio and public appearances, he sparked the creativity of other farmers.

Pfister began experimenting with detasseling machines in 1936. They looked like the frame of a house moving through a field of corn, with field hands reaching out to grasp the tassels. The first iteration of this machine was a large frame carried by a narrow Pfister-built tractor that fit between 12 rows of corn. The tractor was powered by the engine from a Ford Model A, and automobile tires supported the frame. Forty acres could be detasseled in one day, and the work of 20 men or women could be accomplished by just six.

Pfister believed that graded seed corn resulted in the most consistent and profitable crop yields. He developed different corn sorters and graders over the years, and in 1939 he created and sold the Jitterbug grader for use by individual farmers. Like a jitterbug dancer, the sorter shook the corn through a series of pierced frames to sort it into salable grades. Using the Jitterbug grader, farmers could ensure the best price for their corn in the least amount of time.

The first four-row corn picker to operate in Central Illinois was designed by Lester Pfister and built by the mechanics of Pfister Seeds in 1945. A Caterpillar tractor was combined with two two-row pickers and four elevators to move the corn into a truck trailing behind. The machine required two operators  one man to operate the pickers and elevators and another to drive the tractor. Once the picker was field tested, Pfister had three more in production in the workshop that September.

While Lester Pfister was among the first men in Central Illinois to begin adapting motors and tractors into new tools, he was followed by many more farmers who built their own workshops and created new tools and gadgets. In the 1940s, County Farm Bureaus organized tractor schools and welding classes that led to a period of creative machine building.

To find images of tractors, cultivators and other farm equipment made by local farmers, go to the Illinois Digital Archives website (http://www.idaillinois.org/) and search the Pantagraph Negative Collection, 1946-1949 category, using the words homemade and agricultural. To check out Lester Pfisters mechanical creations, simply search the name Pfister in all three of Pantagraph Collection categories.

Previous 'Pages from our Past' stories

Pieces of our Past is a weekly column by the McLean County Museum of History.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 18:56:17|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Ford Motor Company (China) has started recalling 10,649 imported Lincoln MKX and 4,010 Lincoln Nautilus vehicles for possible airbag system malfunctions, according to China's market regulator.

The recall, starting Aug. 21, involves parts of the imported Lincoln MKX manufactured between May 28, 2015 and July 30, 2018, and the imported Lincoln Nautilus manufactured between Sept. 27, 2018, and Sept. 30, 2019, said a statement on the website of the State Administration for Market Regulation.

Due to insufficient clearance between the wiring harness of the front passenger seat and the seat cushion pan, the airbag system may not perform normally in some circumstances, posing safety risks, according to the statement.

The company said it would install flocking tape on the exposed edge of the seat cushion frames, and replace the defective parts free of charge. Enditem
Washington has no official relations with Taiwan, which split with the communist-ruled mainland in 1949 following a civil war. The Trump administration has made gestures toward Taiwan as relations with Beijing soured. This month, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar became the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit, prompting a Chinese protest.
DANBURY  The citys sewage plant will soon be renamed after a comedian who poked fun at Danbury during a show last Sunday.

Boughton shared a video on social media Saturday night  his reply to late-night show host John Olivers remarks about the city earlier in the week  in which he revealed the new name: the John Oliver Memorial Sewage Plant.

Why? Boughton mused in the video. Because its full of [expletive], just like you, John.

The HBO comedian went on a rant about Danbury when he was several minutes into a segment on jury selection during an Aug. 16 episode of the HBO comedy show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

Warning: These videos include some vulgar language.

If you are going to forget a town in Connecticut, why not forget Danbury because  and this is true  [expletive] Danbury. From its charming railway museum, to its historic hearthstone castle, Danbury Connecticut can eat my whole a, Oliver said during the segment.

I know exactly three things about Danbury, Oliver said on Last Week Tonight on Aug. 16. USA Today ranked it the second-best city to live in in 2015, it was once the center of the American hat industry and if youre from there you have a standing invite to come get a thrashing from John Oliver  children included  (expletive) you.

After Oliver said he knew three things, Boughton reiterated the points in his response.

In his video, Boughton was quick to add another thing to Olivers list to remember about the city: the future renaming of the citys sewage plant in Olivers name.

Boughton made the video in conjunction with WTNH, which revealed the naming Saturday afternoon and is scheduled to air the video at 10 a.m. Sunday on the Capitol Report political talk show.

On Friday, Boughton joined Hearst Connecticut Media Columnist Dan Haar in inviting Oliver to visit Danbury.

Last weeks show wasnt the first time Oliver mentioned the city.

In a 2017 segment criticizing cities in the bidding war for Amazons second world headquarters, Oliver knocked Boughtons promotional video asking Alexa where the company would locate as almost too hilarious.

But Boughton got the last laugh  ending his new video with thanks to Oliver for that mention  since Amazon now says it will build a facility in Danbury.
Science BGR

Our Sun isnt quite as old as other stars out there. However, scientists are already trying to pinpoint exactly when the Sun will die. Of course, it isnt as simple as throwing out a date. After all, were working with a massive ball of energy that weve still barely managed to scratch the surface of  The post Scientists think they figured out when the Sun will explode and kill us all appeared first on BGR.
In 2018, Ukraine's central bank conducted a pilot program focused on digitizing the hryvnia, the country's national currency.

Results of that pilot were shared with the public in early 2020, according to The Block's new central bank digital currency report. And according to one of the officials involved in that effort, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are best served  particularly from a competitive standpoint  when the private sector is involved.

The E-hryvnia involved the use of a private version of the Stellar blockchain protocol, with the central bank itself serving as the sole issuer of the currency. Roman Hartinger, head of the innovative projects unit at the National Bank of Ukraine, told The Block that "[t]he ecosystem of CBDC should include the participation of those private market players to set interaction between the central bank and end consumers. This will be an effective tool to compete and to innovate the services."

"It is true in any model for CBDC. The only exception might be small countries or countries which do not have a well-developed private market where a central bank can issue CBDC, and also be the one to interact with consumers. But if you want CBDC to be perceived as competitive and innovative, you have to involve the private markets where possible."," he went on to say.

Learn more about the E-hryvnia project  as well as other CBDC efforts from the world's central banks  by reading A Global Look at Central Bank Digital Currencies here.

Image Credit: rospoint / Shutterstock.com

This report has been updated.





 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.
Central Bureau of Investigation sleuths on Sunday questioned actor Sushant Singh Rajput's friend Siddharth Pithani, cook Neeraj Singh and domestic help Deepesh Sawant at the Defence Research and Development Organisation guest house in Mumbai in connection with his death case and later visited the actor's flat in Bandra along with them, an official said.

In the morning, Pithani, Neeraj and Sawant arrived separately at the DRDO guest house in Kalina are of Santcaruz, where the Central Bureau of Investigation's officials probing the case are staying, an official said.

These three persons, who were present in the flat when Rajput, 34, was found hanging in his room on June 14, were questioned for about five hours following which the CBI sleuths took them to the late actor's residence at Mont Blanc Apartments in suburban Bandra around 2.45 pm, he said.

Forensic science experts were also part of the CBI team which visited Rajput's residence, the official said.

Mumbai Police officials were also present at the actors house, he added.

On Saturday also, the CBI team accompanied by Pithani, Neeraj and Sawant visited the late actor's house in Bandra to reconstruct the sequence of events before he was found dead.

Another CBI team on Saturday visited the state-run Cooper Hospital in the city, where autopsy had been performed on Rajput's body.

A third CBI team had visited the Bandra police station to meet Mumbai Police officials who were investigating Rajput's alleged suicide earlier.

On Friday, the CBI officials recorded the statements of Pithani and Neeraj.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the transfer of an FIR, lodged by Rajput's father in Patna against actor Rhea Chakraborty and others for allegedly abetting his suicide, to the CBI.

After Rajput was found hanging in his apartment in June, the Mumbai Police registered a case of accidental death.

Later, Rajput's father filed a police complaint in Patna, accusing Chakraborty and her family of abetting the actor's suicide and misappropriating his money.
After incidents of flooding in the basement of buildings in south Delhis Greater Kailash-II, officials from the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) and South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) will conduct inspections in the area, after shutting off water supply in the neighbourhood for 24 hours between Monday and Tuesday.

Officials will seek to ascertain if there is a leakage in a 600mm-wide water pipeline laid in the area in January this year. Along with GK-II, water supply is likely to affect part of neighbouring CR Park and adjoining neighbourhoods as well, including Kalkaji and Alaknanda.

Officials said supply will remain suspended from Monday evening to Tuesday morning.

The problem first came to light around a month ago, has currently afflicted at least 100 buildings in the neighbourhood.

SDMC and DJB officials suspect the problem arose due to a sudden recharge of groundwater, the cause of which is still not known.

According to a senior DJB official, though they have already checked the newly laid main pipeline for leakages, water supply is being suspended on the request of CGWB scientists.

The water pipeline was replaced in January this year, and had there been leakages, it would have been detected early on itself. However, after this issue was reported by residents, we dug up four or five test pits around the pipeline on Sunday to check for leakages, but found them dry. The CGWB will conduct a survey of the area to find out the probable reasons and work out solutions, said a senior DJB official, who asked not to be named.

Meanwhile, water tankers will be sent to the area during the day to help people store water. Some tankers will also be on standby in case supply is shut off for a longer period, the DJB official said.

Area MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj said the problem is likely because of the rising water table.

A DJB leakage-detection had inspected the area on Sunday morning. Test pits were dug up, but no leakage was found. Then along with municipal officials, we inspected tubewells installed by the corporation in the nearby market to water parks in the area. It was found that water could be traced at the level of 15 feet underground itself, which is too high. Usually, in Delhi water is found at the level of 300 feet, he said.

He added that the rise in the water table is probably because areas around GK, such as Sangam Vihar were dependent on tubewells for a long time. Now, he said, a large number of illegal tubewells in and around have been done away with by the DJB over the past two years, as water pipelines have been laid in many parts of Sangam Vihar now. With reduced extraction of groundwater from illegal tubewells and borewells, the water table has risen. I have also written to the Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) to join the survey tomorrow, he said.

Bhardwaj said this problem has previously occurred in many areas such as Nehru Enclave, Kalkaji and even Nizamuddn West. It was found that the water table had risen in these areas as well, which is also a good sign for Delhi where the depleting groundwater table has long been a concern.

Residents of GK-II have complained that water has been accumulating in basements for around a month now. The area residents welfare association last week also wrote to Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal and asked for an immediate response.

Sanjay Rana, president, RWA GK-II, said the problem started around a month back when water seepage was first spotted in the basement of a grocery store in M-block market. Later the problem spread to some other parts like E, W and S blocks. He said over a hundred buildings in GK-II are tackling the problem, with some basements flooded over one-foot deep in water.

Its not sewer or drain water, because the water is clean. CGWB scientists checked and found that at a few locations the water was available at around 20 ft which was at 100 feet six months back. This is beyond comprehension. So acting on the advice of CGWB officials, the DJB has decided to shut off water supply in the neighbourhood on Monday evening and Tuesday morning to rule out any leakage in its water line, Rana said.

He said CGWB teams will monitor ground water levels every six hours during the 36-hour shutdown. Residents have been assured that water tankers will be available whenever required in area during the shutdown.

Subhash Bhadana, deputy mayor, SDMC visited buildings that were facing seepage, and said SDMC engineers have checked and concluded that drains in the area were not the source of the flooding.

I have directed our horticulture department to pump out ground water from all tube wells situated in parks at GK-II so that the underground water level may drop. On Monday, a joint team of ground water department and DJB that will also have SDMC engineers will inspect the entire area to ascertain the cause and find solution to the problem. Our engineers are assuming that it might be the case of sudden rise in ground water level, he said.
Carr, a Crown Point native, renovated a historic home dating back to 1904 at 126 N. Court St. that had been a salon since around 1970 and was most recently home to Court Hair Design. Bloom Boutique Salon is planning a grand opening celebration from 5-7 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 29.

The grand opening will be catered by Provecho Latin Provisions and feature giveaways of shampoo and conditioners, ice cream bars, popsicle and lemonade. Social distancing and other COVID-19 precautions will be observed.

"We want to invite the community to see the new space," she said.

The 2,000-square-foot business offers haircuts, coloring, eyebrows and lashes. It will offer more spa treatments, including massages, spray tans and eyelash extensions, once the second-floor is renovated. It has four chairs and employs eight stylists.

"I want to grow the salon and get the girls really busy," Carr said. "It has a small town beauty shop vibe. Me and my husband are from Crown Point, and I'm a community-first type of person. We liked the energy of downtown and wanted to be in the heart of the community."

Owning her own salon had been her dream since she first got into the hair care business in 2005.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, August 23, 2020 19:20 514 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066fdf601 1 National antasari-azhar,KPK,bank-bali-case,Corruption-Eradication-Comission Free

Former Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairman Antasari Azhar has asked where the Rp 546 billion (US$36.5 million) seized as evidence in the high-profile Bank Bali graft case has gone and has urged authorities to ensure the security of the state funds.

The funds, seized in 2009, were supposed to be transferred to an escrow account, he said.

To every party who cares about this case and future corruption eradication efforts, I personally ask whether [the ruling] has been executed, Antasari said on Friday, as quoted by Antara News Agency.

Antasari, who chaired the antigraft commission between 2007 and 2009, handled the 1998 Bank Bali case during his time at the Attorney Generals Office (AGO).

Antasari was recently questioned by the National Polices Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) about the graft case, particularly in regard to the escape of graft convict Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra, who was sentenced to two years in prison for his involvement in the scandal.

What investigators  whether they are prosecutors, the KPK, or the police  need to keep in mind is that the retrieval of state funds should be the priority, he said.

He urged investigators to be transparent, saying that all evidence must be logged in the investigation report.

To determine whether the ruling had been put into action, Antasari called on the police to question the head of the South Jakarta Prosecutors Office at the time, Deputy Attorney General Setia Untung Arimuladi. (rfa)
A woman's dog has come to her rescue after a man allegedly tried to strangle her in her bedroom in Sydney's northwest.

Susan Bandera, 60, was woken up when Peni Naiserelagi, 34, allegedly broke into her unit on Iron Street at North Parramatta, in Sydney's west, about 4am on Sunday.

Naiserelagi allegedly assaulted Ms Bandera and attempted to strangle her, before the woman's pet pitbull ran into the room and attacked him.

The alleged attacker and victim were known to each other, NSW Police said.

A man has been charged after he allegedly attempted to murder a woman before her pet dog attacked him (stock image of a pitbull)

Ms Bandera was forced to hide in a bathroom while Naiserelagi fled after the pooch attacked.

Police were called to the home where they commenced an investigation.

Officers arrested Naiserelagi at a home on Victoria Road at Parramatta about 10pm on Sunday.

He was taken to Parramatta Police Station and charged with break and enter, and assault with intent to murder.

Naiserelagi's charges were mentioned briefly before Parramatta Local Court on Monday morning, but he did not appear in person or via video link.

He will next return to Parramatta Local Court on October 15.
News of the impending sale of the F-35 5th generation stealth plane has raised the eyebrows of Israel, but this concern is not a cause for alarm. There is no reason to worry because of the typical quality of equipment and training that the Israeli F-35s have over the Emirati F-35.

Sales of the new F-35s to the Arab Emirate has caused concern for the Israelis who value a military edge over their new Middle Eastern Partners. The offer was under the table by some entities connected to the Trump administration, which had the addition of drones as well for sale to the Arabs since the IAF is key to the U.S. that should have been taken into account before the equipment was offered for sale, much of the issue in keeping with the superiority of Israelis, reported Forbes.

But that's just it- an offer of F-35s to the moneyed UAE. Should the Trump administration move to seal the deal, that will take effect from six to eight years.

By comparison, if the UAE does get any of the stealth planes, it will be Israel that will get the upper hand in using and operating them. In the six-day war, the Israelis won and defeated the Arabs.

According to Israeli Education Minister Yoav Galant, the sale of F-15s to Saudi Arabia was disliked. When it came to equipment, the Americans reserved better equipment for them. For example, the F-15E was sold to Arabs but they got the F-15I variant, noted Israel Hayom.

During the Iranian revolution in 1979, the next regime got their hand on 79 U.S.-built F-14A Tomcat air superiority fighters that were the top fighter then. Had the Shah not been there, it would have been sold.

Also read: US & Israeli F-35s Become SAM Killers After UAE-Israel Deal Formed From Iran's Threats

To assuage Israel about the Saudi F-15s, the units sold had no bomb racks to keep it as an air to air interceptor. This was stressed by President Jimmy Carter in a pledge to Israel.

In the 1980s, the Reagan administration sold AWACS to Saudi Arabia, which concerned Israel that it kept the element of surprise as its key weapon. The AWACs were a hindrance should a Middle Eastern war breaks out.

Another of these sales of military equipment was spy planes and the KE-3 refueling aircraft,which is the most expensive deal than in 2010. In the same year, the Saudis got 84 F-15s and it was worth $60 billion, cited The Guardian.

Included in the sale were F-15 Strike Eagles for Saudi Air Force, which was a custom variant called the F-15 SA (Saudi Advanced had 12 AIM-120 AMRAAM AA missile (air to air). In 2018, this fighter-interceptor had the most missiles loaded on hardpoints.

Israeli F-15IA is slated to replace the older variants they have in service. The F-15IA carries a 13,380-kilo loadout that includes an impressive array of weapons.

Not to be satisfied with their Israeli F-35s, the IAF will tune it to their needs. But, the Emirati F-35s are not likely to get the same treatment.

Related article: U.S. Navy's Weapons: F-35 Lightning and Super Hornet Adds Tactical Layers to Win

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Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Karen Roberts was making plans for her brother's 21st birthday, to coincide with his imminent release from prison, when she received the news that would turn her family's life upside down. Her youngest brother, David, had tried to hang himself in Grafton prison. He died two days later at the Lismore Base Hospital in November 2001. When Karen speaks about that day in the hospital, she closes her eyes, turns her face up to the sun and lets the tears flow. "He was breathing and he could hear us, I know he could hear us because he was squeezing my hand. Then they turned the machine off because they said he'd gone too long without oxygen." Karen says her brother's death broke her family. "Mum passed away with a broken heart. All we got back from the jail was a box with his things." The final instalment of the Herald's investigation of interactions between First Nations people and the criminal justice system examines the lingering impacts of deaths in custody, the stark over-representation of Indigenous people in NSW prisons and the failing efforts to curb recidivism despite hundreds of millions of dollars being spent to stop it.

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Karen Roberts was taken from her mother's care as a baby. She and David, the youngest of seven siblings, were raised in foster care on the north coast. Her brother was in primary school when he first entered the prison system's revolving door. This crossover between out-of-home care and juvenile detention is not uncommon. Nationally, young people in the child protection system were 12 times more likely to be under youth justice supervision from 2014 to 2016. In the same period, Indigenous young people were 16 times more likely to be involved in both systems than other young people. A meeting of attorneys-general last month rejected calls to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14, despite evidence that young children lack the brain development to manage impulse control and often become trapped in the prison system. David Allan Roberts died in custody in 2001, aged 20. During the coronial inquest into David's death, lawyers for his family questioned why he had been left alone in a cell given his at-risk status as a young Aboriginal man. They asked why the hanging points in the cell hadn't been removed, as recommended by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991. And they argued that the response of the prison guard who found him, who wasn't carrying the required tools to cut him free, was inadequate. Former NSW deputy coroner Carl Milovanovich found that it may have been a failing not to classify David as a high risk prisoner, in light of the royal commission, and that "perhaps he should have been moved" out of confinement. He said all hanging points within a cell should be made inaccessible. The coroner said he had reservations about whether the response of the prison guard was inadequate, but while he did not believe the guard was "entirely straightforward with all his evidence," ultimately there was probably little else he could have done.

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Two decades on, Karen says her family has never healed. In the intervening years, she has lost her mother and her younger sister. The mother-of-seven has been homeless on and off until recently finding a house in Ballina. Her sons, in particular, were deeply affected by the loss of their uncle: "He was like their rock, their strength." Two of them are now in prison. "I worry all the time. I just pray," says Karen. "When our mob go to jail, the families do that time with the person that's in custody, because we've all got that fear in the back of our head - are they safe? Are we going to get that call?" In the front window of Karen's home hangs a poster with David's photo, the date of his death and a plea to stop black deaths in custody. "People need to be held accountable for what's happened, otherwise it's going to keep going. Ignorance isn't an option anymore. It's 2020. We're actually here, we're people and we need justice." Activists prepare for a Black Lives Matter rally in Lismore. Credit:Rhett Wyman

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In the main street of Lismore, Black Lives Matter activists are erecting signs in preparation for their third rally in two months. Front and centre is a poster with bold red, black and yellow letters: "Stop killing us." Several passing cars beep in support. Another driver yells, "Get a real hobby!". Supporters are signing letters calling on NSW Police Minister David Elliott and Corrections Minister Anthony Roberts to take urgent action to stop the "abhorrent treatment" of Aboriginal people by the justice system. Their demands include the repeal of punitive bail laws and mandatory sentencing, decriminalisation of public drunkenness, raising the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 16, an independent investigation of deaths in custody and the expansion of Aboriginal-led court programs such as the Koori Courts. Cindy Roberts addresses the crowd at a Black Lives Matter rally in Lismore. Credit:Rhett Wyman The Herald previously revealed that Indigenous people who live in the Richmond-Tweed and Sydney city areas were twice as likely as non-Indigenous people to go to jail for any offence in the four years up to 2019. Karen's cousin, Cindy Roberts, is leading the protest in Lismore.

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Microphone in hand, she spends a good five minutes reading out the names of hundreds of Aboriginal people who have died in police or prison custody since a landmark inquiry laid out a roadmap to stop such deaths 30 years ago. More than 400 Indigenous people have died in custody since 1991. There have been no convictions over the deaths. "That's what this fight is about," Cindy says. "Where's the justice in this country? The system is racist." As a proportion of all prisoners who die in custody, Aboriginal people do not die at a greater rate than non-Indigenous people. But as a proportion of the Indigenous population, Aboriginal people are 10 times more likely to die in prison. The leading cause of deaths in custody for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people is medical issues, but there are stark differences in the way Aboriginal people have been treated by police and prison staff, as detailed in numerous coronial inquests. Several of Cindy Roberts' family members have died in prisons. Credit:Rhett Wyman In 2008, a Ngaanyatjarra elder known as Mr Ward cooked to death in a prison transport van in Western Australia. In some Aboriginal communities, the names of the deceased are not used for cultural reasons.

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Joe Biden, left, and his wife, Jill Biden, and Kamala Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff, greet supporters Thursday at the Democratic National Convention in Wilmington, Del. (Getty Images)

Joe Biden, girding for a week of attacks at the Republican National Convention, previewed his response Sunday by laughing off questions about his mental acuity, denying he supported defunding the police and leaping to defend his running mate, Kamala Harris, against President Trumps insults.

Speaking on ABC, in the Biden-Harris ticket's first joint television interview since being formally nominated at the Democratic National Convention last week, the two downplayed their many differences as rivals during their party's primary contest, including an intense debate exchange in which Harris questioned Bidens record on school busing and desegregation.

Sidestepping repeated questions about the debate, Harris closed ranks behind Biden: I want Joe Biden to be the next president of the United States. I believe in Joe Biden. Frankly I think this conversation is a distraction from what we need to accomplish right now and what we need to do.

Asked to respond to Trumps attacks on her as "mean," "nasty" and "disrespectful," Harris laughed and dismissed the insults as a diversionary tactic.

I think that there is so much about what comes out of Donald Trumps mouth that is designed to distract the American people from what he is doing every day," the California senator said. "That is about neglect, negligence and harm to the American people."

Biden jumped in to add that Trump was incompetent and that his attacks were out of bounds and unpresidential.

The idea that he would say something like that, no president  no president  has ever said anything like that, Biden said. No president has ever used those words."

The interview gave voters the first unscripted, extended look at the dynamics between the running mates, a historic pairing between a 77-year-old white man who, if he wins the presidency, would be the oldest person to assume the office, and a 55-year-old who is the first Black woman and first Asian American on a national party ticket. Biden and Harris have made joint campaign appearances, and they sat for a joint interview with People magazine last week. But ABC was granted the first broadcast interview, which was conducted by David Muir and Robin Roberts.

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Despite their differences of background and generation and their sometimes-bitter competition during the primary, Biden and Harris have a relationship of some warmth and affection because Harris, while serving as Californias attorney general, had been close to Bidens late son, Beau, then the attorney general of Delaware, who died of cancer in 2015 at age 46.

Biden said that choosing Harris as his running mate was an easy decision to make and that it was not driven by pressure to choose a Black woman for his vice presidential nominee.

I didnt feel pressure to select a Black woman, he said. But he added: The government should look like the people, look like the country.

I cannot understand and fully appreciate what it means to walk in her shoes," he said. What we do know is that we have the same value set.

The two had an easy rapport with each other in the interview, although they sat at a significant distance from each other and the interviewers in accordance with health protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Both went to great lengths to move beyond past disagreements, including the debate episode that was one of the most dramatic confrontations of the primary season: Harris' surprise attack on Biden for his past opposition to mandated school busing and for comments he'd made about working with segregationist senators, which she described as hurtful.

Harris declined to say how they had put the issue behind them, but Biden said they had moved past it.

I sense exactly where she was coming from, Biden said. I think a lot of people, and maybe even the senator at the time, didnt know the depth of my record. Were on the same exact page about what the possibilities are right now.

Harris also declined to criticize Biden for controversial campaign-trail comments that African Americans who were still trying to decide between him and Trump "ain't Black." Biden later apologized for the remark. Harris said, I know where his heart is.

The two running mates also shrugged off past disagreements over healthcare. Biden opposes Medicare for all; Harris has supported it, although she also backed a modified version that allowed continuation of private health insurance.

I want to fix the problem," Harris said. "And Joe has a plan to fix the problem, and Im fully supportive of it.

It remains to be seen in the coming weeks exactly what role Harris will play in the campaign. For now, both nominees are sticking to virtual campaigning and lying low while the spotlight turns to Trump and his party during this weeks GOP convention. The ABC interview gave Biden and Harris a chance to answer some of the criticisms that Republicans are expected to highlight.

When asked about Trumps questions about his mental acuity, Biden laughed and welcomed the comparison to Trumps fitness.

Watch me, he said. Mr. President, watch me. Look at us both, what we say, what we do, what we control, what we know, what kind of shape we are in.

Trump hailed his own mental acuity by boasting he "aced" a cognitive test, although the test questions are mostly rudimentary. Biden has brushed aside Trump's suggestions that he should undergo such testing.

When Biden was asked about statements the former vice president made that he was a transitional figure in the Democratic Party, he denied that meant he intended to be a one-term president. He said he absolutely would consider serving two terms.

A central GOP line of attack is that Biden is not the political moderate that he claims to be; Republicans sometimes portray him as a Trojan horse for the partys extreme left wing. In the interview, Biden denied  as he has on many occasions  that he supported defunding the police, which is a rallying cry of many Black Lives Matter activists and other progressives who believe that public resources should be shifted from armed law enforcement to social services. Bidens criminal justice plan calls for increasing funding for community policing.

I dont want to defund police departments," he said. "I think they need more help; they need more assistance.

Much of the Democratic convention spotlighted criticism of Trumps handling of the coronavirus crisis, which has killed more than 176,000 people in the U.S. and led to economic calamity. Trump for months insisted that the outbreak would "eventually disappear" and pressured governors to lift stay-at-home restrictions. In the ABC interview, Biden said he would take far stricter actions  even imposing severe quarantine restrictions on the country  to contain the virus spread if scientists said they were necessary.

I will be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives because we cannot get the country moving until we control the virus, Biden said. That is the fundamental flaw of this administration's thinking to begin with. In order to keep the country running and moving and the economy growing, and people employed, you have to fix the virus, you have to deal with the virus.

And if scientists said it was necessary to shut the country down to do so, Biden said, I would shut it down; I would listen to the scientists.
Mardaani 2 is one of those rare films, which has been narrated by the villain in the first person. Vishal Jethwa plays Sunny  a psychopath, who rapes and murders girls for fun. Hes so good at being bad that hes been applauded left, right and centre for his performance. The young actor has proved his potential no doubt.Vishal has been overwhelmed by all the outpouring of love, to say the least. He recounts how after one of the screenings, a woman came up and thanked his mother for giving birth to such a fine actor like him. The actor was thrilled to bits by that as he adores his mother. I lost my father in 2008. Since then my mother took over the responsibility of my elder sister and me. My mother worked as a saleswoman at a supermarket. Later she started selling items like purses, kurtis, t-shirts and all from home. She has even served food at weddings to earn that extra buck, shares an emotional Vishal.He started his career as a background dancer in 2009. He danced with Salman Khan, Ajay Devgn and Asin during the promotions of London Dreams. Thats when the acting bug bit him. Vishal thought of joining an acting class in his vicinity in Mira Road. But the high fees put him off. His mother arranged for the money and got him enrolled. I started doing theatre and later joined TV. In my first serial, Parvarish - Kuch Khatti Kuch Meethi (2011), I was only required to laugh, he recalls. His big break came in 2013 with Bharat Ke Veer Putra-Maharana Pratap, where he got to play young Akbar, apart from roles in shows like Crime Petrol, Peshwa Bajirao and Diya Aur Baati Hum. A prudent Vishal didnt neglect his education and managed to gain a B. Com degree despite the hectic schedules.The actor mentions that there are several, who never get a chance to step inside YRF Studios their entire lives. So it was a dream-come-true when he got a call from Shanoo Sharma, the casting head at the studio. A few days later, he met Gopi Puthran, the director of Mardaani 2, with whom he had to undergo five rounds of auditions. From 250 candidates, three were shortlisted. Later, he was the only one left. He was then asked to meet YRF head honcho, Aditya Chopra. Vishal put on his best clothes and was nervous as hell till he set foot inside Aditya Chopras cabin. The filmmakers affable attitude put him at ease immediately. Adi sir told me theres a difference between a two-minute audition and a two-hour film. I should keep that in mind. He mentioned that my co-star would be Rani Mukerji. So Id have to be at my best throughout. He advised me to surrender myself completely to the directors vision.Vishal was apprehensive about acting with Rani but she allayed his fears at their first meeting itself. She shook my hands and said, Well be friends on the sets. You can come to me anytime to discuss anything. He reveals that the fight scenes with her were difficult to execute because she was still the iconic actor, hed grown up watching. He was afraid he might hurt her. It would have been different if she was a guy because we would have become pals by then. But I could barely manage to talk to her and hence fighting with her was difficult. The underwater shots were difficult as well. We both dont know how to swim, he reveals.Though his character is called Sunny in the film, paradoxically he lives in a dark mental space. To get under the skin of his complex character, he attended workshops. He visited Meerut to grasp the body language and get the ethnicity right. Moreover, it was his fake innocence that made it a menacing portrayal.Vishal is keen to work with directors like Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Imtiaz Ali. He hasnt signed anything post Mardaani 2 but plans to announce something big soon. He mentions hes afraid of the high life and wants to remain the same guy, who helps his mother in the kitchen. My sister calls me a scaredy-cat but I cant let go of my nature. Maybe in future, Ill let go of my inhibitions and get used to the stardom. We agree with you Vishal.
By his own admission, Rep. Gerald Connolly is drawn to issues that are "technical and maybe just kind of boring good government," involving IT systems, tele-working, and, yes, mail delivery.

His work as chair of a House subcommittee overseeing government operations is typically the stuff of C-SPAN, if little else.

Yet with the U.S. Postal Service in crisis, Connolly, D-Va., has found himself commanding a broader audience, emerging as a leading advocate for an agency that for generations has been a staple of American life.

In recent days, the congressman has accused President Donald Trump and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy - a Trump donor and appointee - of seeking to reduce postal service to suppress mail-in ballots in November and help the president's re-election campaign.

"It's deliberate sabotage to prevent the outcome they fear - namely Trump's defeat," Connolly said during a CNN appearance, among a flurry of interviews he has conducted as he and other Democrats have pressed their case.

By last week, there was evidence their campaign was successful when DeJoy said he would delay operational changes until after the election.

But Connolly, a member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which is to question DeJoy on Monday, did not lower his volume. He tweeted a repeat of his demand that DeJoy resign and described his tenure as "the darkest in #USPS history."

Anticipating DeJoy's appearance before the committee, the congressman warned: "You'd better come prepared."

Connolly, 70, has spent nearly six terms in Congress after 14 years on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. His district, which includes Fairfax and Prince William counties, is home to more than 50,000 federal workers.

An aggressive, voluble lawmaker, Connolly has found ample opportunities to exercise his dais-thumping gusto during Trump's tenure.

During a 2019 hearing on conditions at a border detention facility, the congressman pounded his fist and exclaimed, "This is not the American way of dealing with strangers who come and seek succor!"

"I'm not calling on you sir," he shouted at a former Trump immigration official who tried to speak from the witness table. "This is my time!"

Connolly said he has closely followed the financial tribulations of the Postal Service since joining Congress in 2009 - first as a member of the House Oversight Committee, and then when he became chair of the subcommittee on government operations.

After the novel coronavirus shut down the country in mid-March, the congressman was among the Democrats who publicly pushed for the Postal Service to receive a $25 billion infusion - a request Trump rejected.

Connolly's warnings about depleted service were validated over the summer as reports surfaced about a slowdown in mail delivery, just as election workers were bracing for an unprecedented number of people to vote by mail because of the pandemic.

His concerns became more urgent when Trump cast doubt on the Postal Service's capacity to get mail-in ballots to voters. The crisis mushroomed after DeJoy began prescribing cost-cutting measuresand the agency warnedthat ballots might not be mailed in time to count.

Suddenly, the congressman found himself at the center of a national furor with a platform from which he excoriated the president, as well as DeJoy, a business executive whom he dismissed as a "political hack."

"When you represent a district that's full of federal employees, your focus on government operations will have a moment," said Stephen Farnsworth, a University of Mary Washington political science professor. "The issue itself is a slam dunk. Of all the targets Trump could have chosen, few have a greater potential for blowback than slowing the mail."

In an interview, Connolly said he found it "very satisfying" the issue had gained such prominence.

"It has everyone's attention and they understand it's not just about, 'Let's make sure my birthday card gets there on time,'" he said. "It's about the outcome of one of the most consequential presidential elections in living memory."

At the same time, Connolly is wise enough to Washington's rhythms to understand the issue "could go away tomorrow and we move on to the next shiny object."

"Fame is very fragile," he said. "It comes and goes. I'm a little amused by it more than anything. But I'm too old to believe it's lasting."

Still, the congressman has demonstrated a facility for drawing attention, including several years ago after reading a Washington Post article about Trump putting up fake Time magazine covers of himself in his businesses.

Connolly created his own mock version of a cover starring himself and tweeted, "Wow, my first cover of Time."

The tweet was liked more than 21,000 times.

Connolly, a native Bostonian who studied for the priesthood before getting a master's in public administration at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, did not enter politics until he was in his 40s.

For a decade, beginning in 1979, he was a staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was elected to the Fairfax Board of Supervisors in 1995 and won a race to become chair eight years later.

During his tenure, Connolly advocated for the redevelopment of Tysons and the creation of Metro's Silver Line. A 40-mile hiking trail in the county that he pushed for is named for him.

When then-Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., decided not to seek another term in Congress, Connolly won the campaign to succeed him in the 11th District. After Connolly was re-elected in a close race two years later, House Democrats altered the district's boundaries to favor their party. Connolly has not faced a robust challenge since, including this year, when his general election opponent is a little-known Republican, Manga Anantatmula.

"He couldn't lose his district if he tried," Davis said.

Connolly's only political defeat occurred last year, when he lost a race to Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., to succeed the late representative Elijah Cummings, D-Md., as the committee's chair.

Asked if he would seek the chairmanship again in the future, Connolly said, "Absolutely."

Davis described his successor as "very smart" and competent and predicted that the Postal Service issue would last for several more weeks before "they'll add some money to the budget. You get your day in the sun and it goes away."

"The ultimate question is what do we do to fix it?" Davis said. "Gerry is front and center on this. Taking on an issue is good, but long-term people will want to know what are we doing about it?"

For the moment, Connolly said his mission is to keep the public focused on the Postal Service and to give DeJoy the opportunity during his committee appearance Monday to acknowledge missteps.

"Do I think he's going to do that?" Connolly asked. "No. I think he's going to wiggle and squirm."

If that's the case, the congressman promised to maintain "relentless pressure."

"It's only going to grow if we don't get the assurances we need," he said.
live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

Shabbir Kayyumi

What is Trendline Breakout?

Trendlines are an important tool in technical analysis for both trend identification and confirmation. One of the basic tenets put forth by Charles Dow in the Dow Theory is that stock prices moves in a trend. Trends are often measured and identified by "Trendlines".

These trendlines can help us to identify potential areas of increased supply and demand, which can cause the market to move down or up respectively. Trendlines can help traders identify buying and selling opportunities that occur within a strong trend.

Figure.1. Resistance Trendline line Breakout

Why to buy Canara Bank?

A trendline is a straight line that connects two or more price points and then extends into the future to act as a line of support or resistance. Think of trendline as the diagonal equivalent of horizontal support and resistance.

Buy Signal

Prices are consolidating in a zone of Rs 110 on higher side and Rs 98 on lower side since last one month. At the same time, this stock is trading above its 20 DMA and 50 DMA which is supportive for upside movement. Recently downward sloping trendline connecting Rs 117-113-105 is breached from below and can be considered as a breakout of prices. However this breakout is also supported by volumes and possibility of sustainability is quite high and acceleration will come on a daily close above Rs 108 mark. Looking at above mentioned rationale one can buy this stock for higher targets.

Figure.2. Trend line Breakout and Buy signal on Canara Bank

Profit Booking

As per one of the method of Trendline Breakout one can use previous swing pivot for profit booking. These levels are standing around Rs 117 and should provide immediate resistance on higher side, moving further Rs 130 will attract more profit bookings. So one can consider profit booking near Rs 117 and higher side towards Rs 130 mark.

Stop Loss

Entire bullish view negates on a breach of immediate swing low and in a case of Canara Bank, we will consider Rs 97 as a stop loss level closing basis.

Conclusion

We recommend buying Canara Bank around Rs 104 with a stop loss of Rs 97 for higher targets of Rs 117/130 as indicated in above chart.

The author is Head - Technical Research at Narnolia Financial Advisors Ltd.

Disclosure: Narnolia Financial Advisors/Analyst (s) does/do not have any holding in the stocks discussed but these stocks may have been recommended to clients in the past. The stocks recommended are based on our analysis which is based on information obtained from public sources and sources believed to be reliable, but no independent verification has been made nor is its accuracy or completeness guaranteed.

: 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.
GRDAI in Henry Street have arrested two men in relation to three burglaries and the theft of two cars at separate locations in Limerick city.

They occurred in the early hours of Friday morning, August 21, said a garda spokesperson.

"Gardai were alerted to a burglary that occurred at a house in Mulgrave Street at approximately 4am when two men entered the house and stole car keys. They left the scene in the stolen car and later crashed the car at Monaleen where they then broke into another business premises," said the garda spokesperson.

Gardai arrested one man, aged in his late 20s, on the premises and he was taken to Henry Street Garda Station where he was detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984. The second man left the scene in the crashed car.

"Later that Friday morning, gardai received reports of a car driving erratically in Castletroy at approximately 7.20am. The offending car, which was stolen from a third location, was found crashed in a field and gardai arrested one man at the scene. This man, aged 21, was taken to Henry Street Garda Station where he was detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984," said the garda spokesperson.

Both men have since been charged in relation to the burglaries and thefts, and are due to appear before Galway District Court tomorrow morning, Monday, August 24 at 10.30am in relation to these incidents.
Some investors rely on dividends for growing their wealth, and if you're one of those dividend sleuths, you might be intrigued to know that Bank of Hawaii Corporation (NYSE:BOH) is about to go ex-dividend in just 4 days. If you purchase the stock on or after the 28th of August, you won't be eligible to receive this dividend, when it is paid on the 15th of September.

Bank of Hawaii's next dividend payment will be US$0.67 per share. Last year, in total, the company distributed US$2.68 to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, Bank of Hawaii stock has a trailing yield of around 4.8% on the current share price of $55.36. If you buy this business for its dividend, you should have an idea of whether Bank of Hawaii's dividend is reliable and sustainable. As a result, readers should always check whether Bank of Hawaii has been able to grow its dividends, or if the dividend might be cut.

View our latest analysis for Bank of Hawaii

Dividends are typically paid out of company income, so if a company pays out more than it earned, its dividend is usually at a higher risk of being cut. Bank of Hawaii paid out 58% of its earnings to investors last year, a normal payout level for most businesses.

When a company paid out less in dividends than it earned in profit, this generally suggests its dividend is affordable. The lower the % of its profit that it pays out, the greater the margin of safety for the dividend if the business enters a downturn.

Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Companies with consistently growing earnings per share generally make the best dividend stocks, as they usually find it easier to grow dividends per share. If earnings decline and the company is forced to cut its dividend, investors could watch the value of their investment go up in smoke. With that in mind, we're encouraged by the steady growth at Bank of Hawaii, with earnings per share up 4.4% on average over the last five years.

Story continues

Another key way to measure a company's dividend prospects is by measuring its historical rate of dividend growth. Bank of Hawaii has delivered 4.1% dividend growth per year on average over the past 10 years. It's encouraging to see the company lifting dividends while earnings are growing, suggesting at least some corporate interest in rewarding shareholders.

Final Takeaway

From a dividend perspective, should investors buy or avoid Bank of Hawaii? Earnings per share have been growing at a reasonable rate, and the company is paying out a bit over half its earnings as dividends. It might be worth researching if the company is reinvesting in growth projects that could grow earnings and dividends in the future, but for now we're on the fence about its dividend prospects.

However if you're still interested in Bank of Hawaii as a potential investment, you should definitely consider some of the risks involved with Bank of Hawaii. For example - Bank of Hawaii has 1 warning sign we think you should be aware of.

If you're in the market for dividend stocks, we recommend checking our list of top dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend.

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 information in this article was last updated on Sept. 12.

Hamiltons legal cannabis market is going to get crowded in the coming months with 10 dispensaries open and retail applications pending across the city.

Forty-nine retail licence applications are being processed by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO). Three of those potential stores are in the process of receiving public scrutiny, the other 46 have passed that stage and are undergoing review by the AGCO.

If all applications are granted, there will be 59 pot shops spread out through Hamilton, from Ancaster to Winona and Waterdown to Binbrook.

But some city councillors arent pleased with the number of applicants looking to open dispensaries in town.

On Aug. 21, Hamilton councillors backed a motion to urge Ontario to consider a radial separation rule between dispensaries.

New locations are good news for customers in areas of the city that were shut out when the government was granting licences through the lottery system.

For example, downtown had no cannabis stores in the year-and-a-half since the October 2018 legalization. But when the government lifted restriction in late 2019, applications flooded in.

Since the end of pandemic lockdown, three pot shops have opened up downtown and one on Barton Street near Ottawa Street, bringing Hamiltons total dispensaries to 10.

Most recently, Sessions Cannabis on Barton Street East and Ottawa Street North, and 420 Love on King Street West near Hess Village both opened Aug. 28.

Cannabis Supply Co. opened on John Street South, just south of Main Street East, on Aug. 3.

And Tokyo Smoke opened on James Street North between Barton and Cannon streets on July 22.

Ten more would-be vendors have applications submitted to open in the downtown Hamilton area including five more in the Hess Village block. One vendor is looking to open in the North End and one each on Dundurn and Locke streets.

Similarly, Sessions Cannabis Stoney Creek opened July 17 on Stone Church Road East, near the Upper Red Hill Valley Parkway, but pot shops have yet to appear on the central Mountain.

Thirteen vendors are looking to open on the Mountain, eight more between Sherman and Parkdale avenues in the lower city, five in lower Stoney Creek, three in Waterdown, two in Ancaster, and one in each in Westdale, Winona, Dundas, West Hamilton and Binbrook.
74 evangelical leaders want pornography labeled a public health crisis in Ohio

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More than six dozen clergy members are calling on county officials in Ohio to declare pornography a public health crisis and hope to see similar action taken at the state level.

Pastors from 74 different congregations endorsed a draft resolution calling on the board of Richland Public Health to declare pornography a public health crisis.

The clergy want the county health board to push for the enforcement of obscenity laws and increased regulation of pornography on the Internet at both the state and federal levels in order to protect citizens and minors from such exposure.

Our hope is this resolution will encourage education, prevention, research, and policy changes at the state level to confront pornographys proliferation on the Internet and in society, Rev. El Akuchie of Godsfield House of Prayer, the co-founder of Richland Community Prayer Network, said in a statement.

Akuchie and other signatories see a link between the pornography industry and human trafficking.

Pornography creates a sexually toxic environment intertwined with the perpetuation of prostitution, and the modern-day slavery of human trafficking, with over half of sex trafficking victims reporting they were required to learn and perform sexual acts according to depictions in pornography, the resolution explains.

Akuchie said that due to pornographys affiliation with human trafficking, the pastors are calling on the county to declare a public health emergency.

As a diverse group of clergy, we believe if word got out of a multi-sector partnership between engaged faith community and local government, strategically, it could deter potential human traffickers from establishing operations in our region, the reverend stated.

According to Pastor James Marshall of Ganges Community Church in Shelby, human trafficking is a major problem in Ohio.

The Ohio Department of Health (ODH) is a member of the Governors Ohio Human Trafficking Task Force, and according to its website, ranks Ohio as fifth among all states in total reported human trafficking cases, he said.

The Task Force also identifies Toledo [in Lucas County] as the fourth-highest ranking city in the nation for recruiting victims into the illegal trade."

The draft resolution mentions the effort to declare pornography a public health hazard at the state level. House Resolution 180, sponsored by 19 members of the Ohio House of Representatives, was introduced in June 2019.

So far, no action has been taken on the bill.

Should House Resolution 180 become law, Ohio would become the 16th state to label pornography a public health crisis.

The other states that have passed similar resolutions to H.R. 180 are Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia.

In the past, religious leaders in Ohio have influenced public policy in the Buckeye State.

Earlier this year, a group of more than 100 pastors wrote a letter to the Ohio State Board of Education, the leaders of the Ohio General Assembly and several superintendents of school districts across the state protesting against the practicing of yoga in public schools in certain districts.

The pastors argued that forcing children to practice yoga, which they described as a form of Eastern religion, violated the First Amendment.

In response to the letter, some of the school districts agreed to keep yoga out of their classrooms.

In 2015, before any state had passed a resolution declaring pornography a public health crisis, pastors from 66 congregations in Richland County called for a day of prayer, repentance and fasting from the sin of immorality which includes the use of pornography.

Several municipalities in Richland County implemented restrictive laws regulating businesses selling pornography and held a Pornography Awareness Week in 2016.
Alliance partners the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Janata Dal (United) and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) will fight the upcoming Bihar elections together under the leadership of chief minister Nitish Kumar, BJP national president JP Nadda said on Sunday.

Whenever the three parties --- the BJP, the JD(U) and the LJP --- came together, there was resounding victory (in Bihar)We will fight together and we will win again, Nadda said, addressing party leaders and workers in Bihar through video-conferencing

He appealed to BJP workers to become ambassadors of change. For this, we have to contest at each and every booth to win. We have to add value not only to BJP, but to the alliance partners as wellWe are fighting an election during a pandemic and the challenges are immense, he said, striking a note of unity in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the concluding session of the two-day Bihar BJP meet.

Naddas remarks came at a time when Kumars JD (U) and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswans LJP have appeared to be at odds. The LJP has even questioned Kumars leadership in the run-up to the elections to the 243-member House due in October-November.

In an interview to HT on August 22, LJP president Chirag Paswan criticised the Bihar government for its alleged failure in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic and the states annual flood woes.

Also read: Change in leadership, complete rehaul - Top Cong leaders write to Sonia

In his address from the national capital, Nadda said BJP workers should not only spread awareness about the central governments schemes and efforts to mitigate the Covid-19 crisis but should also highlight the good work done by the state government.

we need to take all precautions of physical and social distancing. So, the best form of campaigning is small door-to-door campaigning, he told his partymen. Reach out all sections of society, all age groups.

He also hit out at the Opposition, calling it a spent force. They do not have any vision, thought. They are doing petty politics, Nadda said.

JDU leader and minister in the state cabinet Sanjay Jha told HT in an interview last week that BJP leaderships announcement that the election will be held under the leadership of Nitish Kumar should end all speculation about infighting in the alliance.

In the Bihar elections, the NDA will be up against a grand alliance, or mahagathbandhan, of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress, Upendra Kushwahas Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) and Bollywood set designer Mukesh Sahnis Vikassheel Insan Party (VIP).

The Election Commission is yet to announce the poll schedule for Bihar, but there are indications that the voting process might be held on time. Recently, the poll watchdog released a broad set of guidelines for post-pandemic elections.
MINSK, Belarus  One day after President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus promised to crush with an iron fist the protests that have broken out since his re-election this month, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of the capital, Minsk, on Sunday to show their determination to force him out of office.

After a week of rallies and publicity stunts in support of Mr. Lukashenko, who has led Belarus, a former Soviet republic, since 1994, many expected the protests against him to ebb. But by late Sunday afternoon, a sea of people had filled the main Independence Avenue in central Minsk, blocking all traffic there and on side streets.

Some estimates put the number of demonstrators at well over 100,000, in what appeared to be a repeat of a similar rally a week earlier.

Although Mr. Lukashenko declared a landslide victory and 80 percent of the vote in the Aug. 9 election, protesters and international bodies, including the European Union, have called it fraudulent. The main opposition candidate, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, also declared victory and fled to neighboring Lithuania out of fear for her safety.
Multiple wildfires are burning in the greater North Bay. Cal Fire is referring to them collectively as the LNU Lightning Complex. LNU stands for Cal Fire's Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit, and you can find the latest evacuation info here. A map of the fire is available here. The biggest fires are:

Hennessey Fire (merged with Gamble, Green, Aetna, Markley, Morgan, Spanish and Round): Napa County, 290,102 acres, 22% contained

Walbridge Fire (merged with Stewarts): Sonoma County, west of Healdsburg, 52,069 acres, 5% contained

Meyers Fire: Sonoma County, north of Jenner, 2,360 acres, 95% contained

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LATEST: Aug. 23, 7:30 p.m. With the help of favorable weather conditions, fire crews made progress Saturday controlling the North Bay fires, bringing the LNU Lightning Complex up to 21% containment ahead of the anticipated high wind event.

The complex of fires started the day at 341,243 acres and had grown to 347,63o acres by 7 p.m. Sunday. Cal Fire updates acreage twice a day so another count won't be available until Monday morning.

The Walbridge Fire, which began the day at 0% contained, is now up to 5%. The Meyers Fire is now 95% contained.

Officials are still cautioning residents to be ready to evacuate at a moment's notice, as dry lightning could spark fires and high winds could quickly spread them.

"I can't stress enough the importance of being prepared to leave," Cal Fire unit chief Shana Jones said.

"If that tingling on the back of your neck says 'I need to leave,' then please do so," she added. "Do not wait to be ordered to do so."

Four civilians have died  three in Napa County and one in Solano County  871 structures have been destroyed and 234 are damaged. Over 30,000 structures remain threatened.

MediaNews Group/East Bay Times v/MediaNews Group via Getty Images

Aug. 23, 11:30 a.m. Fire crews at the LNU Lightning Complex burning across the North Bay are preparing for dry lightning and gusty winds to pick up throughout the day.

"Any lightning that comes through, based on the fact we have so many resources that are affected and stretched thin throughout California, it's going to likely result in additional fires," Cal Fire unit chief Shana Jones said. "We do have a plan in order to immediately attack those fires, but it's going to take some work."

Cal Fire officials caution that preventing any new fires from erupting into large blazes will become their immediate priority, so residents may see resources pulled from fires already burning near them.

Over 1,700 fire personnel are at the LNU Lightning Complex with more arriving from out of state. Fifteen engines from Washington and 25 from Oregon arrived over the weekend. Jones said the LNU fire is the state's No. 1 priority for getting more resources. "Despite the increase in resources, we are definitely far from getting these fires handled," Jones said Sunday.

Earlier this morning, clearer air allowed for some aircraft to take off and access the fires, but those flights have been grounded off-and-on since then due to inclement conditions.

Thunderstorms with dry lightning are expected to hit the region Sunday evening.

MediaNews Group/The Mercury News/MediaNews Group via Getty Images

Aug. 23, 7:30 a.m. The LNU Lightning Complex is now the second-largest wildfire in California history.

The fire has burned 341,243 acres as of Sunday morning and is 17% contained. The third-largest wildfire in state history, the SCU Lightning Complex, is at 339,968 acres to start the day.

The good news overnight is that the Meyers Fire, burning north of Jenner, is now 70% contained. The Walbridge Fire, burning west of Healdsburg, grew three acres overnight to 51,072 acres. It is 0% contained. The largest of the complex fires, the Hennessey Fire, grew from 271,714 on Saturday night to 287,811 acres on Sunday morning. It is 17% contained.

"Significant fire growth" is expected, however, due to dry lightning and thunderstorms returning to the forecast. Weather through Tuesday could cause erratic winds, extreme fire behavior within the existing fires, and have a potential for new fires to start," Cal Fire warned. You can read more about the forecasted conditions here.

Four civilian have died  three in Napa County and one in Solano County  845 structures have been destroyed and 231 are damaged. Some 30,500 structures remain threatened.

MediaNews Group/East Bay Times via Getty Images/MediaNews Group via Getty Images

Aug. 22, 8:20 p.m. The LNU Lightning Complex fire is now 325,128 acres.

The massive North Bay fire grew slightly throughout the day Saturday after beginning the morning at 314,207 acres. The Walbridge Fire, west of Healdsburg, grew 1,000 acres during the day. The Meyers Fire, north of Jenner near the coast, held steady at 2,345 acres.

The biggest blaze, the Hennessey Fire in Napa, Yolo and Solano counties, went from 261,793 acres to 271,714. Fire crews did gain some containment, however, increasing from 15% this morning to 17% in the evening.

Aug. 22, 6:26 p.m. Cal Fire has lifted evacuation orders in Yolo County for the following areas:

 Evacuation Zones 2, 8, 9, 15, 31, 46, 55 and 60. For an evacuation zone map, go here.

Aug. 22, 6:19 p.m. New mandatory evacuation orders have been issued by the Lake County Sheriff's Office, affecting the following areas:

 All residences and areas east of State Route 29, north of Morgan Valley Road, south of State Route 20, west of Sky High Ridge Road from Morgan Valley Road extending north to State Route 20, but excluding residents in the city limits of Clearlake.

 All residences along and east of Big Canyon Road, Perini Road and Seigler Canyon Road, south of State Route 29, west of State Route 29 and north of the warning line (Anderson Springs Road, Neft Road and Boggs Mount Recreation Area extending northeast to the intersection of State Route 29 and Hofacker Road)

 South of Morgan Valley Road, west of the mandatory evacuation border line at Sky High Ridge Road to Highway 29 and Highway 53 in Lower Lake.

 East of Highway 29 at Hofacker Lane to the mandatory evacuation border line (this area was previously under warning but has been upgraded to an order).

In addition, a wave of new evacuations was ordered in Sonoma County as the Walbridge Fire, fueled by a southern wind shift, continues to threaten Guerneville, Healdsburg and many Russian River communities.

Areas in seven zones on the evacuation map  2F1, 2F2, 2F3, 2K1, 2K2, 4A1 and 4C1  have been issued evacuation orders, while areas in an additional six zones  4A2, 4A3, 2A2, 2C4, 2G1 and Town of Windsor Zone A  have been issued evacuation warnings. Click here for full evacuation information.

You can find more information on evacuations at these links:

Sonoma County: Find latest evacuation information at SoCo Emergency.

Napa County: Find evacuation information at Napa County Office of Emergency Services.

Lake County: Sign up for evacuation information with Lake County here.

Solano County: Evacuation information on the Solano County website.

Yolo County: Evacuation information on the Solano County website.

For updates on the blazes, check the Cal Fire website.
The British chemical giant Imperial Chemical Industries is facing legal action after the family of a worker who died from terminal lung cancer claimed he was exposed to asbestos over a 34-year period.

Christopher Lees, 79, who was an in-house healthy safety inspector at the company's research plants, was unaware he was exposed to what he believes was the 'hidden killer' dust within the walls of his workplace.

It was only in February this year that Mr Lees, from Cuddington, Northwich, Cheshire, was diagnosed with mesothelioma - an aggressive and terminal lung cancer caused by breathing in asbestos dust and fibres.

He passed away just three months later on May 17 after being admitted to a hospice and leaves behind his wife Gillian, who herself has a lung condition and severe arthritis, two daughters and four grandchildren.

Christopher Lees, 79, from Cheshire, who worked as an in-house health safety inspector for ICI, was diagnosed with mesothelioma - an aggressive and terminal lung cancer- in February

In a statement made shortly before his death, which was read out at an inquest in Warrington, Cheshire, Mr Lees blamed his imminent death on his asbestos exposure whilst working at ICI between 1958 and 1992.

His family have now instructed lawyers to sue ICI and appeal for ex-workmates of Mr Lees to come forward if they too have the illness or know of others who have fallen may have it.

Outside the Warrington hearing Mr Lees' daughter Nicola Johnson said: 'In just six months Dad went from helping me with the school run and being mum's full-time carer to not being here at all.

'He just deteriorated so fast and was in a huge amount of pain constantly at the end.

'I remember taking him to get the results of his biopsy. We sat there holding hands, both expecting bad news as we didn't think we'd be lucky enough to get away with it and devastatingly, we were right.

'He was really upset and so scared in the car on the journey home. He told me what his wishes were and how we were going to cope with it.

'We were told he could have chemotherapy to extend his life and for the next two weeks he'd pick himself up and push himself to go out for walks to keep himself fit to be ready to face what was coming next. Then Covid hit and all bets were off.'

The inquest was told Mr Lees worked for several years in a laboratory in the Research and Development Department at ICI's Winnington Plant.

From 1968 to 1975 he worked as part of a team on the development of Monnex, a chemical firefighting agent, and was required to wear an asbestos fire safety suit to start fierce blazes and then test the agent's capabilities.

In his statement, Mr Lees said: 'This building effectively became our home for seven years and that is where I believe I had a long and sustained contact with asbestos.

Mr Lees (pictured right in 1978 getting a 20-year service award) worked at ICI between 1958 and 1992

'Whilst everything in the building had been removed with the exception of pipework, the dust from the removal process was everywhere.

'Many of our fires were set indoors so we could accurately monitor the testing and a large extractor fan would be switched on to remove any smoke after the fires ere extinguished.

'My job was set and extinguish the fires and as the fires were intense we were provided with asbestos suits which had two layers of asbestos inside as insulation and it sat directly on my clothing. I wore this every day whilst doing this work.

'The asbestos suits were designed to protect us from the intense heart of these ferocious fires but as I pulled the suit on and off each day, I would disturb the lining and potentially disturbing asbestos fibres in it. We would be wearing these suits to move 45 gallon drums of fuel.

'As this happened twice a day for seven years this would have resulted in me being exposed to a significant amount of asbestos fibre.'

Mr Lees moved to ICI's Castner Kellner site in Runcorn in 1975 where he was appointed an assistant safety advisor.

He carried out site tours and worked with union representatives to improve working conditions and reduce the risk of accidents and injuries.

During these site tours he was in the vicinity of maintenance processes, pipework and equipment.

In 1989, Mr Lees returned to work at the Winnington and Lostock sites where he continued as a Safety Advisor undertaking site tours and overseeing safety procedures.

Mr Lees added: 'During my period of my employment at Castner Kelner I am almost certain I would have sustained further exposure to asbestos dust as it was a fairly old site which contained miles and miles of pipework which more than likely had asbestos insulation.

The former ICI employee worked for several years in a laboratory in the Research and Development Department at ICI's Winnington Plant

'We spent hours walking through parts of the plant and inspecting equipment and it was not unusual to brush against this insulation which would have caused dust to come onto my clothing.

'Whilst the safety advisors worked to check out that safe procedures were in place to ensure that work was carried out to specific standards, it was impossible to rule out more incidents of exposure.

'It was only when knowledge of asbestos increased in this mid 80s than guidance was issued and we sought to provide respiratory equipment when asbestos was being removed.

'I cannot say these procedures were always followed to the letter by the charge hands and the fitters - it is human nature to look for short cuts to finish the job as quickly as possible without further exposure.

'I believe that the majority of my exposure to asbestos has come about as a result of my work whilst wearing a fire suit provided to me by ICI but it is possible I was also unwittingly exposed to asbestos by contractors and fitters working in areas where I was passing through. I would not have been aware it was happening at the time.'

Coroner Peter Sigee recorded a verdict of death by industrial disease.

After the hearing Mr Lees lawyers at Manchester-based Birchall Blackburn Law confirmed it was helping his family make an industrial disease compensation claim and appealed for 'memories and recollections' from former ICI employees.

Victoria Roberts, an industrial disease specialist solicitor at Birchall Blackburn Law, says: 'Mesothelioma is a cruel lung cancer that takes decades to develop after exposure to asbestos dust and fibres.

'It can be difficult to find evidence about where exactly the exposure took place, which is why we need the help of former ICI employees who worked in Northwich and Runcorn.

'We would be interested to hear from anyone who worked in the research and development department at Winnington and might be able to assist with a description of the fire suits used, as well as anyone who worked at Castner Kellner and can provide information about the maintenance procedure and the use and presence of asbestos on site.'

The Department of Work and Pensions says 53,000 people will eventually die from mesothelioma between 2013 and 2037 in the UK. According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), more than 2,500 people a year die from mesothelioma.
A 29-year-old man from Groton was among three people killed in separate ATV crashes in Maine on Saturday, according to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

Tyler Curry was killed in Lang Township, Maine when his ATV went off a bridge and into a river, authorities said. The Groton natives body was found by two fishermen. Authorities believe speed was a factor in the crash.

At about 5:30 p.m., authorities said, Curry was riding on a private access road after leaving a group he had been riding with. Prior to crossing a bridge, Curry turned left and his ATV began sliding toward the end of the road at a high rate of speed, authorities said.

The ATV straddled the outside edge of the bridge before sliding off into the river and throwing Curry from the vehicle, authorities said. Two fishermen discovered Currys body in the river and called 911 at 6:20 p.m.

Curry was one of three people killed in unrelated ATV crashes in Maine. Joshua Violette, 32 of Readfield, Maine, and 69-year-old Roland Robitaille of Freedom, Maine, were both killed after being thrown from their vehicles, authorities said.

Violettes ATV flipped after hitting a depression in the road, while Robitaille was thrown from his, the agency said. A woman riding with Violette suffered non life threatening injuries.

None of the three men were wearing a helmet.

The three deaths prompted the Maine Warden Service to issue a safety advisory Sunday urging riders to wear a helmet, stay on marked trails and ride responsibly.
John Mullan with children Tomas and Amelia and wife Geraldine who survived

A Co Donegal seaside town will come to a standstill on Monday when a father and his two children are laid to rest following a horrific car crash.

John (49), Tomas (14) and six-year-old Amelia Mullan will be buried after 11am funeral Mass at St Pius X Parish Church in Moville.

The childrens mother and Johns wife Geraldine (45), will lead mourners at the funeral.

Mrs Mullan, a nurse at Letterkenny University Hospital, was the only person to survive when the familys car slid across a wet road on Thursday night last at Quigleys Point and careered into Lough Foyle.

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Mrs Mullan managed to climb onto the roof of the upturned car and was rescued a short time later but her husband and children perished.

In keeping with Government guidelines on Covid, only a small number of people can attend todays funeral.

However, hundreds of people are expected to line the route from the familys home to the church.

The funeral Mass, which will be conducted by parish priest Fr Pat OHagan, will also be streamed online on www.movilleparish.com

Among those who will attend the Mass will be Mrs Mullans family who will travel from her hometown in Williamstown, Co Galway for the solemn occasion.

Mr and Mrs Mullan met when Geraldine treated his ill mother and the pair gradually fell in love.

Garda are investigating if ongoing roadworks could have played a part in the accident which claimed the lives of the young family.

Forensic investigators are beginning a painstaking investigation into what caused dad John to lose control of the vehicle at Three Trees in Quigleys Point.

One major aspect of their investigation is roadworks in the area on the R238 which were ongoing in the days prior to the tragedy.

It has been confirmed that the road where John lost control had been completely resurfaced just a couple of days beforehand.

It was also a wet and dark night as the family returned from playing ten pin bowling in Derry.

Local people also claimed there was an extremely high tide that night and that waves were breaking over the embankment and out onto the road.

Road warnings about traffic repairs lined the side of the road where the accident happened.

It is also believed that some line markings along the road had not yet been completed before the accident.

On Friday evening after the tragedy at approximately 6.15pm a line-marking truck arrived at the scene to carry out some work.

Garda Superintendent Eugene McGovern confirmed the road had just been resurfaced.

The Buncrana based Garda officer, who was at the scene of the tragedy just minutes after it happened on Thursday night, confirmed this will be one of many aspects considered by forensic investigators.

He said We still dont know what caused Mr Mullan to veer off the road but we will carry out a full investigation into all the circumstances.

It was a wet and windy night and the stretch of road where the crash happened had recently been resurfaced so that will form part of our investigation.

It is understood that Gardai have yet to speak with Mrs Mullan about the moments before tragedy struck her family.

It is hoped she will be able to give vital insight into why the familys black 2011 Mitsubishi ASX careered over the road and ended up in the deep waters of Lough Foyle.
Scranton, PA (18503)

Today

Cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy in the afternoon. A few flurries or snow showers possible. Morning high of 27F with temps falling to near 15. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy. Low 6F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.
KK Venugopal, the Attorney General of India, on August 23 declined consent to initiate criminal contempt against Bollywood actor Swara Bhaskar over her comments on the Supreme Court judgment on Ayodhya land dispute.

The plea was filed in the Supreme Court to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against the actor, reported Bar and Bench.

Quashing the plea, Venugopal said: The comment refers to the judgment of the Supreme Court, and is not an attack on the institution. This does not offer any comment on the Supreme Court itself or say anything that would scandalise or tend to scandalise, or lower or tend to lower the authority of the Court. In my opinion, this statement does not constitute criminal contempt.

Petitioner Usha Shetty had sought the approval of the AG to begin the criminal contempt proceedings against Swara. She was of the opinion that the actor made the comments with the intention of inciting a lack of confidence in the Indian judiciary and that it even amounted to questioning the integrity of the SC.

The petitioner had also claimed that the comments made by Swara Bhaskar at an event hosted by the Mumbai Collective were downright derogatory and scandalous.

She has now approached Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta to initiate the criminal contempt proceedings, stating that she does not agree with the reasoning given by Venugopal.

What did Swara say?

Commenting on the Supreme Courts Ayodhya verdict, she had said: Though the Supreme Court had deemed the demolition of Babri masjid as unlawful, they had rewarded the people who razed the historical structure in the same judgment.

She had also said: We are now in a situation where are courts are not sure whether they believe in the constitution or not.
Remaining coalition troops will depart in the coming days after finalising handing over equipment to Iraqi forces.

A United States-led military coalition in Iraq has said its troops have withdrawn from Camp Taji military base and handed it over to Iraqi security forces.

The base, 20km (12 miles) north of the capital, Baghdad, had been the site of frequent rocket attacks by Iran-backed groups targeting US-led troops in recent months.

The movement of coalition military personnel is part of a long-range plan coordinated with the government of Iraq, the coalition said in a statement, adding that Camp Taji has historically held up to 2,000 coalition members, most of whom have departed this summer.

Remaining coalition troops will depart in the coming days after finalising the handing over of equipment to Iraqi security forces, the coalition statement said.

Al Jazeeras Dorsa Jabbari, reporting from Baghdad, described the move as significant as it marked the first time since the US-led invasion of 2003 that Camp Taji has returned to Iraqi control.

Important day

Speaking at the handover ceremony, coalition spokesman Colonel Myles Caggins III said: This is an important day. The coalition is leaving our site inside Camp Taji, transferring out of this base, and handing over $347m of property, equipment and enhanced training facilities to the Iraqi security forces.

We are making these transitions because the Iraqi security forces are successful against Daesh, Caggins said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIL (ISIS).

Today, the Iraqi security forces and Peshmerga [Kurdish forces] are better led, better trained and better equipped to defeat ISIS permanently.

Coalition forces train with Iraqi soldiers during a military exercise at Camp Taji, north of Baghdad [File: Hadi Mizban/AP Photo]

This was the eighth transfer of a coalition portion of an Iraqi base back to Iraqi forces.

The withdrawal came days after US President Donald Trump reiterated his promise to withdraw the few US troops still in the country. The US has had about 5,000 troops stationed in the country and coalition allies, a further 2,500.

Iraqs parliament had voted this year for the departure of foreign troops from Iraq, and US and other coalition troops have been leaving as part of a withdrawal.

The vote came after a January 3 US air raid on Baghdad airport killed top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi armed group leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

On January 8, Iran retaliated by firing missiles at two Iraqi military bases hosting US military personnel, raising fears of a full-blown conflict. But the hits caused no fatalities and Trump later signalled that the US would not respond militarily to the missile strikes amid signs of de-escalation from both sides.
Bankruptcies Soar in a Sea of Liquidity

Commentary

Misguided lockdowns have destroyed the global economy, and its likely the impact will last for years.

The fallacy of the lives or the economy argument is evident now that we see that countries such as Taiwan, South Korea, Austria, Sweden, and the Netherlands have been able to preserve the business fabric and the economy while doing a much better job managing the pandemic than countries with severe lockdowns.

One of the most alarming facts about this crisis is the pace at which bankruptcies are rising. Despite an $11 trillion liquidity and government aid injection, stocks and bonds at all-time highs, and sovereign as well as corporate yields at all-time lows, companies are going bust at the fastest pace since the Great Depression. Why? Because a solvency crisis cant be disguised by liquidity.

Trillions of dollars in liquidity are giving investors and governments a false sense of security because yields are low and valuations are high, but its a mirage driven by central bank purchases that cant disguise how quickly companies are entering into long-term solvency issues. This is important, because soaring bankruptcies and the rise in zombie companies means less employment, less investment, and lower growth in the future.

Liquidity only disguises risk; it doesnt resolve solvency issues driven by collapsing cash flows while costs remain elevated.

According to the Financial Times: Large U.S. corporate bankruptcy filings are now running at a record pace and are set to surpass levels reached during the financial crisis in 2009. As of Aug. 17, a record 45 companies each with assets of more than $1bn have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

In Germany, about 550,000 companies are at risk of being considered insolvent and being zombified by a pointless insolvency law that simply extends the pain of businesses that are technically bankrupt. In Spain, the Bank of Spain stated that 25 percent of all companies are on the verge of closing due to insolvency.

According to Moodys estimates, more than 10 percent of businesses in the leading economies are in severe financial stress, many in technical bankruptcy.

How could this happen? Since the 2008 crisis, all policy actions have been aimed at keeping sovereign bond yields low and bailing out bloated government spending and deficits, and the massive liquidity injections have benefited the large quoted companies that have used the money to shield their valuations through buy-backs and cheap debt.

However, cheap money has also triggered malinvestment, poor capital allocation, and higher-than-normal levels of debt. Small businesses didnt see the supposed benefits of the massive liquidity and deficit programs, while large companies became too comfortable with elevated levels of debt, poor return on capital employed, and solvency ratios that were simply too low in a growing economy.

Cheap money and massive bailouts have planted the seeds of a solvency crisis that was triggered by the irresponsible decision of some governments to shut down entire economies. If you have an economy that is highly leveraged and with weak productivity and solvency ratios, shutting down the economy for two months is the last nail in the coffin. And the ramifications will last for years.

Bailing out zombie firms will only make things worse, and new lockdowns could be lethal. The solution is what no government wants to do because it doesnt grab large headlines or give the impression that politicians are saving the world: supply-side measures that activate the mechanisms of refinancing, restructuring, and efficiency improvement.

More demand-side policies, pointless stimulus plans driven at building anything at any cost, and more liquidity injections will only make things worse and drive the economy to a stagflation crisis where the next problem will be to enter into a financial crisis as bankruptcies soar and banks asset valuations fall as nonperforming loans balloon despite massive central-bank action.

Governments will prefer to go down the Japan route: more debt, more bailouts, and massive government spending. However, that will only lead to stagnation and perpetuating imbalances that cant be hidden when the mistakes of Japan are implemented by the eurozone, China, and the United States.

Theres no possible way large spending and liquidity binges will deliver anything but higher debt, weaker growth, and lower real wages.

To end the zombie firm problem and the risk of even more bailouts, we need more open market, less red tape, and more flexible restructuring mechanisms. Anything else will simply deliver stagnation.

Daniel Lacalle, Ph.D., is chief economist at hedge fund Tressis and author of Freedom or Equality, Escape from the Central Bank Trap, and Life in the Financial Markets.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
SEATTLE (AP)  Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said Friday she will veto City Council-approved proposals that would include reducing the police department by as many as 100 officers through layoffs and attrition.

The council's proposals approved last week were supported by demonstrators who have marched in the city following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis but strongly opposed by the mayor and police Chief Carmen Best.

Durkan said in a news conference Friday she did not agree with losing the officers, in addition to measures that included a reduction in Bests roughly $294,000 annual salary and the salaries of other police leaders, as well as a plan to take officers off a team that removes homeless camps. She had also complained that the council had not discussed their plans with her or the police chief before taking action.

This veto was because the bills as passed did not have the type of collaboration that I think we will have going forward, and that Im hopeful we will have going forward, she said. Theres some flaws in each of these (bills) that I hope the council can correct, or with discussions, we can find a path forward together.

Measures passed by the council would have cut less than $4 million of the departments $400 million annual budget this year. Only council member Kshama Sawant voted against the budget package, saying it did not decrease the police budget enough.

Seattle now has about 1,400 police officers, and the proposed reductions fell far short of the calls from many Black Lives Matter protesters for a 50% cut to the department. Several council members said the changes were a starting point in a long process to reimagine policing and public safety.

Hours after the vote, Best announced she would be leaving her post, saying she was OK with her pay cut, but not with having to lay off new officers, many of them hired in part to improve diversity in the department.

Durkan said Friday she has been talking with Council President Lorena Gonzalez since then and is optimistic that the council and her office can work out a compromise. Gonzalez told The Seattle Times she was disappointed by the mayors veto decision, but she would work with her on a path forward.

I have to believe that we agree on more than we disagree, and I will strive to bridge the gap on our few but critical differences of opinion, Gonzalez said. I hope that the public knows that their elected leaders are committed to working together on achieving a long-overdue transformation of our law enforcement and criminal justice systems that have for far too long perpetuated trauma and harm on our black, brown and indigenous neighbors.

As U.S. attorney in Seattle, Durkan pushed a Justice Department investigation that found officers too quick to use force, leading to a 2012 consent decree with the federal government. Reviews by an independent monitor have found that changes made under that decree have led to a drop in how often police use force. But critics have said the departments actions during recent protests show not enough progress has been made.

The Seattle Office of Police Accountability said on Friday it has received 19,000 complaints over policing at protests against systemic racism and police violence since May 30. So far, the complaints have led the office to open 87 investigations. The most common complaints are allegations of excessive force, the Office of Police Accountability said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 15:19:03|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Amid the further containment of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), China is striving to get back to work and resume business and production. The following are the highlights of the past week:

-- MANUFACTURING SECTOR

China's manufacturing sector has weathered the test of COVID-19 and the country's status in the global manufacturing industry will remain firm, said the Ministry of Commerce on Thursday.

With abundant high-quality labor resources, sophisticated supporting facilities and infrastructures for industrial development, and a huge market with a population of 1.4 billion, China still has a competitive edge in the global manufacturing industry, said Gao Feng, spokesperson for the ministry, at a press conference.

-- EARLY RICE OUTPUT

China's early rice output reported a 3.9-percent increase in 2020 after seven consecutive years of decline, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Wednesday.

The output reached 27.29 million tonnes, up 1.03 million tonnes from 2019.

The steady increase in early rice production was mainly due to a surge in the cultivation area, although severe floods in parts of southern China led to a drop in per unit area yield, said Li Suoqiang, an official with the NBS.

-- INVESTMENTS IN B&R COUNTRIES

China's non-financial direct investments in countries along the Belt and Road (B&R) stood at 10.27 billion U.S. dollars in the first seven months, up by 28.9 percent year on year, official data showed.

The investments accounted for 17 percent of China's total non-financial outbound direct investments in the same period, up by 4.5 percentage points year on year, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

In terms of foreign contracted projects, Chinese enterprises signed new contracts worth 67.18 billion U.S. dollars in countries along the B&R in the Jan.-July period. Enditem
Khartoum, Aug 23 : Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has voiced the country's full readiness to cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute those charged with committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Hamdok made the remarks on Saturday in a speech to the nation on the occasion of the first anniversary of his assuming the post of prime minister, reports Xinhua news agency.

Accusing the former regime of its "reckless" actions, Hamdok said the Sudanese people have never supported terrorism and removal of the country from the US list of states sponsors of terrorism would be very soon.

He also said his government would fulfil the requirements of the transitional period, improve the economic conditions, achieve development and reach consensus over a national project for ruling Sudan through fair and transparent elections.

Hamdok assumed the post of Prime Minister on August 21, 2019, which marked a beginning of a 39-month transitional period under a transitional government of military and civilian components.

On March 4, 2009, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for allegedly committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur region.
On Saturday, the special cell arrested an ISIS terrorist carrying two pressure cooker-based IEDs after a brief exchange of fire and averted a major terror strike in Delhi.

The special cell has arrested an ISIS terrorist carrying two pressure cooker-based IEDs after a brief exchange of fire and averted a major terror strike in the national capital, police said on Saturday. According to the police, the accused has been identified as Mohd Mustakim Khan (36) aka Abu Yusuf Khan aka Yusuf Khan, a resident of village Badhiyaa Bhaisaahi, Utraula in Uttar Pradesh.

Police said, The lone-wolf attacker was carrying two pressure cooker-based IEDs while riding a white Apache motorcycle. The accused had planned to plant IEDs on and around August 15, 2020 but could not do so due to tight security arrangements in Delhi.

The police said that on monitoring and surveillance, it came to notice that one highly radicalised individual who goes by the code name Yusuf Khan has prepared many IEDs including suicide vests and belts. All the sources and staff were briefed and sensitised.

Also read: SSR death probe: CBI, Siddharth Pithani, cook Neeraj reach late actors residence

Also read: Indian Railways tender for 44 Vande Bharat trains cancelled

Police developed this information further and learnt that Yusuf Khan would launch a lone-wolf attack in some heavy footfall area of Delhi. Vigil was mounted and information was further developed. This input was developed through sources and physical surveillance was mounted in which movements of certain suspected individuals were closely and discreetly monitored.

An advance team led by Inspector Sunil Rajain was also sent to Uttar Pradesh to track the suspect, On August 22, specific information was received through the advance team that lone wolf terrorist Yusuf Khan has left for Delhi and will be moving towards Karol Bagh from Dhaula Kuan.

As per information, immediately a trap was laid near Dhaula Kuan and Ridge road. The team acted swiftly and apprehended terrorist Mohd Mustakim Khan aka Abu Yusuf Khan from the spot after a brief exchange of fire in the late-night hours, police said.

According to the information, accused came in contact with Yusuf Al Hindi (Believed to be killed in drone attack in Syria in 2017) ISIS chief of India operations who admitted him to the ranks of ISIS. He was indoctrinated and radicalised by Yusuf Al Hindi.

After the killing of Yusuf Al Hindi, the ID of accused was passed on to Abu Huzaifa Al Bakistani, resident of Pakistan (Believed to be killed in Drone attack in Khurasan in July19) the then Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) chief of India operations).

Abu Huzaifa Al Bakistani taught him how to prepare IEDs with timer mechanism, suicide vests and suicide belt.

Accused even tested a small IED near his villages cemetery and after the successful testing, he made two pressure cooker IEDs with the same mechanism.

After the killing of Abu Huzaifa Al Bakistani, his ID was given to the present ISKP Chief of India operations. This foreign-based handler prepared him to initiate jihad in India. Accused was more inclined to be an Istishhadi warrior of ISIS by doing fidayeen attacks but his foreign-based handler asked him to first execute a lone wolf attack by planting IEDs in high footfall areas of Delhi and then he was to be given permission from ISIS Jimmedaar to do fidayeen attack, according to the police.

The lone-wolf attacks by ISIS has happened in Europe and they wanted to start this trend in India as chances of getting exposed in lone-wolf attacks is far less as compared to working in a group or module.

Also read: Suspected ISIS operative nabbed in Delhi: NSG commandos, bomb squad to analyse recovered IEDs
Belarus braces for mass protests as Lukashenko orders army to defend nation An admirer shows support for President Lukashenko ahead of a major opposition rally set for Sunday

The emboldened opposition has called for massive demonstrations on Sunday to pressure Belarus' authoritarian leader into resigning after more than two weeks of historic protests against his disputed re-election.

Europe's longest serving leader, Alexander Lukashenko, dispatched his notorious riot police to disperse spontaneous rallies that erupted after he claimed a sixth presidential term in August 9 elections that Western leaders have said were rigged.

Solidarity rallies were also scheduled in neighbouring Lithuania, where demonstrators planned to form a human chain from Vilnius to the border with Belarus, 31 years after residents of the Baltic states joined hands and linked their capital cities in a mass protest against Soviet rule.

The EU has rejected the results of the presidential elections and this week promised to sanction Belarusians responsible for ballot fraud and a police crackdown that saw nearly 7,000 arrested and sparked gruesome allegations of torture and abuse in police custody.

Lukashenko has brushed aside the unprecedented calls to stand down, dismissed the possibility of holding a new vote and instructed his security services to quell unrest and secure the borders.

His judiciary opened a criminal investigation into the opposition's Coordination Council that seeks new elections and the peaceful transition of power, after he said opponents wanted to "seize power".

- NATO 'stirrings' -

The former collective farm boss ordered his army into full combat readiness during an army inspection on Saturday near the border with the EU and warned about NATO troop "stirrings" in Europe.

"The Fatherland is now in danger. We cannot joke," Lukashenko said. Lithuania's president Gitanas Nauseda in turn said Lukashenko was trying to "divert attention" from unrest at home and NATO dismissed the claims as baseless.

The unlikely leader of Belarus's opposition, 37-year-old Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, fled to Vilnius fearing reprisals for claiming victory in the elections and mounting the greatest challenge to Lukashenko over his 26-year rule.

Story continues

In an interview with AFP ahead of the demonstrations, she urged protesters to continue to exert pressure on the authorities saying it was "important to continue to be united in the struggle for the rights".

- 'Not afraid' -

The authorities have to understand "we are not a protest movement ... we are a majority and we will not step away. We are not afraid of them any more," Tikhanovskaya told AFP.

Opponents of Europe's longest serving leader have organised strikes and the largest protests in the ex-Soviet country's recent history rejecting his re-election and demanding that he stand down, with more than 100,000 people turning out in Minsk alone last weekend.

Yet fewer workers at state-run factories -- usually a bastion of support for Lukashenko -- have continued to strike, with activists citing pressure from the authorities.

The 65-year-old president of Belarus has threatened to shutter production lines where workers have put down their tools beginning on Monday.

Staff at state-run media outlets have also staged walkouts and Lukashenko admitted this week that journalists from Russia had been flown in to replace them.

His powerful ally, Russia, has warned European leaders against interfering in Belarus and the Kremlin has said it would intervene in the post-election unrest if necessary.

Russia and Belarus are members of a military alliance of former Soviet countries and Lukashenko said on Saturday he had warned Russia about the situation in its ex-Soviet neighbour.

Lithuania's foreign ministry announced Saturday that US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun will visit Lithuania and Russia next week for talks on the election fallout.

Lukashenko' military inspection this weekend inspection came ahead of large-scale military exercises planned in the Grodno region on the border with the European Union between August 28 and 31.

burs-jbr/bp
Dr Alex George has announced he is taking a break from social media following the tragic death of his younger brother.

The Love Island star, 30, explained his decision in an Instagram post on Sunday as he thanked fans for their support over the past few weeks.

His 20-year-old brother, Llyr George, tragically passed away in July following a battle with mental health.

Time for reflection: On Sunday Alex George revealed that he is stepping away from social media as he needs time to heal from the death of his brother Llyr George in July

The A&E doctor shared a candid snap of himself on the beach as he explained his reasons for deciding to leave social media.

He penned: 'I have decided to take a few weeks off social media. With everything thats happened its important for my mental health that I take some time offline.

'I am focusing on my family and friends as well as looking after myself.

Immeasurable loss: Dr Alex's 20-year-old brother, Llyr George, tragically passed away in July following a battle with mental health

'Im also going to spend some time thinking and working on a few projects that are close to my heart.

'Without doubt A&E will continue to keep me busy too. Thank you for your support and see you all in a few weeks. Stay safe and be kind to yourselves.

Fans poured in with their messages of support and encouraged the Love Islander to look after himself.

It comes after the NHS doctor admitted he was 'hanging on by a thread' after a troll criticised him for being on social media in the wake of his brother's death.

Alex took a screen grab of the exchange, in which the person responded to his seaside picture with the comment: 'your brother is dead get off social media.'

Sharing his anguish at the response, Alex penned: 'Imagining being this person. I'm holding by a thread and you get people like this.'

Shocking: Dr Alex was recently left shocked when a follower took issue with him for being on social media so shortly after Llyr passed away following a battle with mental health

Response: In his Instagram story, the medic explained to his fans why he was on social media, as he thanked them for support during this tough time

In his next Instagram story, the medic explained to his fans why he was on social media, as he thanked them for support during this tough time.

He wrote: 'I am honest and open with you all. The good, the bad and the ugly.

'There is so much that isn't shared online of course. So many of you are so kind and message me each day with well wishes.'

He concluded: 'I often post to let you know I am still going strong x.'

The doctor also recently shared a Just Giving page that he set up in memory of his late brother, which he posted on his Instagram story in hopes that his followers could donate.

Just an hour after mentioning the fundraiser to raise money for mental health charities, Alex thanked his fans for their immediate contributions: 'Wow, you guys are being so generous. Let's do this!'

The current page has surpassed the 10,000 donation mark after receiving contributions from over 700 supporters.

Alex confirmed that his brother's funeral took place at the beginning of August. Llyrwas just weeks away from getting into medical school and following in Alex's footsteps.

If you have been affected by this story, please call the Samaritans on 116 123 or visit www.samaritans.org
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-24 01:27:10|Editor: huaxia

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RABAT, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Morocco on Sunday reported 1,537 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total number of infections in the country to 52,349.

The death toll rose by 30 to 888, said Mouad Mrabet, coordinator of the Moroccan Center for Public Health Operations at the Ministry of Health at a press briefing.

The number of recoveries from the coronavirus in Morocco increased to 36,343 after 1,303 more were added.

Meanwhile, more than 180 patients are in intensive care units.

China has helped Morocco in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

A batch of medical supplies donated by the government of northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region was transported on June 8 to Casablanca-Settat in Morocco.

On May 14, China Development Bank sent a batch of donation, including respirators and medical protective masks, to help Morocco fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

China's Guizhou Province also donated 15,000 surgical gloves, 20,000 medical masks and 2,000 protective suits to help protect Moroccan medical workers fighting the pandemic. Enditem
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Linkedin -- (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, August 24 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic is unlike any past crisis Indonesia has experienced. It has overburdened the healthcare system and crushed the economy, forcing the government to take unprecedented measures to attempt to revive business while keeping people safe and healthy.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati spoke recently with The Jakarta Posts deputy managing editor, Esther Samboh, during a Jakpost Up Close webinar about the future of Indonesias economy. She said she expected the gross domestic product (GDP) to stall at a near-zero rate this year because the pandemic had taken a greater toll on economic activity than previously expected.

She also explained the governments measures to soften the impact of the pandemic and discussed a plan for structural reform to transform the countrys economy and achieve Indonesias 2045 vision, which centers on human development. The following are excerpts from the interview.

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One week ago, it looked like it could be the end of Alexander Lukashenko's iron-fisted 26-year rule. But after days of declining protests in the aftermath of a rigged election, the anti-government movement has been starved of oxygen and many believe he will stay put.

Lukashenko, the country's leader of 26 years, was publicly booed during a factory tour in the days following the vote, and seemed on the cusp of being toppled by a growing opposition movement. But industrial strikes are already fizzling out.

"Some workshops that went on strike have given up under management pressure, some are holding out," said Andrei, a worker at a fertiliser plant in the border town of Hrodna.

"Workers are just too scared," he said, motioning to three policemen standing by the gate and one plainclothes officer filming workers and protesters.

But it was the Lukashenko regime that was initially nervous. In what was largely seen as a death knell for Lukashenko, who unleashed riot police on peaceful demonstrators across the country following his dubious re-election on August 9, blue-collar workers - Belarus's lifeblood -started to rebel. Dozens of factories across the country, including the huge Minsk Tractor Works, last week were on strike, staging walkouts and halting production in a blow to the ruling regime.

That week Lukashenko was heckled by workers at a Minsk factory and had to leave via helicopter as crowds of protesters gathered outside. Many were comparing Mr Lukashenko's position to that of Romania's dictator Nikolai Ceausescu in 1989.

But several days later, some workers had their entry passes suspended and some received legal warnings, threatened with dismissal unless they got back to work. The general strike never happened.

In a sign of just how terrified the Belarusian dictator is of the workers' movement, investigators on Friday questioned Sergei Dylevsky, a worker from the Minsk Tractor Works, for several hours in connection with his role in an opposition council that Lukashenko says is an illegal attempt to topple him.

"They have been trying hard to intimidate workers but it's not like the strikes have stopped altogether - we're taking a pause to find legal backing for industrial action," Dylevsky said after the questioning. "Workers are too tough to be cowed into submission."

On Thursday, less than 1,000 people listlessly roamed the vast main square with the Lenin statue in the middle as a loudspeaker in a patrol police car warned demonstrators about an unlawful assembly.

"People got tired, and the opposition needs to come up with something new," 69-year old Nikolay Korniychenko said.

"The pressure on workers has been too much. They pressure your family and friends, and people stay put."

Nationwide rallies last Sunday showed an unprecedented show of force of the leaderless opposition against Mr Lukashenko. But the euphoria proved hard to sustain as the opposition did not win a single major concession from the government.

"He doesn't care about anyone but himself," Mr Korniychenko said of President Lukashenko. "I can't imagine how we can keep on living with him. How can we?"
Congress President Sonia Gandhi, in her reply to top Congress leaders' letter expressed willingness to step down from her post, adding that the party should choose a new chief. The letter was written by 23 party leaders including those from the Congress Working Committee (CWC) over the state of affairs in the party asking for an overhaul within the internal organisation.

According to sources, Sonia Gandhi has sent a formal reply to the letter in which she has stated that her stint as party's interim president for one year is complete and she would like to resign from her post.

Meanwhile, a meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) is slated to be held on Monday, August 24. Sources added that the meeting was convened as a response to the letter to deliberate over the organisational issues highlighted by the Congress leaders.Sonia Gandhi is expected to recapitulate her wish to step down from the presidential post and ask party members to pick their leader.

Sources also confirmed that Sonia Gandhi had spoken to Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad over the telephone in this regard.

Earlier this month, 23 senior Congress leaders penned a letter to her proposing a change in the party's organisational framework.
New Delhi: As the investigation tightens on the arrested ISIS operative, the Delhi Police Special Cell on Sunday (August 23) recovered several arms and explosives from the accused house. The Delhi police recovered things like an explosive belt, jacket containing explosive packets, cylindrical metal boxes containing explosives, and many more.

As per reports, the explosives were prepared by Mustaqeem to carry out 'fidayeen' (suicide) attack in Delhi. The Delhi police SIT succeeded in recovering the explosive by the information provided by arrested ISIS operative Mustaqeem during his interrogation.

Here's the complete list of recoveries made from the accused's house:

1. One Brown colour jacket containing 3 explosive packets which were removed safely.

2. One Blue colour check design jacket containing 4 explosive packets which were removed safely

Each explosive packet, removed from jackets, is wrapped with transparent tape which contains explosive & cardboard sheet pasted with ball bearings and electric wires are coming outside from it

3. One Leather Belt containing explosive 3 Kg approx.

4. Total 8-9 Kg approx. explosive in 4 different polythenes.

5. Three cylindrical metal boxes (Himgange Oil boxes) containing explosive and electric wires wrapped with transparent tape

6. Two cylindrical metal boxes (Himgange Oil boxes) in which ball bearings are pasted

7. One Wooden broken box (target practice)

8. One ISIS Flag

9. 30 Ball Bearings of different dia

10. One packet containing 12 small boxes containing ball bearings

11. Two Lithium Batteries of 4V each

12. One Lithium Battery 9V

13. Two cylindrical metal boxes (Himgange Oil boxes)

14. One Ampere meter Yellow colour

15. Two iron blades, attached in parallel to each other, connected to electric wires from both sides

16. One wire cutter

17. Two mobile chargers

18. Table alarm watch attached with electric wires

19. One Black colour tape

The Delhi police also recovered two Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), weighing approximately 15 kilograms in two pressure cookers, from his possession. Besides, a pistol was also recovered from him at the time of arrest.

Mustaqeem was arrested on Friday (August 21) night following a brief exchange of fire from the section of the Ridge Road between Dhaula Kuan and Karol Bagh. The arrested ISIS operative had planned terror strike on August 15 but he failed to carry out the attack due to heavy security arrangements.

According to Delhi Police, Mustaqeem alias Abu Yusuf was in touch with ISIS handlers who instructed him to plan terror strikes in India. He had also made passports in the name of his wife and 4 children. Earlier, he was being handled by Yusuf Alhindi who was killed in Syria. Later, Abu Huzafa, a Pakistani, was handling him. Huzafa was also later killed in drone strike in Afghanistan, the DCP Special Cell told reporters. Khan had been under watch for the last year, the DCP added.
Azhar century frustrates England in third Test but Pakistan still follow-on Pakistan captain Azhar Ali hit a fine 141 not out

Pakistan captain Azhar Ali led from the front with a brilliant undefeated 141 but England still enforced the follow-on at Southampton on Sunday as James Anderson was left frustratingly short of becoming the first paceman to take 600 Test wickets.

Pakistan were dismissed for 273, a huge 310 runs behind England's imposing 583-8 declared, on the third day of the third Test.

Anderson took 5-56 in 23 overs -- his 29th five-wicket haul in Tests -- as the hosts, 1-0 up in a three-match contest, pressed for their first series win over Pakistan in a decade.

That left Anderson with 598 wickets but he would have had more had not three catches been dropped off the 38-year-old's bowling with the new ball.

After England captain Joe Root had enforced the follow-on, the umpires decided the fading light was unsafe for Pakistan to start their second innings even though the Ageas Bowl floodlights were on.

The only bowlers to have taken 600 wickets in Tests are three retired spinners -- Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan (800), Australia's Shane Warne (708) and India's Anil Kumble (619).

- Rizwan stand -

Pakistan had been in dire straits at 75-5.

But Azhar, who'd managed just 38 runs in three previous innings this series, shared a stand of 138 with wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan (53)

During his innings, Azhar become just the fifth Pakistan batsman after Younis Khan, Javed Miandad, Inzamam-ul-Haq and Mohammad Yousuf to have scored 6,000 Test runs.

Anderson, who'd reduced Pakistan to 24-3 overnight, needed just six balls Sunday to remove Asad Shafiq after the struggling batsman limply edged to Root at first slip.

England thought they had Azhar, on 21, caught behind off a fearsome 91 mph ball from fast bowler Jofra Archer that rose steeply but a review revealed the ball had brushed the batsman's shoulder.

There was no need for technology when Fawad Alam, whose near 11-year wait for a Test recall ended with a four-ball duck in the drawn second Test at Southampton, fell for 21.

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The left-hander, a distinctive figure thanks to his open stance, lunged forward to off-spinner Dom Bess and wicketkeeper Jos Buttler held a good catch off the shoulder of the bat.

It was a heartening wicket for Bess in a season where conditions had favoured the quicks and a much-needed dismissal for Buttler, fresh from 152 -- just his second Test century -- on Saturday after some poor displays behind the stumps.

Pakistan were now 75-5 but Azhar, working hard to avoid falling lbw again, completed his 17th century in 81 Tests when he cover-drove Bess for a 15th four in 205 balls.

Rizwan's fine innings ended when he was well caught on 53 down the legside by opposite number Buttler.

The England keeper held an even better, high one-handed diving legside catch to dismiss tailender Shaheen Afridi off Stuart Broad.

England, in fading light but with the floodligts on full beam, then dropped three catches to Anderson's despair.

Rory Burns grassed a rouine chance when Azhar on 116 edged a drive before fourth slip Zak Crawley floored Mohammad Abbas when the No 10 was on nought.

It was the first major mistake by Crawley in a match where he'd scored 267 -- his maiden Test century -- and shared an England fifth-wicket record partnership of 359 with Buttler.

Broad, in response to dropped a simple chance from Mohammad Abbas at mid-on, off Anderson, threw the ball in frustration at the stumps and ran out the tailender.

The run of dropped catches off Anderson's bowling ended when he had last man Naseem Shah taken in the slips by Dom Sibley.

jdg/dj
The US President Donald Trump will hold a press conference at around 6:00 pm ET on August 23 to discuss "a major therapeutic breakthrough" regarding COVID-19. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany informed about the conference and said that US Health chief Alex Azar and Food & Drug Administration (FDA) head Stephen Hahn would also be in attendance. This comes a day after President Donald Trump accused the FDA of delaying the coronavirus vaccine, saying that the agency wants to delay it until after the upcoming poll in the country.

News conference with President @realDonaldTrump at 6 pm tomorrow concerning a major therapeutic breakthrough on the China Virus. Secretary Azar and Dr. Hahn will be in attendance.  Kayleigh McEnany (@PressSec) August 23, 2020

Read: Trump Says He Could 'decouple' And Not Do Business With China

Trump on Saturday tweeted that the 'deep state' in the FDA is making it difficult for drug companies to test their vaccines, tagging FDA chief Stephen Hahn in his post, whom he himself nominated for the role last year, and asking him to focus on the quick release of possible life-saving drugs. If political pundits are to believed, Donald Trump wants the COVID-19 vaccine to be rushed due to the presidential election in November, even if it means a compromise on the safety and efficacy front of the drug.

The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives! @SteveFDA  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 22, 2020

Read: Trump's Vision Of American Greatness At Center Of Convention

'Will not cut corners'

Stephen Hahn had last week said that the agency "will not cut corners" when it comes to the authorisation of a COVID-19 vaccine. His comment came on the backdrop of Russia announcing the world's first coronavirus vaccine on August 11. The United States government has signed agreements with companies worth billions of dollars for at least six different vaccine candidates, including the AstraZeneca and Oxford's ChAdOx1, which has been dubbed as the frontrunner by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Health officials in the United States had said last week that the government will distribute the COVID-19 vaccine for free, when available.

Read: Trump Accuses FDA 'Deep State' Of Slowing Vaccine Development To Sabotage His Re-election

Read: Report: Trump Administration To Block Proposed Alaska Mine

(Image Credit: AP)


Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has sent an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari requesting him to urgently rescind your assent to the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020, [CAMA 2020], and to send the legislation back to the National Assembly to address its fundamental flaws, including by deleting the repressive provisions of the Act, particularly sections 839, 842, 843, 844 and 850 contained in Part F of the Act, and any other similar provisions.

The organization is also urging him to instruct the Registrar-General of the Corporate Affairs Commission, Alhaji Garba Abubakar, and Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, not to implement or enforce the CAMA 2020 until the legislation is repealed by the National Assembly, and brought in line with the Constitution of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), and Nigerias international human rights obligations.

In the letter dated 22 August, 2020 and signed by SERAP deputy director Kolawole Oluwadare, the organisation said: With these provisions, the government now has overly broad and discretionary powers to arbitrarily withdraw, cancel or revoke the certificate of any association, suspend and remove trustees, take control of finances of any association, and to merge two associations without their consent and approval of their members.

According to SERAP, Rather than taking concrete measures to improve the legal environment and civic space that would ensure respect for human rights and media freedom, your government has consistently pursued initiatives to restrict the enjoyment of citizens human rights. These rights are protected from impairment by government action.

SERAP said: These restrictions, coupled with repressive broadcasting codes and Nigerian security agencies relentless crackdown on peaceful protesters and civil society, demonstrate the governments intention to suppress and take over independent associations.

The letter, read in part: SERAP is concerned that the provisions would be used by the authorities to exert extensive scrutiny over the internal affairs of associations, as a way of intimidation and harassment, which would eventually unduly obstruct the legitimate work carried out by associations.

We would be grateful if the requested action and measures are taken within 14 days of the receipt and/or publication of this letter. If we have not heard from you by then, the Registered Trustees of SERAP shall take all appropriate legal actions to compel you and your government to take these measures in the public interest.

Please note that SERAP has instructed its Legal Counsel Femi Falana, SAN to take all appropriate legal actions on our behalf should your government fail and/or neglect to act as requested.

Citizens decision to join with others in pursuit of a common goal is a fundamental aspect of their liberty. The right to freedom of association also plainly presupposes a freedom not to associate. This freedom is at risk if the government can compel a particular citizen, or a discrete group of citizens, to merge their associations.

Constitutional guarantees of freedom of association would be very limited if they are not accompanied by a guarantee of being able to share ones beliefs of ideas in community with others, particularly through associations of individuals having the same beliefs, ideas or interests.

Similarly, freedom of association creates a forum for citizens in which they may freely seek, without any unlawful interference by the state, to move public opinion and achieve their goals. That forum cannot exist if the government is at liberty to treat one association as forming part of another or coercing one association to merge with another association.

By seeking to suspend and remove trustees, and appoint interim managers for associations, the government seems to want to place itself in a position to politicise the mandates of such association, and to undermine the ideas that the right to freedom of association and related rights are supposed to protect in a democratic society.

SERAP believes that the government granting itself the powers to suspend and remove trustees of legally registered associations and to take control of their bank accounts constitute an effective restraint on human rights.

Allowing the government to take control of the bank accounts of association would impact on the rights of the associations, and also seriously undermine civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights as a whole.

These rights are in fact parts of the attributes of citizenship under a free government. Liberty includes the right to enjoy the rights to freedom of association, expression and peaceful assembly. Our constitutional jurisprudence and international standards allow only the narrowest range for their restriction.

Combatting fraud, mismanagement, corruption, money-laundering and other modes of trafficking by associations is legitimate. However, it is not sufficient to simply pursue a legitimate interest, limitations need also to be prescribed by law and be necessary in a democratic society.

Under the Nigerian Constitution and international human rights law, controls need to be fair, objective and non-discriminatory, and not be used as a pretext to silence critics. Your government has legal obligations to create an enabling environment in which associations can effectively carry out their legitimate activities.

These restrictions have no legal basis, as they fail to meet the requirements of legality, legitimacy, proportionality and necessity. The Human Rights Council has called on States to ensure that any regulations of associations do not inhibit the independence and functional autonomy [of associations]

We have also sent a Pre-Action Notice of a lawsuit pursuant to Section 17[2] of the Companies and Allied Matters Act 2020, to the Corporate Affairs Commission to urgently initiate, promote and support deletion of Sections 839, 842, 843, 844 and 850 and any other repressive provisions of the Companies and Allied Matters Act 2020.

In communication No. 1274/2004, the Human Rights Committee observed that the right to freedom of association relates not only to the right to form an association, but also guarantees the right of such an association freely to carry out its statutory activities. The protection afforded by article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights extends to all activities of an association.

According to the Committee, the existence and operation of a plurality of associations, including those which peacefully promote ideas not necessarily favourably received by the government or the majority of the population, is a cornerstone of a democratic society.

Under international law, the use of the term democratic society places the burden on States imposing restrictions on freedom of association to demonstrate that the limitations do not harm the principles of pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness.

The Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights has also called on states not to pass legislation that would give the Government control over the right of associations to manage their own activities.

Associations, as organised, independent, not-for-profit bodies based on the voluntary grouping of persons who pursue activities on a wide range of issues, such as human rights, democratic reforms, and social and economic development, are an integral part of democratic institutions.

The right to freedom of association is to be enjoyed alone or in community with others. Without this collective dimension, the effective realisation of the right would often not be possible. SERAP believes that the rights to freedom of association, freedom of expression and peaceful assembly to advance beliefs and ideas are inseparable aspects of the liberty assured by due process of law.

The right to freedom of association is interrelated with other human rights and freedoms, including the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly, protection of property, the private life and correspondence, an effective remedy, fair trials; and right to be protected from discrimination.

A genuine and effective respect for freedom of association cannot be reduced to a mere duty on the part of the State not to interfere. Therefore, it is incumbent upon your government and all public authorities to respect and protect this right, and to guarantee the proper functioning of an association, even when they annoy or give offence to persons opposed to the lawful ideas or claims that they are seeking to promote.

Any limitations on human rights, including the right to freedom of association must be proportionate to the interest to be protected, and must be the least intrusive means to achieve the desired objective.

Implementing or enforcing these repressive provisions will have a significant chilling effect on legitimate activities of associations, and would seriously undermine their independence and operations.

SERAP considers the CAMA 2020 the most repressive legislation in Nigerias history, especially given the unlawful and impermissible restrictions contained in Part F of the Act. Sections 831, 839, 842, 843, 844 and 850 of the Act are manifestly inconsistent with sections 36, 39 and 40 of the Constitution of Nigeria 1999.

Under section 831[ii], the government through the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) is empowered to treat any unregistered association as part of an already registered association, and without any lawful justifications whatsoever. The government also has the power to treat two or more associations as a single association on the flimsy pretext that the associations have the same trustees.

Section 839[1] and [7] of the Act also grants the government through the Corporate Affairs Commission the powers to arbitrarily and unilaterally suspend and remove the trustees of any legally registered association, and to appoint an interim manager or managers to run the affairs of any such association, if the Commission reasonably believes that there is misconduct, mismanagement, and fraud in the association, or on the basis of undefined public interest.

The government will determine and decide what constitutes public interest in all cases. The exercise of the powers under section 839[1][7] is subject only to the approval of the supervisory Minister, a political appointee.

Similarly, sections 842, 843 and 844 grants the government through the Corporate Affairs Commission overly broad powers and discretion to arbitrarily, unlawfully and unilaterally regulate the finances of any association, and to take control and take over bank accounts lawfully belonging to legally registered associations under Part F of the CAMA 2020.

Further, section 850[2][e] empowers the government through the Corporate Affairs Commission to arbitrarily and unilaterally withdraw, cancel or revoke the certificate of registration of any duly and legally registered association.

These repressive provisions clearly and directly threaten and violate the rights to freedom of association, freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, privacy, property, and other human rights guaranteed under the Nigerian Constitution and international human rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights to which Nigeria is a state party.

SERAP notes that legally registered associations have also deposited their constitutions and other documents with the Corporate Affairs Commission under the now repealed and replaced CAMA 2004.

The Commission also enjoyed wide ranging powers under CAMA 2004 to regulate these associations, as the associations are required to periodically report to the Commission. Registered associations are also regulated under other existing laws, including anti-corruption and money laundering laws, the Criminal Code and Penal Code.

Kolawole Oluwadare

SERAP Deputy Director

23/08/2020

Lagos, Nigeria

Emails: [email protected]; [email protected]

Twitter: @SERAPNigeria

Website: www.serap-nigeria.org

For more information or to request an interview, please contact Kolawole Oluwadare on: +2348160537202
It noted that this year could be a good one for what economists call convergence. This normally takes place when poor economies grow faster than rich ones, narrowing the income gap between them. This year will be a bit different. Few emerging markets will grow at all  perhaps China, Egypt and Vietnam. But because advanced economies will probably retreat even faster, the gap between them will narrow, the article said.

The article mentioned the World Banks new book - Global Productivity: Trends, Drivers, and Policies, in which the bank uses an algorithm to sort through many combinations of countries, looking for groups that seem to be converging with each other.

Based on the productivity performance of 97 economies since 2000, the bank identifies five clubs. The three gloomiest groups comprise fairly poor countries. A fourth contains some big ones of unfulfilled potential, such as Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa.

The most successful club spans all todays advanced economies as well as 16 emerging markets, such as China, India, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

According to the book, poorer members tend to grow faster than the rich ones, at a pace that would halve the productivity gap between them every 48 years.

The authors of the World Banks book worry that the COVID-19 pandemic will inhibit investment, shorten supply chains and breed insularity, all of which could hamper convergence.

But they also note some potential silver linings. Crises, for instance, can encourage structural reforms; the lack of upkeep of outdated capital during dark times can hasten its replacement with newer technologies in the recovery, according to The Economist.

Vietnamplus
LIMA: Peruvian government officials condemned the owner of a nightclub after at least 13 people were crushed to death or asphyxiated as partygoers tried to flee a party raided by police because it violated coronavirus restrictions.

At least six were injured, including three police officers, as around 120 people tried to escape the Thomas Restobar club in Limas Los Olivos district on Saturday night as police arrived to break up the event, which neighbors had reported, national police and government officials said.

People became trapped between the only entrance door and a staircase leading to the street, officials said.

Peru ordered the closure of nightclubs and bars in March and banned extended family gatherings on Aug. 12 to fight what is Latin Americas second highest COVID-19 infection rate, according to a Reuters tally. A Sunday curfew is also in effect.

The Interior Ministry blamed the deaths on the criminal irresponsibility of an unscrupulous businessman" in a statement.

Perus womens minister, Rosario Sasieta, called for harsh penalties for the clubs management who organized the event.

I ask for the maximum sanction for the owners of this place, which has really been irresponsible, and we are talking about a malicious homicide for profit," Sasieta told journalists during a visit to the site on Sunday morning.

Knowing that there is a health emergency, knowing that not even at home you can meet with relatives who do not live there, you have the irresponsibility of opening a place for 120 people to enter?" Sasieta added.

The owner or managers of Thomas Restobar were not immediately available to comment.

At least 23 partygoers were detained by police as part of their investigation, the interior ministry said.

Peru had recorded a total of 585,236 coronavirus cases as of Saturday, double the number reported on July 2, while the known death toll has risen to 27,453.

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
A 19-year-old man, accused of pointing a gun at a man and stealing his car keys, was arrested in Boston on Saturday, police said.

Jonathan Williams, of Braintree, is facing a host of gun-related charges including armed robbery, armed assault to rob, possessing a firearm while committing a felony, possession of a firearm without a license, possession of ammunition with an FID card, and possession of a firearm with a defaced serial number.

Police say Williams parked his car next to the victim and three other men who were sitting in the victims car. Williams then pointed a gun at the victim and demanded the keys to the car, police said. The victim told police he gave Williams his keys and some cash, authorities said.

Williams, police said, then fled on Burlington Avenue.

The victim was able to provide a description of the suspect as well as the license plate and type of car the person was driving.

At about 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, police noticed a car and driver in the area of 21-27 Burlington Ave. that matched the information provided by the victim

Officers stopped the car, and while talking to Williams they claimed his eyes kept motioning downward toward the passenger floorboard and a large bag containing a green leafy substance. Officers ordered Williams out of the car and during a search of the vehicle found a small black Ruger LCP Firearm underneath the drivers seat, police said.

Police said the firearm was loaded, with one round in the chamber and one round in the magazine.

Officers also recovered the victims car keys from Williams car and returned them to the victim, authorities said.

In addition to criminal charges, police also issued Williams citations for operating after a suspended license, operating a motor vehicle without insurance, attaching wrong number plates, and operating an unregistered motor vehicle.
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will start screening suspected Covid-19 patients through artificial intelligence (AI), using their voice samples from Wednesday. On the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi, the civic body signed the memorandum of understanding (MOU) with an Israel-based startup company, Vocalis Health, for the first-of-its-kind initiative in Mumbai.

Vocalis Health is collecting voice samples of people across the globe as an initiative to develop a diagnostic tool to identify Covid-19 infected people. Even though the concept is new, several countries like the US and Israel are using it. People can submit their voice samples for analysis on the companys official website.

From Wednesday, the pan-worldwide study will be initiated in Mumbai at the NESCO jumbo Covid centre, Goregaon. Over 2,000 individuals suspected of having Covid-19 or high-risk contacts of infected patients will be tested with their voice samples.

We signed the MOU on Saturday and the study will start from Wednesday under the supervision of Dr RN Cooper Municipal General Hospital, said Suresh Kakani, additional commissioner, BMC. It will take two to three months to conclude the study, he said.

The gold standard test for diagnosis of the Sars-Cov-2 virus, which causes Covid-19, is reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). But it takes over eight hours to provide the result. Though rapid antigen tests give test results within 30 minutes, as per the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), its false negativity rate is higher. With the ongoing unlocking of the national lockdown, the civic body needs more economical alternatives to rapidly and accurately diagnose cases of Covid-19. Thus, BMC has decided to start voice analysis to detect the virus within 30 seconds.

Dr Neelam Andrade, dean of Nair Dental Hospital and in-charge of NESCO, explained the process. When the symptoms of Covid-19 manifest, the person starts having breathing problems that affect the amount of air exhaled. Then the air interacts with inflamed muscles on its journey to production voices or speeches. These interactions impact the voice modulations  measurable qualities that form the basis of their biomarkers. Depending on its variations, an individual can be detected with Covid-19.

There is one voice application that can be installed on mobiles or smart laptops. The suspected patient will be asked to count a few numbers in front of the device like a breath-analyser. The voice samples will automatically get synced with the main server of the provider. Then, through artificial intelligence, the result will be procured within 30 seconds, she said.

The application will analyse voices of three types of people  suspected, confirmed and negative with Covid-19. Depending on their vocal biomarkers (VB), they will be diagnosed. For example, if a persons VB is below the standard point  0.5, he/she will be considered as negative. But if anyone records VB above it, he/she will be suspected with Covid-19 and an RT-PCR test will be conducted for confirmation.
We Americans might have complained (sometimes with cause) about the shortcomings of our economic and commercial structures, but until the pandemic arrived to disrupt them we didnt know how good things really were.

Today, quarantines, business closures, a hodge-podge schedule for re-openings, and a general uncertainty about the future  even for the near term  combine to create dislocations in the great matrix that is our traditional economic system.

Nowhere is that cascade effect more obvious than in the current child-care crisis.

Charlottesville-Albemarle is not immune; its virtually impossible to find child-care openings currently, said Tori Maxwell, who helps with such needs in her work for Piedmont Virginia Community Colleges Network2Network school-to-job program.

Before the coronavirus hit, nationally almost 60% of children under 5 experienced some sort of weekly child care, and about a third were enrolled in some sort of formal child-care program, reports USA Today.

But in April, some 60% of child-care facilities had closed, according to a survey from the Bipartisan Policy Center and cited by Forbes. Child care options declined dramatically.

When parents were home due to layoffs or furloughs, or told by their bosses to work from home, many were in position to care for their children (although those scenarios created their own sets of problems, of course.)

But as businesses began re-opening and calling people back to work, suddenly parents needed to find child care again  and it just wasnt there.

Now, the re-opening of schools provides another wrinkle to the problem. Parents not only need child care, they need extremely flexible child care.

Thats to accommodate school schedules in which classes are fully online  while parents are at work. Or to accommodate split schedules, in which students are at school some days and at home on other days.

Meanwhile, centers also are trying to absorb higher costs due to everything from intensified cleaning protocols to the need to cut enrollment and increase distances between learning and play stations so that children can be kept safe.

Child-care centers and home daycares are struggling to survive, Barbara Hutchinson, the Greater Charlottesville United Ways vice president of community impact, told The Daily Progress.

Nationally, more than 90% of child care comes from the private sector, says USA Today.

In Charlottesville-Albemarle, government and charity organizations are trying to help take up the slack.

The The Piedmont Family YMCA is opening a learning center at the Brooks site in Charlottesville and at Walker Upper Elementary School specifically to address one of the problems cited above: the need for children to have supervision while theyre at online school and their parents are at work.

Although spaces filled up on the very first day the program was announced, YMCA officials are encouraging parents to sign up on a wait list in case the organization is able to open additional centers.

The YMCA also operates an early-learning center, which reopened in June after being closed for COVID.

Albemarle County has its Bright Stars early intervention program for at-risk 4-year-olds, which provides education along with day care.

ReadyKids is another organization providing care and enrichment for children with backgrounds ranging from childhood trauma to poverty to family instability, and more; it serves Charlottesville-Albemarle and neighboring counties.

Head Start provides comprehensive services for 3- and 4-year-olds from low-income families, also on a regional basis. Head Start is operated by the Monticello Area Community Action Agency.

School systems, as well, are looking into the possible provision of additional services.

Without adequate child care, parents cant go back to work  and many children might not get the education and enrichment they need. And if parents cant go back to work (or have the capability to work from home), they cant pay their daycare providers  or any other businesses for their services.

Our economic system truly is interconnected, and a dislocation in one portion of the system cascades into disruptions elsewhere, magnifying the damage.

We are grateful to the private daycare providers who have managed to stay open to meet parents needs, and encouraged that government and philanthropic child-care providers are ramping up efforts to meet new, changing and challenging conditions.

Editor's note: This editorial was updated on Aug. 24 to include the Walker learning site.
What are the easiest countries to immigrate to in 2020? With all of the circumstances you are facing in your country, I won't blame you if you are now looking for the easiest countries to immigrate to.

What are the reasons why one would come to live permanently in a foreign country? Better opportunities for education or healthcare access, job security, quality of living, low crime rates, are only a few of the major reasons why you would like to move to a country not one's own. Or you are an investor looking for easy access to a foreign country wherein you can start building your empire to. This article is for you! Whatever your reason may be, we'll help you find the easiest countries to immigrate to in 2020.

To come up with a list, we computed the average score of each country that is easy to immigrate to through a points system according to the most number of appearances of the country per search. For example, if Dominican Republic ranks 10th in one site's rankings, it will count as one single point. The country that ranked 9th in the same list receives 2 points and the country that ranked 8th receives 3 points. We used 5 different websites' rankings to compile this list. Scientifically our rankings are expected to be more accurate than any single website's rankings because our rankings reflect the central tendency of multiple sources. We use the same "crowd sourcing" approach in our stock picking algorithms and the top 5 stocks identified by our approach outperformed the S&P 500 Index by 96 percentage points since 2015 (see the details here).

Our list of the easiest countries to immigrate to will appear with the countries that have the lowest to highest points. We also collated information from Google Search regarding the most updated information about the top countries with the easiest immigration policies. How? Top three key points: number of years to attain residency, level of commitment or effort when it comes to financial or investment requirements for assured residency and citizenship, and mandatory citizenship test. We will be straightforward in discussing the easiest immigration requirements to attain citizenship.

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On the other hand, some five years ago we were able to present to you the 10 Best Countries to Immigrate To. Do you think we still have some of these countries in our updated list? Let's all find out because here are the easiest countries to immigrate to ranking 2020.

7. Dominican Republic

Total score: 8 pts Residency Time Required: 3 years Mandatory Citizenship Test: Yes Commitment Level: Low

Boasting with its white-sand beaches and blue waters, Dominican Republic gives us a relaxing vibe of the Caribbean. Little did you know, the Dominican Republic has the fastest growing economy in South America as the service sector passes the agricultural sector. From the drastic growth of construction to free trade zones, the Dominican Republic is a sweet economic spot- expanding investment and manufacturing exports. Foreign entrepreneurs who wish to fund their business in the Dominican Republic can obtain success with local companies thru iShares J.P. Morgan Dominican Republic ETF (EMHY). Immigrating to the Dominican Republic is as easy as having a passive income from outside the country for at least $2,000 for 5 years and deposit it to a local bank- this is where you get permanent residency. Instant permanent residence is also offered to foreign investors. To qualify for citizenship, one should be able to speak fluently in Spanish and pass an exam regarding the Dominican Republic's culture, history, values, and tradition. Be also prepared for an interview of why you want to become a Dominican citizen.

6. Singapore

Total score: 11 pts Required Time of Residency: 2 years Mandatory Citizenship Test: Yes Commitment Level: Moderate

Also known as the Lion City, is Asia's most competitive country in trade and investment industry. One can easily secure applying for Singapore PR (Permanent Resident) if you have an "S Pass" or an Entry Pass/work pass. If you've been an S-pass holder for 6 months, you can already apply for Singapore PR. To be a full-fledged citizen of Singapore, one must complete the Citizenship Ceremony. There will be singing of National Anthem, Recitation of PLedge, and even a group photo-taking and a buffet reception! Singapore landed the second spot in World Bank's "Ease of Doing Business Rankings" in 2019. With its current GDP of US$372.063 billion (2019), no wonder Singapore attracts foreign investor immigrants. An investor can apply for Singapore PR if they are willing to invest in the country starting at S$2.5 million in a new business start-up or Singapore-based companies via iShares MSCI Singapore ETF (EWS). Some of the approved business sectors for the Investor Scheme are Alternative Energy, Nanotechnology, Healthcare, and Professional Services.

singapore, landmark, marina, business, bay, building, urban, district, famous, traveling, asia, vibrant, outdoor, haven, tower, many, view, skyline, bund, metropolis, tall,

anekoho/Shutterstock.com

5. Argentina

Total score: 20 pts Residency Time Required: 2 years Mandatory Citizenship Test: Yes Commitment Level: Low ETF to Invest In Argentina: Global X MSCI Argentina ETF (ARGT)

Argentina is filled with outstanding city culture, party-loving locals, and home of the best beaches for when you want to party or be alone- Argentina has it for you. Argentina is one of the largest economies in Latin America with a GDP of US$450,000 billion. On the contrary, Argentina offers Residency By Investment wherein a foreign investor must be willing to invest 1.5 Million Argentine Pesos into agriculture, service, or trade industries. Also, investors can gain exposure from Argentine companies via the MSCI Argentina ETF (ARGT). A foreigner can apply for citizenship even after only 2 years on a temporary residence visa- yes, you're already a qualifier for Argentinian citizenship. One of the specific requirements is to read in Spanish in front of a judge, to prove your proficiency in the local language. As long as you are fit and can prove your financial stability, and must not have a criminal record, your citizen application will be likely approved. Then you can now enjoy the abundant quality of living in Argentina!

15 Rudest Countries with Strong Nationalism in the World in 2017

Celso Diniz/Shutterstock.com

4. Canada

Total score: 24 pts Residency Time Required: 4 years Mandatory Citizenship Test: Yes Commitment Level: Moderate iShares MSCI Canada ETF (EWC)

Canada is one of the safest places to live and an easy country to immigrate to in 2020. Canada is the 9th freest economy in the world and has a current GDP of US$ 1.736 trillion in 2019. With its naturally beautiful landscapes, great education, and healthcare systems, a friendly nation, a lot of immigrants are contemplating relocating to Canada. The country offers Express Entry for skilled workers to be granted permanent residency. On the other hand, Canada also offers simple investor programs for wealthy businessmen wherein they must invest CAD 1.2 million in a span of 5 years in a government-guaranteed investment. One can have easy access to Canadian companies via iShares MSCI Canada ETF (EWC).

Cities with the Most Unfaithful Wives

canadastock/Shutterstock.com

3. Panama

Total score: 26 pts Residency Time Required: 5 years Mandatory Citizenship Test: No Commitment Level: Medium

Panama is a self-governing country in Central America. One doesn't need to pass any citizenship or language test. There should be a minimum of 5 years of permanent residency before one could apply for citizenship. One of the best ways to have a 5-year residence visa in Panama is to at least have an investment of $40,000 in a reforestation program. Increase it to $80,000 then you can speed up getting a permanent residence visa in 1 year. With its world-famous Isthmus Canal, pristine beaches, and booming economy thru tourism, no wonder you'll want to stay in Panama forever!

Most Affordable Countries To Live in South and Central America in 2015

Alfredo Maiquez/Shutterstock.com

2. Mexico

Total score: 32 pts Residency Time Required: 5 years Mandatory Citizenship Test: Yes Commitment Level: Low ETF To Invest In Mexico: iShares MSCI Mexico ETF (EWW)

Ah, Mexico! The country is known for its vibrant culture and delectable food. Mexico is a top exporter of agricultural products, manufactured goods, and oil. The country has a reported GDP of $1.258 trillion in 2019 (World Bank). With its diverse economy, it's no wonder why investors are becoming interested in immigrating here as they can expand with Mexican companies such as iShares MSCI Mexico ETF (EWW). With 5 years of residency, one has a clear pathway to Mexican citizenship thus more perks for investors! Moreover, expedited citizenship is possible if you are a spouse of a Mexican citizen or have a child in Mexico and the required residency is only two years. Some of the specific requirements of the naturalization process are proving you can speak Spanish and an exam in Mexican history.

16 Friendliest Countries That Love American Guys and Accents

Pixabay/Public Domain

1. Paraguay

Total score: 35 pts Residency Time Required: 3 years Mandatory Citizenship Test: Yes Commitment Level: High

The easiest country to immigrate to in 2020 is no other than Paraguay. Paraguay is also a retiree's haven- low cost of living, a stable economy, low taxes, beautiful sceneries of nature. Paraguay offers a relaxed atmosphere for people who wants to get the most of everything in life. In no surprise, Paraguay attracts foreigners to relocate and call the "Heart of South America" their new home. Paraguay even welcomes immigrants with their simple immigration policies. Did you know that one can receive permanent residency in 3 months and citizenship in a minimum of 3 years? Obtaining permanent residency is as easy as depositing $5,000 in the local Paraguayan Central Bank. One may also gain residency by acquiring agricultural land, a minimum of 10 hectares. Paraguay's current GDP is US$ 38.145 billion in 2019. The country's economic growth depends on the agriculture and export of electricity.

South America, tree, paving, destination, square, gray and white brick floor, park, cabildo, architectural background

Kacmerka/Shutterstock.com

After all, it's not "easy" at all to get up and relocate to a foreign country. But some countries offer simple immigration policies than others. Still, there will be a number of years to attain permanent residency, citizenship tests, and financial requirements. With that being considered, Paraguay is the easiest country to immigrate to in 2020.

Disclosure: 7 Easiest Countries To Immigrate to is originally published at Insider Monkey.
Although Abbie McLeod and Riley Cross just became engaged in late July, they are already well on their way to a sound financial future.

McLeod and Cross, Port Perry natives who are both 27, are hunting for a house in the Durham Region. Their down payment shouldnt be much of a problem, thanks to some good planning and disciplined savings. In 2017, the couple and two friends purchased a cottage north of Toronto to rent and improve. This year, they sold it at a profit, and that money, together with savings on rent, will see the young pair well on their way to home ownership.

I work at Scotiabank headquarters downtown, said McLeod, a co-ordinator for the bank. We decided to rent a condo in the Distillery District so Id have a shorter commute to work. We planned to live there for five years, but everything changed within a week when the pandemic hit.

Soon, everyone in McLeods office began working from home. She and Cross decided to move back to Port Perry, closer to his work as an installer for Tasco Appliances. They moved in with Cross mother and soon realized that they were saving a few thousand dollars monthly without the burden of Toronto rental costs and the temptation to spend money.

It was a fun lifestyle, but in the city, youd walk out the door and spend money, said Cross. Youd meet people for drinks or order Uber Eats. Here, we go for a walk to get out. Were saving a lot now.

Wallace Howick, a Burlington CPA with extensive financial experience, doesnt comment on finances without knowing the individual circumstances firsthand, but he noted that it sounds like this couple has made good progress.

Howick knows about joint finances from years of working with clients. The lifetime Fellow of the Chartered Professional Accountants is the author of Love and Money: Conversations to Have Before You Get Married (Cormorant), a new CPA Canada book directed at engaged couples  or any couples  who are planning a financial future together.

When I read books on financial planning, theyd advise people to talk to their spouses, but they didnt say how to do so, Howick said. There are often no conversations about the attitudes behind money or the values sitting below the surface, but they impact us everyday.

Everyone absorbs ideas about money as they grow up, but most do so without realizing it. By examining these values and their roots, couples can understand each other better when it comes to how they spend and save. Ultimately, it can save a lot of aggravation.

Money is a reason that marriages so often fail, Howick said. Wouldnt it be a whole lot better if the things I suggest happen at the beginning of a serious relationship?

Howick believes that marriage is rich in shared hope and a shared commitment to the future, but realizing this future depends on understanding each other (financially, as well as emotionally) and using this understanding to work together.

McLeod and Cross seem to understand this approach instinctively and believe in regular communication. They have developed shared goals for the future, including owning a home and a cottage and beginning to prepare for retirement. McLeod invests in her company pension plan and has a Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA); Cross also has a TFSA, dabbles in stocks and plans to supplement his retirement savings with an RRSP.

Howick says that with some work, all couples can develop an understanding of their own attitudes toward money, as well as that of their partner, and develop a comfort level with their finances. Its a matter of process.

If youre seeking answers, theres a four-step process, he said. You need to understand where you are as a couple financially; where you want to be; how did you get to where you want to go; and how you are doing. The answers to these questions become the framework for a sound financial plan.

When couples marry or move in together, one of the first issues that confronts them is how to divide joint expenses. Do they split everything down the middle or weight it based on income? Do they have a joint bank account to pay for joint expenses?

Howick says there is no right answer; couples must arrive at a solution on their own. McLeod and Cross divide shared expenses equally, something Howick often finds among couples who have good financial communication.

We have a joint budget and actively look at expenses, said McLeod. We split expenses down the middle. We went through all of our bills and decided who would take which ones. It results in a lot of e-transfers but it works for us.

Howick believes that COVID-19 has brought a lot of uncertainty about money to the surface, but believes that younger people have a natural resilience that they can use to advantage financially.

I want to help them recognized the need for a process that continues to offer them something constructive, he said.

Whether couples have yet made strides toward a joint financial future like McLeod and Cross or not, they need look no further than Love and Money for that pathway.
MINSK -- A sea of protesters packed the streets of Minsk on August 23 for a massive rally against the disputed reelection of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and a postelection crackdown amid a heavy security presence in the Belarusian capital and fresh warnings from the army.



The crowd, estimated at more than 100,000 people, filled the city center for what was billed as the March of New Belarus as protests entered a 15th day in the Eastern European country of 9.5 million.

The mass of protesters gathered on Independence Square, waving white and red Belarusian flags and unfurling long banners with white and red stripes.

Protesters chanted "Leave!" and Get out! as they called for Lukashenka to step down after 26 years of authoritarian rule.



Large protests were also held in other cities including Brest and Hrodno, as well as outside the country in Lithuania, where a 30-kilometer human chain was formed from Vilnius to the border with Belarus.

Users of network operators had problems connecting to the internet, in another attempt by authorities to clamp down on information.

By evening, people began dispersing without clashes with riot police, in the latest instance of protesters trying to end their mobilization peacefully.



The Ministry of Interior said no one was detained.



After the protest largely ended, a video posted on Telegram showed Lukashenka in a helicopter flying over the city.



"They fled like rats," said the authoritarian leader, who was seen stepping off the helicopter at the presidential palace wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a rifle.

Lukashenka has ordered the military into full combat readiness, raising the prospect that the army may unleash a much-feared bloody crackdown to suppress unprecedented street protests.

Describing the protesters as "fascists," the Defense Ministry said in a statement that the memorials, specifically those dedicated to victims of World War II, must not be desecrated. The ministry warned against any violation of peace and order in such places, writing in all capital letters, "You will have the army to deal with now, not the police."

The statement came as army personnel were spotted being transported into Minsk in military transporters, just a day after Lukashenka ordered the military to take stringent measures against what he described as foreign-backed plans for a "color revolution" in the country.

Protests have been taking place on the streets of Belarus since Lukashenka, in power since 1994, was declared the winner of the August 9 poll by a landslide. More than 7,000 have been detained and hundreds beaten by police. The EU and the United States have criticized the vote and condemned the postelection crackdown.

Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the opposition candidate who left for Lithuania after the election and claimed to have won from 60 to 70 percent of the vote, said on August 22 that Belarusians must "struggle for their rights" and not be distracted by Lukashenkas claims that the country was under military threat.



"We are people of Belarus and we are a majority and we will not step away. We are not afraid of them any more," she told AFP news agency from Lithuania, where she fled following the election.

Tsikhanouskaya will meet on August 24 with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun in Lithuania, as the United States and Europe deepen their diplomatic involvement to end the crisis.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on August 23 accused Belarusian opposition members who left Belarus of seeking "bloodshed," according to the RIA-Novosti news agency.

He added that Moscow was calling for the launch of a genuinely broad national dialogue in Belarus and said Russia would accept any decision of the Belarusian authorities with regard to dialogue with the opposition.

Crisis In Belarus Read our ongoing coverage as Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka continues his brutal crackdown on NGOs, activists, and independent media following the August 2020 presidential election, widely seen as fraudulent.

But he said the Belarusian people "will decide for themselves how to get out of this situation."



He also said there are "clear signs of a normalization" in Belarus, and a proposal on constitutional reform was "a quite promising path."

The opposition this week established a coordination council to negotiate the transition of power, in a move Belarusian authorities have described as an attempt to illegally seize power.

Meanwhile, the Nasha Niva media site said the body of Mikita Kryutsov was found in a forest near Minsk with signs of multiple beatings. He was reported missing after taking part in protests in Minsk on August 12.



So far, two people have been confirmed killed in the postelection protests.

With reporting by Current Time, Belsat, AP, Reuters, and AFP
Each person enters the story of womens suffrage from a different vantage point.

The journey to the womens vote illustrates the complex relationships between Black and white women  inextricably linked by a male-dominated society and racism.

The story of women  Black and white  rising for change reveals the truths that divide us, the hope that unites us and the strength that enables us to stay the course.

Now, 100 years since the passage of the 19th Amendment, we must acknowledge the Black women who raised their voices while fighting courageously for freedom, justice and the vote despite threats of harm by men and women who excluded and dismissed them.

Black women were unapologetic as they strove to right the wrongs of history. They were halted at many turns by white women and men who didnt want to cloud the pursuit of womens rights with the anti-slavery efforts by abolitionists or, later, by divides based on racism that pitted the north against the south.

As we reflect on the anniversary of the womens vote, we should recognize the many Black women who were hidden in plain sight as pacesetters in the struggle for freedom and the advancement of all women. In honor, We speak your names reflects the sentiment of poet Pearl Cleage as we stand in gratitude for the blood, sweat and tears that were shed by the pacesetters in the past. We draw on your strength to wipe away the tears that continue to be shed today as many Black women and women of color are largely disregarded, disenfranchised and dismissed.

The Voices of Resilience: The Intersection of Women on the Move exhibit at the Springfield Museums DAmour Museum of Fine Arts  extended through Jan. 3  provides a rare vantage point to view highlights of women on the move who lifted the issues of suffrage and racism as they climbed the mountains of change. Voices of Resilience, which features more than 70 women, celebrates the intersecting lives of women in Massachusetts and beyond who changed the course of history.

While history books often separate the dueling stories of Black and white women, the exhibit unites the voices of women overall. The stories reflect the deep-seated, interwoven roots of the womens movement that began in part with the seeds sown by Black women and other women of color who made strides while being seen yet unseen over decades. The exhibit includes the lesser-known, untold stories of women of color, including:

 Black Women in Pursuit of Justice: In1781, Mumbet (Elizabeth Freeman) became the first enslaved African American to file and win a freedom lawsuit in Massachusetts, thus setting a valuable precedent;

 Raising Voices: In 1832, Bostons African-American orator Maria Stewart became the first known American-born woman to lecture publicly before both men and women on political issues and spoke out on all womens rights during a time when few, if any, white women did the same;

 Taking Good Care: In 1879, Mary Eliza Mahoney became the first African-American to graduate from nursing school and become licensed in Boston;

 Inclusion: In 1894, Bostons Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin founded The Womans Era, the first newspaper produced by and for African-American women, as well as organized the Womens Era Club, one of the earliest of its kind for Black women but open to all women. Prioritizing inclusive leadership, Ruffin said, We need to feel the cheer and inspiration of meeting each other, we need to gain the courage and fresh life that comes from the mingling of congenial souls, of those working for the same ends. Her efforts led to the formation of the National Association of Colored Womens Clubs, the first and oldest national Black organization to inspire African-American women to advocate for womens rights as well as to uplift and improve the status of African Americans;

 Casting a Vote: Annie L. McTier was the first African-American woman to register to vote in Springfield under the Woman Suffrage Act of 1923;

 Working Together: Black women such as Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911) understood that the intersection of being Black and a woman offered strength and not weakness as an abolitionist and supporter of womens rights. In May 1866, Harper sat with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony at a national womens rights conference. In her speech, Harper acknowledged her idea of a shared mission: We are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity, and society cannot trample on the weakest and feeblest of its members without receiving the curse in its own soul; and

 Seeds of Intersectional Feminism: At the 1851 Womens Rights Convention held in Akron, Ohio, Sojourner Truth delivered what is now recognized as one of the most famous abolitionist and womens rights speeches in American history, Aint I a Woman? Truth believed that her Blackness never diminished her womanhood. Also, of note, Anna Jula Cooper, who was born into slavery in 1864, went on to earn a Ph.D. at the Sorbonne in Paris at age 66. In 1892, she published A Voice from the South, a book that has been cited as unparalleled articulation of Black feminist thought.

In honor of the women who uplift others and climb to new heights of justice, We speak your names.

Janine Fondon, assistant professor and chair of undergraduate communication at Bay Path University, was guest curator of the exhibit, Voices of Resilience: The Intersection of Women on the Move, at the Springfield Museums with scholars Demetria Shabazz and Lucie K. Lewis and the museums curator of art, Maggie North. The exhibit is on display through Jan. 3.

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Among them was Philadelphia resident Stephanie Fusco, 26, who got a notice in June that the ballot she cast in Pennsylvanias presidential primary that month for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was rejected. The reason given: Election workers could not obtain her required signature from the ballot. I was absolutely irate when it happened, said Fusco, who worked as a medical technologist until she was furloughed because of the pandemic. I did everything well before the deadline, and I know that I signed it. I signed it on the little box on the envelope.
Ahead of the crucial Congress Working Committee meeting on Monday, the party was deeply divided on the leadership issue with a section demanding a "full-time" chief and another backing Gandhis at

the helm, amid indications that interim president Sonia Gandhi might offer to quit.

After around 20 leaders wrote to the party chief seeking collective leadership and a revamp of major bodies, sources close to Sonia Gandhi said she might offer to step down in the CWC and ask the party to look for a full-time president.

AICC media chief Randeep Surjewala, however, denied it.



As the debate over the issue of leadership raged, another group of leaders put their weight behind the Gandhi family on Sunday, calling for Sonia Gandhi to stay or Rahul Gandhi to take charge again.

While Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and former ministers Ashwani Kumar, Salman Khurshid and KK Tewary backed the Gandhis, the dissenting group included former ministers Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Kapil Sibal, Mukul Wasnik, Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor and former Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

Opposing the bid to challenge the Gandhi family leadership, Amarinder Singh said this was not the time to raise such an issue.

"The move by these Congress leaders to demand a rehaul of the party at this critical juncture would be detrimental to its interests, and the interests of the nation.

"What the Congress needs is a leadership that is acceptable not just to a few but to the entire party, through its rank and file, and the nation at large," he said, adding that the Gandhis were the right fit for this role.

"Sonia Gandhi should continue to helm the Congress as long as she wants," he said, adding that Rahul Gandhi should thereafter take over as he is fully competent to lead the party.



Gehlot termed the letter as unfortunate and said the Gandhi family has kept the party united.

"I am not aware of any such letter but if this is true, then it is unfortunate. They all have worked with the party for so long and the move of the letter is uncalled for," said Gehlot.

Former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah tweeted, "It is unfortunate that the leadership of Gandhi family is being questioned by few. In these difficult times of undeclared emergency and attack on democracy by BJP, we should collectively strive to strengthen Congress and not weaken it."

In a letter to the CWC on Sunday, AICC secretary for Maharashtra Challa Vamshi Chand Reddy said any delay in Rahul Gandhi's reinstatement would be at the cost of the Congress.



Lok Sabha MP Manickam Tagore too demanded Rahul Gandhi's return as Congress president.

Tharoor put out a cryptic tweet quoting Jawaharlal Nehru that said "we have become prisoners of the past".



"Without passion and urge, there is a gradual oozing out of hope and vitality, a settling down on lower levels of existence, a slow merging into non-existence. We have become prisoners of the past and some part of its immobility sticks to us," he tweeted.

Ashwani Kumar, Salman Khurshid and K K Tewary spoke against elections to the post of party president and favoured consensus.

Kumar and Khurshid both argued that elections would be divisive and consensus should be given a chance.

Tewary, a party veteran, feared the party might disintegrate if Gandhis withdrew.

In response to the letter by Azad and others, sources said, Sonia Gandhi might offer to quit as party's interim chief and ask the leadership to scout for a full-time president.

She took over as interim chief on August 10 last year following a request from the CWC after Rahul Gandhi declined the committee's unanimous appeal to stay as chief post the 2019 Lok Sabha poll debacle.

In their letter, the nearly 20 leaders including ex-ministers have asked Sonia Gandhi for overhaul of the organizational structure and changes to the leadership while some leaders close to Rahul have also written parallel letters to the CWC pressing for the Gandhi scion's return as chief.



Surjewala, meanwhile, said, "I have not seen any purported letter and hence cannot comment upon it".

On the issue of Sonia Gandhi's possible resignation, Surjewala said, "Sonia Gandhi has not made any comment or has given any interview and media reports in this regard as false".



In their letter, Azad and other leaders have also stressed on collective decision-making with the Gandhi family as its "integral part."

They have also called for the appointment of a full-time leadership which is active and which can be easily contacted by workers and leaders.

The pro-reform leaders are further learnt to have called for free and fair organizational polls from the block up to the working committee level.



The leaders said that over-centralisation of the organisation and micro-management has always proven to be counter-productive, and that uncertainty over the leadership has "demoralised the Congress workers and further weakened the party".



They were also critical of the way the Congress Working Committee, the party's apex decision-making body, was being constituted and was functioning.



Highlighting the gravity of the challenges facing the party, they said that it was "imperative" to urgently establish an institutional leadership mechanism to collectively guide the party's revival.



The letter talked about forming the CWC in accordance with the Congress' constitution as well as reconstitution of the central parliamentary board and the central election committee

They are learnt to have pointed out that the CWC is not "guiding" the party effectively in mobilizing public opinion against the BJP.



Among leaders learnt to have signed the letter are Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, deputy leader of Congress in Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma, former chief ministers Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Prithviraj Chavan and Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, besides ex ministers Mukul Wasnik, Kapil Sibal, M Veerappa Moily, Shashi Tharoor, MP Manish Tewari, and former MPs Milind Deora, Jitin Prasada and Sandeep Dixit.

The signatories are also said to include former party unit chiefs including Raj Babbar, Arvinder Singh Lovely, Kaul Singh Thakur besides leaders Akhilesh Prasad Singh and Kuldeep Sharma.

They have called for contacting and winning back all those Congressmen who have quit the party and joined the BJP and expressed concerns over rank and file getting demoralised due to the "drift in the party."

While most of the leaders who have written the letter did not answer calls on Sunday, some who answered remained tight-lipped on the issue having set the stage for a CWC debate on the need for a Gandhi versus a non-Gandhi Congress President.

Lok Sabha MP Manickam Tagore, meanwhile, called for Rahul Gandhi's return as party president.

"Gandhis are the symbol of sacrifice. Decision by Congress CWC was a majority decision reflecting the will of 1100 AICC, 8800 PCC members, five crore workers and 12 crore supporters who want Rahul Gandhi as their leader," Tagore said, referring to the 2019 decision of the CWC to name Sonia Gandhi as party president after Rahul declined to accept a unanimous CWC appeal to stay in the post.

In his letter to CWC, Challa Vamshi Chand Reddy said,"In view of existing conditions any further delay in promoting Rahul Gandhi as AICC president can cause incalculable harm to the progress of Congress Party and can be dispiriting to the Congress family."
~Readying petition for government and Parliament ~

The vendors on the parking lot at Kim Sha Beach, classified as the Kim Sha Market Place, are incensed with the government over its latest move to put them out of business. The vendors reacted over the weekend to a Ministerial decision dated August 17, 2020, by Minister of Tourism and Economic Affairs Ludmila DeWeever that would set the max opening time of business for the vendors to 10 pm daily and re-classify the area as a re-designated marketplace. This decision was made public by the Minister over this past weekend.

This decision reverses the previous one made by former Minister Mellissa Arrindell-Doncher that established the area as a market place with operating hours from 8:00 am to 11:00 pm Monday to Thursday and 8:00 am to 1:00 am on Friday and Saturday. The vendors contended that this is a sneaky way to retract a classification so that they become individual vendors that fall under the vendor's ordinance which does not allow vendors to open past 10 pm.

Furthermore, they stressed that the government has no respect for local businesses and entrepreneurs by releasing this new decision on the weekend without dialogue with vendors. What the government did, they pointed out, was to use the COVID-19 measure of bars closing at 10:00 pm as cover for this decision. They wanted to pull a fast one on the public so there was no backlash. But once the 10:00 pm measure for all bars is lifted, we will be stuck with the new 10:00 pm decision, thereby taking food out of our family mouths. This will never happen, they stressed.

The vendors have begun gathering signatures for a petition and will submit a letter to the Minister, Prime Minister, and the petition committee of Parliament. This is a total disregard for the struggles and well-being of your people. Imagine the gall and coldness of a government in a pandemic making things harder for their people, small business people struggling, there are no words to describe how nasty this is, the vendors said.

They are of the opinion that Minister DeWeever is protecting other nightlife spots in Simpson Bay because they are not as popular as the market place with its local flair and ambiance. It seems clear to us that there is more behind this decision. There must be. Because out of everything this government has to focus on, changing our operating hours without the decency of a conversation, suddenly becomes a priority? Its unacceptable and we are not having it, they said.
GE, a global leader in power technology, has signed two agreements valued at over $1.2 billion with the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity to execute power sector projects that will secure reliable power supply across the country.



Accordingly, GE Gas Power will undertake contracts valued at $500 million for the upgrade and maintenance of key power plants in the country, which are mission-critical to sustain power supply of over 6,000 MW and scale up operational efficiency.



Further, GEs Grid Solutions, in a landmark agreement, will reinforce Iraqs transmission network and interconnection with the electricity grid of Jordan, having secured a contract valued at $727 million.



In addition to delivering the scope of services, GE will also work with multiple export credit agencies to facilitate the discussion of financing over $1 billion for the projects.



The agreements were signed by Majid Al-Emara, Iraqs Minister of Electricity and Michael Eshoo, Vice President & CFO, GE Gas Power in the presence of Mustafa Al Khadimi, Prime Minister of Iraq and senior officials.



Al-Emara said: Our primary focus is to deliver uninterrupted electricity, especially during summer months, to meet the needs of our people and industry. To achieve this, we have already rolled out a clear action plan. Bringing world-class technology, especially to upgrade our power plants, and to ensure their seamless operation is a critical part of this strategy.



The new agreements with GE are an ideal fit for our requirements, and builds on the strong partnership we have with the company to deliver more power for the nation.



Scott Strazik, CEO for GE Gas Power, said: GE has a long history in Iraq, and we continue to deliver on our promise to the nation and its people. In recent years, we have further accelerated our project execution to scale up and rebuild the countrys electricity infrastructure. As demand for power increases in tune with a growing population and to support industries and developmental projects, identifying gaps and addressing them is our focal area.



We are thankful to the Iraqi government for their confidence in our capabilities to deliver power where and when needed. The new agreements will contribute to a more reliable and stronger power infrastructure, which is the top priority of the government.



Heiner Markhoff, Vice President and CEO of Grid Solutions at GE Renewable Energy, said: This agreement is about more than electricity generation. It is about putting in place the necessary grid infrastructure and a sustainable approach to progress that will allow Iraq to truly drive forward positive change throughout the nation. We are incredibly proud to be able to continue to support the growth of a reliable and sustainable electricity infrastructure in Iraq. This partnership will be able to bring power to millions of people and enable economic development in the country.



Upgrades, maintenance and service



The service agreement is a mission-critical Maintenance & Upgrade Program between the Ministry of Electricity and GE Gas Power to execute the maintenance program across multiple sites in Iraq.



GE will deploy its latest technology at the sites to be identified by the Ministry such as parts, repairs and services for power plants in Basra, Mosul, Baghdad and Karbala among others, which will maintain the supply of over 6,000 MW of power. This builds on 1.575 GW of new capacity that GE added since December 2019, and the sustained delivery of 4.325 GW to meet peak summer demand.



The reinforcement of Iraqs transmission network



The agreement signed by GEs Grid Solutions with the Ministry of Electricity will reinforce Iraqs transmission network and interconnection with the electricity grid of Jordan, which will contribute significantly to decongesting the grid and securing reliable power supply. GE will execute the design, supply, installation testing and commissioning of high voltage substations and specific overhead transmission lines. This is a key initiative that will reinforce the smooth operations and delivery of uninterrupted power of the national grid across Iraq, including the liberated areas, which were adversely impacted during the strife supporting their reconstruction.



With more than 300 employees, including FieldCore, a GE company, in Iraq currently, nearly 95 percent of them Iraqi professionals, GEs teams are deployed in the toughest locations, bringing power where it is needed most.  TradeArabia News Service
The episode "exposed" the BJP-led government's agenda of imposing Hindi through its officials, the Dravidian party chief M K Stalin alleged

Chennai: Another row over Hindi has erupted in Tamil Nadu with the DMK alleging yoga and naturopathy practitioners from the state were asked to leave a virtualmeet held by the AYUSH department if they did not understand the language and seeking action against officials concerned.

The episode "exposed" the BJP-led government's agenda of imposing Hindi through its officials, the Dravidian party chief M K Stalin alleged while party MP Kanimozhi wrote to AYUSH Minister Shripad Yesso Naik seeking an inquiry.

It comes close on the heels of Kanimozhi's recent claim that a Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) Personnel had asked her if she was an Indian as she could not speak Hindi, which brought back the debate on "Hindi imposition".

Stalin, in a statement, alleged Ayush secretary Rajesh Kotecha with "arrogance and a chauvinism for Hindi intimidated 37 yoga and naturopathy physicians to leave an online training session if they did not know Hindi" and condemned it.

"It is shameful that a senior government official in the rank of secretary has behaved in such an uncivilised fashion prompted by linguistic chauvinism," Stalin said on Saturday.

He urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure that such an incident did not recur and asked Chief Minister K Palaniswami to exert pressure on Modi to conduct the Central government's training programmes and meetings only in English.

"The BJP government at the Centre is continuously working by thrusting Hindi as its first agenda," and slighting other languages, particularly the classical Tamil, he alleged.

The AYUSH official would not have behaved in such a manner if prompt action had been taken against the CISF official for 'questioning' his sister and MP Kanimozhi for not knowing Hindi at the airport, he said.

Kanimozhi had alleged a woman CISF official who interacted with her on August 9 at the airport here asked her if she was an Indian as she did not speak in Hindi.

The CISF officials later maintained the woman officer "had not uttered" the words as alleged by the DMK MP but just said "Hindi is also an Indian or official language".

They also had said the force would take "enhanced efforts" to deploy more personnel who know the local language.

Stalin said when the remarks of officials, one after the other was examined, it "exposed the BJP-government's agenda of imposing Hindi" through them. Also, the Centre's declaration that no language would be imposed vis-a-vis the National Education Policy is an "eyewash" and this has become clear, he said.

Kanimozhi, in a letter to Naik, said the AYUSH secretary addressed the meet in Hindi and demanded an inquiry and action against "all officials who have acted in a manner discriminating (against) our fellow citizens on the basis of language."

She wanted the Minister to direct officials in his ministry to communicate in English in all official events and wherever Hindi was used, English translation should be provided.

"Further, I would like to remind you about the promise made by the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on 7th August 1959 on the floor of Lok Sabha that as long as the non-Hindi speaking states require English as an associate language, it will continue for an indefinite period," she said.
Some secrets are meant not to be heard. For a Michigan couple who had something to hide, they killeda friend by injecting her with battery acid and bleach to shut her silent forever. But they forgot that the dead tell tales.

On November 14, at exactly 2 p.m. the Michigan Police got a 911 call that came from anglers who were at the Flint River. The group told the police that they discovered something unexpected in the River which is a pile of wet blankets on the banks, reported Oxygen.

They stopped to investigate. When they opened the sheets, it covered a gruesome sight. It was the corpse of a locale waitress, Nancy Billiter, whose body was covered in blood and bruised all over.

As the first responders arrived, they checked the corpse that has injuries of multiple wounds on the head, face, and the thorax area. Suspicious circle marks were found on the skin, which is suspected to cause chemical or electrical burns on the corpse.

It was discovered that the comforter wrapping Billiter's corpse had traces of gasoline, but the killers weren't able to burn the remains.

Investigators talked to the friend and roommate of the deceased, Carol Giles at her residence. According to Guiles, she stayed there after the passing of Giles's husband. She stayed at Gile's place to pitch in the house chores and help the two kids of Carol when at work, noted AP News.

When asked when was the last time that the victim was seen, she told the police that it was on Tuesday night after she got back from work. Now, Carol alleged that her boyfriend, Tim Collier, stay out till 1:30 a.m. with the victim when Billiter left to visit her mother close by, cited Meaww.

Also read: Meatworker Beheads Friend During Fishing Trip, Possibly Due to Wife's Infidelity

She was asked if she was worried that her roommate has not returned for a few days, but Carol was not too receptive.

At the West Bloomfield Police Department, they interviewed Carol, who changed her story from time to time. She was not giving accurate information to them in the first interview.

Carol Gile's story

She alleged that on the night of Nov. 12, Collier argued with Billiter that concerned a burglary that happened, when on a California trip. Billiter was at the Giles home with the kids and found out a burglar got inside and stole money.

The man was suspicious of the burglary and thought the roommate had stolen the money. Collier got physical and hit the woman while toting a gun, revealed Carol.

She added that victim was on a bed and tied up, while Collier hit the other woman, covered her with a towel full of bleach. Carol saw her friend being killed by her boyfriend, and Collier told her to shut up or she's dead.

Hearing this, the investigators obtained a search warrant that found the proof verifying the statements of Carol Giles. Her car was searched where they found a gas container with a bottle of battery acid that has directions to Flint River.

More evidence were found like blood spatters on the walls, syringes and a blood infused mattress. Further interrogation revealed that both stories of Collier and Carol cracked because she said they were afraid that Billiter heard that she killed her husband.

The couple did kill the friend by injecting battery acid and bleach, but they never verified if the victim heard anything.

Related article: Boxer Woman Kills Two Men: Rapes One With Shovel Handle , Kicks Another to Death

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The U.S. and Canadian border has been recently fenced by border officials at a certain length to block illegal border crossing. Chief of the concerns is keeping everything on the right side, though local communities of Americans and Canadians have to converse at the fence.

What used to be a wide-open border in some parts of the border is blocked by a wired fence. According to the official statement, the wire fence was installed to stop criminals from entering and leaving the borders unchecked. It is one of the world's longest borders, according to New York Post.

Fence will stop criminals from crossing

The installation of the fence aims to decrease concerns of criminal exploitation. It will act as a barrier and will make it harder for criminals to cross each side and vice-versa.

The place where a simple cable barrier was installed only covers a measly 1.48-miles compared to having a total and overall distance of a 5,525-mile stretch. It is the shortest border fence that is found at the border in Lynden, Washington.

In one video, the local US customs and border patrol showed the barrier in the video. But, the top part of the border cable is slightly higher than the officer's waist only.

The agency responsible for the wire fence explained the function it serves in the Lynden and Washington border. It is the answer to bi-national safety, which means it covers a part of the border.

Also read: Joe Biden's Family Record Show Drug Usage, Drunk Driving, and Other Charges But No One Was Jailed

During an interview, Acting Chief Patrol Agent Tony Holladay said in a statement said that many peope are trying to cross the border with ill intentions. This fence is placed where people and narcotics are trafficked into the U.S. community, cited Salt Wire.

Strict border rules affected local community

Holladay stressed that it prevents the threat of criminals who pursue dangerous enterprises. One of the concerns that he answered was whether the wire fence cable barrier system will be stretched along the total distance of the northern border. He said nothing more about other plans for the barrier.

Canadian officials took a different tone when asked about it. They informed the Star that it was only the Americans putting a fence on theirs.

When the press asked more details about the Lynden and Washington border, it was found out that Canadians will go to the border to meet their partners. It was easier than legally stepping over the border. During the COVID-19 pandemic, no one is allowed over the border.

Natalie Hutchison added that having the cable barrier is like preventing couples in cross-border relationships to stay together. Her boyfriend is American, who are criticizing American officials for the move.

Another important announcement by the Canadian state is that the border is closed till September 21. Only those essential workers can pass freely, which is bad news for communities across the border.

Americans who are returning to America and Canadians who are returning to Canada are also exempted from the Canadian border closure.

Related article: Mike Pence Says Biden Is a 'Trojan Horse' With a Similar Radical Agenda to Sanders

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'God is calling us to true joy': Levi Lusko on COVID-19, racism, church reopening

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In a year defined by racial tension and pandemic hysteria, Pastor Levi Lusko believes God is calling His people to abandon their idols and experience true joy.

Lusko, lead pastor of Fresh Life Church, a multi-site church in Montana and Utah, told The Christian Post that he, like millions of other Americans, has found 2020 to be an incredibly difficult year.

But amid the pain, anxiety, and uncertainty, Lusko, who recently released his latest book, Take Back Your Life: A 40 Day Interactive Journey to Thinking Right So You Can Live Right, believes God is calling His people to true joy.

God is calling us to try joy. I believe thats the predominant thing He's trying to stir in our hearts this year, he said. In the very early days of March, April, and May, I felt God really calling me to true joy. Sometimes, we have to have those counterfeit sources of joy stripped away from us to experience true joy.

Lusko admitted that his biggest go-to idol is control.

But I'm out of control, he said. None of us can control this pandemic. By having that idol torn from my heart I feel like God has been calling me to true joy in Him, and in seeking His face.

The pastor pointed to the example of the Old Testament prophet Elijah, who learned to trust God in obscurity and isolation.

Elijah had to remove himself from the busyness to hear the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit, he said. It took him getting away to work through depression and issues that were clearly in his heart. He thought he was the only one struggling; he had kind of a victim mentality. He needed God to work on him. But when he heard the voice of the Lord speaking to him in the cave, he knew what he needed to do.

Lusko argued that in todays oversaturated, in-debt, overwhelmed society, it's easy to miss that still, small voice calling us to true joy.

"We need to practice self-control, and that begins with the renewing of our minds," he stressed.

The pandemic has given many people the time and space to grapple with issues below the surface the pastor said, such as racism and inequality.

Maybe we never would have had space and bandwidth to listen had it not been for the pandemic, he posited. Weve had the opportunity to hear the voices rising up, saying, Theres inequality, theres injustice. Scripture just overwhelmingly, from beginning to end, shows that God detests any religion that does not involve justice. We in the Church need to raise our voices for the oppressed. Its just part of following Christ.

While Fresh Life Church continues to broadcast sermons and hold small groups online, theyre remaining on the slow side of physically reopening in the wake of the pandemic.

We're not open in the sense that we're having our normal, traditional gathering worship experiences, Lusko said. We just have tried to kind of be on the safe side of that.

We're trying to serve our cities. One of our big things at Fresh Life is, we want to serve the peace of the city. Businesses, restaurants, car dealerships have to open because if they dont, theyll go bankrupt. But the church can't be broken. If we can lay aside our preference, which would be to gather, to serve the peace of the city, then we know well benefit from the flourishing of the whole city.

Well let those that need to make money reopen. In the meantime, we'll just gather online and be on the back burner. When the time's right, when its safe and healthy, well reopen.

According to Lusko, waiting to reopen is an act toward evangelism. He pointed out that the only people clamoring for us to reopen our church are Christians.

I've not had one non-Christian go, Why arent you open? when I say, Were trying to serve the city by being on the slow side, he said. I've never had one non-Christian be like, That's terrible. They say, Wow, I really respect that. I feel like it's an act towards evangelism and that is driving our desire to be on the slow side.

Still, the bestselling author admitted that deciding to remain closed has been tough. I seesaw back and forth. Ive had a tornado of emotions, but the biggest thing I've heard from the Holy Spirit is that its an act of evangelism to take this approach.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 13:47:35|Editor: huaxia

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GLENWOOD SPRINGS, the United States, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- With record amounts of wildfires exploding throughout America's West, overwhelmed officials in Colorado and California are turning to bigger planes to fight the fires, some of which come from the military.

"They were huge jets -- flying into Glenwood Canyon," said Vinny Elpwick, 24, who was painting a house nearby.

"They came in low, and we were cheering them on," he told Xinhua of the converted DC-10 jets that assisted Friday the battle against the nearby Grizzly Creek Fire, which has devastated one of Colorado's most scenic areas -- the spectacular Glenwood Canyon.

As of Saturday, the Grizzly Creek Fire has scorched 29,992 acres (121.4 square km) with 20 percent containment, according to InciWeb, an interstate incident information system, predicting it could be knocked down on Sept. 18.

Firefighters across Colorado need all the help they can get, with 300,000 acres (1,214.1 square km) already scorched in record drought conditions and no more than 22 percent containment with any of the state's four big wildfires which can be seen on imagery from the NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite, including Grizzly Creek Fire.

"It's unreal and eye-opening for someone who is new to this," Dan Montelli, a former military pilot who now flies DC-10s for a company called 10 Tanker, told the Colorado Sun newspaper this week.

With three jet engines, the DC-10 has a "humongous power-to-freight ratio," Rob Burrus, 10 Tanker's head of operations, told the Sun.

"Never take a knife to a gun fight," excavator Jeff Blevins told Xinhua, "especially if you have a big gun," he said, referring to the use of the DC-10 as a firefighting tool.

The legendary DC-10, manufactured by U.S. military manufacturer McDonnell Douglas, has been flying passengers since 1971 and made its final flight with people in 2017 with the Bangladeshi Biman airline company, according to simpleflying.com.

The 10 Tanker Air Carrier said its DC-10 fleet started its fire mission since 2006.

CALIFORNIA DESPERATE

"Ninety-two large fires have burned nearly 1.5 million acres (6,070.2 square km) in 13 states," the Idaho-based National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) said Saturday.

"Large fire activity in California accounts for about 1.1 million acres of today's total," NIFC added, with new, large fires also reported in Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Texas, and some 24,000 firefighters at work in the West.

NIFC confirmed Saturday that help was on the way for beleaguered California, with Nevada and Wyoming National Guard bases sending three C-130 air tankers and support crew to fight some of the biggest fires in state history.

On Thursday, the "1st AF/America's AOC" tweeted that four C-130s made drops in Northern California, and that "100 retardant drops had been made since July."

NIFC said two of the aircraft are from the California Air National Guard's 146th Airlift Wing, Port Hueneme and two are from the Wyoming Air National Guard's 153rd Airlift Wing based in Cheyenny, noting "these aircraft are instrumental in providing increased aerial firefighting capacity on fires across the West."

The C-130 "Hercules" is roughly the size of a DC-10, with a 39.7-meter wingspan, 97.3 meters long, and 11.4 meters high. It was designed by Lockheed to haul up to 42,000 pounds of military equipment, and 2,500 have been built since 1954.

The military cargo transport can be used as an air tanker against wildfires after the Modular Airborne FireFighting System (MAFFS), a self-contained unit used for aerial firefighting, was loaded onto it. The aircraft with MAFFS can drop up to 3,000 gallons of fire retardant in less than 10 seconds across a quarter-mile line.

This allows the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to use military aircraft from the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve to serve as an emergency backup resource to the civilian air tanker fleet.

This week, California's Governor Gavin Newsom called National Guard units across the country with C-130s, asking for help to fight the blazes, according to media reports.

"At least 585 fires have burned more than 900,000 acres (3,642.2 square km), killed five people and forced evacuation orders for more than 119,000 people," CNBC reported Saturday.

A stifling heat wave, no precipitation, and some 20,000 lightning strikes across the West have sparked the blazes, officials said.

Northern California is "drastically short of firefighters," the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper reported Saturday.

On Friday morning, California Fire spokesman Scott McLean said 375 engines had been requested from outside California, but only 45 arrived.

Newsom, "stretched thin on emergency response crews to battle the fires, has called on the California National Guard, deployed almost 12,000 firefighters statewide and requested help from many states," CNBC added.

Thus far, 10 states have sent fire crews, engines and aircraft to help battle the blazes, Newsom said.

The United States has a fleet of about 430 C-130s across active-duty, Reserve and National Guard units, however, one year ago, the U.S. Air Force temporarily grounded 123 C-130s over safety concerns. Enditem
At least two men were injured in a Saturday afternoon shooting inside a North Portland home, police said.

Officers have so far disclosed few other details about the shooting, which occurred on North Oberlin Street between Stanford and Portsmouth Avenues. Three neighbors separately reported hearing five gunshots at the home around 3:45 p.m.

Police taped off the block surrounding the house, where about a dozen people were standing outside.

Paramedics carried at least one victim out of the home and tended to that person and another person on the front lawn. Both people were placed on gurneys and taken away by ambulances at 4:10 p.m.

Portland police later said that one person was shot in the leg, and that an officer used a tourniquet on the man to stop the bleeding.

Police said they do not believe there is an threat to the public linked to the shooting, but did not say whether officers arrested anyone involved. Police have not answered any other questions regarding the shooting.

-- Molly Young

myoung@oregonian.com
By James McQueeny

Milwaukee and Charlotte would have been my 14th and 15 presidential nominating conventions had the COVID-19 pandemic not scrubbed them down to virtual events.

For political party regulars, and the media and myself, these traditional conventions will be missed more for reasons of nostalgia and camaraderie than for politics or necessity.

In recent years, the summer conventions became expensive, wobbly nuisances because of the front-loaded primaries, and a wish to put time and money to better use for their nominees anointed earlier in the year.

Jerry Seib, the Wall Street Journals Washington editor, has crisscrossed conventions with me since our first one together in1980.

The parties have known for a while there is no need to conduct an expensive, four-day extravaganza to nominate their ticket and the advantages of doing so have been diminishing

Still, these conventions have always been ritualistic. Tribal. Marshaling areas before the election assaults that would begin by Labor Day.

I attended that first one as a reporter for this paper, covering the Carter-Kennedy fight, two others as a partisan Democrat, and the rest as a television political analyst. A few of my favorites:

San Francisco. 1984 Democratic Convention.

A prime-time speaking role at a convention is a coveted privilege, especially back in the days when TV invested more coverage.

U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg tasked me to give a healing speech to help heal raw feelings between Black and Jewish voters after Jessie Jacksons faux pas of calling New York City Hymietown.

On the night of his speech, Lautenberg paced nervously in the bowels of a windowless, monitor-less green room deep under the convention platform, practicing his speech, when Gov. Mario Cuomo and his wife, Matilda, filed down the stairs, buoyant and chatty.

The senator shushed him. Mario, I have to give a critically important speech in a minute, let me practice it, please. Cuomo apologetically held up his hand as if to say OK, Frank, no problem.

A few minutes later, the Cuomos were ushered up to the podium to give his speech yes, THAT epochal beatitude called House on the Hill.

In the quiet of the green room, the senator had no idea what was awaiting him upstairs when he was called up after Cuomo had finished. Opening the door to the podium was like climbing out of a bomb shelter into the chaotic aftermath of an air raid.

TV cameras had swung away from the senator and were trained down on the convention floor where Cuomo was triumphantly being swarmed by delegates and the media. The senator just looked over at me, shrugged, and ran through his remarks like a speed-talker reading the ending caveats of a drug commercial.

San Diego. 1996 Republican Convention

The partisan camaraderie is nourished nightly by the parties held by various corporations, lobbyists or candidates.

An event held by State Sen. Bill Gormley of Atlantic City trumped them all when he arranged for the airlift of hundreds of hoagies from the regionally famed White House Sub Shop in Atlantic City.

Turned out that the plane was delayed to near midnight. Delegates who had been lusting over those subs all through the days convention proceedings were not to be denied. They hopped into cars to chase a Gormley aide all the way to the airport so they could get those subs before they would be devoured by others back at the hotel.

I also recall walking late one night on the delegation hotel grounds with former Gov. Tom Kean, the consummate political realist, who personally liked the partys doomed nominee, Sen. Bob Dole. Its terrible to see such a bad thing going to happen in November to such a nice guy.

Boston. 2004 Democratic Convention

The political maneuvering and posturing for things back home were always flowing through the conventions no matter where they were held.

I had tried many times to snag Gov. Jim McGreevey for a convention sit-down interview and had just about given up. Then, miraculously, actually, insistently, an aide began to set it up, with a sudden alacrity I hadnt ever seen. Strange, I thought.

McGreevey gave a robust interview, even more surprisingly, raising for the first time his re-election intentions for the next year.

Two weeks later, I, and the rest of New Jersey, found out that at the time of that interview he was trying to politically and personally inoculate himself from being blackmailed by Golan Cipel over a homosexual, extra-marital affair that precipitated his resignation.

Los Angeles. 2000 Democratic Convention.

Theres a competitive desperation by the media at conventions to find color stories that break away from the tedium of all that speech-making.

On the prowl for one, our TV crew drove straight into one, a street demonstration near the Staples Center, with demonstrators worked up in a fury by a Rage Against the Machine street concert.

We got a newsroom text just then from our New Jersey newsroom that CNN was now showing a riot outside Staples, with protestors rocking cars and that we should cover it.

Two problems with that: The car live on CNN was OUR car-- and we couldnt get our camera because it was in the trunk, surrounded by the crowd.

To spare ourselves the humiliation, we told our editors the crowd had dissipated before we got there. Later, at the delegation hotel, we saw the CNN replays, just happy that our faces couldnt be identified.

Philadelpha. 2000 Republican Convention.

Security at conventions after 9-11 has been incredibly tight, with blocks cordoned off quite a distance away.To that point, my sons wanted to see the convention floor but I couldnt get them passes.

Almost as a lark, I strung a couple of lanyards for them from expired passes and a slew of fluttering and irrelevant tickets and coupons that looked like a Tibetan prayer chain. I thought wed be outed before we even got on the delegation bus shuttle.

But, no problem with the bus nor with the first perimeter bus check either with the police dogs sniffing their way past us in the aisle. We got past the Spectrum handbag checks and were waved cordially inside at the last checkpoint.

Houston. 1992 Republican convention.

Despite the honor, most speeches given on the stage at the conventions are rarely seen or heard.

I had never heard Dan Quayle speak in person. I was curious enough to go over to the Astrodome to see him.

Quayle, given a time slot the media did not cover, gave a shockingly good speech, which I chalked up to him letting er rip in the conventions equivalent of the NBAs garbage time.

The railing I was gripping during the speech literally vibrated with the deepness of the roars he was given. I actually thought the sound was being piped in (sometimes done in arenas). It was not.

All I could think of was this from a guy who couldnt spell potato while campaigning in New Jersey?

James McQueeny, president of Winning Strategies Communications, is the former White House bureau chief of The Star-Ledger.

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Drug firm Jubilant Life Sciences is focused on sustaining its operational and financial performance in the near-term in the current scenario unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to its latest annual report. The company posted a total revenue from operations of Rs 9,154.4 crore in FY20, up 0.5 per cent year-on-year, with international revenue of Rs 7,124 crore contributing 78 per cent to the total revenue, its annual report for fiscal year 2019-20 said.

"The company, in the near-term, is focused on sustaining its operational and financial performance in the current uncertain scenario unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic, with medium-term focus at ensuring sustainable growth across our various businesses," the company's chairman Shyam S Bhartia and co-chairman and managing director Hari S Bhartia said in their message to shareholders.

To tide over the COVID-19 pandemic led crisis, the company in the near-term is deferring its major capex plans, without sacrificing growth, until the business environment stabilises, they said.

The company is focused on generating healthy operating cash flows to further reduce debt levels, the message said.

"We continue to stay focused on our strategy of being closer to the customer and of further strengthening our leadership position in defined businesses," it added.

The company's diversified businesses are segmented in three major verticals namely pharmaceuticals, life science ingredients and drug discovery and development solutions, the report said.

Also Read: Govt to soon come out with SOPs for medical tourists coming to India

Also Read: Seven of top-10 firms add Rs 67,622 crore in m-cap; RIL, Bharti Airtel worst-hit
Kabul, Aug 23 : Afghanistan's President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani met with NATO's Senior Civilian Representative in Afghanistan Stefano Pontecorvo and discussed issues including the peace process in Afghanistan, the Presidential Palace said.

In the meeting attended by National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib, the two sides exchanged views on the peace process, strengthening and equipping Afghan national security and defense forces as well as NATO support to the government programs, particularly on the peace and reconciliation process, the palace said in a statement on Saturday, Xinhua news agency reported.

Pontecorvo reaffirmed NATO's commitment for supporting lasting security and stability in Afghanistan, said the statement.

The meeting came as violence lingers in the war-torn country after a peace deal was signed between the United States and Taliban in Qatar in February, which paved the way for a phased US force withdrawal.

According to the agreement, some 10,000 US and NATO forces stationed in Afghanistan will be withdrawn by July next year.
Public health alerts have been issued for more than 55 sites across Brisbane, Ipswich and Logan, with deep cleaning carried out at one major shopping centre, in a bid to tackle the state's latest coronavirus outbreak.

Queensland Health added 13 new sites to the list on Sunday evening, which included a COVID-positive patient visiting Ipswich Hospital's Emergency Department within a seven-hour window.

Other notable additions to the list included Indooroopilly Shopping Centre last Monday, August 17, from 11am-1pm and again on Wednesday, August 19, between 1pm and 4pm.

In a memo written to retailers, seen by Brisbane Times, the centre management confirmed that two customers had later tested positive.
Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has revealed that tertiary students will be able to access students loans without the need for a guarantor if the Akufo-Addo led government is given another four-year mandate in the upcoming December elections.



The beneficiaries will be given a year moratorium after NSS before they will be required to pay back the loans, he said.



He made this known during the New Patriotic Partys manifesto launch at the University of Cape Coast in the Central Region on Saturday, August 22, 2020.



"It is very key to note that the link between tertiary education and economic development is very, very strong. Countries which have high tertiary enrollment rate, have much higher levels of economic development...One of the problems in getting access to tertiary education in Ghana is affordability...All tertiary students except teacher and nursing trainees who will be on allowances, all tertiary students will now be able to get the option to obtain a student loan without the requirement of a guarantor."



He explained that, "The current scheme asks for guarantors and you know a lot of people are not willing to put their pensions on line so the students are not able to access it. So you don't need a guarantor, all you need is your national ID card that is all."



He added that, the Nana Addo administration will also focus on improving 10,000 low-performing schools in the country.



This, he said, will be done by giving them additional funding and support the teachers so they can raise the level of performance these schools.



In addition, he said the Akufo-Addo led government will build module senior high schools in Zongo communities in the 16 regions of Ghana.



According to Dr. Bawumia, government will increase resources and infrastructure for special need education across the country. We are going to focus on special needs, a lot of our children who are suffering from autism or cerebral palsy and other special needs, need support and government needs to support many, many organisations who are in the private sector.



The Vice President also said that the administration will expand infrastructure to increase access to professional legal education.



We will also complete the provision of free Wi-Fi in all Senior Secondary Schools and public tertiary institutions, he added.



Dr Bawumia also said that the government will construct a new harbour and an airport in the Central regional capital, Cape Coast, if given another four-year mandate.



He said it is very important that the Central region gets its own airport to help with tourism and the development of the country.



We are going to build a new harbour and a new airport in Cape Coast. It is very criticalthat the Central region gets its own airport, Dr Bawumia said.



Touching on the performance of his party so far, the Vice President said the NPP government has over 300 achievements since assuming power in 2017.



He added that that accounts for the fulfillment of 80 percent of promises made during the 2016 electioneering period.



We have achieved 80% of all our promises and we have performed much, much better, he 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.

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Islamabad:

Former Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari has finally returned to Pakistan after days of uncertainty over his return to the country. Earlier Zardari had said that he is not in exile and will return home soon.

In an interview to Geo News on November 21, Zardari had denied being in exile and said he would return to Pakistan within the next few weeks.

Notably, the PPP chief abruptly left the country in 2015, after lashing out at the military establishment for overstepping its domain.

PPP Senator Saeed Ghani had also confirmed the possibility of Zardaris return saying the former president would be back in December.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Whether it was the smell of the moist salt air, or the line that blurs between sea and sky, Tom was in his element when he was on a boat. He was always looking for an opportunity to be away from the cares of the world with his family and many friends, using the lure of the water for relaxation and adventure.



On August 18, 2020, Thomas George Serb, a loving, devoted husband and father of two children, passed away in his home at the age of 73. Tom was born on November 12, 1946, in Cleveland, Ohio, to the late Robert James and Charlotte Doll Serb. He spent his boyhood on the shores of Lake Erie-boating and fishing; and helping out with the family businesses: a gas station, bait shop, Ice-cream shack and finally a family-run motel. In 1968 he received his Bachelor of Science in Education from Miami University of Ohio and completed Naval Flight Officer Training in Pensacola, Florida. He went on to complete a Master of Science in Management from Central Michigan University in 1988.



Tom served his country in the U.S. Navy for 24 years. He spent 10 years on active duty as a Naval Flight Officer on the A-3 and the P-3, with tours of duty in Atsugi, Japan; Rota, Spain; and Patuxent River, Maryland. He spent another 14 years in the reserves, retiring as a Commander in the Naval Reserve in October 1992.



Tom married Carol, his wife of 46 years, in March of 1974. Everyone who knew Tom would agree that he was devoted to his family. Tom did not just teach his children, Heather and Andy, his Christian faith, he lived it as an example to them and all in his sphere of influence. Involvement in church, youth, military ministries, bible studies and mission trips were a normal part of family life. Tom was also devoted to the importance of family vacations and trips together. Many family camping trips, ski vacations and even some international travel were a regular part of family life, both when the children were young and then with the spouses and grandchildren as they grew. In his retirement, Tom and Carol traveled extensively, trekking across the globe, up and down the Chesapeake Bay, and down the Intracoastal Waterway in their sailboat.



One of Tom's most enduring qualities was his love for people. He loved to socialize-whether it be with a neighbor, the grocery store clerk, or with a friend on a fishing trip. Even more was his love for helping others. Tom valued those in need or in challenging situations and openly shared his resources, his home and himself with others. He invested his life, his wisdom and his time into leading others into a deeper relationship with God. He encouraged all he knew to be better versions of themselves. He was a mentor, an encourager and a true friend.



Tom will be remembered by his family and friends for sailing and fishing, Russian pancakes, hikes in the woods, lessons about engines and how to take care of things so that they last, woodworking, his impeccable memory of gas stations and restaurants on the turnpike, tinkering, trips to Ohio, and collecting things, especially old cars, bits and bobs, and spare parts. Anything you might need could be found in "Gramps' Hardware Store". He loved happy hour, hot tubs, cherry pie and waxing his boats. He was romantic and loved to get Carol flowers. He never turned down an offer to go out to eat.



Tom was industrious, patient and soft-spoken. He was deliberate and a do-it-yourself kind of guy. Tom left a legacy of commitment and love that will not be forgotten.



Tom is survived by his wife, Carol; his children, Heather and Andy (Samantha); his grandchildren Eric, Bay and Leah; his brothers Bob (Anne) and John, his sister, Connie (Skip) and several close nieces and nephews.



Family will receive friends on August 21, 2020 from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. at Brinsfield Funeral Home, P.A., 22955 Hollywood Road, Leonardtown, MD 20650. A Funeral Service will be private. Interment will happen at a later date at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, VA.



Donations may be sent to Hospice of St. Mary's, P.O. Box 625, Leonardtown, MD 20650, Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, P.O. Box 17029, Baltimore, MD 21297-1029, and The Navigators, P.O. Box 6000, Colorado Springs, CO 80934-6000.



Condolences may be made at www.brinsfieldfuneral.com.



Arrangements by the Brinsfield Funeral Home, P.A.
Tens of thousands of people flooded the heart of the Belarus capital of Minsk in a show of anger over a brutal police crackdown this week on peaceful protesters that followed a disputed election, and authorities sought to ease rising public fury by freeing at least 2,000 who were jailed after earlier demonstrations. Factory workers marched across the city shouting Go away! in a call for authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko to resign after 26 years of iron-fisted rule that was extended in an election that protesters denounced as rigged. Crowds grew to more than 20,000, filling central Independence Square.Belarusian opposition supporters rally in the center of Minsk, Belarus. Opposition supporters whose protests have convulsed the country for a week aim to hold a major march in the capital of Belarus. Protests began late on Aug. 9 at the closing of presidential elections. (Image: AP)
Police in the northern Vietnamese province of Bac Ninh have arrested two suspects who allegedly kidnapped a two-year-old boy at a local park earlier this week.

Officers under the provincial Department of Police and the Ministry of Public Security confirmed on Saturday they had captured Nguyen Thi Thu, 32, and Dang Van Bang, 33.

According to preliminary information, the victim, two-year-old Nguyen Cao Gia Bao, was brought to a park in Bac Ninh City, the capital of the namesake province, by his father on Friday afternoon.

After the father did not pay attention to his son for a brief moment, the young boy was nowhere to be found.

The family then reported the incident to police officers, before a search was promptly initiated.

Police extracted CCTV footage and brought sniffer dogs to the location to trace the boy.

All evidence led to a tenanted house in Bac Ninh City, where they found Thus ID and Baos clothes.

Nguyen Cao Gia Bao is handed back to his family members at the police station in Bac Ninh Province, Vietnam, August 22, 2020. Photo: Phuong Ha / Tuoi Tre

Police then raided Thus house in northern Tuyen Quang Province  her hometown  and rescued the boy on Saturday evening.

The victim was found with a new set of outfits. His eyes were puffy and he was in sheer panic.

At the police station, Thu claimed she had spotted Bao at the park and talked the boy into coming with her to her rented house on Friday.

She took the boy to Tuyen Quang Province the following morning.

The woman said she wanted to abduct the child because she was suffering from infertility.

Bang is Thus boyfriend. The couple lives together in Tuyen Quang Province.

He stated Thu was the one who kidnapped the young boy.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
(Natural News) Now the mask is off and the Democrats are telling us exactly what they have planned for America. In Portland, left-wing rioters  all of whom support Joe Biden over President Trump  brought a blood-splattered guillotine to the riot and put it on display while they burned American flags and held Black Lives Matter signs, demanding an end to America.

Their message couldnt be any more clear: They seek to burn America to the ground and murder anyone who gets in their way. They are violent left-wing lunatics who respect no law, no freedoms for anyone else, and no rules of civilized society. They nearly all support communism and Joe Biden, and they promise to burn down Americas cities and murder people in the streets if they dont get what they want.

Heres a snapshot distributed by the Portland Police Bureau:

And heres a video of the burning of American flags:

#PortlandRiots: Antifa showing the public a visual representation of their political agenda. They put US flags on the guillotine prop and set all of it on fire outside the SE police building. pic.twitter.com/9iLTVIPVJD  Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) August 23, 2020

The Portland Police Bureau issued an official statement describing rocks, bottles and dangerous items that were thrown at police, alongside blinding lasers wielded by left-wing rioters trying to cause permanent eye damage to law enforcement. Remember these are the people every Democrat in America describes as mostly peaceful.

Via the PPB statement:

Many participants in the march carried hardened shields, helmets, armor, gas masks, and wore all black clothing. At least one participant targeted the Portland Police Air Support Unit airplane with a green laser. This is extremely dangerous and could cause disorientation for the pilot, in addition to permanent eye damage. Individuals in the crowd threw rocks, eggs, and glass bottles in the direction of the officers Someone rolled a mock guillotine with a stuffed bear into the street (photo). The bear and multiple U.S. flags were burned. Paint balloons were launched at officers, as well as green lasers.

New Democrat logo spells out Death to America

The new DNC logo, meanwhile, which claims to say D20 (as in Democrats 20) places a map of the United States inside the zero, appearing to read D 2 America or Death to America.

Death to America, of course, is exactly what Democrats and Leftists really want. Its what Barack Obama and Joe Biden fought to achieve during their eight years of power, during which Obama worked to systematically destroy the very fabric of this nation while compromising national security and putting treasonous, anti-American globalists in positions of power throughout the Pentagon.

Obama is a sleeper cell traitor to America, yet he remains the darling of Democrats and left-wing voters who think Obama was the savior of this nation. (They are oblivious to reality.)

America is in a hot civil war, and these left-wing terrorists will not stop until they are engaged with force

What has become abundantly obvious to anyone paying attention is that America is already in a hot civil war, and radical Leftists are carrying out relentless, violent and sometimes deadly attacks against innocent people because no one has stopped them.

At some point  and hopefully soon  law enforcement and the American people will realize that if you dont engage these terrorists with force, they will burn down your cities and destroy your nation.

Thats why law enforcement nationwide need to be given the green light to shoot all terrorists on sight. Its easy to spot the terrorists, of course: Theyre the ones wielding pro-terrorism signs like Black Lives Matter, which is a domestic terrorist organization founded by convicted terrorists who bombed government buildings (and got caught).

If America continues to stand by and do nothing while these terrorists destroy our cities, assault police officers and attack innocent bystanders, then the arrogance and aggressiveness of left-wing terror groups will only grow. They will carry out exactly as much terrorism as America tolerates, and if they are never stopped, they will overthrow the United States government and usher in a radical left-wing communist regime. This is their stated goal.

Thats why sooner or later, America has to draw a line in the sand and declare Black Lives Matter and Antifa to be active domestic terrorism organizations, then hunt down and arrest their leaders. When left-wing terrorists assault police officers in the streets, they should be shot on sight. Only when the radical Left is engaged with force will they learn that No means No (something their helicopter parents never taught them, which is part of the entire problem here).

These left-wing terrorists have always acquired everything they wanted in life by screaming, pouting and playing the victim. Society has rewarded them by surrendering to their demands, reinforcing their learned victimhood and adding fuel to their crybully tactics. Now, as young adults, these same immature leftists think they can overthrow the United States of America by resorting to the same crybully tactics that convinced mommy to coddle them and give them everything they want. For once in their life, they need to be told No! in the only language they understand: FORCE.

Combat veteran warns of blood in the streets as Leftists are allowed to terrorize America

To help you get prepared for whats coming, weve posted an important new interview with NC Scout, a combat veteran who warns that there will be blood in the streets immediately after this upcoming election. In fact, we may not even make it to the election before theres blood in Americas cities, thanks to insane Leftists.

This is a very important interview to watch and share if you want to know where things are headed:

Brighteon link:

Brighteon.com/82c06ba2-d56f-45a6-9405-68b698840968

Censorship-resistant link:

Brlghteon.com/82c06ba2-d56f-45a6-9405-68b698840968

Listen to this interview and youll understand whats coming. If you dont own an AR-15 and know how to run it, youre crazy.

Ive also posted a free, nine-hour audiobook that you can download right now called the Global Reset Survival Guide. Its a completely free download with MP3 files and a printable PDF transcript for the hearing impaired. Get it now at:

GlobalReset.news

Get prepared, friends. We are already in a hot civil war, but so far only one side is fighting, and its the Left. Its time that pro-America forces were given the green light to engage and defeat these domestic enemies.

Where is President Trump? He should be declaring BLM and Antifa domestic terrorism organizations and unleashing law enforcement nationwide to engage and stop these terrorists with force. Perhaps hes waiting for Election Day. If so, then Nov. 4th is going to all-out war across America, with no laws and no limits. If youre a patriot, prepare to help clean out the sewers of this country by flushing left-wing terrorists down the drains.
Using a simple 'thermometer scale survey' to measure public attitudes towards people with autism could help improve public understanding and acceptance, say researchers.

In a new study, published in the journal Experimental Results, psychologists from the universities of Bath and Essex, propose a simplification in the way in which attitudes are measured - replacing existing, complex surveys with just one question that would gauge public attitudes and acceptance.

They say that changing the way we measure attitudes towards people with autism and mental health conditions would increase the usefulness of such measures and improve public understanding of such conditions.

Public attitudes about autism can feed into government and NGO policies when, for example, they decide on levels of funding and other support directed towards autistic people, they add.

In a new study, Dr Punit Shah, an autism expert from the University of Bath, and Dr Paul Hanel, an attitude expert from the University of Essex, analysed data from the only survey for measuring attitudes towards autism.

Their results suggest that this outdated scale, which includes questions such as - 'people with autism should not have children' - was confusing attitudes, intentions, and behaviours towards autistic people. They concluded that it is not fit for purpose.

In its place they created a simple 'thermometer' scale, where members of the public were simply asked, 'please provide a number between 0 and 100 to indicate your overall evaluation of an autistic person'. They found that this sliding scale was as accurate as time-consuming surveys at predicting how much people said they wanted to interact with autistic people.

Autism is the 'costliest health condition' in the UK, more so than the cancer, stroke, and heart disease, combined. This is because it is a lifelong condition, meaning that autistic people are impacted by societal attitudes which influence behaviours towards them from non-autistic people. Despite the impact that non-autistic people have on the lives of those with autism, overall public attitudes towards autistic people are very poorly understood. This is because there has been no scientifically-robust way to measure public attitudes and therefore no robust way at devising interventions to improve acceptance and cohesion." Dr Punit Shah, Department of Psychology, University of Bath

The researchers found that, on average, non-autistic students rated autistic people relatively favourably - 71/100; they have since found this to be around 62/100 more generally in the UK. The researchers say that it is good to see that public attitudes towards autistic people are generally more favourable than unfavourable, but that there is a long way to go in understanding and changing negative attitudes to autism and mental health conditions.

Dr Shah, adds: "Our research is a critical step towards improving the science of attitudes towards people with autism and mental health conditions. Our scale, which is freely available for use by researchers and policymakers, will enable us to better understand the many reasons for negative and positive attitudes towards autistic people and other neurodevelopmental conditions. Using this scale, researchers in my group are now looking into how people's autism knowledge and level of contact with autistic people are linked to their attitudes towards people with the conditions."

Dr Paul Hanel, a Lecturer at the University of Essex and researcher at Bath, added: "Our scale is an important step towards a better of understanding and ultimately improving attitudes towards people with autism. Because it is so simple it can also be translated and used in other countries and cultures, whereas old measures could not. While attitudes towards people with autism are on average favourable in the UK, and also in India and the USA, we are currently discussing ways how those attitudes can be further enhanced.

"For example, many people still have some misconceptions about autism and might believe that people with autism are more different to them than they actually are on various attributes such as their personality or beliefs. We want to test whether correcting misconceptions improves intergroup attitudes. To test for attitude change it is crucial to have a reliable and valid measure of attitudes towards people with autism, as we have developed in this study."

The researchers hope this type of research and arising policy can help to tackle stigma and improve the lives of people with autism and similar conditions.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.-- Protesters were loud and clear about their disdain for Mayor Bill de Blasio on Saturday as a large group of mostly Staten Islanders descended on City Hall.

The peaceful protest was titled Dont Give Up the Ship and was organized in order to take a stand against what organizers say are the radical left and socialist policies governing the city.
Express News Service By

NEW DELHI: The Bombay High Court came down heavily on the media terming the coverage on the foreign nationals who attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhis Nizammuddin area as persecution and propaganda.

There was big propaganda in print media and electronic media against the foreigners who had come to Markaz Delhi and an attempt was made to create a picture that these foreigners were responsible for spreading Covid-19 virus in India. There was virtually persecution against these foreigners, the bench said in its 58-page verdict quashing the FIRs against 29 foreign nationals.

In a hard-hitting observation, the division bench of Justices T V Nalawade and M G Sewlikar said, A political government tries to find the scapegoat when there is pandemic or calamity and the circumstances show that there is probability that these foreigners were chosen to make them scapegoats.

Pointing out that there are more alternate media for religious discourse and various television networks for different religions, the court said, In this era, it is not practically possible to prevent discourse on religious matters. Many times such discussion can also be called as preaching the religion and there may or may not be intention to spread Islam.

The prosecution had argued that the accused persons were propagating Islam religion among public.

Observing a clear bias in the State action because of faith, the court said the action was taken mainly against Muslims who had come to attend the congregation.

Similar action was not taken against other foreigners belonging to other religions. Due to these circumstances, the background of the action and what is achieved needs to be considered by the court, the bench observed.

It said, There were protests by taking processions, holding dharna at many places from prior to January 2020. Most of the persons participating in the protest were Muslims. It is their contention that the CAA, 2019 is discriminatory against the Muslims. They believe that Indian citizenship will not be granted to Muslim refugees and migrants. They were protesting against NRC.
With assembly elections eight months away in Kerala, the opposition Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have announced a series of protests seeking the resignation of chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who is on the back foot after the high-profile gold smuggling case.

BJP state president K Surendran observed a one-day fast on Sunday and Congress-led UDF will bring a no-confidence motion against the government in the assembly on Monday. As the ruling front enjoys a majority (90 in the 138-member House) in the assembly it will not affect the stability of the government but the debate can embarrass the government further.

The CMs private secretary was suspended and the key accused in the smuggling case had a good rapport with his office, all agencies say it but the CM says his office was in no way connected with the smuggling case. Nobody will believe it, said former CM of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis inaugurating the day-long fast of Surendran online.

Basking in the Covid-19 recovery rate glory, being the first state to report the virus but with the lowest mortality and high recovery rates, the gold smuggling case surfaced at a bad time for the government. A week after the seizure of 30 kg gold from a consignment in the United Arab Emirates consulate in the state capital, the CM was forced to suspend his powerful private secretary M Sivasankar, a senior IAS officer.

The Enforcement Directorate has also started investigation against another minister K T Jaleel, who reportedly accepted funds and 4000 kg gift from the consulate in March. Though the minister pleaded that these consignments were holy books the opposition alleged that some of the packets contained smuggled gold. If the ministers version is right, he cant get away from the foreign exchange management act, experts say.

After the gold smuggling case came to light many other corruption cases also surfaced. The CM cant run away from these correction charges. In the Life Mission project serious irregularities came to light, said Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala seeking a probe into the Life Mission project. While probing the smuggling case the Life Mission project commission came to lightthe main accused in the smuggling case Swapna Suresh said she accepted a hefty commission for the project.

As the barrage of charges increased the ruling CPI (M) has asked party workers to inform people about what it called a joint onslaught by Congress-BJP combine and highlight good works of the government. On Sunday it organised a state wide sit-in against the Centres polices including privatisation of airports. The party had locked horns with the Centre over its move to lease out Thiruvananthapuram airport to Adani Enterprises.
Patna: Four people gunned down a property dealer and three others were severly wounded in Patna's Beur locality on Sunday. The attackers entered the deceased's office and fired indiscriminately using a carbine gun.

Sources revealed that the reason for the incident could be personal enmity due to a property dispute between the deceased and another person.

The attackers came in motorcycles, used a carbine for committing the crime. The police recovered many spent cartridges from the crime scene.

The whole incident has been recorded in a CCTV camera. The police is looking at the recorded video to find more clues about the assailants.

"Our investigation is on. The process of scanning CCTV footage is underway to find some clues. The culprits will be arrested soon," Beur police station SHO Phool Dev Chaudhary told IANS.

Meanwhile, the injured were taken to a nearby private hospital and have been admitted in the ICU.
Lucknow, Aug 23 : The Uttar Pradesh government has accepted the demands of Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawwad regarding certain Muharram rituals and allowed the community members to keep 'taziyas' in their homes and observe 'azadari' during Muharram but with certain restrictions.

Jawwad had staged a dharna on Saturday evening to protest against the restrictions imposed in view of the coronavirus pandemic. The state government decision came around midnight on Saturday.

The government, however, has sought a list of Shia clerics in every district along with their phone numbers. These clerics will meet the district civil and police officials and coordinate the Muharram activities with them.

A Secretary-rank officer has been designated to deal with complaints received during the period of Muharram.

Maulana Kalbe Jawwad, who is General Secretary of Majlis-e-Ulama-e-Hind, had accused the BJP government of going back on its promise when talks were held regarding Muharram 'majlis' which would follow Covid-19 protocols.

The cleric told reporters on Saturday evening that there was anger among the Shias and all those who perform 'azadari' (mourn the martyrdom of Imam Hussain and his companions in Karbala in 680 AD).

The issue pertains to 'majlis' (sermons narrating the events of Karbala), which are held at different Imambaras across the country during the ongoing Islamic month of Muharram.

However, after high-level talks with the state government, only seven Imambaras in the state capital were allowed 60 minutes of online 'majlis' with only five attendees.

"During the talks, we sought permission for 1,000 persons to attend each 'majlis' physically, with proper social distancing, because the Imambara spaces are huge. But the government brought this down to just 20 attendees. We even agreed to that, but the order sent out late Thursday night allowed just five participants at only seven Imambaras in the city," the cleric said.

He had alleged that the government was reneging on promise regarding a ritual wherein paper-made 'taziyas' (replicas of Imam Hussain's mausoleum) were not permitted to be kept at homes.
With 345 fresh Covid-19 recoveries on Saturday, the recovery mark crossed 10,000 in Uttarakhand with total 10,021 people recovering from the disease in the state. The recovery rate now stands at 68.80% in Uttarakhand.

Of the total number of recoveries, maximum 120 patients recovered from Haridwar district on Saturday. The state also reported 483 fresh Covid-19 cases on Saturday. Three Covid-19 positive patients died on Saturday of which one died due to coronavirus and others died due to co-morbidities.

A total of 195 Covid-19 positive patients have died in Uttarakhand till now, according to the health officials. According to the health bulletin released by the state health department on Saturday evening, maximum 133 fresh cases were reported from Haridwar district followed by Nainital (97), Dehradun (82), US Nagar (81), Uttarkashi (41), Almora (19), Rudraprayag (12), Pithoragarh (5), Chamoli (4), Pauri (3), Tehri (3), Bageshwar (2) and Champawat (1).

Also read: Uttarakhand increases honorarium of ex-servicemen in govt depts

Haridwar district has reported the maximum, 3,555 Covid-19 positive cases so far followed by Dehradun (2,919), US Nagar (2,706) and Nainital (2,136).

The rate of doubling of cases based on the last seven days now stands at 26.67 days, while the infection rate is 5.18%. The state has so far tested over 3.01 lakh samples of which results of over 13,000 are awaited.

Uttarakhand currently has 340 containment zones in eight districts including maximum, 280, in Haridwar district. In a bid to fight the pandemic, the state government has operationalised 17 dedicated Covid Hospitals and 381 Covid Care Centres (CCC) across the state.

The state government has also started home isolation of asymptomatic Covid-19 positive patients recently. The Uttarakhand government on Saturday released guidelines for private hospitals to treat Covid-19 patients.

Amit Singh Negi, secretary for health in the state said, Earlier we had allowed private hospitals to treat those patients who were already admitted for other procedures and tested positive for Covid-19 during the treatment process in the hospital. This was done to ensure that patients who are in critical condition do not lose their life due to shifting to a government hospital for treatment of Covid-19.

Now, we have allowed all private hospital, accredited from the National Accreditation Board of Hospitals (NABH), to admit Covid-19 patients and treat them. The patients need not necessarily be the ones who were already undergoing treatment in the hospital, added the health secretary.

As per the guidelines, the 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. The hospitals should have a 24x7 pharmacy facility and oxygen supply with every bed at the isolation ward.

There should be a dedicated Covid-19 ambulance with the hospital and the authorities should ensure proper protective equipment (PPE) for all doctors treating the Covid-19 patients. The hospital should also follow all the norms of Biomedical Waste Management-2016 and should have all the required permits from the pollution control board and dispose of waste as per the guidelines of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

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TASHKENT: Authorities in Uzbekistan have freed a local journalist whose detention drew rare criticism from the United States this month, but he is still being investigated, his lawyer said on Sunday.

The U.S. ambassador to Tashkent, Daniel Rosenblum, said this month he was deeply concerned" by the case of Bobomurod Abdullayev and called for his release. Abdullayev was detained in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan at Uzbekistans request.

Abdullayev has told Kyrgyz media he was accused of being behind an anonymous Facebook account that published allegations of corruption among senior Uzbek officials. He denied that accusation.

Uzbekistans state security service did not confirm or deny the nature of the charges, but said on Sunday he has been allowed to go home after his extradition from Kyrgyzstan on Saturday and subsequent questioning in the presence of a lawyer.

The lawyer, Sergei Mayorov, told Reuters Abdullayev has been released pending investigation. He said a non-disclosure agreement prevented him from commenting on the nature of the charges.

State security also circulated a video in which Abdullayev thanked President Shavkat Mirziyoyev for his release and said he had published no stories attacking the countrys leadership.

Abdullayev came to prominence in a landmark case in 2018 when an Uzbek court cleared him of charges of conspiring against the government, although he was still sentenced to community service for anti-government propaganda.

His case highlighted a thaw initiated under Mirziyoyev following the 27-year rule of his predecessor Islam Karimov who had tolerated no dissent and whose poor human rights record had drawn strong criticism from Western countries.

In power since 2016, Mirziyoyev has overseen a series of major economic reforms and worked to limit the powers of security services while improving ties with both the West and Russia as he seeks to attract foreign investment.

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
As local election administrators work overtime to ensure the integrity of our elections ahead of November, barbs and heckles from the national peanut gallery threaten to derail their efforts. Its much easier to disparage election management than it is to actually manage one, which is why these criticisms often boil down to petty partisanship.

Despite the rancor, Ohio remains on track to hold a successful pandemic-era election by increasingly relying on tried-and-true absentee voting. In fact, a recent report by the nonpartisan Brookings Institution graded Ohio seventh nationally on their vote-by-mail pandemic preparedness, trailing only the six states who already have full vote-at-home systems.

Nationally, liberalized access to absentee voting has been polarized, but for no valid reason. Study, after study, after study has shown that increased access to voting in absentia is partisan-neutral. Moreover, states have access to technologies to ensure that voting by mail can be done safely and securely and, in truth, theres a strong conservative case for allowing absentee voting.

Tyler Fisher is deputy director for reforms and partnerships at Unite America, a nonpartisan election reform organization.

Given all this  and that were still in the midst of a debilitating pandemic  its heartening to see that the Buckeye state has prudently taken action. Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose is preparing voters and election administrators alike for an unusual election. Instead of dragging his feet, Secretary LaRose acted quickly and decisively, putting together a bold Voters First plan ahead of the primary elections, while providing guidance through his Ready for November Task Force.

All Ohio voters will receive an application to vote absentee, no witness signature will be required to vote by mail and voters will have accessible options to return their ballots to secure drop-off locations. The latter will certainly provide relief for those worried about the U.S. Postal Services preparedness this November  even though USPS already has the capacity to handle an influx of mail.

The states vote-by-mail preparedness will be a boon to Ohioans; according to an April poll, 50% of Ohio voters said they would be less likely to vote in person if the pandemic is still a threat in November. Eighty-one percent supported sending an absentee ballot request form to all voters. Secretary LaRoses efforts will provide safe and secure access to prospective voters who are concerned about voting in-person.

Yet, there is still important work to be done. Ohio lawmakers should move quickly to allow absentee ballots to be requested online to streamline and simplify processes for local election administrators, who already promise to be overwhelmed with last-minute absentee-ballot requests. The state should allow for prepaid postage, on requests and ballots, which could become a reality. In fact, Secretary LaRose is planning on requesting $3 million from the Ohio Controlling Board to cover postage costs. This would be a prudent step. The last thing we want is voters to violate social-distancing norms by crowding post offices. It will also help guard against ballot harvesting, an illegal tactic in which paid staffers and volunteers attempt to collect ballots on behalf of voters.

Marc Hyden is director of state government affairs at the R Street Institute, a free market think tank.

Voters have their own role to play to ensure a successful election. To avoid overwhelming election administrators, it is important to flatten the election curve by both requesting and mailing in ballots early.

Younger voters especially should also register to be poll workers to maintain in-person voting locations. The Ohio Supreme Court is already offering lawyers continuing education credits if they serve as poll workers, which is desperately needed. Many older poll workers are backing out, and Ohio needs more than 4,000 people to step up this November.

In Ohio, Secretary LaRose has acted decisively to put the interest of the voters first  other secretaries of state nationwide would do well to follow his lead.

Tyler Fisher is the deputy director for reforms and partnerships at Unite America, a nonpartisan election reform organization. Marc Hyden is the director of state government affairs at the R Street Institute, a free market think tank.

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By Express News Service

KOLKATA: Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar continued hitting out at Mamata Banerjees government urging chief minister Mamata Banerjee to unshackle political caging/chaining of police and administration. On his Twitter handle, Dhankhar also said this is staggering blow to rule of law and democracy. The constitutional head of the state also alleged that there are reports of free run to illegal bomb making.

Urge CM to unshackle political caging/chaining of POLICE and ADMINISTRATION @MamataOfficial. Law and order alarming-with reports of free run to illegal bomb making. UNFORTUNATE- Police & administration ever at door of ruling party-in readiness to knock door of opposition, Dhankhar tweeted on Sunday.

Slamming the Bengal government, Dhankhar continued writing on his Twitter handle,  This is staggering blow to rule of law and democracy. This menacing stance of police and administration @MamataOfficial would generate consequences. Politically committed police and administration-death knell of democracy. Public servants are not political workers.

Criticising the role of state bureaucrats, the governor further added, Never thought IAS /IPS @MamataOfficial could so capitulate and be in crawl unlawful mode-blatantly unmindful of conduct rules. Their actions are OPEN SECRET. Democratic essence shredded. Why be party to this & crucify democratic values! Time to respond to call of duty.

Two days ago, Dhankhar labelled the state governments three-member committee headed by the home secretary to conduct a probe into alleged irregularities in procuring equipment to combat Covid-19 pandemic as a Cover Up Probe-Lacks credibility.

Earlier the Bengal Governor had dropped a bombshell accusing Mamata Banerjees government for bringing Raj Bhavan under the scanner of the state governments surveillance and spying on him.
The weekly $600 in unemployment benefits expired on 31 July and since then millions of Americans have been wondering if there would be either an extension or additional help amid the coronavirus pandemic. Congress failed to reach an agreement about a fifth stimulus relief package causing further delay, potentially until after Labor Day weekend.

While we await a definitive package, 13 states have officially given approval to give an extra $300 a week in unemployment benefits. Kentucky was the most recent to approve this weekly payment and they will distribute $44 billion in total funding according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

States that are extending the unemployment benefits

The states that will give an extra $300 a week in unemployment benefits are: Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Utah. Governors in 10 other states are currently debating whether they will give extra aid in unemployment benefits.

It is important to note that not all unemployed Americans are eligible for this help. People getting less than $100 a week in benefits will not be eligible to receive the extra $300. There are more than 28 million people that are depending on these benefits as they strugge financially amid the coronavirus pandemic.
American talk show host Larry King on Saturday (local time) mourned the demise of two of his children who died within weeks of each other and said they will be greatly missed.

In a Facebook post, King said both the children -- son Andy and daughter Chaia -- were good and kind souls.

It is with sadness and a fathers broken heart that I confirm the recent loss of two of my children, Andy King, and Chaia King. Both of them were good and kind souls and they will be greatly missed. Andy passed away unexpectedly of a heart attack on July 28 and Chaia passed on August 20, only a short time after having been diagnosed with lung cancer, he said.

Losing them feels so out of order. No parent should have to bury a child, he added.

King thanked his well-wishers for their sympathies.

My family and I thank you for your outpouring of kind sentiments and well wishes. At this moment, we need a little time and privacy to heal. I thank you for respecting that, he wrote.

Andy and Chaias mother, Alene Atkins had married King in 1961. The couple divorced and remarried in 1967 before parting ways again in 1971, according to CNN.

In 1997, Chaia and 86-year-old King co-authored a childrens book called Daddy Day, Daughter Day, recalling their experiences with divorce.

Atkins had breathed her last in 2017, King tweeted at the time.

King hosts Ora TVs Larry King Now, where he interviews world leaders, celebrities, and internet stars, CNN reported.

The acclaimed TV interviewer had hosted CNNs Larry King Live. between 1985 to 2010.

Last year, King had undergone a heart procedure after complaining of chest pain.

He is also a father to four children from previous marriages and a stepfather to one. He divorced his recent spouse Shawn Southwick in 2019.
Australians dreaming of trip abroad could be travelling by mid-next year, with experts predicting the ten countries holidaymakers will be allowed to visit first.

Qantas boss Alan Joyce on Thursday announced the airline's international flights will likely resume in July 2021, after the federal government ordered a travel ban in March.

The insight came as Mr Joyce reported the flying kangaroo had lost a whooping $2billion in the 2020 financial year, as the aviation industry reels in the economic fallout of the global pandemic.

But while Aussies can look forward to being back in the air, the list of permitted destinations is expected to remain restricted for some time.

Qantas boss Alan Joyce on Thursday announced the airline's international flights will likely resume in July 2021

Mr Joyce said Qantas' larger aircrafts - such as A380s - will be grounded for years to come, indicating trips on longer flights routes could be further away.

'Most airlines will come through this crisis a lot leaner, which means we have to reinvent how we run parts of our business to succeed in a changed market,' Mr Joyce said during Thursday's trading post.

'We have parked the A380 for at least three years  We have put the 787s in long-term storage which fly transcontinental and we believe the earliest we will see the international borders opening up is the middle of next year.'

Aside from logistical costs, reopening tourism will depend largely on nations' control of local outbreaks.

'The US, with the level of (coronavirus) prevalence there, it is probably going to take some time. There will probably need to be a vaccine before we could see (flights) happening,' Mr Joyce said.

Aviation expert Neil Hansford predicts the Pacific Islands (Palau tropical islands pictured) will be the second destination to open to Australians

Singapore will be the third country Australians will be able to visit when international travel resumes

'We potentially could see a vaccine by the middle or the end of next year, and countries like the US may be the first country to have widespread use of that vaccine. So that could mean that the US is seen as a market by the end of 2021, hopefully we could, dependent on a vaccine, start seeing flights again.'

Australia and New Zealand have been in negotiations to create a trans-Tasman travel bubble since border closures came into effect, a plan indefinitely cancelled earlier this month in light of Auckland's coronavirus outbreak.

But Aviation expert Neil Hansford predicts the neighbouring nation will be the first to open to Australians.

He said the Pacific Islands will be next, followed by Singapore, Japan, Vietnam and Cambodia.

European holidays will then be on the cards, with flights resuming to the UK, then Germany, Scandinavia (except Sweden), and Ireland.

'I think the world understands social distancing of 1.5-2 metres and the opening up wont be universal,' Mr Hansford told news.com.au.

'Africa and South America could be 24-36 months away. Even with a vaccine only wealthy nations populations will be able to afford it and even in Australia to vaccinate all of us within three months would be impossible.

'Once other countries can demonstrate NSW levels, the world will open up.'

New Zealand is tipped to be the first available overseas holiday destination for Australians. A Woman hiker is pictured on mountain cliff in New Zealand's Kepler Track

The UK is forecast to be the seventh place available to Australians. Pictured: Big Ben, Westminster Bridge and red double decker bus in London, England

Mr Hansford said Victoria's outbreak set back international travel by four or six months, and travel to the UK and Hawaii could have otherwise recommenced between April and June 2021.

While the forecast flight dates appear promising, overseas travel is hinging on the development of a coronavirus vaccine.

Last month, Scott Morrison said globetrotting would not be possible until a jab becomes available to Australians.

'Right now, the opportunity for large scale travel beyond our borders is not foreseeable,' he told A Current Affair.
Mexico City, Aug 23 : A federal judge in the Mexican state of Chihuahua has sentenced an organized crime leader to 50 years in prison for the murder of journalist Miroslava Breach, the Attorney General's Office (FGR) said.

This is "the highest penalty to date and represents a precedent in investigations of crimes committed against freedom of expression", Xinhua news agency quoted the FGR as saying in a statement on Saturday.

Juan Carlos Moreno, nicknamed "El Larry," was convicted in March for the 2017 murder of Breach, a correspondent for the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, who had been reporting on the cartel leader and his alleged criminal activities.

His sentencing was delayed several months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The government of Chihuahua has identified Moreno as the head of Los Salazar, a drug trafficking group that operates along the border with the US.

Breach, 54, was murdered on March 23, 2017 as she was leaving her home.

She was one of six journalists killed in Mexico in that year.
August 22 marked Earth Overshoot Day, when the world's yearly consumption of resources passes beyond sustainable levels.

Luxembourg's own Overshoot Day fell much earlier, according to Luxembourg's Council for Sustainable Development (CSDD).

The Global Footprint Network calculated that Luxembourg had consumed its yearly allowance of ecological resources by February 16.

'In other words, if the global population consumed as many resources as Luxembourg, the yearly sustainable resources available to the world would have been exhausted by that date. If the rest of humanity lived like Luxembourg, eight planets would be need to render that consumption sustainable' writes the CSDD.

'According to these calculations, from mid-February onwards, our population is consuming the resources of future generations and of residents of the Global South, who use up far fewer supplies but are far worse affected by the ecological consequences.'

On a global scale, Earth Overshoot Day fell far later this year compared to last year's 29 July, due to the drop in emissions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reducing the consumption of meat and luxury products

The study goes on to explain that 'this catastrophic situation is a result of the consumption of energy (fossil fuels and electricity produces from non-sustainable fuels) with 7,75 global hectares [gha] per person (around 60% of Luxembourg's ecological footprint, requiring 4,75 planets.)'

The rest of Luxembourg's excessive consumption comes from a 'food footprint of 2,09 gha per year (requiring 1,28 planets), showing that we can all contribute to a more sustainable society by rethinking and modifying our lifestyle and consumption habits. For example, the use of meat and animal products corresponds alone to 0.65 planets' worth of consumption.'

How to solve this problem? The CSDD recommends a higher energy efficiency, the use of public transport and a reduction in consumption of non-sustainable goods, meat, luxury products and short-distance flights.

A final note for those who advocate working from home: the CSDD highlights the consequences of daily travel to the office, especially for cross-border workers: 'it leads to the waste of energy, a loss of time and the depletion of important infrastucture.' Therefore, 'support for a digital transformation in industry, commerce and public administration could help to reduce CO2 levels. Teleworking allows us to reduce the footprint of commuters.'
- In an exclusive interview with TUKO.co.ke, Ella said she had a voice instructing her to take care of Jowie

- According to her, she knew that Jowie was her man considering that their relationship is not made from this world

- Jowie and Ella are loving parents to their adorable daughter Shanel who was featured in his new music video Nishikilie

- The beauty rubbished rumours that she was married to Jowie while he was with Jacque Maribe and said that he has always been faithful in all his relationships

Joseph Irungu alias Jowie is a man who can comfortably stand before men and brag about his wife Eleanor Musangi Ndambo alias Ella and their daughter.

Although very little is known about Ella, TUKO.co.ke unmasks who the beauty is and how she met the love of her life, Jowie.

READ ALSO: 9 breathtaking photos of Jowie's lover and baby mama Ella that prove she is a goddess

Ella says she met Jowie through divine intervention. Photo: Edwin Ochieng' /TUKO.co.ke.

Source: Original

READ ALSO: Tottenham handed massive 2020/2021 season Premier League fixtures during winter

In an exclusive interview with TUKO.co.ke's Lynn Ngugi, the pretty lady disclosed she met Jowie through divine intervention, and that Jowie is her man for life because their relationship is not made from this world.

"This is my man for life. I am not even telling you. I know this is my man for life for our relationship is not made from this world and that is why I speak with courage. I met Jowie through divine intervention," she said.

READ ALSO: Picha tamu za mpenzi wa Jowie Irungu Ella Musangi

Jowie and Ella are blessed with an adorable daughter: Photo: Edwin Ochieng'/ TUKO.co.ke

Source: Original

According to Ella who is a professional model, her life lessons helped her to take in Jowie and cover him. She said she did not see Jowie as the person many people perceived him to be.

"There was a time I was rising very high in my career. I am a professional model and God had to break me to be able to see myself, to be able to see the world and to be able to understand his purpose for my life. Actually it was from that point that when I met Jowie, I was able to take him and to cover him without having to see that other side that everyone was seeing," said Ella.

READ ALSO: Jowie Irungu: Kenyans in awe of ex-prisoner's voice after release of gospel song Nishikilie

Ella said that Jowie has always been faithful in all his relationships. Photo: Edwin Ochieng'/TUKO.co.ke.

Source: Original

The beauty also rubbished rumours that the ex-prisoner was married to her while he was dating media personality, Jacque Maribe.

According to the mother of one, Jowie has always been faithful in all his relationships.

"Jowie has always been faithful. All through his relationships, he has always been faithful and he is very honest and transparent. When he met me he was not entangled to anyone and he was a single man," added Ella.

READ ALSO: Netizens hilariously react to video of man stealing chicken that fell from truck in traffic

According to Ella, she heard a voice asking her to take care of Jowie. Photo: Edwin Ochieng' /TUKO.co.ke.

Source: Original

In other news, Jowie brought the internet to a standstill after revealing that he has a daughter.

The Nishikilie hitmaker featured his little bundle of joy in his music video and the chemistry was undeniable.

He also talked about his relationship with Jacque Maribe during the interview with Jalang'o. According to him, they parted ways while he was still in prison and they never talk.

He, however, urged his fans to support Maribe in her new journey and follow her YouTube channel.

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.

Jowie's wife on how they met, their daughter and why she will love him forever | Tuko Talks | TukoTV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Richmond Times-Dispatch

People sentenced to life without parole or other lengthy sentences for crimes committed as juveniles will have to wait a while longer before they come up for parole consideration.

Earlier this year the General Assembly approved legislation enabling parole consideration for juvenile offenders who have served at least 20 years of their sentences. That means those convicted of crimes that occurred from roughly 1995 to 2000 became eligible as of July 1 when the new law took effect.

The law does not grant them parole, it would only mean they are, or will be, eligible for parole consideration.

Tonya D. Chapman, chair of the Virginia State Parole Board, said the Virginia Department of Corrections is currently determining parole eligibility for so-called Fishback offenders  persons sentenced to long prison terms by juries who were not told  a complicated process that involves reviewing old court records.

We dont want to get too far ahead of the DOC so we have to wait until they do their work identifying individuals, doing the research calculating the eligibility dates, she said.

Both categories of newly parole-eligible inmates stem from the end of parole in Virginia for crimes committed on or after Jan. 1, 1995. Life sentences became true life, even for juveniles.

However, starting in 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that when sentencing juveniles, courts should consider their youth and their possibility for change and rehabilitation as they grow into adults.

The legislature passed a law enabling parole eligibility for juvenile offenders that was signed into law by Gov. Ralph Northam on Feb. 24.

Officials estimate that more than 700 juvenile offenders given long no-parole sentences are in Virginias prisons and that more than 200 of them are, or will be, eligible for parole over the next several years after serving 20 or more years.

Virginia is now one of more than 20 states that bar life-without-parole terms for juveniles, recognizing that juveniles are different from adults, as the U.S. Supreme Court has done.

In 2000, the Virginia Supreme Court in the case of Fishback V. Commonwealth, ruled that juries must be told parole had been abolished. Prior to then, if jurors asked a judge about parole they were told to not consider what might happen after a sentence has been imposed.

That new rule, however, was not retroactive so several hundred persons tried by juries from 1995 to 2000 remained ineligible for parole. This year the General Assembly passed a law making the so-called Fishback offenders eligible for parole.

Chapman said this week that the department of corrections is responsible for calculating eligibility dates for both the juvenile and Fishback inmates.

They are still working on the Fishback parole-eligible offenders, she said. It is a continuous process, they have to go back to court records, etc. They have calculated a little over 150 ... and then will start doing the juvenile cases, said Chapman.

Chapman said that some cases had been identified ahead of time and have come before the parole board for consideration, but the parole board will hold off for now waiting for the department of corrections to finish before doing others.

Parole has been approved for at least one Fishback and one juvenile offender, but they have not yet been released since the prosecutors and crime victims in involved in the case must be notified, said Chapman.

The parole board is currently under fire after an inspector general reported earlier this month that it violated the law and its own policies in releasing a man sentenced to life for killing a Richmond police officer. The parole board has denied any wrong doing.

Travis Garr, 38, serving a life term for murder at the Buckingham Correctional Center, still hopes freedom is possible some day.

Ill never lose hope of one day being out there to help take care of my mother and be the man that I know I was meant to be instead of the dumb kid that messed up and made a mistake, he wrote in an email Friday.

When Garr was 15 years old, police said his then-29-year-old girlfriend enlisted him to kill her ex-boyfriend in Louisa County. Both he and his girlfriend were sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Noel Fielding's partner Lliana Bird revealed her growing baby bump as she ventured out on Friday, just weeks after confirming her second pregnancy.

The radio presenter and actress, who welcomed her first child with Noel in 2018, appeared to be engrossed with her phone during a light stroll around London.

She looked radiant as she showed off her bump in a pair of high-waist skinny black and white plaid trousers.

Baby on the way: Lliana Bird mirrored her partner, Noel Fielding's eclectic dress sense as she enjoyed a stroll around London on Friday and displayed her growing baby bump

Lliana, 39, also opted for a denim shirt with a frayed edge that complemented her baby blue open-toe sandals.

She perfected the bed-head chic look as she left her highlighted tresses in a natural loose wave, and she also let her natural beauty shine through with a minimal makeup look.

Earlier this month, Lliana was spotted out on a walk in London with her Great British Bake Off presenter partner, 46, and their toddler daughter, Dali.

Family: The Radio presenter, 39, and The Great British Bake Off presenter, 46, welcomed their first child into the world in April 2018, a baby daughter named Dali after the surrealist artist

He looked like the doting father as he held onto his child's hand and the trio enjoyed a scenic walk around the city centre.

Noel and Lliana have been dating since 2010, shortly after he first found fame with The Mighty Boosh

The pair decided to name their tot after surreal artist Salvador Dali, a source previously told The Sun: 'Noel thought the name was a perfect fit.

Denim look: Lliana cut a casual figure in a pair of black and white plaid high-waist jeans that she paired with a denim frayed edged shirt and matching baby blue sandals

'Salvador has played a big part in his life, so its no surprise to his friends hes named a baby after him. Its a cute name and really suits the tot.'

Noel told Jonathan Ross back in September that he couldn't believe how beautiful his little girl is.

He said: 'I don't know how that happened, look at my pointy visage. She is very beautiful and she blows my mind about a hundred times a day.

Pregnancy glow: The radio presenter showed her blossoming curves in the unusual outfit as she rocked her highlighted tresses in a natural style and opted for a minimal makeup look

'It's a new level of tiredness that I've never experienced. I've done a lot of all-nighters in my life. In a way I've been in training for this moment all my life.'

Radio presenter Lliana confirmed her pregnancy just a month before she gave birth in 2018.

She is an author, an activist and a presenter for Radio X and she and Noel live together in north London.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 23

By Eldar Janashvili - Trend:

A decrease in credit investments was observed in Azerbaijan's economy over the first half of 2020, the Azerbaijan Banks Association (ABA) told Trend.

"From January through June 2020, credit investments in the country's economy declined by 4.9 percent. However, this decline is only partly related to the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This is mainly because of other factors," said the ABA.

The reports of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) noted that this is largely associated with the liquidation of four banks: Atabank, AG Bank, Amrah Bank, and NBC Bank.

"Nevertheless, as throughout the world, the pandemic has affected many areas in Azerbaijan, including the economy. Because of this, the risks of some categories of customers increased, which made it difficult to issue new loans to them," said the association.

"Another factor influencing such a reduction can be considered the fact that some entrepreneurs, fearing the volatility of the exchange rate, which could result from sharp fluctuations in prices in the oil market, prematurely closed their loans in foreign currency. So, from February of this year to early June, when oil prices returned to the level of $40 per barrel, the volume of loans in the national currency decreased by only 2.6 percent, while the loans in foreign currency decreased by 15.4 percent," the ABA noted.

"However, despite the fact that the decrease in the loan portfolio is mainly associated with other factors, the lending figures do not face impact of the pandemic and this is due to the CBA's decision to protect and support the interests of entrepreneurs. So, based on this decision, entrepreneurs and individuals employed in areas directly affected by the COVID-19 and who have mortgage loans are provided with benefits. Along with this, banks also offer prudential incentives. All this helped to significantly mitigate the pandemics effects in the financial sector," stressed the association.

"Lending decreased not only due to a decrease in demand during the pandemic, but also due to the work of banks in a limited mode. Nevertheless, in the second quarter of this year, the loan portfolio of all banks did not decrease, and of some even increased," noted the association.

The association also noted that banks are expanding their portfolio of consumer loans, and many of them have managed to grow the volume of their business loans.

"The total growth of business loans in these banks nominally exceeds the total growth of consumer loans by more than 10 times. In other words, banks are mainly focused on active financing of business during this difficult period," added the ABA.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @eldarjanashvili
WASHINGTON - Help for the U.S. Postal Service landed in stalemate Sunday as the White House dismissed an emergency funding bill aimed at shoring up the agency before the November elections as going nowhere and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged senators to act quickly.

The public is demanding action on this now, Pelosi said. I cant see how the Senate can avoid it unless they do so to their peril.

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows rejected the legislation the House passed late Saturday to provide $25 billion and block operational changes by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. Meadows called it a political statement, stressing that President Donald Trump would consider additional money only as part of a broader coronavirus relief package.

That bill was not a serious bill, Meadows said. And my conversations with a lot of the Democrats on Capitol Hill yesterday is, if you want to be serious about it, this president is willing to put forth money and reforms.

Meadows said he planned to speak with Pelosi later Sunday. The legislation heads to the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has been eyeing a $10 billion postal rescue as part of the next COVID-19 relief package.

Hopefully what will happen is the Republican senators will take this bill when it comes across, theyll amend it and actually address many of the things that are hurting America right now in terms of this pandemic response and be able to get it to the presidents desk, Meadows said.

Pelosi, however, called Meadows proposals bare leaves, saying they dont address children facing food insecurity, people grappling with evictions, coronavirus testing and treatment or money for state and local governments.

What they want to do is not the right path, she said Sunday. All the president wants is this one thing: He wants his name on the letter to go out with a check in it, and he doesnt care about the rest of it.

With heated debate over mail delays, the House approved the legislation in a rare Saturday session. More than two dozen House Republicans broke with the president in backing the bill, which passed 257-150. Trump had urged a no vote, railing against mail-in ballots expected to surge in the COVID-19 crisis, and the White House said he would veto it if it reached his desk. Millions of people are expected to opt for mail-in ballots to avoid polling places during the pandemic.

In a statement Sunday, the Postal Service said it greatly appreciates efforts by the House to assist the agency, but remains concerned that some of the bills requirements, while well meaning, will constrain the ability of the Postal Service to make operational changes that will improve efficiency, reduce costs and ultimately improve service to the American people.

McConnell criticized the legislation as part of a postal conspiracy theory, echoing similar sentiments during a lively House floor debate. The USPS is equipped to handle this election, and if a real need arises, Congress will meet it, McConnell said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Sunday he had secured agreement with the Postal Services Board of Governors new election committee to issue a report in two weeks on the services plans to address a surge of mail-in ballots during the November elections. Under the agreement with the committees Democratic chairman, Lee Moak, the committee would also provide weekly briefings for top Senate Democrats.

The six-member Board of Governors, all of whom are Trump appointees, announced the bipartisan committee Friday to oversee mail voting.

Congress will use that report to ensure that the Postal Service has every resource it needs to protect and deliver election mail and hold DeJoy and the board accountable, Schumer said.

Facing a backlash over operational changes, DeJoy testified Friday in the Senate that his No. 1 priority is to ensure election mail arrives on time.

Still, the new postal leader, a Trump ally, said he would not restore the cuts to mailboxes and sorting equipment that have already been made. He could not provide senators with a plan for handling the ballot crush for the election. DeJoy is set to return Monday to testify before the House Oversight Committee.

The American people dont want anyone messing with the post office, said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., the chair of the Oversight Committee and author of the bill. They just want their mail.

Maloneys committee on Saturday released internal Postal Service documents warning about steep declines and delays in a range of mail services since early July, shortly after DeJoy took the helm. He acknowledged at the Senate hearing there has been a dip in service, but disputed reports of widespread problems.

The House bill would reverse the cuts by prohibiting any changes made after January, and provide funds to the agency.

The Postal Service has been struggling financially under a decline in mail volume, COVID-19-related costs and a rare and cumbersome congressional requirement to fund in advance its retiree health care benefits.

For many, the Postal Service provides a lifeline, delivering not just cards and letters but also prescription drugs, financial statements and other items that are especially needed by mail during the pandemic.

Meadows spoke on Fox News Sunday and ABCs This Week, and Pelosi appeared on CNNs State of the Union.
Last week, the Union government announced the results of the Swachh Survekshan 2020, an annual survey that ranks and recognises the performance of cities on sanitation and solid waste management. This years survey assessed 4,242 cities in 28 days, and Madhya Pradeshs Indore topped the list of cities with more than 100,000 people. The best-performing state with more than 100 cities is Maharashtra, and with less than 100 cities is Madhya Pradesh. The cleanest capital city is New Delhi.

Over the years, these rankings have mainstreamed discussions on public hygiene and pushed cities to become cleaner. For instance, before it was praised for its cleanliness drive in 2017, Indore battled a mounting garbage problem. Since then, the Indore Municipal Corporation has done away with garbage dumps, implemented 100% household-waste segregation and converted waste to usable products and partnered with non-governmental organisations to change citizen behaviour. There have also been changes in the ranking methodology to make it more competitive and robust, although some states have criticised its metrics and methodology as well.

While the Centre must look into these grievances, laggard cities must also emulate the cities that are performing well. The scope and size of work will indeed be different for each city, but the basic requirements to achieve these goals are the same: Administrative and political will along with public participation.

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The Treasury has ripped apart an 'appalling and incredibly expensive' plan for a 350million Essex headquarters to house a new body that will replace Public Health England.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced last week that new National Institute for Health Protection (NIHP) will replace PHE and that it has already begun work as its replacement body.

The NIHP has a 'single and relentless mission: protecting people from external threats to this country's health like biological weapons, pandemics and infectious diseases of all kinds,' Mr Hancock said.

However, the 350million plans for a headquarters in Essex are being questioned, with sources from within the Treasury calling them 'appalling and incredibly expensive'.

Britain's Secretary of State of Health Matt Hancock arrives in Downing Street, following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in May

Chain of command: Baroness Harding will report directly to the health secretary after her appointment as interim chief of the new National Institute for Health Protection (NIHP) today

The move, which would include the creation of state-of-the-art public health laboratories, is said to be personally favoured by the health secretary.

Insider sources have told the Telegraph the Treasury's Chief Secretary, Steve Barclay, is going to be making substantive changes to proposals based on his personal reservations about the move.

The Department of Health had planned to move PHE's headquarters to Harlow by 2025, a suggestion that was fiercely opposed over financial concerns.

Treasury sources have suggested plans for the Essex headquarters in their current form are unjustifiable to taxpayers.

After the announcement of axing the PHE for the new NIHP, some felt the plan to relocate to Essex would be scrapped but the NIHP simply plans to replace its predecessor as the site's occupant.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Steve Barclay is pictured during a visit to Edinburgh in July this year

Mr Barclay is in the process of reviewing the business case for the project while liaising with the Department of Health.

'The Treasury don't want it to happen because it's a vanity project,' a source with knowledge of the issues told the Telegraph.

'Basically Hancock has lost the plot. He spends money like water. It's a waste and he doesn't know what he's getting for his money. They've spent five years planning that move.'

The source added that the chief executive of PHE Duncan Selbie is 'hanging about' in his role advising the Department of Health to make sure the move happens.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak will have the ultimate say on whether to sign off on funding the plans, and he will decide to do so after reviewing a modified business case for the project devised by Mr Barclay.

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak leaves 10 Downing Street in central London on February 14, 2020

A Department of Health insisted that despite having driven early plans for the relocation, Mr Selbie was focused on other elements of the transfer.

With regards to the Harlow plans, they said the department needs '21st century public health labs'.

They added that the Harlow move is about 'strengthening' Porton Down, where staff are currently based.

Three years ago, the Government purchased the Harlow site for 35million.

The Harlow plans involved relocating staff from Porton Down and its London facilities.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 23:50:21|Editor: huaxia

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TAIPEI, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Taiwan's total population may decline in 2020 due to a falling birth rate, two years earlier than a previous forecast, according to the island's development planning department.

The number of newborns is very much likely to be fewer than that of the deceased this year, leading to a natural decline of the population, the department said in a report published earlier this week.

The island may become a super-aged society by 2025, meaning that one in five citizens will be aged over 65, one year earlier than the previous estimate, the report added.

The earlier arrival of a super-aged society and population decline will pose serious challenges to Taiwan's labor force, taxation, and pension system.

The island has been gearing up to tackle the changes in population with a variety of approaches, including boosting the country's fertility rate, strengthening the labor force structure, and improving care for senior citizens, the department said. Enditem
Irish Rail has admitted a Belfast Enterprise train service yesterday was filled beyond the reduced capacity allowed on public transport during the pandemic.

Posts from passengers on social media reported the 11.20am train from Dublin yesterday morning was "jam-packed".

It is reported that an announcement on the train warned more passengers would be getting on and they would have to share the limited space.

I know you dont want them there but unfortunately there is very little we can do, the Translink announcer said.

@Translink_NI social distancing!!! come look at the lack of control your staff are showing on the Dublin to Belfast train ..  Nigel Armstrong (@NigelAr01071414) August 22, 2020

Irish Rail said it would normally have people switch to the next service, but in this case, it would have meant a four-hour wait.

@Translink_NI am on Belfast-Dublin train. Mandatory mask-wearing compliance is farcical, even amongst staff. Suggest you get signs teaching people their noses need covered too.  Rachel Xena (@msrxg) August 22, 2020

Spokesman Barry Kenny apologised for the "capacity issues" and said its full timetable will be back by the end of the month.

Mr Kenny said: "Public safety is our first priority throughout this pandemic. While the overwhelming majority of services have operated within the 50% capacity, this service did see higher than anticipated demand, and we apologise for the capacity issues faced.

While we facilitate customers switching to subsequent services in such a situation, there was a gap from 11.20hrs to 15.20hrs for the next departure under the current revised schedule.

We are resuming full Enterprise services from Monday 31st August. Face coverings are mandatory on our services to protect customers and employees, including where distancing issues arise.
United States Senate Bill 311 provoked circulating social media posts directed at Democratic and Independent 41 senators. They reportedly voted for health care practitioners to permit babies to die untreated if born alive after being an abortion.

Last March, the Senate voted down motions to pass two bills that nearly all US citizens would support. Introduced by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act will outlaw elective abortions following 20 weeks of pregnancy, a time when numerous unborn children would possibly feel pain.

Abortion Policy Priorities

The Senate fell short in the limitation of the debate regarding whether to take up two bills that are abortion policy priorities for Republicans and US President Donald Trump.

The votes arrived the week prior to the Supreme Court holding oral arguments in a highly anticipated case involving an abortion law in Louisiana. It is the first abortion case since conservative Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh's confirmation.

Republicans attempted to advance a federal ban on abortion following 20 weeks and a necessity for doctors to treat babies born after an attempted abortion, Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, spoke in favor of the Senate floor's efforts.

Democrats Filibustering

Cruz remarked tp his Democratic colleagues to support such types of "common-sense propositions," a deviation from the party's "extreme" position on abortion.

Senate Democrats in February barred a pair of Republican bills that would prohibit most late-term abortions and threaten indictment for doctors who would not save the lives of infants born alive amid abortions.

Also Read: Hillary Clinton Ready to Help Biden Administration If Asked

The policies have been denounced numerous times for years but Senate Republicans urged for renewed votes in order to allow GOP lawmakers to make an election-year appeal towards conservative voters, reported CBS News.

Forty-one Democratic senators triumphantly obstructed the legislation of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act that would necessitate doctors to offer standard medical care to infants who survive attempted abortion.

The bill is neither unnecessary nor redundant contrary to Democratic allegations.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blamed Democrats for submitting to the revolutionary demands of the far left in order to "drown out common sense" and millions of Americans' views.

According to the Kentucky Republican, "It almost defies belief that an entire political party could find cause to object to this basic protection for babies," reported ABC News.

Questioning the Accuracy of Social Media Posts of List of 41 Senators

Snopes readers asked the website to probe into the accuracy of social media posts consisting of 41 senators' names who had "voted to let babies scream until they die if born alive.

The text of Senate Bill 311 can be read in full here. While it is true that Democratic and Independent senators voted to bar that bill's progress, the circulating Facebook meme leaves out an essential context. This is that federal and state laws already provided shielding for infants born alive following abortions and obscured the indicated reasons for such votes, a necessary component of any assessment of a legislative vote, reported Snopes.

Related Article: Donald Trump Second Term Agenda Appears Unclear as He Refuses to Give Out Details

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Kabul's police chief has been fired, the Afghan interior ministry said Sunday, following a mortar attack that hit the presidential palace last week and an uptick in small-scale bombings in the nation's capital.

Interior ministry spokesman Tareq Arian told AFP that authorities dismissed Ammanullah Wahidi -- who oversaw security in Kabul and surrounding districts -- and at least two other mid-ranking security officials over "the recent rise in insecurity" in the capital.

Another top security official confirmed Wahidi's removal.

"The people are worried and the president is upset over these attacks," the official told AFP on the condition of anonymity. "There will be more changes in the security leadership of Kabul soon."

During Independence Day celebrations on Tuesday, at least three people were killed and 19 injured after more than a dozen mortars were fired at the city's heavily fortified green zone, home to a number of foreign embassies along with high-profile government installations.

The palace was hit, and several members of the president's elite security detail were among the injured.

The attack came as the city has been rocked by a series of attacks using sticky bombs -- homemade devices attached to vehicles with magnets that are regularly used to target security forces.

On Saturday officials said at least four magnetic bombs had exploded in the city killing at least one security official and wounding six others, including civilians.

No group has claimed responsibility for the increasing number of blasts in the capital caused by the devices, but the interior ministry has continued to pin the blame on the Taliban.

Arian -- the interior ministry spokesman -- said more than 100 improvised explosive devices (IEDs), including sticky bombs, had been detonated across Afghanistan in the past two weeks.

On Sunday at least seven civilians were killed in eastern Ghazni province after an IED struck their vehicle, according to the governor's spokesman Wahedullah Jumazada.

A Taliban spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 15:56:27|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Mirwais Regional Hospital in the city of Kandahar in Afghanistan was built by China in the 1970s, acquiring the moniker "Chinese hospital." It welcomed its first Chinese doctor in the summer of 2019.

An Na, a Chinese gynecologist, went to work at the hospital in August 2019 as part of a foreign aid program run by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Besides being attached to the hospital's obstetrics and gynecology department, she helped train local medical staff.

Working at a tertiary hospital in Beijing, An chose to become a foreign aid doctor in 2011. Before Afghanistan, she was stationed in several Asian and African countries, including Pakistan, the Philippines, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Ethiopia.

The Mirwais Regional Hospital serves more than 5 million people in southern Afghanistan. "Working there, I have encountered many situations that I would not ever come across at home," An said.

She once received a pregnant woman with severe preeclampsia who needed an emergency C-section, while her husband was admitted in the trauma ward for amputation of both feet and one hand due to a landmine explosion. She helped the family apply for financial aid and rehabilitation programs by the ICRC.

"While working in Afghanistan, I not only treat patients, but also work with the ICRC to help their families," she said.

The Mirwais Regional Hospital is not the only "Chinese hospital" in Afghanistan. The Jamhuriat Hospital in Kabul was also built with China's aid.

Over the years, China has also provided material and financial assistance to help Afghanistan develop its education and infrastructure sectors. After the spread of COVID-19 in Afghanistan, China started donating anti-epidemic materials and sharing its experience of epidemic prevention.

During the pandemic, An decided to stay there in March to support the normal functioning of the hospital, helping the obstetrics and gynecology department establish its COVID-19 prevention mechanism.

An recalled treating a pregnant woman with acute fatty liver, who lost her twins because she was not treated in time due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"So it is very important to keep hospitals functioning normally during the pandemic, especially in areas with scarce medical resources," An said. "Though I was under a lot of pressure at the time, it was all worth it."

As the only Chinese doctor in town, An was surprised by local people's love for China. "They told me they appreciate China's help, and hope Afghanistan will be as developed as China one day," she said.

Starting as a foreign aid doctor out of her love for travel, An has become inseparable from her job. Just over a month after returning home, An is already planning her next trip. Enditem
Two new community transmissions in Da Nang City and Hai Duong Province have raised Vietnams Covid-19 tally to 1,016.

"Patient 1015" is a 44-year-old woman from Duy Xuyen District of Quang Nam Province, which borders Da Nang.

Between August 6 and 18, she took care of a sick family member at the Da Nang Hospital and had contact with four others who were later diagnosed with Covid-19. She was isolated via contact tracing and tested. Her first test results released August 18 showed she was negative for the novel coronavirus, but the second, done three days later after she ran a fever, returned the opposite result.

"Patient 1016," 33, lives in Hai Duong Town of the eponymous province. He had come into close contact with a woman who was confirmed an infectee after visiting a beef restaurant in town. The restaurant has become a Covid-19 hotspot, linked to 13 cases so far.

The man has been quarantined from August 12 and tested positive twice on August 20 and 23.

The latest infections have increased Vietnams active Covid-19 cases to 420. There have been 27 deaths, including one on Sunday.

Since July 25, when community transmissions resurfaced in Vietnam, the nation has recorded more than 500 locally transmitted cases, most of them linked to the outbreak in the central city of Da Nang.

Worldwide, more than 23.4 million have been infected with the virus and more than 809,000 related deaths have been recorded to date.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  Two Ohio natives will be featured speakers at this weeks Republican National Convention slated to begin Monday night.

The announcement from Republican President Donald Trumps campaign marks the second convention week in a row, following the Democratic National Convention last week, and Ohioans will be on the largest political stage in the country. Among the list of 70 speakers at the RNC will be Rep. Jim Jordan, an Urbana Republican, and JaRon Smith, Trumps director of urban affairs and revitalization and a Cleveland native.

Jordan will speak Monday night alongside Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and Donald Trump Jr.

Jordan has significantly increased his profile in Congress since Trump was elected, becoming one of the presidents fiercest defenders at the U.S. Capitol.

Smith is one of the highest ranking Black staffers at the White House and has been instrumental in crafting opportunity zones, passing criminal justice reform and securing funding for historically Black colleges and universities.

Smith, who has spoken at events around the country including the City Club of Cleveland, will be featured on the final night of the convention when Trump will accept the nomination.

Exact times for each speaker were not released by the campaign, which made the switch to an all-digital convention similar to the DNC last week.
The union movement will push back against the government's industrial relations agenda as concerns rise among its leadership that workers will face cuts to their hours without JobKeeper to compensate them.

Ads airing this week from the Australian Council of Trade Unions foreshadow a potential WorkChoices-style campaign against the Morrison government and pose a new obstacle to its plans to extend JobKeeper flexibilities for businesses no longer eligible for the wage subsidy.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus has fired a warning shot. Credit:Scott McNaughton

Growing calls from government backbenchers to delay a rise in the superannuation rate are another sore spot in the government's relationship with the unions, which is key to its pledge to drive jobs growth through industrial reform.

"If the government did decide they were going to pick up the super guarantee but also any of the other crazy ideas that employers have that are WorkChoices ideas, there'd be no question that the trade union movement would throw everything at defending workers' rights," ACTU secretary Sally McManus said. "No question whatsoever."
Two tropical storms  Marco and Laura  are expected to arrive in the Gulf Coast this week.

While the forecast remains somewhat uncertain, Marco is expected to make landfall on Monday in central Louisiana as a hurricane. Laura expected to strengthen into a hurricane and make landfall in Louisiana or Texas on Thursday. You can see the latest weather news here.

While Alabama could miss the major brunt of the storms, Alabama Power is preparing its crews to respond to storm damage as quickly and safely as possible.

The utility company is also offering tips to help people prepare for the storms. Threats from the storm could vary based on where you live but could include flooding, tornadoes and damaging winds.

Hurricane emergency kit

Just having enough supplies to make it through a hurricane isnt enough. You need plenty to make it through what could be a long recovery period, too. Storm damage could block your access to supplies for days. Thats why you and your family need enough supplies to last a minimum of three days.

Here is what your storm-ready kit should include:

 Nonperishable food.

 Water (1 gallon per person per day for drinking and sanitation).

 Medications.

 Extra cash.

 Battery-powered radio.

 NOAA weather radio with tone alert.

 Flashlights.

 Extra batteries.

 Portable crank-powered or solar-powered USB charger for cellphone.

 First-aid kit.

 Whistle (to signal for help).

 Dust mask (to help filter contaminated air).

 Plastic sheeting and duct tape (to shelter in place).

 Moist towelettes, garbage bags and plastic ties (for personal sanitation).

 Wrench or pliers (to turn off utilities).

 Manual can opener (for food).

 Local maps.

Store items in airtight plastic bags and put them in one or two easy-to-carry containers, such as plastic bins or a duffel bag.

Additional emergency supplies

Since spring 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended people include additional items in kits to help prevent the spread of coronavirus, other viruses and the flu. Consider adding the following items to your emergency supply kit based on your individual needs:

 Cloth face coverings (for everyone ages 2 and above).

 Soap.

 Hand sanitizer.

 Disinfecting wipes to disinfect surfaces.

 Nonprescription medications, such as pain relievers, anti-diarrhea medication, antacids or laxatives.

 Eyeglasses.

 Infant formula, bottles, diapers, wipes and diaper rash cream.

 Pet food and extra water for your pet.

 Important family documents, such as copies of insurance policies, identification and bank account records saved electronically or in a waterproof, portable container.

 Emergency reference material, such as a first-aid book.

 Sleeping bag or warm blanket.

 Complete change of clothing, including a long-sleeve shirt, long pants and sturdy shoes.

 Household chlorine bleach and medicine dropper (dilute nine parts water to one part bleach to make disinfectant).

 Fire extinguisher.

 Matches in a waterproof container.

 Feminine supplies and personal hygiene items.

 Paper cups, plates and plastic utensils.

 Paper towels.

 Paper and pencil.

 Books, games, puzzles or other activities for children.
The Albany Area Chamber of Commerce held its 75th annual Distinguished Service Awards drive-in style Saturday evening to honor some of the communitys most influential businesses and residents.

The rescheduled banquet, which originally was set for March, included nominees, family and friends eating boxed dinners in and around their cars  parked in every other space of the Linn County Expo Centers lot.

This years drive-thru DSA is a perfect example of the can-do spirit of Albany, said emcee Kristal Dufour. This year has definitely brought many unexpected things, and this show is no exception.

The communitys continued support of the Chamber and the awards, said fellow emcee Jon Kloor, was a testament to Albanys resiliency during the coronavirus pandemic.

Award Winners:

Legacy Award  Rick Rebel

Rebel, a longtime businessman and healthcare benefits consultant, was posthumously lauded for his impact in the greater Albany area. He was active with the Albany Eagles, American Legion Clubs and The Forty and Eight society, as well as an avid musician around town. Rebel lost his battle with cancer in 2018.

His wife, Reneigh Rebel, gave a speech in his memory, thanking the Chamber of Commerce, local organizations, friends and clients for being so loving and loyal since they moved to the mid-valley in 1979.

Rick always said, Life is one big network, she said. And, in his life and career, he proved that to be true.

Student of the Year  Austin Bradford

Bradford is a 2020 graduate of Santiam Christian High School and has begun attending George Fox University to study history and theology. During his time in school, he said, he kind of did everything.

According to the Chamber, Bradford was nominated by his school for his drive, high character, work ethic, and winning personality. Among other accolades, he was an Albany Chamber Youth Leader, had a 3.66 GPA, is now a first-generation college student and was a student intern at the Weatherford Thompson law firm in 2019. After accepting his award, he gave thanks to Christ for allowing everyone to be healthy enough to have the event.

Anna Rogers of West Albany High School and Christopher Vega-Deleon of South Albany High School were also nominated for this award.

Small Business of the Year  Dahled Up Construction

Weve worked really hard over the past four years to just turn our lives around and help other people in the community turn their lives around, said Joel Dahl after accepting the award.

Dahled Up Construction is known for being professional, skilled, and trustworthy, according to the Chamber. Dahled Up employees have been philanthropic, like to volunteer and have impacted other small businesses in the mid-valley with their work.

God made all this possible for us, so we want to give glory to God and continue to do good work for the community, Dahl said.

Albany Carpet One (Rob and Lisa Reisland), Albany Historic Carousel & Museum (Peggy Burris), Corvallis Knights (Jennifer Beaumont) and Pacific Residential Mortgage (Team Hubbard) were also small business nominees.

Large Business of the Year  Arauco

We wouldnt be the community we would be without these folks, said spokesman Matt Harris, who accepted the award. Without the community and without these businesses, we would just be struggling.

The wood manufacturer and distributor Arauco is a great supporter of local nonprofits in Albany, the Chamber wrote. The company is a sponsor with Albany Parks & Recreation and supports numerous agencies and organizations involved with education, homelessness and people with disabilities.

Other large business nominees included Chamberlin House Inc., Fitzpatrick Painting, Mikes Heating & Air and Willamette Community Bank.

Junior First Citizen  Lt. Micah Smith

Smith, a former Greater Albany Public Schools Board chair and current lieutenant with the Linn County Sheriffs Office, was described by the Chamber as a stalwart supporter of Albanys youth.

When accepting his award, Smith gave props to Albany teachers and school staff currently experiencing what seem to be insurmountable tasks ahead of them in anticipation of the next school year.

This is an amazing honor among an incredible cast of nominees, Smith said. I couldnt be more elated.

The nominees also include Jennifer Beaumont, Hannah Blicher, Glenn Burnett, Bobby Samai and National Guard Sergeant Major Scott Stimpson.

Jim Linhart First Citizen  James Ramseyer

The Chamber described Ramseyer as having a well-established dedication to Albanys economic development. Ramseyer has served in the past as a chair of the Chamber of Commerce and currently holds the titles of Chair and President of both the Linn Economic Development Group and the Albany-Millersburg Economic Development Corporation. In addition, hes on the board of directors for the YMCA and the Good Samaritan Hospital Foundation.

The set-up tonights been excellent, he said when accepting his award. I know there are a lot of first citizens here tonight and many of them have had a strong impact on me over the years.

Also nominated were Kevin Manske and Gamael Mr. G Nassar.

Distinguished Service Award  Stan Boshart

Upon receiving his award, Boshart recalled his humble beginnings as a farmer. His father encouraged him to further his education at Linn-Benton Community College, but that experience lasted all of one and a half days.

Boshart was described by the Chamber as being active his entire life in improving the world around him. His volunteer experience includes the Adopt a Farmer Program, the Albany Area Chamber Governmental Affairs Committee, the Albany Veterans Parade and the Linn County Planning Commission. Boshart also takes pride in developing youth, employing many first-time job hunters on his farm.

You dont need a college degree or a high position at your work to give back, he said. No matter what your schooling is, no matter your age and no matter how much time you have  find that one thing, act on it and I guarantee itll bless you more than you know.

Other Distinguished Service nominees included Bonnie Milletto and Max White.

Reporter Nia Tariq can be reached at nia.tariq@lee.net.

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In this series, Lagniappe presents a different work each week from the collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art, with commentary from a curator.

Last week, the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment called to mind several women working as photographers at the time, and their own efforts to expand opportunities and defy gendered expectations for women artists at the turn of the 20th century.

Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976) was one such photographer. While she never formally identified herself as a feminist, Cunningham was an advocate for women in photography and made her own way in fields that had been traditionally considered to be the purview of men.

Cunningham studied chemistry at the University of Washington and in Germany, where she perfected and published a platinum printing technique that enhanced brown and sepia tones in her photographs. Returning home to Seattle in 1910, Cunningham opened her own portrait studio and in 1913 wrote an article entitled Photography as a Profession for Women for her sororitys national newsletter.

She manifested the idea that women could produce photography every bit on par with men and deserved equal acclaim.

In the early 1930s Cunningham became a founding member of the f/64 group (with Ansel Adams and Edward Weston) that came to define West Coast Modernism, notable for its straightforward aesthetic.

However, much of Cunninghams early work, like this photograph, is more in keeping with the elements of Pictorialism. Here Cunningham creates a vignette effect with very soft focus around the edges, guiding the viewers eye toward a central subject, and creating an overall romantic feeling.

Even here, though, we can see evidence of Cunninghams willingness to push the envelope of what was acceptable for a woman with a camera by violating a taboo against women photographing male nudes.

In 1915 Cunningham married printmaker Roi Partridge, and thereafter he became a common model for the photographer, in allegorical pieces like this as well as close-up nude studies that bordered on the abstract.

When Cunningham published some of her male nudes in the newspaper Town Crier, scandal predictably ensued along with calls for Cunninghams censure. Nevertheless, she persisted, and today this photograph is evidence of Cunninghams independent spirit and commitment to opportunities for women in the arts.

Majestic landscape explores historic connections between New Orleans, Cuba and Africa Art matters in our lives. In this series, Lagniappe presents a different work each week from the collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art, 

+3 Public buildings adapt to new ways of existence during times of crisis, such as pandemic or war Art matters in our lives. In this series, Lagniappe presents a different work each week from the collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art, 
The First Lady Mrs. Rebecca Akufo-Addo has paid a courtesy call on chiefs and people of Kpone, Ningo and Prampram, and appealed to them to vote to retain the current government for four more years.



She said the government was determined to continue with its numerous developmental projects and programmes to benefit all Ghanaian, therefore, the need to give the New Patriotic Party (NPP) a second term, come December 2020.



This government has done a lot, especially for women and children. How many of our children would have remained at home without free SHS?, the First lady quizzed.



She said President Nana Addo thinks so much about Ghanaians and have proven to be a true leader, especially in these COVID-19 times. Please vote for him. Four more for Nana, four more for NPP.



Mrs Akufo-Addo, donated various food items to the traditional Councils of Kpone, Ningo and Prampram to aid their celebration of the Homowo festival.



The items included bags of corn and palm-nuts, gallons of palm-oil, some alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.



She later cut the sod for the construction of a 40-stall market complex at Ningo, being the second phase of the market project and being sponsored by the Rebecca Foundation.



The market, a fulfilment of a 2016 promise by the First lady, would enable the women to get a befitting place for their trading activities to enhance their socio-economic development.



She assured them of the Rebecca Foundations determination to intensify the implementation of its initiatives in all parts of the country to complement the government's complement governments efforts in enhancing the lives of its citizens.



The Rebecca Foundation had since 2017, implemented initiatives such as Terema (supporting women to improve their economic status), Because I want to Be (keeping girls in school), and Learning to Read (improving child literacy), among others, as well as the construction of some health facilities and supply of hospital equipment to needy institutions, in its effort to better the lives of especially women and children.



The First Lady was accompanied on the visit by Ms Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Member of Parliament for Anyaa Sowutuom, Ms Elizabeth Sackey, Deputy Greater Accra Regional Minister, Ms Irene Naa Torshie, Administrator of the District Assembly Common Fund and Mr Jerry Shaibu Ahmed, Chief Executive Officer of the Coastal Development Authority.



The annual Homowo festival is celebrated by the Gas to remind themselves of their long battle against famine and the eventual rains, which led to good harvest to ease their hunger.

Source: GNA









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Edward Gaynor, the captain of the U.S. Coast Guard Sector/Air Station Corpus Christi, said searchers tried with state and local authorities to find those missing but the effort was unsuccessful.

The decision to suspend a search is never easy and a lot of factors are considered before suspending a search, he said in a statement on Saturday night. We extend our heartfelt condolences to the friends and families of the missing crew members during this difficult time.

Officials were notified about a fire at the Port of Corpus Christi around 8 a.m. on Friday. Lt. Marina Lawrence of the Coast Guard said that although it was clear that a submerged pipeline exploded and that the fire and the pipeline explosion were related, the cause remained unclear and was under investigation.

Agencies offered conflicting accounts, however, about the explosion.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said on Friday that a barge struck a propane pipeline. The Port of Corpus Christi said it was a natural gas pipeline, the television station KSAT reported.

The U.S. Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the cause of the explosion, Sean Strawbridge, the chief executive of the Port of Corpus Christi, said on Saturday afternoon.
The Special Adviser to Governor Godwin Obaseki on Media and Communication Strategy, Crusoe Osagie, at the weekend ridiculed the All Progressives Congress (APC), its governorship candidate in Edo State, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, and the godfather, Adams Oshiomhole, that they have been engulfed by panic over the rising profile of incumbent Governor Godwin Obaseki which has been increasing his support base in Edo State. The S.A. Media to the governor was od the view that the huge support base of Governor Godwin Obaseki across the three senatorial districts of the state is causing candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Osagie Ize-Iyamu, and his handlers to hallucinate. He further berated the APC for the fret that led the party leaders into alleged thumb printing of ballot papers in several locations in Kogi State ahead of the September 19 governorship election in Edo State.

Accordingly, Osagie in a media interaction in Benin City, challenged the APC to come clean on the allegation of ongoing mass thumb printing of ballot papers by APC members in some hotels in Kogi State.

He maintained: We are convinced that the candidate of the APC, the partys leaders and media handlers are suffering from hallucination, given the ease with which they allege things that do not exist. We are also convinced that the growing support base of Governor Obaseki is responsible for the poor health condition of these APC leaders.

Osagie highlighted: Two days ago, the APC said they saw a vehicle loaded with arms in Governor Obasekis convoy. Yesterday, they said security personnel attached to the governor were involved in shooting.

Today, Friday, they alleged that the PDP is engaged in arms proliferation. Of course, we know that tomorrow, the APC will say that the PDP is procuring short-range ballistic missiles or jet bombers, and the day after, they will allege that we are procuring nuclear war heads.

The Governors aide therefore, declared: It takes someone who hallucinates to call a press conference and tell journalists things that exist only in the APC leaders heads.

Edo voters are earnestly waiting for September 19 to come quickly, so that they will hand Governor Obaseki and his running mate, Comrade Philip Shaibu, another four years, to continue the good work they have been doing to enhance the wellbeing of Edo people.
Xi stresses advancing integrated, high-quality development of Yangtze River DeltaChinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, chairs a symposium on advancing integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta in Hefei, east China's Anhui Province, Aug. 20, 2020. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

HEFEI, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed efforts to seek continuous results in the integration of the Yangtze River Delta through focusing on major work of integrated and high-quality development.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks at a symposium held in Hefei, capital city of east China's Anhui Province on Thursday.

The integration mechanism and interconnected infrastructure have played a role in epidemic prevention and control as well as economic recovery, Xi said in a speech delivered at the symposium.

In general, a new development pattern for the integration of the Yangtze River Delta is taking shape, Xi said.

WHY THE DELTA

He called for a deeper understanding of the delta's status and function in China's economic and social development, so as to better promote the region's integrated development amid grave and complex circumstances.

Xi urged the delta region to take the lead in forming a new development pattern that takes the domestic market as the mainstay and allows the domestic and foreign markets to boost each other.

Noting that the region should also rise to assume the role of the trail-blazer of China's technological and industrial innovations, Xi said Shanghai and the entire delta region should not only provide quality products but also serve as a source of high-level technologies to support China's high-quality development.

Xi underscored achieving faster progress in developing the region into a new high ground of reform and opening up.

Efforts should be made to improve the business environment in line with world-class standards, and attract talent and enterprises from home and abroad with a development environment scoring high in openness, services, innovation and efficiency, Xi said.

He also called for efforts to promote trade and investment facilitation and strive to make the delta region an important bridge between the international and domestic markets.

INTEGRATION, HIGH-QUALITY

Xi stressed focusing on the keywords of integration and high quality to push forward integrated development of the delta. Integrated approach and measures should be taken to break administrative barriers, enhance policy coordination, and enable the smooth flow of production factors on a larger scale.

He underlined promoting high-quality economic development of the Yangtze River Delta, intensifying efforts to achieve scientific and technological breakthroughs, boosting quality development of cities in the Yangtze River Delta region, fostering the momentum of high-quality development in underdeveloped regions, and promoting high-standard reform and opening-up of Pudong.

Xi urged the provinces of Jiangsu, Anhui and Zhejiang as well as Shanghai to prioritize key areas and major fields including integrated circuit, biomedicine, artificial intelligence, and called for efforts to foster the innovative development of micro, small and medium-sized technology companies.

He said the high-standard reform and opening-up of Pudong is of strategic significance to the development of Shanghai, the integrated and high-quality development of the Yangtze River Delta, as well as the socialist modernization in China.

Xi called for continued efforts to develop the Lingang area, a newly- launched section of the Shanghai pilot free trade zone, and boosting development of Shanghai as an international financial center to support the high-quality development of the Yangtze River Delta and the country.

Meanwhile, Xi demanded efforts to consolidate the foundation for the green development of the Yangtze River Delta, stressing that priority should be given to the protection and restoration of the Yangtze River's ecological environment, and measures must be taken to fix prominent environmental problems.

He underscored the need to enhance the access to basic public services in the region, so as to shore up weak links in people's livelihood while pursuing regional integration.

The integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta will not be achieved overnight, Xi said, calling on people to remain patient, think long term but act with a sense of urgency.

To deliver more fruitful outcomes, the plans for the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025) should be drawn up in a practical way, he said.

Vice Premier Han Zheng, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and head of the leading group for promoting the integrated development of Yangtze River Delta, also attended the symposium.
Donald Trump's sister said her brother has 'no principles', 'you can't trust him' and he has been 'lying' throughout his presidency, according to secret audio recorded by the president's niece.

Maryanne Trump Barry, 83, slammed the president for his 'phoniness' and called him 'cruel' over his controversial migrant policies where thousands of children were separated from their families and held in detention centers.

The president's older sister dismissed Trump's intelligence saying 'he doesn't read' and cited some of his only accomplishments as his 'five bankruptcies'.

One of the most telling revelations in the leaked recordings, obtained by the Washington Post, is the confirmation that Maryanne was the source of claims made in Mary Trump's explosive memoir that the president paid someone to take his SATs.

In the shock recording, Maryanne says she did his homework for him and 'drove him around New York City to try to get him into college' before she named Joe Shapiro as the man who took his exams.

Trump hit back after the recordings surfaced Saturday night saying 'who cares', that he misses his brother Robert who he held a funeral service for yesterday and insisting the 'country will soon be stronger than ever before.'

Maryanne Trump Barry, 83, slammed the president for his 'phoniness' and called him 'cruel' over his controversial migrant policies where thousands of children were separated from their families and held in detention centers. Trump, Melania and Maryanne in 2005 in New York

Robert, Elizabeth, Freddy, Donald and Maryanne left to right. Maryanne said her brother has 'no principles', 'you can't trust him' and he has been 'lying' throughout his presidency, according to secret audio recorded by the president's niece

Donald Trump, Maryanne Trump, and Robert Trump in 1990. One of the most telling revelations is the confirmation that Maryanne was the source of claims made in Mary Trump's explosive memoir that the president paid someone to take his SATs

Maryanne made the shocking comments in phone calls back in 2018 and 2019 with estranged niece Mary, who secretly recorded the conversations and has since parted ways with the Trump clan following the release of her spill-all book.

The release of the scathing audio from one of Trump's nearest and dearest comes at a critical time for the president in the run-up to the November election, when his response to the coronavirus pandemic and ongoing civil rights movement have pushed many voters to question his competence.

It casts alarming doubts of his own family's confidence in his capabilities as leader of the United States, particularly given that Maryanne - and none of the rest of the Trump siblings - has never publicly criticized her younger brother or any of his White House policies before now.

Their release also comes one day after Trump held a funeral service at the White House for his and Maryanne's brother Robert who died last week aged 71 - a service Maryanne appeared to be absent from.

Trump hit back at the recordings Saturday night in a rambling statement to Axios where he said he misses Robert and congratulated himself over his 'results' as president.

'Every day it's something else, who cares. I miss my brother, and I'll continue to work hard for the American people,' said Trump.

'Not everyone agrees, but the results are obvious. Our country will soon be stronger than ever before.'

Mary Trump released the never before seen and heard transcripts and audio excerpts to the Post, revealing they came from 15 hours of secretly recorded conversations with her aunt back in 2018 and 2019.

Maryanne made the shocking comments back in 2018 to estranged niece Mary Trump (pictured), who secretly recorded the conversation with her aunt and has since parted ways with the Trump clan following her spill-all book

In one of the audio clips, Maryanne accuses her brother of having 'no principles' and simply making political moves to 'appeal to his base'.

The conversation came after the president said in a May 2018 interview with Fox News that 'maybe I'll have to put her at the border' about his sister who was working as a federal judge at the time, reported the Post.

At the time, Trump was enforcing heavy-handed tactics at the US border, with migrant children being torn from their parents and placed in confinement.

'All he wants to do is appeal to his base,' Maryanne tells her niece in the recorded phone call.

'He has no principles. None. None. And his base, I mean my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this.'

Maryanne brands him 'cruel' and phony: 'It's the phoniness of it all. It's the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel.'

Though she has not spoken out about Trump's immigration policies to date, there was a marked difference in her own approach to refugees when working as a judge.

For example, in one case, Maryanne hit out at another judge over their treatment of an asylum applicant.

Maryanne went on to slam her brother's actions as president, singling out his 'lying' and his avid use of social media.

'His goddamned tweet and lying, oh my God,' she says.

'I'm talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy sh*t.'

Maryanne voices disapproval for 'what they're doing with kids at the border' and says she assumes her brother 'hasn't read my immigration opinions' in court cases.

She then makes a dig at her brother's intelligence saying he 'doesn't read'.

'What has he read?' Mary asks in the recording, to which Maryanne replies: 'No. He doesn't read.'

In a separate conversation, Maryanne is also heard mocking her brother's lack of interest in reading, along with his reliance on Fox News and apparent confusion over what she does with her time if she is not watching the channel.

She recalls in the call with Mary that her brother kept asking if she watched Fox - which Trump has a strong relationship with - to which she replied she didn't.

When she told him she doesn't watch much television at all, Maryanne says her brother was shocked asking: 'What do you do?'

She tells Mary she told him she read, to which he had further questions.

'What do you read?' the president said.

'Books,' Maryanne says she replied, to which Trump asked again: 'You don't watch Fox?'

Robert Trump and his then-wife Blaine Trump, Donald Trump, their mother Mary Trump, father Fred Trump and Maryanne Trump Barry (left to right) in 1990

Donald and Maryanne Trump together in 2008. Maryanne blasted her brother for his 'phoniness' and called him 'cruel' over his controversial migrant policies

The audios also add weight to claims made by Mary in her tell-all memoir 'Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man' that Trump paid someone to take his SATs.

Mary alleges in the book that her uncle paid a friend named Joe Shapiro to take his SATs for him so he could attend the University of Pennsylvania's famous Wharton School of Business.

She has until now refused to reveal the source of this key piece of information - despite being asked if the information came from Maryanne - saying only that it was 'somebody who would have absolutely no reason to make it up'.

But the recordings reveal Maryanne confided in her about this event in a conversation on November 1 2018.

In the conversation, Maryanne describes her brother as 'a brat' and says she did his homework for him before someone else took his exams to get him into college.

'He was a brat,' she tells Mary.

'I did his homework for him... I drove him around New York City to try to get him into college.

'He went to Fordham for one year [this was actually two years] and then he got into University of Pennsylvania because he had somebody take the exams.'

Maryanne is heard questioning this information, saying: 'No way! He had somebody take his entrance exams?'

Maryanne reinforces the claims: 'SATs or whatever... That's what I believe.'

'I even remember the name,' she says, before revealing their identity as Joe Shapiro.

Ex-tennis star Pam Shriver, the widow of Trump's friend Joe Shapiro from Penn, said last week her husband never met the future president until they were at business school together saying this means he couldn't have taken Trump's SATS.

Trump has boasted in the past he got into Wharton because he is a 'super genius'.

However an admissions official last year claimed Trump's father had connections at the school and asked them to grant him an interview.

Maryanne meanwhile chose a life away from the family business, earning an undergraduate degree from Mount Holyoke College, a master's from Columbia University and a law degree from Hofstra University.

She then went on to become one of only two women out of 62 lawyers in the office of the United States Attorney in New Jersey.

Maryanne (center) at Trump's inauguration parade in January 2017. Maryanne also dismissed Trump's intelligence in one of the recorded conversations saying 'he doesn't read' and said he did 'accomplish [his five bankruptcies] all by his self'

Left to right Elizabeth Trump Grau, her husband Jim Grau, Maryanne Trump Barry, Donald Trump, Lisa Desmond, her son Robert, David Desmond, Donald Trump Jr, wife Vanessa Kay, Haydon Trump, Eric Trump, and Lara Yunaska. Maryanne doubled down on claims the president paid someone to take his SATs

But despite her claims she helped Trump get into college, her brother 'tried to take credit' for her federal judgeship, Maryanne tells Mary in another call.

In the call, Maryanne recounts to Mary how she asked her brother if his attorney Roy Cohn could put her name forward to then-President Ronald Reagan to make her a federal judge.

'He had Roy Cohn call Reagan about needing to appoint a woman as a federal judge in New Jersey because Reagan's running for reelection, and he was desperate for the female vote,' she recalls.

'I had the nomination,' she says, adding that Trump repeatedly brought up his involvement.

'He once tried to take credit for me,' she says.

'Where would you be without me?' she tells Mary her brother told her.

Maryanne says it created a deep rift between the pair, culminating in her threatening to 'level' him.

'You say that one more time and I will level you,' she says she told him.

It was 'the only favor I ever asked for in my whole life,' she says, adding that she got the role 'on my own merit'.

By contrast, she blasted that her brother's achievements on his own merits were 'five bankruptcies'.

'Donald is out for Donald, period,' she says.

When Mary asks what Barry has accomplished on his own, Maryanne replies: 'Well he has five bankruptcies.'

'Good point. He did accomplish those all by his self,' Mary replies.

'Yes, he did. Yes, he did. You can't trust him,' Maryanne adds.

Several of the taped conversations reveal there is no love lost between the two siblings, including one where she admits Trump 'didn't talk to me for two years' because of a disagreement over their dad's will.

She also slams her brother for using their father Fred Trump Sr.'s 1999 funeral as a platform to talk about his own achievements rather than the life of their dad.

'Donald was the only one who didn't speak about Dad,' Maryanne says.

'I don't want any of my siblings to speak at my funeral. And that's all about Donald and what he did at Dad's funeral. I don't know. It was all about him.'

The recordings appear to reveal the source of some of the claims made in Mary Trump's memoir, which was released last month despite repeated attempts from the White House and the Trump family to block it.

Chris Bastardi, a spokesman for Mary, said she started taping her conversations with her aunt in 2018 after she said she discovered her family conned her out of her full inheritance.

Under New York law, it is legal to tape a conversation as long as one party has given their consent.

In this case, Mary gave consent to the recording.

It is not clear if she taped calls with any other members of the Trump family.
Beijing: In Shanghai, restaurants and bars are teeming with crowds. In Beijing, thousands of students are heading back to campus for the new semester. In Wuhan, where the coronavirus emerged eight months ago, water parks and night markets are buzzing.

While much of the world is still struggling to contain the coronavirus pandemic, life in many parts of China has returned to normal. Cities have relaxed social distancing rules and mask mandates, and crowds are again filling tourist sites, cinemas and gyms.

Travellers at Wuhan train station. Credit:Getty Images

"It no longer feels like there is something too frightful or too life-threatening out there," said Xiong Xiaoyan, who works at a paint manufacturer in the southern province of Guangdong.

Xiong, who described the restrictions put in place to combat the virus as "suffocating," recently visited a cinema for the first time since the outbreak
Everyday activities are a thing of routine. They're also the kinds of things that you had to think through when COVID-19 risks became a concern for many.

COVID-19 risks are everywhere, and it can be a big help if you know which everyday activities are most important to avoid.

To make sure you lessen COVID-19 risks that you encounter in your day-to-day life, here are some everyday activities that you have to avoid:

Not Washing Hands for 20 Seconds

As the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stressed, you have to make sure you washed your hands thoroughly with soap and water. If you don't have soap, use a safe kind of hand sanitizer.

You have to do this when your hands are visibly soiled, before eating, and after using the restroom.

But it doesn't end with the "how" and "when". You also have to remember the "how long".

Washing hands has been a common mantra amid the pandemic, but sometimes we forget how long we have to do such a common everyday activity.

Most people "skimp on the time," medical advisor Leann Poston, MD told Best Life.

Shaking Out Dirty Laundry

CDC also warned about shaking out your dirty laundry. They said doing so could disperse virus particles into the air.

Poston said this is a very unlikely way of getting COVID-19, so it isn't very likely you'll get it from forgetting once or twice. It still pays to remember, though.

If you don't use gloves when doing your laundry, make sure you also wash your hands after touching dirty clothes.

Taking Your Phone to the Grocery

Public health expert Carol Winner told GiveSpace that taking your phone to a store and actively using it can pose COVID-19 risks.

Winner said it poses "risk in cross-contamination when bringing [the phone] home."

But Poston said the real issue with brining phones to the store is dirty hands. If your hands are dirty or you held on to high-touch surfaces, you'll need to sanitize first before holding your phone.

In fact, any other everyday activities you do outside where you bring your phone with you can raise COVID-19 risks if you don't wash your hands enough.

Staying in Public Spaces

Of course, you have to stay inside your home. But gathering with other people in public spaces is a whole different thing.

Any indoor space that is poorly ventilated can be dangerous. You name it: a bar, a restaurant, or even a small shop.

You have to avoid staying in places where it will be impossible to wear a mask, like bars, because socializing will put you and the people you meet at risk.

In fact, a study from Japan found that going out of your home multiplies your COVID-19 risks by 19 times than when you stay indoors.

Even being in an elevator can raise COVID-19 risks. It is a small enclosed space where keeping six feet away from each other can be hard to do.

But not talking and wearing a mask while in the elevator may lower the COVID-19 risks slightly, said Poston.

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Hair: Fabio Nogueira. Make-up: Ruby Hammer. Styling: Holly Elgeti. Dress, Stine Goya, fenwick.co.uk. Jewellery, AlIghieri

I went to a barbecue recently. Normally I avoid them like the plague but, this being the time of the plague, my socialising options have been drastically limited. I found myself surrounded by a small gathering of people, all standing at an appropriate distance, eating tepid hotdogs and getting ketchup on their clothes.

There were screaming toddlers, high on fizzy drinks, and the weather was so hot I feared I had sweated through my dress. Still, it was pleasant.

It would have remained so had I not found myself in conversation with a white man in his 50s whod clearly had one too many alcoholic beverages. Id never met him before but he decided to share his views on the Black Lives Matter movement. He couldnt understand what the protesters were asking for, he said.

I think they want an end to systemic racism, I answered. My interlocutor objected to this, and the conversation spiralled into what I would categorise as racism and what he insisted was common sense. I dont want to rehash his offensive arguments in detail. Suffice to say he claimed people with a different colour of skin were lazy, criminally inclined and then he used the n-word.

In a way, it made it easier to combat his views. When a white person uses that term so casually, there is incontrovertible prejudice at play. Racism can be insidious  but I had an obvious example, staring me in my white face. Usually, I am conflict avoidant. I dont like arguments and I try to seek the path of least resistance and greatest agreement. But this was different. And not only because I didnt agree but because what he was saying was part of the problem he was decrying. He couldnt see that the protests had been prompted by the racism he was expressing. In fact, he didnt categorise his views as racist at all, which means the problem embeds itself deeper like a flesh-eating virus that only stops when it reaches bone.

I said what I thought, which was that you cant generalise an entire race. I added that black people have been encountering this hatred for millennia, in a way that white people will never understand because we will not be overlooked for a job or pulled over because of our skin colour.

In the past, I might have been less forceful. Stayed silent, rolling my eyes and letting it slide because he wasnt going to shift his perspective, was he? But times have changed. I have changed.

Much has been written about the performative nature of anti-racism posts on social media. After the horrifying killing of George Floyd in America by a police officer, and the litany of other deaths that preceded it  including, but not limited to, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin and, if you want to go back even further, Stephen Lawrence in the UK, where the investigating police were judged to have been institutionally racist  it felt as if a lot of well-meaning white people (myself included) werent sure what to do. So we put black squares on Instagram, used the appropriate hashtags and shared illustrated portraits of the deceased.

We were rightly called out and told that being seen to do the right thing was not the same as doing it. Confronting someone and their indefensible views is not pleasant. But allowing them to go unchallenged while posting a black square on Instagram is a far uglier truth to confront.

As I realised that day, important actions are often ones that make you disliked in private, not the ones that get likes on social media.

Of course, my single interaction with that man was never going to end global prejudice (if only). But at the very least, I hope it made him think as he chewed on his tepid hotdog.

This week I'm...

Booking tickets for The Fantastical Festival of Furlough on 31 August. With so many festivals being cancelled, this virtual one is the perfect solution. Screening my face with Caudalie SPF50 Anti-wrinkle Suncare: hydrating and smooth to apply, made from natural ingredients. Plus it smells great. Reading Here Is The Beehive by Sarah Crossan, a riveting tale of infidelity and obsession told in verse form. Perfect for the staycation sunlounger.

Booking tickets for The Fantastical Festival of Furlough on 31 August. With so many festivals being cancelled, this virtual one is the perfect solution.

Screening my face with Caudalie SPF50 Anti-wrinkle Suncare: hydrating and smooth to apply, made from natural ingredients. Plus it smells great.

Reading Here Is The Beehive by Sarah Crossan, a riveting tale of infidelity and obsession told in verse form. Perfect for the staycation sunlounger.
Queenslanders are being urged to back local businesses and keep going out for meals and drinks, despite fears of a continued spike in coronavirus cases this week.

There were 11 new COVID-19 cases at the weekend, eight of which were linked to the Brisbane Youth Detention Centre cluster, first identified when an employee tested positive on Wednesday.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk stressed on Sunday there was no problem with visiting COVID-Safe venues.

"It is absolutely fine for you to go and visit your local cafes, restaurants and businesses where they have COVID-Safe plans in place," she said.
Aaron Gardners love of museums and history started at an early age thanks to his maternal grandparents, who were both professors.

Gardner has spent the last two years as the temporary site manager for Casa San Ysidro: The Gutierrez-Minge House, an annex of the Albuquerque Museum in Corrales. Earlier this month the city appointed him to the position permanently.

Casa is a unique and memorable experience for visitors, Gardner said. My main priority is to assist people in living vicariously through traditional knowledge.

Gardners grandfather studied the biology of birds in Mexico, Hawaii and New Zealand, and his grandmother was a professor of psychology. Both had a love for learning and were responsible for Gardners first exposure to museums.

Gardner has been working part time as the temporary site manager since 2018.

It (my interest in history and museums) probably started with an interest in dinosaurs, he said. They (grandparents) took me to museums a lot and as I got older in high school and college, I knew I wanted to do something in human science.

The Casa San Ysidro annex museum was once a private residence. The 19th-century, plazuela-style structure sits along a narrow, winding, residential road in Corrales. Shirley and Ward Alan Minge bought the home in 1952 and began restoring it and filling it with artifacts representing both Spanish and Native American history in New Mexico. The inside of the home, as well as the grounds, depict early homesteading life in New Mexico. There is a chapel, working orno, a corral, brick barn, old farming tools, and a 1.6-acre field with vegetables and other local crops.

The Minges donated the property to the City of Albuquerque in the late 1990s and museum purchased all of the artifacts. As the site manager, Gardner said he would like to expand the educational programming, including providing lesson plans for teachers, and using the open field as an exhibit space.

I want to show people the crops that are grown here, he said. I love New Mexico history. Its one of the oldest inhabited areas in the country.

Gardner was born in Idaho, but his family moved to San Diego shortly after that, and then to New Mexico when he was about 8 years old. Gardner learned as a child that he was a member of the Shasta Indian Nation, a tribe in Northern California. His paternal grandfather was adopted as a child and only later in his life tried to reconnect with the tribe, as did Gardner as a teen and young adult. This family tie, he said, has made him passionate about preserving the history of indigenous people.

Gardner graduated from the University of New Mexico in 2015 with a bachelors degree in anthropology. Before working for the city, he was the event supervisor at Los Poblanos La Quinta Cultural Center.

In non-pandemic times, the museum is open to the public for daily tours. Its often used as a learning tool by local school groups who take field trips there. Right now Gardner said he is working on some virtual offerings since its unknown when they will reopen to the public.

Aarons knowledge and enthusiasm for Casa San Ysidro make him an invaluable asset to Albuquerque Museum, says Curator of History Leslie Kim in a news release. We are thrilled to have Aaron as a permanent part of the history department at Albuquerque Museum.
NIGERIA: The police in Oyo state have arrested a trader identified as Emmanuel Egbu, for allegedly eating human feces with bread in his shop in the Sango area of Ibadan, the state capital, on Saturday, August 22.



Egbu who trades in cosmetics and Brazilian hair, was said to have been caught eating human feces with bread. Those who caught him in the wierd act, were said to have raised the alarm, which attracted a huge crowd.



The timely intervention of the police prevented residents from lynching him.



The spokesperson of the state police command, Olugbenga Fadeyi, who confirmed his arrest, said the Divisional Police Officer in charge of Sango Police Station had begun an investigation into the incident. He said the faces reportedly found on the suspect has been sent to the laboratory for examination.



Meanwhile, residents of the area seized the opportunity to loot his shop.



Watch the videos showing when he was apprehended and some looters looting his shop.





Source: LIB/Youtube









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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 16:01:33|Editor: huaxia

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JERUSALEM, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- An Israeli military reconnaissance drone has crashed inside Lebanon, Israel's army said overnight between Saturday and Sunday.

A military spokesperson said in a statement that the incident occurred "during IDF (Israel Defense Forces) operational activity" along the Blue Line, a border demarcation drawn in 2000 by the United Nations after Israel withdrew its forces from southern Lebanon.

"There is no risk of breach of information," the spokesperson said, without elaborating on the cause of the crash.

Hezbollah, a Lebanese party and militant group, said its fighters intercepted the drown near the village of Ayta ash-Sha'b in southern Lebanon.

In July, another military drone crashed inside Lebanon. Local Israeli media reported that the drone apparently fell due to malfunction. Enditem
A groom in Texas suffered a gunshot wound to the chest after being shot by a guest at his own wedding.

Witnesses, including the bride, were refusing to cooperate with the Harris County Sheriff's Office as they attempted to track down a suspect and a motive for the shooting.

Deputies responded to gunshots on the 16800 block of Anna Green Street around 11.26pm Thursday but were initially unable to find the victim.

He was located in a residence across the street with a gunshot wound in a critical condition and transported to Memorial Hermann hospital via helicopter.

A woman in a white dress was seen waiting on the street as the police investigated. A neighbor reported that the bride ran to look for the shooter after the groom was shot by a guest

Deputies told Click2Houston that the groom was awaiting surgery but was now in a stable condition.

A video shared by Captain John Shannon showed the scene as the groom was taken away for medical treatment. Other footage showed him being taken from the house in a stretcher.

'A groom has been shot on his wedding day. Witnesses not cooperating with responding officers. Groom was lifeflighted in critical condition,' he wrote.

Deputies added that three people who were with the groom were detained as they tried to draw information from witnesses.

'Witnesses on scene thus far have been uncooperative but the investigation is active,' Capt Shannon told ABC 13.

'People at the house have been detained until we can get their witness statements.'

Investigators say they believe the guest got into an altercation with the groom before shooting him.

They said the suspect was not at the scene when they responded.

The groom was seen being brought from the house across the street on a stretcher

Police detained witnesses as they tried to piece together what had happened

The white wedding day signs could still be seen on the lawn the day after the shooting

As deputies carried out their investigation other wedding guests and the bride were seen waiting on the street outside the house where wedding day signs and decorations still hung.

One witness claimed the bride went looking for the shooter after they heard the gunshots.

'It was loud, really loud,' one neighbor told Click2Houston.

'My daughter ran into my room and said, "Mom, there's shots, there's shots, there's shots." So we came outside to see what was going on and we saw the bride come out and she started yelling, "Where is he? Where is he? I need to find him".'

Another neighbor claimed that they found a person in their backyard following the shooting and that there was a hole in the fence.

The sheriff's office is still looking for the shooter and has not released further details about the incident.
Diyar Al Muharraq, one of the largest real estate developers in Bahrain, said it has installed a number of solar energy trees within its integrated city, thus demonstrating its efforts to invest in innovative research projects that preserve the environment.

This move will help contribute in maximizing the citys sustainable energy, as the installation of these trees will help enhance the automated control of the primary and secondary irrigation systems.

Diyar Al Muharraq is one of the largest major development projects in Bahrain. It is a typical urban city that blends modern life with the kingdoms authentic heritage with its unique mix of residential areas and commercial projects that are one of the best investment opportunities ever, whatever for personal use or investment.

The Bahraini developer has carefully selected the designated areas for the placement of solar trees, as part of its efforts to fulfill its energy needs, along with reducing operational and capital costs related to electricity and maintenance bills.

It has started installing several solar trees distributed throughout the city, some of which have a capacity of 3 kW while others have a capacity of 2 kW, which are intended to supply power to primary irrigation controllers and actuator valves to secondary asset connections, said the statement from Diyar Al Muharraq.

In partnership with third parties, this initiative aims to create a smart city that provides a better lifestyle through the deployment of technological solutions, as well as diversify the economy by adopting smart solutions that promote environmental sustainability, it added.

Diyar Al Muharraq has extended its objective in using sustainable technology in the construction of its park, Hadiqat Al Diyar, where it has cooperated with Gulf Fencing and Specialist Surfacing Est. and KP Smart Solar Energy to install 103 solar lighting units.

The units are characterized by a design which is tailored to Bahrains climate, low maintenance costs, and no electricity charges, due to the contribution of technology used in protecting the environment by reducing energy consumption.

On the key iniatitaive CEO Engineer Ahmed Alammadi said: "We are proud of all the environmental innovations that we have adopted since the start of our journey, the most recent of which was the installation of solar energy trees, which demonstrated our efforts towards achieving sustainability."

"This initiative aims to contribute to generating sustainable energy, helping reduce operational costs, and leading to the creation of an environmentally friendly community within Diyar Al Muharraq," he noted.

"We are also looking forward to more achievements, and following the same approach, to set a new standard in the real estate scene in the Kingdom and reaffirm the importance of adapting technology to achieve environmental sustainability," he added.

Among the initiatives of Diyar Al Muharraq, which played a key role in achieving sustainability in the Kingdom, was the use of LED spotlights in public areas to highlight the city's aesthetics, including: Hadiqat Al Diyar, Al Bareh and Al Qamra projects. Diyar Al Muharraq was at the forefront of initiating the launch of this concept, prior to its official approval in Bahrain.-TradeArabia News Service
Police are searching for a man who they say approached multiple strangers at a Walmart and embraced them before telling them he had just given them coronavirus.

The incident occurred on Saturday, Aug. 15 at approximately 7:10 p.m. at a Walmart branch in Springfield, Massachusetts, when the man allegedly began randomly approaching customers and hugging them.

According to the Springfield Police Detective Bureau, the suspect was pictured at the Walmart location wearing a black t-shirt and camouflage shorts as he approached people and gave them the hostile hugs.

MORE: Dunkin' Donuts employee arrested after cop finds 'large, thick piece of mucus' in his coffee

This suspect took an item out of a victims hands and then gave him a hug, the Springfield Police Department said in a post shared on social media. He told the victim just giving you a COVID hug. You now have COVID."

Authorities say the suspect then started laughing before walking away.

MORE: First dog to test positive for COVID-19 in North Carolina dies

Related: Maskless woman coughs on customer in NYC bagel shop

MORE: Squirrel tests positive for the bubonic plague in Colorado

The victim, who police did not identify, is a cancer survivor and had never seen the suspect before.

Police say that he had done this to other customers before and it is not known if the man actually had coronavirus at the time of the incident.

MORE: California resident tests positive for the plague, first case in the state in 5 years

According to Masslive.com, the suspect is now being sought for assault and battery and making terroristic threats.

However, even if the man has not tested positive for COVID-19, saying that he has it and approaching people in a menacing way could constitute a threat under Massachusetts state law.

Massachusetts state law says that anyone who communicates a threat either directly or indirectly, orally, in writing or by other means can be charged with making terroristic threats.

Police hunt for 'COVID hug' man who grabbed strangers at Walmart originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
TikTok plans to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration to challenge its executive order banning transactions with the video app in the U.S., the company said Saturday.

TikTok said it strongly disagreed with the concerns raised by President Donald Trump as he ordered on Aug. 6 to ban the app from the U.S. within 45 days. He subsequently gave it a 90-day deadline to divest its U.S. operations.

What we encountered instead was a lack of due process as the Administration paid no attention to facts and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses, a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement. To ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and users are treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the Executive Order through the judicial system.

TikTok didnt say which court it plans to use. The company added that it tried to work out a solution to address the U.S. concerns for almost a year.

Trump made the order under a 1977 law that lets the U.S. president declare a national emergency in response to an unusual and extraordinary threat, allowing him to block transactions and seize assets.

TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance Ltd., has been fielding interest in its operations in the U.S. and a handful of other countries. Microsoft Corp. has publicly confirmed its interest to buy TikToks business in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Other companies, including Oracle Corp. and Twitter Inc., have also emerged as potential bidders.

Reuters previously reported on TikToks plan to file the lawsuit as soon as Monday.

Separately, an employee lawsuit against the proposed U.S. ban, independent from the companys official legal response, is being funded under crowdfunding campaign.

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In August 2020, a popular social media post in which a woman who is a resident of Florida has given her account in words how she was alarmed after discovering the letters "D" and "R" on the mail-in ballot envelopes she received together with her brother, who lives at the same residence.

The video that circulated online was posted by Tina Brown, a resident of Palm Beach County, as determined by the local media. The clip posted on Facebook has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times that even US President Donald Trump has retweeted the said post, WPTV reported.

In the two-minute video, Brown was seen pointing out to a string of letters and numbers located under the barcode of the mail-in ballots, knowing that she is a registered Republican, and her brother is a registered Democrat, indicating that the envelope addressed to her contains a series with a letter "R", while her brother received one with the letter "D".

Brown said in the video that a postal person will be able to identify which mail-in ballot belongs to a Democrat or a Republican and can even throw away those envelopes belonging to Republicans. Brown articulated that it is necessary for the voters to take their ballots and bring them to the voting places, adding that voting in person will be the best way. In the video Brown could be heard saying not to vote by mail, asking people to listen and be wary.

President Donald Trump retweeted a Twitter post that said more lies about the mail-in voting, adding that it was the Democrats' attempt to cheat and steal the upcoming November 2020 elections.

Read also: Man Spent 20 Years in Jail Because of Kamala Harris Who Wrongly Convicted Him

The tweet gained large public attention since President Trump was known for making inaccurate assertions that cast doubt on the reliability of mail-in voting, which is being considered as a significant process in the November 2020 election because of the current situation brought by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

What was seen in the video where the ballot envelopes of Brown and her brother with the letters "R" and "D" in their bar codes was actually true. However, the remark in the Facebook clip was missing some ideas that created unnecessary fear about the tagging.

After the video went viral on social media, Palm Beach County elections supervisor, Wendy Sartory Link, went to Twitter to present an explanation of why the political party-affiliated letters were seen on the envelopes.

Link admitted that the codes were there, adding that since Florida is one of nine states holding closed primaries, this means that only registered Democrat or Republican voters can cast their votes in the primary elections of the state, saying that each party has different ballots. Moreover, Link, said mail tampering is a federal offense, and up to date, she has not received any report regarding this matter.

Brown and her brother really received mail-in ballot envelopes with letters "R" and "D". However, only primary elections ballots of registered Republican and Democratic voters have those labels. General elections ballots do not have the label on them.

According to fact-checking site Snopes.com, he likelihood that Postal Service workers would tamper mail-in ballots is highly unlikely to happen. As pointed by Andrea Avery, US Postal Inspection Service spokesperson, the United States Postal Inspection Service, which is one of America's oldest law enforcement agencies, imposed more than 200 federal laws to protect all mail.

Related article: Former FBI Lawyer Admits to Falsifying Document in Russia Probe of 2016 US Campaign

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The Ohio Harness Horsemens Association will provide live coverage of the 12-race card from the Mahoning County Fairgrounds in Canfield, Ohio on Sunday (Aug. 23). Post time is 4 p.m.

The races were originally scheduled for the Lorain Fairgrounds in Wellington, Ohio.

Replays of the races will be available on the Trot and Pace Marketing website, trotandpacemarketing.com, following the completion of racing.

The race program for Sundays action at the Mahoning County Fairgrounds is available on the OHHA website.

The Ohio Horsemens Association will continue its live fair racing coverage on Monday (Aug. 24) from the Allen County Fairgrounds in Lima, Ohio. Post time is 4 p.m. On Tuesday (Aug. 25), the OHHA will head to Hicksville, Ohio, for racing from the Defiance County Fairgrounds. Post time in Hicksville is 6:30 p.m.

The Ohio Harness Horsemens Association will be live streaming Ohio fair races throughout the summer. For a complete schedule, go to OHHA.com.

(Ohio Harness Horsemen's Association)
Egypt has been pushing for a political settlement in Libya and calling for a ceasefire, a complete withdrawal of militias and an end to foreign intervention in the country

Egypt and Germany stressed the importance of using a fresh ceasefire announcement by Libyan rival parties to reach a comprehensive political settlement to restore security and stability.

According to an official statement by the Egyptian foreign ministry on Saturday, foreign minister Sameh Shoukry discussed the developments in Libya and the Palestinian cause in a phone call with his German counterpart Heiko Maas.

Both Shoukry and Maas agreed that the ceasefire would contribute to combating terrorist groups, foreign interference, and achieve the aspirations of the Libyan people.

The phone call comes one day after Libyas internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) announced a ceasefire across the country and called for the demilitarisation of the contested strategic city of Sirte, which is controlled by rival forces.

In a separate statement, Aguila Saleh, speaker of the rival east-based House of Representatives, also called for a ceasefire.

Egypt has been pushing for a political settlement in Libya and calling for a ceasefire, a complete withdrawal of militias and an end to foreign intervention in the country, as well as a fair distribution of wealth.

In June, Egypt proposed a peace initiative dubbed the Cairo Declaration, which was based on the conclusion of the Berlin conference. It proposed a ceasefire and the election of a leadership council.

A month later, the Egyptian parliament granted its approval for a potential deployment of the countrys armed forces abroad for the purposes of national security in the strategic western direction against the work of armed criminal militias and foreign terrorist elements.

The decision came after President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi warned the country would not stand idle in the face of any attack on Libyas Sirte, which he earlier described as a red line for Egypts national security.

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John Ridley says there's a good likelihood that the Batman he's writing for an upcoming four-part comic book series will be a person of color.

The 54-year-old, who's working on a miniseries comic of the Caped Crusader, estimated on a DC panel that there's 'a little better than a 47 percent chance' in regards to his Batman, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The Academy Award-wining writer appeared as part of the Legacy of the Bat symposium put on by DC FanDome.

The latest: John Ridley says there's a likelihood that the Batman he's writing for a four-part comic book series will be a person of color

'I think its a pretty safe bet that, if Im writing Batman, its probably a little better than a 47 percent chance hes going to be a person of color,' the American Crime showrunner said.

Ridley is working on the four-part series, which is due out in January, with artist Nick Derington to tell the tale of Wayne Enterprises exec Lucius Fox and his family.

The role has past been played by Oscar-winner Morgan Freeman in the Batman films from Christopher Nolan, and Ernie Hudson in 2016's Batman: Bad Blood.

'This is a family that has secrets, has kept secrets from one another,' Ridley said. 'Its a little bit different dynamic than the Batman that weve always seen.'

New incarnation: Ridley is working on the four-part series, which is due out in January, with artist Nick Derington to tell the tale of Wayne Enterprises exec Lucius Fox and his family

New details: The Academy Award-wining writer appeared as part of the Legacy of the Bat symposium put on by DC FanDome

And the winner is: Ridley took home the screenwriting Oscar in 2014 for 12 Years A Slave

In the DC comic books, Luciuss son Luke Fox has racked up superhero credentials under the moniker Batwing.

Ridley is also working for the comic company on Batman: The Joker War Zone, due out in September, and The Other History of the DC Universe for DC, which comes out in November.
Himanshu Bhardwaj has been keenly waiting for schools to reopen  no, he is not a vociferous votary of in-class teaching, but a manufacturer and trader of school uniforms with massive unsold stocks. I never thought schools could ever be closed for so long and we could ever go out of business, says Bhardwaj, sitting inside his shop in east Delhis Gandhi Nagar.

The shops shelves are laden with coats, shirts, trousers of various sizes; fabrics of different patterns and colours: plain, twill, matty, oxford checks, stripes in blue, white, grey, green and other school colours. Behind him on the wall are showcased ties and belts with logos of schools as far away as Assam and West Bengal. The lockdown happened just when we were readying to dispatch uniform to them. About 40,000 summer uniforms are lying unsold in my godown, says Bhardwaj.

Bhardwaj is not the only one.

The continued closure of schools due to the Coronavirus crisis -- -- since March 19 in Delhi -- has caused unprecedented disruption in the countrys school uniform market, which, according to the industry estimates is worth 18,000 crores. India has one of the largest K-12 (kindergarten to class 12) school systems in the world with more than 1.4 million schools with 250+ million students, according to a FICCI report.

The Delhi-NCR and Solapur in Maharashtra are the two biggest school uniform manufacturing hubs in the country. The Gandhi Nagar market in the capital alone boasts of about 100 school uniform traders and manufacturers, who attract vendors and retailers from all across the country, providing direct and indirect employment to about 1 lakh people in the citycutters, tailors, stitchers, embroidersbetween August and March.

In fact, August is the time when manufacturing for winter uniforms starts, but this year most tailoring units, which are concentrated in east Delhi, Noida and Sahibabad are shuttered.

We start production in January for the new session in April, and in August for the winter session. But with large stocks of summer uniforms having remained unsold, we are facing a cash crunch, and there is no way we can start production till the existing stocks are cleared and we receive payment. If the schools open in December, there would not be any winter uniforms in the market, says Anil Jain, sitting inside his shops in Gandhi Nagar. There are hundreds of packed white lab suits lying behind him.

Jain is one of the few traders who have chosen to keep his shop open in the market where a majority of shops of uniform traders and makers have remained closed since March. Jain says he keeps the shop open more to kill boredom at home than in hope of getting any business. None of the 150 schools he has made pre-ordered uniform with their emblems has picked up their stocks, he says. Many of them, especially budget schools, have stopped taking my calls.

The average cost of uniform in wholesale is anything between Rs 300 to Rs 900, depending on the fabric, size and the customisation required. Till January, I had so many vendors and school representatives exploring new uniform designs flipping through these catalogues, says Bhardwaj, pulling out a catalogue of a well-known uniform fabric brand. One of his shelves is packed with catalogues with fabric samples and uniform designs.

Gandhi Nagar has over 150 tailoring units, each employing 20 to 70 people, with different specialties. There were people who would cut, stitch, and there were those who specialised in embroidering logos on the uniform, says Vivek Sharma. Hanging from the front of his shop are childrens mannequins in school uniforms made by his firm.

I employed about 50 people, who are now jobless, says Jain, who has been in the school uniform business for the past 25 years

Delhi also has many traders and manufacturers who supply belts and ties to uniform manufacturers all over the country. Sadar Bazar-based Sushil Verma, for example, has been making ties and belts for uniform manufacturers in Solapur and Delhi. He is sitting on a large stock of undelivered belt and ties. I am afraid a lot of them are white belts with school logos printed on them. They might fade, says Verma. I used to make about 2,500 belts a day, but have not produced a single belt or tie since March.

If Gandhi Nagar has manufacturers and traders, Katra Choban in Chandni Chowk is the hub of uniform fabric dealers and they say their business is facing a crisis like never before.

Our sales are down by 90%. Most uniform manufacturers have withheld our payment because they have not been able to get payment from school vendors. We have unsold stocks worth lakhs, and have not placed any new order with fabric manufacturing firms, says Sanjeev Malhotra, partner, Prakash Lal Rakesh Kumar, one of Delhis better- known and oldest uniform fabric dealers. His customers include uniform vendors of some of Delhis biggest and oldest schools.

Most dealers procure fabric from mills in Bhilwara in Rajasthan and Bhiwandi near Mumbai, home to some of Indias biggest textile mills.

School uniform fabric accounts for most of our output; our production for school uniform fabric is down by 80%. But we have seen a slight increase in demand from the health sector, says Kishore Kothari, director, Valji Uniform, a Mumbai-based firm, which is one of Indias largest uniform fabric manufacturers. But the industry will see a quick recovery as soon as schools reopen.

Bharat Arora, general secretary, Action Committee of Unaided Recognised Private Schools, an association of private schools in Delhi, says there is no requirement of uniform as long as schools are closed. Children are free to wear the dress of their choice as they take online classes at home. Even otherwise, while some schools appoint vendors for uniforms for the convenience of parents, the latter have always been free to buy it from wherever they want, says Arora. The schools decide what their uniform should be, but not where should the parents buy them.

Aparajitha Gautam, president of Delhi Parents Association, said some schools had initially asked parents to make their children wear uniforms while attending online classes. We protested and asked the parents not to follow such directions as they are already facing financial stress in the current situation. There is no point buying a new uniform when the schools are closed, she said.

The North Delhi Municipal Corporation, like other two corporations in the city, gives Rs 1,100 per student to parents to buy school uniforms for their children. Nearly 2.75 lakh students are enrolled at 714 primary schools run by the civic body. The corporation, which spends around Rs 30 crore on school uniforms, has released the funds to parents to buy uniforms. Every year, this fund is released in April but due to lockdown this year, it was given in July and August first week. Though schools are yet to open, we have released the money so that the parents can buy uniforms as soon as the schools reopen, says Ira Singhal, deputy commissioner of the North Delhi Corporation.

Back in Gandhi Nagar, traders are not too optimistic about the reopening of schools. If Bhardwaj has started stocking womens wear such as salwar suits, kurtis  not the right garments, he admits, for a firm called NHPS School Uniform; Sharma has started dealing in pyjamas and T-shirts. I have never sold anything other than school uniforms, but we need to look beyond uniform to survive at least till the time schools reopen,  says Sharma.

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The tanker made a visit to Sandy Ridge on Aug. 13, and was escorted by the Catawba County Sheriff's Office.

The arrival of the tanker with Eckard's photo adorning it was a surprise for his mother, Eunice. I was in a state of shock. Its beautiful, she said.

Eunice said she was thankful for everything Beasley has done to bring recognition to Chriss legacy, and for Bumgarner Oil. I love them, she said of Bumgarner Oil. There is no way we can thank them enough.

After I learned about what kind of person Chris was, I knew we needed to honor him, Bumgarner said. (Eunice) was awfully thankful for that.

Bumgarner hopes to recognize other fallen service members on the tanker in years to come. We want to pick one fallen hero a year and highlight them on the truck, he said. And we may wrap other trucks in the future as well.

Beasley said the ministry strives to honor North Carolina service members who made the ultimate sacrifice, beginning with the Iraq War. We regularly send cards to family members of fallen heroes to let them know that their heroes are not forgotten, Beasley explained.
Vineet Upadhyay By

Express News Service

DEHRADUN: After the Opposition in Uttarakhand launched a scathing attack on the state government, Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat said that the rape-accused BJP MLA is ready for a DNA test.

"The MLA is ready for the test. Such matters are legal matters to be decided in courts. The police are investigating the case and soon will approach the court, " said Rawat. The statement comes amidst allegations of rape against BJP MLA Mahesh Singh Negi.

The survivor has demanded a DNA test and is likely to move the High Court.

Meanwhile, the Congress in the state staged protests and burned effigies of the BJP government alleging inaction and complicity.

Suryakant Dhasmana, vice-president of the INC said, "The BJP government is not taking any action against the accused MLA. This is how the leaders of this party treat women. We will go on the next level of protests if the government fails to act in the matter".

Earlier, the MLA had written to the director-general of police expressing his objections over police behaviour.

Senior police officials from the department said that the matter is being investigated and those who fail to cooperate in the case will face action.

A case has been registered against her last week on the complaint of the MLAs wife who accused the woman of blackmailing her husband and trying to extort Rs 5 crore.

On August 16, the woman filed a counter-complaint against the BJP MLA, accusing him of raping her on several occasions and fathering her child.

Uttarakhand State Commission for Women has already also the report in the matter by the state police till August 29, 2020.

Earlier last week, another woman from Almora accused the BJP MLA of rape. She also cited a threat to her life and demanded a DNA test to prove that the accused MLA is the father of her child.


This is newsworthy because Virginia is the only state requiring these strict COVID-19 standards at this point.

Virginia leads the nation with its current mandates laying down strict workplace standards in response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak titled the COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard (Standard). The Standard is applicable to most employers, and all state-owned and operated businesses and offices.

Virginia employers MUST comply with the Standard by August 26, 2020. Compliance requires the implementation of written policies, procedures and employee training, and these documents are not optional. The Standard makes this documentation mandatory. Failure to comply could result in fines as high as $135,000 for repeat or willful violations, depending upon the severity of the violation.

As stated by Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, Keeping Virginians safe at work is not only a critical part of stopping the spread of the virus, its key to our economic recovery and its the right thing to do.

This is newsworthy because Virginia is the only state requiring this at this point, adds Merritt Green, Founder/Managing Partner of McLean-based legal firm General Counsel, P.C. It is a way for businesses to overcome and emerge stronger through the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Standard establishes requirements for employers to control, prevent, and mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Some of the measures include:



Self-ranking the business with exposure categories;

Preventive and response plans;

Preventive measures;

Employee training;

Return-to-work plans; and

Retaliation protection

Access to the Forms Generator

To facilitate the process, General Counsel, P.C., in conjunction with Business Compliance, LLC, has developed the COVID-19 Virginia Emergency Standard Forms Generator (VES Forms Generator) to help Virginia employers easily and inexpensively comply with the standards. The VES Forms Generator can be accessed through: https://www.generalcounsellaw.com/ves_forms_generator/ or http://www.covidcomplianceplans.com.

The VES Forms Generator provides the tools and documents employers can use to comply with the Virginia COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard. Employers must implement the policies, procedures and training.

Avoiding fines is only one reason to ensure a company is in compliance with the Standard. It is just as important to demonstrate to employees and clients a companys commitment to their health and safety. Compliance with the Standard also shows a good faith effort by a business to protect its employees and customers that could be used to defend legal claims against a company (an affirmative defense). On the other hand, failure to comply could be used as evidence to establish liability since minimum governmental standards were not satisfied.

The COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard was issued on July 15, 2020, as published by Virginias Department of Labor and Industry. The new measures took effect on July 27, 2020. The deadline for compliance is August 26, 2020.

View 16VAC25-220, Emergency Temporary Standard at: https://www.doli.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/COVID-19-Emergency-Temporary-Standard-FOR-PUBLIC-DISTRIBUTION-FINAL-7.17.2020.pdf.

Media: For More Information

For more information about Virginias COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard, please contact Merritt Green, Founder and Managing Partner of General Counsel, P.C., a McLean, VA-based, full-service law firm providing comprehensive legal services for business ranging from start-up to multi-billion dollar organizations. Contact Mr. Green at 703-556-0411 or mgreen@gcpc.com; http://www.generalcounsellaw.com.
Battle lines were drawn ahead of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting on Monday with at least 23 leaders writing to party chief Sonia Gandhi flagging the leadership crisis and calling for internal elections, while another section pressing for the return of Rahul Gandhi as Congress President.

The letter is the first united attempt by Congress leaders for an intervention by the party chief to set right things in the organisation which appears adrift with the lack of a full-time president to take on the challenge posed by the well-oiled machinery of the BJP.

While the 23 leaders, including veterans Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma to youngsters Manish Tewari, Milind Deora and Jitin Prasada, have called for sweeping changes in the Congress organisation, section of party leaders see it as a move to derail Rahuls return to the helm of party affairs.

This letter is a new conspiracy to blunt the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, former Mumbai Congress President Sanjay Nirupam said asking Rahul to stop being adamant and return as Congress President.

Rahul had quit as Congress President in July last year, accepting responsibility of the partys second successive debacle in the Lok Sabha elections and conveyed that the Congress should look beyond the Gandhi family for leadership.

In view of existing conditions, any further delay in promoting Rahul ji as the President-AICC can cause incalculable harm to the progress of the Congress party and can be dispiriting to the entire Congress family, AICC Secretary Vamshi Chand Reddy said in a letter addressed to members of the Congress Working Committee.

The joint letter by 23 leaders to the Congress President is said to have been written about a fortnight back, but the Congress had officially denied the existence of any such letter.

Rahul has conveyed to the party on numerous occasions that he was unwilling to return as party president and was ready to work for the party as an ordinary member.

However, since his resignation as Congress President last year, Rahul has had a say in key appointments in the party and selection of candidates for Rajya Sabha elections.

Rahul had also stepped in to defuse the crisis in Rajasthan where Sachin Pilot had rebelled against style of functioning of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot. Pilot gave up on his rebellion after discussions with Rahul and his sister AICC General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
FLINT, MI -- Two engineering companies accused of wrongdoing in the Flint water crisis say they will continue to defend themselves in lawsuits brought by residents and wont settle cases like the state of Michigan did this week for $600 million.

Representatives of Veolia North America and Lockwood Andrews & Newnam Inc. said in separate statements to MLive-The Flint Journal that the water crisis that produced high levels of lead and bacteria in city water in 2014 and 2015 is the fault of government agencies, not the advice they provided to the city about various water problems.
Health officials carry out COVID-19 testing at a makeshift testing facility in an elementary school in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, Sunday, as at least two students there tested positive for the virus. / Yonhap



Daily infections near 400; 3-day total exceeds 1,000



By Jun Ji-hye



The health authorities said Sunday that the daily new COVID-19 infections here neared 400 the previous day with the number of patients increasing rapidly not only in the Seoul metropolitan region but also in other cities and provinces nationwide.



New cases have been mostly in Seoul and its surrounding areas since early May following an outbreak at Itaewon clubs, but infections have recently appeared to be spreading rapidly nationwide, with the latest number of new cases reported in non-capital areas nearing 100 daily.



The sharp increase in cases is mainly attributed to church-related infections having continued to spread to more people.



"Infections are spreading widely not only in the capital region but also other parts of the country," Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) Director Jung Eun-kyeong said during a media briefing. "The country is in a very grave situation as a second wave of infections will hit the entire nation if citizens do not comply with social distancing guidelines."




The American Airpower Museum (AAM), Long Islands only flying military aviation museum, will host a day of precision flying by vintage military aircraft on Labor Day weekend, Saturday, September 5, 2020. Following AAMs successful Grand Reopening on August 1, 2020, these iconic aircraft return to thrill aviation fans by soaring to new heights. The action will take place from 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at AAMs Hangar 3, at 1230 New Highway in Farmingdale, New York. Visitors are invited to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the End of WWII (September 2, 1945) and applaud as the AAM honors two WWII Veterans from Americas Greatest Generation. The museums WWII bombers and fighters are back with exciting, family-friendly flight demonstrations guaranteed to entertain aviation fans of all ages!

These flights will feature AAMs Grumman TBM Avenger, two North American T-6 Texans, the AT-28D5 Nomad Vietnam War ground attack aircraft, WACO biplane and, as added attractions, two Cold War-era L-39 Russian jet trainers! In addition, AAMs B-25 Mitchell bomber, which recently finished a complete maintenance check, will be on the tarmac to fire up its mighty engines! Plus there will be tours of AAMs Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolt II  the mighty Warthog.

AAMs Manager, Lawrence Starr, will narrate each flight performance over our public address system. In between flights, you can get up close and personal with the museums fleet of WWII aircraft, jet fighters and other exhibits. Admission for Adults is $13, Seniors & Veterans $10 and Children $8. Due to the need for social distancing, admission will be limited to first come/first served; a maximum attendance of 150 persons will be allowed on the outdoor ramp area. Visitors MUST wear face masks and have temperatures digitally taken at the entrance. So bring your own lunch, hang out and enjoy the AAM experience!

If you cant join us on September 5th, please help AAM offset major financial losses incurred during our Covid-19 shutdown, by using a secure PayPal link at: www.americanairpowermuseum.com/donate/ to make a tax-deductible contribution  NO AMOUNT IS TOO SMALL  For more information on corporate donations, please call Jacky Clyman, AAM executive vice president, at (917) 690-1965 or jacky@cockpitusa.com.

Below is the beautiful Warbird Digest cover for issue #87. The uniquely historic B-25 Mitchell Miss HAP, operated by the American Airpower Museum captured for Warbird Digest through the lens of Greg Morehead. You can buy this issue at https://warbirddigest.com
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) says he hopes the coronavirus pandemic will be over in under two years.



Speaking in Geneva, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Spanish flu of 1918 had taken two years to overcome.



But he added that current advances in technology could enable the world to halt the virus "in a shorter time".



"Of course with more connectiveness, the virus has a better chance of spreading," he said.



"But at the same time, we have also the technology to stop it, and the knowledge to stop it," he noted, stressing the importance of "national unity, global solidarity".



The flu of 1918 killed at least 50 million people.



Coronavirus has so far killed 800,000 people. Nearly 23 million infections have been recorded but the number of people who have actually had the virus is thought to be much higher due to inadequate testing and asymptomatic cases.



Prof Sir Mark Walport, a member of the UK's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) - on Saturday said that Covid-19 was "going to be with us forever in some form or another".



"So, a bit like flu, people will need re-vaccination at regular intervals," he told the BBC.



What can we learn from the Spanish Flu?



How they tried to curb a pandemic in 1918



In Geneva, Dr Tedros said corruption related to supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the pandemic was "unacceptable", describing it as "murder".



"If health workers work without PPE, we're risking their lives. And that also risks the lives of the people they serve," he added, in response to a question.



Although the question related to allegations of corruption in South Africa, a number of countries have faced similar issues.



On Friday, protests were held in the Kenyan capital Nairobi over alleged corruption during the pandemic, while doctors from a number of the city's public hospitals went on strike over unpaid wages and a lack of protective equipment.



The same day, the head of the WHO's health emergencies programme warned the scale of the coronavirus outbreak in Mexico was "clearly under-recognised".



Dr Mike Ryan said the equivalent of around three people per 100,000 were being tested in Mexico, compared with about 150 per 100,000 people in the US.



Mexico has the third highest number of deaths in the world, with almost 60,000 fatalities recorded since the pandemic began, according to Johns Hopkins University.



Where are the world's coronavirus hotspots?

In the US, Democratic nominee Joe Biden pledged to introduce a national mandate to wear masks if elected, and attacked President Donald Trump's handling of the pandemic.



"Our current president's failed in his most basic duty to the nation. He's failed to protect us. He's failed to protect America," Mr Biden said.



More than 1,000 new deaths were announced in the US on Friday, bringing the total number of fatalities to 173,490.



What's happening elsewhere?



On Friday, a number of countries announced their highest numbers of new cases in months.



South Korea recorded 324 new cases - its highest single-day total since March.



As with its previous outbreak, the new infections have been linked to churches, and museums, nightclubs and karaoke bars have now been closed in and around the capital Seoul in response.



A number of European countries are also seeing rises.



Poland and Slovakia both announced record new daily infections on Friday, with 903 and 123 cases respectively, while Spain and France have seen dramatic increases in recent days.



Why Spain is seeing second Covid wave



In Lebanon, a two-week partial lockdown - including a night-time curfew - has come into effect as the country saw its highest number of cases since the pandemic began.



Infections have doubled since a devastating blast in the capital Beirut killed at least 178 people and injured thousands more on 4 August.



The disaster left an estimated 300,000 people homeless and placed massive strain on medical facilities.



In Africa, the average daily cases of coronavirus fell last week , in what the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr John Nkengasong, described as a "sign of hope".



The continent-wide daily average was 10,300 last week, down from 11,000 the week before.

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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ANN ARBOR, MI  Lena and Jesse Kauffman believed drastic measures were needed when Ann Arbor Public Schools announced it would start the year with remote learning only due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

They came up with three different solutions for their three children.

They hired a tutor to help their oldest daughter, Maddie, with in-person support as she enters advanced classes at Skyline High School. They enrolled their youngest son, Michael, at St. Thomas Catholic School for a quicker return to in-person classes, to go along with online instruction.

But, for their middle child, Alison, the solution is a learning pod created with a neighborhood friend that simultaneously provides social interaction and a peer to go through the online learning process with.

Lena Kauffman understands that being able to make these choices puts her family in a position of privilege for the upcoming school year, but she also sees their solutions as a necessity in a unique set of circumstances caused by COVID-19.

My husband and I feel very lucky that weve had choices, Kauffman said. We know that is not the case for everybody.

The Kauffmans are part of a growing number of families in the Ann Arbor area that are giving learning pods a shot. Some see the pods  groups of three to seven children, often in the same neighborhoods  as a way to help working parents secure reliable childcare. Others want their children to have a break from computer screens and be able to interact with their peers after a lonely spring and summer.

Gov. Whitmer signs back-to-school legislation allowing for virtual learning

But some families are treading lightly, recognizing that learning pods can potentially lead to negative outcomes. Some argue parents that can afford to hire tutors or a nanny to oversee their learning pods could be widening the opportunity gap in already affluent communities, with spots in the groups reserved for people from the same friend circles or neighborhoods.

You have a responsibility to society, but you also have a responsibility to your child  especially if your child is older, Kauffman said. When you get to high school, a lot of these decisions start to matter, because there is less time before graduation. If you have the means to help your child, you will.

Equity was a key consideration in her decision-making process before forming a learning pod with three other families, Ann Arbor parent Danielle Shapiro said. Ultimately, though, it made more sense for the pod to be led by her familys nanny, with the intent of providing social interaction three days a week at different homes in the Water Hill neighborhood.

I think we ultimately felt that our main responsibility was to our child, and I dont think its fair to put this responsibility for the entire community on individual parents, Shapiro said. Theres nothing stopping anyone from leading a pod or volunteering to tutor. Anyone in the community who is invested in kids can do that  not just parents who are scrambling to figure this out for their family.

Sivan Jones sees potential inequities of learning pods being revealed if they arent formed randomly and arent open to all students in a school district. This led her to start the website Family Pod Match.

In just one month, the site has paired up 50 area families based on factors like age, grade level and family COVID-19 safety practices.

Jones is encouraged by the initiative taken by parents, but is concerned some are only interested in forming learning in their own neighborhoods.

I think most parents, when they form a school pod, is to reach out to people they already know, said Jones, who works full time, as does her husband, while caring for two children. It makes sense because those are the people they trust.

The problem with that is, for most people, the people you know are the people who share the same socioeconomic status or race. Then these school pods become disproportionately rich and white.

Finding equitable solutions

While starting the year off with online learning is not where Ann Arbor Public Schools wants to be, Liz Margolis, executive director of student and school safety, said the district is committed to giving families options for maintaining connections outside of the classroom through a network of small groups of students.

The Connections+ learning groups offered by AAPS will eventually allow students to meet in-person at neighborhood partners, such as community centers and apartment complex clubhouses, when in-person school is allowed, while also meeting virtually.

Margolis, cautions against families forming learning pods based strictly on neighborhoods and pre-existing relationships.

It is imperative that we provide equity and opportunity to all AAPS students, especially our black and brown students who have been traditionally underserved, Margolis said. There is a concern that forming these pods based on neighborhoods can create equity issues solely based on how Ann Arbor neighborhoods are populated.

Kentaro Toyama sees the potential pitfalls of hiring a private tutor to lead a learning pod or sending his son to a private school as a temporary solution to the pandemic.

Toyama and his wife, Jasmit, have supervised their young son this spring and summer while he was able to work from home as a University of Michigan faculty member. They wont have that luxury this fall with both working full time, leading them to pursue a learning pod as a way of easing their childcare burden.

For kindergarten, we are not expecting that the school is going to keep them occupied for even half of what would be a normal school day, virtually, he said. I dont think thats their plan, either. There might be an hour or two, at most, of interaction with the teacher or the other school children during the day. That pretty much leaves the rest of the day without even virtual supervision for our child, so my wife and I have to do that.

Back to school parent primer: Pack a mask and other guidance

The couple has formed a learning pod with two other families with kindergarteners at Angell and Bryant elementary schools with the help of Family Learning Pods. They hope to attract two more families, with the idea of each family eventually overseeing the children once a week.

Toyama calls his familys an in between choice of connecting with families at random, without involving hiring a tutor to lead the group.

To be completely honest, the original, main challenge is that our schools are not sufficiently integrated across incomes, Toyama said. We are not sending our kid to a private school, which I think really drives that inequality. On the other hand, we live in Ann Arbor, which is by no means a poor community, so our schools are terrific.

Her familys decision to form a learning pod with neighbor and longtime friend Allison Plagens partially came out of necessity, Lena Kauffman said.

Plagens is newly divorced and needed to find work in the area, complicating her daughters ability to continue attending Ann Arbor Public Schools. She said the learning pod has essentially allowed her to partner with Kauffman and other families who have joined by offering childcare and socialization for her daughter, who is entering sixth grade at Forsythe Middle School.

Right now, Im working 10 hours a week and thats most likely going to be going up to 20 within a month, with potential to grow from there, Plagens said. I have the ability to be home with her right now, but in the future, I dont.

(My daughter) feels like shes lost friends during all of this. In the spring they were on Zoom and had meetings, but after that, its not happening as much as it used to, if at all.

Building a new type of village

In their third year since moving to Ann Arbor from Mississippi, Sylvia and Mike Galaty have yet to form any longstanding friendships, making finding a good fit for a learning pod a difficult task.

With a son entering kindergarten this fall, the family tried forming a social pod this summer with a family with similar quarantine styles and attitudes toward the pandemic. The families traded off childcare responsibilities one day a week, allowing their children to have regular play dates.

Theyre still looking for better matches for a learning pod that will be a new type of village, Sylvia Galaty said, turning down some families they were matched with through Family Pod Match who preferred hiring a nanny or tutor to help the children in their virtual lessons.

Im hesitant to go down that path, because I just want things to go back to normal, she said, referring to hiring a tutor to lead the group. For me, normal is sending your kid to school and not extracting resources away from the local school system. Theres tremendous potential for inequity that is just seething at the surface here.

Gov. Whitmer announces $65M for schools amid coronavirus pandemic, targeting districts with disadvantaged students

Shapiro believes having a tutor lead her sons learning pod is actually less of a strain on Ann Arbor Public Schools, which already is burdened with the challenge of overseeing the individual remote learning of thousands of students.

Im a pediatric neuropsychologist, so (my sons) socio-emotional development was at the forefront of my mind, she said. I knew he wasnt going to have a traditional kindergarten experience, but I wanted him to have peers in some way.

While families might have different ideas on the best ways to form learning pods, there is agreement that the measures being taken by parents are done out of trying to make the best of a less-than-ideal situation.

I see it less in terms of benefits you might take and more in terms of sheer damage control  to lessen the blunt negative impact of being alone all that time, Jesse Kauffman said. I think thats my main hope for it  a modicum of social life connected with school.  My hope is that this is a very short-lived experiment.

To help readers navigate this complicated fall, were pleased to offer you a simpler way to get all of your education news: Our new Michigan Schools: Education in the COVID Era newsletter delivered right to your inbox. To receive this newsletter, simply click here to sign up.

READ MORE:

These are the pros and cons for Michigan parents still looking at education options for the fall

Michigan schools need cash to keep kids safe from coronavirus, but the coffers are running low

Coronavirus risk assessment for Michigan schools: Where and when is it safe to reopen?

This is what Michigan students have to say about going back to school

Kany,
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-24 06:10:17|Editor: huaxia

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LIMA, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Peruvian security forces seized a shipment of 182 kg of cocaine in the Amazonian region of Valle de los Rios Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro (collectively known as Vraem), authorities reported on Sunday.

According to reports from the National Police of Peru (PNP), anti-narcotics agents raided the jungle town of Encarnacion, in the central province of La Mar, uncovering the illicit shipment inside plastic drums.

Anti-drug agents also found about a ton of chemical inputs drug cartels use to process cocaine, said the report.

During the raid, which followed several days of intelligence work in the area, security forces discovered a clandestine laboratory where the drugs were processed.

Authorities estimated the cache of drugs had a street value of 10 million U.S. dollars.

Cocaine processed in Peru is mainly destined for the U.S. drug market through maritime transport. Enditem
Kyrgyzstan registered 134 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, raising the tally of infections in the country to 43,023, Trend reports citing Kabar.

The republican headquarters on COVID-19 said that 6 of the new cases are medical workers, bringing the total number of contracted medical workers to 3,092.

The total recoveries increased to 36,397 with 341 new recoveries for the last 24 hours.

Meanwhile, one virus related death has been registered in the past day, raising the death toll to 1,056.
President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev sent a congratulatory letter to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of the Republic of Turkey.

"Dear Mr President,



Dear Brother,



On my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan, I extend my heartfelt congratulations to you and the brotherly people of Turkey on the occasion of the discovery of the biggest natural gas reserves in Turkey`s history," Azerbaijani president wrote.



"Turkey has made another important step in the field of energy security. The development of this gas field will benefit the brotherly people of Turkey. The discovery of this field also demonstrates Turkey's industrial potential and rising power," the head of state said.



"Azerbaijan and Turkey have for many years been successfully implementing huge energy and transport projects. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum, TANAP, Baku-Tbilisi-Kars projects provide new opportunities for our countries and peoples, strengthening Azerbaijan-Turkey partnership," President Ilham Aliyev wrote.



"I am convinced that other exploration projects being currently implemented by Turkey will be successful too. We are happy for the brotherly Turkey`s success as much as for our own success. I am confident that the Azerbaijani-Turkish brotherhood and friendship will continue to develop and strengthen," the head of state said.



"Availing myself of this opportunity, I wish you strong health, success in your work, and the brotherly people of Turkey everlasting peace and prosperity," Azerbaijani president wrote.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Grab Financial Group expands suite of new financial products under Thrive with Grab strategy

Grab Financial Group expands consumer ecosystem with new financial products and services. including the first micro-investment solution, third-party loan platform and buy-now-pay-later products for e-commerce websites.

Grab Financial Group launches first micro-investment solution, third-party loan platform and buy-now-pay-later products for e-commerce websites

New offerings are part of the companys new Thrive with Grab strategy

Products aim to set a new benchmark for financial services in accessibility, convenience and transparency

new financial products

Grab introduces new financial products (Image: Grab)

Grab Financial Group (GFG), Southeast Asias leading fintech platform, today announced a robust suite of financial products and services  including its first micro-investment solution, AutoInvest  offered by GrabInvest (S) Pte. Ltd. (GrabInvest) that will be launched under a Thrive with Grab strategy, which expands GFGs range of consumer offerings in order to tap into Southeast Asias vast mass market financial services opportunity.

Thrive with Grab marks the next step in GFGs journey, and aims to empower individuals to grow their personal wealth, manage their finances and protect what they value. Building on last years Grow with Grab initiative where GFGs merchant financial services ecosystem was born, Thrive with Grab vastly expands GFGs consumer ecosystem by launching new lending, wealth and insurance products in Singapore and the region in order to provide financial services for consumers in a way that is accessible, convenient and transparent.

The three main products GFG is launching under Thrive with Grab are: AutoInvest, a micro-investment solution that allows users to invest small sums of money while spending in Grabs ecosystem; consumer loans via our third-party loan platform that allows users seamless access to loans from credible partners; and buy-now-pay-later payment plans for select e-commerce websites, so users can manage their finances smartly.

Story continues

Reuben Lai, Senior Managing Director, Grab Financial Group, said: As a leading fintech company in Southeast Asia, our Thrive with Grab strategy will enable users to build their wealth, manage their finances and protect what they value during this uncertain period. By offering innovative micro-transaction-based financial services, convenient financial management tools and access to products from leading global financial institutions, we hope to unlock the tremendous potential in financial services in the region in ways that serve all Southeast Asians.

Since GFG launched its consumer insurance business last year, it has seen robust growth across the region, with more than 13 million insurance policies issued since April 2019. GFG is now one of the largest digital insurance distributors in Southeast Asia for its insurance partner, Chubb. GFG has also expanded Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise (SME) lending to four countries to support its food and payments merchants with working capital loans.

The success of GFGs micro-insurance and SME-lending business points to a deep unmet need across the region for accessible financial services. According to a Google, Temasek and Bain & Company report, more than 70 percent of Southeast Asians are underbanked while an estimated US$75 billion in assets under management will flow to digital channels by 2025. GFG aims to tap this massive opportunity in order to improve financial inclusion and unlock new revenue streams for Grab.

Grabs new financial products helps to grow your wealth

With its Bento acquisition earlier this year, GFG aims to democratise wealth management through micro-investments that make investments accessible to everyone. GFGs first micro-investment solution, AutoInvest, allows Singapore users to invest as they spend with their everyday Grab transactions. With AutoInvest, Singapore users choose how much they want to invest per Grab transaction, from as low as $1, earning returns of an estimated 1.8 percent per annum, that can be cashed out directly to their GrabPay wallet. AutoInvest sets GrabPay apart from other e-wallets by allowing users to invest their wallet balance easily. The invested sum can then be withdrawn at any time, with no penalties, to spend on Grab services or at any merchant accepting the GrabPay Card.

Chandrima Das, Head of Wealth, Grab Financial Group, said: We are excited to launch AutoInvest, the first-of-its-kind micro-investment solution in Singapore that allows users to invest as they spend. AutoInvest is our commitment to bring value to our consumers and partners with innovative, accessible and easy-to-understand investment solutions. As we build out our wealth management offerings under GFGs Thrive with Grab strategy, we aim to better provide millions across SEA with the opportunity to invest in financial products traditionally limited to affluent individuals and institutional investors.

AutoInvest monies are invested into high-quality, liquid fixed income funds offered by Fullerton Fund Management and UOB Asset Management. AutoInvest charges a low all-inclusive fee, and will be available to eligible users in Singapore via the Invest tile managed by GrabInvest in the Grab app in early September.

Grabs new financial products help you you manage your finances

Demand for online consumer lending continues to grow as more Southeast Asians transact digitally. External research has shown that more than one-third of consumers are willing to shift some banking activities, such as loans, to non-bank digital platforms. Today, GFG is one of the fastest-growing fintech lenders by disbursals. Together with our partner OVO, we have close to 400,000 outstanding loans and financing solutions across consumers, driver- and merchant-partners in Q1 2020.

To meet this emerging opportunity, GFG will launch a third-party consumer loan platform, starting in Singapore, before expanding to Malaysia and other countries. Consumers will be able to discover personal loans offered by GFGs licensed bank partners to service their everyday borrowing needs. The innovative end-to-end platform will see bank partners and GFG integrate their APIs to enable users to access and securely apply for the loans directly within the Grab app.

GFG is also expanding its buy-now-pay-later line of offerings by launching PayLater Instalments and PayLater Postpaid on select e-commerce sites in Singapore and Malaysia in October. This enables eligible users to better manage their cash flow by letting them shop online now and pay in interest-free instalments with leading furniture, beauty fashion retailers. Eligible users can choose to split their purchase into monthly instalments (PayLater Instalments), or defer their payment to the following month (PayLater Postpaid).

Grabs new financial products brings you peace of mind

Since launching insurance last year, GFG has established itself as a fast-growing regional distributor, working with leading insurance companies to distribute more than 13 million paid-for policies across Southeast Asia to date. In August last year, GFG and NTUC Income also jointly launched Southeast Asias first micro-insurance plan for critical illness in an innovative pay-per-trip structure for driver-partners.

This year, GFG launched its Ride Cover micro-insurance policy in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Ride Cover protects users while on Grab rides and will expand into more countries in Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, by the end of this year. In the coming months, GFG will also launch a new product, Hospital Cash Cover, in Indonesia, to protect users when they are hospitalised. This will be GFGs first hospitalisation insurance plan for consumers.

This launch represents a key milestone in building on our success last year, where we launched our merchant ecosystem. Today, Thrive with Grab is all about building a world-class consumer ecosystem, as we want to empower individuals and small businesses across the region to meet their diverse needs through financial services by delivering products and solutions that are accessible, transparent and convenient, concluded Reuben.

The post New financial products introduced by Grab as new strategy appeared first on iCompareLoan Resources.
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Johannesburg, South Africa  Sun, August 23, 2020 15:01 514 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066fd0237 2 People oldest-person,oldest-man,South-Africa,people,Fredie-Blom Free

A 116-year-old survivor of the 1918 Spanish Flu believed to be among the world's oldest people died Saturday in South Africa, his family said.

Born on May 8 1904, Fredie Blom had "lived this long because of God's grace," he told AFP this year.

Guinness World Records lists the oldest currently living man as Briton Bob Weighton, aged 112, but South African media have described Blom as "unofficially" the world's oldest.

Blom's entire family was wiped out by the Spanish Flu pandemic when he was just a teenager.

But he himself survived and went on to raise the three children of his wife of 46 years, Jeanette, as his own, becoming grandfather to five over the years.

Read also: One of world's oldest men marks 116th birthday in South Africa

"Two weeks ago oupa (grandfather) was still chopping wood," family spokesman Andre Naidoo told AFP fondly, recalling the old man using a 4 pound hammer.

"He was a strong man, full of pride," he added.

But within 3 days, his family saw him shrink "from a big man to a small person".

Born in the rural town of Adelaide, tucked near the Great Winterberg mountain range of South Africa's Eastern Cape province, Blom died at Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town.

His death was "not a COVID death at all, it's normal natural death," Naidoo said in reference to the coronavirus pandemic.
A huge amount of explosives, including a jacket, has been recovered from the house of the suspected ISIS operative in a village of Uttar Pradesh on Sunday, after he was arrested in Delhi, news agency ANI reported.

ANI, citing sources, said the jacket was allegedly prepared for a fidayeen attack.

The Delhi Police had said on Saturday that they have arrested Mohammed Mushtaqeem Khan, a 36-year-old suspected operative of the Islamic State. Police said Khan had planned a lone wolf terror strike in a high footfall area in the Capital using a high-intensity pressure cooker-based improvised explosive device (IED).

The police team had reached Balrampur on Saturday with Khan, who was arrested from Ridge Road area in central Delhi following a brief exchange of fire on Friday night. Police said they had recovered two pressure cooker IEDs weighing around 15kg, a.30 bore pistol and four cartridges that Khan was carrying in a bag. Khan was on a white TVS Apache motorcycle at the time of his arrest.

Pramod Kushwaha, deputy commissioner of police (Special Cell), said that they had been tracking the contacts of the IS operative for the past one year. Kushwaha said Khan was in direct touch with the commanders of Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) in Afghanistan through social media platforms.

He was connected with ISIS for the last many years and was directly in touch with ISIS commanders. He was handled by Yusuf Alhindi, who was killed in Syria later. After that, Abu Huzafa, a Pakistani, was handling him, he said during a press briefing. His next handler instructed him to operate as a lone wolf operative from India, the senior official had said.

In a press statement, police said Khans interrogation has revealed that his original plan was to carry out the IED blasts during the Independence Day celebrations on August 15. However, because of the heavy security arrangements, Khan could not enter the city and had to drop the terror strike plan, Kushwaha said.

He said Khan confessed to the police that he tested the explosive device at his village a few months ago.
Alex Wong/Getty ImagesBY: ADAM KELSEY, ABC NEWS



(NEW YORK) -- Hours after recordings of President Donald Trump's sister surfaced -- in which she describes her brother as having "no principles," and alleged that "he doesn't read" and had someone take his college entrance exams on his behalf -- White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows came to the president's defense Sunday, characterizing the claims as an inaccurate portrayal of the man he works for.



"The president that I have the privilege of serving is not the one that's being described on a 15-hour  secret tape," Meadows said on ABC's "This Week" Sunday.



In audio captured by Trump's niece, Mary and provided to The Washington Post, Maryanne Trump Barry, a retired U.S. Circuit Court judge, describes her brother as phony and "cruel" and details the allegation that a man named Joe Shapiro took the SATs for him.



"The president has denied this, but why would his sister lie about it in what she thought was a private conversation? Does the president have any evidence at all to back up his denial?" ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Meadows.



Meadows pointed to pushback from the widow of a friend of Trump's named Joe Shapiro, but Mary Trump claims the test was taken by a different man with the same name. The chief of staff went on to refute the claims about Trump's reading habits.



"You may see him when he goes to Marine One, there's a cardboard box that is brought on Marine One. What's in there are clippings and clippings, each and every day," Meadows said. "He reads probably more than anybody I know, which causes me to have to read more because every morning he's giving me a to-do list. Every evening he's giving me a to-do list."



"So listen this is politics as usual, by a niece that was written out of a will, that apparently just has an axe to grind because she wants Joe Biden to be president" he continued, referencing a family battle over Trump's father Fred's estate, after saying earlier, "You know, just another day and another attack," echoing the president's own response to the recordings.



"Every day its something else, who cares," Trump said in a statement on Saturday.



In the interview, Stephanopoulos additionally challenged Meadows on Trump's tweet Saturday alleging that "The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics," and claiming the process was being delayed until after the election.



"What evidence does the president have that the FDA is manipulating this process, this approval process, for political reasons?" Stephanopoulos asked.



"This president is about cutting red tape. That's what the tweet was all about," the chief of staff said, after first refuting that anything was being "manipulated." "He had to make sure that they felt the heat. If they don't see the light, they need to feel the heat because the American people are suffering, this president knows it, and he's going to put it on wherever -- the FDA or NIH or anybody else to make sure that we deliver on behalf of the American people."



Asked why Trump doesn't fire the FDA commissioner if he truly believes political preferences are interfering, Meadows acknowledged that the administration "looked at a number of people that are not being as diligent as they should be" and that it intends to convey a greater sense of "urgency."



"We've actually had people that have been relocated," he said.



The FDA has not responded to the president's tweet but FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn shared a tweet from the White House press secretary that promoted his participation in the president's Sunday evening news conference.



On Saturday, Meadows visited the Capitol as the House returned from its August recess to pass a $25 billion bill to fund the U.S. Postal Service. The chief of staff attempted to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but she was unavailable. Meadows later criticized Pelosi for holding a vote on the Postal Service but being unwilling to isolate other priorities from the stalled coronavirus relief bill for separate votes.



He continued the argument on "This Week" Sunday, describing the House legislation as an unserious bill that "doesn't do anything to sustain the Postal System long term." Meadows, who noted that the administration had earlier offered $10 billion in funding for the USPS, said he was planning to call Pelosi later in the day and attempt to negotiate a deal that packages several relief proposals together as an alternative.



"If we agree on five or six things, let's go ahead and pass those," he said. "Why did you not do it yesterday? But let's go ahead and pass it. I spoke to the president early this morning, he's willing to sign that, including Postal Service reform."



Pelosi hasn't responded Meadows' comments.



Stephanopoulos also pressed Meadows about followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which the FBI has labeled a domestic terrorism threat and has been denounced by several prominent Republicans. Asked about the group -- which believes, in part, that Trump is trying to save the world from a powerful cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles -- Wednesday, the president said he knew little about it but "appreciate(s)" their support.



"Is that supposed to be a bad thing or a good thing? he asked. "If I can help save the world from problems, I am willing to do it. Im willing to put myself out there.



"Why won't the president condemn this group and disavow their support?" Stephanopoulos asked.



"Listen, I had to Google it to figure out what it is," Meadows said, adding, "If you look at the top 20 priorit(ies), QAnon is not on it. It's probably not on the top 50. You know, it's time that we get serious about questions and move on."



Copyright  2020, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
This week the International Space University, based in Strasbourg, France, ended its first virtual Interactive Space Program, or ISP.

The ISP is an online development program for scientists in different fields of expertise. It trains them to work together in groups, using space resources, to prepare for space flight and related projects.

The ISP is structured to be like a real space mission. About a month before the five-week program began, the groups received training on team dynamics and communication skills. They also learned how to use digital tools for sharing documents, team-building and social exchanges.

Thirty nationalities

Eighty-six men and women, representing 30 different nationalities, took part in the latest Interactive Space Program, called ISP 2020. The participants learned about all areas of study linked to space exploration. Like members of an actual space flight crew, they worked closely with space experts during the program.

The director of the ISP 2020, Goktug Karacaloglu, spoke with VOA about the participants.

So, ISU in general, not particularly this program, operates on a more almost intergenerational setting so we have participants starting from new graduates at the age of 20, 21. And we have participants, even in this program, at the age of 60 plus who are senior managers in their institutions or organizations. And generally, the average age is around 35. I can definitely say the network that we have at ISU, especially through our alumni -- and we have alumni [from] around 110 countries, at the moment, represented -- that network is actually one of the driving factors for people to ISU programs.

This year 12 of the participants came from India, which has a growing space program. Four of the 12 were awarded a scholarship honoring the Indian American astronaut Kalpana Chawla. She was the first Indian-born woman in space. She was one of the seven astronauts killed when the U.S. space shuttle Columbia broke up when reentering Earths atmosphere on February 1, 2003.





Mission: solve pandemics

Just like real astronauts, the participants were asked to complete a simulated space mission. Karacaloglu explains:

The topic of this year, this particular program, is how space -- space technology, space assets in general -- can help the current and the next future pandemics, to solve the situation.

On many days, the program began with a talk by an expert from a space agency official or representative. Alumni of the program talked to the participants at other times. One of its most famous alumni is American Jessica Meir. She spoke with the participants this summer about her work with NASA, the U.S. space agency. Meir was part of the first all-female spacewalk in history.

The interactive training also involved practical aspects of space and health crises, including pandemics. The participants were given a chance to use satellite and communications technology. Other areas of study were artificial intelligence and medical fields. Speakers talked about business, international cooperation and other issues.

Focus areas

These talks were followed by individual and teamwork activities. ISP participants worked in teams with members in different time zones. They studied space and health issues related to pandemics. Karacaloglu said the teams closely examined four areas.

One is how to monitor pandemics from space, the second one is how to mitigate for a future event, how to prevent and how to be prepared. So actually we have these four different teams, each team actually going much more into depth in each of these areas.

Stress & challenges

As part of the ISP 2020 experience, the participants were required to perform activities not directly related to space exploration. They had to grow food, cook something, get physical exercise -- such as walking a certain distance -- and plant a tree. Working with speakers of other languages made them communicate better in English. Working across time zones made them understand how astronauts feel as they circle the planet during a typical workday.

Student Reports:

At the end of the program, each team produced a report and made a presentation on how space can help fight pandemics. The university says the presentations were given to representatives of the World Health Organization and decision-makers from around the world.

Im Jill Robbins.

Jill Robbins reported on this story for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

Quiz- International Space University Program Prepares Scientists to Battle Health Crises Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

resource  n. something that provides support or much-needed supplies

dynamics  n. the behavioral relationships between members of a group that are given connected work or duties

alumni  n. pl. people who were students at a particular school, college, or university

scholarship  n. financial aid for knowledge and education

artificial intelligence  n. an area of computer science that deals with giving machines the ability to act and make decisions like humans

time zone  n. an area within which the same time is used

monitor  v. to watch, observe or listen to, or check for a special purpose over a period of time

mitigate  v. to make (something) less severe, harmful, or painful

intergenerational  adj. occurring between or involving people of different age groups

How has knowledge from the space program affected your life? Write to us in the Comments Section.
Japan and Laos have agreed to ease entry restrictions imposed in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Long-term residents will be allowed to travel between the two countries as early as September.

Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu and his Laotian counterpart Saleumxay Kommasith met in Laos on Sunday.

The ministers also confirmed that the two countries will speed up coordination in order to permit short-term visitors as soon as possible, including business people.

Motegi said Japan intends to resume admitting government-sponsored Laotian students soon.

Saleumxay expressed gratitude for the plan.

After the meeting, the ministers signed an agreement where Japan will offer Laos about 22.6 million dollars in grant aid for projects, including the construction and renovation of institutions to train teachers.
The Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) has provided Hong Kong residents with a better life and every resident should cherish the Basic Law and "one country, two systems," HKSAR Chief Executive Carrie Lam said in a video series released on Saturday.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the promulgation of the Basic Law and enhance the public's understanding of the Basic Law provisions, the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau of the HKSAR government rolled out a video series that feature six themes, namely "Origin of the Basic Law," "Drafting and Consultation," "Rights and Freedom," "Rule of Law," "International Financial Center" and "Looking Ahead."

A spokesman from the bureau said the video series review the guidelines of "one country, two systems" and the origin of the Basic Law, examine the safeguard of institutions under the Basic Law, and analyse the ways that the Basic Law enables the HKSAR to preserve its strengths and maintain its prosperity and stability, and its residents to enjoy their pleasant living.

Lam said in the video series that in retrospect, Hong Kong has successfully weathered some economic challenges, demonstrating that the Basic Law is feasible.

Lam stressed that Hong Kong is an inseparable part of the People's Republic of China and the HKSAR is directly under the central government. Therefore, understanding and mastering the relationship between Hong Kong and the central authorities runs through the understanding and implementation of the Basic Law.

She hoped that all Hong Kong residents will work hard to ensure the implementation of "one country, two systems" in Hong Kong.
In April, in the panic of the oil price crisis, the OPEC+ countries pledged to cut oil production in the context that demand for consumption has plummeted due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Oil producers agreed to a deep cut in production over the past few months and the reduction for September 2020 as planned by OPEC+ will be 7.7 million barrels per day (bpd).

The OPEC+ countries efforts to stabilise the market over the past time have shown results. After falling less than US$20 per barrel in April, the price of Brent crude oil stood at US$42-45 per barrel in July, although demand for oil worldwide is still very low as the epidemic continues to cast a shadow on the global economic growth.

After avoiding a price crisis, OPEC+ countries have now quickly regained their positions and agreed to work together to maintain production cut at the highest level ever.

However, according to analysts, it is very difficult for the OPEC+ members to keep their word and the implementation of the commitment is facing many challenges.

In fact, some member countries have not fulfilled their commitments yet. According to market analysis by S&P Global, while JMMC set the overall output quota compliance of OPEC+ members at 97%, Iraqs compliance rate in July 2020 was only 83% and of Nigeria was 65%.

This is the reason why at the meeting on August 19, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdul Aziz bin Salman highlighted cuts, compliance and compensation as the foundation of the effort to rebalance the oil market.

Another big challenge is that as the global economy continues to struggle the demand for oil will not increase. At present, although oil inventories have decreased, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted that even though demand will increase slightly in the second half of this year, the general outlook remains gloomy with unpredictable hidden factors.

The IEA recently revised down its forecast for oil consumption by 140,000 bpd in 2020 and 240,000 bpd in 2021. Oil demand may drop more sharply than forecast amid the pace of growth of leading economies such as the US, Japan and the European Union (EU) slowing down.

In the world's second largest economy, China, oil consumption has returned to pre-pandemic levels, but US-China trade tensions may erode market prospects.

Meanwhile, many oil-dependent economies of OPEC have faced numerous difficulties, forcing them to tear barriers to adjust their oil export quotas. For example, Saudi Arabia will also face many challenges in the near future. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recently adjusted for Saudi Arabia's 2020 GDP forecast, down by 6.8%, rather than the 2.3% as in IMFs April forecast.

Analysts said that US shale oil and gas will also be a factor that can hinder OPEC+s efforts to reduce output and increase oil prices. Although shale oil output has dropped by 2 million bpd in the past time compared to 13.1 million bpd in mid-March, the WTI US shale oil price remained at over US$40 per barrel in July. In addition, US energy companies are not responsible for complying with OPEC+s production cut regulations, so shale oil companies are likely to undermine the organisation's plan to cut production.

With the consensus at the recent video meeting, OPEC+ has affirmed its determination to continue to extend the production reduction plan, which has been carried out from 2017 until 2022. This plan is based on the basis that most analysts believe that the global market will shift from oversupply to undersupply due to production cuts and then demand will recover.

However, in the context of the many above-said challenges and the world economy still being heavily dependent on the evolution of the COVID-19, it is not easy for OPEC+ to fulfil its commitments.
Leading Japan-based specialty pharmaceutical company Kyowa Kirin International has announced the opening of its new office in Dubai Healthcare City.

The new regional representative office was inaugurated by Dr Amin Hussein Al Amiri, Assistant Under-Secretary for Public Health Policy and Licensing Sector in the Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP). With this launch, the total number of scientific offices operating in the UAE has risen to 78.

The opening ceremony was attended by Akima Umezawa, Consul-General of Japan in Dubai; Toshifumi Mikayama, Director of the board, Senior Managing Executive Officer of Kyowa Kirin; Dr. Ramadan Al Balushi, CEO of Dubai Healthcare City; and Abdul Molik, Head of Global Markets for the company; as well as other senior officials from the MoHAP.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Al Amiri said: "The UAE continues to attract global pharmaceutical companies to run their operations for the region, thanks to the countrys strong and unique business infrastructure, which helped create a competitive business environment."

"The countrys regulatory facilities have also resulted in creating investment opportunities attractive to pharmaceutical companies. The new office would help stimulate more Japanese pharmaceutical companies to invest in the UAE and the region," he noted.

The Ministry of Health, he stated, was committed to strengthening its partnerships with international pharmaceutical companies, driving innovation and bringing the latest innovative drug pipelines to patients in the UAE, and supporting the countrys pharmaceutical economics.

"As a global pharmaceutical company, we have an important role and responsibility for saving the lives of patients and improving their life quality. The launch of Kyowa Kirins operations in the UAE reflects the global expansion strategy of the company, aiming to harness its capabilities to add a new value to the sustainable growth," observed Mikayama.

"We are interested in investing in the UAE and the wider region and are keen to develop a strong partnership with the Ministry of Health through sharing expertise and innovations," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
"We just heard that the Health minister has called on us to go back to work, but he is yet to engage us," he said. "We also need to be heard and share our side of the story."
Kim Kardashian is planning to expand her business empire to include a skincare line.

The 39-year-old reality star has now filed to trademark 'KKW Skin,' according to legal documents obtained by TMZ.

Her newest venture follows her success with her Skims shapewear and her KKW Beauty cosmetics line.

New business: Kim Kardashian, 39, plans to start a skincare company after trademarking KKW Skin, according to TMZ; pictured in 2018

According to the documents, Kim plans to sell the KKW Skin products in retail outlets that are well known for selling skincare products and cosmetics.

She also listed the many different products she might make under her new brand: moisturizers, creams, lotions, cleansers, body and face scrubs, face masks, facial and body oils, scrubs and more.

This business move comes after her younger sister Kylie Jenner expanded her focus to skincare with the launch of Kylie Skin last year.

Kim first made her entry into cosmetics in June 2017 with the launch of KKW Beauty, as well as her perfume line KKW Fragrance, which was launched in November of the same year.

KKW Beauty became a billion-dollar brand in June, after the cosmetic conglomerate Coty purchased a 20 percent stake in the company for $200 million, meaning the company was valued at $1 billion.

Expanding: She plans to sell her KKW Skin products in retail outlets that sell cosmetics and skin care; shown in 2018

Coming soon: Potential products could include: moisturizers, creams, lotions, cleansers, body and face scrubs, face masks, facial and body oils, scrubs and more; shown in 2018

Kim's youngest sister Kylie Jenner also received a massive buyout from Coty for her Kylie Cosmetics line, though hers was even larger.

Coty purchased 51 percent of her brand for $600 million, which was believed to have made her a billionaire until Forbes corrected its estimates and claimed it had been shown tax draft returns with inflated numbers.

Unlike Kylie's case, Kim still retains a majority share of her cosmetics company.

In June of last year, the reality star announced she was launching a line of shapewear products under the name Kimono, which featured her own name but is also the name of a traditional Japanese garment.

After fans and critics criticized the use of the name, which they considered exploitative of Japanese culture, she changed the company's name to Skims.

New ventures: Kim launched KKW Cosmetics in June 2017, followed by KKW Fragrance in November 2017 and Skims in 2019; pictured with Kris Jenner in 2018

This weekend, Kim appeared to spend some quality time with her daughter North, seven, her husband Kanye West, 43, and her sister Kourtney Kardashian, 41.

She shared a photo of herself and North paddle boarding, though it wasn't clear if it was taken recently or during a trip to Wyoming, where Kanye has been living in recent weeks.

The rapper returned to Los Angeles over the weekend following a short stop in New York amid his long-shot presidential campaign.

He and Kim have been living apart amid the stresses of his attempts at a political career and his recent mental health crises, which she addressed publicly on social media.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 03:27:38|Editor: huaxia

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A street vendor waits for customers in front of a billboard promoting the use of face masks in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, Aug. 21, 2020. Ethiopia's confirmed COVID-19 cases reached 39,033 after 1,368 new COVID-19 positive cases were confirmed on Saturday, the country's Ministry of Health said. (Xinhua/Michael Tewelde)

ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia's confirmed COVID-19 cases reached 39,033 after 1,368 new COVID-19 positive cases were confirmed on Saturday, the country's Ministry of Health said.

The ministry said in a statement that 25 more patients succumbed to illnesses related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought the total number of COVID-19 related deaths in the East African country to 662.

According to the ministry, some 14,480 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 had recovered, including 567 in the last 24-hour period.

The ministry also said that a total of 23,889 COVID-19 patients are still undergoing medical treatment, including 251 in severe condition.

Ethiopia, Africa's second-most populous nation with about 107 million people, has the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the East Africa region.

The country, however, has a far lower number of recoveries as compared to Kenya, the region's second-most affected country.

Kenya has a total number of 18,453 recoveries so far, according to Mutahi Kagwe, Kenya's cabinet secretary for health. The number of COVID-19 cases in the country reached 32,118 on Saturday, after 355 people tested positive to the disease.

Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa is currently the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic accounting for about 70 percent of all confirmed COVID-19 cases, according to the ministry. Ethiopia confirmed its first case of COVID-19 on March 13.

The East African country has so far conducted 736,904 COVID-19 medical tests, including 19,776 medical tests during the last 24-hour period, according to the ministry.

Amid the rapid spread of the virus in recent weeks, the government is intensifying its mass COVID-19 testing campaign.

The Ethiopian government is mobilizing resources to ensure there is no shortage of laboratory materials and quarantine centers.

Ethiopia is also boosting its COVID-19 testing capacity at border points with neighboring countries.

According to figures from the Africa CDC, Ethiopia, South Africa and Morocco are among the top African countries that have conducted the highest numbers of COVID-19 tests.

Ethiopia has officially launched a nationwide month-long testing campaign, which the Ethiopian government said "will determine the next steps to undertake in the new year" starting on Sept. 11.

As the East African country strengthened the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese engagement has injected much-needed momentum in Ethiopia's anti-pandemic efforts. Earlier this month, Chinese technology and social media giant ByteDance donated 100,000 COVID-19 testing kits in support of Ethiopia's anti-COVID-19 pandemic efforts. Enditem
Belarus: The President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus was clutching an assault rifle and wearing a bullet proof vest as thousands of people took to the streets near his residence in the capital Minsk.

After a week of rallies and publicity stunts in support of Lukashenko, who has led Belarus, a former Soviet republic, since 1994, many expected the protests against him to ebb. But by late Sunday afternoon, a sea of people had filled the main Independence Avenue in central Minsk, blocking all traffic there and on side streets.

Anti-government protesters walk past riot police as part of the near daily rallies against the Belarus president. Credit:Getty Images

The spilled out of Independence Square, the home of parliament and other government buildings. Demonstrators chanted "MTZ," in honor of striking workers at the Minsk Tractor Plant, and "Tribunal," a call for Lukashenko to face justice.

After the rally ended peacefully, Russian and Belarusian media published a video showing Lukashenko arriving at his Minsk residence in a bulletproof vest and carrying an automatic rifle.
Portland police repeatedly blocked a march to an East Portland police building late Saturday before officers ultimately used force to break up the crowd. Police said they decided to advance after people in the group shot paintballs and threw objects at the building.

The immediate response by officers  to block the path of what had been a nonviolent march  contrasted with police actions hours earlier downtown. The police bureau faced criticism from Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty and others after failing to break up sometimes-violent clashes between right-wing police supporters and counter-protesters Saturday afternoon. Similar types of events have attracted heavy policing since they started several years ago.

Portland police made repeated announcements to stop, but never moved in. The bureau acknowledged in a press release that the duel demonstrations met the definition of a riot. But police said they decided not to proclaim one in part because only 30 officers were on hand to respond to the crowd.

That was not the case later Saturday during a nightly demonstration that typically draws out police. More than one dozen officers quickly blocked marchers from crossing two Interstate 84 overpasses. Marchers had planned to go to a police building on East Burnside Street. They eventually found their way to the building. Officers declared a riot for the third time in four nights.

Here are the key turning points from the overnight demonstration, which capped the 87th consecutive night of protests against police violence and anti-Black racism.

March blocked:

About 200 people left Normandale Park in Northeast Portland to march to the Penumbra Kelly Building, a law enforcement building shared by police and sheriffs deputies on East Burnside Street. Demonstrations outside local police buildings gained traction in early August after federal officers stopped responding to crowds downtown. Some people in the group regularly throw things or damage public property to draw out police, ostensibly as a way to drain police resources.

The groups plans for Saturday encountered a logistical issue: the park where people met is north of Interstate 84, and the police building is south. That left only a few possible routes across the freeway.

As the march began, people chanted, Say his name! Quanice Hayes! Who killed him? PPB! Hayes was 17 when he was shot and killed by Portland police in 2017.

The march grew to 300 people and encountered police as it neared Northeast 53rd Avenue overpass. Protesters paused, then navigated through neighborhood streets toward the next overpass on 47th Avenue. Police were waiting.

Around 10 p.m., an officer used a loudspeaker to announce the overpass was closed. The officer said some people had thrown projectiles toward officers standing several dozen yards away near the south side of the overpass. The Oregonian/OregonLives journalists did not see objects thrown.

Within a few minutes, marchers slowly backed away and turned around. As they did so, police blocked their route again. Eventually people decided to drive separately to the Penumbra Kelly Building and reconvene.

Protester actions, police declaration:

By 11 p.m., the crowd numbered at least 300 outside the Penumbra Kelly Building. Some people in the crowd represented parents and veterans groups that became a common sight at demonstrations in July, but have not been as visible in recent weeks.

Police used a loudspeaker to issue repeated warnings not to enter the property and sometimes called out specific people. The man in the gray shirt with the backpack, move off the property now.

Someone briefly pushed a replica guillotine with a teddy bear in the driveway. An officer walked near it to take a picture. Police otherwise stayed away.

Most protesters stood around and continued to chant to the beat of snare drums.

Around 11:20 p.m., a few people started throwing water bottles into the driveway. One person pointed a green laser toward the building. Another person aimed paintballs toward it. Police remained out of sight. The crowd chanted, Whose lives matter? Black lives matter!

Just before 11:40 p.m., police declared the gathering an unlawful assembly and ordered people to leave, citing the paintballs and projectiles, such as water bottles.

Police push:

Dozens of officers arrived on foot within five minutes of the unlawful assembly declaration. Police set off smoke canisters and stun grenades, used pepper spray, shot impact munitions and sometimes shoved people to get them to move.

At one point, an officer pushed a protester to the ground and briefly detained the person before letting them go. Some officers pulled the shields out of peoples hands with force that caused people to fall. Other officers also pushed people at times on the sidewalk, including journalists and legal observers. Officers intermittently ran toward people to force the crowd farther west.

Police pressed people through residential streets to Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard, almost 10 blocks west from the building.

During the push, some people threw things such as paint at officers. One of those objects smashed a police vehicle window.

Police instantly declared the gathering a riot and pressed again toward the crowd around midnight.

After police began to retreat, people threw more objects at a van carrying officers. Officers threw canisters that released a harsh irritant into the air.

About 150 people made their way back to the police building, and police quickly moved in again around 12:35 a.m. to press people away by using many of the same force tactics. After police retreated, a smaller group of protesters stacked some road barriers in the middle of a street and set the pile on fire.

Demonstrations opposing racism and police brutality have happened nightly since late May, when George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police. Most of the protests throughout the city Saturday were peaceful.

Read more:

Sean Meagher, Eder Campuzano, Brooke Herbert and K. Rambo of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this report.

-- Molly Harbarger; mharbarger@oregonian.com; @mollyharbarger

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 10:46:43|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- China's national observatory on Sunday issued a blue alert for rainstorms in several provinces and regions.

From 8 a.m. Sunday to 8 a.m. Monday, torrential rains are expected to lash parts of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei, Beijing, Tianjin, Liaoning and the Sichuan Basin, the National Meteorological Center said.

The center warned that certain areas of Beijing and Sichuan Basin will experience downpours.

According to the forecast, some regions are likely to see over 60 mm of hourly precipitation, accompanied by thunderstorms and gales.

The center advised the public to stay vigilant for possible flooding, landslides and mudslides, and suggested halting outdoor activities in disaster-prone areas.

China has a four-tier, color-coded weather warning system, with red representing the most severe, followed by orange, yellow, and blue. Enditem
DUBAI: A fire at Irans Natanz nuclear facility last month was the result of sabotage, the spokesman for Irans Atomic Energy Organisation told state TV channel al-Alam on Sunday.

The explosion at Natanz nuclear facility was a result of sabotage operations, security authorities will reveal in due time the reason behind the blast," said Behrouz Kamalvandi.

Irans top security body in July said that the cause of the fire had been determined but would be announced later. Iranian officials said that the fire had caused significant damage that could slow the development of advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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
By Chloe McMillan

I lost my dad from an unexpected heart attack five years ago. I cant bear to lose anyone else in my family. However, its entirely possible I will, or that they will lose me. That scares me. Its possible to stop most of the deaths, but people across this country arent taking this virus seriously. So thousands are dying every day in ICUs. Our own government is failing to enact the most basic measures to protect people.

As of right now, there have been at least 5.6 million confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States, with nearly 177,000 deaths. Someone once told me that death numbers like those tell us about a statistic, but that one person dying tells us a story. This is my story. It is a story of loss, of pain, of regret. It is a story of one person dying, and a story I hope no one else has to experience.

I lost my dad to an unanticipated heart attack when I was 9. I started crying the day he died, and I didnt stop crying until three years later. When one family member dies, a piece of everyone in the family dies, too. Theres not a single day that I didnt think about my dad. I loved how he would read The School for Good and Evil to me before bed and make fun of my figure skating moves at dinner.

Now when I think of all the precious memories I have of him I can look back and smile. But then? For the longest time all I could think of how he would never see me go through high school, or graduate. He would never be there to help me with my homework, or my goals.

He would never meet my first boyfriend. I would never feel his pride for me when I got into my dream college. He would never walk me down the aisle or meet my kids. All I could think of were the moments Id never share with him.

Wed never again share such things as watching movies together or shopping for winter clothes. For a while, after he died, whenever my friends would complain about their parents and the annoying things they did, it would make me angry. They didnt know how lucky they were to even have two parents. Losing him made me realize how much he and everybody in my family really meant to me. Death stripped away my feelings that my family was invincible, immortal, and forever there for me.

Death made me realize that you should remind people how much they mean to you every day because they could pass away out of the blue like he did. My dad dying is the reason I am terrified of the coronavirus. I dont know what I would do without my mom or brothers. If they were to die, I would be lost.

Thats why it makes me so angry as I see states with high infection and death rates. Despite what people want to believe, the pandemic is worse now than it was back in March. I see people proudly boasting about not wearing masks, politicians downplaying this as no big deal. While I am lucky that New Jersey is faring better than most states right now, the government is now urging students and teachers across the country back into classrooms this fall, something that terrifies me as a student. The idea of me or my brothers dying seems like a real possibility.

Sometimes, it feels like a part of me died with him that day because of all the things that are different without him. Thats why it angers me when I see people who think that they wont die because of the pandemic. We all die. But we dont have to die early or unnecessarily. We dont have to bring death to other families because we ignored this virus.

I will never be the person I might have been if my father had lived. I have heard people say that when an older person dies, its like a library burning down. All the wisdom they held, the experiences they had, the insights they had, all that dies with them. Its not just that I have missed games and movies. I have missed out on my fathers wisdom and the things he knew that could have shaped and directed me into adulthood.

I cant make memories with my dad or grow under his guidance, but you still have a chance to do that with your family. And we can still prevent more needless deaths. Stay in. Be healthy. Be thankful. Hug each other. Say, I love you, every day and mean it. And most importantly, take action safely against the government policies that are making this pandemic worse. Sign petitions and vote. Remember, a COVID-19 death kills more than the victim. It kills a part of everything they leave behind.

Chloe McMillan is a freshman at Madison High School.

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Why the Violence Would Increase Under Biden

Commentary

Its easy to see why Joe Biden omitted even a glancing reference in his presidential nomination acceptance speech to the violence thats overwhelming so many of our cities.

He couldnt figure out how to do it without exposing his partys egregious policies in those cities.

From Portland, Oregon, where the bloody uprisings have been going on for 80 days with no end in sight, to New York Cityonce the envy of the world, now turned into a public garbage dump and latrine for the drug-addicted homeless and child molesters, its citizenry fleeing in drovesDemocratic officials have proven to be a collection of virtue-signaling prima donnas lost between their sympathies for the demonstrators (including violent ones with whom some seem to identify) and an absolute cluelessness about what to do about the escalating situation.

Whatever they do, they dare not offend the sainted demonstrators by calling for law enforcement, lest they (Democratic mayors, governors, attorneys general, and so forth) be accused of racisma fools game if there ever were one, since everybody is, eventually, declared a racist. Thats how it rolls in todays America.

Exceptions are, of course, when the mayors of Seattle and Chicagowith mind-bending hypocrisysuddenly screamed for the cops when their own homes were under assault, something they never did for the benighted people of their cities, especially the poor they pretend to support.

In the case of Chicago, we have been watching the bodies pile up for years, turning the city into a virtual killing field for black people.

Meanwhile, those working stiffs known as the police, under constant assault by the moral narcissists of the left, are retiring across the country at a record ratewho could blame themleaving cities undefended while Antifa and Black Lives Matter leadership continue their pursuit of revolution.

Its worth remembering BLMs leaders are avowed trained Marxists. Marxism has led to vastly more deathsroughly 100 millionthan any other religion, ideology, or pandemic in the history of the world, possibly combined.

When it comes to killing and mayhem, leftism wins the day by a giant margin. Nothing remotely compares, not even the ISIS terrorist group, which was able to muster 20,000 murders in Iraq over two years. Somehow, the blood lust inherent in leftism is largely uncontrollable (cf. the French Revolution), ditto the level of suppression as we can see from todays China, where concentration camps still existincredible as that may seem after Auschwitzhousing upwards of a million people.

Biden is the last person to do something about this. As noted, he didnt have the gumption to mention a word about the violence in our cities (or of China for that matter) in his speech. Why would he have the courage to do something about either of them, especially imprisoned as he is by his left flank?

Just the other day, Squad stalwart Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) called for continued unrest, not that she really had to. Violence tends to feed on itself and grow when not strongly opposed (cf. the French Revolution again).

For that reason alone, a Biden administration is likely to see more of it than a second Trump administration.

If Trump wins, there will undoubtedly be an immediate reaction, possibly even exceeding the one after his first victory, which was remarkably infantile. But no longer worried about reelection, he would soon undoubtedly crack down hard on the violent demonstrators and rioters in the name of public safety, to the certain relief of most Americans, even those who wont admit it.

Biden and the rest of the Democrats, plus their media choir, are locked in a form of 60s nostalgia, especially the ones who are too young to have been there. They think those days were just too cool for school. (As one who lived through them, permit me to roll my eyes.)

This desire to be cool, actually a pathetic form of conformity, underlies much of their resistance to confronting the violence. The result is a lot of moral and personal confusion, as with those denizens of Manhattans Upper West Side who cant figure out whats going on when, on a trip to Zabars to buy bagels, they have to cross the street to avoid being mugged (or worse) by one of the various junkies and perverts hanging by the front door.

Or the very liberal residents of West Los Angeles who, I am told from friends who still live there, no longer ride with their convertible tops down for fear a homeless person will jump into the seat next to them at the nearest stoplight.

Or the folks in the Portland suburbs who were shocked the other night to see Antifaor was it BLMmarching down their pristine streets, holding lights aloft KKK-style and chanting ominously that their time had come.

Will these folks still vote for Biden? Alas, most of them will. But a lot of the rest of us wont. We value our lives and our families.

Roger L. Simon is an award-winning novelist, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, co-founder of PJ Media, and now a columnist of The Epoch Times. You can find him on Parler and Twitter @rogerlsimon.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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The government on Sunday claimed a decline in cases of in the state following a cleanliness drive initiated by it.

Additional Chief Secretary Medical and Health Amit Mohan Prasad in a statement said in the current year, only 4,687 cases of malaria were reported till August 20 as against 15,101 in the same period in 2019.

Last year, 816 cases of acute encephalitis syndrome, including 34 deaths, were reported till August 20, he said. This year, only 396 cases of the disease surfaced during the same period, he said, adding that the fatality count stood at 12.

As far as Japanese encephalitis is concerned, 50 cases were reported last year while this year, only 19 cases were recorded in the same period, he said.

Last year four persons died due to the disease while this year, only two deaths have been reported, he said.

Prasad said 135 cases of dengue had surfaced till August 20 in 2019 against this year's 32.

(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.)
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AMMAN, Jordan  As the COVID-19 caseload rises once again in Jordan, the government calmed fears that a complete lockdown would be reinstituted, heeding the advice of Jordanian economists who warned that the economy could not bear such a move.

Though Jordan seems to have survived the coronavirus pandemic relatively unscathed thus far  1,532 cases and 11 deaths to date  there have been major economic consequences of what was dubbed the worlds toughest lockdown. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, by the end of the year a quarter of the countrys labor force will be out of work and gross domestic product is expected to have shrunk by 5%  Jordans first economic contraction in over 30 years.

Seemingly in anticipation of coming economic turmoil, the Jordanian government has adopted a harsh stance against dissent. On July 25, it shuttered the countrys largest independent labor union, the Teachers Syndicate, rolling back post-Arab Spring democratic reforms that had allowed the union to open in 2012.

Since closing the 140,000-member union, the government has detained all 13 representatives on the leadership council on undisclosed charges and arrested over 1,000 protesters who took to the streets in opposition to the decision, according to the unions lawyer, Bassem Frehat.

The government has also issued a gag order prohibiting the media from discussing details of the case and arrested local and foreign journalists who have covered the ensuing protests.

The government has relied on defense laws granted in March to arrest and detain protesters. The government initially invoked the defense laws to better combat COVID-19, with the guarantee that they would be applied within the most limited scope possible while protecting public liberties and the right to self-expression.

However, Frehat accused the government of using the defense laws selectively to restrict the protests and exploiting the COVID-19 crisis to get rid of the syndicate.

The government has cited concerns over the pandemic as the reason for its prohibition of protests, but Frehat expressed skepticism about this reasoning. I have seen cells where they keep 21 detainees in a 3-by-3-meter [97-square-foot] space, without masks, he said.

Frehat also told Al-Monitor that though most of the detained protesters were released, around 200 are still in prison on the basis of their political affiliation. Many protesters were released on bail, having to promise that they would not protest again or else have to pay amounts as high as 500,000 Jordanian dinars ($705,227). In contrast, according to Frehat, a typical bail amount for suspected drug dealers is generally 30,000 dinars.

The government insists the closure of the union was ordered by the judiciary in reference to economic crimes, but analysts generally see it as an attempt to stave off another strike by the union. In 2019, the teachers union was promised a wage increase after a four-week strike, but the increase was canceled after the government froze all public sector salary increases in April.

The teachers union is also widely seen as dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, which was banned July 15, contributing to a narrative that the closure of the union is a continuation of the governments crackdown on the Islamist group.

Members of the union who spoke with Al-Monitor said the Muslim Brotherhood had a presence in the group but did not make up the majority of its ranks. Members said the size of the union prevented any one group from dominating it or turning it into an ideological body.

The governments heavy-handed tactics against the union quickly elevated what was essentially a wage dispute into a national cause. There have been protests occurring throughout the country regularly since the end of July, and the slogan With the Teachers (Maa al-Maalmeen) has become a rallying cry.

At one such protest in the northern city of Irbid on Aug. 13, passersby watched as security forces quickly broke up a socially distanced human chain in front of the governorates administrative building, arresting those who refused to disperse. I dont understand, the government is just pouring fuel on the fire, one onlooker remarked.

After the protest, the secretary of the Irbid branch of the teachers union, Firas al-Khateeb, told Al-Monitor that the governments treatment of protesters is unprecedented and a sharp break with the openness to dialogue it had presented prior.

He said the existence of the union itself was a hard-won victory, only opening in 2012 after years of civil organizing. He further expressed worry that if the union should cease to exist, Jordans civil society would lose its largest independent body and suffer as a result.

Jordans closure of the teachers union and restrictions on freedom of speech have also earned it international rebuke. On Aug, 19, the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights called for Jordan to reverse the closure of the union and criticized it for serious violations of the right to freedom of association and expression.

Jordan is just one of several countries in the area to pass sweeping emergency powers legislation in the wake of COVID-19. In neighboring Egypt, for example, new emergency laws have expanded the states powers to surveil and detain its citizens.

The entire region is expecting a large economic downturn due to COVID-19, and protests over living conditions are being seen in Beirut and in Baghdad. How governments will choose to respond to the pandemic and the ensuing unrest will determine the future of their civil societies  or in some cases, what remains of them.

So far, the liberal application of defense laws to quash dissent across the region bodes a dark omen for the Middle Easts post-COVID future
WINCHESTER  Days after the start of classes for the year, Winchester schools are closing because of a confirmed COVID-19 case, school officials said.

The closing will be for at least two weeks. Today and Tuesday will be remote-planning days for teachers, and students will not be required to attend. Classes will transition to online starting Wednesday.
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THE play area at Ballinagar N.S. has been almost doubled in size to facilitate Covid-19 regulations thanks to funding provided by the local community lotto.

Work on the ambitious development, which will cost in the region of 30,000, commenced last Friday and will be completed in time for pupils and staff when the school reopens later this month.

The project is spearheaded by the school's Parents Association who undertook the work to ensure that pupils could adhere to social distancing guidelines and remain within their own class bubbles at staggered break times.

Chairman of the Parents Association, Aidan Minnock said the school and the association were very appreciative of the support from the community lotto, both tickets sellers and buyers.

Parents at the school are delighted with the project at this particular time but the extended yard will bring years of joy to children in the school long after the Covid pandemic has passed, said Mr Minnock.

As well as extending the school yard a new shelter has been provided for students for use during inclement weather conditions.

Mr Minnock paid tribute to the contractors carrying out the work, Tower Plant and Civil Engineering, a local company which came in with a very favourable quote given that it was a community initiative involving community funding.

He also extended thanks to fellow members of the Parents Association, the Board of Management, the Community Lotto, school Principal, Alan Plunkett and all the members of the teaching team.

Ballinagar N.S. reopens on August 26 next for junior infants and for all other classes on the following day, August 27.

The Ballinagar Community Lotto was founded some years ago and the proceeds are used to fund the local school and GAA club.

The venture receives support from people in the immediate as well as from neighbouring Cappincur, Daingean, Geashill, Tullamore and further afield.

The draw takes place each Monday night and a local lady was the lucky winner of the jackpot of 12,200 last Monday.
Customs transactions processed by Dubai Customs jumped 36% in the first five months of 2020 to reach 5.9 million compared to 4.4 million transactions in the corresponding period of 2019.

Dubai Customs completed 5.88 million transactions (99.2%) through smart and online channels, with only 0.8% done through the service counters, a release said.

Customs declarations rose 42% in the first five months of this year to reach 5 million declarations compared to 3.5 million declarations in the corresponding period in the previous year. Dubai saw exceptional growth in business registrations at 107,000 applications, growing 95% from 55,000 in the first five months in 2019.

COVID-19 STIMULUS PACKAGE

As part of a stimulus package designed to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 pandemic and support businesses, Dubai Customs introduced a set of measures which are in place from March 15, 2020 till June 30, 2020. These include a refund of 20% of all Customs duty paid on imported goods at 5% rate which have been sold locally.

The stimulus package announced also involves the revocation of the AED50,000 cash or bank guarantees required to conduct customs broker activities and the refund of existing guarantees held to these brokers and clearing companies.

The package includes exemption from berthing fees as well as direct and indirect loading fees for boats that qualify as traditional wooden commercial boats registered in the UAE at either Dubai Creek or Hamriyah Port.

It also includes cancellation of bank guarantees required to be submitted before resolution of customs-related grievances, and cancellation of 25% down payment required for requesting instalment-based payment of customs fees and charges.

Dubai Customs also exempted companies from fines for late Customs Representative Card renewal/cancellation as of May 5 to June 30, 2020 as part of its efforts to facilitate trade and support businesses.

Dubai Customs has played a pivotal role in ensuring the continuity of global and local supply chains amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Customs inspection and clearance operations at sea, air and land entry-points have been running around the clock to ensure smooth flow of cross-border trade as

well as make sure goods shipments and medical supplies are delivered on time to respective consignees.

This has been possible thanks to the advanced technology infrastructure, which Dubai Customs has built over the years.

Customs transactions are being processed electronically through Mirsal 2, a state-of-the-art clearance system that has helped in more efficiency in Customs work including automatic approval and clearance of about 97% of no-risk consignment transactions in 2 minutes without any human intervention.

In terms of customs inspection and examination of goods, business went undisrupted despite the lockdown, which helped secure society and economy against illegitimate trade activities and smuggling of prohibited and hazardous items.

INTEGRATED STRATEGY

The Customs Inspection Division at Dubai Customs is following an integrated strategic plan to handle the Covid-19 pandemic. The plan is carried out in tandem with other government departments through sharing latest updates about Covid-19 via an operations room working around the clock.

All inspection officers at Dubai Customs are committed to following strict health and safety instructions and they are equipped with advanced protective gear and equipment to be able to do their vital job at the frontlines.

Other procedures included regular check-ups for inspectors and a Safe Inspection Passage which is equipped with a smart thermal scanner that reads temperature aloud, a water source operated by foot rather than hands, and full sterilisation, along with safety gear including gloves, masks and full body protective uniform. Airports, Jebel Ali and Hamriya ports were equipped with thermal cameras.

Trucks coming through Hatta Border Crossing are disinfected. Measures also include awareness and warning stickers at the airports that target clients and passengers, and re-seating plans to ensure safety in the waiting areas.

RISK MANAGEMENT

The Intelligence Department of Dubai Customs played a key role in facilitating the clearance of relief shipments of essential goods sent to friendly countries as a response to support their battle against the coronavirus pandemic. Risk mitigation and management were put in place to ensure fast clearance and release of food and critical medical supplies while keeping physical inspections to the minimum.

The intelligence systems also targeted shipments of counterfeit or non-conforming medical goods during the Coronavirus period, and actively coordinated with local and federal law enforcement agencies. Targeting operations were further unified to ensure a smooth flow of goods and consumer commodities.

8.5 MILLION MINUTES OF CALLS

Latest data released by Dubai Customs showed consistent and smooth remote working. From March 15 to June 2, employees completed 8.5 million minutes of audio and video calling using Microsoft TEAMS, shared screen for 2.1 million minutes, and sent 1.1 million instant messages. They conducted 298,000 individual and group calls.

Dubai Customs has made available all necessary tools for its employees during the remote working period. These included the virtual desktop which enables user to host all office applications and work from anywhere, Mizlay which enables employees to safely access their emails and other Dubai Customs applications, and Microsoft TEAMS for online meetings and communication.

HEALTHY WORKING ENVIRONMENT

Dubai Customs launched several intitatives to ensure a healthy and safe environment at work, including provision of 200 mobile phone disinfection devices to all department, sections and customs centres.

Aman (safety) Station was one of the innovations that Dubai Customs incorporated in its back to office plan. The station is equipped with a number of devices including thermal cameras which operate automatically when spotting any rise in temperature.

It also features masks, sanitisers and a smart screen to display awareness information around precautions and safety guidelines.

On June 28, Dubai Customs offices resumed work at 100% capacity with intensified precautionary measures to ensure safety from Covid-19. This includes social distancing between employees and new seating plans. Following the government directives, Dubai Customs started its staffs gradual return to offices on June 14, putting in place a shift routine where half of the employees worked from home and the rest from the office while maintaining social distancing and other measures.

An online awareness campaign preceded this step in which employees were given full guidance on social distancing and hygiene, and how to use protective gear, in addition to psychological aid to ensure staff stay positive and accept the new working conditions.

The procedure considered certain exceptions for some categories including the elderly, those with chronic diseases, pregnant female employees and mothers who have children at school at grade nine and below.

DISSEMINATING POSITIVITY

Dubai Customs put in place a plan to motivate staff and disseminate positivity by recognising their contributions to ensuring continuity of business and supply chain. The focus was also on fostering a sense of security and appreciation amongst employees by highlighting achievements in terms of increased productivity and performance during the remote working period.

ENHANCING READINESS

To help with the containment of the coronavirus outbreak, Dubai Customs boosted its customs centers readiness to provide all services to businesses and complete transactions online.

Companies can enjoy smart services of Dubai Customs to benefit from the excellent facilitations available including inspection bookings, which will be done fast and with minimal contact.

Using Dubai Customs smart channels, clients can access all the services and clear their shipments without any need for a physical visit to customs centres. This is part of Dubai Customs precautionary measures against the outbreak of Covid-19 in line with the UAE government regulations and directives.

WAIVER OF REQUIREMENTS

In line with the precautionary measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus and in a bid to streamline trade and reduce cost and the Tariff and Origin department relieved businesses and customers from submission of customs declarations and required documents until further notice, while accepting electronically sent documents required for clearance of customs declarations.

Further, the department also issued a notice enabling businesses to submit electronic bills of lading and delivery orders without the need for physical stamping.

INNOVATION CENTRE

Dubai Customs Innovation Centre organised a series of online brainstorming sessions, which involved different departments and customs centres. This came in line with the remote working plan implemented at Dubai Customs as one of the precautionary measures to contain and curb the outbreak of Covid-19.

Over 30 days, the sessions involved all customs divisions and saw the active participation of the Director General, Ahmed Mahboob Musabih and members of the higher management who discussed and actively responded to new ideas and suggestions proposed by 267 employees.

The brainstorming sessions discussed 79 customs and trade challenges that rose as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, and came up with 266 new innovative ideas that would help overcome the challenges.

Director General of Dubai Customs Ahmed Mahboob Musabih honoured 146 employees who gave viable ideas and suggestions to curb Covid-19 pandemic. Addressing the honoured employees through Microsoft Teams, Musabih said: We are facing Covid-19 pandemic with all determination and awareness, and we are confident will get through this safe and sound to continue our journey of facilitating global trade and protecting society from all security and health hazards.

Innovative ideas and suggestions developed by our employees are a catalyst to boost our overall performance during this difficult time and beyond. -- Tradearabia News Service
Rome:

Italy hailed its police officer heroes who caught Berlin truck attack suspect Anis Amri on the streets of Milan, with high praise for the rookie who shot him dead.

Tributes flooded in for the 29-year-old Sicilian trainee who fired off two rounds after Amri opened fire on his partner Christian Movio, 36.

Senior officers described Amri as displaying an ice-cold cool as he pulled out a pistol after the officers had asked him to empty his backpack.

But the baby-faced trainee with a trendy beard, was just as quick. After Movio was hit by a bullet in the shoulder he fired twice in quick succession, sending the suspect to the ground.

Witnesses said the two policemen had then crouched over Amri in a bid to keep him alive, but the Tunisian died after 10 minutes.

The trainee had only been in the police for nine months and was three months into a probationary period in Milan when he was put to the ultimate test.

The more experienced Movio was recovering in a Milan hospital after a minor surgery. He was well enough to receive visitors and paid tribute to his younger colleague in comments relayed by one of them.

"My partner's actions were exemplary, he reacted immediately when the pistol came out," he said.

Interior minister Marco Minniti telephoned the officers to congratulate them and said he would be visiting them to "personally" give them a hug.

"At a very young age, these extraordinary men have done a huge service to the entire community, by doing their duty. "Italians can be proud of them, they have ensured a much happier Christmas."

Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni echoed the praise as his Facebook page was flooded with well-wishing messages from all over the world, with many demanding the government give him a medal.

At home in Sicily, his father said he was just happy his son was alive.

"He is a brave boy and he did his duty," he told reporters. "When we spoke to him on the telephone early this morning he still did not know that the dead boy was the attacker."

Anis Amri, a 24-year-old failed asylum seeker who arrived first in Italy before heading to Germany, is suspected of killing 12 and wounding dozens more on Monday by driving a truck into a Berlin Christmas market.

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A killer virus spread by mosquitoes could pose the next health risk for British holidaymakers travelling to Spain, experts say.

An outbreak of the deadly West Nile virus has already claimed the lives of two people in the southern Spanish city of Seville and put eight in hospital intensive care.

Today an expert in infectious diseases warned it could spread to the whole of Spain.

Pablo Barreiro told Spanish press: 'Only about two to five per cent of the cases present symptoms.

A worker wears protective clothing as they fumigate a field in Palomares del Rio, Seville, Spain, following an outbreak of the West Nile virus

A children's playground is fumigated by a worker in Seville, Spain, as the control tries to control the spread of the virus

The outbreak has claimed the lives of two people in the southern Spanish city of Seville

'It's an illness that can go unnoticed very easily.'

A second person who was being treated at Seville's Virgen del Rocio Hospital died on Friday, taking the death toll from the current outbreak of the virus to two.

Eight of the 23 patients who have been admitted to hospital are said to be in intensive care.

What is the West Nile virus? The West Nile virus is most often spread to people through the bite of an infected mosquito. There are currently not any vaccinations to prevent or treat the virus. The virus is not spread through coughing, sneezing, or touching Around one in five people who catch the virus will present with a fever. Other symptoms include headache, body aches, joint pains, vomiting, diarrhoea, or rash. About one out of 150 infected people who catch the virus develop a serious, sometimes fatal, illness affecting their central nervous system. Symptoms of a severe illness include high fever, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, headache, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, vision loss, numbness and paralysis. People can reduce their chances of catching the virus by using insect repellent and wearing long-sleeved clothing and long trousers. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advertisement

The first person to die was a 77-year-old man who lost his fight of life on Thursday. The second fatality was an 85 year-old woman,

Regional health chiefs have ordered a massive fumigation of the area most affected, the wetlands of the Guadalquivir River in the municipalities of Coria and La Puebla del Rio near to Seville.

But overnight it emerged a resident of a third municipality, Los Palacios y Villafranca, had been hospitalised with an inflammation of the brain known as meningoencephalitis after being bitten by an infected mosquito.

Its town hall said in a statement released on Saturday: 'Today mayor Juan Manuel Valle has been informed a person from Los Palacios and Villafranca has been hospitalised with meningoencephalitis caused by West Nile Virus.

'This has been confirmed officially with the relevant health authority and with the person's relatives.'

Claiming the virus could spread across Spain in the future, especially in the hot summer months, Mr Barreiro said prevention based around the regular use of mosquito repellent was the most effective solution.

West Nile Virus, spread by the Culex mosquito, first reached Spain in 2004 with horses being most affected.

The current outbreak is the worst on record in Spain's southern Andalucia region, which includes popular Brit holiday areas like the Costa del Sol and is the most populated of the country's regions with nearly nine million inhabitants.

Elderly people and those with underlying health conditions like diabetes and cancer are most at risk, but it can cause meningitis in children.

Wetlands and swimming pools in countryside areas have been identified as the places where the mosquitoes carrying the virus are most likely to be found.

A ferry crosses the Guadalquivir river in Coria del Rio in southern as the government continues to fumigate the area following an outbreak of the West Nile virus

Two people rest next to Guadalquivir River in Spain as regional health chiefs order a massive fumigation of the area most affected
3 1 of 3 Xinhua News Agency / Getty Images Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Mike Umscheid/NWS Dodge City Show More Show Less 3 of 3





As wildfires continue to rage throughout California, residual plumes of smoke have drifted all the way to the Midwest, reaching as far as the northwestern region of Kansas.

The haze is expected to linger in the air for most of next week before the high-pressure system moves toward the Mississippi Valley and potentially into some of the southeastern states, according to Matt Gerard, lead forecaster of the National Weather Service in Dodge City.
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Splash Brother ($9.30) rode cover up the backstretch and vaulted to a 1:50 victory in the $240,600 Empire Breeders Classic for three-year-old pacing colts and geldings on Sunday (Aug. 23) at Tioga Downs.

Tyler Buter was patient in the early stages with Splash Brother, electing to draft comfortably in mid-division while 2-1 favourite Groovy Joe worked to clear Save Me A Dance just past a :26.1 opening quarter. On approach to the clubhouse turn, Splash Brother angled second-over behind a stoutly-advancing Blank Stare and drafted a brewing duel to the half in :54.4.

Blank Stare towed Splash Brother into contention as he forced Groovy Joe to quicken up the far side, and with a quarter mile to go, Buter swung Splash Brother three-wide to engulf the duelling leaders. The So Surreal gelding switched into overdrive upon cornering for home, scooting clear by 2-1/4 lengths. Major Betts followed the winner's cover and lifted to narrowly beat Blank Stare for runner-up honours.

Trainer Ray Schnittker  long a fixture on the New York stakes circuit  shares ownership in four-time winner Splash Brother with Nolamaura Racing, Steven Arland and Tammy Flannery.

In the $223,500 Empire Breeders Classic for three-year-old pacing fillies, Hen Party ($4.40) sustained a first-over attack and pushed past even-money favourite So Rude for a decisive 1:49.2 victory.

The daughter of Roll With Joe yielded to third while So Rude and Galleria Gal disputed a :26.2 opening quarter. So Rude cleared to control the terms, but faced a stern challenge from Hen Party  whom Andy McCarthy angled off the pegs with a circuit to go  through middle splits of :55.1 and 1:22. After forcing a blistering :26.4 third quarter, Hen Party had plenty left off the home turn, striking the front and sprinting off powerfully to win by 3-3/4 lengths. Galleria Gal vacated the pocket at head-stretch and saved second at 72-1, and Dragon Roll lifted late to finish third over the fading So Rude.

Tony Alagna trains Hen Party for Crawford Farms Racing. She has now won five of seven starts this season, including three New York Sire Stakes preliminaries in addition to her sweep of the Empire Breeders Classic.

A trio of New York Sire Stakes events for freshman trotting fillies supported a strong undercard.

Aela Jamieson ($6.00) and Andy Miller charged late to win the $34,200 first division.

Dream Chapter jumped out to the early lead, but Tranaquility K took control just before hitting the first quarter in :27.4. Dream Chapter reclaimed the lead and reached the in :58.1. On the backstretch, Me Three advanced first-over with Aela Jamieson following cover to three-quarters in 1:26.4.

Turning for home, Aela Jamieson emerged into second and it became a two-horse race. Dream Chapter dug in, but Aela Jamieson rallied to win in a lifetime best of 1:55.1. Dream Chapter had to settle for second; Illuminata came up to finish third.

Aela Jamieson, a Chapter Seven-Blk Thai Optional filly, is trained by Julie Miller for owners Andy Miller Stable, Dumain Haven Farm and Little E LLC. It was her second career win in four lifetime starts.

Moni For Lindy ($11.20) and Scott Zeron used a three-wide stretch rally to capture the $33,600 second division.

Insured AM S rated a :57.2 half before facing pressure from Splash Blue Chip on the backstretch. Splash Blue Chip took a slight lead at three-quarters in 1:26.4, with Moni For Lindy following live cover. On the far turn, Insured AM S battled back and went shoulder to shoulder with Splash Blue Chip. Moni For Lindy charged three-wide and took over in deep stretch to win in 1:55.3. Splash Blue Chip finished second; Insured AM S was third.

Moni For Lindy, a Credit Winner-Live Moni filly, is owned by Moni Maker Stable and trained by Domenico Cecere. It was her first career victory.

Destined To Dance ($3.50) waltzed to her fifth straight win by capturing the $33,600 third division.

Iteration controlled a :56.2 half before Destined To Dance, in line to Tyler Buter, made her move from fourth and worked into second as Iteration led to three-quarters in 1:25.2.

Destined To Dance and Iteration battled all the way down the stretch, but in the end Destined To Dance was too strong, winning in a divisional track record of 1:54.4. Soukup Blue Chip flew home late for second over Iteration.

Destined To Dance, a daughter of Chapter Seven and Go Go Dancer, is trained by John Butenschoen for owners Crawford Farms Racing, Rich Preziotti and Heritage Standardbreds. It was her fifth straight win in six lifetime starts.

(with files from Tioga Downs)
Firefighters work to contain flames from the CZU August Lightning Complex fires on Friday in Ben Lomond, Calif. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

On Friday night, the tired, equipment-strapped crew of Ben Lomonds volunteer firefighting team was briefed by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in the mountain town fire stations airy and unfinished kitchen.

A collection of lightning-sparked fires had merged into one blaze that was raging in the Santa Cruz Mountains to the west.

The firefighters were told that Cal Fires models suggested in the next 48 to 72 hours, the fire would move into Boulder Creeks downtown. If the crews were unable to stop the fire there, Cal Fire would pull its reinforcements and allow the fire to funnel down the valley  through Brookdale, Ben Lomond and Felton  toward Route 17, the high-speed mountain highway that connects San Jose and Santa Cruz.

It was dispiriting news. But local firefighters planned to wage a stand to save the communities, even without the backup.

No ones going to stop fighting that fire, said Menlo Park Fire District's chief, Harold Schapelhouman, who was in Boulder Creek in the early morning hours of Saturday.

Supplies are unloaded from a Menlo Park truck at the Boulder Creek Volunteer Fire Department fire house during the CZU August Lightning Complex Fires. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)

These guys are going to keep fighting, he said of the volunteer firefighters. Thats just what they do. They take the knocks and get right back up.

The fire, dubbed the CZU Lightning Complex fire, had burned 63,000 acres, destroyed 97 structures and forced the evacuation of about 77,000 people in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties as of Saturday morning. It was 5% contained.

The massive blaze was one of an estimated 585 wildfires that have together burned nearly a million acres in California since a siege of lightning strikes that began Aug. 15.

The sheer scale and number of fires has placed a strain on firefighting manpower and equipment that some officials have described as unprecedented in recent history, with incident commanders across the state reporting a lack of needed resources.

"Basically, Cal Fire is stripped statewide," said Edwin Zuniga of Cal Fire, a public information officer for the CZU fire. He said that in addition to relying on local and volunteer crews, officials have ordered out-of-state backup. They're starting to see the aid trickle in, but it's been a slow process, he said. With so many fires scattered across California, resources keep getting diverted elsewhere before they arrive.

Story continues

Ben Lomond firefighters work on a blaze at The Sequoia Retreat Center during the CZU August Lightning Complex Fires. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)

"The issue is, en route, they could possibly be diverted to a higher-priority incident," he said. "It's become an issue of priority, so who has more priority over each other, and thats where those resources are going to be rediverted."

Firefighting aircraft and crews are being sent to areas where there is the greatest risk for loss of life, officials said.

Schapelhoumans district is providing reinforcement. On Friday night, his crew brought up a water tender, rig and several pallets of water and Gatorade for the exhausted crews.

They were greeted with cheers.

The men and women fighting the fires in the mountains are a storied crew. Most of them work for other cities and municipalities in the Bay Area  such as San Jose, Berkeley, Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Redwood City  as full-time firefighters and first responders.

Boulder Creek firefighters wait in front of the Boulder Creek Volunteer Fire Department fire house. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)

For many, Friday was their day off. But rather than sleep or take shelter, they were slogging through the rugged, mountainous terrain clearing boundaries and dousing fires where they could.

This is my home. These are our neighbors. Theres no way I wouldnt be here fighting, said Todd Ellis, captain of Ben Lomonds volunteer fire district, referring to the informal designations Cal Fire uses to describe firefighting zones.

Devastated by Cal Fires briefing, he said nothing would stop him from fighting for his town.



Carl Kustin, a volunteer with the Boulder Creek Fire District, agreed.

Menlo Park Fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman chats with Carl Kustin, a volunteer with the Boulder Creek Fire District. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)

We dont do this for money. We do this because we love our neighbors. We love our crews. And for us, theres nothing more inspiring than helping others and using everything we have to support people and communities, he said.

Kustin is a legend among the fire departments of these mountain towns. He and Schapelhouman were responders to the Oklahoma City bombing, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina, among other major U.S. disasters.

Most of the firefighters have been deployed around the nation as first responders.

But, said Kustin, this time its different. This time its personal, he said.

Menlo Park Fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman chats with volunteers at the Boulder Creek Fire District, during the CZU August Lightning Complex Fires. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)

Times staff writer Alex Wigglesworth contributed to this report.
Over 100,000 persons have crossed the Romanian border crossing points in the past 24 hours, the IGPF informs.

According to a release sent to AGERPRES, on August 22 through the border crossings at the level of the entire country control formalities were rendered to approximately 101,400 persons, Romanian and foreign citizens, using over 31,900 vehicles (of which 9,000 freight trucks).

Entering the country were approximately 48,300 persons with 16,300 vehicles, while exiting the country were 53,100 persons with 15,600 vehicles.

The border with Hungary, through the 11 border crossing points, was transited by approximately 38,200 persons and 15,900 vehicles (3,500 freight trucks), of them 16,000 persons and 7,900 being those entering the country.

In what regards specific activities, in the areas of competence - the border crossing points and the "green border" - border policemen noted, in the past 24 hours, 61 illegal acts (17 felonies and 44 misdemeanors) committed both by Romanian and foreign citizens.

Discovered, independently or in collaboration with other institutions, were undeclared goods (which were to be illegally introduced to Romania), which exceeded the admitted customs ceiling or suspected of counterfeiting, the goods being valued at over 240,200 RON.

The value of fines issued rises to approximately 18,000 RON.

Entry to Romania was denied to 92 foreign citizens, which did not fulfill the conditions set down by the law, and, at the same time, the exit of 21 Romanian citizens was denied for various legal reasons.

AGERPRES .
The new norm implies both that it is here (and indeed it is) and that it is permanent. However, let us examine what it is, its consequences and what should not be, the new norm.

We all know the COVID-19 virus pandemic by the growth of illness and deaths attributed to it in the U.S. and other countries. Reportedly, it occurs more likely among individuals with preexisting medical conditions. Illnesses attributed to COVID-19 have been reported as asymptomatic, like the common cold, and life threatening.

Medical data about cases and growth projections have been cited to justify the classification of COVID-19 related cases as a pandemic in the U.S., requiring effective preventive measures and accelerated medical research to develop a vaccine.

Reality check: Do we know with a reasonable degree of certainty whether the growth projections are credible and accurate? Do we know with a reasonable degree of certainty that the cases identified as COVID-19 are in fact COVID-19?

Enter the new norm.

Under the U.S. Constitution, governmental power is separated between the federal government and the states. Among the powers reserved to the federal government is the exclusive power to regulate interstate commerce between the states and with foreign nations. Article I section 8.

There is not much in the U.S. Constitution expressly defining the powers and role of state government. The 10th Amendment provides that the powers ..not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or the people. Tradition recognizes that the States possess police powers to regulate public safety, health, welfare, and morals (the latter evidenced, for example, by state statutes prohibiting discrimination on the workplace).

President Trump made it clear that the states will determine preventive measures and when and to what extent those preventive measures will be abandoned based on data concerning the extent of the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Many states, among them Connecticut, were and remain economically and logistically unprepared to undertake such an effort due to the failure of or inadequate planning. The federal government provided significant economic and logistical assistance to the states to implement preventive, testing, and treatment measures.

What is, and has been, the consequence of the exercise of state police power in establishing preventive measures to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 virus?

Enter the first 10 Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights.

State exercise of its police power to regulate safety, health, and welfare in implementing preventive measures to mitigate and stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus, results in the significant abridgment of individual and business entity fundamental constitutional rights. These rights include the right to assemble, travel, the unrestricted practice of religion, personal choice concerning the exercise of health maintenance practices, all without procedural due process of law, significantly affecting interstate commerce.

Restrictions on assembly and travel have had a devastating effect on small businesses, the backbone of the U.S. economy. The unparalleled economic success and strength of the U.S economy, up to the exercise state police power, has been destroyed.

Reality check: The destruction of the U.S. economy directly benefits the enemies of the U.S. and presents a threat to national security. An impaired U.S. economy benefits the U.S. political opposition coming into the November 2020 presidential election. The exercise of state police power must not be politically motivated behind a veil of a public health threat.

Such a political strategy may foster a psychology of dependence on government justifying the impairment of individual and private enterprises constitutional rights and planting the seed of accepting a change in our free enterprise capitalistic economy and constitutional based system of government.

The exercise of state police power has significantly affected interstate commerce. The question is whether the federal government will and at what point, exercise its exclusive power to regulate interstate commerce, and preempt state action that continues to significantly affect and impair interstate commerce.

Reality check: The effects of state exercise of its police power on individual and business entity rights is viewed as the new norm. Continuation of state exercise of its police power is justified by citing spikes in new cases notwithstanding declines in former hot spots. Is the cycle of new cases any different than other strains of virus-based influenza?

The new norm should not and cannot be accepted as indefinite. It reflects a dangerous adjustment in our thinking that the impairment of constitutional rights is acceptable rather than a temporary forgoing of those rights by adjusting health maintenance conduct in light of a health risk that warrants it based on credible peer-reviewed medical data.

The new norm must be state economic and logistical preparedness to act with quick and effective measures to limit the spread of health threats of this magnitude while mitigating the abridgment of individual and business entity constitutional rights caused by the exercise of state police power, resulting in the destruction of the U.S. economy.

Joseph S. Kendy Jr. is Managing Member of Kendy Law, a firm based in Norwalk, and a member of the Norwalk Republican Town Committee.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation will place a proposal for "further" privatisation of airports before the Union Cabinet on Wednesday, Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said. In the first round of privatisation under the Narendra Modi dispensation, the airports in Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram and Guwahati were cleared for operation, management and development through public-private partnership (PPP) model in February 2019. Subsequently, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) had in September 2019 recommended the Civil Aviation Ministry to privatise airports in Amritsar, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Raipur and Trichy.

Puri said during a webinar on Tuesday, "We are going to the Cabinet tomorrow for further airport privatisation. We have got many more airports lined up, dozens of them, and the 100 new airports we will build between now and 2030." The AAI, which works under the Ministry of Civil Aviation, owns and manages more than 100 airports across the country. Adani Enterprises had won the rights to run six airports Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati after a competitive bidding process in February 2019.

Adani Enterprises signed the concessionaire agreement with the AAI for three airports Ahmedabad, Mangaluru and Lucknow on February 14, 2020. It is yet to sign the concessionaire agreement for the other three airports. In June this year, the AAI gave three more months to the Adani group to take over the management of the airports of Ahmedabad, Mangaluru and Lucknow due to the COVID-19 scenario. This means the Adani group, which was expected to take over the operations, management and development of the three airports by August 12, can now take over the airports by November 12. Around 94,000 passengers travelled through domestic flights on Monday, Puri said at the aforementioned webinar organised by industry body Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Prior to COVID-19 pandemic, around 3 lakh passengers per day travelled domestically in India, he said.

"We reach Diwali, we would be 50-55 per cent of our pre-COVID figures. of the year, we will revive civil aviation to pre-COVID levels," he mentioned. After a gap of two months due to the coronavirus-triggered lockdown, India resumed domestic passenger flights on May 25, albeit in a curtailed manner. Currently, airlines in India are permitted to operate 45 per cent of their pre-COVID domestic flights.

Also Watch:

International passenger flights continue to remain suspended in the country. However, since July, India has signed separate bilateral air bubble agreements with countries like the US, the UAE, Germany and France under which airlines of both the countries in a pact can operate international flights with certain restrictions. The aviation sector has been hit hard due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since March this year, all airlines in India have taken cost-cutting measures like pay cuts, leave without pay and firings of employees.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 23)  COVID-19 cases in the country climbed closer to 190,000 on Sunday, with 2,378 new cases confirmed by the Department of Health.

The latest report showed 189,601 people in the country have been infected with the viral illness, with 55,236 active cases, or currently ill patients.

Of the new infections, 42 percent, or 1,022, are from Metro Manila, while 132 are from Cavite, 128 from Laguna, 115 from Rizal, and 96 from Cebu, the DOH said.

It added that 80 percent, or 1,905, of the new cases were detected in the last 14 days.

A new batch of 16,459 patients was also tagged as recovered, for a total of 131,367 survivors of COVID-19.

Meanwhile, the death toll further climbed to 2,998, with 32 new deaths. Of this number, 20 happened in August, eight in July, three in June, and one in May.

Time-based recoveries

The sharp increase in the tally of recoveries is due to the DOHs Oplan Recovery program, an initiative to monitor more closely the status of confirmed COVID-19 cases.

Oplan Recovery employs a time-based tagging scheme, wherein COVID-19 patients  except for those immunocompromised  are released from isolation facilities after a certain number of days in quarantine, and after symptoms have disappeared upon a doctors assessment.

Those with mild or no symptoms can return to the community after at least 14 days of isolation. Meanwhile for severe cases, the quarantine period should be at least 21 days.

The DOH said these patients no longer need to undergo confirmatory RT-PCR testing before being discharged, as long as they have been cleared of the disease by a licensed physician. It explained that the methodology is based on current studies which show that at the 10th day of the illness, the risk of transmitting the virus to other people is significantly reduced.

According to the department, its Central Office generates a list of eligible cases for time-based tagging based on its database entries every Sunday.

The list is forwarded to the DOHs regional offices for double-checking, with the help of local government units. The data verification is done from Monday to Friday, wherein officials ensure that no death, severe, and critical cases are incorrectly included in the list.

Come weekend, the Central Office again conducts data quality and logic checks on the list and reflects adjustments in its database, before releasing the new data on time-based recoveries in its Sunday case bulletin.

To date, recoveries represent nearly 70 percent of the national COVID-19 case count.

Among Filipinos abroad the Department of Foreign Affairs said one more contracted the disease, while another 26 have recovered. The total number of infections is now at 9,984, with 5,953 recoveries and 733 deaths.

Worldwide, the coronavirus disease has now hit around 23.2 million people and killed over 804,000, based on a tracker maintained by the US-based Johns Hopkins University.
John Moore/Getty

By Rachana Pradhan, Kaiser Health News

The Trump administrations latest effort to use COVID-19 rapid teststouted by one senior official as a turning point in arresting the coronaviruss spread within nursing homesis running into roadblocks likely to limit how widely theyll be used.

Federal officials are distributing point-of-care antigen testswhich are cheaper and faster than tests that must be run by a labto 14,000 nursing homes to increase routine screening of residents and staff. The initial distribution targets nursing homes in hot spots and those with at least three COVID-19 cases, senior Trump administration officials said in July, hailing it as a tool that could root out asymptomatic carriers who might still infect others.

But theres a hitch: Two manufacturers that have received Food and Drug Administration authorization and whose instruments are being deliveredBecton, Dickinson and Co., known as BD, and Quidelsay their antigen tests are intended for patients with symptoms, calling into question how valuable the tests would be for broad screening purposes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 40 percent of infected people may be asymptomatic.

Its important always to use a diagnostic in the way that it has been designed to be used, said Elizabeth Talbot, New Hampshires deputy state epidemiologist. We simply dont know how [the tests] will perform in persons who are asymptomatic.

Ohio Governor Says Positive COVID-19 Test Was a False Alarm

Perhaps the highest-profile example of the problem occurred in Ohio this month, when Gov. Mike DeWine had no symptoms and tested positive for COVID-19 with Quidels antigen test. Within hours, the Republican governors diagnosis was reversed after he got a PCR test.

People should not take away from my experience that testing is not reliable or doesn't work, DeWine said on CNN after his false-positive diagnosis. The antigen tests are fairly new, he said. Were going to be very careful in how we use it.

Story continues

The bigger problem is false-negative results, which show someone isnt infected when they actually are. BDs false-negative ratehow often a test incorrectly says someone isnt infectedis about 15 percent; Quidels is 3 percent.

Quidel and BD say their tests are intended to be used for people within the first five days of showing symptoms. A spokesperson for BD said its test should not be used on asymptomatic individuals. Quidel through a spokesperson deferred to FDA guidelines, which allow asymptomatic testing in certain scenarios.

For routine surveillance, this is a great tool and these are our best tools that we have available, said Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services, on a July call with nursing home officials, according to a recording obtained by KHN. Seema Verma, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, on the call referred to the effort as a turning point in the fight against the virus.

A month after the initial announcement, the Trump administration invoked the Defense Production Act to bump its contracts with the two companies to the front of the line and expedite shipments. BD will send roughly 11,000 devices and 3.75 million tests to nursing homes; Quidel and HHS declined to answer questions about its volume.

As states and the federal government move to mandate COVID testing inside nursing homes, whose patients are deemed highly vulnerable to infection and severe complications, several industry officials have said they hoped to use the tests on asymptomatic people. But many states restrict the use of antigen tests or still require lab-based testing because of accuracy concerns.

If a person with a negative test result has to default to getting a more accurate PCR test, then we simply have just added time and cost, Talbot said. Thats a problem.

A Nurses Texts Lay Bare the Coronavirus Horror at Nursing Homes

Officials said the antigen test announcement caught them by surprise, underscoring the administrations chaotic testing strategy. Separate from the federal effort, 10 states have banded together through the Rockefeller Foundation to secure 5 million tests from the two companies in hopes of curbing the viruss spread this fall.

After nursing homes receive an initial batch of testseach facility gets between 150 and 900they would have to buy future supplies. Medicare will cover the costs of diagnostic tests but not expenses for routine surveillance.

I just have a lot of skepticism, said Brendan Williams, president of the New Hampshire Health Care Association, which represents nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the state. Basically youre giving some lousy tests for nursing homes and youre making them pay for them. I dont see that as a win; I see that as a risk.

Public health experts have become increasingly vocal that frequent rapid testing is the best tool for stopping the viruswhich has killed more than 174,000 Americans including tens of thousands in nursing care  rather than relying on more accurate lab-based tests that have been plagued by delays and shortages. In a call this month with the industry, Verma estimated that half of the countrys nursing homes have experienced cases.

I dont see an avenue where these will not help to stop transmission chains, and I dont see another option on the table for us, said Dr. Michael Mina, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a proponent of rapid tests. It is what we need to be doing right now.

This is better for the folks in our buildings, without a doubt, added Jason Belden, director of emergency preparedness and physical plant services for the California Association of Health Facilities.

In theory, antigen tests can serve dual purposesdiagnosing a person with a suspected infection or screening a group of people to more quickly identify sick individuals. The tests by Quidel and BD, under their FDA authorizations, can be used on certain asymptomatic individuals, including those suspected of having COVID-19 after exposure to an infected person. The companies would need additional FDA authorization to screen any asymptomatic person regardless of whether theyre suspected of being sick, according to agency guidelines.

These Scientists in Vans Think They Can Help Solve the Testing Crisis

The CDC has suggested antigen tests could be useful in high-risk settings if performed repeatedly. It said there was limited data to guide using them to screen asymptomatic people.

Nonetheless, HHS recommends universal screening of nursing home residents at least once and regular screening of staff regardless of symptoms, said agency spokesperson Mia Heck, citing the fact that COVID-19 viral loads are similar between patients with and without symptoms. Only one test in the U.S. is authorized for asymptomatic individuals, she said, referring to a PCR test from LabCorp, yet the overwhelming majority of testing is being done on asymptomatic individuals.

If the world were ideal wed say, Oh, we want the more accurate test. But the more accurate test takes forever to get the results back, said Peter Van Runkle, executive director of the Ohio Health Care Association, which represents the states nursing homes.

All targeted nursing homes will receive tests by the end of September, according to federal officials, who recently announced that facilities in states with a positivity rate of at least 5 percent must test staff each week.

I dont see this as a federal strategy so much as a stopgap method to bring a little relief to nursing homes, said Katie Smith Sloan, president of LeadingAge, which represents nonprofit nursing homes. Its really tragic that we are where we are right now.

Boosted by $71 million in federal funds for Quidel and $24.3 million for BD, Quidel plans to produce 1.8 million tests weekly by September; BD will produce similar volumes by October.

The situation is much too urgent to wait a few months so we can put bows and lipstick on the program. So were going to build this plane a little bit while were flying it, Giroir told nursing homes in July. Just work with us. We want to get you what you need. And then in September, October you can get what you want.

States take different approaches in deploying antigen tests in nursing homes; in at least sevenincluding California, Illinois and Marylandofficials say PCR tests should still be used to confirm results or to screen patients without symptoms. In Massachusetts, nursing homes must use PCR tests to meet surveillance requirements.

In Maryland, our goal is to screen out staff who are positive as quickly as possible, particularly asymptomatic folks, said Dennis Schrader, chief operating officer of the health department.

Maryland nursing homes can use antigen tests for weekly staff testing if there isnt an outbreak. But if at least one person tests positive for the coronavirus, all staff and residents must be tested with PCR tests.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation) that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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Using a novel technique which enables high resolution imaging of damaged lung tissues, scientists have found the changes caused by severe COVID-19 in the structure of the organ's blood vessels and air sacs, findings that may support the development of new treatment methods against the disease.

In the study, published in the journal eLife, the scientists developed a new X-ray technique which enables high resolution and three-dimensional imaging of lung tissues infected with the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

Using the new method, the researchers, including those from the University of Gottingen in Germany, observed significant changes in the blood vessels, inflammation, and a deposition of proteins and dead cells on the walls of the lungs' tiny air sacs called alveoli.

They said these changes make gas exchange by the organ either difficult or impossible.

According to the scientists, the new imaging approach allows these changes to be visualised for the first time in larger tissue volumes, without cutting and staining, or damaging the tissue.

They said it is particularly well suited for tracing small blood vessels and their branches in three dimensions, localising cells of the immune systems present at inflammation sites, and measuring the thickness of the alveolar walls.

Due to the three-dimensional reconstruction of the lung tissues, the researchers said the data could also be used to simulate gas exchange in the organ.

Since X-rays penetrate deep into tissue, they said scientists can use the method to understand the relation between the microscopic tissue structure and the larger function of an organ.

"Based on this first proof-of-concept study, we propose multi-scale phase contrast X-ray tomography as a tool to unravel the pathophysiology of COVID-19," the researchers wrote in the study.

The scientists believe the technique will support the development of treatment methods, and medicines to prevent or alleviate severe lung damage in COVID-19, or to promote recovery.

"It is only when we can clearly see and understand what is really going on, that we can develop targeted interventions and drugs," said Danny Jonigk, a co-author of the study from Medical University Hannover in Germany.
The argument for Scottish independence has historic overtones. On April 6, 1320, the Declaration of Arbroath was proclaimed. Written in Latin, it was really not a declaration, but a private letter, perhaps the most famous letter in Scottish history, by 39 Scottish barons addressed to Pope John XXII, who had excommunicated Robert the Bruce, King of Scots, who had murdered a rival to the throne in a church. The context was that England under King Edward II had attempted to conquer Scotland in 1296, an invasion that continued in spite of the victory of William Wallace at Stirling Bridge in 1297.

The barons were asking the pope, who had clashed with Bruce, to recognize Scottish independence and for him to recognize Bruce as the lawful king of Scots. Bruce, who had seized the throne in 1306, in June 1314 won the Battle of Bannockburn over the army of King Edward II in what can be regarded as the first war for Scottish independence.

The declaration stated, "For so long as a hundred of us remain alive, we will never in any degree be subject to the dominion of the English[.] ... Not for glory, nor riches, nor honors, that we are fighting, but for freedom, for that alone which no honest man gives up but with life itself." The declaration led to the pope rescinding the excommunication of Bruce, but it did not lead to any decision that the independence of Scotland was the prerogative of the Scottish people.

The Declaration of Arbroath was not translated into English until the late 17th century. It is unlikely that it influenced the U.S. Declaration of Independence, as some commentators have suggested, but it was awarded in 2016 the UNESCO Memory of the World status for its international importance. Its rhetoric still flourishes.

In 1328, England recognized the kingdom of Scotland as an independent state and Bruce as the rightful ruler of the Scots. This continued to exist as such until 1707. A personal union took place in 1603 when James VI of Scotland, by inheritance, became James I of England and Ireland. By the Act of Union, 1707, the United Kingdom was created. The individual parliaments of England and Scotland were abolished and united by the parliament of Great Britain, with seats for Scotland, based in Westminster, London. Common citizenship, customs union, and monetary union were established, but by compromise, the Church of Scotland and Scottish law and courts and education were preserved as separate systems. The Westminster parliament has sovereignty over the U.K. as a whole, and Scotland has partial self-determination, less than full self-determination, which provides for full decision-making with control over defense and foreign policy.

Scots were prominent in British cultural and economic life as merchants and traders in commerce and shipping, particularly in the East India Company, where by the 1770s they formed almost half of the writers of the company and were employed in civil, military, and maritime services. The wealth acquired created a social and economic infrastructure and reduced the impetus for Scottish separation and nationalism.

The issue of Scottish identity and national self-determination, a mixture of historical, emotional, political, and financial factors, has now reemerged as a pressing political issue, as recent political polls have shown.

In 1997, the Labor government agreed to proposals for a Scottish parliament and devolution and a referendum in the same year. As a result, an elected Scottish parliament, Holyrood, of 129 members came into existence in 1999 with legislative authority over most domestic policy, all non-reserved matters relating to Scotland, and limited power on business rates and income taxes. One of its members, of the party controlling a majority, is appointed first minister. At present, that is Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) since November 2014, the first woman to hold these positions. She replaced Alex Salmond, who had held these positions for over seven years and who was acquitted by the High Court in March 2020 of 13 sexual assault charges while he was first minister.

In a first referendum on independence in 2014, the result was negative; 44.7% voted for independence and 55.3% against it in a turnout of 85%. But public opinion polls and voting in elections now show the opposite result, roughly 54% to 45%.

The SNP, the supporter of independence within the E.U., has been increasing in popularity. In 2011, it won power in Holyrood as the majority party. In 2015, SNP won 56 of the 59 Scottish seats up for election. In 2016, SNP again became the largest single party, but with a few short of a majority, in Holyrood, winning 59 of the 73 constituencies up for election, resulting in SNP having 63 of the 129 seats, while the Conservatives declined to 31 and Labor to 24. The SNP is favored to win a majority in the devolved parliament at Holyrood in May 2021.

Scotland has 59 seats in Westminster. The SNP become the third largest party in Westminster in 2019, winning 48 seats, and was second in 11 others. In the referendum on Brexit on June 23, 2016, Scotland, contrary to the U.K. as a whole, voted 62% to remain and 38% to leave the E.U. All of the 32 council areas in the country voted to remain. The argument is that the people of Scotland do not want to turn their back on Europe, but rather want to play a larger role in the E.U.

Indications in recent public opinion polls show that support for independence is increasing. Most show that between 50 and 55% favor leaving the U.K., and about 45% prefer to remain. There is no one overriding factor, but various issues are mentioned. First, independence means that the people of Scotland would make more of its decisions, which they are best placed to make. The U.K. is governed by the Conservative Party, but the Tories have not won a Scotland-wide election for over 70 years. The SNP has been critical of the Conservatives' handling of current problems  COVID-19, lockdown, quarantine. Nicola Sturgeon, unlike Prime Minister Boris Johnson, is personally popular and appears on television every day. Johnson has rejected a suggestion that Sturgeon might attend cabinet meetings in London.

More practically, one argument is that Trident nuclear missiles would be removed, and the money saved could be devoted to education, health care, and housing. Though the argument "it's Scotland's oil" is not as pungent as it once was, it still provokes the responses that only an independent Scotland can fully obtain the financial benefits of the North Sea resources.

In the ongoing issue, two factors are controversial. One is the exact nature of the desired break with the U.K. and the precise meaning of self-determination. Many in the SNP want to keep the monarchy and for Scotland to become a Commonwealth country like Canada and Australia. Others suggest a federal system. More extremist nationalists want an independent republic with full powers. Would this require a new currency?

The second debatable issue is whether Scotland can prosper on its own, financially and in managerial terms. North Sea oil and gas extraction is falling, as are prices. Can an independent country cope with the persisting COVID-19 epidemic? Can it manage without the usual subsidies provided of between 10 billion and 12 billion pounds annually to fund public services? Or would the country need to raise taxes in order to sustain levels of public spending?

Scotland benefits from the U.K.'s presence in NATO and the G8 and as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and is unlikely to have any considerable influence in the E.U. on its own. On the contrary, it is more stable as part of a larger state. Realistically, because of COVID-19, Scottish GDP has declined substantially, and if Scotland were independent, it would likely have a weaker growth rate than the U.K. as a whole. Statistics already show that the economy is declining in recovery in dominant services industries, construction, agriculture, and business activity generally except in the manufacturing section. The country is less able to sustain a significant national debt or to borrow. Already, 65,000 Scottish firms are getting $2.6 billion in loans to survive the lockdown.

Yet Nicola Sturgeon wants a second vote on independence. The vital question is whether this is the best way to preserve the Scottish heritage and creative excellence and to play a bigger role in Europe and the rest of the world, or whether it would be divisive. One can ask, should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?
The average American wedding dress costs $1,631, according to Brides.com. Today I could buy eight shares of Microsoft with that money. If a bride bought eight shares of Microsoft 25 years ago with her money  instead of a wedding dress that shed have to give to Goodwill because her daughter would never wear something so outdated  that investment would be worth about $26,000 now. Microsofts investment results calculator backs me up on this. Instead of a dress with a one-day lifespan, you could invest in wedding stock of your choosing.

If the cost of the dress doesnt faze you, lets look at the cost of an average U.S. wedding  almost $34,000 last year. Now consider that 70% of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings.

Sure, weddings create memories for a lifetime, but I also want to retire in my lifetime. Nobody should go into debt or experience financial hardship for one day of celebration.

The reality is that when many of us are planning weddings, were not flush with cash, and statistics show neither are many of our parents. Almost 80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. That alone should inspire us as a society to take a good, hard look at what has become a wedding industrial complex.
Taxpayers could be hit by a huge fraud time-bomb from Rishi Sunak's 35billion bounce back loans, an investigation by The Mail on Sunday has found.

More than 1.15million businesses have borrowed up to 50,000 each under the flagship scheme to get back on their feet.

But The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the loans are being exploited by greedy business owners, rogue landlords and criminal gangs.

Exploitation: Taxpayers could be hit by a huge fraud time-bomb from Rishi Sunak's 35billion bounce back loans

Our investigation found:

Fraudsters are using classified advertisements to solicit people to help get hold of bounce back loans illegally;

A supercar dealer caught a fraudster trying to use a taxpayer-backed loan to buy a Porsche Cayman worth 41,000;

Banks are so concerned about abuse of the scheme that they have started asking those applying for buy-to-let mortgages whether they have taken out bounce back loans;

The spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, has launched a probe into the scheme's 'value for money' amid concerns that the taxpayer is being left on the hook for loans to crooks that will never be repaid.

The Cabinet Office is understood to be scrambling to devise a strategy to clamp down on the abuse.

Its officials have been warned that banks are handing out funds with only 'minimal' checks. That is allowing crooks to apply using the names of fake or dormant businesses.

The full scale of the problem may not become clear until the loans are due to be repaid from next April.

Sunak's loan scheme was launched in May after banks came under fire for taking too long to help businesses at the height of the pandemic.

The idea was to distribute loans of up to 50,000 extremely rapidly with the Government promising to cover 100 per cent of any losses suffered by the banks.

But sources said intelligence shared with officials in the Cabinet Office shows fraudsters are using dormant companies to gain funds from the scheme illegally.

They said criminals evade detection by recruiting a 'clean' director for a company to apply for a loan. They backdate the individual's appointment to avoid suspicion. The firms apply for loans at multiple banks to maximise their payouts.

It may be that fraudsters are only getting away with a small proportion of the total, but a small percentage of this will be a huge amount - Michael Levi

The stolen funds can then be shifted through a number of bank accounts to make them untraceable.

Michael Levi, professor of criminology at Cardiff University, said: 'It is when you try to get it back you see the problems. It is only in April that we will be able to tell the scale of the missing money.

'It may be that fraudsters are only getting away with a small proportion of the total, but a small percentage of this will be a huge amount.'

Experts said advertisers are recruiting so-called mules to stash the proceeds of bounce back loan fraud in exchange for a share of the proceeds.

One post said: 'I basically need someone to help me open an account so I can apply for a bounce back loan.

'I am eligible for the entire 50,000 and will split a small percentage with someone who can help me get the loan.'

Stephen Brogan, a car dealer near Glasgow, found that a crook used his firm's details to apply for a 40,000 loan.

He said someone rang him to buy a Porsche and asked for his bank account details to send the payment. The fraudster applied for a bounce back loan and pretended the borrowed money was the payment for the car when it landed in Brogan's account.

He only discovered a loan had been applied for in his firm's name after checking with Bank of Scotland.

Brogan said: 'The bank didn't do any due diligence on the loan. They completely let us down. It took three days for their fraud division to get back to us. They said their department has never been busier.'

David Clarke, chairman of the Fraud Advisory Panel charity, said: 'It is vital that all banks apply proper checks to stop fraudsters receiving multiple bounce back loans from different lenders that will never be repaid. It's not too late to claw back money.'

Banking trade body UK Finance said lenders had a system to 'detect and prevent fraudulent activity' which checks for duplicate applications.

It added: 'Under the rules of the scheme set by government, businesses applying for a bounce back loan have to self-certify that they are using the loan for business purposes.'

The Treasury is understood to be confident that the banks' precautions are sufficient.
Federal authorities intervened after clashes between armed far-right groups, some with "ties to fascist" organizations, and anti-racism protesters near the Justice Center in downtown Portland, Oregon, saw rocks, mace and paint balls used, per the Oregonian.

Of note: Portland Police officers "remained at a distance ... even as people beat others with sticks, and at least two right-wing activists brandished handguns," the Washington Post reports. The police blamed limited resources in a statement on "why the events downtown were not declared a riot and why police did not intervene."

A tweet previously embedded here has been deleted or was tweeted from an account that has been suspended or deleted.

Why it matters: Portland Police have frequently declared riots during unrest in the city since Black Lives Matter protests began 85 days ago, including on Friday.

What they're saying: The police said Portland officers "have been the focus of over 80 days of violent actions directed at the police, which is a major consideration for determining if police resources are necessary to interject."

According to the police, there were "some physical interactions which quickly resolved themselves" during the two-hour standoff.

"Some members from both groups threw projectiles and deployed aerosols like pepper and bear spray at each other. At times, fireworks were thrown and smoke canisters were deployed. Each skirmish appeared to involve willing participants and the events were not enduring in time, so officers were not deployed to intervene."



 Police statement
The coronavirus recession that began as a short-term shutdown devastating low-wage workers is now bearing down on white-collar America, where employers have been slower to rehire and job losses are more likely to be permanent.

Lower-paid workers are losing their jobs at about three times the rate of higher-wage employees. But the drop in overall employment that white-collar industries like real estate, information and professional and technology services have seen in five months is already on par with or worse than the hits they took during the Great Recession  underscoring how even highly paid workers with the ability to telework are vulnerable now.

As the economy begins to crawl back toward its pre-coronavirus normal, lower-paying industries are recovering at a faster clip than those at the higher end of the pay scale, where new job postings have been weak by comparison. Job postings for higher-wage occupations  those offering roughly $50,000 or more annually  remain 28 percent below last years trend, while lower-wage postings for jobs offering around $30,000 or less are down only 12 percent, according to the hiring platform Indeed.

The trend suggests that white-collar employers are increasingly unwilling to take expensive risks and hire more higher-wage employees at a time when the economy is precarious at best, economists say. That could spell trouble for the broader economy in the longer-term, in part because spending by high-income consumers supports low-wage jobs. Some economists fear how much more damage higher-paying industries could see in the coming months if economic growth stalls or dips downward again.

This is not just a low-wage recession, said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, who compared job losses in industries paying at least $30 an hour between February and July to the share lost between December 2007 and June 2009.

Swonk found that employment in the information industry is down 11.4 percent now compared to 7.7 percent during the Great Recession, as one example, while employment in management services is down 4.7 percent now compared to 2.4 percent then.

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For lower-wage workers who have lost their jobs, their situation is clearly much more desperate, she said. But that doesnt mean that the pain isnt still broader-based than weve acknowledged.

Layoffs in high-wage industries have been mostly overshadowed by those in low-wage occupations that have rolled in at unprecedented levels  more than 28 million Americans are receiving unemployment benefits, the Labor Department says  and comprise the bulk of the countrys job losses. More than 9 million workers in the bottom 40 percent of wage earners remained out of work at the end of June, compared to 3.3 million in the top 40 percent.

Lower-paid workers are also likely to have a harder time recovering from a period of joblessness, in part because they tend to have fewer savings and are less likely to own a home.

But judged by any other measure  including against previous recessions  the damage to higher-wage workers has been significant.

These industries saw smaller initial declines in employment, but in many cases their losses have since grown even as other sectors of the economy have begun to recover. Employment in finance and insurance was down just over 1 percent between February and late April but nearly 5 percent between February and late June, according to economists from the Federal Reserve and University of Chicago, who analyzed data from the payroll processor ADP.

Each of the 14 other industries analyzed  from food services and retail to construction and manufacturing  had seen larger overall losses but had improved between April and June, the study showed, with the exception of educational services.

Some high-wage sectors, the information industry among them, also continued to see layoffs in July even as the economy added workers, the Labor Departments latest monthly data shows.

Those are typically fairly recession-proof industries now that are continuing to lose jobs, even though every other industry is recovering to some degree, said Julia Pollak, a labor economist with the job-posting platform ZipRecruiter. Thats really cause for concern and pause.

Data suggests that layoffs in white-collar industries are more likely to be permanent than those in frontline sectors such as restaurants or retail. The so-called core unemployment rate, which excludes all layoffs that are classified as temporary, has increased more for workers with more education, even as the unemployment rate has generally increased more rapidly for those with less education, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by Jed Kolko, Indeeds chief economist.

The core unemployment rate has risen by 1.7 percentage points for workers with a bachelors degree or more, compared with 0.7 percentage points for those with a high school degree or less, Kolko found.

Nearly 7 million workers have also seen their pay cut since the pandemic began, according to the ADP analysis  most in high-wage industries.

Persistent white-collar layoffs and wage cuts would hold significant effects for the rest of the economy, particularly because spending among wealthier Americans helps support jobs in blue-collar service sector jobs at restaurants, for example, and hair salons or workout studios.

To be sure, if the economic recovery accelerates, higher-paying industries could ultimately emerge relatively unscathed, and continued spending among those workers would help repair damage the shutdowns caused to lower-paying service sectors. Wells Fargo economists acknowledged concerns that layoffs could spread throughout high-wage sectors, hindering any recovery, but said they expect those job losses to be limited.

Still, high-income spending remains down more than 8 percent compared to January levels, more than any other income bracket, according to the Opportunity Insights tracker. Economists warn that trend could continue even after businesses fully reopen if a share of white-collar workers remain unemployed.

Its in those kinds of high-wage cities like New York and San Francisco where low-wage workers have actually seen the steepest losses, and one reason is because of the decline in spending in higher-wage households, Pollak said.

White-collar layoffs could also spark a trend of underemployment, where better-educated workers are applying for jobs below their skill level, edging out applicants who might be more suited for the position, economists say. More than 2 in 5 active job seekers already say they are applying for jobs for which they are overqualified, according to a ZipRecruiter survey published this month.

And more broadly, the sluggish uptick in hiring in high-wage sectors could be a warning sign from employers who see so much uncertainty that they would rather wait and see where the economic recovery is headed before bulking up their workforce.

Its a red flag for the job market, Kolko said. I think its telling us something about where those employers think the economy is going to be in quarters or even a couple years from now.

Its both expensive and time-consuming for high-paying employers to recruit and hire new employees, and that process likely wont begin for many until they feel certain the economy is picking up again.

If youve weathered the storm so far, Swonk said, you dont want to place big bets until you get to the other side of it.

The relative lack of attention these job losses have gotten could be creating a false sense of security among some high-wage workers who so far have felt removed from the effects of the coronavirus shutdowns battering frontline industries, some economists say.

Murphy Whitsitt was earning $105,000 annually as a national service manager for Polytype America, a company that builds printer machinery for product labels. He was able to work from home for the first few months of the pandemic, but his company furloughed him in June once there was no end in sight.

He and his family moved from New Jersey back to Iowa, where they owned a home, to save on rent costs. Theyve gotten a delay in paying their Iowa mortgage, and he recently received his first unemployment check after eight weeks of waiting.

He recognizes that hes far better off than lower-paid workers who have fewer resources to lean on. But hes not expected back at work until at least January, and without further help from Congress, hes not sure how hell pay his mortgage bill when it comes due in the fall.

Well eventually be okay, Whitsitt said. But its definitely been stressful.
It is now obvious that the moves by the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) in eastern Ladakh this summer were premeditated, planned and smoothly executed. This comes through when you consider the strength of the troops involved as well as the multiple locations where action has been seen. There were certain military objectives set out for PLA and at least some, if not all, of those have been achieved. In the process, China has violated many of the agreements with India on the maintenance of peace and tranquillity on the border. Having done so, China has indicated that it is neither going to vacate its military aggression nor restore the status quo ante. Several rounds of diplomatic as well as military negotiations aimed at de-escalating the situation in the western sector of the India-China border have proved this.

From the statements of Chinese diplomatic envoys as well as other interlocutors, with whom this writer has had the opportunity to interact virtually, Chinas diplomatic game plan is also becoming apparent. Having accomplished much that it had planned militarily on the ground, China intends to make these positions permanent and amass the gains. Simultaneously, it will do all it can to ensure that the rest of the India-China relationship continues its normal course and that it is business-as-usual in economic relations, in people-to-people exchanges and in multilateral engagements. That is its game plan. Chinese diplomacy fully intends and hopes to reach this goal. If it is allowed to do so, it will truly be a win-win for China.

If China accomplishes this diplomatic objective vis-a-vis India, it will be able to show the world that India has accepted the new military realities on the ground in Ladakh. By extension, other countries should not worry about the implications of Chinas moves on its border with India and about aggressive Chinese behaviour. It will also cement Chinas pre-eminent position in the Asian pecking order.

Incidentally, this has also been Chinas playbook in the South China Sea and has been pursued with finesse and success there. It is only now that the United States (US) is beginning to challenge such obviously unacceptable actions, even as countries in the region continue to be diplomatically bogged down with negotiating a code of conduct while China merrily continues with its armed military aggression.

A further implication for India if it were to quietly acquiesce in this Chinese game plan is that there will be nothing to stop PLA from repeating its actions later this year, or next year or the next. This will merely be in line with Chinese activities elsewhere. We must be clear-headed and practical to see through Beijings military-diplomatic manoeuvres.

Former Chinese ambassadors, retired PLA officers as well as international relations experts that I have had occasion to interact with, repeatedly stated that China does not view India as a strategic enemy. Hence, the argument goes, the rest of the India-China relationship should be normalised as soon as possible, particularly as this is the 70th anniversary year of the establishment of diplomatic ties. In response, when they were told that if this was indeed the case, then China should find it easy to restore the status quo ante in Ladakh, there was stony silence from them.

For all these reasons, it is of utmost importance for India to send a clear message to China, that we view PLAs actions in Ladakh as a serious test for the relationship. The tactical inference that India has drawn is that China desires to unilaterally decide where the Line of Actual Control (LAC) lies. The strategic implication is that China is clearly exhibiting that it is the regional hegemon in Asia, that it can do as it pleases in its neighbourhood, and that the 21st century is not an Asian century but solely a Chinese century.

Through the military action in Ladakh, where the Indian Army fought bravely and heroically, New Delhi has conveyed that it does not accept any of these propositions and that it shall stand up to Chinese bullying. Now, New Delhi needs to ensure that Chinas diplomatic playbook does not succeed. India-China relations cannot be business-as-usual. The ban on Chinese mobile phone apps, changes in public procurement policies aimed at weeding out Chinese companies, and an added level of scrutiny in Indias investment apparatus are all good first steps.

While China is worried, especially because Indias actions have had a snowballing effect, for example, in the ban on TikTok, it still appears that our message has not been heard loud and clear in Beijing. If peace cannot prevail in the India-China border areas, then the rest of the relationship cannot continue as before. India-China relations will be negatively impacted.

Therefore, New Delhi needs to reinforce this clear-cut position by taking some more steps and measures to amply clarify the revised Indian policy toward China. One of the loudest signals that we can send is to ban Chinese firms from Indias 5G trials and roll-out. New Delhi needs to announce this decision soon.

Gautam Bambawale is a former Indian ambassador to China and high commissioner to Pakistan. Currently, he is trustee, Pune International Centre

The views expressed are personal

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As the coronavirus crisis unfolded this year, Kate Rayment, the principal of St Scholasticas College in Glebe, watched her year 12 students with pride.

They, like their peers around the state, have faced so many challenges - remote learning, uncertainty over their HSC exams, the cancellation of their rites of passage - and have responded with grace and resilience.

Year 12 students at St Scholastica's College have been given a special brooch to mark their resilience during the coronavirus pandemic. Credit:Janie Barrett

Ms Rayment wanted to acknowledge that. And she wanted the girls to remember it.

So she has given each year 12 student a commemorative badge, featuring the schools crest encircled by symbols of the COVID age - hand-washing, social distancing, lockdown and sanitiser.
Christina Glover gets a flu shot each year and has always ensured her daughters pediatric vaccines are on schedule.

Yet the 36-year-old from the South Side of Chicago said shed be nervous about getting a COVID-19 vaccine once one emerges and hits the market.

Its the fact that its new, Glover said. You have your right to be concerned about anything  vaccines, any type of medication  you have a right to be concerned with how its going to interact with your body.  You want to see the reaction its going to have on other people.

As scientists across the globe race to create a COVID-19 vaccine that is safe and effective, the American public appears sharply divided when it comes to the prospect of getting vaccinated against the new virus, which has so far infected roughly 5.5 million and killed more than 172,000 in the United States.

A survey from NBC News/SurveyMonkey Weekly Tracking Poll showed that more than half of American adults either wouldnt get a COVID-19 vaccine once one is available or are unsure whether theyll get immunized. The poll found 44% said they would get the vaccine, while 22% reported they wouldnt get one and another 32% remain uncertain.

A Gallup survey earlier this month indicated that 35% of Americans would not get a free vaccine against COVID-19, if one were available and approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Another 65% responded that they would get the shot, with those identifying as Democrats far more in favor than Republicans.

Political leaders and health experts have taken up the challenge of getting the public on board, calling a future COVID-19 vaccine the key to fighting the virus and a return to normalcy. Gov. J.B. Pritzker has said Illinois wont be able to move on to phase five of the state reopening plan until a vaccine or highly effective treatment is widely available, or new cases are eliminated over a sustained period.

Glover said she recognizes the tension between individual health care rights versus the need to quell an international pandemic.

As a licensed practical nurse, she said she might have to get a future COVID-19 vaccine if it becomes required by her employer. And Glover said she understands the gravity of the illness: She said she contracted the coronavirus in late March. She suffered from aches, chest pains, a sore throat, shortness of breath and a loss of taste and smell through early April.

But she believes everyone should have the right to make their own medical decisions, noting that some might have religious objections or other personal concerns. While she always gets immunized to protect herself against the flu, she said she doesnt judge others who forgo the shot.

I just believe people should have a choice, they should be able to decline if they dont want to get it, she said. I understand why health care facilities would want to make it mandatory to help prevent the spread. But at the same time, to each their own. Its an individual choice.

Personal choice vs. public health

William Taylor, 36, of the Chicago neighborhood of Lakeview, said hes eager to get a coronavirus vaccine, even an early version of the vaccine if it were available to me.

I am hopeful that we could see a vaccine sooner than usual because of the serious upheaval (COVID-19) has caused and all of the resources being thrown at this, he said.

While there is no vaccine available yet, about two dozen potential COVID-19 vaccines are in various stages of testing across the globe. The Trump administration project Operation Warp Speed has dedicated billions of taxpayer dollars to fast-track a safe, effective and widely distributed vaccine against the new virus, with the goal of producing 300 million doses by January.

The nations top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, last month said he remained cautiously optimistic that we will have a vaccine by the end of this year and as we go into 2021.

Yet once a vaccine is available, getting the greater public on board and immunized could be the next hurdle.

I personally will not, said Lisa Casas, 54, of Itasca. The flu vaccine has been around forever and most years its not even the correct strain. I dont believe in vaccines for viruses.

While Casas has sidestepped the flu shot, she said she made sure her daughters had childhood vaccines required for school.

I believe being healthy, eating right and exercise help to fight viruses and diseases, she added. But in saying that, it should still be everyones choice as to what they do with their health.

Public health officials already have some difficulty convincing adults to get flu shots each year. A poll in late 2019 showed 37% of adults didnt plan to get the flu vaccine that season, according to research from NORC at the University of Chicago. Some reasons for forgoing the shot included concerns about side effects, a belief that the vaccine didnt work very well, the respondent reported never getting the flu and a dislike for needles, according to the survey.

Policymakers and medical experts also face opposition from anti-vaxxers, individuals and groups opposed to vaccines already on the market, whose opinions are often based on discredited research or debunked claims linking vaccines to other illnesses.

Even though no vaccine currently exists, an online petition opposing mandatory COVID-19 vaccines on the website LifeSite has garnered more than 800,000 signatures. Tens of thousands have also signed a change.org petition opposing mandatory COVID-19 vaccines in Canada.

Freedom and individual choice are main themes in both petitions.

We have managed to convince ourselves that the people whose healths are affected by a virus are much more important than the people whose lives, freedoms and livelihoods are being destroyed by this same virus, the Canadian petition reads.

Back to normal?

Sometimes perceptions of the severity of the virus can shape vaccination views.

David Cassiere, 52, of Sleepy Hollow near Chicago, said he would most likely not get a COVID-19 vaccine, mostly due to concerns over possible side effects.

I would not be one of the first people lined up, he said.

He said the only way hed be convinced is if 99% or more of those immunized dont contract the virus -- and even then hed likely wait at least a couple of seasons or calendar years to learn more about its safety.

Cassiere added that he fears the economic devastation caused by quarantines and stay-in-place orders more than he fears the actual virus.

I think weve erred too far restricting peoples livelihoods and commerce by quarantining everybody rather than asking people who are more at risk to do quarantining themselves, he said. Im not saying Illinois is wrong and Wisconsin is right -- but I think there are other states that might be more in the middle, that are closer to having it right.

Like Cassiere, some expressed reluctance to get vaccinated against COVID-19 were concerned about possible side effects; others worried about contracting the coronavirus from the shot, even though most of the leading vaccine candidates currently being tested dont contain a live virus and wouldnt cause infection.

Public uncertainty about whether to get a vaccine that hasnt even been developed doesnt surprise Dr. Kelly Michelson, professor of pediatrics and director of the Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

First of all, and I think importantly, there is no vaccine now, said Michelson, who is also an attending physician at Ann and Robert H. Lurie Childrens Hospital. We dont really have the relevant information. Is it an effective vaccine? How effective is it?  So it doesnt surprise me that people are unwilling to commit to taking a vaccine they know nothing about.

Once more is known about a future coronavirus vaccine, communication between patients and clinicians will play an important role, Michelson said.

She says good information and an open dialogue can often allay the concerns of patients who have questions about existing vaccines that have been around for years, with proven records of safety and effectiveness.

The vaccines that we have on the market that are currently tested, we have a good amount of information about, and I can say with certainty that people should get their flu vaccines, that its good for them, she said. If we do have a coronavirus vaccine, its going to be very important for clinicians -- and for the public -- to have good information about what it is.

Michael Barrett, 70, of northwest Indiana, said he looks forward to the day when a COVID-19 vaccine is widely available.

I would have no problem with it, even with limited trials, said Barrett, who was born and raised in Chicago but now lives in the Chesterton, Indiana, area. Weve got way more to gain at our age than to not try it. Its crazy not to. Hopefully if everyone gets it, life can go back to normal.

Hes concerned that some parts of the country are reopening too quickly, spurring outbreaks of the virus. Even as governments are loosening regulations, he believes that many retirees and individuals with underlying health conditions will continue to be worried about venturing out, further hampering the economy.

He wants to go out to dinner with family and friends. He and his wife long to travel again.

We so much miss that life we had before the virus, he said.

PHOTOS: Have you seen these missing children?
TUCUMCARI  A Tucumcari man, presented with DNA evidence, recently confessed to setting a fire in 2012 that killed more than 70 animals at a local veterinarian clinic.

However, the man has not been charged with any crime regarding the fire because the statute of limitations expired on the case more than two years ago.

District Attorney Timothy Rose said hes never had a case where Ive been this aggravated that we were unable to seek justice because of the rule of law.

Its a shame that case is going to go unpunished, Rose added.

The break in the long-standing probe came to light after the Quay County Sun made an open-records request to New Mexico State Police on the 71-page investigative report it submitted to Rose in June.

Implicated in the report was Kevin Ronnie Garcia, 28, of Tucumcari. When the Quay County Sun contacted Garcia on Friday to ask him about the report, he acknowledged setting the fire as a spur-of-the-moment thing, but he said his memories of that night were fuzzy because hed been drinking.

Garcia is awaiting adjudication on felony counts of false imprisonment and possession of a stolen vehicle, along with other charges, that were filed in December and April. He has been released on his own recognizance and is wearing a GPS ankle monitor. His next court date is in September.

According to online court records, Garcia has had run-ins with the law since 2009, mostly moving violations or misdemeanors.

The blaze at Tucumcari Animal Hospital on the citys north side was reported at 3:54 a.m. May 21, 2012.

Dr. Jean Corey, the longtime veterinarian at the clinic, arrived at the scene shortly after Tucumcari firefighters.

They didnt want me to go inside, Corey recalled Saturday during an interview in the Tucumcari Animal Hospitals new home in a rented office trailer next to the burned remnants of the old building. But I went in and tried the best I could to save some of them, get some of them out that we could.

One dog Corey rescued from a kennel in the burning building died a few days later.

Corey said that when she finally accounted for all the animal deaths from the fire, the total was more than 70. All died of smoke inhalation.

She said most of the pets that died were dogs and cats, but the fire also claimed two birds, a rabbit and a tankful of fish.

Corey said she had kept several abandoned animals as her own at the clinic, but the one she was fondest of was Blue, a blue-gray cat.

He was the clinic cat, she said. He was everybodys favorite.

Blue perished in the fire.

Investigators found a trail of blood leading from a broken window at the clinic where a burglar apparently gained entry and cut himself. State Police took several samples of the blood and submitted them to the state DNA database.

State fire marshal investigator Sammy Anaya said in his report that several windows were broken to hasten the fires spread. He stated someone poured an ignitable liquid on the office furniture and trash cans and set them afire in an office area.

The State Police report said officers checked into several possible suspects. It said one name stood out  Garcias. Garcia refused a State Police request to submit a DNA sample, the report said, and he never was charged in connection with the fire.

In December, Garcia was arrested in Tucumcari after being accused of receiving stolen property and unlawful carrying of a deadly weapon. Because one of the charges was a felony, he was required to submit to a DNA swab that would be forwarded to the states DNA database.

State Police said they learned in March that Garcias DNA was a match for DNA found at the animal hospital fire in 2012.

In April, Garcia was taken to the State Police office in Tucumcari for questioning, and police executed a search warrant to obtain new DNA from him.

Garcia initially denied his role with the fire and insisted someone was trying to frame him.

When told Garcias DNA and no one elses was found at the scene, he confessed to starting the fire, records show.

Honestly, what happened was I was messed up on coke and drunk and broke in, Garcia said, according to the report.

Asked why he broke into the animal clinic, he said probably just money or whatever.

Honestly, I just broke in because I wanted some money for some more bud (marijuana) and beer, Garcia said.
Test will be his handling of full school reopenings slated for September

Gavin Williamson has one 'last chance' to save his Cabinet position, with Ministers suggesting his final test will be the reopening of schools in nine days time.

But some of the country's biggest education and teaching unions don't want to see him sacked, instead branding him their 'very useful idiot'.

The under-fire Education Secretary has said he is committed to doing 'everything necessary' to ensure pupils are back in the classroom for September, following the fiasco over A-Level, GCSE and BTEC grades.

Despite Downing Street's resistance to removing Mr Williamson because they 'back their people', the 44-year-old secretary is clinging on to his post ahead of another significant challenge.

Boris Johnson has said that it is a 'moral duty' to get all children back into schools in England next month, as pupils in Scotland have already returned.

But Sir Keir Starmer called the Prime Minister's commitment a 'serious risk' after a 'week of chaos', saying that while he supported the decision to get kids back to school the government had wasted precious time 'clearing up a mess of the Governments own making'.

Writing in the Observer today, the Labour leader said: 'Ministers should have spent the summer implementing a national plan to get all children back to school.

'Instead, the last two weeks have been wasted clearing up a mess of the Governments own making over exam results.'

Downing St believe that failure to reopen schools next month is not an option, and the UK's Chief Medical Officers have told parents their children would face an 'exceptionally small risk' from Covid-19 in the classroom.

In other coronavirus developments in Britain:

Gavin Williamson defended his seaside break in Scarborough after arriving back just days before the A-levels fiasco which has rocked his position;

A former chief scientific adviser warned that coronavirus will be present 'forever' and people are likely to need regular vaccinations against it;

Six million furloughed people broke the rules by doing their jobs from home during lockdown despite the ban on work, a major new report has found;

Britain's Chief Medical Officers have unanimously told parents their children can return to classrooms next month as they face a 'small risk' from Covid-19;

Scotland's 73 per cent spike in new coronavirus cases drives the UK to its highest Saturday total for eight weeks, with 1,288 infections;

Andy Burnham has said the coronavirus restrictions in Greater Manchester are working and driving down case numbers of cases.

Gavin Williamson has one 'last chance' to save his Cabinet position, with Ministers suggesting his final test will be the reopening of schools in nine days time

Mr Williamson will now have to keep teachers, parents and unions on side by convincing schools are safe to reopen fully as parts of the country see spikes in coronavirus cases.

One minister said Mr Williamson needed to show he had a 'hands-on grip of your department', while another said that reopening schools would be 'his last chance'.

Union leaders however are secretly supportive of Mr Williamson, describing him as 'parlously weak' which has allowed 'other figures in the education sector to be heard'.

It is believed their opposition to all pupils returning in July was the core reason ministers were forced to shelve their original plans.

One leader told The Telegraph they refrained from calling for his resignation because 'when your enemies make a mistake, why interrupt them.'

But some of the country's biggest education and teaching unions don't want to see him sacked, instead branding him their 'very useful idiot'

'We had a meeting with another union and we're in complete agreement, we don't want him to go because he's a very useful idiot for us. We don't want him to be sacked.'

A Government source responded by saying: 'Getting all children back to school at the start of term is a national priority. That's what the unions should be focused on rather than playing political games.'

The Prime Minister is set to take over the push for children returning to schools by conducting a school visit as the government launches a publicity campaign.

Mr Williamsons response to the exam crisis has been met with a mixture of ridicule and anger from thousands of teenagers who had their predicted grades downgraded by an algorithm

It comes as some senior Tories are worried Mr Williamson would be unable to lead the drive after the damage from A Levels day.

Today Mr Williamson hit back at claims he was on holiday as the A-Level results fiasco unfolded in the UK, saying he was only in Scarborough to visit his relatives.

He added that he had also cancelled his family's holiday to remain in the country and deal with problems caused by algorithms downgrading student results.

Mr Williamson was in the northern seaside town for a week from August 2, and returned just days before the A-level results came out on August 13.

It is also understood that he cancelled a key meeting with the department while he was in North Yorkshire.

'I cancelled our family holiday abroad this year to focus on the challenges COVID-19 created for the education sector,' he said in a tweet.

'Over the summer, I went to see family in Scarborough for the first time since lockdown, and while there I was in constant communication with the Department.'

The Department for Education has already faced scathing criticism earlier this month after an Education Minister went on holiday in the French Alps while teenagers in Britain went through hell over their exam grades.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that as students worried over their futures, Gillian Keegan enjoyed hiking trips, mountain biking and dips in a mountain lake  and boasted about them on Instagram. This picture was posted on A-level results day

The Mail on Sunday revealed that as students worried over their futures, Gillian Keegan enjoyed hiking trips, mountain biking and dips in a mountain lake  and boasted about them on Instagram.

And Astonishingly, Mr Williamson was found to have 'liked' several of her posts while he was up in North Yorkshire

Mrs Keegan is Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills at the Department for Education and, crucially, is jointly responsible for post-16 education strategy.

But as the exam fiasco reached its climax, she decided to remain in France  even as quarantine restrictions came into effect that would require her to self-isolate for 14 days on her eventual return to the UK.

Rural chalet in the French Alps where Mrs Keegan spent her holiday. Mrs Keegan is Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills at the Department for Education and, crucially, is jointly responsible for post-16 education strategy

On August 15, two days after the A-level results in England were released, she wrote on social media: We will have to make the most of it [our holiday] as we will be #quarantined for 14 days when we get back. The post was accompanied by an emoji of a woman shrugging.

Mrs Keegan did not respond to this newspapers requests for comment about her getaway.

However, she now faces the prospect of being unable to attend the Commons in person when it resumes on September 1 because she may still be in quarantine.

Mr Williamson also declined to comment, with sources saying it was not policy to comment on Ministerial diaries.

It IS safe to go back to school: PM says failure to reopen is not an option as UK's Chief Medical Officers tell parents their children can return to classrooms next month as they face an exceptionally small risk' from Covid

ByGlen Owen Political Editor For The Mail On Sundayand Emer Scully For Mailonline

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said failure to reopen schools next month is not an option - as the UK's Chief Medical Officers tell parents their children face an 'exceptionally small risk' from Covid-19 in the classroom.

The highly unusual 'consensus statement' from the country's most senior experts removes the final hurdle to the resumption of full-time teaching in September  to the relief of parents who have been forced to home-school the majority of children since March.

Meanwhile, a Whitehall source told The Daily Telegraph Downing Street has made clear there can be 'no ifs, no buts' in delivering on the national priority.

'Schools not coming back is not an option,' they added. 'Failure is not an option.'

All 12 Chief and Deputy Chief Medical Officers agree that 'very few, if any, teenagers will come to long-term harm from Covid-19 due solely to attending school'.

And they say that small risk has to be offset against 'a certainty of long-term harm to many children from not attending school'.

The experts also conclude that 'teachers are not at increased risk of dying from Covid-19' compared to other workers, and say that the evidence from other countries is that reopening schools is not linked to a surge in cases.

Pupils sit apart during a socially distanced language lesson at Longdendale High School on July 16, 2020 in Hyde, England

Their reassuring statement comes after Boris Johnson issued a rallying cry in The Mail on Sunday a fortnight ago, telling union leaders trying to block the reopening of schools that the country had a 'moral duty' to resume lessons.

And last week Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer argued  also in this newspaper  that Mr Johnson had a 'moral responsibility' to carry out his promise.

The intervention of the medical experts came as:

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, the Minister responsible for getting schools to reopen, faced new criticism over his handling of the A-level results fiasco as it was revealed he took a holiday just days before the crisis unfolded;

The Government said that 41,423 people had died in the UK within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 by yesterday, an increase of 18 on the day before;

Town hall chiefs in the North West claimed they were being 'punished' with draconian new lockdown restrictions for having good testing regimes;

Sources said senior figures across Government were being briefed to prepare for a second UK-wide lockdown in November in a 'worst-case scenario' if infection rates continue to rise;

Former Chief Scientific Adviser Professor Sir Mark Walport warned that coronavirus will be present 'forever', not eradicated like smallpox, and people are likely to need regular vaccinations against it, as they do for flu;

The US government's leading health research body raised major concerns about a secretive Chinese laboratory suspected to be the source of the pandemic, and demanded answers about the 'apparent disappearance' of a scientist there who is considered to be 'Patient Zero';

Britons scrambled to get back from Croatia, Austria and Trinidad and Tobago before new quarantine restrictions came into force, while others raced to book bank holiday breaks in Portugal after it was 'green-listed' as safe.

In their statement, the Medical Officers brush aside teaching unions' safety fears by declaring that 'there is an exceptionally small risk of children of primary or secondary school age dying from Covid-19'.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson (pictured), the Minister responsible for getting schools to reopen, faced new criticism over his handling of the A-level results fiasco as it was revealed he took a holiday just days before the crisis unfolded

They said the fatality rate for children aged five to 15 who become infected was just 14 in a million, 'lower than for most seasonal flu infections', and while every death of a child is a tragedy, 'almost all deaths [from Covid] are in children with significant pre-existing health conditions'.

The experts report that just one in a thousand children under nine who show Covid symptoms would need hospital treatment, a figure that rises to three in a thousand for ten-to-19-year-olds.

That is still an order of magnitude lower than the four per cent rate for the general population, and the experts add: 'Most of these children make a rapid recovery.'

Set against this tiny risk, the scientists say: 'We are confident that multiple sources of evidence show that a lack of schooling increases inequalities, reduces the life chances of children and can exacerbate physical and mental health issues.'

Pupils arrive at Kelso High School on August 11 on the Scottish Borders as schools in Scotland started reopening amid concerns about the safety of returning to the classroom during the coronavirus pandemic

Although the officers accept that 'transmission of Covid-19 to staff members in school does occur', they believe it to be largely 'staff to staff', which can be limited through 'social distancing and good infection control'.

They attempted to reassure staff by saying that the data points to teaching being a 'lower risk profession'.

The experts concede that the connections between households forged by schools returning, such as contact at the school gates or more people using public transport, 'will put some upward pressure on transmission' but said that 'other work and social environments are likely to be more important'.

We are confident that multiple sources of evidence show that a lack of schooling increases inequalities, reduces the life chances of children and can exacerbate physical and mental health issues

However, their remarks came as coronavirus cases were reported in at least 41 schools in Berlin, two weeks after the city's 825 schools reopened.

Last night, England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said that the 'incredibly small' health risks should be balanced against the overwhelming evidence 'that not going to school damages children in the long run and that includes their long-term chances.

'It increases the risks of disparities, it entrenches deep-rooted problems, it increases the risk that they have mental and physical ill health in the long run.'

He added the transmission rates across the UK were broadly flat and said: 'The evidence from other parts of the world is that, when schools have opened, this has not led to a sudden surge in transmission that looks as if it's due to the schools opening.

Mr Whitty  who signed the statement with his colleagues from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and their total of eight deputies after considering a wide range of experts and research  also noted that there might have to be 'other restrictions' in local lockdowns in order to keep schools open.

He said: 'We have to make really quite difficult choices. There are no easy choices in confronting coronavirus.'

Dr Patrick Roach of the NASUWT teachers' union said: 'The Chief Medical Officers' statement has reinforced the critical importance of risk control measures.

'Governments across the UK must take steps to ensure that there are effective systems in place to monitor schools' practices and to provide ongoing reassurance on safety after schools reopen.'

Senior Conservative MPs have called for Mr Johnson to take the lead on schools over from Mr Williamson.

Their concerns have been echoed by several Cabinet ministers, with one saying: 'We've got to get schools back. That's the test for him,' according to the Telegraph.

Some primary school year groups started heading from to the classroom in June, with secondary years 10 and 12 allowed limited face-to-face contact.

A lack of confidence among parents was blamed for relatively low attendance rates.

It is hoped the consensus of the experts will encourage more parents to trust their children will be safe at school in September.
Turn off the lights. Put your arms or legs on top of a cage holding hundreds of mosquitoes. Listen to news or call your mom while the critters chow down on your blood.

This was researcher Sam Rund's routine when he used a colony of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes, a species known for infecting humans with malaria, for research on disease transmission. A staff scientist at the University of Notre Dame, Rund studies how factors such as circadian rhythms and light affect the feeding habits of different mosquito species, which is important for understanding how they spread pathogens to humans.

The colony was picky - it wouldn't feed on anesthetized mice or drink from a container covered with a membrane. These mosquitoes retained their behavior from the wild: They wanted blood straight from a human, and only in darkness. So Rund would feed them for about 15 minutes at a time. He's a pro at it now; after the first two months of feeding mosquitoes, his body got used to it.

"Once you've blood-fed enough mosquitoes for a long enough period, you become tolerized, so your immune system, kind of, stops overreacting," Rund said. "You definitely can still feel them when they're biting, but the next day you wouldn't be able to tell where I was bitten, unless you looked really carefully."

For researchers investigating how mosquitoes spread deadly diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever and chikungunya, laboratory protocols sometimes involve "donating" blood to the cause. And the cause is urgent - mosquito-borne pathogens kill millions of people annually all over the world. The World Health Organization has called the mosquito "the greatest menace" of all disease-transmitting insects.

Laboratories are generally moving away from feeding mosquitoes with researchers' own blood - and special approvals from ethics boards are required, in any case, to do that. In general, researchers cannot subject themselves to feedings from mosquitoes infected with disease. But some researchers continue to allow healthy mosquitoes to bite the hands - or arms - that feed them in the name of science.

Perran Ross, a research fellow at the University of Melbourne in Australia, had a viral Twitter moment when he posted photos and videos of mosquito feeding on his arm. He told followers he had achieved a daily record of feeding 5,000 female mosquitoes, and lost 16 milliliters of his own blood - about half an ounce - to them. Fielding questions from gawking followers, he called the feeding activity "relaxing."

Ross participates in a line of research that may help eliminate the dengue virus - which causes fever, vomiting and even death - in humans. He and other scientists have injected a bacteria called Wolbachia into the eggs of female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Wolbachia decreases this kind of mosquito's ability to transmit deadly viruses, since the viruses cannot reproduce as well inside the insect's cells. The researchers then attempt to breed new colonies of mosquitoes that have the bacteria embedded in them. This method has been showing promising results in reducing the spread of dengue in several areas.

Scientists focus on female mosquitoes because the males don't bite humans. Females need the nutrients in human blood, such as iron, to produce eggs. Aedes aegypti females lay about 100 to 200 eggs at a time, or roughly 300 in a lifetime (adult females live up to a month; males only a week). This particular species deposits the eggs on the sides of shallow puddles, pools or artificial containers; other species may lay their eggs on other surfaces.

Ross's cages have about 500 mosquitoes each, so he ends up feeding a few thousand per month with his own limbs. With the Wolbachia research, he uses his own blood because he needs to keep the mosquitoes under as natural conditions as possible. The colonies tend not to reproduce as well if they're given alternative feeding sources, and getting the Wolbachia to proliferate is already challenging.

At first, when Ross began feeding mosquitoes while working toward a master's degree in 2012, the itching was brutal; he couldn't stop scratching for weeks. But like Rund, his body grew accustomed to it. Since then, Ross estimated, he has fed mosquitoes on the order of eight liters of his own blood.

"I'd be dead if they all fed on me at once," he said jokingly.

Not everyone who works with mosquitoes uses the human feeding method. Chelsea Smartt, associate professor of molecular biology and biochemistry at the University of Florida, has not fed lab mosquitoes off her own arms since graduate school in the early 1990s - and that was in only special populations that didn't adapt to other methods. She said she never got used to it.

"It was amazing to watch but uncomfortable and itchy," she said in an email.

Smartt became interested in mosquito disease transmission because when she was 7 her family moved to Tanzania and her brother contracted malaria. Smartt's lab looks at why certain mosquitoes can propagate viruses and transmit them to people, and some cannot.

While females need blood to reproduce, mosquitoes generally also feed on nectar. Bait stations that people can put in their yards contain sugar laced with fungi or insecticide that kill mosquitoes. Smartt's ultimate goal is to find a molecule that attaches to sugar that would instead block a virus from replicating. That way, a mosquito bite might cause an itchy welt, but not dengue or some other disease.

"I'm trying to do a reverse vaccine," she said. "I'd like to try to vaccinate the mosquito instead."

Instead of human blood, Smartt's lab uses anesthetized chickens or commercially available blood so that the mosquitoes can reproduce for research. Other labs may use mice, guinea pigs or other animals.

Other researchers tinker with various components in artificial blood to see which chemicals most attract female mosquitoes. The key to making synthetic bloodlike solution look delicious to mosquitoes is to warm it up first, says Veronica Jove, a doctoral student at Rockefeller University in New York. She puts a heated simulated bloodlike solution in a container covered with a thin piece of plastic to emulate skin. Mosquitoes then pierce this plastic with their needlelike proboscis called a stylet. The stylet is akin to a tiny syringe evolved to penetrate skin and suck up blood from beneath. Jove works in a lab that studies how the mosquito brain responds when the insect eats.

So what does human blood taste like to mosquitoes?

Jove and her colleagues have found that there are four essential ingredients in blood that mosquitoes go after: sodium chloride; adenosine triphosphate, which is the molecule of energy produced by cellular mitochondria; sodium bicarbonate, which is a major buffer in blood; and blood glucose. Based on the activity of sensory neurons in that sharp stylet, it appears they are more interested in the salty component of blood than the sweet, but all of these flavors combine to create the taste that female mosquitoes go after.

Specialized neurons in the mosquito's stylet distinguish between blood and nectar, according to a preliminary study, led by Jove, which has not yet been peer-reviewed. Another study from the laboratory of Leslie Vosshall, a Rockefeller University Robin Chemers Neustein professor, shows that by giving mosquitoes the minimal components of the blood meal and adding a special drug, the insects will eat and later stop biting. The study was published in the journal Cell.

For Rund, who began mosquito research because of an interest in preventing diseases, feeding mosquitoes his own blood is worth it for the good cause. In addition to providing them nourishment, he is fastidious about making sure the water where they lay their eggs is clean so that new generations will hatch and thrive.

"For something that is such a scourge in the wild, sometimes they can be very difficult to keep in the lab," he says. "While I jokingly call them my 'babies,' you definitely have to baby some of them."
California announced on Saturday that the state's application for unemployment benefit is already approved and it has already received $4.5 billion from the federal government.

California now joins 18 other states which have enrolled in the $300 weekly unemployment program of the federal government. This is after Pres. Trump signed and issued an executive order that expanded the unemployment benefits after Congress did not act on the second round of the stimulus payments.

According to the published article in Forbes, California made the announcement on Saturday and said that they have already received the amount of $4.5 billion from the federal government. This will enable the state to pay $300 weekly unemployment claims to millions of Californians.

The California Employment Development Department also confirmed that the state's application was already approved. In its website, it says that the state has secured $4.5 billion for Lost Wages Assistance Program. Qualified individuals are to receive at least $100 per week for a period of three weeks.

The Employment Development Department in the State of California set the following to qualify for the LWA supplemental payment or unemployment claims:

Currently eligible to receive at least $100 per week in benefits

Those who have provided a self-certification that they are unemployed or partially unemployed due to disruptions caused by COVID-19.

However, there is no detail yet as to when the distribution will start. What is clear right now is when the $300 is added to the state's benefits, the claimants in California nearly doubled as well.

Moreover, White House Senior Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow said that the fund or the approved budget for all states will be available in bank accounts next week or in the next two weeks. The budget will be coming from the unspent fund of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The Employment Development Department also said through a news release that they will provide more information about the approved program once the fund is available. They also hoped that the state will receive the fund as early as next week.

The $4.5 billion for the Lost Wages Assistance Program from the Federal government is just an initial aid. The state could receive more. However, Governor Newsom said that the state cannot add $100 because it will cost $700 million each week.

The state governor admitted earlier this week that the $300 unemployment check is not enough but he will look into other fundings for the Californians to meet their needs.

Labor Secretary Julie Su also said on Saturday "As we modernize and strengthen the state's unemployment insurance delivery system, we will continue to leverage any additional resources the federal government makes available."

Despite this, millions of Americans are still hoping that Congress will act on the second round of the relief aid that includes $1,200 stimulus payments and other benefits.

Check these out!
Updated 21:12

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee is urging the International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT) to act urgently after one of its members, Una McGurk was at a Dublin protest against Covid-19 face-mask measures.

It comes as a a number of TDs are calling on the chair of the International Protection Appeals Tribunal to addresss concerns after one of its part-time members spoke at Saturday's anti-masks protest in Dublin.

Senior Counsel Una McGurk is one of 66 immigration lawyers listed as a part-time member of the Tribunal that decides on asylum cases.

She appeared at yesterday's rally at the Customs House, which was also attended by groups which oppose immigration and opponents of the State's vaccination programmes.

Speaking about the matter, Minister for Integration, Roderic O'Gorman says the tribunal has to be "seen to be objective", while Sinn Fein's Justice spokesman Martin Kenny and Labour's Brendan Howlin also raised concerns.

Advertisement It is vital that all members of the IPAT are objective in their work and that they are seen to be objective. Ive raised my concerns over yesterdays protest with Minister McEntee and Ill be keeping in contact with her about this issue.  Roderic OGorman TD (@rodericogorman) August 23, 2020

Mr Kenny says Ms McGurk's appearance there was inappropriate:

It is with great concern that I see that a state appointee to the International Protection Appeals Tribunal spoke from the platform today at a rally in Dublin called to deny that there is a pandemic and to encourage people not to wear facemasks.

The same rally was addressed by Michael Leahy of the Irish Freedom Party, a right-wing, anti-immigration organisation and others who have already been discredited for their stance that the Covid-19 pandemic is a conspiracy.

He says that Ms McGurk claims the government is asking people to wear masks, not for their own protection, but to 'test how compliant (people) are'.

Justice Minister must clarify appearance of IPAT member at right-wing rally - Martin Kenny TD | Sinn Fein. https://t.co/m4tUj1fbiL  Martin Kenny (@Martin_Kenny) August 22, 2020

Anti-mask protest

Yesterday's event was organised by Health Freedom Ireland who, according to their Twitter account, "Empower Irish people to make informed decisions on their health including vaccination for themselves and their families."

Ms McGurk is senior counsel of the International Protection Appeals Tribunal, established in December 2016 to hear and determine appeals on decisions made by the International Protection Officer on applications for protection status in Ireland.

Thank you to Barrister and Senior Counsel, Una McGuirk, who questioned Covid-19 testing and mandatory mask policy. Watch a video of her speech here: https://t.co/lPHDcG8ARC pic.twitter.com/hwNxkVG8GA  HealthFreedomIreland (@HealthFreedomIE) August 23, 2020

Attempts to contact her for comment so far have been unsuccessful.
More than 540,000 mail ballots were rejected during primaries across 23 states this year - nearly a quarter in key battlegrounds for the fall - illustrating how missed delivery deadlines, inadvertent mistakes and uneven enforcement of the rules could disenfranchise voters and affect the outcome of the presidential election.

The rates of rejection, which in some states exceeded those of other recent elections, could make a difference in the fall if the White House contest is decided by a close margin, as it was in 2016, when Donald Trump won Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by roughly 80,000 votes.

This year, according to a tally by The Washington Post, election officials in those three states tossed out more than 60,480 ballots just during primaries, which saw significantly lower voter turnout than what is expected in the general election. The rejection figures include ballots that arrived too late to be counted or were invalidated for another reason, including voter error.

The stakes are high as the most chaotic presidential election in memory collides with a pandemic, which has led 20 states to expand or ease access to voting by mail as a public health measure.

Election experts said that the combination of the hotly contested White House race and millions of first-time mail voters could lead to a record number of ballot rejections and trigger a searing legal war over which are valid - and who is the ultimate victor.

"If the election is close, it doesn't matter how well it was run - it will be a mess," said Charles Stewart, a political science professor at MIT who studies election data.

"The two campaigns will be arguing over nonconforming ballots, which is going to run up against voters' beliefs in fair play," he said.

President Trump has already cast doubt on whether he will accept a loss to Democratic nominee Joe Biden, and has repeatedly stoked unfounded fears about voting by mail. Top campaign advisers are also mapping out a post-election strategy centered in part on challenging mail ballots that do not have postmarks, as The Post previously reported.

Citing news coverage of rejected ballots last month, Trump called the situation "a mess" and predicted that the presidential race will be the "most rigged election in history."

For Democrats and voting rights advocates, rejected ballots are a serious concern because they raise the potential for many people to be disenfranchised - not because they reflect widespread corruption or election tampering.

Both sides agree that the race for the White House could come down to a fight over which mail ballots are counted.

Democratic lawyers and election officials in more than three dozen states are now pushing to limit the reasons a ballot can be rejected, which studies have found tend to disproportionately invalidate ballots from younger voters and voters of color. Recent mail backlogs at the U.S. Postal Service have put additional weight behind efforts to count ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive late, among the most common reason for rejections. While some states have changed their rules, others have not or are stuck in litigation.

The number of mail ballots rejected in 23 states in this year's primaries outstrips the nearly 319,000 mail and absentee ballots that were thrown out nationwide in the 2016 general election. The number of tossed ballots four years ago amounted to 1% of the roughly 33.4 million mail ballots cast that fall, according to data from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

About 195 million Americans are now eligible to cast ballots by mail for the Nov. 3 election - at least 83% of voters, according to a Post tracker. Some states are poised to begin sending voters mail ballots for the fall elections as soon as next month.

But the ease of casting a ballot from home also means more opportunities for people to make mistakes in filling out the forms, or for mail problems to delay the ballots' return to election officials.

"Any time you see a dramatic increase in participation in any kind of voting, what you also see come along with that is folks who are maybe new to that process, who aren't incredibly clear on the rules," said New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat and president of the National Association of Secretaries of State.

The shift toward mail voting is also testing election systems across the country, magnifying antiquated state rules about ballot rejection and the lack of a process in many jurisdictions for voters to fix problems with their ballots.

Studies have found that votes cast by mail, a process that involves several steps and more opportunity for error, are more likely to be rejected than those cast in person at polling locations.

This year, voting in New York emerged as a cautionary tale after problems with absentee ballots plunged two congressional races into chaos for six weeks before winners were declared. In the 12th Congressional District, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat, defeated two-time challenger Suraj Patel by about 3,700 votes; roughly 13,000 ballots were declared invalid in the race, many with missing or late postmarks.

The record use of mail balloting this year has meant that many Americans are grappling for the first time with the idea that their vote did not count.

Among them was Philadelphia resident Stephanie Fusco, 26, who got a notice in June that the ballot she cast in Pennsylvania's presidential primary that month for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was rejected. The reason given: election workers "could not obtain" her required signature from the ballot.

"I was absolutely irate when it happened," said Fusco, who worked as a medical technologist until she was furloughed because of the pandemic. "I did everything well before the deadline, and I know that I signed it. I signed it on the little box on the envelope."

- - -

The Post found that 534,731 ballots were disqualified in 23 states in the 2020 primary season; a similar analysis by NPR tracked 558,032 ballots that were rejected in 30 states. A large share of the rejected ballots tracked by The Post were in two jurisdictions: California, which threw out more than 102,000, and New York City, which tossed more than 84,000.

In eight battleground states, more than 125,100 ballots were rejected by election officials in this year's primaries, according to data compiled by The Post. The states were Florida, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The Post totals include the number of ballots rejected in a primary held in each state this year, including several that took place before the novel coronavirus emerged as a serious concern in the United States. The figures almost certainly understate the number of rejections for several reasons, including failures by some counties to report their data.

Testifying Friday before a Senate panel, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy called the swift handling of election mail his "sacred duty" and promised that ballots would be delivered in time for counting across the country.

"The Postal Service will deliver every ballot and process every ballot in time that it receives," he said.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, predicted that the number of rejected ballots in her state could double in November compared to this month's primary, when 10,694 votes were disqualified. Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes in 2016.

About 6,400 of the ballots thrown out this month arrived by mail after Election Day, the state's deadline for receipt, amid reports of Postal Service backlogs in the state.

Benson has called on the legislature to amend the law to allow such votes to count in November if they are postmarked by Election Day, even if they arrive up to two days later.

"If that doesn't change and if there are no other changes, we're facing a scenario where we could have to reject a number of otherwise valid votes sent through the mail that are delayed through no fault of the voter, because of the Postal Service or some other snafu," she said last week on a call with voting rights activists. "So those voters could be disenfranchised, and that number could exceed the margin of victory for a number of races, statewide and local."

Trump has criticized Benson, accusing her of creating opportunities for voter fraud by sending absentee ballot applications to all registered voters before the primary.

Benson said she anticipates "significant challenges, particularly in Michigan, to the result of the election and the sanctity of the process" in November.

"We're prepared to fight to ensure the public can have confidence that the results for our elections, whatever they may be, are an accurate reflection of the will of the people," she said.

The possibility that millions of Americans could be voting by mail for the first time probably will exacerbate confusion this year.

Daniel Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida, has found that Floridians who cast ballots in person in the 2016 and 2018 general elections were twice as likely to have their mail ballots rejected in the 2020 presidential primaries than those who voted by mail in the two prior contests.

"Experience matters," he said of the mail voting process. "So we can apply that across the country - if you lack experience voting by mail, the odds of you casting a ballot that doesn't count will go up."

"We're going to see those [rejection] rates skyrocket even more" in November, he said.

Smith's research also found that ballot rejections can disproportionately affect younger voters and voters of color.

In Florida, where mail ballots were rejected at a rate of a little more than 1% in the 2016 and 2018 general elections, the rate of rejection for ballots cast by 18- to 21-year-olds was more than eight times greater than for voters older than 65, he said. Similarly, the absentee ballots of Black and Hispanic voters were more than twice as likely to be rejected as those of White voters, his research shows.

Such disparities exist across the country. In Michigan, Benson noted recently that Black, Brown and Asian American communities in the state see higher rates of ballot rejection.

"We need to educate about how to ensure that those votes are counted," she said.

- - -

Reasons for rejection vary. The failure to provide a signature or to return the ballot on time tend to be the most common problems, according to state data.

"A lot of people don't follow instructions," said Gerry Cohen, a member of the Wake County Board of Elections in North Carolina, which reviews every problematic ballot to determine whether it is valid.

In this year's primary, "one voter sent in his ballot and it was rejected because he hadn't signed it at all," he said. "We sent a new ballot the next business day. He returned his new ballot four days later and didn't sign it either."

Voters are often not familiar with all the rules for completing mail ballots - or the unintentional errors that can disqualify them, such as a stray mark by a voter's pen. In Kentucky, tearing off a perforated flap on the inner ballot envelope means your vote won't count. In Wisconsin, a tiny tear in the envelope itself can invalidate the ballot, even if it is repaired by tape.

Stewart said many rules stem from 19th-century concerns about vote-buying and other types of fraud.

Some states add another layer of protection against voter fraud by requiring that the signature on the ballot envelope match the voter's signature on file with the government. While the practice is widely accepted and employed by states such as Colorado and Washington that offer universal mail voting, lawsuits have claimed that uneven training and enforcement in some jurisdictions can lead to false ballot rejections.

In at least 20 states, voters must be notified and given the chance to fix or "cure" signature problems that could invalidate their ballots. But the rules vary in the rest of the country, and some voters are never told that their ballots did not count.

Requiring ballots returned through the mail to carry a postmark with the date is another safeguard, used to prevent ballots from being counted after the deadline. But the Postal Service is not required to postmark every piece of mail, creating problems for election officials who receive ballots without an official date stamp.

Democrats and voting rights groups are now waging court battles to ensure that absentee ballots are not discarded on technicalities, pushing to require that ballots postmarked by Election Day be counted and to make signature-matching laws more voter-friendly. In response to litigation, Minnesota and Pennsylvania agreed this month to count ballots postmarked by Election Day and received within a certain window. And in Indiana, a federal judge ruled that election officials cannot reject ballots for dissimilar signatures without notifying voters.

Republicans have countered with their own litigation, arguing that strict signature-matching rules and voter identification requirements are necessary to prevent fraud. They have opposed Election Day postmark rules, claiming they result in invalid, late-cast ballots being counted.

"Overhauling the way Americans vote less than 80 days out will only spread chaos and confusion," Republican National Committee spokeswoman Mandi Merritt said in a statement.

States are trying to keep rejection numbers down in a variety of ways: public education campaigns encouraging voters to return their ballots early; pressure on DeJoy, as well as additional coordination with postal officials; new ballot drop boxes; online ballot tracking; redesigned ballots; and streamlined ballot instructions.

In Wisconsin, election officials are offering options for voters to return their ballots by mail or in person, depending on their comfort level, said Reid Magney, spokesman for the state election commission.

The state has added mail bar codes this year through which voters can track the ballot as it is delivered and sent back to the clerk to be counted.

There is also a major voter education effort underway to teach voters how they can cast absentee ballots, including through a series of two-minute videos online.

"Time is our friend with all of this," Magney said. "Our hope is that by getting people to act early, that's going to be a big help."

Other states have adopted new policies.

This month, the Virginia Board of Elections approved a regulation allowing absentee ballots to be counted even if the postmark is missing or defective. Ballots returned by mail in the state must arrive by noon Nov. 6 to count.

A similar rule drew a legal challenge this month from the Trump campaign and the RNC after it was enacted in Nevada.

North Carolina in May loosened its witness requirement for absentee ballots during the pandemic, allowing ballots to count if they are signed by one witness instead of two or a notary.

Still, Allison Riggs, interim executive director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, called the bill a "Band-Aid over a gushing arterial wound." The group filed suit and won a ruling Aug. 4 that the state must provide a cure process to help voters fix mistakes that otherwise would lead to their ballots being rejected.

Riggs estimated that if voter participation rates are similar to 2016, about 115,000 ballots will be saved by the ruling.

While North Carolina is among the roughly 30 states without a signature-match requirement, roughly 25 ballots were still rejected during the primary under the code "signature different," Riggs noted. Another roughly 1,700 ballots were coded as spoiled, with the specific reason unclear.

"It's pretty troubling," Riggs said. "If North Carolina poll workers and election workers aren't really clear on the rules and how to apply them and there isn't a lot of standardized guidance, that handful of essentially discrepancies - that can turn into some big numbers come November."

- - -

For voters who learned that their ballots were tossed this year, the experience was deeply demoralizing, shaking their faith in the system.

Fusco, the Philadelphia voter who tried to vote for Sanders, said that when she heard her ballot was rejected, she tried to call the elections office but got no answer.

Finally, Fusco received a reply by email from a city official who said she failed to sign her name on the ballot envelope, according to messages reviewed by The Post. After Fusco insisted this was wrong, the official said she had signed, but the signature was only her initials, whereas the signature on her voter registration record was her full name.

"I've been using my initials as my signature for the past several years," she said. "We bought a house and that is my signature. It's on my license. It's how I've been signing my name for years. My registration record is probably from when I was 18. . . . I don't know how you can expect signatures to stay the same for so many years."

"Making this process so painstakingly difficult is a form of voter suppression," she wrote in a reply to the official.

Philadelphia officials said 3.8% of ballots cast by mail for the June primary were rejected. "The Board [of Elections] makes every effort to accept every ballot they can in accordance with the law," the city's deputy commissioner, Nick Custodio, told The Post in an email. "Voters have the opportunity [to] appeal individual decisions directly to the Board itself."

Fusco, now working as a freelance illustrator, said she was uncomfortable making a formal appeal during the pandemic because she feared it would require attending an in-person meeting. But now, she said, she feels compelled to cast a ballot in person in November to ensure that it counts.

"I have no idea what that is going to look like," she said. "It's scary. It's almost like, even if I do go vote in person, is it going to matter? Even if I do put myself at risk, is it going to matter?"

- - -

The Washington Post's Michelle Ye Hee Lee, Antonio Olivo and Jada Yuan contributed to this report.
San Francisco: The second and third-largest fires in California history are expected to grow in the next few days as a new thunderstorm system moves over the state, producing dry lightning and gusty winds.

Crews from across the US, military planes and National Guard troops poured into California on Sunday to join the fight against two dozen major wildfires burning across the state, as officials warned of more dry lightning storms approaching.

The worst of the blazes, including the second and third largest wildfires in recorded California history, were burning in and around the San Francisco Bay Area, where more than 200,000 people have been told to flee their homes.

A firefighter with the California Office of Emergency Services monitors spot fires on Big Ridge, seen smoldering in the background, during the Walbridge portion of the LNU Lightning Complex fire in Sonoma County, California. Credit:Philip Pacheco/Bloomberg

The thunderstorms are anticipated Monday and Tuesday as moisture from what was once Hurricane Genevieve streams northeastward, where it will encounter intense August heat over California. The storms are expected to produce lightning strikes but little rain, which, given the extremely dry vegetation at the end of the summer dry season, is capable of touching off new fires.
(Natural News) Violent crime in New York City is out of control. From Thursday evening to Friday morning, New York Police Department (NYPD) records show that there were at least 11 separate shooting incidents in Brooklyn and the Bronx that led to three deaths and another 12 people receiving nonfatal gunshot wounds.

The amount of violence present in New York City has been soaring in recent months. While many of these shooting sprees are relegated to the evenings, an increasing number of incidents are occurring in broad daylight, such as two incidents in Brooklyn that left two people wounded and an 18-year-old dead.

This neighborhood [Brooklyn] is becoming a shooting gallery, said one resident during an interview with AM New York. Why wont it just stop?

Shootings filled the night in Brooklyn and the Bronx

The first fatality of the night occurred at around 10 p.m. outside a McDonalds in downtown Brooklyn. A 23-year-old man was shot several times in the head and shoulder by a gunman who immediately fled the area. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene. NYPD officers recovered a firearm that they believe was dropped by the victim, in a futile attempt at self defense.

The shooter was identified as a five-foot-ten African American man in his 20s. He was wearing a white bucket hat and a black shirt and he fled north following the incident. He remains at large.

In the second shooting incident that led to a fatality, three men were shot at around 2 a.m. on Friday in the Crotona neighborhood in the Bronx. One of the victims, a 60-year-old man, was shot in the torso and pronounced dead after being rushed to the nearby St. Barnabas Hospital. The two other victims, a 36-year-old and a 54-year-old, are stable and expected to recover.

Witnesses state that the shooter, who was firing from a vehicle, emptied at least a whole clip into the victims. Had to be 10 to 12 [shots] at least, said Catherine Ortiz, who witnessed the shooting. The suspect fled the scene and is still at large.

The last fatal shooting occurred at around 4:20 a.m. in the Bronxs Tremont neighborhood. A 44-year-old man was fatally shot in the back of the head. The NYPD says that incident appears to be a targeted shooting. No arrests have been made and no information was released related to the suspects.

There were eight other confirmed shooting incidents that occurred that night. Three of those incidents, two in Brooklyn and one in the Bronx, fortunately did not cause any injuries.

At 12:56 a.m., one woman drove herself to the Brooklyn Hospital Center after receiving an unspecified gunshot wound.

At 1:15 a.m. in the East Flatbush neighborhood in Brooklyn, a 52-year-old man was shot in the arm and a 23-year-old woman was shot in the shoulder. The suspects were spotted fleeing the scene in an SUV.

At 1:55 a.m. in the Hunts Point neighborhood in the Bronx, a 28-year-old man had gunshot wounds in his chest and arm, and a 22-year-old woman was shot in the back and the knee. According to the NYPD, the victims have not been cooperating and would not divulge any more information regarding the incident.

At 3:15 a.m. in Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn, a 27-year-old man was shot and was taken to New York Methodist Hospital downtown. Reports say that the man is in critical condition.

Finally, at 3:30 a.m., in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, a 36-year-old was shot in his right thigh. He is currently in a hospital and in stable condition, but police have described him as highly uncooperative.

Listen to this episode of the Health Ranger Report, a podcast by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, as he talks about how the Democrats, who control liberal cities and states like New York, do not actually care about Black lives, especially when they are not willing to do anything to save the thousands of unborn Black lives that die every year.

Crime rates going up

In a span of six hours, at least 11 people were shot, according to the NYPD. They have also released data showing that shootings in the city are up by a staggering 82 percent, compared to the same time last year. Furthermore, murders were up 59 percent, burglaries skyrocketed 31 percent and auto thefts were up by 53 percent.

Vincent Vallelong, vice president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, the labor union that represents police sergeants in the NYPD, said that the criminals are encouraged due to the passage of certain police reforms.

The criminals basically know, their hands are untied, said Vallelong. Theyre not afraid of a police officer coming up to them. (Related: Authorities, residents raise alarm: Crime-riddled New York City may be sliding back into its bloody past.)

Vallelong did not elaborate which reform specifically is making criminals feel like they can act more freely. However, it should be noted that, under pressure from Black Lives Matter activists and a looming budget crisis, Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio has opted to defund the NYPD by an extremely massive amount  $1 billion.

The engineered wave of criminality and civil unrest in cities like New York, Seattle, Chicago and Portland have never stopped. Learn more about the recent events in these areas by reading the articles at Rioting.news.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk

ABC7NY.com

NewYork.CBSLocal.com
A controversial injecting room in Melbourne has been forced to close after the centre recorded two positive coronavirus cases.

The two cases at the North Richmond facility were recorded on August 10 and 17.

The centre was closed on both occasions for deep cleaning to be undertaken but is understood to have opened up again as it's considered a life-saving health service.

Up to 300 addicts are said to be travelling to the legal drug injecting facility every day.

The announcement of the new cases comes just days after residents raised concern over how many people were gathering outside the facility to shoot up during the city's strict COVID-19 lockdown.

A man with at least five syringes in his syringe kit next to him is seen by a resident on Sunday

The two cases at the North Richmond facility (pictured) were recorded on August 10 and 17. The centre was closed on both occasions for deep cleaning to be undertaken

In a flagrant disregard for lockdown rules preventing no more than two people from gathering outside at once, witnesses reported as many as 20 people congregating in a park for a birthday party.

One man said those injecting in the street appeared to be 'immune' to the lockdown and the rules did not apply to them.

'We're in a stage 4 lockdown and they act as if nothing is happening  they could be the ones spreading the virus for all we know,' the resident told NCA News Wire.

'We've seen syringes and human faeces in the streets. Children live around here, it's disgraceful  we're supposed to be minimising the risk of spreading disease.'

One photo shared to a local social media group campaigning to have the injecting room moved showed a syringe discarded in a children's playground.

One residents said the facility felt was 'like a bomb waiting to go off' because of the relaxed rules.

She said there was a lack of mask wearing and lack of social distancing.

A large gathering is pictured outside a safe injecting room in North Richmond in Melbourne's inner-east. Locals have complained about groups congregating in high numbers outside the facility not wearing masks

Witnesses reported as many as 20 people congregating in a park for a birthday party near the inner-city injecting room

Melbourne's lockdown sees residents banned from leaving their homes during the curfew from 8pm to 5am.

But the facility has been able to stay open until 9pm on weeknights.

Mental Health Minister Martin Foley said the facility would stay opening during the strict lockdown as it is a health facility which is helping to save lives.

'The facility plays an important role in slowing the spread of coronavirus in the North Richmond community as many of its clients would not otherwise have access to screening, testing, face masks and important public health messages,' he told The Herald Sun.

Pictured: Syringes left discarded in North Richmond. The suburb has its own bespoke safe injecting room where drug users can shoot up under supervision

In a flagrant disregard for lockdown rules preventing no more than two people from gathering outside at once, witnesses reported as many as 20 people congregating in a park for a birthday party

The state government has re-assured residents 'high-visibility' patrols are in place to target crime and catch those violating public health laws enforcing the use of face masks.

In June, mother Charlotte Spencer-Roy revealed she regularly found people using drugs in the laneway beside her North Richmond home.

Her nine-year-old son, Angus, was traumatised after discovering a man who had apparently overdosed laying unconscious outside their home just 10 minutes from the injecting room.

'He said ''mummy, mummy there's a dead body'',' Ms Spencer-Roy told Nine News at the time.

Ms Spencer-Roy opened her door as two men scrambled to pick up their drug paraphernalia.
Daniel Westerhold SOURCE: Daniel Westerhold The Missouri Highway Patrol is searching for a possible drowning victim at Longview Lake. Troopers were called to the lake at 5:50 p.m.
Hong Kongs Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung urged citizens to take part in a free testing service over the next two weeks in his Sunday blog. Community testing centers will be set up in all districts -- and samples will not be sent outside Hong Kong and will be destroyed after the test is completed -- he wrote.Applications for the second phase of a wage subsidies program will be accepted Aug. 31 for the period September through November, Cheung wrote. Some HKD43.9 billion ($5.7 billion) of wage subsidies have been approved to help about 148,500 employers so far.
By William Schwartz | Published on 2020/08/22

The first "Steel Rain" featured extended scenes of odd couple bromance sandwiched by completely bonkers international tactical warfare nonsense involving three countries. "Steel Rain 2: Summit" ups the ante, instead featuring extended scenes of odd throuple bromance sandwiched by completely bonkers international tactical warfare nonsense involving five countries. What the two movies lack in shared continuity, they more than make up for in terms of utterly bewildering plot points.

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To give a sense of perspective, even though the nominal villain is North Korean submarine captain Cheol-woo (played by Kwak Do-won), the actual villain is Mori Shinjo (played by Hakuryu), the right-wing Japanese leader being introduced long before we see any North Koreans. To further add to the confusion a Trump analog is present in the form of President Smoot (played by Angus MacFadyen). Except he's played off as...kind of sympathetic?

Angus MacFayden's President Smoot is the kind of Trump satire you could only expect to see from non-Americans. It confuses Trump's rude reputation into the context of North Korean peace negotiations, where almost all domestic criticism Trump has faced for North Korean peace negotiations is that he's too nice. Sadly, writer/director Yang Woo-seok is under the impression that vaguely defined neo-cons are the main obstacle to peace on the Korean peninsula, when in reality American bloodthirstiness is not confined to them alone.

"Steel Rain 2: Summit" much like "Steel Rain" itself acknowledges this by having American characters blithely engage in needlessly destructive actions bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war. There's little self-awareness though. I was baffled when Cheol-woo continued to be played as the villain even after the reasoning behind his kidnapping three world leaders was explained. That context alone makes him about as sympathetic as the North Korean leader played by Yoo Yeon-seok and the South Korean leader played by Jung Woo-sung.

Despite being the alleged lead Jung Woo-sung is given surprisingly little to do. He can't even mediate arguments between the American and North Korean leaders since of the three he's the only one who can't speak English. Those cramped moments in the tiny locked submarine room are the best of the movie, emphasizing as they do the personality clash between the three leads. The black humor is more weird than genuinely illuminating though, as the parody versions of Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un are far more sympathetic than the real ones.

The resolution, too, is far more bombastic than it is logical. Where early summit scenes showcase the very real, borderline irreconcilable issues preventing peace talks, these are completely ignored in favor of a special effects laden happy ending. And for all the exposition we get about Chinese and Japanese involvement in the conspiracy I'm still not sure what anyone's plan was actually supposed to be except that it involved Dokdo. Speaking of which, there's an entire extended sequence wherein the Dokdo dispute is explained entirely in the abstract with no relation to the movie's actual internal continuity. There's a lot of scenes like that here, all of which are equally useless.

Review by William Schwartz

___________

"Steel Rain 2: Summit" is directed by Yang Woo-seok, and features Jung Woo-sung, Kwak Do-won, Yoo Yeon-seok, Angus MacFadyen , Shin Jung-keun, Ryu Soo-young. Release date in Korea: 2020/07/29.
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Dozens of armed 'anarchists' descended on the Denver Police Headquarters late Saturday and damaged buildings, set fires and injured an officer, city officials said Sunday.

The group, consisting of between 50 to 75 demonstrators, were said to be wielding a varying degree of weapons - from axes to guns - during the incident yesterday evening.

Fireworks were shot at officers, an American flag and a tree outside a courthouse were set ablaze, windows were shattered and fast-food restaurant was broken into during the unrest, news outlets reported.

One officer suffered a concussion and third-degree burns, said Police Chief Paul Pazen. The officer was expected to recovery, he said.

Dozens of armed 'anarchists' descended on the Denver Police Headquarters late Saturday and damaged buildings, set fires and injured an officer, city officials said Sunday.

The group, consisting of between 50 to 75 demonstrators, were said to be wielding a varying degree of weapons - from axes to guns - during the incident yesterday evening

Fireworks were shot at officers, an American flag and a tree outside a courthouse were set ablaze

Protesters hiding behind a barricade of umbrellas face off with police outside the DPD building

During a Sunday press conference, officials revealed that 12 people were arrested during the riot an one person was cited. The group were calling for the DPD to be defunded.

'I want to be clear, what we experienced last night was not a protest. It was anarchy,' said Murphy Robinson, executive director of public safety.

'The people that showed up last night - the anarchists that showed up last night - brought weapons to the table. They had guns, they brought explosives, axes, machetes and had one intent purpose and that was to harm our officers that were there to serve in the line of duty to protect our city.'

Robinson said he was lifting a jail inmate cap that was put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19 to accommodate those arrested on Saturday and officials said they will look at state or federal laws to charge those who were arrested and will seek restitution for the damages.

During a Sunday press conference, officials revealed that 12 people were arrested during the riot an one person was cited.

One protester is carried away by a group of heavily armed officers in the early hours of Sunday morning

The group were calling for the DPD to be defunded, local reports said

People in the crowd said they were protesting for a variety of reasons - from efforts to defund the police department, to displeasure over the police response to a homeless camp last week, to the death of Elijah McClain - according to news outlets. McClain died after being stopped by police last year in the suburb of Aurora.

'The narrative that these anarchists are marching for justice of Black lives is frankly false,' said Robinson, who is Black. 'The public needs to know that you do not represent us. Stop using the color of my skin as an excuse to tear up my city.'

Less-lethal munitions such as smoke and pepper balls were used to clear the crowd of 50 to 75 people, officials said.

'We're not going to stand for their anarchy, their chaos or their mindless destruction in our city,' Mayor Michael B. Hancock said.
Even families that enjoy close relationships may have trouble asking their elders the tough questions. Read more

Earlier this month, my husband picked up the phone and learned his 92-year-old father had been taken to the hospital that morning, feeling sick and short of breath.

We were nearly 2,000 miles away, on a vacation in the mountains of southern Colorado.

No, it wasnt COVID-19. My father-in-law, Mel, who has diabetes, high blood pressure and kidney disease, was suffering from fluid buildup in his legs and around his lungs and excruciating knee pain. Intravenous medications and steroid injections were administered, and he responded well.

Doctors monitored Mel carefully, adjusted his medications and recommended a few weeks of home health care after eight days in the hospital.

In other words, this was not a life-threatening emergency. Yet we realized how poorly prepared we were for a real crisis, should one arise. We needed a plan.

Why didnt we have one already? The usual reasons: denial, avoidance and wishful thinking. It was easier to imagine that Mel would be all right until it became clear that we couldnt take that for granted.

Although I routinely advise readers about preparing for changes in their health, I didnt want to be a know-it-all with my husbands family. Their assumption seemed to be Well deal with whatever comes up when that happens.

Now, eyes wide open, we got organized.

Hiring a care manager. Last year, as Mels kidney function declined, I suggested we hire a geriatric care manager who could look in on him regularly at his home in an independent living community in New York state, a distance from all three of his sons. After a few visits, Mel let her go. Her services were too expensive, he complained. In truth, we understood, he didnt want someone interfering in his affairs.

But when Mel went to the hospital a few weeks ago, he had no one to turn to for assistance.

This was especially problematic because Mel has hearing loss and it is almost impossible to talk with him by phone.

Now a care manager who could serve as our eyes and ears on the ground was necessary, not optional, and we hired back the professional wed already found.

Finding companion care. When we spoke with the physician overseeing Mels care in the hospital, he suggested that companion care for at least a few weeks would be a good idea. Mel needed someone to help him up out of the chair, stay at his side while he walked to the bathroom and bring him a glass of water, among other tasks.

Fortunately, the senior community where Mel lives recommended an agency that often works with its residents. We hired 24/7 care for several days after Mel left the hospital with the understanding that wed continue services if necessary. Now, this agency is on our list of essential resources.

Understanding the options. Mels senior community incorporates assisted living and a nursing home for residents who need short-term rehabilitation services or longer-term round-the-clock care.

But it was clear Mel wanted to go home after being in the hospital instead of going to that rehab.

If Mel couldnt return to his previous level of functioning after returning home, he might need to transition to assisted living, where he could receive more medical oversight and assistance. How would this work? We didnt know and asked the geriatric care manager to find out.

Getting paperwork in order. Years ago, Mel assigned power of attorney for his health care decisions and financial and legal affairs to my husband. So long as Mel can manage on his own, he makes his own decisions: The legal papers were a backup arrangement.

But Mel hadnt prepared a document naming all three sons as his personal representatives under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. This waives privacy concerns and gives them access to his medical information. It went on our to-do list.

The brothers also didnt have a complete list of Mels doctors, the medications he was on and why he was taking them -- especially important since Mel left the hospital with prescriptions for 14 medications, several of them new. In his post-hospital fog it was clear he was nervous about managing this complicated regimen.

Understanding the prognosis. Before Mels hospitalization, we knew his kidney function was worsening. But what lay ahead?

It turns out, theres a top-notch group of geriatricians affiliated with the hospital where Mel was being treated.

Now, we have another new team member who can help us understand Mels health trajectory and issues that might arise going forward.

Having the conversation. What has yet to happen is the conversation that my husband hasnt wanted to have. Dad, if your health takes a turn for the worse again, what do you want?

Also, no one has discussed financial arrangements.

Each time we explain to Mel one of the new services weve arranged, his first question is Whats the cost? His impulse is to guard his cherished savings and not to spend. My husband tells him he shouldnt worry, but this, too, is a conversation that has to happen.

My husband is keenly aware that planning doesnt stop here. Hell be attending to his father far more carefully going forward.

khn.navigatingaging@gmail.com, @judith_graham KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation) that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
Israel and the UAE, have just signed a comprehensive and historic peace deal. While peace in the Middle East is cause for celebration, we must realize, that the foundation upon which this peace is built, is extremely unstable. Iran, a common enemy of both nations, is responsible for this agreement. The myriad grievances between Israel and the UAE have not been resolved. If the threat of Iran dissipates, what peace will be left?

In foreign policy coverage, historic is term reserved for only the most influential and impactful decisions a nation can take. Good or bad, they leave a lasting impact on the world. The recent Israel-U.A.E peace deal is certainly historic.

It gives hope for peace, in a region where it is desperately short supply. A war-ravaged cesspool of nations with brutal internal conflicts, occasionally interspersed with external (and mostly uncalled for) intervention, the Middle East has long since been scant on peace.

The Abraham Accords, between the U.A.E and Israel, seem to shift that paradigm.

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The biggest conflict in the Middle East has historically been that between the Jewish state of Israel, and the surrounding Islamic theocracies. The United Arab Emirates and Israel have long since conformed to this status quo.

It should bring great joy to us all, that this may all be about to change. However, in our shared relief at peace in the Middle East, we must not forget to look deeper, at this historic deal.

Without question, the Trump Administrations efforts in securing the accords are to be lauded. If not for them, we would never be at the precipice of such unprecedented stability and allyship between two historic rivals.

But we need to look more closely at why there was any scope for agreement in the first place. Surely, two nations as bitterly opposed to each other as Israel and the U.A.E, would not have a sudden humanitarian awakening, right? What then, is responsible for this shouldering arms?

Iran.

To be specific, the growing threat of a nuclear arsenal, at the disposal of a terror sponsoring Iranian regime.

In 2015, the United States, after first threatening sanctions on Iran, agreed to join the Iran Nuclear Deal, as a way for Iran to have nuclear capability, while avoiding sanctions. Under the leadership of President Barack Obama, the US became a signatory to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also referred to as the Iran Nuclear Deal.

It was stipulated that Iran would shut down two thirds of its gas-centrifuges, eliminate its medium-enriched stock of uranium, and lower by more than 90% its stock of low-enriched uranium (only for a 15 year period, after which Iran would have unrestricted freedom to access these resources), along with many other restrictions.

It was pitched as a way to control and moderate Iran, but it was anything but.

The Iranians had no intentions of moderating; they remained the same radical, terror-sponsoring state that they were before the deal, after.

In May 2019, the U.S deployed additional military units to the Persian Gulf after reports of an Iranian campaign to sabotage oil transportation in the Strait of Hormuz. This began a series of escalations, in which Iran allegedly sabotaged two Saudi Aramco oil tankers (followed by two more just a few days later), and then proceeded to shoot down a U.S drone.

This litany of conflicts and near-conflicts contributed to Irans declining cooperation with the deal, which the U.S had already pulled out of.

After a year filled with similar exertions, the last straw came on January 3rd, 2020, when the United States assassinated the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. Iran had had enough, and announced it would no longer comply with the JCPOA, and further went on to levy a military strike on a nearby U.S base.

The U.A.E, and other likeminded Middle Eastern nations watched on in quiet consideration. Many of them (Saudi Arabia comes to mind) had already been having back-channel talks with Israel over fears about Iran.

The U.A.E, for its part, has long since been wary of Iran, and has allowed for an Israeli pseudo-alliance to curb Iranian influence. As far as back as 2009, Israeli and U.A.E US ambassadors jointly appealed to the Obama Administration to be harsher on Iran. In 2012, Benjamin Netanyahu met the UAEs foreign minister in New York, to discuss the Iran issue. After the signing of the Iran deal, U.S intelligence found backchannel communications between Israel and the UAE, urging cooperation against Iran. In 2017, emails were leaked showing Israeli and UAE intelligence officers actively collaborating to sabotage Iranian operations.

The list is endless, and the answer is obvious; a shared fear of Iran has brought two bitter enemies to a truce. More such truces will soon manifest, as many Middle Eastern countries take stock of their new reality; a choice between a dominant Iran against a scattered and conflicting neighborhood, or a weaker Iran, facing a somewhat united front.

We should celebrate this. But we should also understand that we havent actually solved the issue at hand.

The Israel-Palestine dispute is the main reason behind most Middle Eastern conflict (and a healthy helping of anti-Semitism in Islamic theocracies as well). The concessions granted in the Abraham Accord, namely that Israel will not annex territories beyond the Green Line, changes nothing. Netanyahu, has already made it quite clear that his plans to annex parts of the West Bank are only on hold, and will be pursued at a later date.

The age-old conflict regarding Palestine has not been resolved by the stroke of a pen. The allyship formed between the Israel and the U.A.E (acting as a metaphor for the increasing allyship between Israel and large swathes of the Middle East), is not based on any common friendship or a hashing out of old grievances.

It is based on a common enemy.

If and when that common enemy is no longer a threat, what exactly is to prevent those deeply rooted differences from giving rise to conflict once again?

Also read: Indias Covid-19 tally surpasses 3 million mark, recovery rate at 74.6%
Even with the best-case Brexit outcome, the customs burden is going to increase.

"We can't cross a bridge until we come to it; but I always like to lay down a pontoon ahead of time". The words of the famous financier and political adviser Bernard M Baruch will resound for the thousands of Irish businesses which are going to find themselves elbow deep in customs paperwork in January, regardless of what agreement the UK reaches with the EU.

For many, which have never had to deal with customs before, this will require a large level of preparation and upskilling.

The EU's Single Market and Customs Union are a sanctuary for Irish businesses trading within the EU. Such traders have had little need to get bogged down with whether goods are classified correctly, or paperwork is filed accurately and on time.

The downside of this is that many of the skills required to complete customs returns for trade outside the EU have all but disappeared in Ireland.

Compounding this, there are worrying reports - both here and across the Irish sea - that there is little capacity among the existing experts to take on any new business.

With customs declarations in Ireland expected to increase from 1.5 million to over 20 million every year, this is something that traders will have to grapple with if they want to continue trading with the UK. And let's not forget that these are the same businesses who are already struggling with the effects of Covid-19.

A no-deal Brexit will mean tariffs and paperwork; a free trade agreement will eliminate most customs duties but the need for declarations will remain. On the surface, it might seem simple; for goods to move to and from the UK, you must tell the customs authorities what you are transporting, how you are doing it, a product's weight and worth.

The reality, however, is much more complicated.

For a start, there are 54 boxes to be filled out on the form used for import and export declarations. To avoid loads being held up or stopped, the goods must be classified correctly, transport codes identified, currency details supplied, and warehousing information entered.

While tariffs have cash flow implications, their impact is much easier to predict. Customs administration will be the real headache for businesses. In addition to increased IT costs, no customs return means no movement of goods, which means unhappy customers and lost business. If there aren't enough experts to prepare the documentation, how can hauliers be expected to present at Dublin Port with the correct paperwork?

It is critical for the viability of many Irish businesses that goods get to where they need to go and on time.

At the same time, the EU has 400 million people and a border that stretches 10,000 kilometres to protect. That is why the border on the island of Ireland is such a difficult issue in the Brexit debate.

Irish traders importing from the UK need to ensure they follow the rules; but firstly, they need to learn the rules.

It is with that skills gap in mind that Chartered Accountants Ireland have launched a Certificate in Customs and Trade to train traders and advisors to navigate the new customs regime that Brexit will bring.

Customs practices have always been about protectionism for the EU; protect the domestic market from an influx of cheap products, protect the consumer and the environment from unsafe goods and protect domestic enterprise. This practice can be traced back to ancient times where fees were charged by sovereigns to travelling salesmen for the privilege of trading in a particular kingdom. Not much has changed.

If a free trade agreement is not achieved, a customs regime full of red tape between partners that were formerly in the EU's Customs Union together makes no sense.

Whatever the outcome of the Brexit talks, there is an urgent need for companies and businesses to prepare for customs administration and invest in the people needed to prepare and file customs returns. That work needs to begin immediately so that businesses are ready to trade in the new world.

Otherwise, forget about crossing the bridge: it will be a case of 'sink' rather than 'swim'.

Crona Clohisey is public policy lead at Chartered Accountants Ireland
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 18:09:58|Editor: huaxia

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TEHRAN, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Iran's special envoy for Afghanistan expressed concern about an increase in insecurity in Afghanistan, Tasnim news agency reported on Sunday.

Mohammad Ebrahim Taherian made the remarks on Saturday and also offered Tehran's assistance in launching intra-Afghan negotiations.

"Restoration of peace and stability is not only a public demand from the people, government, and various currents in Afghanistan, but also a necessity in the course of promotion of regional cooperation and achievement of collective security," said Taherian.

On Saturday, at least 18 security agents were killed and six people were wounded in four attacks across Afghanistan, including one explosion in the capital Kabul, where a civilian was injured.

Taherian pointed to the Aug. 9 agreement at Afghanistan's Loya Jirga, or the Grand Assembly, to release Taliban prisoners, and stressed the need to prepare intra-Afghan negotiations.

Iran, Taherian added, is ready to cooperate with its neighbour country to launch such negotiations. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 10:32:34|Editor: huaxia

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by Yosley Carrero

HAVANA, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Esleidy Tamary, a 42-year-old mother, has worked as a local tour guide for more than a decade in Las Terrazas, an eco-village located an-hour drive south of the capital Havana, but the coronavirus pandemic changed her life all of a sudden.

In Cuba, which has reported 3,617 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 89 deaths so far, many tour guides have been affected by the health crisis, since the government has adopted measures to slow the spread of the disease nationwide.

For Tamary, it was supposed to be a good season to guide groups of tourists visiting the UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) biosphere reservation, plan travel itineraries and introduce the customs and traditions of Cuban farmers.

However, she now finds herself harvesting crops at a nearby state-operated farm to support national food production, a paramount priority during the pandemic on the island.

"I miss close contact with tourists. We are sort of our country's ambassadors," said Tamary. "COVID-19 pandemic has put our work at risk but this is not going to last forever."

"Now it is time to work on the land, but sooner or later I will welcome tourists again with a big smile on my face," she said.

Since the island nation reported its first cases on March 11, the government has suspended international flights, requested vessels in Cuban territorial waters to withdraw, and extended the ban to all foreign tourists.

The acute decline in international tourists has hammered tourism in small communities and towns, as well as the country's largest metropolitan areas.

During the pandemic, the more than 111,000 employees of the country's tourism industry have worked to improve hotel facilities, or been relocated to essential economic activities, or put under paid leave.

Orlando Ramos, president of San Cristobal S.A. travel agency, told Xinhua that tourism will take some time to come back, and now, the top challenge to travel agencies is to preserve human resources despite the lack of income.

"We are giving our tour guides different tasks, such as translating documents at home, subtitling videos, and promoting Cuba as a safe tourist destination on social media and digital platforms," he said. "We are redefining the workload of our workers in a new context."

A new model of travel is required as long as the novel coronavirus sticks around, said Jose Luis Perello, a professor and an expert on tourism.

"It is possible that some tourists feel reluctant to go on a guided tour, but this is going to be temporary. It is not the end of tourism nor tour guides," he said. Enditem
A former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, has spoken of how a former governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu, raised money for then-candidate Muhammadu Buhari to win the 2015 presidential election.

Mr Lawal, who was removed from office for alleged misappropriation of funds, disclosed this in an interview with Punch Newspaper on Sunday.

He stated that it was Mr Tinubu who raised funds for the All Progressives Congress (APC) to defeat the then President, Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in 2015.

Mr Lawal argued that Mr Buhari and his supporters had no money to win an election except ideas, zeal and fanaticism.

Tinubu, who had his tentacles spread across the corporate world, was the only man who knew where and how to raise the funds needed. He was the one that reached out to all the big men who were at the time scared of the then President Goodluck Jonathan. These were all rich men that depended on the governments patronage. But somehow, Tinubu was able to persuade some of them to support Buhari. We had so many experiences, Timipre Sylva (now Minister of State for Petroleum Resources) and I thought we could do it but found out we couldnt until Tinubu came in and we won the election, he said.

Mr Lawal said Mr Tinubu spent enormous money out of his pocket to finance the partys campaign. He said Mr Tinubu was responsible for the lobby of a U. S. consultant who handled President Barrack Obamas campaign and they did the same for Nigerias current president.

President Muhammadu Buhari and APC Leader Bola Tinubu [PHOTO CREDIT: Bashir Ahmaad]

That was when you started seeing Buhari wearing a suit, and in Igbo, Yoruba and Kanuri attire. It was then people started to see Buhari as a family man with his beautiful daughters. The strategy was to transform his image and show a humane, loving and trustworthy person. It helped us. At some point during our strategy sessions, the consultants asked us: why dont you allow Buharis wife to come out so that she can be contrasted with Dame Patience Jonathan? When you do that, you would have won the election already, they said. She provided a contrast to the former First Lady.

Speaking on the crisis rocking the APC, he argued that persons with selfish interest were against Adams Oshiomhole, the immediate past chairman of the party.

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Mr Lawal also spoke about the battle between the Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, and the suspended acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Ibrahim Magu.

When I was removed as SGF, the general outcry was that because of my closeness to Buhari, they wanted to weaken my flanks so that they could come after me. But now in the case of Magu, the narrative is that corruption is fighting back I used to joke that if you are a thief and you are caught by Magu, nobody can release you unless you cut off his hands, he said.
United Nations, Aug 23 : Marking the International Day Commemorating the Victims of Violence Based on Religious Belief, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged the international community to make efforts to put an end to hate and discrimination.

While warning of a rise in racism since the coronavirus spread across the world, the UN chief in his message on Saturday noted that the pandemic has been accompanied by "a surge in stigma and racist discourse vilifying communities, spreading vile stereotypes and assigning blame", Xinhua news agency reported.

Guterres listed some of the disturbing examples of discrimination against religious minorities, such as attacks on people and religious sites, and hate crimes and atrocity crimes targeting populations because of their religion or belief.

In order to counter this discrimination, he called for more action to address the root causes of intolerance and discrimination by promoting inclusion and respect for diversity, as well as for the perpetrators of crimes of this nature to be held accountable.

"The right to freedom of religion or belief is firmly entrenched in international human rights law," said the Secretary-General, adding "and is a cornerstone for inclusive, prosperous and peaceful societies." Marked annually on August 22, the International Day Commemorating the Victims of Violence Based on Religious Belief was created by a UN resolution adopted in May 2019.

It came as response to a rise of intolerance and violence based on religion or belief against individuals, which are often of a criminal nature.

Launching his Strategy on Hate Speech in June 2019, Guterres said that "a groundswell of xenophobia, racism and intolerance, violent misogyny, anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim hatred" are being seen around the world, and noted that, in some places, Christian communities were also being systematically attacked.
" " The hostess of an Ethiopian coffee ceremony roasts the coffee beans, creating aromatic smoke. iStockphoto.com /jcarillet

The Ethiopian coffee ceremony is much more than sipping a good cup of joe. It's an important cultural ritual that's been passed from generation to generation in the country believed to be the birthplace of coffee. And we can thank a few lucky goats for the discovery.

Ethiopian folklore contends that coffee beans (which are actually the seeds of cherrylike fruits) were discovered around 800 A.D. by a goatherder's charges as they grazed on the red fruit of a coffee plant. When the goats began frolicking, the herder rushed a handful of the mysterious fruit to nearby monks, who promptly destroyed the seeds by tossing them into a fire -- something they were wont to do with potentially sinful items.

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However, the roasted seeds exhibited two miraculously redeeming qualities: a delectable aroma and, when crushed and steeped in hot water, a distinctive drink with an invigorating kick. The brew buzzed the monks' daily devotions, allowing them to continue their prayer long into the night [source: National Coffee Association]. And as coffee's popularity spread throughout Ethiopia and eventually the world, it inspired a devotion all its own.

Today, an estimated 12 million Ethiopians grow and harvest coffee beans in what has become the nation's major cash crop [source: Doyle]. During the 2010/2011 fiscal year, coffee accounted for the lion's share of the country's exports, earning a record $841.6 million [source: Masho]. Ethiopia's varying terrain fosters different types of coffee plants, each producing seeds with a distinctively different flavor. For example, the coffee beans the monks used were most likely a robust Arabica strain that grew wild in the forest underbrush.

Just as they did over a thousand of years ago, Ethiopians still consider the coffee ceremony a crucial tenet of friendship and respect -- so important, in fact, that they'll perform the hours-long ceremony for any visitor, no matter the time of day. It all starts with an elaborate ritual to prepare the coffee seeds.
A fire broke out at a chemical factory in an industrial area of Dombivli in Maharashtras Thane, a fire official said on Sunday. The incident took place around 12.30 pm on Sunday when a motor at the crusher in the companys polymer department caught fire due to overheating.

The was no report of any casualty, PTI cited the fire official as saying.

There were at least four employees inside the chemical company when the fire spread to other departments. As the workers noticed the fire engulfing from the area, they rushed to safety as the blaze spread through units located at the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) in Thane districts Dombivli.

After two hours and four fire engines, the fire fighters were able to bring the blaze under control.

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At least two operatives of the State Security Service (SSS) were killed, on Sunday, allegedly by members of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

The secessionist group in a statement also said 21 of its members were killed by security operatives and 47 arrested.

The incident caused tension in the area for a greater part of the day as armed police officers and soldiers were deployed.

As a result, the area witnessed vehicular and human traffic as the police combed the area in search of IPOB members.

We were Attacked  SSS

In a statement by its spokesperson, Peter Afunanya, the SSS said its patrol team was attacked in Emene, Enugu State by members of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

The Service lost two personnel in what was clearly an unprovoked violent attack launched by IPOB on the team, Mr Afunanya said.

The agency condoled with families of the departed officers and also prayed for the repose of their souls.

SSS operatives

However, all measures have been put in place to ensure that their killers and everyone involved in this dastardly act are promptly apprehended and brought to justice. Consequently, a full-scale investigation will be carried out with regard to the incident.

Once again, the Service reaffirms its commitment to assiduously work with other security agencies to maintain public safety and order. It, therefore, urges law abiding citizens and residents to go about their normal businesses without fear, the spokesperson said.

IPOB: We lost 21 members

In a statement by its spokesperson, Emma Powerful, IPOB said 21 of its members were killed in the clash.

Mr Powerful said 47 IPOB members were also arrested.

Premium Times could not independently verify the claims on casualty by the IPOB spokesman.

The Nigerian government and her security agencies have once again exhibited another crude round of killing and massacre against the peaceful and unarmed IPOB family members in Enugu State today 23rd of August, 2020

We are surprised how Nigerian security agencies in their respective formations like army, police and DSS will be slaughtering our people without any provocation.

This rampant killing of innocent members of IPOB will be reciprocated in due cause. IPOB members have been slaughtered and arrested in their numbers across different locations in Enugu State today Sunday 23rd August 2020

We MUST warn and put the whole world on notice that Nigerian Government and her security operatives should stop killing our people because we are peaceful organisation with the mandate of restoring Biafra sovereignty within shortest period,

Mr Powerful narrated his groups version of how the violence started.

He said the IPOB members were holding a peaceful meeting when armed SSS operatives stormed the area shooting sporadically.

Today, the Nigerian security personnel stormed IPOB meeting ground in Enugu and started shooting sporadically which consumed lives of 21 members and 47 arrested for just no cause or provocation, Mr Powerful said.

He alleged that the security operatives took the bodies of the slain IPOB members away.

The security in the whole world must understand that keeping quiet and following the rule of law should not be construed as weakness on the part of IPOB.

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He said the group is a peaceful organisation and will remain peaceful despite the provocations.

IPOB is a well rooted movement committed fully on the pursuit for Biafra freedom and independence from Nigeria. We are not a violent group and there is nothing they can do to change our resolve to maintain peace and order in our land.

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The efforts of the Nigeria government and her partners in crime in trying to push IPOB to change their tactics will amount to vanity.

We are warning and asking Nigeria government and her security operatives to stop this atrocity immediately. Why have they refused to confront Fulani terrorists herdsmen, Boko Haram terrorists, Ansaru group, Fulani bandits, ISIS and other groups ravaging the country and busy killing innocent and unarmed citizens of IPOB?

Mr Poweful said those responsible for this barbaric killing in Enugu today must pay for their actions against IPOB at the appropriate time.

It is laughable for DSS to be claiming that they lost five personnel in the hands of unarmed and Peaceful people. It is clear to all that IPOB doesnt indulge or carry arm or involve with any object. IPOB is a peaceful movement and we must remain so till Biafra is totally achieved, he added.

IPOB seeks a sovereign Biafran country made up of Igbo-speaking parts of Nigeria. Its activities have been outlawed by the Nigerian government although it repeatedly says its movement is a peaceful one.

IPOBs leader, Nnamdi Kanu, fled Nigeria after he was granted bail following his trial for treason.
The Trump administration is threatening to veto a resolution to extend the UN's long-standing peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon if its mandate isn't changed, Israeli and U.S. officials tell me.

Why it matters: The U.S. is the main funder of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which has an annual budget of $250 million. The veto threat is a tactical move, and part of a broader effort to put pressure on Iran and its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah.

The resolution will come before the UN Security Council for a vote at the end of this month.

It comes in the midst of a deep political crisis in Lebanon, following the Beirut port explosion, and with tensions running high between Israel and Hezbollah.

The U.S. argues that Hezbollah is restricting the access and movements of the UN force, compromising its effectiveness.

It wants all restrictions on the peacekeepers' movements lifted, along with enhanced reporting to the Security Council when UNIFIL's operations are challenged.

The Trump administration is also demanding the following changes to UNIFILs mandate, per Israeli and U.S. officials.

Cutting the maximum troop presence from 15,000 to 11,000.

Reducing the mandate's extension period from one year to six months to allow for more modifications as the situation on the ground changes.

Immediately implementing recommendations from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who called for more peacekeepers to be moved to the Israel-Lebanon border area and for the force's weapons, technology and vehicles to be upgraded.

The big picture: UNIFIL was established in 1978 following an Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and its mandate was broadened after the 2006 Iran-Hezbollah War.

Since then, both Israel and the U.S. have supported the force while also criticizing its failure to prevent Hezbollahs military entrenchment in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel.

Israeli and U.S. officials now say that the force is not implementing its mandate, and so troop numbers should be cut.

In the last several weeks, the U.S. has told Security Council members and the countries supplying the bulk of UNIFIL's troops that they will not agree to a technical rollover of UNIFIL's mandate in a vote scheduled for Aug. 31, Israeli and U.S. officials say.

In conversations with their counterparts, U.S. and Israeli diplomats have cited the discoveries of Hezbollah's cross-border tunnels into Israel, the cutting of a border fence, limitations on the access and movement of UN peacekeepers by Hezbollah, and a recent attempted attack by Hezbollah on an Israeli outpost.

Both us and the Americans stress that in the current reality Hezbollah is just too comfortable with UNIFIL, and this is unacceptable," a senior Israeli official tells me.

In the last few days, the permanent members of the council  China, France, Russia, the U.K. and U.S.  held negotiations on the resolution in New York.

France is the "pen holder" for the UNIFIL resolution, and French officials have been told by U.S. officials  including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo  that they will veto the resolution if their demands aren't met.

In the event of a veto, UNIFILs operations will cease and the force will be disband.

Between the lines: The U.S. and Israel don't actually want that to happen, and also realize that other members are wary of dramatic steps while Lebanon is in crisis. But both the U.S. and Israel think that only a strong veto threat would convince the other members to agree to substantial changes, officials tell me.

A State Deperment spokesperson says the U.S. wants UNIFIL to "fully implement its mandate, consider and pursue revisions which reinforce success and recognize shortcomings, a State Department spokesperson told me. "We are deeply concerned about Hizballah's challenges to UNIFIL's freedom of movement and this is unacceptable."

Where things stand: The French are not impressed by the U.S. veto threat.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey has found 320 billion cubic metres of natural gas in the biggest ever discovery in the Black Sea, and hopes to begin production by 2023.

The lira and benchmark share indices both gave up gains, though, possibly reflecting disappointment among investors over the size of the deposit.

"We have conducted this operation completely through national means," Erdogan said Friday in a much-trailed press conference at his office in Istanbul. "We didn't even rely one bit on foreign sources in drilling operations."

The Fatih drill ship located the gas in the so-called Tuna-1 field, he said, and exploration is continuing in other fields.

"The question now is how much of this gas is recoverable," said Jonathan Lamb, oil and gas senior analyst at Wood & Company, a Czech investment bank. "This is not clear yet. What the market really wants to know also is how much they can produce per year, but I don't think they are in the position to say that yet."

The lira fell 0.7pc at 7.3470 per dollar on Friday while the Borsa Istanbul 100 index fell as much as 1.8pc. Shares in energy companies including refiner Tupras, Aksa Enerji and Aygaz dropped sharply after the news.

Turkey bought three drilling ships in recent years as it dramatically expanded energy exploration in the Black Sea and contested waters of the eastern Mediterranean. It's keen to find sizable energy reserves to ease its heavy reliance on imports from Iran, Iraq and Russia, and support one of the biggest economies in the Middle East.

The Fatih has been drilling to a depth of 3,500 to 4,000 meters (11,500 to 13,000 feet), Energy Minister Fatih Donmez said last month. Turkey's state-run oil company TPAO, however, has no experience in deep-sea gas production and would likely need to enlist a major firm to exploit a field. With oil and gas prices having slumped, the economics of developing such a find may be less attractive than in the past.

The Tuna-1 field, some 150km from Turkey's coast, is close to an area where maritime borders of Bulgaria and Romania converge and not far from Romania's Neptun block, the largest gas find in the Black Sea in decades discovered eight years ago by Petrom and Exxon.
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Linkedin Dyaning Pangestika (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, August 23, 2020 09:29 515 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066fc6181 1 National Education,Education-and-Culture-Ministry,teachers-in-Indonesia,COVID-19,COVID-19-in-Indonesia,coronavirus,teachers,school-reopening,school Free

The United Federation of Indonesian Teachers (FSGI) has urged the government to do more to protect teachers, school administrators and students during the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that several teachers and school administrators have died of the illness.

According to the FSGI, at least 20 teachers and two school administrators have died of COVID-19.

FSGI deputy secretary-general Fahriza Marta said teachers had minimal protection from the virus, despite recent calls to reopen schools.

Reopening schools will be risky without proper preparation, Fahriza said in a statement on Saturday.

He added that many schools had already opened and had failed to implement strict health protocols.

Some schools lacked proper sanitation facilities and allowed teachers to instruct students in person without wearing masks. Some teachers did not enforce physical distancing rules during school activities.

Read also: EXCLUSIVE: Nadiem says school reopening 'bold' but necessary amid 'education crisis'

The FSGI found that 51 junior high schools in Toba, North Sumatra, were requiring students to attend in-person classes three days a week.

We found that only 13 of the 51 schools reported to the Education and Culture Ministry that they had reopened, Fahriza said.

Of the 13 schools, only one had proper toilet facilities. One school failed to provide handwashing facilities. Four schools were not disinfected regularly, while eight did not check the temperatures of people entering the facility.

Fahriza said teachers and school staff had the right to receive proper protection under the 2005 Teachers and Lecturers Law as well as a 2017 ministerial decree on teacher protection.

We deserve not just legal and welfare protection but also protection from COVID-19 infection, he said.

FSGI secretary-general Heru Purnomo urged the central government and regional administrations to provide COVID-19 swab testing at schools and to allocate additional funds so that all schools could have proper sanitation facilities.

If the government does not have the budget for that, we urge the suspension of face-to-face learning for the time being, said Heru. (dpk)
NEW ORLEANS - The Gulf Coast braced Sunday for a potentially devastating hit from twin hurricanes as two dangerous storms swirled toward the U.S from the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. Officials feared a history-making onslaught of life-threatening winds and flooding along the coast, stretching from Texas to Alabama.

A storm dubbed Marco grew into a hurricane Sunday as it churned up the Gulf of Mexico toward Louisiana. But, Marcos intensity was fluctuating, forecasters said, and the system was downgraded to a tropical storm Sunday night.

Another potential hurricane, Tropical Storm Laura, lashed the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and was tracking toward the same region of the U.S. coast, carrying the risk of growing into a far more powerful storm.

Experts said computer models show Laura could make landfall with winds exceeding 110 mph (177 kph), and rain bands from both storms could bring a combined total of 2 feet (0.6 metres) of rain to parts of Louisiana and several feet of potentially deadly storm surge.

There has never been anything weve seen like this before, where you can have possibly two hurricanes hitting within miles of each over a 48-hour period, said Benjamin Schott, meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Services Slidell, Louisiana, office.

The combination of the rain and storm surge in a day or two means youre looking at a potential for a major flood event that lasts for some time, said weather service tropical program co-ordinator Joel Cline. And thats not even talking about the wind.

Where precisely Marco was headed  and when the storm might arrive  remained elusive Sunday.

President Donald Trump approved Louisianas request for federal help related to the pair of storms, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a news release Sunday.

He had submitted the request to Trump and the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Saturday.

Trump also approved an emergency declaration for Mississippi, according to a White House news release late Sunday.

Marco was initially expected to make landfall Monday, but the National Hurricane Center said that a major shift in a majority of their computer models now show the storm stalling off the Louisiana coast for a few days before landing west of New Orleans  and likely weakening before hitting the state. However, skeptical meteorologists at the centre were waiting to see if the trends continue before making a dramatic revision in their forecast.

Marco is a small storm that may be pushed westward along the Louisiana coast, delaying landfall but worsening storm surge, Cline said.

The prospect of piggybacked hurricanes was reviving all-too-fresh memories of damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005. The storm has been blamed for as many as 1,800 deaths and levee breaches in New Orleans led to catastrophic flooding.

What we know is theres going to be storm surge from Marco, we know that that water is not going to recede hardly at all before Laura hits, and so weve not seen this before and thats why people need to be paying particular attention, Edwards warned at a Sunday briefing.

Along the main drag on the barrier island of Grand Isle, south of New Orleans, Starfish Restaurant manager Nicole Fantiny could see an exodus of people driving off the island.

They are all packing up and leaving, she said.

Fantiny wasnt planning to leave, at least for Marco, but she was anxious about the possible one-two punch from both storms. Her husband works with the towns fire and police departments, so she said they are always among the last ones to leave.

My house was built in 1938 so I think were good, she said hopefully.

Marco had been expected to dance above and below hurricane status after hitting the 75 mph-wind mark Sunday afternoon.

The central Gulf could be really under the gun between Marco and Laura in back-to-back succession, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach. Certainly both of these storms can impact New Orleans significantly. It just remains to be seen if the track for Laura tracks a bit to the west.

University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy warned that anyone in New Orleans should be alarmed by the threat. At issue from possible dual hits: whether the levee system can withstand the stress, he said.

In New Orleans, the citys aging drainage system has been a particular point of concern in recent years after an intense 2017 storm flooded streets and raised questions about the systems viability.

Because the city is surrounded by levees and parts are below sea level, rainwater must be pumped out to prevent flooding. Any storm system that sits over the city and dumps rain for extended periods of time, or bands of rain that come in rapid succession, is a cause for concern.

New Orleans resident Matthew Meloy and two friends loaded a van with cases of bottled water in the parking lot of a New Orleans Walmart Sunday. He said they still have a lot of storm preparations ahead.

Check the batteries, flashlights, stocking up on food and trying to park the car on the highest point possible we can find, he said. I already spent like 40 minutes this morning filling up the tanks in the cars.

Tourists were strolling through the New Orleans French Quarter under overcast skies as workers boarded up shop windows. Louisiana corrections officials were evacuating 500 inmates from a jail in Plaquemines Parish, near the coast, to another facility in preparation for the storms.

In Kenner, just outside New Orleans, resident P.J. Hahn said checkout lines in a Sams Club reached to the back of the store, while authorities said 114 oil and gas producing platforms in the Gulf have been evacuated as the storms churn toward the Louisiana coast.

Because of strong winds from the southwest, Marco may attain and then lose hurricane status before it hits land, meteorologists said. But those winds could be gone when Laura ventures to the central Gulf, where the usually bathtub-warm water is a degree or 2 (0.5 to 1 degree Celsius) warmer than normal, Klotzbach said.

The warmer the water, the stronger the fuel for a hurricane.

It, unfortunately, might peak in intensity about landfall. Thats the one thing I worry about with this one, MIT meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel said of Laura. His multiple computer simulations show a decent chance of winds of more than 110 mph (177 kph) for Laura at landfall, as do other computer models.

The key for Lauras future is how it survives Cuba. Originally forecast to rake over almost the entire length of the island and potentially weaken, the storm late Sunday moved further south, skirting the island. If that continues, it is more likely to come out strong enough to power up over the favourable environment of the Gulf of Mexico, Klotzbach said.

If that continues, Laura could hit further west in the Gulf, possibly into Texas instead of Louisiana, he said. If it hits Louisiana that would break the record for two named storms hitting the state so close together. The current record is five days apart in 1885, Klotzbach said.

And theres one long-term possibility that adds to the risk. As Laura moves north after landfall into Oklahoma, theres a chance it will be caught up into the jet stream, travel east and emerge over North Carolina and return to tropical storm status, McNoldy and Klotzbach said.

By Sunday night, Laura was 125 miles (200 kilometres) southeast of Camaguey, Cuba, with 60 mph (95 kph) winds moving west-northwest at 21 mph (33 kph). Marco was 185 miles (295 kilometres) south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River, with 70 mph (110 kph) winds, moving north-northwest at 12 mph (19 kph).

In Empire, Louisiana, about 50 miles (80 kilometres) south of New Orleans near the mouth of the Mississippi River, shrimp, oyster and fishing boats line the docks. It was eerily quiet Sunday evening, as most fishermen had already secured their boats. Mike Bartholemey was putting extra blocks of wood under his recently dry docked 50-foot (15-meter) shrimp boat Big Mike, out of his concern that hurricane winds might topple his boat to the ground.

In Venice, a fishing town on the Mississippi River, shrimper Acy Cooper was up early Sunday to move his three shrimp boats from the harbour into the bayous nearby to ride out the storm. Its the same area where he moored his boat during Hurricane Katrina.

The boat survived; his house in Venice did not.

___

Martin reported from Marietta, Georgia. Borenstein reported from Kensington, Maryland. AP reporter Stacey Plaisance in New Orleans; and photojournalist Gerald Herbert in Empire, Louisiana, also contributed.
I hope there is a precedent in parliamentary practice in Armenia when the opposition launches the process of dismissing a minister and the ruling party agrees with the opposition, votes and dismisses its minister. This is what head of Bright Armenia Party Edmon Marukyan said during Brighttalk.

Touching upon the admissions exams for those applying to universities, Marukyan said that the Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of Armenia is creating problems out of nowhere and that Bright Armenia Party will submit an interpellation regarding ministers in September.

We have submitted interpellations about the finance and nature protection ministers and raised the issue of their resignation in the past. Since the ruling My Step Alliance is also discontent with the Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport, I hope there is a precedent in parliamentary practice in Armenia when the opposition launches the process of dismissing a minister and the ruling party agrees with the opposition, votes and dismisses its minister, he said.
LA County Court backs John MacArthur, says Grace Community Church can worship indoors

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The Los Angeles County Superior Court announced Thursday that there's no court order prohibiting Pastor John MacArthur and Grace Community Church from holding indoor worship services amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are pleased with the outcome today, Jenna Ellis, special counsel for the Thomas More Society and one of the attorneys representing MacArthur and his church, said in a statement to The Christian Post.

Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff correctly found there is no court order prohibiting Grace Community Church from holding indoor services, she added. LA County continues to harass and target Pastor MacArthur. Having failed to get a court order to shut down the church they have sought three times, theyre going to try again by hauling us back into court. Ironically, LA County said in its application for contempt that, Grace Church cannot thumb its nose at the court when decisions dont go its way, yet thats precisely what LA County is now doing themselves. We will simply continue to defend our clients constitutionally protected rights because church is essential."

Officials with Los Angeles County had wanted MacArthur and the leadership of the non-denominational, evangelical megachurch held in contempt of court after holding an in-person church service at their Sun Valley, California, campus last Sunday.

The county claimed that Grace Community Church should face $8,000 in fines in addition to attorneys fees. The county also seeks an additional $12,000 in fines for violations of court orders  $1,500 per violation.

The LA County Board of Supervisors has decided to continue their unconstitutional attack against Pastor John MacArthur and Grace Community Church, Ellis, who is also a Trump campaign adviser and lawyer, said.

They are now asking the court to hold the church in contempt for simply being open for worship last Sunday, she continued in a released statement. Pastor MacArthur is standing firm that church is essential and has no plans to yield to this tyrannical board, which is clearly defying the constitutions mandate to protect religious liberty.

The Sun Valley church has been holding in-person worship services for the past four weeks despite Gov. Gavin Newsom's second-round of lockdown orders prohibiting indoor church gatherings in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Grace Community filed a lawsuit last week against state restrictions, accusing government officials of selectively restricting gatherings amid the pandemic.



When many went to the streets to engage in political or peaceful protests purportedly against racism and police brutality, these protesters refused to comply with the pandemic restrictions. Instead of enforcing the public health orders, public officials were all too eager to grant a de facto exception for these favored protestors, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit was filed after MacArthur received a cease and desist letter prohibiting indoor worship and threatened him with fines and imprisonment should Grace Community continue to worship in their church building.

Before last weeks lawsuit was filed, MacArthur and the elders at Grace Community Church had released a statement explaining why it's the churchs biblical duty to remain open.

Church leaders informed civic leaders that they have exceeded their legitimate jurisdiction, and faithfulness to Christ prohibits us from observing the restrictions they want to impose on our corporate worship services.

As His people, we are subject to His will and commands as revealed in Scripture, stated MacArthur, joined by the pastors and elders of the church. Therefore, we cannot and will not acquiesce to a government-imposed moratorium on our weekly congregational worship or other regular corporate gatherings. Compliance would be disobedience to our Lord's clear commands.

MacArthur recently told The Daily Wires Andrew Klavan that he's "not surprised" by the opposition the church is facing. He said the fact that Satan and all his forces constantly work against the Kingdom of God is a basic theological truth.

So we get it, MacArthur said. "The whole world, says the Apostle John, lies in the power of the evil one. So is there a massive supernatural conspiracy against the Kingdom of God? Of course, but that doesn't mean every person is violently against the Church. Satan works with those who will acquiesce to his leadership at whatever level they will acquiesce.

The pastor said the church is always going to have to fight spiritual battles, adding that Satan will find all kinds of ways to try to silence the Church.

And let me just pivot a little bit to say this: The Church in America has been so caught up in pragmatism; it has drunk the Kool-Aid of trying to devise a religion that non-religious people will like and accept, that it's afraid to be courageous because it might offend somebody, he concluded.

A full hearing in the case is set for Sept. 4.
Actors transforming themselves for roles is nothing new in Hollywood. But the process (and the aftermath) can be grueling for the actors. Enter George Clooney who altered his appearance for 2005s Syriana.

George Clooney ate 9 meals a day to prep for Syriana

George Clooney gets honored by the American Film Institute | Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Turner

RELATED: George Clooney Says ER Was a Life Changer

Clooney didnt have much time to gain a reported 30-plus pounds for his role as Bob Barnes in Syriana. A

ccording to the Irish Examiner, the father of two stepped up to play the role after another actor dropped out, leaving him with only a month to gain the weight.

To bulk up, Clooney would chow down on as many as nine meals a day. Staying at his famous Villa Oleandra on Lake Como in Italy, the actor says he couldnt enjoy his food.

I was miserable because there I was in Italy, and I wasnt looking forward to eating, he said. Who doesnt look forward to eating in Italy?

People always think, Oh, thatll be fun, but its like going to a pie-eating contest every day, he added.

RELATED: Brad Pitt Beat Out George Clooney for a Career-Making Role

He took in as many calories as possible to achieve the desired physique. But as Clooney reiterated in another interview with The Tech, it wasnt a pleasant experience.

My job was just to eat as fast as I could, as much as I could, he said. But mostly you just ate until you wanted to throw up, and made sure you didnt throw up. So that was my job for a month, was eating.

When it came time to shoot the movie, Clooney had filled out his frame but as his co-star and close friend, Matt Damon, later noted, the actor wasnt himself.

George Clooney was no longer the life of the party, Matt Damon says

Matt Damon and George Clooney at the premiere of Syriana | Evan Agostini/Getty Images

RELATED: Does George Clooney Have Any Kids?

Pranks on movie sets are a pretty common occurrence and Clooney is a master of them. He loves playing jokes on his co-stars but when it came to Syriana, he wasnt his usual jokester self. Even Damon noticed a change in Clooney.

He had put on all that weight and he was really depressed, Damon told Indie London. George is a really active guy and he couldnt move around. He had to just sit there. Ive never seen him like that. Hes normally the life of the party, but he was really depressed.

After filming on Syriana ended, Clooney couldnt sit still any longer. He went to work on Good Night, and Good Luck, a 2005 film he directed.

Filming Syriana isnt a happy memory for George Clooney

Playing a CIA operative might sound like a good time but for Clooney on the set of Syriana, it was anything but. Directed by Stephen Gaghan (Doolittle), the movie meant filming in upwards of 200 locations on four continents.

Bouncing from place to place didnt bother Clooney so much as what happened to him that year.

There was nothing fun about it, he told The Sydney Morning Herald. There was not a moment that was fun about shooting this film. Thats not a slap on the film or [the director Stephen] Gaghan. Its just that everybody has that year where you age a decade and this was that one for me.

After Syriana hit theaters on November 23, 2005, Clooney went on to receive a Golden Globe and an Oscar for his performance.

RELATED: This Is the Film Set George Clooney Was Headed to Before His Scooter Crash
Pradhan Kathmandu: A six-member panel formed by the ruling Nepal Communist Party to resolve the bitter intra-party rift has suggested that Prime Minister K P Oli should complete his five-year tenure, while executive chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' be allowed to exercise full executive power over party affairs, a senior party leader said on Sunday. The task force, formed by Oli and Prachanda on August 15 and later endorsed by NCP's powerful Central Secretariat on August 17, was led by the party's General Secretary Bishnu Poudyal. The panel, which submitted its report to Oli and Prachanda on Saturday, includes Standing Committee members Shankar Pokhrel, Janardan Sharma, Bhim Rawal, Surendra Pandey and Pampha Bhusal.

Although the details of the report has not been made public, it is expected to pacify the intra-party rift which deepened further after Prachanda and senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal demanded Prime Minister Oli's resignation. According to senior NCP leader and Standing Committee member Ganesh Shah, the panel in its report has suggested that Prime Minister Oli should remain in power for a full five-year term, whereas Prachanda should have full executive power over the party's affairs.

When Oli became prime minister two-and-a-half years ago in 2018, he and Prachanda had reached a tacit understanding to share the prime minister's position turn-by-turn. The panel has suggested the top leaders of the party to adhere to one-man-one-post principle and to promote coordination and collaboration between the two top leaders, Shah said. However, the report needs to be ratified in the Standing Committee meeting, which is likely to be convened this week, he said. There is no other way to maintain unity in the party at this moment, said Shanker Pokharel, one of the panel members.

However, it is to be seen how the suggestions of the panel will be implemented, Shah said. According to party insiders, Prime Minister Oli is likely to reshuffle his Cabinet as soon as the Standing Committee meeting of the party endorses the panel's report to strike a power balance with Prachanda. Oli and Prachanda have held about a dozen meetings to sort out the differences between them. But, as the Prime Minister did not accept the condition of a one-man-one-post, the talks failed. Oli has refused to give up his post as prime minister as well as a co-chairman of the NCP. A bitter internal feud has been brewing in the ruling NCP after top party leaders, including Prachanda, demanded Oli's resignation, saying his recent anti-India remarks were "neither politically correct nor diplomatically appropriate." They are also against Oli's autocratic style of functioning.

The differences grew further after Oli said that some of the ruling party leaders are aligning with the southern neighbour to remove him from power after his government issued a new political map incorporating three Indian territories of Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura. The two leaders are also engaged in tightening their grip within the party with the escalation of the intra-party feud.

.
LATEST: Aug. 23, 7:40 p.m. Evacuation warnings for parts of Santa Clara County have been issued in advance of an anticipated dry lightning storm.

The warning  which cautions residents to be ready to evacuate at a moment's notice, should the warning turn into an order  covers these areas:

Foothills Park to Santa Clara County line, including Los Trancos Open Space

South of Moody Road, West of Rancho San Antonio Open Space, West of Black Mountain, to Highway 35 (Skyline)

Monte Bello Open Space Preserve, south of Monte Bello Road to Highway 35 (Skyline)

Upper Stevens Creek County Park to Highway 35 (Skyline)

West of Stevens Creek County Park, north of Congress Springs Road, to Highway 35 (Skyline)

South of Congress Springs Road, West of Sanborn Road, to Highway 35 (Skyline), including Sanborn-Skyline County Park

South of Lyndon Canyon, West of Highway 17, to Highway 35 (Summit/Skyline), including the community of Redwood Estates

A full evacuation warning map can be found here.

Aug. 23, 6:20 p.m. One civilian has died in the CZU August Lightning Complex fires burning in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, officials said at a Sunday night press briefing (watch the full briefing here).

The body was found near the end of Last Chance Road, close to what is thought to be the person's car, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office said. The man was reported missing early last week in the first days of the fire, but Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office Deputy Chief Chris Clark said fire conditions prevented a helicopter from landing in the area until today. Once the helicopter landed, investigators were able to locate and retrieve the body.

"It has been a tragic day finding a civilian dead," said Cal Fire Incident Commander Billy See. "Our condolences go out to the family."

Investigators are talking to locals and neighbors to see if the man elected to stay in an evacuation zone to protect his property. There are some indications he "may have been trying to escape that fire" when he died, Clark said. The man is not being identified by law enforcement at this time.

Clark said the sheriff's office is investigating four other missing persons reports.

The fire was 74,000 acres with 8% containment as of Sunday evening and 163 homes have been destroyed. Of those, 152 are in Santa Cruz County and 11 in San Mateo.

See said cooler temperatures and foggy weather suppressed fire activity and crews "made significant headway" containing a blaze that has been burning for a week.

Crews are preparing for a shift in the weather Sunday night with thunderstorms likely to deliver lightning and high winds. Officials are asking residents to leave evacuation zones as fire activity could increase overnight.

Aug. 23, 7:25 a.m. Firefighters continued to make gains overnight in harnessing the raging inferno stretched across the Santa Cruz Mountains, as favorable weather conditions dampened fire activity and allowed them to fly aircraft and construct more containment lines around the blaze's perimeter straddling Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties.

The CZU August Lightning Complex swelled 5,000 acres overnight and has torn through more than 71,000 acres as of Sunday morning. The fire was 5% contained before everyone went to bed last night, and this morning it's 8% contained.

"Over the last 24 hours we've had decent success out on the line," said Incident Commander Billy See at a Sunday morning press briefing (watch the full briefing here). "We've been able to increase our containment efforts on the fire while building containment lines around key infrastructure areas and communities. We're going to continue that process today as time allows and weather allows."

In both counties, 129 structures have been destroyed and over 24,000 structures remain threatened. Officials expect the number of homes lost to increase as ground crews conduct investigations in burned areas.

Gains were made Saturday and overnight to protect communities along the Highway 9 corridor in the San Lorenzo Valley, such as Felton, Ben Lomond, Boulder Creek and Santa Cruz.

"We had really good success yesterday with the moderating of the fire front, "said Cal Fire Incident Management Team Chief Mark Brunton.

Brunton emphasized that Cal Fire has "significant resources" in Ben Lomond. "They have been working tirelessly to protect that community," he said.

Fire has been widespread in Bonny Doon and Brunton said crews have continued to make "progress there, albeit slow." Last night there were no reports of additional structures lost in the overnight hours.

On Friday, crews built a fire break on the fire's south edge, between Highway 1 and Highway 9 above the UC Santa Cruz campus, and on Saturday they completed a secondary break to further prevent the flames from moving southward into the city of Santa Cruz.

Thick smoke over the region has prevented Cal Fire from launching a full-blown air operation in recent days, but on Saturday the weather shifted and the air finally cleared a little, allowing the agency to implement an attack from above with aircraft and six water-dropping helicopters.

"That allowed us to slow the fire," Brunton said.

More than 77,000 people have been evacuated (find complete evacuation information here).

The CZU Complex has been burning since last Sunday when a rash of thunderstorms sparked blazes across Northern California. This Sunday similar weather is back in the forecast, with the National Weather Service saying there's a 30% chance of lightning Sunday night into Monday morning. High, erratic winds will also be in the mix, and could fan flames in all directions and promote rapid fire growth.

"With the Red Flag Warning scheduled for the next 48 hours, it's very concerning for all the firefighters," said See. "They're going to be on high alert out there today and tomorrow and in the coming days, to quickly respond to, react to, and pre-plan for any significant events that occur outside the perimeter while maintaining control of what we do have. And then making sure that if we do get a wind event that we're able to act quickly to any aggressive spread. Obviously, it's a major concern to all of us."

Ahead of the storm event, officials emphasized the need for residents to leave evacuation areas immediately as some people have remained at home in an effort to protect their properties.

"The next couple days is going to be pivotal trying to make the best out of a bad situation," said Cal Fire chief Ian Larkin. "This is going to be a very, very dangerous situation with the predictive weather that's coming in and the volatility that could come with that and the increased volatility in fire behavior. You're not trained for this."

The Santa Cruz Sheriff's Office said deputies have arrested five suspected looters in the evacuated Fall Creek Drive area and Deputy Chief Chris Clark Clark said Sunday that burglary suppression in evacuation areas remains a focus with law enforcement.

This weekend, a burglar allegedly stole a firefighter's wallet from his vehicle in an evacuation zone and drained his bank account.

Nearly 1,400 firefighters are battling the fire. Cal Fire Battalion Chief Mike Smith said Thursday typically a wildfire of the size burning through the region would have 10 or even 20 times as many firefighters.

We are doing absolutely everything we can, he said.

The blaze is burning in highly flammable landscape parched after a year marked by low rainfall. It hasn't seen a fire in years.

"It's so dry it's something we have not seen historically," said Brunton. "We're seeing fire we've never seen in the coastal area before, in terms of amount and severity."

Brunton said when he talks to firefighters on the scene, he's heard a common refrain: "We've never seen anything like this."

MORE WILDFIRE COVERAGE:

Map: See where wildfires are burning in Bay Area

CZU Lightning Complex: Fire grows at rate of 700-1,000 acres an hour in Santa Cruz, San Mateo

LNU Lightning Complex: 4 dead, nearly 500 homes destroyed in North Bay fires

SCU Lightning Complex: Blaze spreads to 230k acres across five counties overnight

What to do to keep wildfire smoke out of your house

Amy Graff is the news editor for SFGATE. Email her: agraff@sfgate.com.
In the panel for the film, Reeves said "The Batman" won't be an origin story per se, but it does start in "Year Two" of Batman's emergence, in which Batman and several other iconic characters -- Catwoman, the Riddler, and the Penguin (Colin Farrell) -- are still in the early stages of their development. In exploring the corruption at the heart of the story, Batman also begins to uncover a larger story of corruption within the city, and how it may connect back to the vastly wealthy and powerful Wayne family.
Press Release

August 23, 2020 As a financial relief, support in the midst of crisis

NANCY PUSHES FOR TAX-FREE BENEFITS FOR RETIREES IN BAYANIHAN 2 Senator Nancy Binay expressed her gratitude to the bicameral conference committee of the "Bayanihan to Recover as One Act", or Bayanihan 2, for ensuring that the retirement benefits of employees would be tax-exempt. Binay pushed for the inclusion of a clause in Bayanihan 2 exempting tax-free retirement benefits for employees who have retired from private companies from June 5 until December 31 this year, which the Senate ratified on Thursday. The measure provides for a P165-billion fund for the country's Covid-19 response and recovery plan. "Sa totoo lang kawawa yung mga pinag-force retire o yung mga nag-avail ng optional retirement packages ng mga kompanya--wala nang trabahong babalikan, aawasin pa ang tax sa konting natira sa benefits nila," Binay said. Section 5 of the approved measure states, "Retirement benefits received by officials and employees of private firms, whether individual or corporate, from June 5, 2020 until December 31, 2020 shall be excluded from gross income and shall be exempt from taxation: PROVIDED, That any re-employment of such official or employee in the same firm, within the succeeding 12-month period, shall be considered as proof of non-retirement and shall subject the benefits received to appropriate taxes. In addition to the payment of appropriate taxes, any person who willfully evades or defeats any imposable tax under this section shall be criminally liable and penalized under Sec. 255 of Republic Act No. 8424, as amended." Under the present Tax Code, retirement benefits are only tax-exempt if they satisfy certain conditions of length of service and age. "Gusto lang natin masiguro na all bases are covered sa Bayanihan 2. We want more people to benefit from this law since the pandemic has hit everybody," Binay said. Only retirees who have been in the service of the same company for at least 10 years and not less than 50 years of age upon retirement qualify for tax exemption. "Anumang revenue ang mawawala sa pamahalaan dahil sa tax exemption na ito, mababawi rin naman dahil sa value-added tax ng mga binibili. Ang mahalaga, mabigyan natin sila ng dagdag na panggastos para sa kapakanan ng mga pamilya nila," she added. The senator said that by getting rid of the said conditions, retirees would have more money to dispose of amid the pandemic's uncertainty. "Malaking bagay yung tax exemption sa retirees. Ang ibig sabihin nito, ang ikakaltas sana sa benefits ng mga kababayan nating magre-retire sa kasagsagan ng pandemya, magagamit nila para sa gastusin ng kanilang mga pamilya," Binay said.
The father of Turkey's controversial new maritime doctrine told AFP that France's decision to send warships to help Greece out in its Mediterranean standoff with Ankara was adding "fuel to the fire".

While he might be retired, the "Blue Homeland" vision that Rear Admiral Cem Gurdeniz helped craft over a decade ago is being turned into reality by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today.

A 62-year-old Francophone and Francophile, Gurdeniz received AFP at a gorgeous wooden summer house on one of Istanbul's Prince's Islands in the Marmara Sea.

As warships from France, Greece and Turkey converged on a disputed patch of the eastern Mediterranean Sea, Gurdeniz looked at ease while criticising French President Emmanuel Macron.

"I'm fed up with Macron's everyday verbal threats," Gurdeniz said in English.

"For many Turks now, France is acting like an 'enfant terrible'. Can you imagine, they are threatening Turkey?" he asked.

"If France continues such provocative actions... that would not serve regional peace and stability -- that would add fuel to the fire and France should avoid that."

The discovery of major natural gas deposits in waters surrounding Cyprus and the Greek island of Crete have triggered a scramble for energy riches and revived old regional rivalries.

The biggest tensions are between historically uneasy NATO allies Turkey and Greece, which almost went to war over some uninhabited islets in the Aegean Sea in 1996.

These have been growing progressively more serious as Erdogan lays claim to waters designed to turn Turkey into the maritime powerhouse Gurdeniz envisioned from the start.

EU foreign ministers convened an emergency video conference last week after Greek and Turkish warships collided in hotly disputed circumstances.

"If Greece pulls the trigger, it will be the end of NATO," Gurdeniz said, implying that Turkey would then withdraw from the Cold War-era military alliance.

Story continues

"European countries should put pressure on Greece so that it abandons" some of its maritime claims, he said.

- 'Cold blood' -

Erdogan has tempered his heated rhetoric with calls for talks, which have been spearheaded with sporadic success by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Gurdeniz agreed, saying: "We should think with cold blood, soberly, prudently."

But he saw no need for outside mediation, suggesting that hostilities will only end when Greeks and Turks sit down and frankly talk their problems out.

Gurdeniz overwhelmingly approves of Edrogan's tough line, but also regrets Turkey's growing diplomatic isolation in the increasingly volatile region.

He called Turkey's decision to rupture its relations with Egypt following the army's ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 "a mistake".

"Turkey could have won over Egypt. Also, starting with Egypt, we could have made some gains with Israel too," Gurdeniz said.

But his eyes lit up and his easy smile broadened when talking about the "growing interest of young people" in Turkey's maritime claims.

"I do a lot of interviews with YouTubers," said the retired admiral, pointing out that the annual enrolment of new cadets in navy schools is steadily rising.

He also pointed out that the Mediterranean accounted for just "one percent" of the world's oceans and seas.

"I always stress that Turkey should go beyond this one percent: the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea and the Atlantic," Gurdeniz said.

"Turkey should have a presence down there. This is the reflection of a growing power."

gkg/zak/raz/lc
New COVID-19 cases in Pima County are on an uneven downslope.

Meanwhile, the downslope of new COVID-19 cases across Arizona has been smoother. Most counties in Arizona have seen a relatively consistent decrease in new COVID-19 cases from week to week since peaking in late June.

In general, Pima County is worrying me a little bit, said Dr. Joe Gerald, an associate professor with the University of Arizonas Zuckerman College of Public Health. When we look at Pima County, theres a flattening that occurs in August.

Some of this can be explained by one-off events, like an outbreak at a Tucson prison unit that the Arizona Department of Corrections announced on Aug. 4.

Even so, the background trend in new cases is concerning, Gerald said, pointing out that this trend is behaving differently than in other places in the state.

In Pima County, the total number of weekly cases has dropped, then risen, then dropped again since early July.

Now the number of weekly cases is rising again, from the first week in August to the second, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services chart of COVID-19 cases by date as of Friday.
India scaled up its coronavirus testing over a two-month period starting in June by relying on faster, cheaper antigen tests. At first glance, that's a positive development and a strategy the United States is also considering as the pandemic continues, The Associated Press reports. At the same time, however, there's a sense that India has become overly reliant on the antigen tests, which are also less accurate than slower, more expensive lab tests.

The problem isn't the antigen tests themselves since their shortcomings are well understood. Rather, India seemingly hasn't been retesting enough patients who have tested negative even though the country's health officials are recommending the practice, particularly for those who have symptoms. Between June 18 and July 29, court documents reportedly show that in Delhi state only 0.5 percent, or 1,365 of the more than 260,000 people who tested negative, were retested. Plus, there's been a decline in use of more precise lab tests, the figure falling from 11,000 per day to just 5,400.

Dr. Ashish Jha, director of Harvard University's Global Health Institute, said combining data from the two types of tests shouldn't be used to determine that infections are going down in India since using less accurate tests will automatically drive the numbers south, especially if retesting is limited. Going forward, large countries struggling with outbreaks like the U.S. and India will likely need to strike a balance between speed and precision by continuing to rely on accurate lab tests and get retested regularly when using antigen tests. Read more at The Associated Press.

More stories from theweek.com

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On Sunday, 37 new coronavirus cases were confirmed in the Wyoming Department of Healths daily update. The department removed one probable case from the states total.

Fifteen new confirmed recoveries were announced. Two new probable recoveries were announced.

There are now 3,046 confirmed cases, 533 probable cases, 2,444 confirmed recoveries and 452 probable recoveries in Wyoming.

Thirty-seven Wyomingites have died after contracting COVID-19.

In Natrona County, 228 confirmed cases and 39 probable cases have been recorded.

Probable cases are defined by officials as close contacts of lab-confirmed cases with symptoms consistent with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

A patient is considered fully recovered when there is resolution of fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and there is improvement in respiratory symptoms (e.g. cough, shortness of breath) for 72 hours AND at least 7 days have passed since symptoms first appeared, according to the Wyoming Department of Health.

Cases plateaued in Wyoming in late spring before beginning a spike in mid-June. That surge brought about an increase in the rate of reported coronavirus patients not yet seen here since the pandemic began. As a result, state health officials decided against their plans to eliminate almost all coronavirus restrictions. State Health Officer Dr. Alexia Harrist has extended the current restrictions through the end of the month.

Cases tapered off somewhat in August but appear to be increasing again.

While Gov. Mark Gordon has said he is not considering a statewide face mask requirement, he has urged the states residents to wear them.

The symptoms of COVID-19 include cough, fever and shortness of breath. Symptoms appear within two weeks. Health officials recommend self-isolating for two weeks if you have contact with a person who has the illness.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 18:22:34|Editor: huaxia

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Police officers stand guard outside the nightclub where the stampede happened in Lima, Peru, Aug. 23, 2020. A botched police raid of a nightclub in Peru's capital Lima left at least 13 people dead and another six injured as panicked clients stampeded toward the exit, authorities said on Sunday. According to an Interior Ministry statement, about 120 people were gathered for a party inside the Thomas Restobar in the Los Olivos district, despite the current ban on social gatherings due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. (Str/Xinhua)

LIMA, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- At least 13 people attending an illegal party were killed in a crush on Saturday after local police raided a nightclub in the Peruvian capital here, according to local police.

At least six were injured in the crush and 23 people had been detained after the police operation.

Local authorities said that the party gathering around 120 people at the club violated restrictions to contain the coronavirus spread as the government banned big gatherings on Aug. 12 and has re-imposed Sunday curfews because the number of infections in the country is rising.

According to a statement by the interior ministry, the partygoers, in fear of detainment by the police, tried to escape the club through the single exit, trampling each other and getting trapped in the stairways.

As of Saturday, Peru has recorded a total of 576,067 coronavirus cases and over 27,000 fatalities. Enditem
CJ Foodville's steakhouse brand VIP in Mapo-gu, Seoul. / Courtesy of CJ Foodville



By Kim Jae-heun



Restaurant chains have expressed dissatisfaction over the government's alleged "discriminatory countermeasures" to fight the resurgence of COVID-19.



After another massive outbreak with 2,629 confirmed cases in the last 10 days, the administration tightened quarantine measures, close buffet and family-style restaurants.



CJ Foodville temporarily shut 29 branches of its steak restaurant chain VIPS, and 12 branches of its Seasons Table Korean restaurants, in the capital and surrounding areas last Wednesday.



Shinsegae Food closed three Bono Bono seafood eateries and two outlets of its Korean-style buffet chain Olbaan in the same area.



Elandeats also stopped operating 109 branches of its buffet restaurants as they were designated as "high-risk facilities" by the government under the readopted stricter social distancing guidelines.



For now, they will reopen on Sept. 1; however, if the situation gets worse, the closure period may be extended indefinitely.



The restaurant chains had no complaint about following safety measures, but they did complain about the decision to allow coffee shops to operate.



"The largest number of coronavirus cases was confirmed at Starbucks coffee shop(s), but I don't understand why restaurant chains are targeted," a family restaurant worker said on the condition of anonymity. "Starbucks closed its relevant branches for a few days and then they reopened them."



Fifty-nine patients have been confirmed to have been infected with the virus at a Starbucks coffee shop in Yadang in Paju, Gyeonggi Province as of last Friday.



Buffet-style restaurants have managed to put up a good defense by strictly following the government's guideline to check customers' body temperature and adopting a QR code-based entry log system. Tables were also set far apart to ensure social distancing.



Due to the sudden suspension of business operations, restaurant chains have had to throw away all of their fresh food. It is impossible to keep the food over two weeks unless it is canned, officials said.



Several companies have already sent their buffet restaurant workers to different stores. CJ Foodville relocated its employees from Seasons Table to The Place and Cheiljemyunso, which do not operate buffet style. Shinsegae Food temporarily reassigned its Olbaan and Bono Bono workers to No Brand Burger restaurants.



However, the restaurants are concerned about the bad impression people might get from the government designating them as high-risk facilities.



"It is our obligation to follow the government's regulations, but we hope people don't continue to think that our restaurants are high-risk after things get better," a CJ Foodville official said.


SCHWENKSVILLE  If you walked into The Duck Inn Taproom today, a thriving family-friendly restaurant and bar thats located right on the banks of the Perkiomen Creek on Route 29 in Perkiomen Township, youd have no idea what type of hell the owner and his loyal staff endured just a few short months ago. In []
BLOOMINGTON  Brian Schuneman, of Bloomington, has been biking McLean County trails for as long as he can remember, but he leaned into the activity more this year.

You can just forget about the crazy world we live in 2020 and just ride your bike, said Schuneman. Ive done an awful lot more riding this year than in past years. Soon Ill be at 5,000 miles.

Local shops have been struggling to keep bikes on shelves, said Michael Wilson, manager of Wilsons Cycle & Sale Service, 426 N. Main St. He credited the pandemic with reigniting the popularity of riding and said it has been difficult to keep up with the demand for new bikes and repairs.

People quite frankly have panicked, and theyre buying bikes like toilet paper, Townley said, referring to the rush to buy essentials at the beginning of the pandemic.

While some businesses were forced to close under executive orders by the state, bike shops were deemed essential services and could continue operating throughout Gov. J.B. Pritzkers stay-at-home order.

Wilson said customers reasons for wanting bikes now range from simply wanting to get more exercise to not wanting to go to gyms to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Its pretty obvious that people want to get out more now, not only for their mental health, but also to do something as a family, Wilson said. We have a wait list now of over 200 people wanting to get those entry-level bikes.

Most events and operations with local riding clubs and group rides hosted through the shop had to be cancelled due to the pandemic.

The McLean County Wheelers has about 100 members who typically participate in various group rides. Rick Boser, president of the group, said they could only have solo rides for a month or so at the beginning of summer because the majority of the members are 50 years old and over.

We didnt want to risk anyone getting sick, Boser said.

When the state entered Phase 4 of the Restore Illinois Plan, the Wheelers started small group rides on Thursday evenings and Sunday mornings.

This time of year, there would be one weekend ride after another around Central Illinois but a lot of the other groups have cancelled events, Boser said. Some members in July were able to participate in the Hop on for Hope in LeRoy. The event benefits the Village of Hope in Guatemala.

The organization usually hosts the Spring Metric, a multi-day event where cyclists ride up to 62 miles starting and finishing at Comlara Park in Hudson. The event didnt happen until June this year and riders were encouraged to be socially distant, wear face coverings and complete the trails individually or in small groups.

Weve been following the recommendations of the National League of American Cyclists and Ride Illinois, Boser said. And a lot of us have been avoiding Constitution Trail where a lot more people are out and about now.

Schuneman and his 18-year-old daughter, Ally, are members of the club. Schuneman said he missed seeing his friends for the group rides. He and two others in the group nicknamed themselves the three amigos. They have gone on a handful of socially distant rides recently, but they no longer greet one another with hugs or handshakes.

Its just nice to see a familiar, friendly face and we are all doing an activity we really enjoy, Schuneman said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

See photos: Kickapoo State Recreation Area

Contact Analisa Trofimuk at (309) 820-3244. Follow her on Twitter: @AnalisaTro

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Tehran: Iran has retrieved some data  including a portion of cockpit conversations  from the Ukrainian jetliner accidentally downed by the Revolutionary Guard forces in January, killing all 176 people on board, an Iranian official said on Sunday.

Thats according to a report on the website of Irans Civil Aviation Organisation, which described the official's remarks as part of the final report that Tehran plans to issue on the shootdown of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752.

Rescue workers searching the scene where a Ukrainian plane crashed in Shahedshahr, southwest of Tehran. Credit:AP

The development comes months after the January 8 crash near Tehran. Iranian authorities had initially denied responsibility, only changing course days later, after Western nations presented extensive evidence that Iran had shot down the plane.

The shootdown happened the same night Iran launched a ballistic missile attack targeting US soldiers in Iraq, its response to the American drone strike that killed Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on January 3.
Streaming down the central Minsk streets as far as the eye could see, anti-government protesters on Sunday sent the clearest of messages to Alexander Lukashenko, the grizzly authoritarian who they believe stole an election three weeks ago.

By the end of the day, Mr Lukashenko sent back a message of his own, with his press service releasing astonishing showing him wielding a Kalashnikov rifle at his residence in the capital.

Before Sunday's rally and march, many believed the protest movement had lost momentum, squeezed by a campaign of harassment from the state. Predictions of bad weather and the appearance of troops across town only added to a sense of foreboding.

In the event, some estimates put the protesters numbers at more than 200,000  which would mean it eclipsed last weeks protest, itself believed to be the largest in Belarusian history.

After occupying most of the streets in and around Independence Square, at approximately 4.30pm local time (2.30pm BST) crowds marched on to the citys war memorial, the location of last weeks march. There they were met by lines of barbed wire, police and interior ministry troops.

By 6pm, most protesters had left, but a smaller number began a march towards the official presidential residence about a kilometre away -- before turning back.

Mr Lukashenko seemed to take the threat seriously. As news of the protesters' intentions to march on his residence filtered through, his regime made an obvious show of force. Riot police were seen running through central Minsk. A wall of heavy military equipment and mesh appeared at the residence. At approximately 7pm local time, a helicopter was observed landing in the compound.

Remarkable footage released later confirmed Mr Lukashenko was aboard the helicopter. Videos showed the autocrat circling above the protest, referring to demonstrators as "scuttling rats," and then stepping out of the helicopter with an automatic rifle in hand. His 15-year old son Kolya, long rumoured as his preferred successor, was one of those accompanying him on the flight in full combat uniform and Kalashnikov.

All throughout the day, authorities attempted to stem the numbers by cutting off avenues leading into Independence Square, the main focal point for the rally.

Army vehicles and riot police vans also sealed off the south side of the square, meaning many protesters had to take an extended detour to join.

In a menacing message released 15 minutes before the beginning of the rally, the Belarusian defence ministry said it would not hesitate use force if necessary.

We warn you that if the peace is disturbed you wont be dealing with the police, but the army, it said.

A short while later, the head of the Minsk police joined in, claiming he had information protesters were planning provocations. Youthful maximalism and rebellious behaviour are inappropriate and dangerous, he added.

In reality, the Belarusian protests have been remarkable for their law-abiding nature  and in the face of the egregious violence of the government. Protesters stop at red lights, pick up their rubbish, and go home at an arranged time. Sunday was no different.

Lines of troops appeared at various points in central Minsk during Sundays protests (EPA)

Authorities have not yet found an effective way to answer that challenge. At the Sunday rally, they tried to persuade people to leave with increasingly threatening messages, blurted on the loudspeakers overlooking Independence Square. Then they turned to playing rousing war songs  but these were drowned out with calls for Mr Lukashenko to be locked up.

You might think all this absurd, says 33-year-old protester Anna Korneichuk, but this has been our reality for the last 26 years.

Ms Korneichuk was holding a banner condemning the recruitment of Russian journalists to state TV, in defiance of a strike by local journalists. It is one of hundreds on display, with slogans ranging from the angry to the outright cheeky.

Alex, have some tea, read one, a reference to the apparent poisoning of Russias leading opposition politician, Alexei Navalny, in a drink. Others bring attention to the torture that went on in Mr Lukashenkos jails, with many promising a trip to The Hague.

On Saturday, a volunteer search party announced they had found one man who had been missing since 12 August. Mikita Kryuchou was found dead in a forest in Minsk, with evidence he had been beaten, bringing the official death toll to five.

Seven people are still missing following the crackdown of 9-12 August.
According to TruePundit, insiders at the DoJ and FBI say there is substantial evidence implicating Barack Hussein Obama and Joe Biden in Spygate.

However, they have been directed to stand down, allegedly by Attorney General William Barr, literally giving the ex-president and ex-vice president de facto immunity. President Trump recently said something along the lines that Barr could be politically correct or he could do the right thing and show that there are not two tiers of justice. A data point is the plea deal with Kevin Clinesmith. Whoopee! One of the co-conspirators in Spygate gets a literal pass. His attorney claims that Clinesmith, a lawyer, didnt know that he was lying to the FISA court. Add that one to the what-a-crock barrel.

What happened to the USDA John Huber investigation of the Clinton Foundation? Peter Schweizer did superb investigations on the alleged misuse of funds. Uranium One comes to mind as one of many associated examples. AG Bill Barr shut it down. Needless to say, enthusiasm levels for justice being served on elites has been curbed.

Jack Cashill wrote an article a few weeks ago about traveling from Kansas City to elsewhere in the USA. My Venezuelan-born wife and I traveled recently from Florida to California by car. We visited family as we cruised through 15 states, including Kansas. It was wonderful to see my wife enjoy sights that I had seen as a kid such as Mt. Rushmore and Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park. We were bummed out that we made the drive to the entrance of Yosemite Park but were denied access since we had not obtained a permit. We spent the night in Tulare, California before going to Sequoia National Park and seeing the General Sherman Tree. I hope the anarchists like Antifa dont try to cut down this living monument to a Civil War General. They would not know or care what side he was on. We loved seeing the banners out for Congressman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), urging citizens to look at the facts (concerning Obamagate/Spygate). Congressman Nunes is clearly one of our American heroes.

As we traveled through the states of GA, NC, TN, MO, AR, KS, NE, SD, WY, MT, ID, WA, OR, NV, and CA, one thing struck us more than anything. We saw TRUMP 2020 signs in each state, even the bluest of the blue. As we were driving through the beautiful Wind River Canyon, we saw a large TRUMP 2020 banner. As we drove a few miles further we saw the only BIDEN 2020 sign during our 17-day trip. A former client of mine in the early '80s married a lovely lady whose family had a ranch on the Wind River. Their neighbor was the swashbuckling attorney, Gerry Spence, who made millions by representing the little guy (e.g. Karen Silkwood). Spence was a staunch Democrat. I thought maybe this was his family promoting Sleepy Joe.

What struck us most was that most of the TRUMP 2020 signs were not the little Burma Shave signs I saw as a kid. These were huge banners. We saw several farmers and ranchers who were operating equipment that had banners for Trump displayed proudly as they were operating their tractors, for example. Yes, the observations were mostly in suburban or rural areas. But when we went to hotels and restaurants at many locations, people, either openly or through overheard conversations, were talking about the benefits of the Trump presidency and its continuation for another four years. The enthusiasm is real and electric as far as we could tell. And this cut across racial and ethnic groups.

I wore my Make America Great Again hat at Mount Rushmore. My friend gave it to me as a bit of a joke since the words are in Russian. I was working in an FSU (former Soviet Union) country at the time. Two different people commented on my hat that read and spoke Russian. They both gave me thumbs up. A guy in northern California did the same.

In California, we noticed a couple of Trump banners on boats moored behind the Marriott Hotel next to the San Diego Convention Center. There was a kiosk selling Trump merchandise in La Jolla. On a trip to Julian, a tiny town in the mountains to the east of San Diego, it was clear from the signs we saw that President Trump is being promoted for re-election. It was even there in the beach towns to the north. In Capistrano Beach, there was a guy near the entrance to COSTCO selling (President) Trump paraphernalia. (There's also a kiosk selling Trump merchandise on Torrey Pines Road, the biggest thoroughfare into La Jolla -ed.). It seemed to us that the enthusiasm to re-elect our President Trump is much higher than what we saw with the pre-election buzz of 2016.

We have been entrenched in the oddest cyber-convention this week held by the DNC. To be honest, after watching the Kamala Harris-Joe Biden rollout of her candidacy we could not stomach watching any of the convention. What I have read is that this has been one of the most negative conventions in history. The theme seems to be Orange Man Bad yet the Democrats have yet to convince anyone how they will fix these supposed ills. Increase taxes, increase regulations, decimate the Second Amendment, defund the police, and so forth tend to be their remedies. As the champions of global warming attenuation by decreasing carbon dioxide through green energy replacement of fossil fuels, Democrats are unlikely to ask how that is working out in California with rolling blackouts. In November 2019, I wrote an article for American Thinker about my disappointment with San Diego Californias shift from CNG-powered public transit buses to EV-type. The price of (Henry Hub) natural gas then was $2.65 per million BTU versus $1.77 now. At the time of the article I noted a 15% higher cost in energy alone for EV versus CNG let alone the almost double initial capital cost of a bus. The Republican Mayor will be replaced this November by a Democrat due to Californias skewed-for-Democrats top-two runoff voting system.

As I age, I wonder more often how one party lies so blatantly that they think us common folk are dunderheads. Democrats are so vicious in their remarks about our president they present themselves as the true dunderheads. This venom they spout off is the catalyst that has removed many of the curbs to the common voters enthusiasm as to how we will vote in November. President Trump, my wife and I salute you and your pledge to Keep America Great. We look to four more years under your stewardship.

Image credit: Quinn Dombrowski, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 2.0
The unemployment benefit for millions of Americans who are out of work is going to be $300 in most states and not $400. However, experts warn that it won't arrive for weeks.

Unemployment benefits

Americans may get only three weeks worth of payments, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which will run the relief program through its Disaster Relief Fund, following an executive action from President Donald Trump this August.

After coronavirus aid talks hit a rough road in Congress, President Trump called for a $300-per-week federally-funded jobless benefit for workers who are unemployed, with states asked to provide another $100 a week.

However, there are issues with Trump's memorandum. FEMA usually funds emergency responses to natural disasters, and states can't normally pay unemployment insurance that is not authorized by Congress.

Also Read: Former FBI Lawyer Admits to Falsifying Document in Russia Probe of 2016 US Campaign

States will have to reconfigure their systems in order to distribute the funds, which may result in long delays, according to a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, Andrew Stettner.

How much will it be?

President Trump signed an executive action on August 8, calling for $400 in weekly unemployment benefits to replace the $600 federal supplement that expired in July. But unlike the $600, states would be asked to pay a quarter of the $400, or $100.

However, governors complained that it would be difficult to find the extra money during the recession, which has hit their budgets hard.

The Trump administration later changed their statement and said that workers would only get $300 per week. In this way, a state would not have to put in additional funds if it already pays a worker $100 a week in benefits.

The Department of Labor has since given guidance that regular state unemployment will qualify as their 25% contribution, but the benefits are contingent on states applying for the aid.

That leaves the states with two options, count existing benefits as a match or kick in an additional $100. But so far, not many states have chosen the latter.

Will any states choose to pay $400?

The answer is yes. Unemployed Americans in Kentucky and Montana are poised to become the first ones to receive the promised $400. FEMA's grant funding will allow Kentucky and Montana to give funds to unemployed due to the pandemic.

The estimate will be $400 per week, that is $100 in state funds and $300 in federal funds, on top of their regular unemployment benefit.

Earlier this week, Kentucky had signalled that it had been considering whether to use some of its federal coronavirus relief money from the CARES Act, which will add $100 to the $300 benefit provided by FEMA.

States have the option to pay for their part of the benefits by using the money provided to them under the relief package that was passed this year, according to President Trump's executive action.

So who is eligible for this benefit? Unemployed workers who receive less than $100 instate benefits won't receive the extra $300 because their weekly benefit would fall short of triggering the state match to get the federal funds.

More than three dozen states have minimum unemployment benefits below $100, according to the Labor Department.

States have to apply for a FEMA grant to get the $300 from the federal government. There are now 13 states that have been approved for the funding, and they are Kentucky, Arizona, Iowa, Colorado, Missouri, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, Utah, New Mexico, Maryland, Idaho and Oklahoma.

Related Article: President Trump's Ex-Aide Steve Bannon Pleads Not Guilty on Border Wall Scheme

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Residents in north Queensland have been rattled by an inland earthquake, their second for the year.

The 4.9-magnitude quake happened about 1pm AEST on Sunday about 100km south of Charters Towers, according to Geoscience Australia.

The quake, about 10km deep, has so far caused no damage, with people reporting windows rattling in Townsville, nearly 200km away from where it struck.

The number of people who reported feeling the 4.9-magnitude earthquake, which hit about 1pm on Sunday in Queensland. Source: Earthquakes@GA

Felt it in my apartment building in Townsville city, one person wrote on Facebook.

I felt my lounge shaking, another Townsville resident said.

I felt it in Douglas. All the birds outside went completely quiet too, a third person added.

One local in Condon, a suburb of Townsville, said they mistook the shaking for army target practice: Thought the army was busy on the range.

Geoscience Australia received more than 300 reports in 45 minutes from people claiming they felt the earth moving, according to The Brisbane Times.

Geoscience Australia Seismologist Spiro Spiliopoulos told the publication people had reported vibrations and rattling.

There have been no reports of damage caused by the earthquake.

The region was also hit by a 4.9-magnitude quake off the coast of Bowen in April.

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.
Attorney General of India (AG), KK Venugopal, on Sunday, declined to grant permission for initiation of criminal contempt of court proceedings against actor Swara Bhasker for her statements criticising the Supreme Court and its judgment in the Ayodhya dispute.

Bhaskers statement that the Supreme Court acknowledged the illegality of demolition of the Babri Masjid in its November 2019 judgment and yet rewarded the perpetrators who brought down the mosque appears to be a factual statement and reflects Bhaskers perception of the incident, Venugopal said in his letter to petitioner, Usha Shetty declining the request.

The statement appears to be a factual one and is a perception of the speaker. The comment refers to the judgment of the Supreme Court, and is not an attack on the institution. This does not offer any comment on the Supreme Court itself or say anything that would scandalize or lower the authority of the Supreme Court. In my opinion, this statement does not constitute criminal contempt, the AGs letter stated.

The plea against Bhasker, which was filed by Shetty on August 17, was placed before the AG for his consent to list the matter before the court.

As per Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act and Rule 3 of Rules to Regulate Proceedings for Contempt of Supreme Court, the consent of AG or the solicitor general is required before the apex court can hear a criminal contempt petition filed by a private individual.

The November 9 judgment of the Supreme Court in the Ayodhya dispute, which was delivered by a bench headed by former CJI Ranjan Gogoi, had awarded the 2.77 acre disputed site to Ram Lalla Virajman, the child deity. The bench had also ordered that 5 acres of land at an alternative site should be granted to Muslims for construction of a new mosque.

The top court had, interestingly, acknowledged the existence of a valid mosque at the disputed site and had expressly stated that the acts of Hindus in placing idols inside the mosque in 1949 and destruction of the mosque in 1992 were illegal.

Bhasker had, on February 1, attended a panel discussion organized by NGO Mumbai Collective on the topic Artists against Communalism. During the discussion, Bhasker, as alleged by the petitioner, made the following statement:

We are now in a situation where our courts are not sure whether they believe in the Constitution or notWe are living in a country where the Supreme Court of our country states in a judgment that the demolition of Babri Masjid was unlawful and in the same judgment rewards the same people who brought down the mosque.

Regarding Bhaskers statement about courts not believing in the Constitution, the AG said that it is a vague and general statement not related to any particular court and cannot be taken seriously.

Venugopal had on, August 20, asked the Supreme Court not to punish lawyer Prashant Bhushan for contempt of court in relation to his tweets against Supreme Court and current Chief Justice of India, SA Bobde.

After AG declined permission, Shetty lawyers on Sunday wrote to solicitor general Tushar Mehta seeking his consent.

Shetty submitted that the statement by Bhasker is derogatory and intended to scandalize the Supreme Court. It is not merely a cheap stunt for publicity but a deliberate attempt to incite masses to resist and revolt against the apex court, she added.

The statement intends to incite feeling of no confidence amongst public with respect to the proceedings of the Supreme Court. It amounts to criminal contempt, the petition said.
WESTFIELD  Heroes are everywhere, even depicted in a mural by that name that dedicated Saturday as a community-wide project that joined together artists, neighbors, businesses, and state and local officials.

The Heroes Are Everywhere mural, painted on the tunnel walls of the Columbia Greenway Rail Trail at Taylor and Hedges avenues, pays homage to the people who have come together in Westfield during the coronoavirus pandemic to care of each other, especially medical personnel.

Westfield ArtWorks, a non-profit organization staffed by volunteers, set the goal two months ago to beautify the city with artwork created by local artists and neighborhood residents. This mural is just the beginning of the groups desire to continue painting public walls.

The group, said board member Shannon Chiba, is dedicated to promoting the artistic diversity of the city and surrounding communities with the mission to advance cultural arts, literacy, arts, musical events, and performing arts, and to support local artists.

Saturdays dedication was the culmination of the hard work artists and volunteers invested in creating the work of art that adorns the tunnel. In addition to medical personnel, the mural features the Whip City whip factory, blooming flowers, the Great River bridges and the Westfield River, a black bear, a birdhouse with the end of a drainage pipe as the entrance to it, and an F-15 flyover on the ceiling.

This has been such an emotional and peaceful experience, Chiba said. Its been overwhelming. Its a balm to my soul.

The artists were so dedicated to correct representations in the mural that Chiba consulted with officials at the Barnes 104th Fighter Wing to realistically render the formation in which the F-15s are flying.

Chiba said she and her fellow artists, who took the mural from a concept in their minds to the brightly colored and detailed reality on the tunnel walls, received a great deal of love and support from the neighborhood and community.

It has been fulfilling and amazing and astounding, she said. We were trying to capture this moment in time  a historical snapshot.

Sarah Kinne, a Westfield artist who created the design with Chiba, said the support of the neighbors was especially appreciated. From people showing up with coffee and water to others offering to help lift paint cans and clean brushes, the response was humbling and motivating.

People just started coming and helped clean the walls and even made store runs for us, she said.

One of those neighbors, Taylor Avenue resident Gary Wolfe, opened his home to the volunteers and provided water to clean the paint brushes and made his restroom available to them.

The rail trail in an asset to this neighborhood and this mural just adds to it, he said. Its a great thing for the whole city. Ive been here since day one, and I still see new things in it every day.

He has also learned new things from the depictions on the walls, including a group of flying mallards.

I never knew the significance of the mallards, but now I know theyre here because they come back every year to feed on the berries, Wolfe said.

Chiba and Kinne said this mural is just the beginning of more public art projects to come. They are setting their sights next on the Westfield River levee wall beneath the Great River southbound bridge and will include the help of art students from the Boys and Girls Club.

Its a much bigger canvas, and the kids can have fun with it, Chiba said.

She added that Westfield ArtWorks has already been in touch with the Planning Board and Parks and Recreation Department to get the approval necessary to begin the next mural.
Produced by Marcelena Spencer, Susan Mallie and Lisa Freed

[This story previously aired on February 15. It was updated on August 22.]

When high-profile physician Teresa Sievers was found murdered in her Bonita Springs, Florida, home  bludgeoned with a hammer  there were no immediate suspects and her husband had a rock-solid alibi.

On Sunday evening, June 28, 2015, the doctor was home alone after cutting short a family vacation  leaving her husband Mark Sievers and their two daughters in upstate New York.

Who wanted the doctor dead? That question led investigators on a wild chase that ended up more than 1,000 miles away in Missouri with the shocking arrests of Jimmy Ray Rodgers, a career criminal, and Curtis Wayne Wright, the look-alike best friend of the doctor's husband.

"Once you started to unwrap it a little bit  it was nutty. It was weird," said Jessica Lipscomb, a former crime reporter for the Naples Daily News, who covered the case.

But things only got weirder when Wright claimed the man behind it all was Mark Sievers himself.

A BRUTAL ATTACK

The shocking murder of Dr. Teresa Sievers in Bonita Springs, Florida, was a huge story especially for Jessica Lipscomb, who covered crime for the Naples Daily News.

Jessica Lipscomb: I think any time there is a beautiful, successful woman who is murdered that's sort of what society pays attention to  for better or for worse.

Erin Moriarty: When you first started on this case would you have ever imagined it would end up to where it is right now?

Jessica Lipscomb: No.

Jessica Lipscomb: To think of this mother of two who was killed brutally inside her home was horrifying to people.

The doctor had cut short a family vacation in upstate New York and had flown home alone on Sunday night, June 28, 2015, so she could see patients the next morning.

Dr. Teresa Sievers seen on surveillance video after landing at Southwest Florida International Airport on Sunday night, June 28, 2015. / Credit: State's Attorney's Office

Jessica Lipscomb: You kind of put yourself in her shoes  rolling your suitcase through the door, and then to be attacked by someone from behind is  it's hard to imagine.

Story continues

Investigators believe that as soon as Dr. Sievers walked into her kitchen she was killed, struck repeatedly with a hammer.

Jessica Lipscomb: The next morning, her office staff got in 

Sandra Hoskins was Teresa Sievers' long time medical assistant.

Sandra Hoskins: It's now 9:00, now it's 9:05  Now it's 9:15. I said, "Where's doctor?"

Sandra Hoskins: I was texting back and forth trying  to see if, you know, "Where are you at?" And no response. Called. No answer. Mark's out of town  he says, "I can't get a hold of her either."

Erin Moriarty: How unusual was it for Dr. Sievers not to show up?

Sandra Hoskins: Even if it was 9:00 and three seconds after, you would hear her heels coming in.

When Connie Reiss heard the tragic news, she contacted her stepbrother Mark Sievers  the doctor's husband.

Connie Reiss Landy: It was just  so unbelievable.

Erin Moriarty: how did he react to the death of his wife?

Connie Reiss Landy: He couldn't speak.  he's not the kind of guy that's been overly emotional on the outside. But he couldn't speak.

Connie and Mark became family when her mother married his father.

Connie Reiss Landy: I asked him, "What happened to Teresa?"

Erin Moriarty: And what did he say?

Connie Reiss Landy: "No idea."

Mark met his future wife in 2003 when he was visiting St. Petersburg, Florida.

Erin Moriarty:  pretty much love at first sight?

Connie Reiss Landy: Well, I think by the time that he introduced her to mom  I think he was pretty much done [laughs]. He was  he was off the market officially.

Jennie Weckelman [laughs]: Yeah, really.

He was working as a nurse, while she was a recently divorced physician.

Connie Reiss Landy: Teresa hung the moon [laughs].  she was  a remarkable human being and very special. And that's the way Mark treated it from the beginning. You could just  you could hear it in his voice.

Teresa and Mark Sievers on their wedding day / Credit: Bonnie Sievers

They were married on the beach surrounded by friends and family, including stepmother Jennie Weckelman.

Jennie Sievers Weckelman: was a sunset wedding. And  she had a beautiful gown.  it was very nice [laughs].

Erin Moriarty: Was he happy on that day?

Connie Reiss Landy: Oh, my gosh!

Jennie Weckelman: He was very happy.

Six months later their first daughter was born. The Sievers built a large house in Bonita Springs, and in 2007, welcomed another daughter.

Erin Moriarty: How did Mark feel about being a dad?

Connie Reiss Landy:  it was everything to him. It  they were his reason for being.  But  he was also all about Teresa and her mission.

That mission was to open a holistic practice where she could heal patients by blending traditional and alternative medicine. She also spread her message in speeches and videos.

Sandra Hoskins: We would have patients from all over the world  they would come to us after they failed everything else.

Sandra Hoskins [crying]: She wouldn't take a no for an answer.

Talking about the doctor still makes Sandra emotional.

Sandra Hoskins: And as a patient she wouldn't allow you say, "I'm never gonna get better."

While patients loved the doctor, Sandra and her husband Frank Pais, who also worked at the practice, admit it wasn't always easy working for Sievers  the doctor had a short fuse.

Frank Pais: I would hear the doctor screamin' and yellin' in the  in back office.

Erin Moriarty: Dr. Sievers would yell at patients?

Frank Pais: She was there to help you get better  didn't have what they call the bedside manner.

Erin Moriarty: Would she yell at you?

Sandra Hoskins [laughs]: Yes.

Frank Pais: And she expected perfection. And if it wasn't perfect, she would get upset.

Jessica Lipscomb: She was  a big presence. And sometimes that meant that she got really feisty with people.  She was the  the biggest figure in the room.

While Teresa took care of her patients, Mark managed her office and took care of their daughters.

Frank Pais: The girls were his pride and joy.

And according to her sister Annie Lisa, Teresa was equally devoted to Mark.

Annie Lisa: Teresa always said, "I'll never leave Mark." "I won't ever do that to my girls."

Nevertheless, within weeks, Mark Sievers, became a person of interest.

Erin Moriarty: Did he cooperate initially?

Jennie Weckelman: Oh, yes.

Connie Reiss Landy: I think he thought he was doing the right thing.

Mark spoke to investigators without a lawyer present and even handed over his cellphone and allowed them to download the contents.

Erin Moriarty: Was he worried he might be arrested?

Jennie Weckelman: He thought  "Why would they?  what kind of evidence could they possibly have, 'cause I didn't do anything?"

In fact, Mark Sievers had an airtight alibi. At the time of Teresa's murder, he and their two girls were with Teresa's family  hundreds of miles away.

WHO WANTED THE DOCTOR DEAD?

Eight days after Dr. Teresa Sievers was murdered, friends and family came together for her funeral, including Mark's stepmother Jennie Weckelman.

Jennie Weckelman: There were a lotta people, yes, and it was sad, of course.

Sandra Hoskins: Almost all her patients were there. I was numb.

Mark Sievers reportedly had a gun strapped to his waist at his wife's funeral. Strange? Well perhaps, but her killer hadn't yet been arrested and, according to stepsister Connie Reiss, Mark was on edge.

Connie Reiss Landy: He was very much in protective mode.

Erin Moriarty: When you say "protective mode" what do you mean?

Connie Reiss Landy: Well, I think, you know, he always keeps an eye and an ear to the ground, so to speak, and is aware of his surroundings and you know he-he was concerned for their [sighs] safety.

Jennie Weckelman: I think it was in the back of his mind that  there might be some dangers to his daughters because of what happened to their mother.

Teresa Sievers / Credit: Charlie McDonald

It just didn't make any sense; who would want the vibrant and dedicated Dr. Teresa Sievers dead? And why kill her with such anger and force?

Jennie Weckelman: Could've been anybody  and I really thought maybe it was just somebody that was in the area and broke in or something.

There were signs of a forced entry, pry marks on a side door, but Mark's extensive gun collection and $40,000 in cash discovered inside the Sievers home hadn't been touched.

Jessica Lipscomb: So, when this happened, everyone wanted to know what happened with the alarm. And as it turns out. It hadn't been activated.

While the family was on vacation, Mark had asked his mother Bonnie Sievers to feed the family pets. She had trouble setting the alarm that Sunday and told detectives her son Mark said not to worry about it. On Monday morning, Dr. Sievers was discovered dead on her kitchen floor.

Mark's mother spoke to investigators:

BONNIE SIEVERS: So, I really feel it's my fault [crying].

DETECTIVE: You can't, you cannot blame yourself.

Around the time of Dr. Sievers murder, the internet was buzzing with reports about the suspicious deaths of other alternative doctors in the U.S.

Erin Moriarty: Did Mark hint that her death might be connected with that?

Jennie Weckelman: Yes, yes, he did.

But with no real evidence to make that connection, investigators turned their attention to the people who might have had an ax to grind with the energetic, often abrasive, Dr. Sievers.

Jessica Lipscomb: I think the theory that I heard was  was that maybe it was a patient. Obviously, they were interviewing all of her friends and family members  so it was pretty much like a wide-open field of suspects at that point.

Then, a surprising name emerged. In her police interview, Dr. Sievers' sister, Annie Lisa, said she heard Sandra Hoskins was a disgruntled employee  that's the same Sandra who seemed so upset by Dr. Sievers' death.

ANNIE LISA [police interview]: You may not like your boss, but you don't bad mouth them to patients that are coming in the doors like "Dr. Sievers, you know, she's a-she's a bitch."

Sandra Hoskins: I'm like "Oh, my God, they think I did it."

Sandra, who claims she had been treated harshly by Dr. Sievers in the past, had planned to hand in her resignation that very Monday the doctor was found dead. According to Sandra the doctor, told her she was bringing bad energy to the office.

Sandra Hoskins: Now I know why I was not received very well at her memorial.

Erin Moriarty: Why would anyone think that you did this?

Sandra Hoskins: That is shocking to me.  A lot of the patients did know the way she treated me.

Erin Moriarty: And, so, people thought, "Maybe you had just had enough?

Sandra Hoskins: Yeah.

Sandra Hoskins was cleared when nearly two months after Dr. Sievers was murdered, there was a stunning break in the case. Police made arrests and the suspects were not from Florida.

Jessica Lipscomb: So, we showed up to a press conference I believe that August. And the sheriff gets up there and tells us, uh, simply the name of the first suspect, Jimmy Rodgers  and he says he's from Missouri and he's been booked for the murder of Teresa Sievers.

Jennie Weckelman: Never heard of him  I thought, "Oh well, who is he and what's he got to do with this?"

Jessica Lipscomb: And then about an hour later, he calls us in again and says, "We've now picked up a second suspect  Curtis Wayne Wright also from Missouri."  It was so shocking.

To solve this murder, investigators would travel more than 1,000 miles. And, they were in for a wild ride. They would soon discover this case had as many twists and turns as the Missouri river.

THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS

WINK-TV report: Teresa Sievers was bludgeoned to death with a hammer  Neighbors are still waiting for answers.

The two arrests for Teresa Sievers' murder, made 1,100 miles away in Missouri, seemed to come out of the blue.

Jennie Weckelman | Mark Sievers' stepmother: Why?  You know  What's going on?  Just seemed like such a disconnect.

Jimmy Ray Rodgers, left, and Curtis Wayne Wright / Credit: Lee County Sheriff's Office

No one had ever heard of the suspect Jimmy Ray Rodgers, but it was the mug shot of the other suspect, Curtis Wayne Wright, that struck everyone. He had an uncanny resemblance to the victim's husband Mark Sievers.

Jennie Weckelman: They look alike, yes 

Erin Moriarty: At least in pictures, they look like twins.

Connie Reiss Landy | Mark Sievers' stepsister: And that's  that's when I  started to believe, you know, that definitely there is not something right with Curtis Wayne Wright.

As it turns out, Curtis Wayne Wright, he goes by Wayne, was no stranger to Mark's family.

Jennie Weckelman: He was Mark's very good friend.

Connie Reiss Landy:  from ages and ages. So, I didn't believe it. I didn't.

Look-alike friends Curtis Wayne Wright, left, and Mark Sievers. / Credit: Facebook

It just didn't make sense. Wayne and Mark had grown up together in Missouri. Wayne was at Teresa's funeral. He had celebrated Mark and Teresa's wedding with them, and just two months before the murder, Mark had been Wayne's best man at his wedding. Wayne was also a familiar face around the office.

Erin Moriarty: Did you two know Wayne Wright, how did you know him?

Sandra Hoskins | Dr. Sievers' longtime medical assistant: He was the computer guy that looked just like Mark.

Wayne would travel from Missouri to Florida to work on the computers in Dr. Sievers' office.

Erin Moriarty: How would you describe Wayne?

Frank Pais | Employee of Dr. Sievers: He was geeky  all he wanted to do was get the computers up and running  focused.

Sandra Hoskins: But, to me he just seemed like a geeky creepster.

Erin Moriarty: Did he make you nervous?

Sandra Hoskins: A little bit  I can't explain it. It's just a woman's intuition.

Erin Moriarty: How would you describe Mark and Wayne's relationship? They appear to be close friends?

Sandra Hoskins: Yeah.

Frank Pais: He's always said, "he's my brother from another mother"

Sandra Hoskins: Yeah, that was his lingo.

Back in Hillsboro, Missouri, Greg Bolin knew both Mark Sievers and Wayne Wright when they both had hair. He first met Wright in the third grade.

Greg Bolin remembers his high school classmate, Wright, as a tech whiz  the kid voted most dependable, and as a fun guy to hang around with.

Greg Bolin: He actually ran for and became our class president.

Erin Moriarty: Smart?

Greg Bolin: Very smart  Quite honestly, he was one of the smartest people with computers that I ever met.

But it wasn't long before Bolin suspected Wayne Wright had a dark side. In 1996, Bolin's brother, Ronnie Bolin, a preacher, mysteriously disappeared. His body has never been found. And according to police, Ronnie was last seen with Wright.

Erin Moriarty: Do you believe Wayne Wright killed your brother?

Greg Bolin: Yes, I do.

Erin Moriarty: You have no question about that?

Greg Bolin: I have no doubt in my mind 

Bolin believes the motive was money that Wright owed Ronnie.

Jessica Lipscomb:  they found his car with the car keys still in ignition in a car wash in St. Louis.

Wright has never been charged in Ronnie Bolin's disappearance, but he is listed in a police report as a person of interest. And Wright's no stranger to the criminal justice system. In 2011 he was serving time for drug possession when he befriended the other suspect in Dr. Sievers' murder: a young inmate named Jimmy Ray Rodgers who was doing time on a weapons charge.

Jimmy Ray Rodgers was released from jail. Tyler Juliette and Jeff Conway hired him to work at a contracting company.

Tyler Juliette: You could just tell he needed a job. He wanted a job, you know?

Jeff Conway: He liked to tell a lot of stories. A lot of things he told at the time, nobody really believed Jimmy  He liked to brag a little bit about things he had done in the past.

A colorful criminal past. He says Rodgers would brag about con jobs ranging from stolen merchandise to counterfeit money.

Jimmy Ray Rodgers / Credit: WINK

Tyler Juliette: I never felt Jimmy was a dangerous guy. I just felt like he was a blowhard honestly, you know. I really felt like he was just a talker.

Conway recalls that he had asked Jimmy to work on Monday, June 29. But Jimmy texted him back and said he wasn't available.

Jeff Conway: All it said was, "I can't do that. I'm still in Florida."

It was on June 29 that Dr. Teresa Sievers was discovered bludgeoned to death with a hammer inside her Florida home and it didn't go unnoticed to investigators that Jimmy Ray Rodgers had a unique nickname

Jessica Lipscomb: Supposedly, Jimmy Rodgers' nickname was "The Hammer." But I think it was more like a self-given nickname. If you talk to some of his friends from high school, they say "nobody really called him that." But I think maybe going to jail for the first time, you know  trying to make a name for himself  maybe that's something he sort of assigned himself to fit in.

Why was Jimmy "The Hammer" Rodgers in Florida that fateful weekend? Was Wayne Wright with him? And what led authorities to believe they were involved in a doctor's murder?

1,100 MILES TO MURDER

Back in June 2015, practically everyone in Hillsboro, Missouri, knew that Wayne Wright was planning a weekend trip out of town.

Jessica Lipscomb:  he let it slip to lots of people that he was going down to Florida  Told some people he was even going to visit the Sievers.

And it wasn't long before police got a tip that Wright had been in Florida at the time of Dr. Sievers' murder. And he hadn't gone there alone. He went with his jailhouse pal, Jimmy "The Hammer" Rodgers.

Jeff Conway | Rodgers' boss: He told me a story that his brother  had graduated from law school and that he had invited Jimmy down to Florida for the weekend all expenses paid.

But he told his pregnant girlfriend Taylor Shomaker another story: he was going out of town for a few days to work with Wright.

Jessica Lipscomb: He had told her he was going down to Florida to make some money.

Weeks after Rodgers and Wright returned, detectives from Florida showed up in Hillsboro, Missouri. They confronted Wright about that tip placing him in Florida, but he refused to talk. He didn't need to  a rental car gave the cops what they needed to know.

On the morning of June 27, 2015, Wayne Wright got into a rental car in Hillsboro, Missouri, and then went to pick up Jimmy Ray Rodgers. At some point, an address was put into the GPS and then the two men took off for the 1,100-mile ride to Bonita Springs, Florida.

After driving all day and all night, on Sunday, June 28, Wright and Rodgers arrived at the Sievers home  the Bonita Springs address entered into the GPS. It was a digital footprint for investigators.

When Rodgers and Wright arrived around 6 a.m., authorities believe they turned off the house alarm. That may explain why Mark Sievers' mother Bonnie was so confused about the alarm system:

BONNIE SIEVERS: I was not there at 6:09 in the morning.

COP: It was turned off at 6:09.

BONNIE SIEVERS: . someone was in there?

COP: That's what we're trying to work out.

BONNIE SIEVERS: Oh, my God.

Then, according to the GPS, Rodgers and Wright left the Sievers home and typed in another address for a Walmart to do some shopping.

Jimmy Ray Rodgers and Wayne Wright as seen in Walmart surveillance video

Jessica Lipscomb: Obviously, looking at that security footage from the Walmart, they're able to pretty quickly determine that that's who was with Wayne 

Erin Moriarty: They made no effort to cover their faces? Disguise themselves?

Jessica Lipscomb: They just waltzed through like they were anyone else.

They bought, among other things, trash bags, flushable wet wipes, black towels, black shoes and a lock picking kit. They paid cash for their purchase with a $100 bill.

After shopping at Walmart, Rodgers and Wright continued using the navigation system, even to find the beach and soak up some sun.

Erin Moriarty: Does it make any sense that this guy who was so good with computers would have left such a trail?

Greg Bolin: It does but it doesn't  to a lot of people looking at it, it kind of makes it look like these guys were just dumb and dumber, but that's a lot of how he operated.

After their beach trip, according to police affidavits, Wayne Wright and Jimmy Ray Rodgers returned to the Sievers home where they hung out for hours in the garage, waiting for an unsuspecting Dr. Sievers to arrive.

In the early morning hours of Monday, June 29, the GPS again shows Rodgers and Wright on the highway headed northbound for the 17-hour drive back to Missouri. The electronic trail would eventually lead detectives to Jimmy Ray Rodgers' door, but like Wayne Wright, he denied he had anything to do with the murder.

But when police brought in Rodgers' girlfriend Taylor Shomaker, what a story she had a story to tell.

Jimmy Ray Rodgers took his girlfriend for a ride along route 47 in rural Missouri. And along the road, he asked Shomaker to throw out parts of his cellphone, which he had smashed earlier, some gloves and a jumpsuit.

TAYLOR SHOMAKER: he said, "throw this into the river" and it took me a minute to click in ... And then I threw the gloves out and then waited a minute and then I threw out the jumpsuit

DETECTIVE: Did you ask why, or you just did it?

TAYLOR SHOMAKER: No, I just did it. I was scared.

Shomaker told police that's when she pushed Rodgers to tell her exactly what happened in Florida:

TAYLOR SHOMAKER: And he told me about using a hammer on her.

DETECTIVE: OK. And he said that he killed Teresa Sievers, Mark's wife 

TAYLOR SHOMAKER: Yeah.

DETECTIVE:  with a hammer?

TAYLOR SHOMAKER: Yes.

Florida detectives now thought they knew who killed Teresa Sievers, but they still didn't know the why. Why would Wayne Wright want to kill his best friend's wife?

Erin Moriarty: Did everyone then say, "Oh, my gosh, Mark had to be involved"?

Jessica Lipscomb: Definitely. I mean  there was really no  putting Wayne in Florida in Bonita Springs inside their house without Mark knowing about it.

Erin Moriarty: Did it occur to either one of you that Mark might be involved?

Connie Reiss Landy: No.

Jennie Sievers Weckelman: No.

Erin Moriarty: Not even a thought in the back of your mind?

Connie Reiss Landy: No.

Jennie Sievers Weckelman: No. Absolutely not.

But when investigators downloaded Mark's cell phone, they discovered the Sievers' marriage was more troubled than anyone guessed. Despite having $40,000 in cash around the house, they had serious financial problems. And when investigators discovered five insurance policies on Teresa totaling more than $4 million  it was a big red flag.

Jimmy Ray Rodgers' girlfriend had told police that Teresa's death was a murder for hire and that Rodgers was supposed to be paid $10,000.

TAYLOR SHOMAKER: And then asked him how he was going to make money and it was murdering Mark's wife.

DETECTIVE: He said that Mark hired Wayne 

TAYLOR SHOMAKER: Yes, and Wayne hired him. Mark didn't know anything about Jimmy

being hired.

DETECTIVE:  where was the money supposed to come from?

TAYLOR SHOMAKER: Insurance from her death.

DETECTIVE: OK. And did he ever get paid?

TAYLOR SHOMAKER: No.

Then, almost 8 months after Teresa Sievers' murder, Wayne Wright  Mark Sievers' look-alike best friend  suddenly turned on him and took a deal. Wright admitted killing Teresa.

JUDGE: Mr. Wright, why are you pleading guilty today to second-degree murder?

WAYNE WRIGHT: I'm pleading guilty because of my role in the planning and participating in the murder of Teresa Sievers.

He said the murder was all Mark's idea  and that's what police needed. Mark Sievers was charged with the murder of his wife.

But Sievers' stepsister says he would never risk losing his children. She believes Wayne Wright had long envied his best friend's life and he's the one who killed Teresa on his own.

Erin Moriarty: Why would Wayne kill Teresa?

Connie Reiss Landy: Because he's a sick man.

Erin Moriarty: Do you think Wayne was jealous of Mark?

Connie Reiss Landy: I think it's possible  whether he's jealous of Mark or wanted to be Mark. I don't have any clue.

Family and friends point to how Wayne Wright began to model himself after Sievers, even shaving his own head when Sievers started to go bald.

Greg Bolin: They didn't look alike when we were younger.

Greg Bolin: How much they morphed into each other over the years  if it was by chance or  by their plan, I don't know.

Mirror image: Curtis Wayne Wright, left, and Mark Sievers / Credit: The News-Press

More than four years after Curtis Wayne Wright cut that deal to testify against Mark Sievers and ex-con Jimmy Rodgers, the two men go on trial, but separately  Rodgers' case went first in October 2019. Teresa Sievers' mother and siblings were in the courtroom.

HAMID HUNTER | ASSISTANT STATE ATTORNEY: This case was about the perfect marriage. The perfect friendship. The perfect alibi. The perfect murder 

Assistant state attorney Hamid Hunter told the jury Teresa's Sievers death was a classic case of murder for hire: Mark Sievers was miles away while Curtis Wayne Wright and Jimmy Ray Rodgers killed his wife.

HAMID HUNTER: Mr. Wright hit her with the hammer. Hit her again. Mr. Rodgers came out of nowhere  Mr. Rodgers engages with his hammer. And he starts hitting, hitting her, hitting her.

Kathleen Fitzgeorge is Rodgers' defense attorney:

KATHLEEN FITZGEORGE: What you heard from the state attorney is what they believe or expect or hope the evidence will show, but it's a bumpy road because they haven't told you everything.

THE TALE OF TWO TRIALS

The state actually believes Teresa Sievers was killed with two hammers, but only one was discovered on the Sievers' kitchen floor. They showed the jury that hammer and the damaging video evidence of the two men near the crime scene.

PROSECUTOR CYNTHIA ROSS | PROSECUTOR: Is this how you found this jumpsuit on the side of the road in Cadet, Missouri?

INVESTIGATOR: Yes.

A fiber from the jumpsuit worn by Rodgers was found on Teresa's body.

A blue jumpsuit was discovered on the side of Highway 47 in Missouri. Fibers from the jumpsuit matched the fibers found on Teresa Sievers' dress. / Credit: WINK

Rodgers' former girlfriend, Taylor Shomaker, appeared shaken when she entered the courtroom. She identified that blue jumpsuit and told the jury Rodgers confessed to her:

TAYLOR SHOMAKER: And then I asked him "how" and he said, "with a hammer."

Then the state called their star witness: Curtis Wayne Wright.

In exchange for his testimony at both trials, Wright was allowed to plead guilty to second-degree murder and will spend 25 years in prison:

PROSECUTOR: Mr. Wright, who killed Dr. Sievers?

WAYNE WRIGHT: I did and Jimmy Rodgers.

PROSECUTOR: How many times did you hit Dr. Sievers with that hammer?

WAYNE WRIGHT: Three.

PROSECUTOR: Mr. Rodgers came from somewhere and he started hitting her, what did he do?

WAYNE WRIGHT: Just started hitting her over and over.

PROSECUTOR: How would you describe how he was hitting her?

WAYNE WRIGHT: In a frenzy.

Rodgers did not testify, and his attorney Donald McFarlane called no witnesses, but told jurors they should not believe Curtis Wayne Wright:

DONALD MCFARLANE | RODGERS' DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Curtis Wright's the only one that ever hit that woman and he's lying to you to save his own worthless skin.  Jimmy didn't have a hammer.

The jury was out nearly two days before reaching a verdict: guilty of second-degree murder.

Rodgers showed no emotion. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Curtis Wayne Wright testified against Jimmy Ray Rodgers and Mark Sievers. / Credit: WINK

Then, in November 2019, Mark Sievers went on trial for the murder of his wife. He spent much of the prior three years in jail, still denying he had any involvement and his family was still behind him.

Jennie Weckleman | Stepmother: We just haven't seen any evidence that makes any sense as far as Mark being involved.

Both his stepmother Jennie Weckleman and stepsister Connie Reiss Landy vowed to support him through the trial.

Connie Reiss Landy: I will do everything that I can [nervous laugh] to be there.

Erin Moriarty: Are you nervous about it?

Connie Reiss Landy: Yeah, Yeah.

Mark Sievers, charged with first-degree murder of his wife, appeared unfazed even though he faced the death penalty. The same prosecutors who tried Jimmy Rodgers will use much of the same evidence in front of a different jury:

CYNTHIA ROSS | PROSECUTOR: This is a case which 21st century technology became vital  cell towers  cell tower dumps, call detail records  that allowed massive amounts of data to sorted, organized, and searched

But Sievers' defense attorney Michael Mummert says all that evidence only points to Curtis Wright and Jimmy Rodgers as the killers:

MICHAEL MUMMERT | SIEVERS' DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Curtis swings that hammer [yells "BANG"] at the side of the head, followed by another one across the bridge of the nose 

MICHAEL MUMMERT: Curtis says, "I struck Teresa three times in the head with a hammer, but Jimmy did the rest "

Testifying again is Jimmy Rodgers former girlfriend, Taylor Shomaker. She says her ex was promised a payday but can't connect Sievers to it:

PROSECUTOR: Did he tell you how much money he expected to be making from this?

TAYLOR SHOMAKER: Yes.

PROSECUTOR: And what did he tell you?

TAYLOR SHOMAKER: I think it was $10,000.

The case again comes down to that star witness, Curtis Wayne Wright, who will now come face to face with his mirror image and once closest friend:

ATTORNEY: Mr. Wright, who killed Dr. Teresa Sievers?

WAYNE WRIGHT: Jimmy Rodgers and I physically did it, but Mark Sievers was also involved in the planning.

For several hours, Wright testified against Sievers, the man he affectionately called his "brother from another mother."

ATTORNEY: Why did you do it?

WAYNE WRIGHT: I was asked to do it.

ATTORNEY: By whom?

WAYNE WRIGHT: Mr. Sievers.

Wright told the jury that Sievers and his wife were having marital and money problems and that Sievers believed Teresa was planning to leave him and take the kids.

WAYNE WRIGHT: The only option  that he had was for her to die and he said that he needed to have her killed.

When the judge asked Mark Sievers if he wanted to testify:

MARK SIEVERS: I'm not going to testify, but I would like to go home.

This time, the jury was out just four hours. The families gathered in the court for the verdict: guilty of first-degree murder.

Teresa Sievers' family audibly gasp at the verdict.

Mark Sievers, stoic at first, began to cry. In addition to the guilty verdict, the jury asked the judge to sentence Sievers to death.

This is how former employee Frank Pais felt before the trial.

Erin Moriarty: What should happen to Mark Sievers? He's facing the death penalty.

Frank Pais: I think the death penalty is the easy way out  I think the pain and torture that he deserves is to sit in jail  the rest of his life  thinking about his two pride and joy daughters  that should be his punishment.

On January 3, 2020, Mark Sievers, now a convicted killer, returned to court to find out if he will get life in prison or be sentenced to death.

Mark Sievers reads a statement to the judge asking for his life to be spared before he was sentenced to death. / Credit: WINK

This time he agreed to speak, to plead for his life:

MARK SIEVERS: Although a jury found me guilty, I am innocent of all charges as I have maintained since this heinous crime took place. [Sievers chokes up while reading his statement] Our girls have tragically lost their mommy, and now they are about to lose their daddy, as well.

It didn't take long for the judge to rule:

JUDGE BRUCE KYLE: I judge people's actions. I don't judge people's souls. That's for somebody else to do. Sir, I am going to go ahead and adjudicate you guilty on each count on the first count, first-degree murder, it's the order of the court that you be sentenced to death, sir.

For Teresa's family, it's the end of an agonizing nearly 5-year wait for justice.

Teresa's brother [to reporters]: This has been an incredible nightmare from the beginning.

Teresa took down three guys that took her from us.

Teresa's mother [to reporters]: crying) She was my modern-day mother Teresa. I always called her that because she always was trying to help people.

Teresa's brother: Our focus now [voice breaks] 

Teresa's mother:  is to go on, to take care 

Teresa's brother:  take care of the girls and give them the love and support that they need. And we're glad that it's over. Justice has been served.

The Sievers daughters, now teenagers, are being raised by Teresa's family.

The judge denied Mark Sievers request for a new trial.

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Two people are dead after a fatal crash near the Westgate Mall in Brockton early Sunday morning, police said. A third person was seriously injured in the crash that occurred on Reynolds Memorial Highway, police said.

The head-on crash involved three cars and occurred shortly after 3 a.m., the Brockton Enterprise reported.

Firefighters, the report said, used the Jaws of Life to pry three people from inside the two cars that were involved in the crash. They were transported to Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, the Enterprise said.

Police in Brockton didnt provide any further details on the crash.

Detectives assigned to the Plymouth County District Attorneys Office have joined Brockton Police Detectives in investigating the incident.
First meeting between mutineers and ECOWAS delegate led by Nigerias former President Jonathan lasted for 20 minutes.

A key meeting between Malis coup leaders and mediators from West Africas regional bloc seeking a return to civilian rule ended after just 20 minutes.

The talks on Saturday were set to last 90 minutes, according to a provisional schedule set by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

It was not clear if the schedule had been changed or talks were cut short.

Tuesdays overthrow of Mali President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has been condemned abroad but celebrated by many in a country battling an armed uprising and months of political unrest.

A delegation from the 15-nation bloc arrived in the capital, Bamako, for talks aimed at reversing the overthrow of Keita and meeting the detained president.

Following the meetings, the head of the delegation, former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, said Keita was doing relatively well.

We saw him, hes very fine, said Jonathan. He told the AFP news agency that negotiations were going well and he was very hopeful.





ECOWAS has taken a hard line on the coup, shutting borders and halting financial flows  a move diplomats said was as much about warning opponents at home as stabilising Mali.

The highly anticipated meeting was held in the defence ministry, where ECOWAS mediators in face masks sat at a long table opposite military government leader Assimi Goita, who wore a desert camouflage uniform and was flanked by other military officers in berets and fatigues.

ECOWAS and the coup leaders, who call themselves the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), have yet to comment on the discussions.

The coup leaders have controlled Mali since Tuesday when the mutineers detained President Keita at gunpoint and forced him to resign [Mamadou Keita/Reuters]

Al Jazeeras Ahmed Idris, reporting from neighbouring Nigeria, said ECOWAS is looking to resolve the impasse as soon as possible, to prevent outside forces from plunging the country into total crisis that could be exploited by armed fighters.

The CNSP has controlled the country since Tuesday when the mutineers detained Keita at gunpoint and forced him to resign. They have promised to oversee a transition to elections within a reasonable amount of time.

The overthrow of Keita, known as IBK, was welcomed by many in Mali, which had been rocked by months of protests calling for his resignation for alleged corruption and worsening security in areas where affiliates of al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) are active.

Reinstating Keita out of the question

The presidents of Ivory Coast and Guinea are among those pushing for the tough ECOWAS response, one diplomat said, as the presidents of both countries have faced violent public protests to their third-term bids and want the bloc to show it will not allow power grabs in its own back yard.

They cannot tolerate this taking place. They are taking it very personally. It is on their doorstep and they think they are next, a second regional diplomat said.





After three days of post-coup calm in the capital Bamako, police used tear gas earlier on Saturday when a scuffle broke out between a group of 50 pro-Keita protesters and local residents who threw stones, a witness told Reuters news agency.

Reinstating IBK is out of the question. The only thing they (the delegation) can achieve is the transition. Under the rules of ECOWAS, ECOWAS should midwife the transition, one of the diplomats said, referring to the outcome of the delegations visit.

On Friday, thousands of the coups supporters gathered in a central square in Bamako to celebrate the takeover. There is no outward sign that ECOWASs suspension of financial relations is yet being felt.
President Donald Trump during a press conference in the Press Briefing Room of the White House on Aug. 23, 2020. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Trump Announces Emergency Authorization of Convalescent Plasma for CCP Virus

President Donald Trump announced on Aug. 23 the emergency authorization of convalescent plasma to treat the CCP virus.

Im pleased to make a truly historic announcement  that will save thousands of lives, Trump said, describing it as a breakthrough in a fight against the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

Trump announced that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made an emergency-use authorization of convalescent plasma for the virus, saying it is safe and very effective. He said the treatment will reduce mortality from the virus by about 35 percent.

Convalescent plasma treatments use blood from COVID-19 patients who have recovered and built antibodies against the virus. Doctors then infuse the plasma into new patients to prevent severe symptoms of the virus, according to the Mayo Clinic, which is researching the treatment.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar called on Americans to donate plasma to help battle the COVID-19 pandemic. He described the 35 percent death-reduction rate from the treatment as a major breakthrough.

Emergency authorization isnt full FDA approval, but it suggests that the agency believes the benefits of the therapy outweigh the risks. Antiviral drug remdesivir is another medication approved by the FDA to treat COVID-19.

According to the FDAs website: Although promising, convalescent plasma has not yet been shown to be safe and effective as a treatment for COVID-19. Therefore, it is important to study the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 convalescent plasma in clinical trials.

Convalescent plasma has been used since the 19th century to treat a variety of illnesses including chickenpox, diphtheria, and the flu. Namely, it was used to combat the Spanish flu pandemic from 1918 to 1920, which killed tens of millions of people.

With plasma, were leveraging the bodys amazing ability to develop antibodies and immunity to pathogens, Stony Brook Medicine researcher Elliott Bennett-Guerrero, who is studying the use of convalescent plasma in virus patients, told The Verge in April.

We transfer those protective factors to people who are sick and havent been able to mount an immune response.

I hear great things about it  thats all I can tell you, Trump recently said during a White House briefing, referring to convalescent plasma therapy. It could be a political decision because you have a lot of people over there who dont want to rush things because they want to do it after Nov. 3, and youve heard that one before.

On Aug. 22, Trump wrote on Twitter that someone at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics, adding that obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after Nov. 3. Must focus on speed, and saving lives!

His remarks were rebuked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

The FDA has a responsibility to approve drugs judging on their safety and their efficacy, not by a declaration from the White House about speed and politicizing the FDA, Pelosi said in a news conference.
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Russia is deploying a range of measures to interfere in the 2020 election for the benefit of President Trump, according to the latest U.S. intelligence assessment. It also concluded that China and Iran prefer Trumps defeat, though the determination and capability of each to take action are less than clear.

But the most serious attack on American democracy may be homegrown.

It was a terrible epiphany for me during the course of the Russia investigation a couple years ago that the threat from outside the country from Russia or elsewhere was really less than the threat from within, Rep. Adam Schiff, the Burbank Democrat who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, told me in an interview on Zoom.

At the time, Schiff was seeing the Trump White Houses undermining of democratic institutions by calling the press the enemy of the people, eroding the independence of the Justice Department and stonewalling a co-equal branch of government. The list goes on and on, he said.

Then on Aug. 13, the president said out loud what many critics had suspected: that one of his objections to additional funding for the U.S. Postal Service is that it would facilitate mail-in voting, which many states have expanded in response to concerns about in-person voting during a pandemic.

Now were seeing among the most serious abuses of his office in trying to disenfranchise millions of people by making it more difficult for them to vote during a pandemic, Schiff said. And these threats from within and without are not unrelated to one another. You could very well have a situation where the Russians begin to amplify the presidents false statements about mail voting. And, if there were to be a close contested outcome, you could see foreign intervention to fan the flames of chaos in the United States.

Both the Mueller Report and a newly released, nearly 1,000-page report from the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee  notably, a bipartisan product  made plain that the Trump campaign and Russian operatives plotting to sow discord among the electorate in 2016 were communicating with one another, even if the interactions fell short of a criminal conspiracy.

Associates of the Trump campaign and Russian operatives dont even need to have clandestine meetings this time around. The president is tossing out talking points to sow doubts about the state of American democracy that Moscow would love to help foment. He has argued that voting by mail would be rife with fraud, which is unsupported by the experience in states that have made it nearly universal. He told Fox News on Thursday night that he would be sending sheriffs and other law enforcement to polling places on Nov. 3 to guard against fraud  raising the specter of tactics in the Jim Crow South to deter participation by African Americans.

Trump repeatedly has warned that the vote count could take weeks or months to determine the outcome, or that the real winner may never be known.

Rest assured, Moscow is relishing every word, taking notes, and getting ready to mobilize its online trolls.

We just cant lose our sense of shock about this, Schiff said. Thats just never been the way presidents behave. Its the way autocrats behave.

A president cannot dictate how states administer a vote, but a slowed-down Postal Service could make his warning of delayed results a self-fulfilling prophecy. Trumps appointed postmaster general, the major GOP donor Louis DeJoy, has denied that suppressing the vote was a factor behind recent budget cuts that have stifled delivery in some parts of the nation.

As Trump lays the seeds to delegitimize the result before the first vote is cast, the mantra building among Democrats is: This must not be close.

Im worried that if the election is close, Donald Trump will file frivolous lawsuits with (Attorney General) Bill Barr co-signing on those suits, said Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Dublin Democrat on the Intelligence and Judiciary committees. Hell make claims about mailed votes being invalid and being fraudulent, and hell welcome foreign interference to amplify discord. You could see those armed militias who have gone to state capitals during his presidency going to the White House to protect him. It could be quite a scene.

As Schiff put it, Theres really no playbook for this situation because weve never had a president who himself was a threat to our democracy.

So what is the antidote to this viral threat?

Swalwell said Americans need to be prepared to mail in their ballots early and, if necessary, crawl through glass and walk through fire to get that ballot delivered because we know whats at stake.

Know there are forces, inside and outside this nation, that dont want your vote to be counted.

John Diaz is The San Francisco Chronicles editorial page editor. Email: jdiaz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JohnDiazChron
Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday's ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below.

T.T. writes: Before lockdown, we visited the Isle of Arran branch of the Bank of Scotland, as we required 10,000 in cash the next day to pay for renovations to our holiday cottage.

We had been told that ID in the form of a UK or EU driving licence was sufficient, but at the bank the next day we were turned away and told that the Northern Ireland licence we produced was unacceptable.

Fiasco: The Arran error with Bank of Scotland cost a couple 425

Because you travelled from one part of the UK to another, you and your wife were not carrying passports, which would have proved your identity.

And the situation was made worse because bad weather meant you had to leave the island the next day. Returning to pay your builders the cash they wanted meant facing another 500 or so in travel costs.

But the real puzzle was why a Scottish bank would reject a driving licence that is issued in Northern Ireland, another of the nations that makes up the United Kingdom. That licence can be used as proof of identity when you vote, or get on a plane, or when you hire a car. It is accepted by the police, so why not by the Bank of Scotland?

The answer is that the bank does not tell its customers in its terms and conditions exactly what it will  or will not  accept as proof of identity for large withdrawals. Apparently this is for the bank's own security reasons.

However, when you went to the trouble of enquiring before you needed the money, you should have been told that your Northern Ireland licence was useless.

Or was it? The Bank of Scotland tied itself in knots, telling me that it does accept Northern Ireland licences, but then saying at the same time that it refused to accept one from you or your wife because the branch was unable to carry out an unexplained security check.

I can tell you that this security check is in fact an independent system which the bank uses to validate all UK driving licences  with the slight snag that this system excludes Northern Ireland.

Despite this, Bank of Scotland branches are allowed to compromise, by checking the signature on a licence against a customer's sample signature which it has on file.

And this led to a startling admission by the bank. It was your wife that asked for the 10,000, and the bank did not have her signature. She has been a customer for almost 40 years, and has regularly signed cheques and made withdrawals. But now the bank says it failed to keep any sample of her signature.

Bank of Scotland says it transferred sample signatures to computer, but failed to transfer Mrs T's signature even though it kept on cashing her cheques.

Helpfully, staff told me that any customer can go to a branch and fill in a simple form to supply a signature. But of course, they have to know in the first place if the bank has failed to store their signature, so perhaps this is not so helpful after all.

The bank says it will only prompt customers like you after a problem has arisen, and not before.

You asked the Financial Ombudsman Service to look into what happened and it did. In a nutshell, the Ombudsman decided that whatever rules and terms the bank applied were its own business, even if they were not revealed to customers.

The bank gave you 75 to reflect the wrong advice it gave the day before your attempted withdrawal in Arran.

This reduces your loss to about 425, and that is a costly lesson in the failings of your bank, but which I have to say the Bank of Scotland shows no sign of having learnt, leaving other customers at risk of finding out the hard way.

That wasn't a smart move, SSE

A.A. writes: We have received a letter from SSE Scottish Hydro, part of the Ovo group, saying: 'Thanks for booking your smart meter installation.'

It gives a date and time when we have to be home for this, but we have consistently refused to have a smart meter.

We know utility companies have a Government target to meet, but making fictitious appointments is surely pushing the legal limits.

Concern: A.A. has consistently refused to have a smart meter but received a letter from SSE advising of an appointment to fit one

There cannot be many households that have not come under pressure to have a smart meter fitted, though thanking you for agreeing to an appointment when you said no is a strange way of convincing customers. What is worse, though, was the letter you received from SSE, threatening charges if you were not at home when the fitter called.

I asked SSE for a copy of any letter or recorded conversation in which you agreed to have a smart meter. It told you that you agreed by completing an online form, and it told me that there had been a phone call which their agent had 'misunderstood'.

But neither of us was offered copies of the form or recorded call. And SSE denied you were threatened with any penalty if you missed the non-existent appointment. A shame, then, that I have in front of me SSE's letter which tells you that 'there may be a charge if no one is at home when our engineer arrives'.

SSE now says the threat was an empty one and it would not really have charged you. It also told me: 'We have called Mr A to reassure him his smart meter booking is cancelled'. And SSE has credited your account with 30 for the inconvenience caused.

HSBC moved cash to 'dead zone'

S.E. writes: My company hand delivered a letter to HSBC, asking the bank to close our US dollar account containing more than US$107,000 (about 82,000) and transfer the funds to our new account at Revolut.

A week later, the HSBC account was closed and disappeared from our online banking data.

To date though, the funds have never been credited to us at Revolut, despite almost daily chasing.

Missing: S.E. has had a frustrating time with HSBC after funds went missing

You have had a frustrating time with HSBC. You were repeatedly told that the manager you needed was away on a course, or not at his desk.

The bank offered no evidence that the transfer was actually made, which would have helped Revolut track it down.

And when you made a formal complaint, HSBC offered to respond within eight weeks. HSBC has offered no explanation, but it appears that a transfer code used between banks was mistyped as REV00, with two zeros, instead of the correct REVO0  that is a capital letter O followed by a single zero. This was enough to send your dollars into a banking 'dead zone'.

HSBC has apologised, made sure the transfer has gone through, and it has also added 1,182 in interest and 1,250 by way of compensation.

All credit to you on mortgage delay

Mrs J.D. writes: I checked my bank account and noticed that Barclays had not collected a mortgage payment.

We recently changed banks, and I had notified Barclays, so I rang and was told we should have been sent a new direct debit form. I transferred the payment of 170 immediately, three days after it was due, but I have found that Barclays told a credit agency we were in arrears.

And although I completed the new mandate, Barclays has not collected the next mortgage payment either.

I discussed this with Barclays and it accepts that you had not realised that closing your original bank account meant you needed to complete a new direct debit mandate.

Sensibly though, you did send the next mortgage payment in time to avoid it being regarded as late. Though Barclays should record the missed payment on your credit record, as it was three days late, staff now accept this was accidental and not an unwillingness to pay on your part.

As a result, the arrears note on your credit agency file has been removed.

If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.
A member of Tehran City Council said on Sunday that since the coronavirus outbreak in February 10,200 residents of the capital have died of COVID-19. The official death toll of the country announced by the Health Ministry stands at 20,643.

Addressing a council meeting, Counselor Nahid Khodakarami also warned about the impact of the current month-long mourning ceremonies and the threat of a third wave of COVID-19.

Khodakarami on July 19 said the death toll in Tehran since February stood at 7,167, which brings the months numbers to a terrifyingly high 3,000. On July 27, Khodakarami said over a two-day period, 234 residents of the capital who had died of COVID-19 were buried in the city's massive Behesht-e Zahra cemetery. The City Council collects its information on COVID deaths from the cemetery.

The coronavirus situation in the country has deteriorated from mid-June, when deaths first passed the 100-people mark after two months and then rose to above 200. Circumstances have been particularly alarming in the capital, designated as a "red zone".

Over the last 24-hour reporting period, 141 people have died of COVID in Iran, according to the latest official announcement, bringing the countrys official death toll to 20,643. The figure for Tehran brings the official death toll for the entire country into serious question given the population statistics.

Tehran has a nighttime population of 8.7 million and according to Pirouz Hanachi, the Mayor of Tehran, more than three million people commute from the surrounding towns and cities every day.

Given the daytime population of the capital, which is about one-seventh of the country's population of 83 million, the countrys official figures showing 10,000 dead for the capital and only 20,000 for the entire country seems like potentially flawed data.

The official COVID statistics offered by the government have been widely challenged, even by the Parliament Research Center, which estimated the real number of victims as double the number announced officially.

The Health Ministry stopped the announcement of COVID cases and deaths in individual provinces on April 13 and has never released any figures for the capital Tehran and Qom, the ground zero of the pandemic in Iran and the country's religious capital.
Despite Fridays slew of stronger than expected UK ecostats, the British Pound to New Zealand Dollar (GBP/NZD) exchange rate was tumbling before markets closed for the week. Investors remain anxious about the UK outlook amid a lack of developments in UK-EU Brexit negotiations, and without much in the coming week thats going to improve the Pound outlook, the British currency could be in for further pressure.

Due to Pound rebound attempts and a weaker New Zealand Dollar, GBP/NZD has been spending most of August advancing. Last week saw GBP/NZD put in its biggest jump yet.

After opening last week at the level of 2.0006, GBP/NZD briefly dipped lower before seeing a surge in demand towards the end of the week. GBP/NZD touched on a high of 2.0266, the best level for the pair in a quarter, since late-May.

However, after touching these highs, GBP/NZD spent much of Friday tumbling. GBP/NZD shed over a cent and was trending around the level of 2.0103 on Friday afternoon.

After a week of multiple advance attempts and generally stronger performance on weaker rivals, investors were hesitant to buy the Pound too high on Friday.

Even as Britain printed multiple impressive ecostats, Sterling slipped back from its best levels.

UK retail sales from July, as well as August PMI projections, all came in well above expectations.

However, uncertainties continue to dominate Britains outlook. Not only were there no developments in UK-EU Brexit negotiations last week, but the PMI data also indicated that Britains job market remained a big concern for analysts.

According to Jai Malhi, Global Market Strategist at JP Morgan Asset Management:

The UK PMI shows recent government schemes such as the Eat Out to Help Out scheme have boosted activity in the services sector. The fly in the ointment is employment, where the survey highlights the key risk over the coming months that the furlough scheme ending prematurely could to lead to a rise in unemployment.

The New Zealand Dollar was able to push GBP/NZD down slightly amid hopes for global central banks to keep supporting liquidity amid the pandemic. This as well as vaccine hopes kept market risk-sentiment from falling too far.

This ultimately kept the New Zealand Dollar supported, despite concerns about the coronavirus returning to New Zealand after a long period without new infections in the nation.

Pound (GBP) Exchange Rate Forecast: Quieter Calendar Could Leave Brexit Uncertainty in Focus

Next weeks UK economic calendar will be quieter, with only a couple of noteworthy stats due for publication.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) will publish its August distributive trades report on Tuesday. This will be followed later in the week by UK car production results from July, due Thursday.

Aside from these stats, the Pound is likely to be influenced by developments in Britains coronavirus and Brexit situations.

If there are any surprising coronavirus developments domestically, the Pound could see movement. For example, any signs that lockdown could be extended or widened could cause Sterling to lose some ground.

Lingering reaction to a lack of UK-EU Brexit developments could also cause Sterling to give up some gains. As August heads to an end, investors are only likely to become more worried about 2020 possibly ending with no Brexit deal.

At the end of next week, comments from Bank of England (BoE) Governor Andrew Bailey could also influence Sterling.

New Zealand Dollar (NZD) Exchange Rate Forecast: New Zealand Retail Sales Could Boost NZD

The New Zealand Dollar has seen weaker performance lately, as fresh coronavirus cases in New Zealand leave investors anxious about the nations economic recovery from the pandemic.

If New Zealand ramps up efforts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, this could mean more limited economic activity in New Zealand. This might also lead to weaker New Zealand economic activity.

On the other hand though, if upcoming key New Zealand data beats forecasts, it could boost hopes that New Zealands economy will be resilient even if the virus hits economic activity again.

When markets open on Monday, investors will react to New Zealands Q2 retail sales results. Retail sales were expected to be hit hard by the pandemic, falling to 9% year-on-year. Better than expected data could help NZD start strong next week.

Investors will also be keeping an eye on New Zealand trade balance data due on Wednesday. At the end of the week, New Zealand consumer confidence data could influence the Pound to New Zealand Dollar (GBP/NZD) exchange rate.
Dubai, UAE, Aug. 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hamza Majdi made his mark in the Direct Selling industry and transformed the lives of tens of thousands like him. He was born in the Moroccan city of Casablanca; his mom was a health care practitioner and his father, an IT professional. When Hamza was young, his family moved to Montreal, Canada, so he and his brothers could receive a better education than what was available to them in Morocco.

After a lengthy application process and multiple rejections, they finally moved to Montreal in 1992. Upon arrival, his parents were forced to accept lower-paying jobs with extended hours to make ends meet. One day, a chance encounter on the metro led Hamzas mother to open her day-care center  a business she still owns today.

This opportunity proved a double-edged sword, as the business took up much of his parents time. Their sacrifice allowed them to grow up in comfort, but it also meant that he and his brothers would spend a lot of time in the house alone. While challenging in some regards, this created an incredibly strong bond with the brothers - a relationship that has only grown stronger over the years.

Hamzas parents expected the best from him, whether that was at home or in school. However, his education was always their number one top priority. Despite this, he got a job at Best Buy when he was a teenager, where he discovered the importance of making connections with people. The best salesmen were the ones who made people feel comfortable, and it was a skill I was eager to learn.

When Hamza finished high school, he suddenly faced uncertainty about what to do with his life.

I knew the lifestyle that I wanted, and I knew that it would be costly, so I began searching for a job to live the life I dreamt of. It was around this time that I decided to go to trade school to become a housing contractor. It was around this time that I was also introduced to the field of network marketing by a friend. Once I discovered network marketing, I was hooked. That was, without a doubt, a game-changer. I traveled to the United States to attend a training conference, and from there, I continued to work tirelessly to achieve my goal of working in the industry. I was 18 years old.



Thus, began his new life. But similar to the one his parents faced when they first arrived in Canada, it wasnt easy. From the ages of 18 to 22, Hamza had worked Monday-Friday, attended Saturday morning training in downtown Montreal, and traveled to quarterly seminars in the United States. I knew that nothing was guaranteed in my life, and because of this, I knew I had to work twice as hard to achieve my goals. I hustled every single day, traveling all over Quebec to meet with my various teams, spending countless hours on the phone making deals, and generally working myself to the bone.

Then tragedy struck. Hamza was let go from the company when he was 22 - jobless with mountains of debt and no degree to fall back on. But that didnt stop him from thriving. Id sacrificed so much in those four years for someone elses company, that I couldnt wait to start building something of my own. So began my new life as an entrepreneur. This was an exciting time for me. I launched a foundation with my friend, a foundation for helping children get involved in sports. Through this foundation, we were able to work with athletes such as Georges Laraque, Joannie Rochette, and Jean Pascal. However, due to our inexperience with charitable organizations, we were forced to close our operations after just one year.

It was then that he decided to test his waters in the network marketing industry again. Hamza was approached by a company that sold protein shakes, and within a year, he has made more money with them than he did in the four years combined at his previous network marketing company.

It was clear now that the network marketing industry was where I needed to be. While I was grateful to this company for the opportunity they had given me, I still wasnt fulfilled. I decided to search for a company that I could put my heart and soul into. My search lasted four years. From the age of 23 to the age of 27, I met with the CEOs of multiple network marketing companies, trying to find the right fit for my personal goals. I eventually chose a company in the healthcare industry and flourished.



Over the next four years, Hamza found himself in a better position emotionally and financially. He was able to help his parents achieve their lifelong goal of visiting Mecca and finally felt at peace with his work/life balance. It was the culmination of more than a decades worth of training, meetings, sales trips, presentations, and helping hundreds of others achieve their goals. However, the company started to move in a direction he was not comfortable with, and he was once again forced to make a difficult decision.

After a series of humps and bumps, Hamza found his long-term home - an innovative company based in Dubai called BE.



They were looking for a VP of sales to help run their French markets. I was excited by this opportunity for several reasons. First, I was eager to join BE because Ive witnessed the network marketing industry slowly beginning to head in the wrong direction, and this was a chance for me to effect positive change. Second, I wanted to give back to show that this is a good industry filled with good people.



With BE, the industry is finally about to shift to 2.0. Uber and Airbnb have transformed their respective industries, and from my perspective, the network marketing industry is next in line.

Today, Hamza ranks as one of the top 15 professionals in the network marketing industry. Along with his team, hes helping bring this industry back to where its supposed to be.

We are and will continue to revolutionize it, and we are excited for what the future holds.



To know more about Hamza Majdi, visit his official Instagram account.



Story Provided by Be whose philosophy revolves around empowering individuals to take control of every aspect of their life.



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Your muse is the Orpheus Flower. Can you tell us a bit about the flower and how it influenced a beauty line?

While working on a skincare project within my family company, I came across data about the Orpheus Resurrection flower, native to just one region in the Rhodope Mountains in my homeland. I instantly fell in love with the romantic story and beauty of the rare flower. An ancient legend tells of a legendary musician, poet, and mythological god-hero - Orpheus - who could charm all living beings with the sound of his lyre and his magnificent voice. When he lost his beloved wife (a forest nymph) to the underworld, he shed tears upon the mineral-rich springs in the Rhodope Mountains in Bulgaria. Where his tears fell a beautiful immortal flower was born: the Orpheus flower. Local people say that the echoes of his sweet songs can still be heard from high atop the mountains ancient rocks.

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What environmentalists stand for is this crude poverty, in the name of safeguarding environment. That is precisely the undertone the question posed to me carried; we dont compromise environment for human development .





by Kusal Perera





Villagers in Lankagama a very small village in Galle district bordering Gin ganga (river) and Sinharaja rainforest and few Environmental activists have conflicting claims over widening and repair of an existing 10 ft partly cemented road. The villagers claim their village is over 500 years old and live with minimum basic common utilities that are sub-standard. They claim, they have been requesting every government to widen and repair their access road to Neluwa, but no government had ever delivered on the promise. Neluwa hospital is where pregnant women must be taken a distance of about 18 kms where People using existing road Western end of Lankagama - photo courtesy Lakdasun trip transport and travel is the most painstaking thing in an emergency. Tragedies that occurred in the past the villagers say, have not been of any worth to media.













That the village is over 500 years old is disputed by Environmentalists. A senior activist posting on FB said it is sheer romanticising of the village. Neluwa Divisional Secretariat (DS) sources accept the village is around 300 years in existence. Lankagama villagers say there are around 700 families. Neluwa DS website says the population of Lankagama grama niladhari area was 655 in 2018. Perhaps, the figure 700 quoted by villagers is the present number of people and not families. Geographically, Lankagama grama niladhari area is one of the largest in Neluwa DS division.





Environmental activists claim, the new Rajapaksa government is using security forces to widen and carpet the Lankagama  Neluwa road to construct tourist hotels in Sinharaja. Yet, there are no clear and confirmed information on hotel construction. An NGO, Centre for Environmental and Nature Studies (CENS) writing to the President, the Ministry of Environment, the Central Environment Authority and Wildlife Department claim the road that is being constructed is illegal and is within the Sinharaja World Heritage Site, a good enough reason for them to write to the UNESCO as well.





Environmentalists believe environment cannot be compromised for human development. A very short comment I posted on facebook regarding this controversy, was immediately responded to by a very respected senior Environmentalist. He was very frank asking, Do you say we have to compromise a virgin rainforest, which is also a national and a world heritage for human development?





This, in fact is the main issue. People in the village want their road done. Environmentalists dont. People in the village believe widening the existing road is a long overdue necessity for them. Environmentalist dont. People in the village believe widening the road will not be a threat to the national and world heritage site. Environmentalists dont. People in the village who want the road done, live adjoining the Sinharaja forest reserve. Environmentalists dont.





On 28 November last year, Principal of the Lankagama model school organised a felicitation ceremony for his own teaching staff, attended by the Neluwa DS, parents and few others. At this ceremony he said some years ago, most teachers came late on Monday from distant places, roughed out the whole week and left early on Friday. Now, most teachers are from neighbouring villages. They walk to school every day, a distance of about 06 to 08 kms each way. They have been exceptionally helpful and committed in improving the education of Lankagama children, a service that needs to be appreciated. The school has around 175 children in daily attendance and has classes up to G.C.E O/L.





An isolated village where teachers must walk many kilo metres to school and back, says a lot about lack of basic needs. Improvement in the quality of life, easy access to public utilities and services, better and improved linkages to markets, are all part of development people want. They in fact are most basic needs in present day human life. All these depend on good and efficient transport and commuting. That is why roads become an indispensable part of daily life. Lack of, absence or denying of basic needs, define poverty in its crudest manner.





What environmentalists stand for is this crude poverty, in the name of safeguarding environment. That is precisely the undertone the question posed to me carried; we dont compromise environment for human development.





This hard line, blank position compels environmental NGOs to draw on their own assumptions as facts to argue their case. The illegal road mentioned by CENS as running through Sinharaja, had been there for very many decades as a gravel road, used by villagers in Lankagama and in neighbouring areas. Out of the 18 kms, only a very short distance of about 03 kms run through Sinharaja forest reserve and that too in short segments. Short or long distance, any path people use for daily commuting over decades without any restrictions and objections recorded, becomes legal by default. In 2010, this road was paved with concrete, from funds allocated by State authorities through Neluwa DS. What then is illegal is therefore never imaginable. Ironically, it is such factually distorted and wrong information these environmental NGOs often provide to State authorities and international organisations to gain legitimacy to their protests.





That apart, getting back to the dichotomy human development vs environment, never in the history of human civilisation has progress been achieved, without breaching and trampling nature and environment. The 2,500 BC Indus river civilisation Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, was a fire burnt brick based civilisation. Without doubt, clay was dug up in mega quantities for bricks and forests were cut down to burn bricks in constructing big and orderly cities and roads. So were all other civilisations, whether constructions were wood, or iron based.





In ancient Ceylon too, construction of giant tanks for agriculture would not have been possible without breaching and damaging environment. Culawamsa, the Pali chronicle says, King Parakramabahu restored tanks and built new tanks, all totalling 163 major tanks. One that covers an area of 30 sq.kms is named after him as Parakrama Samudraya.





In post independent Sri Lanka all development initiatives from colonisation schemes to hydro-power projects came with restoration of reservoirs, construction of large damns and tunnelling. From Gal-oya in 1952 to accelerated Mahaweli development in 1979 and Samanala weva project in 1986, all such projects stepped on environment. In the past, Gal-oya, Kantale, Rajanganaya and other similar development were technically approved, but never had EIAs and none would know what environmental damage they brought about. Fact nevertheless is, new habitats, new eco-systems have evolved thereafter.





We have come a long way from Parakramabahu and from Gal-oya. We have also learnt much from the accelerated Mahaweli development programme. We have expertise, technology and past experience to plan development better and save environment better. What is still lacking is a new people centric thinking in environmental activism. Worst is that most environmentalists have also turned Sinhala-Buddhist patriots on the run. They and their NGOs also believe people are outsiders to environment and human development is no priority. They work on the premise; it is their duty to fight legal battles to stop any project they decide should be stopped and protest any they believe cause destruction.





We need to come out of this primitive thinking. This thinking in environmental NGOs as exhibited in Lankagama contribute to sustained poverty, denying development. We need to know, human development cannot be compromised as much as environment cannot be played about with, as Climate Change clearly teaches. We therefore have to learn that protests are no answers. Though isolated, Lankagama by the side of Sinharaja rain forest is a classic case that challenges these protesting environmentalists to come up with their solution to the conflict without denying the people their right to better and improved life.





Environmentalists have to leave agitating against single, isolated issues and propose a National Environment Policy that should cover everything from urban air and sound pollution to landslides, from domestic waste disposal to surgical and industrial waste, from coast conversation to reforestation and management, from urban planning to town and housing development and honouring all international conventions the SL government is a signatory to and have ratified and should ratify. It should include regulating and monitoring agencies and have a special complain investigating mechanism, independent of ministries and politics.





Such cannot be drafted and concluded by experts alone. This requires an open social discourse at every stage of its drafting. It needs to draw the participation of social activists and community leaders. In short, when the National Environment Policy becomes law, it must be a social product owned by the People.





The ancient style of taking up issues as and when they become politically important and worth for environmental NGOs to agitate and protest is no more valid. Environmentalist must leave those old sectarian practices and face the challenge of drafting a National Environment Policy with peoples participation and take over the responsibility of social monitoring and lobbying for answers within the national policy.





In post COVID-19 global and national life, this is a new era with a new challenge demanding new answers. An era, where strengthening democracy is the beginning. Hence social participation and ownership in planning and implementation. I would not know if environmentalists could stand up to this new challenge. Lankagama therefore would be the first test for environmentalists in post COVID-19 Sri Lanka.
Pompeo is also due to visit Israel and the United Arab Emirates on Monday and Tuesday following an accord between the two countries this month to forge full relations.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is to visit Sudan in the coming days, a Sudanese government official said on Sunday.

Sudan has been normalising relations with the United States since the overthrow of former leader Omar al-Bashir in April 2019 but is still seeking removal from a list of countries the U.S. considers as state sponsors of terrorism.

Pompeo is also due to visit Israel and the United Arab Emirates on Monday and Tuesday following an accord between the two countries this month to forge full relations.

The Sudanese official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to give details of Pompeo's visit.

Ending the terrorism listing is a top priority for Sudan's transitional military-civilian ruling council and the government of technocrats that serves under it.

The listing dates to 1993 and makes Sudan, struggling with a deep economic crisis, technically ineligible for debt relief and financing from international lenders.

A senior government source told Reuters last week that significant progress was expected on the issue in the coming weeks.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.

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A view of the Mekong river bordering Thailand and Laos is seen from the Thai side in Nong Khai, Thailand, October 29, 2019. Photo by Reuters/Soe Zeya Tun.

China is ready to share data on water flows into the Mekong River, a longstanding request of downstream Southeast Asian countries, a Thai foreign ministry official said on Friday.

Control of the waters is politically sensitive, and many farmers and fishermens livelihoods depend on the river. A report published by a U.S. research company this year accused China of holding back large amounts of water during a drought last year, a finding Beijing disputed.

China has no formal water treaties with the lower Mekong countries - Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam - and is currently only sharing limited data during the monsoon season on flows to what it knows as the Lancang River.

"China stressed that it is ready to share information with us in a clear, meaningful and transparent way throughout the year," Nikorndej Balankura, a senior Thai foreign ministry official told reporters. "Information will be shared seamlessly."

Chinas Foreign Ministry said in response to a request for comment that it did not want to pre-empt an online summit on Monday of leaders of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) group, which includes China and the Mekong countries.

Lower Mekong countries already share water data through the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an intergovernmental body with headquarters in Vientiane in Laos. The LMC water center is based in Beijing.

The MRC this month called for better data-sharing between countries and companies that operate hydropower dams along the Mekong as flows hit record lows for a second consecutive year.
Another 1,041 people have tested positive for coronavirus today bringing Britain's total caseload to 325,642.

Today's case total - which is one higher than last Sunday's 1,040 - marks another weekend of soaring figures after 1,288 tested positive yesterday and 1,033 on Friday.

Some six more people have died today after contracting the disease across all settings - including care homes, hospitals and the wider community - bringing the UK's total death toll to 41,429.

Figures released on Sunday are usually smaller due to a delay in processing over the weekend.

Wales has reported two deaths and 20 cases while Scotland has reported no deaths but 83 new cases.

Yesterday saw the UK's biggest Saturday case rise in eight weeks after 123 new Covid-19 diagnoses in Scotland caused figures to soar.

Another 1,041 people have tested positive for coronavirus today bringing Britain's total caseload to 325,642

Some six more people have died today after contracting the disease across all settings - including care homes, hospitals and the wider community - bringing the UK's total death toll to 41,429

The Scottish total - its highest in three months - spiked by 73 per cent from Friday's total of 71, and experts have blamed an outbreak at the 2 Sisters meat processing plant in Coupar Angus.

In the UK, there were 1,288 new cases yesterday, compared with 1,077 last Saturday.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon described the large number of cases as being 'of concern'.

Today's figures come as leaked documents reveal that the government has drawn up battle plans for the possibility of being hit with a second wave of coronavirus and a No-Deal Brexit simultaneously.

Leaked documents warn of a potential social care crisis from councils going bankrupt and the army being drafted in to prevent public disorder.

The revelation puts mounting pressure on ministers to negotiate a deal with Brussels to avoid a double-header in December, when it is predicted the country could be hit by a second spike.

The government have drawn up battle plans for the possibility of being hit with a second wave of coronavirus and a No-Deal Brexit simultaneously, it has been claimed

The revelation puts mounting pressure on Boris Johnson and his ministers to negotiate a deal with Brussels to avoid a double-header in December, when it is predicted the country could be hit by a second spike

The classified file, seen by The Sun, appears to be in the form of powerpoint slides and is titled 'Preliminary set of Reasonable Worst Case Scenario Planning Assumptions to support civil contingencies planning for the end of the Transition Period'.

It was created by the Cabinet Office's EU Transition Task Force over concerns the government was not doing enough to get a deal signed before the end of the Transition Period on New Year's Eve.

It follows the leak over Operation Yellowhammer in August last year, a civil contingency plan in the event of a No Deal Brexit.

The EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier this week raised concerns by saying getting a trade deal done in time 'seems unlikely'.

Leaked documents warn of a potential social care crisis from councils going bankrupt and the army being drafted in to prevent public disorder

Revealed in the leaked document, Whitehall is planning for the potential of public disorder caused by food shortages and price hikes

The implications of a No Deal on the economy could be far reaching, and would be considerably worsened when combined with a winter virus.

Revealed in the leaked document, Whitehall is planning for the potential of public disorder caused by food shortages and price hikes.

Troops may have to be drafted on to the streets to help the police in the worst-case scenario  1,500 are already on stand by.

The problem on food is expected to be worsened if the Port of Dover and the channel tunnel become blocked due to increased checks at the border, with as many as 8,500 trucks lorries lining up on the motorway to Kent.

The Cabinet Office responded to the leak by outlining a series of contingency plans said to already be in place, including an extra 3billion for the NHS

30 per cent of our food imported from the EU as well as medicines, chemicals for drinking water purification and fuel supply.

It also warns that the Navy might be needed to stop vigilante British fisherman clashing with illegal European fishing boat incursions.

The 'reasonable worst case scenario' also suggests that animal disease might rip through the countryside due to shortages of medicines and the Channel Islands could need military airdrops to avoid running out of food.

As result, social distancing measures and masks will have to continue until 2021.

Downing Street is pushing hard for a trade deal but is making contingency plans for an 'unruly' exit from the EU transition period at the end of December.

With trade talks looking set to go the wire, there is a risk they collapse  putting up trade barriers overnight on 1 January.

The Cabinet Office responded to the leak by outlining a series of contingency plans said to already be in place.

The government are believed to have allocated an extra 3billion for the NHS and an extra 600million for social care, although it is not clear if this will go to councils or be organised centrally.

Covid-19 testing capacity will be extended to 300,000 a day and billions of items of PPE delivered to health and social care workers.

A further 775million will be spent on new border and customs infrastructure and new border rules phased in over six months to try to avoid backlogs.

Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove told The Sun: 'We got Brexit done with a great deal in January.

'And we are working flat out to make sure the UK is ready for the changes and huge opportunities at the end of the year as we regain our political and economic independence for the first time in almost 50 years.

'Part of this work includes routine contingency planning for various scenarios that we do not think will happen but we must be ready for, come what may.'
Paris Hilton Reveals the "Terrifying" Abuse She Suffered as a Teenager

"I buried my truth for so long."

After two decades of silence, Paris Hilton is opening up about the physical and mental abuse she experienced as a teenager at boarding school. In a revealing interview with People, Hilton discusses the "continuous torture" she endured at Provo Canyon School in Utah when she was only 17 years old.

"I buried my truth for so long," the reality star told the outlet ahead of the release of her new YouTube documentary, This Is Paris. "But I'm proud of the strong woman I've become. People might assume everything in my life came easy to me, but I want to show the world who I truly am."

In the late '90s, Paris's parents decided to send her the school  which claims to be "an intensive, psychiatric youth residential treatment center"  after she began sneaking out to go to nightclubs and parties while living in New York City. "It was supposed to be a school, but [classes] were not the focus at all, says Hilton. From the moment I woke up until I went to bed, it was all day screaming in my face, yelling at me, continuous torture.

She went on to explain that the abuse wasn't just verbal, but also became physical at times. The staff would say terrible things. They were constantly making me feel bad about myself and bully me. I think it was their goal to break us down. And they were physically abusive, hitting and strangling us. They wanted to instill fear in the kids so wed be too scared to disobey them," she said, adding that she was once placed in solitary confinement when a former classmate told staff she had planned on running away. "They would use that as punishment, sometimes 20 hours a day," Paris revealed.

RELATED: Paris Hilton Wore Fingerless Gloves to Make Lasagna on Her New Cooking Show

Hilton says her parents "had no idea what was going on," and when she attempted to tell them, she got in trouble with staff. "They would grab the phone or rip up letters I wrote telling me, No one is going to believe you. And the staff would tell the parents that the kids were lying," she said. Paris plans on watching the documentary with her family to offer insight on her trauma, saying: "I think it will be good for us, but emotional too. There are no more secrets.

This Is Paris premieres Sept. 14 on YouTube.
 Flash

The video-sharing social networking company TikTok confirmed Saturday that it will file a lawsuit against the Trump administration over an executive order banning any U.S. transactions with its parent company ByteDance.

ByteDance announced later that the lawsuit will be delivered next Monday.

Los Angeles-based TikTok said it started this move which has been rumored for weeks since it has no other choice.

"To ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and users are treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the Executive Order through the judicial system," a statement acquired by Xinhua read.

The U.S. authorities repeatedly accused TikTok, the popular app run by the company, of misusing data from U.S. users since last year, but the company maintains that its American data is housed in the country.

"Even though we strongly disagree with the Administration's concerns, for nearly a year we have sought to engage in good faith to provide a constructive solution," TikTok spokesman Josh Gartner said in the statement, arguing the executive order deprived it of due process.

"What we encountered instead was a lack of due process as the Administration paid no attention to facts and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses," the statement said.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Aug. 6 blocking all transactions with ByteDance in an effort to "address the national emergency." However, the New York Times reported on Aug. 7 that even the Central Intelligence Agency assessed that there is no evidence showing China had intercepted TikTok's data or used the app to intrude into users' mobile phones.

Responding to the order, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian noted that the so-called "freedom" and "security" are merely excuses for the "digital gunboat policy" pursued by some U.S. politicians.

The order was to take effect within 45 days. On Aug. 14, the president signed another executive order, this time giving ByteDance 90 days to sell or spin off TikTok in the United States.

Besides the company's lawsuit next Monday, its U.S. employees are also planning to take the Trump administration to court over the executive order.
On August 22, thousands of people rallied outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus residence as summer-long demonstrations gained momentum. The protesters want Netanyahu to give up his post as he is on trial for corruption charges. Reports suggest that the government's inability in handling the coronavirus crisis has also enraged people in Israel and driven the demonstrations.

Protests gear up in Israel

According to reports, earlier this month, Netanyahu accused private stations Channel 12 and 13 of "delivering propaganda for the anarchist left-wing demonstrations" by giving extensive coverage of the rallies. Thousands of people were seen chanting "Minister of Crime", "You're fired" and "Free Israel", as a part of demonstrations. Recent protests come in advance of Tuesday's deadline in which the coalition government must agree on a budget plan or initiate new elections. These elections would be the fourth in slightly more than a year.

Read: Protests Against Israeli PM Continue With Momentum

The protesters ignored the request made by police for alternative routes as they marched from several parts of Jerusalem. Reports suggest that the protesters marched through the key roads trying to reach Netanyahu's residence in Balfour street. Giant balloons depicting the blackened face of Netanyahu, were hoisted outside his residence. Protesters reportedly waved Israeli flags and the black flag of one of the grassroots protest movements.

Read: Pompeo, Kushner To Mideast As US Presses Arab-Israeli Peace

According to the reports, 30 people were arrested. According to police, one of the arrested protestors, admitted punching the officer and later apologized. However, protesters who were arrested described violence on the part of police that was way more than what happened in the previous protests. Reports suggest that Israel won praise for its initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, recently the government has received a lot of criticism amid a resurgence in cases. The resurgence took place after restrictions were lifted starting in late April. Netanyahu has himself reportedly acknowledged that the economy was re-opened too quickly.

Read: Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu Backs US Move To Restore UN Sanctions On Iran

Also Read: Netanyahu Supporters Gather In Jerusalem

(Image Credits: AP)
La "guerra fredda" tra Cagliari e Roma potrebbe essere finita, grazie alla mediazione del governo, ma non e ancora detto.

Dopo le accuse di essere gli untori d'Italia e la richiesta, da parte della Regione Lazio, di fare i test ai turisti che lasciano la Sardegna, nella tarda serata di ieri il ministro per gli Affari regionali Francesco Boccia ha proposto un'intesa per la "reciprocita" di test agli imbarchi, sia dal Lazio verso l'Isola che viceversa.

"Vedo che ora il Governo ripropone, ma solo per il Lazio, cio che noi abbiamo proposto alcuni mesi fa. Ora valuteremo", ha dichiarato il governatore Christian Solinas.

La proposta e arrivata dopo una giornata di tensione, con un botta e risposta continuo tra esponenti della giunta regionale sarda e di quella del Lazio. La tensione e stata alimentata dai numeri con l'incremento dei positivi nell'Isola (ieri 44) e nel Lazio (215, 97 dei quali di vacanzieri rientrati dalla Sardegna).

Il governatore Nicola Zingaretti e l'assessore alla Sanita Alessio D'Amato hanno ribadito la necessita di effettuare controlli prima del rientro: "Il ministero della Salute e la Regione Sardegna devono urgentemente predisporre controlli con tampone agli imbarchi", ha detto il presidente della Regione Lazio, che ha predisposto numerosi drive-in per effettuare i tamponi. Uno e al porto di Civitavecchia e filtra i viaggiatori di rientro da Sardegna, Grecia, Spagna, Croazia e Malta.

Non si e fatta attendere la replica di Mario Nieddu: "Sarebbe il caso che facessero dal Lazio i tamponi agli imbarchi per la Sardegna e non il contrario perche nella nostra avevamo azzerato i casi", ha dichiarato l'assessore, "vorrei ricordare al governatore Zingaretti e all'assessore D'Amato che i giovani romani che sono tornati positivi nel Lazio non si sono sicuramente infettati nella nostra isola ma probabilmente prima di arrivare qui hanno girato mezza Europa, frequentando posti a rischio. Sono loro che hanno portato il virus in Sardegna e non il contrario".

"I numeri della Sardegna", rimarca l'esponente leghista, "continuano a essere bassissimi rispetto ai loro, cio significa che il virus circola nel Lazio, non da noi. Noi siamo bravi a tracciare e a contenere i contagi, non so quanto lo siano loro".

La risposta del collega laziale e conciliante: "La reciprocita e la migliore tutela per i turisti", ha detto, "test rapidi antigenici, quelli validati dallo Spallanzani che stiamo utilizzando negli aeroporti romani e che danno una risposta in 30 minuti, agli imbarchi da e per la Sardegna sono tecnicamente la soluzione piu efficace per garantire che positivi asintomatici non viaggino in maniera promiscua sulle navi. Nessuna polemica con la Sardegna, ma solo una collaborazione per la tutela della salute pubblica e per garantire la sicurezza della stagione turistica che e ancora lunga".

 Riproduzione riservata

(Unioneonline)
The Indiana State Police (ISP) claimed that the suspects linked to the recent state park shooting are still at large. The suspects who murdered two individuals fled the scene and no one knows where they are headed.

The fatal shooting happened on Wednesday night in Corydon, Indiana, near the outer part of the O'Bannon Woods State Park. Police are exhausting all of their efforts to find the persons of interest whose whereabouts remain unknown, according to WHAS11.

U.S. Marshals and Indiana State Police revealed that some leads were discovered which eventually identified the suspects as Timothy E. Sargent, 41, of Ohio. The other one is Savannah Emich, 20, who was identified as the companion of Sargent during the shooting.

They were both together when the shooting was committed. But there are some questions if Emich was a willing accomplice or was forced to be with Sargent, according to WBIW.

Driver crashed car while escaping shooters

On the day of the shooting, one of the first on the scene was Jim Schreck from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources Conservation Office. He was summoned that Wednesday night after a report came in that a serious accident happened. Someone called in that a driver was shot in an automobile, close to the O'Bannon Woods State Park.

He added that the scene was not something expected from a weeknight of the state park. His remark showed how rare such crimes happen in Harrison County. Those who got to the crashed vehicle were shouting for help, trying to see if someone might need help. The crime scene was described as chaotic.

Also read: Man Stabs Brother to Death Due to Heated Argument Overly Freshly Laundered Pillowcase

The driver of the car got shot multiple times. In the front seat, a female riding in the passenger side got gunned down as well. In the back was another female who was not shot, but was injured in the car crash.

Authorities think the car crash occurred when the driver attempted to escape their pursuer, but the bullets did not miss him, according to 14News.

Schreck claimed that the shooting site is one of the most secured parks to visit, which is located in Indiana. Park patrols would pass by these places in the park and its outer parts. Two or three officers live a few miles away from the park.

A family ambushed?

Investigators on the case have a scenario that might shed light on what truly happend. A family visited the park and spent some time hiking, then left afterward. This is when they encountered a Dodge Avenger with ill intent, and they allowed the other car to go ahead. The Dodge came close to the vehicle and started shooting.

Those in the car were taken to the hospital after the shooting. By Friday morning, they all survived the ordeal. Investigators doubt that the shooter was known to the victims who nearly died. No motives were defined, but the victims may have been subject to random violence.

The shooter identified as Sargent is a wanted felon in Ohio for attempted murder. Just like now, he is a suspect in the murder of Rebecca Tomlinson. She is his ex-girlfriend, according to WEWS Cleveland.

Akron Police Captain David Laughlin said that the suspect is a dangerous felon as well. The suspects responsible for the Indiana state park shooting were last seen in a silver 2000 Chevy pickup, Indiana registration TK677LJB.

Related article: Boxer Woman Kills Two Men: Rapes One With Shovel Handle , Kicks Another to Death

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
By clearing the confusion over the interpretation of the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, the Supreme Court in Vineeta Sharma v Rakesh Sharma (2020) has secured for Hindu women the right to be coparceners in joint family property with retrospective effect from 1956. The three-judge bench has restored the progressive intent to the 2005 amendment, but has based it on a conservative interpretation that reinforces the basic concepts of the Hindu joint family and coparcenary ownership of property.

The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act (HSAA), 2005, the last major amendment to the Hindu Code, attempts to undo the gender inequality built into much of Hindu personal law. It deems a Hindu daughter to be a coparcenerjoint owner and interest holderin the ancestral property of her father from the date of her birth.1 This is an attempt to bring daughters at par with sons who, under Vedic law, become coparceners in their fathers ancestral property as soon as they are born and could claim partition of their share in the ancestral property under the law.

The 2005 amendment was the culmination of a specific legal reform that began in the states, starting with Kerala in 1975, and by the time the HSAA was passed in Parliament, five states had made similar provisions giving daughters the same coparcenary rights as sons.2 The HSAA extended this at the national level and also sought to make the change applicable with retrospective effect.
In these days of social distancing, I find myself drawn to the comfort of coloring books. I brighten the smile of bunnies having a picnic and blush the lips of two kissers. I animate the empty streets of San Jose and burnish the beams of the Eiffel Tower. Coloring books give life to my hopes for socialization and travel and can make my broken world seem whole, even if its just on the page, just for one moment.

Im not alone. A recent New York Times article celebrated colorings ability to reduce anxieties (repetitive strokes provide temporary relief from life stressors, I tell myself over and over). Handsome Instagram people told me that its OK for grown-ups to color when stuck at home. Free coloring books are taking over the internet in this quarantine that comes and goes and seems to never end.

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My moment came when a bright ad for a coloring app stalked me online for days. I installed it and flipped through the gallery of black-and-white drawings, ready to turn my finger into a brush, an eraser, a spray bottle. I could do it anytime, which means I did it all the time. I pinched my fingers out to zoom in and stayed within the boundaries, obsessively removing the pixels that splashed over, like the crumbs on a kitchen counter after dinner, wondering whether such activity had real benefits or was just something that brought me a minute closer to when I no longer would have to color books.

As I buried myself in these projects, my thoughts eventually darkened, for reasons that may be familiar to anyone with some art-history training. What if the recent popularity of coloring books comes not from the creativity they purportedly inspire, but from the submission they induce? This, after all, has been their mission from the start. It may be lost to the fans of coloring books that their success peaked in the 19th century, when such publications taught children how to behave. And obedience seems to be what many of us crave in these pandemic days.

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Doesnt this sum up what coloring books are about: Stay within the lines?

The Little Folks Painting Bookoften described as the first coloring bookinvited one to paint the illustrations of songs and tales about the harms of waking up late, being selfish, or playing a trick on your well-mannered cousin. The last story of the book is particularly revealing. It is about a brother and sister who wish to fly away from their boring, secluded life and are magically held captive on flying carpets that take them on a journey that never ends, a Dantesque hell of punishment that comes with the warning: Never be discontented, never wish for anything you cannot have. Doesnt this sum up what coloring books are about: Stay within the lines?

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Historically, coloring has often been considered inferior to drawing. In Renaissance Florence, when artists dissected their differences as a way to show that they were not artisans but intellectuals mastering their craft, drawing was singled out as the artistic equivalent of thinking. Artists were expected to spend hours working out compositions because it is through themwhere to place figures? how to draw them?that they won praise.

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Coloring did matter. Reddening the cheeks of figures brought the miracle of life to a work of art. Yet colors were applied at a second stage, a lesser stage, as shown by a Leonardo da Vinci sketch of a hanged renegade, next to which he listed the dyes of his fur-trimmed outfit.

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Such bifurcation was not lost on Henry Peacham, author of The Compleat Gentleman of 1622, perhaps the first book to advertise the benefits of coloring. Peacham believed that a well-educated gentleman had to master drawing. Still, he also recommended spending time coloring, for the practice of the hand doth speedily instruct the mind, and strongly confirm the memory beyond anything else. Which is to say: Painting is a way not to invent but to learn and internalize. In particular, Peacham recommended painting maps as a way to learn capital cities and geopolitical boundaries (this at a time when borders were more violently contested than today). He promoted coloring as a way to accept a world assembled by rulers, and not just accept it but to yearn for it and delight in its preservation. Coloring was for him, as it was becoming to me, a means to maintain the political status quo.

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To color is to inhabit a world designed by others, to dwell in an environment where you are left with no options but to memorize what is already there. But I am in no need to be reminded of what a small, limited life feels like: I live it and am tired of it. I am even more tired of the tamed fantasies that coloring books want me to make my own. They are mostly consolatory, rather than empowering. In the early 1980s, we colored automobiles, the dreams of careerists. A few years ago, we colored Ryan Gosling, asking you out on a date. Today we color unicorns, campfires, and storefronts full of stuff.

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After days of coloring these diminutive dreams, I came to see the energy I spent on it as dimming my capacity to imagine how a future can be conceived and built. So I deleted my app. And if in these days of stillness and isolation you are offered a coloring book, my suggestion is: Rip it up and reassemble its fragments as a collage. That is the true artistic outlet for those who do not want to accept the world as it is but want to make it wildly anew without depleting its resources.

What if Dear Abby was an investigative reporter? Check out How To! on Apple Podcasts or listen below to hear Charles Duhigg take on listeners toughest problems and, with the help of experts, find the answers they need.
New Zealanders are hilariously mocking a critic who described their country as a 'hellhole' because of the country's strict response to the pandemic.

A Twitter account called No Lockdown cited New Zealand's second wave of coronavirus - after 102 days without community transmission - and the decision to reimpose restrictions for describing the nation as a 'hellhole'.

'You can't leave. And you can't easily have people in. And you're back in lockdown in major parts of the country. And the quarantine camps are public knowledge. Your country is a hellhole,' the person wrote in a comment.

But they were soon bombarded with hundreds of responses from defensive Kiwis who hijacked the post to share beautiful photos they've taken since lockdown started.

A Twitter account called No Lockdown cited New Zealand's second wave of coronavirus - after 102 days without community transmission - and the decision to reimpose restrictions for describing the nation as a 'hellhole'

They were bombarded with hundreds of comments from defensive Kiwis who hijacked the post to share beautiful photos they've taken since lockdown started

Using the hashtag #NZHellhole, Kiwis told the stubborn foreigner that they were quite enjoying being 'stuck' so far away from the rest of the world.

The photographs include trips to the beach, the mountains and dozens of hiking adventures, demonstrating just how many freedoms Kiwis have despite being in stage three or stage two lockdown - depending on their regions.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern reimposed a stage three lockdown in Auckland on August 11 after new cases of the virus were discovered.

Since then, New Zealand has consistently recorded low levels of community transmission and contact tracing is underway to determine where the virus originated.

The photographs include trips to the beach, the mountains and dozens of hiking adventures, demonstrating just how many freedoms Kiwis have despite being in stage three or stage two lockdown - depending on their regions

Auckland reentered a stage three lockdown from on August 11. Pictured: Police performing checks during the last lockdown

In spite of the threat of the virus, Kiwis have managed to lead relatively normal lives according to the photographs shared on the thread.

One New Zealander explained: 'Down here in New Zealand, we've had to endure the pretentious sunset and sunrise from our balconies and decks, from behind closed (or open) windows and isolated benches on our local beach  for weeks!

'The struggle is real, PLEASE, help us already! #nzhellhole'.

Another person used the post to comment on President Donald Trump's handling of COVID-19.

In spite of the threat of the virus, Kiwis have managed to lead relatively normal lives according to the photographs shared on the thread

'Soooo embarrassing living in a country where our leader sticks to an evidence based approach to fighting Covid. Why can't we have a bold, innovative, globally respected leader telling us all to drink bleach? #NZHellhole,' the post read.

'#NZHellhole disastrous morning: favourite cafe had sold out of my favourite cake, so I had to settle for a perfectly warmed berry Danish with my coffee while watching families & friends walk, cycle, scoot, skateboard down the slightly less busy than normal road. Oh the humanity,' another Kiwi Twitter user shared.

'Awful day here in the #NZHellhole. The Nelson Market was cancelled so had to get fresh-baked bread and organic sausages from the Farmers' Market instead. Off for a stroll in native bush this afternoon and maybe go to a movie. Oh the tyranny of this jackbooted regime,' another New Zealander posted.
Nicolas Maduro shakes hands with Iran's president Hassan Rouhani before a bilateral meeting in Baku in October 2019: Jhonn Zerpa/Venezuelan Presidency/AFP via Getty Images

It would be a good idea to look into purchasing missiles from Ian, Venezuelas president Nicolas Maduro has said, as the two countries expand trade relations under a joint banner of anti-US sentiment.

Ties between Caracas and Tehran have deepened in recent months as both regimes attempt to undermine aggressive US sanctions programmes.

And in May, Iranian tankers carried 1.53 million barrels of gasoline and alkylate gasoline to Venezuelan shores, in the most significant display yet of open defiance of Washington sanctions, amid a regular flow of supplies, technicians, businesspeople and officials.

Responding to Colombian allegations that his regime was now considering buying missiles from the Middle Eastern nation, Mr Maduro said: It had not occurred to me, it had not occurred to us.

Speaking during a televised broadcast with cabinet members on Saturday, he instructed defence minister Vladimir Padrino to follow the idea up, jokingly telling his ministers to keep the plan a secret.

Padrino, what a good idea, to speak with Iran to see what short, medium and long range missiles they have, and if it is possible, given the great relations we have with Iran.

On Thursday, Colombias president Ivan Duque cited intelligence reports showing that Mr Maduro is handing over weapons made in Russia and Belarus to Colombian armed groups.

The Colombian leader  who refers to Mr Maduro as a dictator and, along with more than 50 other nations, considers opposition leader Juan Guaido the nations president  has frequently accused him of protecting and supporting former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia rebel group and the still-active National Liberation Army guerrillas.

Mr Duque went further during a virtual event, saying: There is information from international intelligence organisms that work with us which shows there is interest from the dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro in acquiring some medium and long-range missiles through Iran.

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The information is that [the missiles] still havent arrived but there has been contact especially under instructions from Padrino.

Washington hawks reacted with alarm to the allegations.

Nicolas Maduros attempt to purchase missiles from Iran is a dangerous escalation, tweeted Florida senator Rick Scott. Iran and Chinas presence in Venezuela poses a threat to the safety and the future of our hemisphere. The United States and the world cannot allow it!

But weapons purchases appear relatively unlikely for Mr Maduro, whose government is struggling to buy basic food and medicine or to provide fuel to the population due sanctions as well as chronic dysfunction of the countrys refineries.

Venezuelas foreign minister had swiftly sought to rubbish the claims as anti-Venezuelan fiction.

In Colombia the massacres, unleashed violence, uncontrollable drug trafficking do not stop, Jorge Arreaza tweeted. Ivan Duque returns to infamies and anti-Venezuelan fiction to distract public opinion.

Additional reporting by Reuters

Read more

How the EU can get Venezuela out of political deadlock
Ryan Patrick, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, wasted no time in lauding the work of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Laredo for the seizure of more than $9 million in methamphetamine.

Along with the praise came a few words that could indicate what is happening at the border with meth seizures.

I don't know what the actual numbers are, but based on what I see reported publicly and at the office, Laredo may be ground zero for meth right now. CBP is doing a terrific job, Patrick said via Twitter.

Those words could well be true since Laredo is the largest shipping port that the United States has, even bigger than Los Angeles and New York. Legitimate merchandise comes back and forth to the United States and Mexico, said Timothy Tubbs, Homeland Security Investigations San Antonio Deputy Special Agent in Charge.

Because of that, it is what is considered ground zero on all illicit activities, Tubbs said. Thats one of the reasons we have such a large presence because we as Homeland Security Investigations, were charged with investigating not only narcotics but financial investigations, child exploitation, property rights, human smuggling, identity theft and even gang investigations.

In fiscal year 2019 alone, special agents affected more than 1,100 criminal arrests in the Laredo area, averaging three criminal arrests per day. These arrests include all criminal activity, including narcotics, Tubbs said.

One of the areas that were looking at strongly is the methamphetamine, he said.

Long-term investigations

Regarding the more than $9 million in meth seized at the World Trade Bridge, HSI special agents continue investigating the smuggling attempt.

The case unfolded Aug. 10, when CBP officers referred a 2009 Kenworth tractor with a shipment of acrylic polymers to secondary inspection. Further K-9 and X-ray inspection resulted in the seizure of 474.17 pounds of meth with an estimated street value of $9,483,307.

No arrest was reported, but Tubbs said HSI does not look at criminal arrests based on one seizure. Instead, authorities look forward to conducting investigations that could take up to one year or more to target and dismantle the criminal organization.

When we conduct these long-term, complex criminal investigations, our mission is to identify the entire organization and dismantle the organization so it could no longer operate, Tubbs said. We do make individual arrests along the way related to the investigation, but our long-term goal is to indict everybody involved and criminally prosecute these individuals and, at the end of the day, take away the illicit gains that they have gained from the illicit activity.

READ MORE: U.S. citizens and residents visiting Mexico may face longer lines, questioning, upon return

Several transnational criminal organizations or cartels are behind the meth smuggling attempts. Their intentions are not just to cross the meth to Laredo but to deliver it to Dallas, Houston, Chicago and New York, among other big cities, according to HSI.

Should these narcotics make it to their destinations, the consequences could be dangerous. A Drug Enforcement Administration fact sheet states that meth is highly addictive. It can cause the following:

Agitation, increased heart rate and blood pressure.

Increased respiration and body temperature.

Anxiety, paranoia.

High doses can cause convulsions, cardiovascular collapse, stroke or death.

Tubbs encouraged the community to report suspicious activity by calling 1-866-DHS-2-ICE or visiting ice.gov.

If you see something, please report it, he said.

Nationwide

CBP spokesman Rick Pauza said CBP has experienced a significant increase in seized methamphetamine not only in Laredo but nationwide.

National meth seizure stats show that fiscal year 2020 seizures have nearly doubled so far compared to fiscal year 2019:

Fiscal year 2019: 68,585 pounds.

Fiscal year 2020 to date: 118,153 pounds.

We attribute the trend to significant supply, demand and the dedication of our frontline officers, and their effective application of inspection skills, experience and high tech tools and canine partners to interdict these dangerous drugs, Pauza said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 10:50:07|Editor: huaxia

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by Che Hongliang, Khin Zar Thwe

YANGON, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar looks forwards to further developing agricultural trade with China, which in turn would further benefit the agriculture and farmers of the Southeast Asian nation, a senior agriculture official told Xinhua in a recent interview.

It will be a great help to the farmers if more agricultural products can be exported to China -- our largest trade partner, said Ye Tint Tun, director general of Agriculture Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation.

Myanmar earned over 3.3 billion U.S. dollars from agricultural exports in the first 10 months of the present fiscal year 2019-2020 which started in October, accounting for 22 percent of the total exports, according to figures released by the commerce ministry.

As the agricultural sector plays a very important role in Myanmar, which accounts for more than 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), the government has attached great importance to its development and valued the cooperation with other countries including China.

The existing cooperation between Myanmar and China in agriculture under the framework of Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) has proven to be helpful to Myanmar as the LMC Special Fund has continued to support agricultural projects in the country for the past three years, said Ye Tint Tun.

Those projects supported by the LMC Special Fund have helped advance the productivity and quality of fruits, vegetables and other agricultural products and thus brought the benefit to local farmers, he said.

"We find the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation quite effective and it is appreciable to see that the cooperation has a direct impact on farmers," said the official.

He believed that Lancang-Mekong countries including Myanmar will maintain a sustainable agricultural system and the production capacity of agricultural products will be strengthened under the LMC framework.

Myanmar appreciates the assistance from the LMC and hopes the LMC leaders' meeting will include programs which can create a good market for local agricultural products of regional countries and provide more technical assistance, said Ye Tint Tun.

With accelerating efforts in developing agriculture, Myanmar has made progress in ensuring food safety in the local market while boosting market opportunities abroad, as well as promoting agricultural mechanization.

As Myanmar and China enjoy "Paukphaw" (fraternal) friendship, Myanmar is willing to have more cooperation with China in agriculture and will appreciate more assistance extended by its neighboring nation, said Ye Tint Tun. Enditem
By Akbar Mammadov

The Armenian authorities hamper the dialogue between the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities of the Nagorno-Karabakh region they have been occupying.

Head of Nagorno-Karabakhs Azerbaijani community has said that Armenia has been rejecting the communitys proposal for the dialogue for many years now.

"The political leadership of Armenia, which has raised Azerbaijanophobia to the level of state policy, not only hinders this proposal for the dialogue but even shamelessly denies the existence of the Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh, Ganjaliyev said.

Ganjaliyevs made the remarks in response to Armenian Ambassador to Israel Armen Smbatyans statement that he supported establishing contacts between the Azerbaijani and Armenian peoples.

Ganjaliyev described Smbaytans statement as hypocrisy reminding that Armenia is the one refusing the dialogue.

If Smbatyan is really in favor of a dialogue between the two peoples, then let him support the proposal of the Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh, Ganjaliyev said.

Ganjaliyev added that the statement of the ambassador of aggressor Armenia, which occupied the territories of Azerbaijan and subjected more than a million of our compatriots to ethnic cleansing, that the settlement of the conflict depends not on us, but on the OSCE Minsk Group is another manifestation of his country's efforts to avoid responsibility."

Furthermore, Ganjaliyev reminded that the reason for the conflicts existence is the Armenian troops illegal presence in Azerbaijan.

"With the withdrawal of Armenia's army from our occupied territories, relations between the two peoples may be easily restored, the MP said.

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.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France has been mediating the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict since the signing of the volatile cease-fire agreement in 1994. The Minsk Groups efforts have resulted in no progress and to this date, Armenia has failed to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884) that demand the withdrawal of Armenian military forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

It should be noted that recently Armenia stepped up its military provocation not only on the line of contact along the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is the main source of tension but also on the state border with Azerbaijan. On July 12, Armenian forces shelled Azerbaijan's positions in Tovuz, Azerbaijan's strategically-important district on the border. The Armenian attack killed 12 Azerbaijani servicemen, including an army general, as well as a 76-year-old civilian. Armenian forces retreated after suffering losses in Azerbaijan's retaliation.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Well-wishers have raised more than 5,000 for the family of a father-of-two and off-duty police officer who died after falling from a jet-ski off the Welsh coast.

PC Barry Davies, 49, was pulled from the water off the coast of his hometown, Pwellheli, North Wales, last Saturday.

Emergency services carried out 'extensive medical intervention,' on the father-of-two, but he could not be saved.

The North Wales Police officer and RNLI volunteer had saved 21 lives since he joined the lifeboat charity in 2007.

His RNLI colleagues joined the tragic rescue mission and said it had been 'harrowing' to try and save one of their own.

PC Barry Davies, 49, died after falling from his jet ski off the coast of his hometown of Pwllheli last Saturday

The father-of-two's RNLI colleagues said it was 'harrowing,' to be called out to search for one of its own volunteers off the North Wales coast

Clive Moore, Coxswain at Pwllheli RNLI, added: 'This was a particularly difficult and harrowing service for all involved.

'Nothing prepares you for losing one of your own crew members and has deeply affected everyone here at the station.'

North Wales Police said they are now investigating the cause of the tragedy which happened in Barry's hometown of Pwllheli, North Wales, at around 4.30pm on Saturday.

In a tribute, his heartbroken family said: 'It is very difficult to put in to words what Barry meant to us all. He was extremely popular and a true gentleman, remaining calm in all situations that life threw at him.

'He worked so hard to become a police officer, a job that he loved and was dedicated to. He also took great pleasure in being an RNLI crewman and karate instructor.

'He lived his life to the full, spending precious and quality time with his partner and two daughters.

'He was a beloved son, loving partner, doting father, caring brother and a dear friend and colleague to all that were blessed to know him.

A statement on the gofundme page says: 'It is with great sadness we mourn the loss of our friend and colleague, PC 2963 Barry Davies who tragically lost his life on Saturday, August 15.

A fundraising page was set up to raise money for 'much loved' Barry's family and has reached more than 5,000 of donations.

PC Davies' family say he 'was a beloved son, loving partner, doting father, caring brother and a dear friend and colleague to all that were blessed to know him'

A statement on the page says: 'Barry was a widely respected and much loved colleague and his absence leaves a huge void to North Wales Police and the communities he served.

'Barry is survived by his partner Linda and his two daughters, Elan and Alaw.

'We are raising funds in Barry's memory and invite donations for this cause..'

Chief Constable Carl Foulkes said: 'Barry joined North Wales Police in 2013.. He was a much respected Police Officer and I have no doubt that this tragic loss will be felt widely across the force by those who worked with Barry, those who knew him and became his friends.

'The North Wales Police family is doing everything we can to provide support and comfort to Barry's loved ones and his colleagues at what is a very difficult time.'
Louisiana residents were ordered on Sunday to evacuate low-lying coastal areas as back-to-back hurricanes were forecast to bring strong winds and rain, striking the state within days of one another this week.

Tropical Storm Marco, which is forecast to hit the Louisiana coast with hurricane-force winds on Monday, will be followed by Storm Laura, now over the Dominican Republic and expected to travel across Hispaniola and Cuba and strengthen to a hurricane before striking Louisiana on Thursday.

Twin hurricanes arriving at the U.S. coast within days could result in a prolonged period of hazardous weather," National Hurricane Center forecaster Stacy Stewart warned on Sunday.

Officials in Louisianas coastal Lafourche Parish ordered a mandatory evacuation for residents of low-lying areas at noon on Sunday. The U.S. Coast Guard also raised its warning for the Port of New Orleans, calling for ships to make plans to evacuate some areas.

The potential for flooding and evacuations added to worries about the spread of COVID-19. Tulane University, the largest private employer in New Orleans, said it will close its testing center on Monday due to potential flooding and power outages and called on students to maintain social distancing guidelines.

In Grand Isle, at the states southern tip, authorities were placing sandbags to bolster its protective levy while energy companies continued to pull workers from offshore platforms and shut production in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico wells.

Oil producers including BP, Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell had shut 13% of the regions offshore oil production on Saturday. The region accounts for 17% of total U.S. oil production and 5% of U.S. natural gas output.

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
(Adds reaction and background on plasma)

By Nandita Bose and Aram Roston

Aug 23 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Sunday hailed FDA authorization of a coronavirus treatment that uses blood plasma from recovered patients, a day after accusing the agency of impeding the rollout of vaccines and therapeutics for political reasons.

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) announcement of its "emergency use authorization" of the treatment came on the eve of the Republican National Convention, where Trump will be nominated to lead his party for four more years.

"This is what I've been looking to do for a long time," Trump told an unusually brief White House news conference. "Today I'm pleased to make a truly historic announcement in our battle against the China virus that will save countless lives."

The FDA, explaining its decision, cited early evidence suggesting blood plasma can decrease mortality and improve the health of patients when administered in the first three days of their hospitalization.

The agency also said it determined this was a safe approach in an analysis of 20,000 patients who received the treatment. So far, 70,000 patients have been treated using blood plasma, the FDA said.

"It appeared that the product is safe and we're comfortable with that and we continue to see no concerning safety signals," Peter Marks, director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, told reporters in a conference call.

A day before the FDA's announcement, Trump tagged the agency's Commissioner Stephen Hahn in a Twitter post in which he said, "The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics." "Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives!"

Trump is looking to boost his lagging poll numbers during the Republican convention this week, and progress in treatments or an effective vaccine to gain control of the virus would aid his re-election chances.

At least 5,686,377 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the United States, according to a Reuters tally, and more than 176,000 Americans have died.

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Michael Steele, who served as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2009 to 2011, said the Trump administration was putting politics ahead of science.

"This is not about good science or even your health, its about his re-election," Steele wrote on Twitter.

Plasma is the element of blood that carries water, enzymes and blood cells throughout the body. It also carries the antibodies humans form to fight off disease and boost immunity.

COVID-19 patients have been receiving convalescent plasma for several months through clinical trials at medical centers such as New York's Mount Sinai Hospital and Johns Hopkins.

Supplies of plasma are limited because they require that a recovered COVID-19 patient donate blood and that it matches the blood type of the recipient. Reuters reported that COVID-19 plasma supplies are dwindling, with the American Red Cross saying its stockpile of plasma for COVID-19 patients declined 70% in July.

U.S. regulators provided emergency authorization for Gilead Science Inc's remdesivir as a therapeutic treatment for COVID-19 earlier this year. Reuters reported that a senior administration official said therapeutic drugs that are being studied specifically for COVID-19 could be authorized for use and making doses by fall.

The White House declined to comment on a separate report in the Financial Times that the administration is considering fast-tracking an experimental COVID-19 vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca Plc and Oxford University for use in the United States ahead of the Nov. 3 elections.

One option being explored would involve the FDA awarding emergency use authorization in October to the potential vaccine, which was developed by Oxford and licensed to AstraZeneca, the FT reported https://www.ft.com/content/b053f55b-2a8b-436c-8154-0e93dcdb3c1a, citing people briefed on the plan.

A spokeswoman for AstraZeneca denied the company had discussed an emergency use authorization for its potential vaccine with the U.S. government and said it would be premature to speculate on that possibility.

The company said the late-stage Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials for its vaccine candidate are still ongoing in Britain and other markets globally and that it did not anticipate efficacy results until later this year.

There are no approved vaccines for COVID-19, but AstraZeneca's shot, called AZD1222, is widely seen as one of the leading candidates.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington, Carl O'Donnell in New York, and Shubham Kalia and Bhargav Acharya in Bengaluru; Writing by Phil Stewart and David Lawder; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Daniel Wallis and Diane Craft)
Veteran actor Dilip Kumars brothers wife, Saira Banu, said that his brother, Ehsan Khan, is struggling in the ICU after testing positive for Covid-19 earlier this month. The actors other brother, Aslam Khan, who had also tested positive for the virus, died on Friday morning.

In an interview with The Times of India, Saira Banu said that the family was finding it difficult to process the news of Aslam Khans demise. It is so unfortunate that Aslam bhai succumbed to the Coronavirus; we really dont know how to cope with this loss. May Allah rest him in peace, she said, adding that Ehsan Khan continues to remain critical. Pray for Ehsan bhai, whos struggling in the ICU. Hes breathless. I hope he goes back home fine.

Saira Banu clarified that Dilip Kumars brothers, Aslam and Ehsan, did not stay with him but with their sister Farida. I am saying this because after hearing that Ehsan bhai and Aslam bhai had been infected with coronavirus, several people started calling me to ask about Dilip saabs health; they thought Ehsan bhai and Aslam bhai stayed with us. Let me tell you I havent moved out of home for the past five months ever since the (still on-going) pandemic engulfed us, she said.

Also read | The Batman teaser: Robert Pattinsons Dark Knight brings the vengeance against unrecognisable Colin Farrell. Watch

Ehsan Khan, 90, is currently undergoing treatment at the Lilavati hospital in Mumbai. Dr Jalil Parkar from the hospital had earlier told Hindustan Times, They have been kept in ICU but we havent intubated them as yet. Considering their age and pre-condition health issues like diabetes and hypertension, we have to be extra careful while treating them.

Dilip Kumar was last seen on the big screen in Qila in 1998. He was honoured with Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1994 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015. In a career spanning five decades, he acted in iconic films such as Devdas, Mughal-e-Azam and Naya Daur.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
By Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She is currently writing a book about textile artisans.Water

The state of Michigan announced Thursday its settlement of class action claims arising from the contamination of drinking water in the city of Flint with toxic lead.

The headline payout amount is $600 million, but the exact amount to be divided up among those harmed will only be known when legal feesand other costs have been deducted. For the purposes of this post, lets assume that the contingent payment for the lawyers on the side of the plaintiffs will be the standard 1/3 (which I will discuss more fully below). There are also other legal costs; yet since I have no idea what those are, I will ignore them and only mention them here as they mean there may be less than $400 million to divvy up. As Im only doing a rough calculation here, lets move on and divide up $400 million:

The settlement amount has been heavily rriticized for being too small, according to Bloombergs report, Michigan Settles Flint Water Litigation for $600 Million (2):

The final fund amount still faced public criticism of being too small for one of the nations highest-profile incidents of widespread chemical exposure. While I support todays class-action settlement for the victims of the water crisis, there will never be a number that adequately recognizes the harm done to Flint families, Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) said in a statement. . The plaintiffs attorneys pushed for a higher payout but were rebuffed by the state, said Michael Pitt, founding member of Pitt, McGehee, Palmer, Bonanni & Rivers P.C. We should never let the perfect be in the way of the good, he said at a Thursday news conference. I dont think we left any real money on the table, honestly.

Now, according to the Detroit News, Heres how Flint families will get paid in water crisis settlement:

So far, 33,459 people have filed a claim or intend to bring a claim, according to Attorney General Dana Nessels office. But the number is expected to grow as people discern whether they qualify under the settlement terms. If the $600 million settlement were divided equally among Flints roughly 100,000 residents, each would receive $6,000. But that is not the way the agreed-upon settlement will work.

Note that the Detroit News account does not consider attorneys fees- which as we shall see below, will be substantial.

If the $400 million were equally allocated among the 33,000 victims who have filed so far, that would allow for a payment of roughly 12,000 each. The actual Flint payout formula is heavily weighted toward younger victims and as to them, the amount they can expect to receive is more generous  exactly how much more per victim depends on the number of the youngest victims. Of the 100,000 Flint residents at the time of the water crisis, roughly 30,3000 were minors.

According to the Detroit Free Press, Flint water crisis legal settlement totals $600M, creates victim compensation fund:

About 65% of the money would go to Flint residents who were 6 and under when first exposed to lead in Flint water, with 10% going to those who were between the ages of 7 and 11 and 5% to those who were 12 to 17. About 15% would go to adults, 3% for property damage, and 0.5% to cover business losses.

And the settlement also includes amounts for those who may later file claims, per the same source:

About $35 million would be placed in trust for forgotten children who do not file claims within the required time frame, so they are able to file claims once they become adults.

Plaintiffs counsel says, according to Bloomberg:

The vast majority of the money is not going to some amorphous class action; the vast majority is going to children who were the most at risk of neurological damage, Hunter Shkolnik, senior partner with Napoli Shkolnik PLLC and class negotiating counsel on the case, said in an interview.

As I noted, exactly how much depends on the number of young victims, not only those who have filed lawsuits but also those who have yet to come forward. The settlement pool seems to be 90% of $400 million (ignoring costs, but allowing for the standard 1/3 contingent attorney payout), or $360 million. The portion for minors is 80%, or $320 million, and of which there are roughly 30,000 at the time of the water crisis. I have not been able to determine how many of these fall into that youngest category, and thus qualify for 65% of the settlement to receive the biggest payout.

But what amount of compensation is adequate to compensate for permanent brain damage, which will stay with some victims for the rest of their lives?

Just to place this amount in perspective, lets compare it to the $333 million, 2008 Hinkley settlement with PG &E, which you may already be familiar with whether you know it or not, as this is the event upon which the movie Erin Brockovich was based. In that case, I understand the contingency fee to the lawyers was 40% of the total payout> There is great dissatisfaction over that settlement as well, especially the lawyers share, according to this Guardian account, Poisoned town condemns its movie-heroine lawyer. But the bottom line is that each victim, sepecially the most severely affected, seems to have received much more than will be paid out in Flint.

According to The Guardian:

Under their agreement with with Ed Masry (who is played in the film by Albert Finney) and two other law firms, the lawyers received 40 per cent of the settlement, or $133m. That should have left $196m for the victims, or roughly $300,000 each. But many have received $100,000 or less, and neither PG&E nor the lawyers will release records of their accounting. Carol Smiths husband, who had 17 tumours removed from his throat, received only $80,000. An elderly resident in the town was awarded $25,000. Ron Gonzales, who grew up next to the plant and suffers skin problems, says that he initially received only $100,000, a sum that was doubled after he complained to Masry. His sister, who had most of her cancerous lower intestine removed, received about $2m. Gonzales charges that Masry and Brockovich advised residents not to appeal against their pay-outs.

The Hinkley harm was over a longer period, although I dont know what we can say about whether it was more or less severe. Lead is lead and seriously damages developing brains, and is very bit as debilitating as cancer caused by groundwater contamination.

Additional Litigation

This settlement does not close out all ongoing Flint-related litigation. According to the Detroit Free Press,

Litigation would continue against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and private firms that were involved in the tragic switch of Flints drinking water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River. Those firms include environmental consultant Veolia North America, which advised the city of Flint on water quality issues, and engineering firm Lockwood, Andrews & Newman, involved in preparing the Flint Water Treatment Plant to treat water from the Flint River.

Bloomberg elaborates:

While the settlement resolves the states liability, the plaintiffs attorneys promised broader litigation isnt over. There are still hundreds of suits seeking damages from two engineering firms that gave advice to the state, and claims that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mismanaged the public health crisis. The settlement is welcome news, but I have said from the very beginning that the demand for justice will not be satisfied until every person who had a hand in poisoning my city be held legally accountable, regardless of political position or power, state Senate minority leader Jim Ananich (D), who represents Flint and Genesee counties, said in a tweet.

Fees for Plaintiffs Attorneys

Now, some of the news accounts have emphasised the large amount of the settlement that will go to fees for plaintiffs attorneys. Take the account in the Detroit Free Press as representative,

Attorney fees and costs would be deducted from the $600 million, leaving a lesser amount for distribution. Attorneys expect to be fairly compensated, but it is too soon to say what those fees and costs will be, Pitt said. Attorney contingency fees vary, depending on the case, but it is not unusual for them to amount to one-third of a settlement amount.

Lets consider The Detroit News account, which provides more detail:

The cut of the settlement that will go to the 20 to 30 lawyers involved in the lawsuits for the past five years will be determined by Federal Judge Judith Levy, but Leopold said the portion will be significant and substantial.

Note that Judge Levy has yet to sign off on the settlement. Per the Detroit News:

Levy will review all the issues, gripes and details of the settlement plan and decide whether the deal is fair and reasonable and in the best interest of the Flint community in the next 45 days, Pitt said.

Bloomberg reports:

The settlement spells an unknown massive payday for myriad attorneys involved in the litigation. Shkolnik said contingency fee arrangements in the case mean attorneys could be entitled to roughly one-third of the settlement, or $200 million. However, he said he expects the court to reduce these fees in order to increase payouts for Flint residents. Michigan officials didnt immediately respond to requests for comment about the size of the attorneys award.

Lets do a rough calculation, and assume the attorneys pot will be $200 million, or the regular 1/3 share. And that it will be divided equally 30 ways- although I appreciate this is a ridiculous assumption, as these things dont work that way. But this is only a back of the envelope calculation. So 30 attorneys into $200 million comes out as roughly $7 million each. Which certainly seems a generous payday. Even for many if not most lawyers and for 5-6 years of work.

But I dont think its necessarily excessively so, particularly for an attorney at an advanced stage of his or her career. (We should mention as an aside that there are also costs involved and they come off the top or out of the lawyers share and might therefore reduce that $200 million amount; I just cant hazard a viable estimate of what that amount might be.)

Now, some things for us also to consider.These news accounts dont highlight what it means when attorneys take a case on contingency. Meaning they do not get paid unless they win a trial or secure a settlement. Not all lawsuits are winners. Far from it, even when plaintiffs have a strong legal claim. Lawyers for the plaintiffs must also front all litigation costs  whether they win or not. And the amount they get for successful outcomes must subsidize all the other cases they take on that dont result in any payouts.

I dont deny that these lawyers seem to have made out well here  assuming the judge approves a 1/3 or similarly generous contingency share. Yet what Im also saying is that for every eye-popping contingency award you see, there are plenty of lawyers who swing for the fences with class action litigation  and end up whiffing. They get no contingent payout for that or even any case.

Is it a great system? No. It stinks actually. But its what we have. Id prefer a system that adequately funded the Environmental Protection Agency, and state environmental protection bureaus. Not only for litigation, because thats a terrible, post hoc way of cleaning up messes, and only determines who pays for environmental depredations after the fact. Id prefer there to be large numbers of scientists, testers, agency officials who make sure that lead doesnt get into the water of Flint or dangerous chemicals out into the environment in the first place.

That includes paid teams of attorneys a decent, regular wage, to help regulate what goes into our environment, rather than relying on those who prosper from the crapshoot of an occasional settlement or winning jury verdict (that stands up on appeal).

And while Im dreaming, how about an environmental law regime that embodies the precautionary principle  meaning you couldnt use something unless you could prove it didnt cause damage. Rather than the system we have where for the most part its up to the plaintiff to prove that it did. Not to mention that the vagaries of environmental legal decision-making depend on the people who oversee and staff the EPA. The current EPA falls short of what it could be, and although Trumps minions have plumbed some new lows, both parties share the blame for environmental policy.

I also point out that these news accounts never, ever tell you what white collar defense lawyers receive for their work. They get paid whether they win or not. In so many of these class action cases, we never hear how much the defense team made, which was distributed in regular payouts. We instead focus our outrage on the payout to plaintiffs laywers for the compensation they receive for being on the right side of a winning case.
Most importantly, said Dr. Peter Winkelstein, the executive director of the University at Buffalo Institute for Healthcare Informatics, a range of activities  from dining to working out to social events to school  are returning indoors as the weather grows colder. While scientists still disagree to what extent Covid-19 follows seasonal patterns, studies demonstrate that people are vastly more likely to contract the virus indoors, where they usually cluster more tightly and where airborne particles can linger.

Typically pandemics have a second wave, said Daniel J. Stapleton, Niagara Countys public health director. Thats what happened in 1918, and the second wave was more destructive and catastrophic than the first wave."

Epidemiologists and other local health care leaders generally agree the numbers will tick up, though its not at all clear theyll rise to the levels the region saw in March or April. Winkelstein, who has modeled the potential course of the pandemic for the Erie County Department of Health, said the region is likely to see a series of ripples in the fall, as small outbreaks occur and contact tracers mobilize to suppress them.
Congress chief ministers, state units and senior leaders rallied in support of the Gandhi family on Sunday and urged Rahul Gandhi to take the reins without delay after a section of the party wrote to interim chief Sonia Gandhi and sought an overhaul of the organisation,complaining of drift and uncertainty in the leadership.

The also termed as unfortunate a move by this group of party leaders to challenge the Gandhi family leadership ahead of the crucial Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting on Monday. The development has exposed a deep divide in the grand old party on the leadership issue.

Congress chief ministers Amarinder Singh (Punjab), Ashok Gehlot (Rajasthan), Bhupesh Baghel (Chhattisgarh) and V Narayanasamy (Puducherry ), state unit chiefs DK Shivakumar (Karnataka), Balasaheb Thorat (Maharashtra), Anil Kumar (Delhi), KS Alagiri (Tamil Nadu) and Ripun Bora (Assam), Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Choudhary, former union ministers Salman Khurshid and Ashwani Kumar, Youth Congress chief Srinivas BV, Lok Sabha MP Manickam Tagore and former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah all backed the Gandhi family, urging Sonia Gandhi to stay on until Rahul Gandhi is ready to take charge once again.

Rahul Gandhi resigned in May 2019, taking responsibility for the Congresss rout in general elections, and Sonia Gandhi reluctantly became interim chief.

Opposing the bid to challenge the Gandhi family leadership, Captain Amarinder Singh said this was not the time to raise such an issue.

The move by these Congress leaders to demand a rehaul of the party at this critical juncture would be detrimental to its interests, and the interests of the nation. What the Congress needs is a leadership that is acceptable not just to a few but to the entire party, through its rank and file, and the nation at large, he said, adding that the Gandhis fitted the role.

Sonia Gandhi should continue to helm the Congress as long as she wants, he said, adding that Rahul Gandhi should thereafter take over as he is fully capable of leading the party.

Gehlot termed the letter written by the 23 party leaders to Sonia Gandhi as unfortunate and said the Gandhi family has kept the party united.

News of 23 senior most Congress leaders writing letter to Honble CP is unbelievable and if it is true - its very unfortunate, was no need to go in media. I strongly believe that Honble CP Smt Sonia Gandhi ji should continue to lead the party at this crucial juncture where the fight is to save the ethos of our Democracy. She has always taken challenges head on. But if she has made up her mind,-I believe @RahulGandhi should come ahead and be the Congress President as country faces the biggest challenge to save our Constitution,Democracy, he tweeted.

The Chhattisgarh chief minister wrote a letter to Rahul Gandhi, urging him to return as the party chief. Honble Sonia ji and Rahul ji are the ray of hope for us in every challenge. We are all with you. Millions of party workers and people of Chhattisgarh and the entire nation are with you, Baghel wrote on Twitter.

I saw the news in some newspapers that ex Congressmen wanted overhaul and changes in Congress party This kind of statement will create confusion in the minds of millions of Congress men This a ploy by BJP to divert attention of people from Facebook controversy, the Puducherry chief minister tweeted, referring to a report in Wall Street Journal that Facebook had favoured a soft approach towards hate speech by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politicians .

Siddaramaiah tweeted, It is unfortunate that the leadership of Gandhi family is being questioned by few. In these difficult times of undeclared emergency and attack on democracy by BJP, we should collectively strive to strengthen Congress and not weaken it.

Ashwani Kumar and Salman Khurshid spoke against elections to the party presidents post and favoured a consensus. They argued that elections would be divisive.

Thorat described Rahul Gandhi as a courageous, sensitive and intellectually committed leader and demanded that he lead the party.

He said Sonia Gandhi should continue to lead the Congress as its interim president until Rahul Gandhi takes over as the full-time president.

With due respect to Rahuljis sentiments, we would like to say, Come Back, Rahulji. Under your leadership, we will be the voice of millions of Indians, we are determined to make history. This is not only the need of the Congress party but the need of the entire country as well, said Thorat.

The Delhi Congress, after an emergency meeting. adopted a resolution demanding Rahul Gandhis return as the partys chief without delay.

The meeting, presided over by the Delhi unit chief, noted that some senior leaders going public with their call for a change in the leadership had given ammunition to Congress opponents to mount an attack on the party, demoralising its cadre.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said hes tipping President Trump to defeat Joe Biden in a landslide victory this November.

The 77-year-old made the declaration of confidence during an interview with Fox News on Saturday night, assuring viewers the chances of Trump retaining his role as commander-in-chief are looking very good.

Im predicting that it will be a dramatically bigger victory than people currently expect, he told the network.

Gingrich, of Georgia, also says he believes Trumps victory is now slowly beginning to build.

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The 77-year-old made the confident declaration during an interview with Fox News on Saturday night, assuring viewers the chances of Trump retaining his role as commander-in-chief are looking very good

Im predicting that it will be a dramatically bigger victory than people currently expect, Gingrich said of Trump's chances against Biden

The controversial former politician made the comments in reference to the Democratic Convention.

Gingrich said that when the GOP gathers this week at the Republican Convention, the partly only needs to continue pointing out their differences to Democrats to bolster Trumps chances.

We don't have to want to make stuff up. We don't have to invent some post office phony scandal. We just have to tell the truth about how radical these people are, Gingrich said.

The former speaker said voters need only to look at places such as Chicago, Seattle, and Portland - large cities run by Democrats - which have been experiencing chaos in abundance in recent months.

Rioting every day for 90 days that begins to be a fact. And it was very interesting to me that neither [Joe] Biden nor [Kamala] Harris was willing to say a word about Antifa, [not] a word about a level of crime, Gingrich said.

You know, [we] have the mayor of Chicago announcing that she's going to have police on her own personal street because she wants her family to be safe. But good luck to the rest of the city, he added. Well, I think this stuff sinks in at a level of reality that even NBC News can't cover up.

Gingrich served as the 50th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999, before resigning from his post amid increasing pressure spurred by a series of ethical violations

Gingrich, a long-serving Fox News contributor, also blasted the Biden campaign and his historic Vice President pick Kamala Harris, saying the duo stand no chance of winning.

He called Harris the most radical member of the Senate based on voting, which means she's to the left of [Bernie] Sanders and the left of Elizabeth Warren. I mean, you know how hard that is.

Second, shes a terrible performer, he added.

Gingrich did, however, conceded that he though Biden gave the best speech of his career during the DNC, but he believes his lead in the polls is not going to last.

I say to myself, when people get to know them better, just as happened with George McGovern in 1972, they're going to say, You know, ... I don't think so. I just I can't vote for you.

Gingrich, a long-serving Fox News contributor, also blasted the Biden campaign and his historic Vice President pick Kamala Harris, saying the duo stand no chance of winning

Last week, Gingrich told the network that he though Kamala Harris was the most anti-Catholic bigot to be on the national ticket in modern times.

He also urged president Trump to embrace, embellish upon, and emphasize again and again Bidens themes of light and darkness during his DNC closing speech.

Let the American people decide where the darkness is and who is creating it, Gingrich wrote, referencing the on-going Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, among other cities.

Gingrich served as the 50th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999, before resigning from his post amid increasing pressure spurred by a series of ethical violations.
BUFFALO  According to Wyoming Department of Agriculture statistics, 34,000 sheep and lambs call Johnson County home. They outnumber the countys human population four to one.

For every lamb born, another is sent away to be slaughtered and processed at plants like the Mountain States Rosen lamb processing facility in Greeley, Colorado. It is all a part of the Johnson County circle of life.

Now the circle could be disrupted. With JBS USA Holdings  one of the countrys Big Four meatpackers  acquiring the Mountain States Rosen facility and threatening to discontinue lamb slaughter and processing, the lamb processing capacity of the United States could be cut by nearly 20%. This means there could be nearly 350,000 more lambs nationwide than existing processing plants can handle.

Matt Rabel works with his uncle Jim Forbes at Forbes, Rabel and McGivney Rambouillets selling stud rams, range rams and ewe lambs. He said that the sale of Mountain States Rosen to JBS has caused uncertainty that has reverberated through every corner of the local sheep industry.

The sale is a huge concern for anybody in the sheep industry, Rabel said. MSR had 20% of the kill capacity in the United States, so the effect it will have on local ranchers is directly proportional. There is no other plant close by that can absorb that 20%. The number of lambs that can be processed will dramatically fall, which means producers will have to feed longer and try to transfer their lambs to another place if there even is one. It just causes huge uncertainty about where those lambs will go, or if they will be able to go anywhere at all.

The sale and subsequent cessation of lamb processing capabilities at Mountain States Rosen couldnt come at a worse time for the sheep industry, which has been rocked in recent months by the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 50% of the lamb consumed in the United States is eaten at a restaurant, local rancher Mike Curutchet told the Bulletin earlier this year, and that industry has experienced more than a 75% decline in sales since the middle of March.

Like cattle and hog producers, sheep ranchers experienced a price collapse during the pandemic. Unlike the beef and pork businesses, though, the sheep industry had already lost well over half its market share to foreign products, and that looks likely to continue if JBS is allowed to convert the lamb processing facility to ground beef processing, according to Shaun Sims, Wyoming Board of Agriculture chairman and a sheep rancher near Evanston.

If this happens, its going to have a huge impact on the lamb industry in the near and long term, Sims said. It would take many years to replicate that plant, and in the meantime, the foreign markets would step in to fill the gap.

JBS has publicly stated that the Mountain States Rosen plant will be converted to a ground beef processing plant.

The company also indicated that it plans to fill the gap in lamb processing with imported lamb from their plants in countries like Australia and New Zealand, Sims said.

The MSR plant, which was the second-largest lamb and sheep slaughter facility nationwide, was owned by a cooperative of 149 sheep ranching families in 11 Western states. The cooperative bought the processing plant four and a half years ago from JBS after JBS announced that it intended to stop processing lambs there.

Facing financial struggles brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, MSR was forced into bankruptcy. On July 16, Wyomings bankruptcy court heard arguments and purchasing offers from both JBS and Greeley Fab, a new company partially composed of members of the MSR co-op.

JBS was awarded the right to purchase the plant for $14.25 million. Greeley Fab fell short with an offer of $14.05 million.

Back in Wyoming, local politicians arent accepting the sale without a fight. Gov. Mark Gordon, himself a Johnson County rancher, wrote a July 30 letter to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue opposing the sale to JBS.

As a businessperson, today I see a giant getting bigger; as a rancher, I wonder where my neighbors will take their lambs; as a father, I worry for those next generations; and as Governor, I worry about what this loss means to our state and our producers as a whole, Gordon wrote.

Sims and the board of agriculture also wrote an Aug. 1 letter to Perdue, asking for the secretarys intervention.

This is bad news for American agriculture, American consumers and ultimately our national security, Sims wrote.

In an Aug. 7 letter to Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim, Johnson County Commission Chairman Bill Novotny urged the Department of Justice to investigate JBS for antitrust violations and market manipulation.

JBS is the largest importer of lamb in the United States, Novotny wrote. Eliminating the processing capacity at MSR will enable JBS to further manipulate the American lamb market to its advantage much to the detriment of American consumers and producers.  Americas ability to provide a safe, reliable source of protein is in jeopardy if you allow the sale of MSR to JBS. Immediate attention must be given to this matter.

A week earlier on July 29, Sen. John Barasso and Rep. Liz Cheney also sent a letter to Delrahim, alongside 10 other senators and representatives from Montana, Utah, South Dakota and California.

We are told that many of these family-operated sheep ranches in the Western states may go out of business after this deal, costing the lamb industry potentially hundreds of millions of dollars per year, they wrote. We urge you to immediately open an investigation into this acquisition and take appropriate steps to prevent irreversible actions that might harm the ability of American sheep ranchers to get their products to market.

Spurred on by the letter-writing campaign, the Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the sale. While JBS finalized its acquisition of the plant on July 31, it agreed to not make any changes to the facility for 30 days while the Department of Justice reviewed the case.

For now, local sheep producers like Rabel just have to watch and wait and hope that the circle of life for Johnson Countys sheep can continue unencumbered.

Its just really uncertain at this time, Rabel said. A lot depends on what happens over the next 30 days. If JBS is allowed to continue with their original plans, I dont know how many sheep producers will be affected locally, but its going to be a large number. There will be an impact, for sure. But its hard to say just what that impact will be at this point.

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By Express News Service

ALAPPUZHA: The house of a family infected with COVID-19 was attacked by miscreants in ward 5 of Vayalar panchayat on Friday night. According to Cherthala CI P Sreekumar, the incident occurred around 9.00 pm on Friday.

Based on the complaint of a family member, we have started investigation. Two people arrived on a bike and pelted stones at the house, when the family was waiting for the ambulance to go to the hospital, after four member from the family tested positive for the coronavirus. The reason of the attack is not known, Sreekumar said. They are currently undergoing treatment at COVID hospitals, CI said.

We have collected the CCTV footage from nearby houses. As the incident occurred during night, the vehicle could not be identified properly, but we are examining the footage to ascertain the registration number of the vehicle, Sreekumar said.

The police also said the attack on the family is punishable under Kerala Epidemic Diseases Act 2020 and the police have registered a case under the Act.

Meanwhile, a taxi driver who was under quarantine at his house in Ambalappuzha was attacked on Thursday.

Bijumon, a native of Punnapra South panchayat, was attacked by an unidentified gang. The Ambalappuzha police are investigating the case.
Bella Hadid has been back to work in The Big Apple, after months of isolating at her mother Yolanda's Pennsylvania farmhouse with mom and pregnant sister Gigi.

And on Friday evening, the 23-year-old supermodel looked dressed for a night in, as she rocked a pair of fitted white trousers and an oversized blue sweatshirt in NYC.

As she strutted down the sidewalk in a pair of black loafers, she flashed her flawless and glowing complexion.

Cozy: Bella Hadid looked dressed for a night in, as she rocked a pair of fitted white trousers and an oversized blue sweatshirt in NYC

Before exchanging a fist bump with someone, the fresh-faced catwalk star smiled demurely and could be seen carrying a black and white zip-up hoodie in her left arm.

She accessorized her laid-back look with a pair of massive gold hoops and swept her signature dark tresses in a sleek bun.

For her outing, she did wear a face mask or appear to be sporting any personal protective equipment amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Make-up free: As the 23-year-old supermodel strutted down the sidewalk in a pair of black loafers, she flashed her flawless and glowing complexion

Friendly: Before exchanging a fist bump with someone, the fresh-faced catwalk star smiled demurely and could be seen carrying a black and white zip-up hoodie in her left arm

One day prior, she upload a few throwback of herself cuddling up to her brother Anwar and his girlfriend Dua Lipa's pet goats for a photo-shoot in May.

In a string of adorable snaps, the bombshell looked blissful with her bovine buddies, named Funky and Bam-Bam.

While posing up a storm, Bella modeled a split cold-shoulder backless turtleneck dress that emphasized her enviably svelte figure as she lay on the grass.

Modeling: Bella has been back to work in The Big Apple, after months of isolating at her mother Yolanda's Pennsylvania farmhouse with mom and pregnant sister Gigi

Up close and personal: The beauty snapped a close-up selfie of her makeup free skin as she looked soulfully into the camera with her piercing green eyes

At that point she was still hunkering down with her older sister, Gigi Hadid, and mother Yolanda Hadid on their serene estate in Pennsylvania.

Gigi is currently expecting her first child with her on-again boyfriend Zayn Malik of One Direction fame, who also joined the group in self-isolation.

In her caption Bella revealed that Gigi herself took the goat pictures, which were part of a Bottega Veneta shoot for the British magazine i-D.

She called herself 'funky and bam-bams auntie' and gushed: 'thank you to their lovely parents ~ @sbdanwar @dualipa ~ for allowing them to take place in such a huge production. they were absolutely charming / great work ethic.'

Company: Bella Hadid cuddled up to her brother Anwar and his girlfriend Dua Lipa's pet goats for a photo-shoot in May

So sweet: And she fired up her Instagram page this Thursday to upload a few throwback 'outtakes' from the project

Bella also expressed her gratitude to stylist Julia Sarr-Jamois and i-D editor-in-chief Alastair McKimm for their role in the shoot.

'Extra special thank you to @sarrjamois for the best remote styling , @alastairmckimm for letting us wing it and my very very special Sister for making me feel beautiful. I love you lottt,' she wrote.

While the Hadid sisters remained stateside throughout lockdown, Anwar was initially self-isolating in London with his English pop star girlfriend.

Having a ball: At that point she was hunkering down with her pregnant sister Gigi Hadid, their mother Yolanda Hadid and Gigi's beau Zayn Malik on the family farm in Pennsylvania

After a few months in Britain they returned to America but first had to spend a quarantine period in St. Lucia as Dua does not have U.S. citizenship.

They visited Yolanda on the farm and then spent some time in New York before decamping to Los Angeles.

After Bella returned to New York recently, Gigi arrived there this week in the run-up to delivering her firstborn child.
Israel's prime minister and Washington's top diplomat voiced hope Monday the Jewish state would soon build ties with more Arab countries, following its landmark move to normalise relations with the United Arab Emirates.

Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was starting a Mideast tour in Jerusalem, both praised the US-brokered deal as a major step toward stability to the turbulent region.

"I'm very hopeful that we will see other Arab nations join in this," said Pompeo, who was also set to visit Sudan, Bahrain and the UAE on his five-day trip.

Netanyahu hailed the Israel-UAE agreement as "a boon to peace and regional stability" which "heralds a new era where we could have other nations join".

"I hope we'll have good news in the future, maybe in the near future," he said.

Washington and its close ally Israel hope that more such ties with other regional countries traditionally hostile to the Jewish state will help forge a stronger regional alliance against their common foe, Iran.

Pompeo again stressed US President Donald Trump's goal that "Iran will never have a nuclear weapon" and urged world powers to maintain an arms embargo on the Islamic republic.

- 'Legacy of hostility' -

Israel has existing peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan which, unlike the UAE, share borders with the Jewish state and have fought wars with it.

Under the US-brokered agreement with the Emirates announced on August 13, Israel pledged to suspend its previous plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, without saying for how long.

The Palestinians slammed the UAE's move as a "stab in the back" while their own conflict with the Jewish state remains unresolved.

The Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, charged Monday that the Israel-UAE deal helps "maintain crimes and violations" against the Palestinians.

It urged regional and world leaders to "break their silence to bring an end" to the Gaza blockade.

Story continues

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab arrived Monday evening in Jerusalem, where he is scheduled to meet with Pompeo, according to diplomatic sources.

He is due to meet Netanyahu the following day, before going on to Ramallah to talk to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

"Israels suspension of annexation is an essential step towards a more peaceful Middle East," Raab said, according to a statement by the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office. "It is important to build on this new dynamic."

An Israeli foreign ministry official said Raab would be asked to coax the Palestinians back to peace talks with the Jewish state, which stalled in 2014.

"We will ask the British FM to be a bridge between us and the Palestinians, in order to bring the Palestinians back to the negotiating table," the ministry's deputy chief for European Affairs Anna Azari told reporters.

- Who's next? -

The Israel-Emirati pact has sparked speculation on which country in the region might be next, with frequent mention of Bahrain and Sudan.

Israel is technically at war with Sudan, which for years had supported hardline Islamist forces but which is turning its back on the era of strongman Omar al-Bashir who was ousted last year.

The State Department said Pompeo would meet Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok during his tour, to "express support for deepening the Sudan-Israel relationship".

Pompeo will also meet Bahrain's Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa before talks with UAE foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, it said.

Saudi Arabia, in keeping with decades of policy by most Arab states, says it will not follow the UAE's example until Israel has signed a peace deal with the Palestinians.

- 'Outlaw' -

Netanyahu has meanwhile denied reports that the UAE deal hinges on the sale of US F-35 stealth fighter-jets to the Emirates, saying he opposes a move that could reduce Israel's strategic edge in the region.

"This deal did not include Israel's acceptance of any arms deal," he said Monday.

Pompeo said the US was determined to help the Emirates defend itself against Iran "in a way that preserves our commitments to Israel".

"The United States has a legal requirement with respect to (Israel's) qualitative military edge. We will continue to honour that," he said.

But he also noted Washington's long-running security relationship with the UAE, saying the US would "continue to make sure that we're delivering them the equipment that they need to secure and defend their own people...from the Islamic republic of Iran."

And in an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Pompeo said: "I hope one day that the Iranians will normalise with Israel as well."

But in a tweet, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif described Pompeo as an "outlaw".

"Standing next to World's #1 nuclear threat, he declares his desire to flood our region with even more US weapons," he wrote.

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West African leaders visiting Mali pressed Sunday for the release of ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita amid mounting speculation that he could be flown out of the country after thousands showed support for the military coup that toppled him.

The 75-year-old Keita has been in the custody of the ruling military junta for five days at the barracks where the government overthrow originated. The 15-nation regional bloc known as ECOWAS has demanded Keita's reinstatement, though with a wave of public support for his ouster it appeared increasingly unlikely Sunday he would return to power.

ECOWAS had earlier demanded that Keita be reinstated and said it would mobilize a regional standby military force. But a demonstration by thousands of Malians showing their support for the coup in the streets of Bamako on Friday made it more difficult for the regional leaders to sideline the junta.

Among the destinations where Keita could go is neighboring Senegal, which hosted Amadou Toumani Toure, the last democratically elected Malian president overthrown in a similar 2012 coup.

African countries and the wider international community have expressed alarm over the coup d'etat, which deposed Keita three years before his final term was due to end. Mali has been fighting against Islamic extremists with heavy international support for more than seven years, and jihadists have previously used power vacuums in Mali to expand their territory.

The high-level delegation, led by Nigeria's former president, Goodluck Jonathan, held talks with the junta, including Col. Assimi Goita, who has declared himself the group's leader. The regional delegation also met with Keita and the other detained officials.

After the brief meetings, few details were given, but Jonathan did say that Keita was doing well.

``We have seen the president IBK and he is very well,'' Jonathan said, referring to Keita as many do by using his initials.

Hours after Keita was detained Tuesday after his home, the democratically elected president announced his resignation on state broadcaster ORTM saying he did not want any blood to be shed for him to stay in power. By early Wednesday, soldiers took to the airwaves calling themselves the National Committee for the Salvation of the People.

While the new military leaders have insisted they intend to hand over power to a civilian transitional government, West Africa has seen a large number of putschists prolong the transitional period so that the military stays in power. In the case of Mali, it took nearly 18 months after the 2012 coup for democratic elections to resume.

It was Keita himself who won that 2013 vote in a landslide, only to see his popularity plummet after his 2018 reelection as the Malian army faced punishing losses from jihadist attacks. Then after dozens of legislative elections were disputed this spring, demonstrators began taking to the streets calling for his resignation. He offered concessions and regional mediators intervened, but his opponents made it clear they would accept nothing short of his departure.

On Friday, Mali's opposition coalition, the M5-RFP, welcomed the ouster of Keita insisted they remained ``deeply attached to democracy.''

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Lindsey Graham said Sunday that the FBI and Justice Department exhibited a 'double standard' in the 2016 presidential race in how it went about informing Hillary Clinton about an investigation into foreign influence in her campaign but did not do the same for Donald Trump.

The South Carolina senator told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo on Sunday morning that FBI leadership shot down a request for a FISA warrant until Clinton was briefed on the matter.

'They never did to Trump,' Graham said during his interview on 'Sunday Morning Futures.' 'As a matter of fact, not only did they not tell Trump, they used a generic briefing to spy on Trump.'

He pointed to a newly released redacted document detailing an October meeting where FBI personnel briefed the Clinton campaign so they were able to fix the issue without a FISA warrant ever being needed.

Senator Lindsey Graham said Sunday that the FBI exhibited the 'ultimate double standard' by informing Hillary Clinton of an investigation into foreign influence in her campaign but not doing the same for Donald Trump

'The purpose of the meeting was to provide a classified defensive briefing for Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign, as summarized below,' the redacted document reads. '[Redacted/ Clinton's counsel] were advised the FBI has information that the [redacted/ foreign government] is attempting to influence Hillary Clinton through lobbying efforts and campaign contributions.'

Graham did not reveal to Bartiromo which foreign government wanted to assist Clinton in getting elected in 2016.

Instead of taking the same steps in informing the Trump campaign of an investigation, the FBI opened the Crossfire Hurricane operation and pursued a number of FISA warrants against people working with the then-candidate's campaign.

'There was a clear double standard by the Department of Justice and FBI when it came to the Trump and Clinton campaigns in 2016,' the Judiciary chairman tweeted Sunday morning.

'These are the newest declassified documents showing the differences between treatment of the Clinton and Trump campaigns,' he continued in a second tweet with a link to the declassified, yet redacted, documents.

In a statement released earlier Sunday morning, Graham said: 'The FBI did the right thing by briefing Clinton and failed to do the right thing by never specifically briefing President Trump about their concerns.'

Codename Crossfire Hurricane was the FBI counterintelligence investigation into links between Trump and the Kremlin  specifically those working within his campaign like Michael Flynn, Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.
Tourists from India continue to throng Muktinath Temple in Nepals Mustang District even three years after Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit that boosted the confidence of tourism entrepreneurs in the area.

In 2019, a total of 57,000 foreign tourists visited the district, as per the record kept by Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP).

The number of Indian tourists is high amongst those foreigners visiting the district. Indian tourists flowing into the district mostly come to perform a pooja at Muktinath Temple. After Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited this place in 2018, the number slowly started onto increase and has remained consistent, Chief of the ACAP office in Jomsom, Tulsi Dahal, said.

In 2018, a total of 59,838 tourists visited Mustang while 52,475 visited the Himalayan district in the year 2017.

We are experiencing the surge in the last three years. Indian tourists are our frequent guests here as well as the movie and music video production teams come here, which has kept our business on move, Ram Bahadur Gurung, a hotel entrepreneur at Lomanthang of Mustang said.

Muktinath is one of the sacred temples for both the Hindus and Buddhists. Prime Minister Modi in 2018 had visited the place, which made headlines for media in India as well as Nepal highlighting the district.

Lomanthang, Tibetan and Thakali Culture and Arts, Muktinath, Thini, Dhumba Lake, Kaagbeni, Damodarkunda are the major attraction of Mustang. The Upper-Mustang valley is more fascinating with structures made of mud and ancient inhabitance.

(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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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 11:55:37|Editor: huaxia

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by Mahmoud Darwesh

TRIPOLI, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Libya's UN-backed Prime Minister Fayez Serraj and Speaker of the east-based House of Representatives Aguila Saleh on Friday issued statements calling for a cease-fire in the country, reopening of the country's oilfields and ports, and elections.

Questions have arisen about whether the declarations can put an end to the military escalation, as reinforcements by both parties have continued for more than two months near the Oil Crescent region.

Khalid al-Muntaser, professor of international relations in Libya, said he believes that the two parties are "now fully aware that the conflict can only be solved through political dialogue."

"Military escalation between international parties supporting the government in Tripoli or the east-based parliament cannot resolve the conflict. Ending the war in Tripoli that lasted more than a year is proof of failure of the military option," he said.

"The decision to accept cease-fire is not a coincidence. It is the result of pressure led by Washington and the UN Mission," he said.

"The big problem is that the east-based parliament does not accept the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord. I believe this is not possible because this government is internationally recognized and has the full support of western Libyan cities, particularly Tripoli and Misurata," he said.

Ahmad al-Hisnawi, a retired Libyan military official, said he does not believe that the cease-fire will last long.

"I don't think the call for cease-fire is serious and can last long, because the Libyan parties have no initiative of their own. They are definitely under pressure of international parties," al-Hisnawi told Xinhua.

"However, the call for cease-fire remains a good opportunity to convince the stubborn or extreme parties and grant them a final chance before they are sanctioned as suggested by the UN Security Council regarding parties that obstruct peace in Libya," al-Hisnawi said.

"The military mobilization in the battle axes and frontlines reveals the intention of the rival parties to continue to resort to the military option for years, not just months. Why is it that the (east-based) army did not comment in this regard? The whole thing makes the intentions carry great doubts and fears," al-Hisnawi added.

The east-based army, led by Khalifa Haftar, has not commented on the declarations issued by Serraj and Saleh yet.

Imad Jallul, a Libyan political analyst, said the call for elections next year is not new.

"The politicians always talk about elections. However, they are not serious ... There are particular countries that do not want stability for Libya and do not want elections that lead to one government and one parliament, because this threatens its illegitimate interests in Libya," Jallul told Xinhua.

Stephanie Williams, acting special representative of the UN Secretary General to Libya, on Friday welcomed the agreement on a cease-fire and elections in Libya.

Williams noted that the initiatives "have created hope for forging a peaceful political solution to the longstanding Libyan crisis, which will affirm the desire of the Libyan people to live in peace and dignity."

The UN-backed government had been engaged in a deadly armed conflict against the east-based army, which is allied with the east-based House of Representatives, for more than a year over the control of the capital Tripoli, before the government recently took over western Libya.

Despite signing a UN-sponsored political agreement and the appointment of the UN-backed Government of National Accord in 2015, Libya remains politically divided and has been mired in insecurity and escalating violence. Enditem
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, left, speaks to high rank officers as he visits a military exercise near Grodno, Belarus. (AP)

Minsk: Belarus was bracing Sunday for more mass protests against strongman Alexander Lukashenko, who has ordered the army to defend the country's territorial integrity after demonstrations broke out over his claim to election victory.

Opponents of Europe's longest serving leader have organised strikes and the largest protests in the ex-Soviet country's recent history rejecting his re-election and demanding that he stand down, with more than 100,000 people turning out across Belarus last weekend.

Pro-democracy protesters must "struggle for their rights" and not be distracted by the authoritarian leader's claims that the country was under military threat, opposition figurehead Svetlana Tikhanovskaya told AFP on Saturday.

"We are people of Belarus and we are a majority and we will not step away. We are not afraid of them any more," she said.

As Tikhanovskaya urged on protesters inside Belarus, Lukashenko -- who said he won a sixth presidential term with 80 percent of the vote two weeks ago -- turned to its borders.

'Stringent measures'

On Saturday he inspected military units in Grodno, near Belarus's frontier with Poland, according to the president's press service.

The 65-year-old denounced the mass protests, which he said were receiving support from Western countries, and ordered the army to defend western Belarus, which he described as "a pearl".

"It involves taking the most stringent measures to protect the territorial integrity of our country," Lukashenko said.

His visit comes ahead of large-scale military exercises planned in the Grodno region between August 28 and 31.

The former collective farm director said NATO troops in Poland and Lithuania were "seriously stirring" near their borders with Belarus and ordered his troops into full combat readiness.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda denied the accusation Saturday.

"The regime is trying to divert attention from Belarus's internal problems at any cost with totally baseless statements about imaginary external threats," Nauseda told AFP.

Lithuania's foreign ministry also announced Saturday that US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun will visit Lithuania and Russia next week for talks on the election fallout.

Criminal investigation

The European Union this week rejected Lukashenko's re-election and vowed to levy sanctions against what it said was a substantial number of people responsible for rigging the vote and cracking down on protests.

The Belarusian authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the opposition's Coordination Council, whose members are seeking new elections and a peaceful transition of power.

Lukashenko has rejected the idea of holding another ballot, dismissed calls to resign and accused the opposition of attempting to seize power.

On Friday he vowed to "solve the problem" of the protest movement.
Lafayette Parish Mayor-President Josh Guillory and law enforcement held a news conference Saturday condemning the behavior of protesters who they said threatened motorists and started fires earlier in the evening. Meanwhile, activists said Guillory should look internally at the role he and his administration have played in creating the charged climate.

The news conference came after hours of community rallying and protests following the fatal shooting of 31-year-old Trayford Pellerin at a gas station Friday. Pellerin was shot by police after a roughly half-mile foot pursuit, when law enforcement said he attempted to enter a gas station armed with a knife.

The rally built on tension between the Black community and Guillorys administration. Guillory was a common point of conversation and criticism throughout the evening as both planned speakers and protesters delivering impromptu remarks called out his lack of support and demanded he come to the table to build better relationships with the Black community.

In a written statement Saturday night, Guillory backed law enforcements attempts to de-escalate the situation before Pellerin was shot. He said Pellerin was shot only when he tried to enter the convenience store, threatening the lives of the customers and workers inside, he wrote.

"While the incident has drawn significant media attention and protests, our personnel wont be distracted  they remain focused on ensuring the health and safety of our people.  Our thoughts and prayers are with our community tonight, and with the men and women in uniform who put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe, Guillorys statement said.

+94 Photos: Demonstrators protest Lafayette Police use of force in Trayford Pellerin death Demonstrators gathered Sunday at the Shell gas station on the Evangeline Thruway where Lafayette police shot and killed Trayford Pellerin Frid

Local NAACP leaders and activists decried Guillorys leadership after being denied access to the late-night news conference. They waited outside the Lafayette police headquarters on East University Avenue until about 10:30 p.m. to share their own statements.

Several expressed disappointment in Guillorys lack of compassion for not offering condolences to Pellerins surviving family. Regardless of the circumstances, or the eventual investigatory outcomes, a man was killed, activists said.

Josh Guillory is lower than a dog for that, activist Jamal Taylor said.

Guillory did not address Pellerins shooting at the Saturday night news conference but did declare that Lafayette is a law-abiding city and that law enforcement and city leadership will use all resources to combat unlawful protesting.

We are a peaceful community and we will give up not a single inch of the city of Lafayette or the parish of Lafayette. Were different. This isnt Seattle, this isnt other cities across the country. We respect the rule of law, Guillory said.

Lafayette NAACP President Marja Broussard said Guillorys administration has deteriorated local governments working relationship with the Black community.

Ill say it. Our mayor is racist. Everything he has done since hes been in office has impacted the African American community negatively. Its time for this to stop, Broussard said.

Broussard said community activists will gather at Lafayette City Hall Sunday at 5 p.m. to address Guillory and law enforcement leaders with their concerns and criticisms. They challenged the local officials to attend.

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+7 Lafayette police use smoke grenades against citizens protesting police shooting; protesters arrested A protest Saturday night along Evangeline Thruway, where 31-year-old Trayford Pellerin was shot and killed by Lafayette Police a day earlier, 

What eventually became a protest march began as a peaceful rally on Evangeline Thruway where Pellerin was shot and killed by Lafayette police a day earlier. After more than an hour, the crowd spilled into the roadway, blocking traffic in in the northwest lanes and chanting, "No justice; no peace."

Organizers of the rally attempted to move people from the road. However, about 6:45 p.m., a crowd of about 150 people moved down the thruway to block the intersection with Willow Street.

Shortly after dark, as part of the crowd headed back to the Shell station, rocks and water bottles were thrown at police cars. Some eventually split off and marched to the Lafayette Police substation on Moss Street. They were met by police in riot gear, who eventually deployed smoke grenades to break up the crowd.

Interim Police Chief Scott Morgan said there were several protesters arrested Saturday but did not confirm a number or elaborate on counts. Morgan said in addition to blocking traffic, protesters shot fireworks at buildings and started fires along Evangeline Thruway. He said the acts were malicious and participants should be ashamed.

Lafayette Fire Chief Robert Benoit said several small fires were set in the median on Evangeline Thruway.

Broussard and others gathered Saturday were some of the organizers of the original peaceful rally at the Shell station on Chalmette Drive and Northwest Frontage Road. They said while they dont agree with violence or destruction in the city  especially from potential outside bad actors  people also shouldnt be demonized.

The mayor-president and the Parish Council must have a reckoning with themselves tonight and ask themselves the question: Are the streets of Lafayette safer tonight or are they less safe because of my leadership? said Devon Norman, Lafayette NAACP young adult committee chairperson.

+5 Family of man killed by Lafayette police in disbelief; attorneys demanding answers The family of a man shot and killed by Lafayette police Friday says they are mourning and in disbelief, and their attorneys say they will be s

The shooting of Pellerin was captured on video by a bystander and shared widely on social media. It shows at least five Lafayette police officers approaching a Black man with what witnesses said was a knife in his hand while walking away from police toward a convenience store. Video then shows officers open fire near the entrance of the convenience store and at least 10 shots can be heard.

The man is then seen lying on the ground.

A State Police spokesperson said the Lafayette officers were called to a disturbance involving Pellerin about 8 p.m. Friday. They pursued Pellerin, who they say was holding a knife, and deployed stun guns, which State Police said were ineffective. When Pellerin reached the Shell gas Station, police shot him.
Hoping to put an end to claims by some sheriffs and parish officials that the Edwards administration has exaggerated the number of positive COVID-19 tests, a legislative committee last week investigated.

By the end, Rep. Barry Ivey of Central, the Republican chairing the Legislative Audit Advisory Task Force, said the Louisiana Department of Healths numbers were almost entirely accurate. He then accused some local officials of improperly using social media to claim discrepancies between the count on the states official dashboard, and a list provided sheriffs to alert law enforcement officers, firefighters, medical technicians and other first responders that the home to which they were called could harbor a person infected with the virus.

In going public, the offending officials had violated exceptions to the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, that allowed the limited distribution of patient names and addresses, Ivey said.

The imbroglio revealed a wide gulf in trust between some small-town officials and the state.

When you compound the fact that some of these officials violated the HIPAA policy and publicly went out and made their own assertions effectively to the entirety of the LDH data  and whether or not you could trust it  I believe is an extremely egregious violation, Ivey said. Case closed.

Well, not quite.

Claims Louisiana is inflating its coronavirus numbers are unfounded, auditor says The Louisiana Legislative Auditor has issued a report debunking a theory that the state Health Department is inflating its coronavirus numbers

LaSalle Parish Sheriff Scott Franklin said Thursday he never revealed the names of the infected in his parish, and thereby didnt violate HIPAA. And even if he accepted the Health Departments explanations for why the numbers of positive cases on the states official dashboard didnt jive with his list, the numbers still dont add up.

Shouldnt the numbers, when all the duplications and inaccuracies are removed, eventually be about the same? Franklin asked.

In largely rural LaSalle, the health department counted 380 positive cases, but the real number was 269 as of Thursday, Franklin said.

He noted that the report included 59 positives among prisoners in parish jail, most of whom were sent by the U.S. Immigration Control and Enforcement; 21 who were counted twice; three who were counted three times; and one who was counted four times. Ten more had addresses outside the parish.

A big reason the controversy is dying down is because all 64 sheriffs were required to sign a nondisclosure agreement, Franklin said, adding that he was the last to sign and did so on Thursday.

State Data Disclosure Agreement Agreement that limits public disclosure of COVID-19 test numbers

The agreement forbids any use of the list of infected names and addresses except as first-responder alerts. The list is supposed to be destroyed after 30 days because they contain only those who tested positive in the previous month. If the agreement is breached including but not limited to a use or disclosure of the COVID Data for any purpose or in any manner not expressly authorized, the health department can unilaterally terminate sending the lists.

The parish officials who had previously complained the loudest about discrepancies between the numbers didnt return calls or had nothing to say about the hearings findings.

I dont agree with everything said. I wont get into specifics, Red River Police Jury President Shawn Beard said Thursday.

Moon Griffon, the iconic conservative host who put several of the officials on his radio program, said Thursday that a number of officials are telling him that nothing has changed but they no longer can speak publicly because of what Griffon and others called a gag order.

Basically, legislative auditors found, positive test results come from private laboratories to the state health department, which collates the information. A raw list of names is compiled quickly with the infected separated by parish and given to the Louisiana State Police. The lists goes through parish Homeland Security offices to individual sheriffs. In most instances, the data is entered into computers that pop up a code that someone at the address tested positive as warning for first responders to take precautions. The process began early on before masks, gloves and other personal protective equipment, PPEs, were readily available.

Public Health epidemiologist Theresa Sokol said the state follows guidelines set by the federal government and nationwide coalitions of state health agencies to ensure that all the cases are counted the same way, so that Louisiana figures mesh with those collected by other states.

Back at the pandemics beginning when the state handled all the tests, the specific data points were all there. Then, to speed up testing, private companies were contracted and those labs sometimes failed to check all the boxes.

First responders needed the lists quickly and some of the names with questions about their status often werent included until they were checked out, she said. The lists are not intended to represent the cumulative case count for each parish.

The Health Department also periodically updates its online dashboard, which lists total cases per parish. For instance, on July 22, the department removed more than 44,000 cases from the dashboard.

Louisiana health department accuses some rural parishes of misusing coronavirus lists, violating HIPAA Early in the pandemic, the Louisiana Department of Health started sending out lists of patients who tested positive for the coronavirus to loc

Underlying this saga is partisan politics and a look at how distrustful many are of government.

A survey by the national Pew Research Center last week found that roughly two-thirds of conservative Republicans agree with President Donald Trump in saying that more testing is primary reason for national rise in coronavirus cases.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledges that a few people are double counted, having taken more than one test. But a New York Times analysis says the increase in the number of tests has not been enough to account for even bigger rise in confirmed COVID-19 cases.

Still, partisan politics has both sides talking past each other.

Unfortunately, it appears that there is a deliberate misinformation campaign claiming that the states inflating cases by counting people multiple times if they take multiple tests and that that just isnt the case, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards said in late July when the tally pushed past the 100,000 mark since the beginning of the outbreak. I just do hope that people are taking that very seriously and serves as a reality check that we are in a public health emergency, not just one thats been declared by myself.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting released SOPs for people working in the media industry on Sunday after consultations with the Ministry of Home Affais and Ministry of Health.

The general principles behind the SOP will help create a safe working environment for cast and crew in the industry, said Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar on social media Twitter.

Contact Minimisation' is at the core of the SOP. This will be ensured by minimal physical contact and sharing of props, PPEs for hair stylists and make-up artists among others, he added.

These include thermal screening at entry points, physical distancing of six feet, seating arrangement with social distancing, frequent sanitisation of workplace, mandatory mask wearing for cast and crew apart from those facing the camera, and crowd management, among others.

The SOPs would also ensure adequate distancing at shoot locations and other workplaces.

While make up artists, hair stylists will have to use PPE, the government has advised not to avoid lapel mics and minimise the use of props.

Sharing of costumes, wigs, make up items was also to be kept at minimum, the SOP said.

The Centre also advised the use of Arogya setu app in the SOP.

Javadekar also asserted that these measures will facilitate resumption of shooting and provide employment to scores of people impacted due to the film industry being hit in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

These SOPs have been finalised after consulting the health and home ministries, Javadekar said.

Shooting of films and TV serials can be started using these SOPs issued in the wake of the pandemic, the minister said.

Sharing details of the SOPs, Javadekar said barring those who are in front of cameras all others will have to wear masks.

"We are laying down SOPs as per international experience, and with the consultation of the health ministry and the home ministry, we have issued these SOPs," he said.

"This is an important aspect of the economy and it employs millions of people, therefore, we have issued this to facilitate now the production activity to resume. I am sure everyone will welcome this and all states will implement this," Javadekar said.

The I&B document also emphasised on the health and family welfare ministry's guiding principles which state that non-essential activities will not be allowed in COVID-19 containment zones.

The guiding principles also said that employees who are at higher risk, such as older employees, pregnant employees, employees who have underlying medical conditions, should take extra precautions.

They should preferably not be exposed to any front-line work requiring direct contact with the public, according to the health ministry guiding principles.

Measures should be taken by the production team to involve a minimum number of cast and crew members during the shoot, the SOPs said.

Visitors and audience should not be allowed on sets and for outdoor shooting, necessary coordination with the local authorities should be ensured to minimise and manage the spectators, they said.

Resting or stay-over facilities should be planned while adhering to physical distancing guidelines, according to the document.

Staggered call and pack-up timings for different production units should be ensured by studios having multiple sets, the SOPs state.

"There shall be designated entry and exit points for all shoot locations and other workplaces," the document said.

Common locations such as sets, cafeteria, make-up rooms, edit rooms, vanity vans, washrooms should be sanitised regularly, it said.

Sanitisation, to the extent possible, before and after the shoot should be done, the SOPs said.

Persons handling or working with common/shared equipment shall wear disposable gloves and efforts should be made to encourage wearing of gloves among other members of the cast and crew as well, they said.

Shooting for films and TV serials was suspended following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

(With PTI Inputs)
You don't need an AR-15. It's harder to aim, it's harder to use, and in fact, you don't need 30 rounds to protect yourself. Joe Biden

The one-two punch of the Wuhan Coronavirus explosion, and the civil unrest of early 2020, led to an unprecedented growth in firearms ownership in America. All told, there were about two million firearms sold in the month of March 2020 alone. Between March and July, an additional three million were sold, with about half of those happening in the month of June.

Ammunition sales have similarly spiked, with record sales occurring on this website. However, gun owners dont need a report to know that there has been a massive surge in demand for ammunition. They need only go down to their local gun store and see that all of the most common rounds are in short supply, sold out or being rationed at the point of sale.

But its not just guns and ammo. There has also been a significant increase in the number of Americans obtaining their concealed carry weapons permit and packing on a daily basis. Forbes magazine estimates that 20 million Americans are now carrying as part of their everyday life.

The flipside of this is that Joe Bidens 2020 campaign has been perhaps the most radically anti-Second Amendment campaign on record. Former Vice President Biden is very proud of his role in spiriting the 1994 gun ban into passage. If hes elected, we will see an expansion of the power of the federal government and attacks on the rights of Americans that will not be restricted to the ownership of firearms. As president, Biden would resume the Obama-era attacks on the suburbs ended by President Trump, give citizenship (and voting rights) to nearly 30 million illegal aliens and use the Federal Reserve to address a racial wealth gap.

However, Bidens desire to erode the Second Amendment deserves special attention. It is a radical agenda that will gut the right to bear arms in this country. Does that sound like bluster and hyperbole? Its not.

Joe Bidens Record: What He Says vs. What Hes Done

There are two ways to determine how a potential President Joe Biden would govern with regard to the Second Amendment: What he says and what he has done. As Joe Biden has been out of government since 2017, we will start with his history as a legislator and as Vice President of the United States.

Joe Biden has a very long record of being anti-Second Amendment. He voted for the 1986 Firearms Owners Protection Act, which was primarily a series of gimmes to gun grabbers in exchange for getting the ATF to leave law-abiding gun owners alone. If youve ever wanted to own an M-16, but cant afford one because of the high price of the related tax stamp, you can thank Joe Biden for that.

Biden was also instrumental in the passage of the Brady Bill. This law, until the creation of the NICS background check system, provided for a five-day waiting period to purchase a firearm. He brags about his role in passing this bill into law on his campaign website, saying In 1994, Biden  along with Senator Dianne Feinstein  secured the passage of 10-year bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. As president, Joe Biden will defeat the NRA again.

Far more concerning, however, is that, as a Senator, Joe Biden literally wrote the bill that banned so-called assault weapons in the United States for 20 years. This assault weapons ban defined assault weapons in an extremely broad sense. Under the law, the definitions of an assault weapon were as follows:

Rifles:

Flash suppressors or barrels threaded for them

Pistol grips

Folding and telepathic stocks

Bayonet mounts

Grenade launchers

Pistols:

Semi-automatic versions of any automatic firearm

An unloaded weight of over 50 ounces

Threaded barrels designed to accommodate flash suppressors, barrel extenders, suppressors and handgrips

Barrel shrouds

Shotguns:

Pistol grips

Detachable magazines

Folding and telescopic stocks

The law likewise targeted a number of specific firearms that were widely popular with American gun owners. This included the Colt AR-15, the INTRATEC TEC-9 (which were popular with the Roof Koreans who defended Koreatown during the LA riots of 1994) and the Action Arms Israeli Military Industries UZI and Galil.

Not only were most of these restrictions unconstitutional, they were also largely useless. Many gun companies continued manufacturing virtually identical versions of firearms that had been banned by the law, removing only minor cosmetic features to get themselves into compliance. Numerous studies found that there was virtually no impact on violent crime throughout the United States.

If we are being generous, this can be seen as a misguided attempt to curb urban violent crime. If we are being more cynical, it was little more than a power grab.

The law expired on September 13, 2004. There have been several attempts to reintroduce the law, all of which have been unsuccessful.

Finally, we should touch on the role of Joe Biden as a point man for selling the Waco siege to the American public. He stated that there was no improper motive or intent on the part of law enforcement. In the same statement, he singled out the ATF and the FBI for praise, stating that they had an excellent overall record. Whats more, he was a major proponent of the theory that the Branch Davidians at Waco committed suicide by lighting fire to their own home, a theory with slim evidence at best.

Bidens statements about Waco are of particular importance when coupled with his aggressive anti-Second Amendment platform. This is a man who believes firmly that the ATF did nothing intentionally wrong at Waco. He has a great deal of trust in federal law enforcement that borders on naivete if we are being generous. It is not outlandish to think that he would use the full militarized might of the ATF against anyone who presented resistance against federal gun registration and confiscation.

Joe Bidens 2020 Platform

For most of his political career, Joe Biden has operated as a sensible centrist within the Democratic Party. While one can argue that his positions are outside of conservatism, they have certainly not historically been outside the mainstream of American political thought. However, Joe Bidens 2020 presidential campaign is a whole different animal.

Joe Biden is running for president on a highly radical platform. There are a number of reasons why the former personal envoy of the credit card industry, the man who made it impossible to discharge student loans in bankruptcy, has pivoted toward appealing to the woke crowd. The reasons are unimportant, however. We can definitively say, without speculation as to motive, that Joe Bidens 2020 campaign is perhaps the most radical political campaign in modern American history. Nowhere is this more clear than on the subject of firearms.

Why Language Matters

The official website for Joe Bidens 2020 campaign defines gun violence as a public health epidemic. This might sound like boilerplate, but in fact it is language designed to lay the groundwork for moving firearms restrictions under the purview of the FDA. This alphabet organization has broad leeway to ban, tax and regulate anything deemed a danger to public health.

He also cites a commonly used weasel statistic to advocate for such: that 40,000 Americans die from firearms-related injuries every year. This includes every firearms-related death  suicides, accidental discharges, shootouts between gangland figures where no innocent bystander is killed, self-defense actions. And while any death is certainly tragic, this is simply not what anyone means when they talk about gun violence.

All told, there were 14,542 gun homicides in 2017, less than half of the statistic that Biden cites in his platform. This doesnt even crack the top 10 of causes of death in the United States, according to the CDC. More Americans died of septicemia in 2017 than gun homicides, yet there is no public health crusade against this.

Removing Protections for Gun Manufacturers

In a related campaign promise, Biden says that he will hold gun manufacturers accountable for the use of their products. This means that the families of shooting victims will be able to file civil suits against gun manufacturers to obtain damages related to the misuse of their products in crimes. This is an attempt at corporate gun control through the backdoor. When facing such liability, gun manufacturers will be inundated with frivolous lawsuits that will cause them to either go out of business or discontinue their civilian lines entirely. Biden has previously voted to repeal these protections, which is another point he brags about on his website:

In 2005, then-Senator Biden voted against the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, but gun manufacturers successfully lobbied Congress to secure its passage. This law protects these manufacturers from being held civilly liable for their products  a protection granted to no other industry. Biden will prioritize repealing this protection.

Banning Assault Weapons by Executive Order

Even if a President Joe Biden cannot get a new assault weapons ban to be passed, he plans to use an executive order to ban the importation of such weapons into the United States. His campaign website boasts that he will accomplish this while working to pass this legislation using his executive authority. This would end the market for a number of lower-cost imports into the United States, restricting the Second Amendment rights of many low-income Americans who cannot afford high-priced domestic options. He also states that any new gun ban would be informed by the last one, meaning that it would be far more sweeping and ban a far greater number of weapons features than the 1994 bill.

Regulating Existing Assault Weapons

But what about the AR-15 you already purchased? Biden plans to use the National Firearms Act to regulate possession of these firearms. His language on his website is vague and this is probably intentional. Regulate can mean just about anything, allowing him to either do something minor and claim victory or to enact sweeping changes without the hurdle of legislative approval.

When it comes to buybacks, his language becomes more clear: Those who now own assault weapons  whatever that means, either under newly passed legislation or executive fiat  will have to either sell them back to the government or register them with the ATF under the National Firearms Act:

As president, Biden will pursue legislation to regulate possession of existing assault weapons under the National Firearms Act.

Registration, of course, will be a prelude to confiscating these arms, either under the Biden Administration or future administrations even more hostile toward the Second Amendment. He would also seek to limit the number of firearms a person can purchase in a single month to one and close the so-called gun show loophole.

Using Mental Health to Ban Firearms Ownership

This should all be alarming to you. But unfortunately, it gets much worse. A Biden Administration would attempt to prevent Americans from owning firearms on the basis of mental health reasons. While this might sound reasonable (who wants a paranoid schizophrenic with a cache of AR-15s?), it is, in fact, a very troubling development. There are millions of Americans seeking treatment for anything from depression to anxiety. Oftentimes this isnt representative of any underlying medical condition. People are simply having a hard time and reaching out for a little help  precisely what they are supposed to do.

This initially will only exclude people that have been adjudicated by the Social Security Administration as being unfit to manage their own affairs. But it is extremely unlikely that this will not be quickly expanded.

Closing the Loopholes

Biden also seeks to close a number of loopholes in the law that arent actually loopholes at all, such as:

The Hate Crime Loophole: This would deprive the right to bear arms from anyone who has received a politically motivated hate crimes enhancement to a misdemeanor  potentially making petty crimes like vandalism a pretext for depriving Americans of their Constitutional rights anytime an overzealous left-wing prosecutor decided to pursue a hate crimes enhancement. Please note that flags such as the Betsy Ross flag and the Gadsden flag have become labeled as white supremacist images in recent years, so dont think you need to be wearing a swastika armband to receive such an enhancement.

This would deprive the right to bear arms from anyone who has received a politically motivated hate crimes enhancement to a misdemeanor  potentially making petty crimes like vandalism a pretext for depriving Americans of their Constitutional rights anytime an overzealous left-wing prosecutor decided to pursue a hate crimes enhancement. Please note that flags such as the Betsy Ross flag and the Gadsden flag have become labeled as white supremacist images in recent years, so dont think you need to be wearing a swastika armband to receive such an enhancement. The Charleston Loophole: This alleged loophole allows people to purchase a firearm if they have not received authorization to do so under the NICS system in three business days. Biden seeks to extend this to ten business days  effectively making Americans wait up to two weeks to purchase firearms.

This alleged loophole allows people to purchase a firearm if they have not received authorization to do so under the NICS system in three business days. Biden seeks to extend this to ten business days  effectively making Americans wait up to two weeks to purchase firearms. The Fugitive From Justice Loophole: Biden wants to remove the right to keep and bear arms from 500,000 Americans who were declared by the Trump Administration to not actually be fugitives from justice.

As we can see, none of the above are actually loopholes. They are simply laws that Biden and his constituents do not care for. We should all be troubled by the Biden Administration working within legitimate legislative channels to roll back the rights of our fellow citizens. However, Biden isnt even promising to do that: He plans to erode and cripple American Second Amendment rights through executive fiat.

Banning Online Sales

Get your ammunition and firearms online? Not under a Biden Administration. Beyond ammo and guns, Biden seeks to ban the online purchase of gun kits, such as 85 percent lowers or even parts for your weapons:

Biden will enact legislation to prohibit all online sales of firearms, ammunition, kits, and gun parts.

Those who have exotic or antiquated weapons will have an extremely difficult time finding the parts they need to keep their weapons operational. So-called ghost guns will likewise be banned under a potential President Biden.

Gun Confiscation and Licensure Requirements

The Biden platform includes creating a gun confiscation framework overseen by the ATF and the FBI. Ostensibly, this is to remove weapons from the hands of people who are no longer legally allowed to own them, such as felons and those awaiting charges. However, it is important to note that even if this is restricted to removing guns from the hands of felons and those awaiting charges now, that it can easily be used, in tandem with the new gun registration apparatus, to confiscate firearms from law-abiding Americans.

As president, Biden will direct the FBI and ATF to outline a model relinquishment process, enact any necessary legislation to ensure relinquishment when individuals newly fall under one of the federal prohibitions, and then provide technical and financial assistance to state and local governments to establish effective relinquishment processes on their own."

Biden does not seek a federal red flag law, but he does seek to incentivize the adoption of these laws by giving states funds to implement them. He would also seek to incentivize licensure requirements for Americans to own firearms.

Using Big Tech to Spy on Americans

A Biden Administration would spend government time and resources digging up threats on the taxpayers dime. He would create a Task Force on Online Harassment and Abuse to identify the connection between mass shootings, online harassment, extremism, and violence against women. This amounts to little more than a politically motivated creation of a committee to partner with Big Tech to snoop on Americans with the aim of depriving them of their Second Amendment rights.

Expanding the ATF and Other Gun Control Tactics

The Biden platform would move to require all gun manufacturers to eventually manufacture only so-called smart guns. He would pass a law that would require all gun owners to keep their firearms in a gun safe, dramatically increasing the cost of ownership of firearms. The Biden DOJ would prioritize the prosecution of straw purchasers  a stark departure of Obama-era policy where the DOJ worked closely with them, eventually allowing narco-terrorists and Islamic terrorists access to heavy firepower. Local and state law enforcement would be informed whenever someone failed a background check. The State Department would take measures to block code from the Internet that might be used to 3D print a gun in someones home. He seeks a far more robust ATF than already exists. Finally, he would prohibit state and local governments from training teachers in how to defend their students with firearms.

Kamala Harris: The Most Anti-Second Amendment VP Nominee Ever

Joe Bidens selection of California Senator Kamala Harris as his Vice Presidential nominee has created what the NRA has called the most anti-gun ticket in history. They also described the ticket as an existential threat to gun owners.

Like most gun grabbers, Harris claims that she is not opposed to individual ownership of firearms. However, her record tells a different story: She wrote an amicus brief in District of Columbia vs. Heller, where she stated that the ban on private ownership of handguns did not violate the Second Amendment. Whats more, she has enjoyed endorsements from Gabby Giffords and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

She is in favor of banning a number of commonly used firearms and peripherals, including a magazine limit of 10. While running for president she promised to use executive orders to confiscate guns from law-abiding Americans if Congress would not pass her extremist anti-Second Amendment agenda.

Perhaps most disturbing about her actual record on gun violence is her support for red flag laws and a massive expansion of the definition of potential domestic terrorist to further strip law-abiding citizens of their right to keep and bear arms. During her presidential campaign, she advocated for an additional $2 billion in spending for domestic snooping, ostenisbly with the aim of preventing domestic terrorism.

In a normal election year, we could easily ignore Harris, however, this is not a normal election year. Joe Biden will be 79 years old when inaugurated and is already showing signs of severe mental and physical deterioration. That he would live to see the full four years of his term is far from a foregone conclusion, nor is a scenario where the 25th Amendment is used to remove him, replacing him with Kamala Harris.

She is a dangerous woman on a dangerous ticket that represents a serious threat to the rights of all Americans.

The bottom line to all of this is that the Biden Administration would work to further erode American Second Amendment protections than any other before it. It is just one component of a radical agenda that has taken over the Biden campaign. Whether or not Biden actually believes any of this and whether or not he has simply had his campaign hijacked by more radical forces is besides the point  which is that the Biden Administration would actively pursue police-state measures against law-abiding gun owners in the United States.

If you have a friend who is a new gun owner, who is unaware of the stakes in this election, we urge you to share this material with them.
AUSTIN  Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday declared a state disaster in 23 counties, including Harris and Bexar, as Texas prepares for a pair of tropical storms heading toward the Gulf Coast.

Tropical Storm Marco intensified to a hurricane on Sunday, gaining strength over the Gulf of Mexico as Tropical Storm Laura moved toward Cuba.

Forecasters say Louisiana will likely bear the brunt of Marco on Monday, but Laura could head more quickly and aggressively toward the Houston area this week. Forecasters expect the storm to intensify to a hurricane Tuesday evening, with state officials citing projections that Laura could be as dangerous as a Category 3 hurricane with winds up to 129 mph.

TEXAS FLOOD MAP: Your guide to long-term flood-risk data for Houston neighborhoods

As we continue to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are fully prepared to respond to the oncoming hurricanes, Abbott said.

The governor is also asking President Donald Trump to declare a federal emergency in the 23 counties, which includes all 22 on the Texas coast and inland Bexar County, which will aid in staging and sheltering.

This will help the state meet critical emergency protection requirements including evacuation and sheltering, the governor said.

Abbott, speaking at an Austin press conference Sunday with Texas Division Of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd, urged Texans to stay informed about the status of the storms and heed the advice of local governments. He stressed that Texans should also remember to social distance and wear masks during the emergency response, even if they must relocate.

THE LATEST ON MARCO: Hurricane Marco continues on path toward SE Louisiana

In preparation for the storms, officials are activating rescue personnel and vehicles along the coast. The state is also adapting two COVID-19 medical facilities  one in San Antonio and one north of Houston  into shelters for evacuees who need care.

Abbott said he spoke with both the regional and national heads of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), who pledged to aid Texas as needed in its storm response. Immediately following the press conference, the governor said he would also connect with all 23 county judges in the areas impacted by the disaster declaration.

I need the public to really pay attention to this storm, Kidd said. Right now is the time to start to prepare if you have not done so already.
Christopher Nolan had written to the bicycle company's owner and requested to use his original logo.

Warner Bros, the production house behind Christopher Nolan's upcoming thriller Tenet had to switch the title design of the film after similarities were found with the logo of a bicycle company from Washington DC in the US.

According to The Playlist, Tenet's owner Tyler Deschaine, who launched his brand in 2018, had taken to to Instagram in December last year to say that he had not plagiarised the logo from Nolan. The initial design of the film's logo featured the second "E" and "T" of the Tenet inverted, just like Deschaine's brand, alluding to the time inversion in the story.

Here is Deschaine's post

Later in an interview with a biking magazine, Deschaine had spoken about his fears of being sued by Warner Bros for the resemblance. Following this Nolan sent him a letter asking permission to use the design.

"I guess lightning can strike twice, and obviously I understand that you would not want anyone thinking that you had been inspired by our movies title treatment - feel free to quote me in shooting such misunderstandings down. I love our logo so I hope you wont feel this is necessary, but if you like, I can stop using it since it seems you went public with yours first," said the letter.

However, Deschaine must have not relented to Nolan's request as the film now has a different logo.

Tenet stars John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Dimple Kapadia, Clemence Poesy, Himesh Patel, Michael Caine, and Kenneth Branagh. The film is set to arrive in more than 70 countries on Wednesday, 26 August. The $200 million thriller will open in the US about a week later on Thursday, 3 September.
While over 1.09 lakh Covid-19 patients have recovered and been discharged from various city hospitals, hundreds of others require hospitalisation for one month to four months as they continue to remain positive despite recovery, said Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials.

According to BMC, in many cases, patients having other health ailments have been hospitalised for over a month to four months until now. These patients are those who recover clinically but test positive despite the recovery.

BMC has attributed this prolonged positivity to the viral load of infection in the body that remains despite the patient recovering clinically. Such patients are not discharged until they test negative, considering they have other health ailments, which might complicate their condition.

For instance, BMCs SevenHills Hospital in Andheri, that is a dedicated Covid-19 hospital, has handled nearly 8,000 serious and complicated cases, according to officials. Of this, nearly 15% required hospitalization for over a month.

Also read: Goa designer comes up with multi-mask for complete protection against Covid-19

A discharge after 20-22 days of treatment is normal for discharging a patient from SevenHills Hospital.

Dr Balkrishna Adsul, the dean of SevenHills Hospital said, We have been treating patients, who have comorbidities like kidney ailment or any other chronic disease. Till now, we have treated over 8,000 such patients, and around 15% have required over one month of hospitalisation. These are not youngsters but those who are aged above 60 years of age. They are kept in the hospital for a long period because they tested positive despite recovering and showing no symptoms. We are not discharging such patients until they test negative. He added that there are multiple reasons behind not discharging patients who have been cured clinically but continue to test positive.

One of the many reasons is that there are several patients who have the fear and want to stay admitted in hospital considering they are positive. Another reason is that several patients have other health issues, and their constant monitoring becomes very important due to this. We have one patient who is admitted since April considering he tests positive despite recovering. We have kept him in hospital since he requires frequent dialysis. Lastly, there is also fear or apprehension in the minds of patients and their families to not take them home when they test positive, said Adsul.

As of Sunday, 1,10,059 patients have been recovered and discharged after Covid-19 treatment in Mumbai. The citys recovery rate is 80.7%. On Sunday, Mumbai recorded 991 fresh cases and 34 new deaths, taking the citys case tally to 1,36,353 and toll to 7,422. There are 18,567 active cases in Mumbai having fatality rate of 5.44%. One hot spot that has shown signs of drastic improvement  Dharavi  recorded six new cases on Sunday, bringing the areas case count to 2,711 of which 2,367 have been discharged.

Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner said, We are asking hospitals to not discharge certain patients who have serious health issues and test positive despite recovering. We do not want a situation wherein such a patient, despite being positive, goes home after which he or she develops complications. In the past, we had such a situation reporting from a private hospital, and post this we are keeping such patients in the hospital under observation. We cannot take risks when a patient is already having other health ailments by discharging them.

Meanwhile, Madhav Sathe, former professor of microbiology at Nair Hospital, said, The reason why patients test positive in the test using the RT-PCR method despite recovering, is because this method goes into detail. The reason for testing positive for a long period is probably because of a dead virus present in the body. Such a condition is observed in patients having other health ailments considering the clearance of virus from the body of such patients takes time.

Sathe added, At times it would be safe to discharge such patients if they have cured clinically, but again it depends from case to case. Also, now we have many vacant beds, which even helps the administration as they can give each patient more time and care.
In just four days, the reputation of a Buddhist monk who had spent decades fighting for the human rights of Cambodians was destroyed.

First, grainy videos appeared on a fake Facebook page, claiming that he had slept with three sisters and their mother. Then a government-controlled religious council defrocked the monk for having violated Buddhist precepts of celibacy. Fearing imminent arrest, the monk fled Cambodia, destined for a life in exile, like so many people who have stood up to Asias longest-governing leader.

The monk, Luon Sovath, was the victim of a smear campaign this summer that relied on fake claims and hastily assembled social media accounts designed to discredit an outspoken critic of the countrys authoritarian policies. A New York Times investigation found evidence that government employees were involved in the creation and posting of the videos on Facebook.

His downfall shows how repressive governments can move with stunning speed to disgrace their opponents, using social media and technology to amplify their divisive campaigns. Under Prime Minister Hun Sen, the Cambodian government has repeatedly used falsified Facebook posts or manipulated audio to defame and imprison politicians, activists and other human rights defenders.

Facebook has come under fire in the United States for disseminating hate speech and disinformation. It has been criticized for failing to detect Russian influence in the 2016 election, providing a platform for conspiracy theories and allowing false claims about the coronavirus to proliferate.

But its influence is even greater in places like Cambodia, where the social media platform is the only digital interface for millions of people. Since civil liberties are often constricted in such countries, Facebook can be a powerful tool for autocrats to bolster their grip on the state, even as it provides a rare space for free expression and activism.

During his nearly 35-year rule, Hun Sen  a onetime soldier for the genocidal Khmer Rouge and now an enthusiastic Facebook user  has decimated Cambodias political opposition. He has cozied up to China, eschewing aid from the West that was conditioned on improving human rights. Many high-profile activists and opposition politicians have been assassinated, their cases rarely investigated properly.

As scandals proliferate on its platform, Facebook has been criticized for being too slow in removing problematic accounts and pages, many fake. It took almost a month for Facebook to take down the page on which the videos smearing the monk first aired.

As a company, you would think they would want to be more vigilant and not allow their platform to be misused, said Naly Pilorge, director of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights. Facebooks reaction has been like little drops from a sink, so late and so little.

In a statement to The Times about Luon Sovaths case, Facebook said that it had built up a team in Cambodia to better monitor the local situation.

We recognize the important role that Facebook plays in enabling expression in Cambodia, the company said. We want people to feel safe when theyre using our platform, which is why we take reports of impersonation and other violations of our community standards seriously.

Last month, Luon Sovath, who is now in Switzerland after receiving a humanitarian visa, was charged in absentia by prosecutors in Siem Reap province with raping one of the sisters, escalating the accusations in the videos.

The sex charges against Luon Sovath, one of Cambodias most celebrated activist monks, went viral. Copies of the videos, which purported to show Facebook Messenger calls between the monk and some of the women, were shared widely on the social media platform.

He has denied the rape charges, along with accusations that he had sexual relations with any of the women.

Clues in the videos, uncovered by The Times, also undercut the claims.

An analysis found split-second footage in which personal information of two government employees briefly flashes on screen. The employees work for the Press and Quick Reaction Unit, a propaganda arm of Cambodias Cabinet.

The videos were uploaded on a Facebook page that assumed the identity of one of the sisters, Tim Ratha, who denied both ownership of the page and any sexual relationship with the monk. The page was created the day the videos were posted and lifted photographs from the sisters real Facebook account.

A fake Facebook account in the monks name was also linked to the videos. It, too, stole images from Luon Sovaths real account and was established one day before the videos came out.

While the Facebook page has been taken down, the videos are still circulating. The two government employees linked to the production of the videos remain on Facebook, posting makeup tips and animal memes on their timelines.

We know that Facebook will side with repressive regimes if their bottom line is impacted by freedom-of-expression issues, said Michael Caster, a human rights researcher who has studied technology use in authoritarian countries.

In some developing countries, the Silicon Valley companys influence is outsize because smartphone users looking for cheap digital packages rely on its products as their sole source of information online.

The dependence can be deadly. In Myanmar, military-linked Facebook accounts inflamed hatred of the Rohingya amid the ethnic cleansing of the Muslim ethnic group. Hate speech circulating on WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, fueled anti-Muslim mobs in India. Incendiary rumors about minority Muslims in Sri Lanka spread unchecked on Facebook, leading to fatal riots in 2018. Facebook apologized this year for its role in the Sri Lanka violence.

In May, Facebook released the findings of independent human rights assessments conducted in several countries, including Cambodia. Facebook acknowledged that freedom of expression was severely restricted in Cambodia and that human rights defenders were jailed for views expressed on social media.

The information environment was dominated by misinformation and rumor, Facebook said in a summary of the report. This was exacerbated by state control of the media and cyberwarfare strategies and compounded by low digital literacy.

Facebook said it had nearly tripled its human content moderators in Cambodia, although it would not say how many people worked in Khmer, the local language. From January to March, Facebook said, it took down 1.7 billion fake accounts worldwide.

But none of the tripwires appear to have been triggered in the case of the monk, even as his fate was front-page news in the government-controlled media. Over the years, Luon Sovath said, he has been the repeated victim of fake Facebook accounts set up in his name and reported them to the company. I want to say to Facebook, you should help to restore and defend human rights and democracy in Cambodia, he said.

Luon Sovath, 42, was ordained as a monk at age 12. As repression proliferated under Hun Sen, the monk began preaching human rights from his pagoda.

While politicians and activists who spoke up against Hun Sens government were jailed, exiled or even killed, Luon Sovath appeared to be protected by his saffron-hued robes. But in elections two years ago, the governing Cambodian Peoples Party won every seat in Parliament after the main opposition party was disbanded and its leader imprisoned. The independent news media was eviscerated.

Luon Sovath said he knew he was living on borrowed time. They went after opposition politicians, NGOs, human rights activists, and now it comes to my turn, he said.

On May 30, four videos appeared on a Facebook page that had been set up earlier in the day. The page masqueraded as that of Tim Ratha, a 30-year-old nurse whose family has a house and grocery store across the street from the monks pagoda. He is a good and respectful monk, Tim Ratha said in an interview.

Shortly after the videos appeared on Facebook, police in Siem Reap demanded Tim Ratha report to the station at night, she said. Their questions were rapid-fire and intimidating, she said: Why would you have a sexual relationship with a monk  with your sisters and mother no less? What is your Facebook password? Thats your phone, isnt it?

Tim Ratha denied everything, even as her voice was shaking from fear, she recalled. We are just victims, she said. We didnt commit anything wrong.

The four videos consist of nothing more than fuzzy footage of smartphones with the monks fake Facebook profile on the screens. Audio seems to emanate from the phones, as if he is chatting with the women on Messenger.

At two points the videos go off script. In one instance, the thumb holding the phone slips for less than a second and pulls up a list of Facebook Messenger friends. Two are brothers of Yeng Sreypoch, one of the employees of the Press and Quick Reaction Unit. Another is her relative, and two more are friends from her hometown. In another video, an online notification from Telegram, the messaging application, appears for a moment, delivered to an account user named sopheapm. That name is used on Telegram by Miech Sopheap, the other employee.

Miech Sopheap and Yeng Sreypoch declined repeated requests for comment. They are two of the three friends of the fake Facebook account in Luon Sovaths name.

Tith Sothea, head of the unit, said in a statement that his office had nothing to do with the videos. I fervently deny the allegation and the smearing, fabricating, he said, that the Press and Quick Reaction Unit set up a Facebook to post alleged videos.

When Tith Sothea took up his job in 2018, local media said his unit was to carry out media work and react to content with a negative character coming from national and international media.

The Press and Quick Reaction Unit employs a cyberwar team.

Facebook said that it took down the fake page where the videos appeared on June 27, after a trusted partner reported its existence. Human Rights Watch acknowledged it was that partner.

Initially, Facebook said it had punished the creator of the fake Facebook page by removing the administrators account. After The Times pointed out that there were two other administrators of the page, Facebook said their accounts were suspended pending further verification.

The conversations in the videos are purportedly between Luon Sovath and Tim Ratha or Som Bopha, her mother. There are a few sexually suggestive references, including an aside about licking.

The monk and the two women said some of the audio is from phone conversations they had. But they say that these chats were edited in a misleading way. The passage about licking, Tim Ratha said, referred to an expression of affection from her dog. And other parts of the audio, all three said, are not them at all, such as references to specific sexual encounters.

How can a mother and her daughters do such a thing with the same monk? said Som Bopha. It is impossible.

The three people say they do not know how their private phone conversations went public. Human rights groups say Cambodian authorities regularly harvest phone conversations without peoples knowledge. Tapped or manipulated audio has been used in Cambodian courts to convict the governments critics.

Tim Ratha said a friend of hers reported the fake page to Facebook multiple times over several days. Pilorge, of the human rights group, said her colleagues filed similar complaints. Facebook said it had not received a single user report questioning the veracity of the page.

In Switzerland, Luon Sovath said he was adjusting to life in exile. His thin monastic robes are sufficient for summer, but when the snows come his tropical inner thermostat will have to adjust, he said. He keeps to a Buddhist monks schedule, fasting after noon and meditating.

I want to go home, he said. But I had no choice to run away from my country and become a refugee.
Food and water security are among the priorities of the UAE Government for the post-coronavirus (Covid-19) period, and the objective is to launch specialist initiatives that will ensure the nation's readiness to confront all types of crises, said His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai.

"The global coronavirus crisis has enabled us to adopt a comprehensive vision aimed at handling challenges, and we should capitalise on this moment to strengthen our food and water security," he said, according to a Wam news agency report.

Sheikh Mohammed made the statement during a meeting held to review the countrys efforts to reinforce its food and water security, following the announcement of the new structure of the UAE Cabinet for the post-Covid-19 period.

The meeting was attended by HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, and HH Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs.

During the meeting, Sheikh Mohammed instructed Mariam Hareb Almheiri, Minister of State for Food Security, to monitor the national reserves, invest in food technologies, establish international partnerships, and implement practical solutions to the challenges facing the UAE.

"Our food and water security is part of our national security, and the sustainability of our food and water resources will ensure our sustainable development," Sheikh Mohammed stressed, noting that protecting the countrys prosperity requires national awareness of ways of harnessing resources and capacities to create a comprehensive and self-sufficient system.

The UAEs efforts to strengthen its food and water security are part of the federal governments work to ensure the countrys readiness for future changes, capitalise on its achievements during the coronavirus pandemic, and continue the success of national authorities in establishing comprehensive working teams that can undertake the necessary procedures to provide food supplies in local markets. The government is also keen to find practical solutions for reinforcing water security, and to fulfil the needs of agricultural projects supported by appropriate technologies.

During the meeting, Almheiri highlighted the key efforts and initiatives aimed at strengthening the UAEs food and water security and presented a strategic plan for this portfolio, while pointing out that the countrys leadership has a vision to foresee the future, and aims to harness all national capacities to find practical solutions for future global issues related to social and economic stability.

"The food and water security portfolio is critical and requires supporting various national efforts, as it represents the cornerstone of the UAEs sustainable development and resources management," she said.

Almheiri noted that the work involved in the portfolio, included managing national strategic reserves, supporting research and development, and promoting global partnerships and international representations. She also affirmed that strategic food and water security indexes rely on the sustainability of water resources and access to water.
Friends say Meng, a 22-month department veteran, had been working 12 straight days of 12-hour shifts during June protests when he and his wife were found unresponsive in their Albany Park home on June 10. Dangerous levels of carbon monoxide were found in the home and his car was still running inside the attached garage, according to investigators.
Rutherford County is more easily identified as Murfreesboro and last week it was beset by a dark cloud indeed. The public schools sent home a directive with its students that demanded childrens parents, or others who are interested in a childs well-being, are not allowed to watch the virtual classes that are now being taught to public school students across Tennessee. Thats right, the Rutherford County parents were asked to sign an agreement they would not watch what was being streamed by computer but that, of course, it was mandatory the children were required to watch the virtual lessons.

I know, it is stranger than fiction - which is more kindly put than lunacy - but some of our states most educated education officials, those charged with teaching our young, have been repeatedly proven to be the reason over 50 percent of our elementary school children cannot read, why our poverty schools are chronic failures, and why our nations overall efforts to educate our future generations are among the biggest faults in the fabric of our countrys sensational society.

I was under the impression that among the best responses to our COVID-19 nightmare was the fact the virtual classes would spawn a great involvement among families.

A childs grandmother could watch what was being taught and re-enforce it, a kids single parent could come home and review lessons, or go back to a past class  learn the math formula  and explain in perhaps a better way.

But, no, the Rutherford County Department of Education sent this to each parent:

* * *

RUTHERFORD COUNTY STRONGLY DISCOURAGES NON-STUDENT OBSERVATION

-- from the website, Tennessee Star, here is the letter Rutherford County Schools (RCS) students brought home demanding a parents signature:

RCS strives to present these opportunities in a secure format that protects student privacy to the greatest extent possible, however because these meetings will occur virtually, RCS is limited in its ability to fully control certain factors such as non-student observers that may be present in the home of a student participating in the virtual meeting, according to the form.

RCS strongly discourages non-student observation of online meetings due to the potential of confidential information about a student being revealed.

The form asks parents for their signature and warns that violation of this agreement may result in RCS removing my child from the virtual meeting.

* * *

Puh-leeze! I honestly believe the more parental involvement we can have in elementary education the better. For the Rutherford County Schools superintendent to allow such a letter that warns the violation of this agreement to go out over his signature should have prompted an ears-up Realtor to call him first thing because I can show you a house that is fixing to be for sale. The good people of Murfreesboro and its immediate environs should send such a goof packing.

Quickly, RCS issues a rebuttal of sorts:

RCS spokesman James Evans addressed the matter in an email to The Star:

We are aware of the concern that has been raised about this distance-learning letter that was sent to parents. The intent was not to prevent parents from being involved with their children during distance learning, but it was intended to protect the academic privacy of other students in the classroom who are visible during certain virtual class sessions, Evans email read.

We have issued new guidance to principals that parents can assist their children during virtual group lessons with permission of the instructor but should refrain from sharing or recording any information about other students in the classroom.

Alright, so what does that mean? If it was me? Id ask what time you want those moving trucks?

* * *

A SHOCKED NASHVILLE DAD TAKES HIS CHILDREN OUT OF PUBLIC SCHOOL

(NOTE: There is a little-known website, breaking991.com, that leapt into the media mainstream this week with an option article, The Disturbing Self-Hate That Is Taught In a 2nd Grade English Class. It was allegedly written by T. Graham Benson, a website employee whose home is apparently in Nashville. His twitter tag is @grantb911. This article appeared on the breaking911.com website on August 16.)

NASHVILLE, Tenn.  It was a Friday, my day off from working the news desk at Breaking911. I had just finished lunch in the kitchen where my daughter was video conferencing with her second-grade class. I heard the teacher tell the children to remind their parents to swing by the school to pick up some learning material.

My wife Joanne, on her way home from work, stopped by the school to gather the material. She arrived at home and I looked through the books. The first book was Martin Luther King Jr. & The March on Washington. I thought to myself, Great. She will learn the inspirational and vital story of the civil rights movement. My issue with this book is it literally teaches children that blacks and whites are not treated equally.

In my life they are. In my home they are. In my daughters mind, we are equal.

The next book was Ruby Bridges Goes to School, a great piece of history about a 6-year-old girl who helped end segregation at her school in Louisiana in 1960. The third book was titled, Separate Is Never Equal, authored by a man named Duncan Tonatiuh. It is a story about Sylvia Mendez. I was unaware of this amazing story.

Mendez bravely fought to end segregation in education in California. She was the child at the center of the landmark 1947 case, Mendez vs. Westminster, in which her parents and neighbors fought against segregated education for children of Mexican descent in southern California, a case that banned segregation in California public schools and paved the way for the national ban on segregated schools in Brown vs. Board of Education seven years later. What an inspiring and little-known piece of history.

Yet, when I read the childrens book by Tonatiuh, I did not find it appropriate for my 7-year-old daughter to read. Why? My wife and I have raised our children to believe that all people are equal. We have also taught them about racism and that there was a dark time in America when people were not equal.

This book struck me as teaching my child that all white people are racist. More troubling than that, the book seems to insinuate to children of color that all white people are racist or against them in some way.

For example, the very first page reads, Sylvia had on her black shoes. They were shiny-new. Her hair was perfectly parted in two long trenzas. It was her first day at Westminster school. The halls were crowded with students. She was looking for her locker when a young white boy pointed at her and yelled, Go back to the Mexican school! You dont belong here!

Now, this may have actually happened to Ms. Mendez. I do not know. But what is this teaching my child, who has known nothing but love and tolerance toward others her entire life?

Some of you reading this may say, Its history! or It happened! Your daughter should know that Mexican-Americans were oppressed by white people in Southern California. This is true. She should know this story. I only take issue with how the author conveys the story through divisive words and illustration.

I reached out to my sister, who for the record, is a staunch liberal. I texted her the disturbing illustrations and text from the book to her. Her first response was I think this is super extreme. I mean, if we dont teach racism kids wouldnt even know about it. I do disagree with this.

At this point, I knew I wasnt overreacting. So, I tweeted a few photos and what I was feeling off the top of my head. In minutes, the tweet had been shared hundreds of times. By the next morning, the tweet was shared over 7,000 times.

Now I knew I wasnt crazy. The overwhelming amount of responses agreed that this English Lesson was not appropriate for a second grader.

So, I dug deeper.

I went to Google, as one does, and a search of author and illustrator Duncan Tonatiuh described him as being interested in social justice. Tonatiuh, a Mexican American, has won many awards for his work.

During my research on the book I found so troubling, I came across a story from the University of Pittsburgh titled; How a Facebook Post Sparked an Anti-Racist Book Drive. This story describes how a woman named Jennifer Iriti, a research scientist at the college, spread a viral book list for children regarding race.

Heres an excerpt from that article:

In my work in literacy and equity, its always been centered on making sure minoritized students have access to materials that reflect them; that they can see themselves in that work, said Iriti, who also serves as a faculty fellow for the Center for Urban Education in Pitts School of Education. And its equally important for white students to see people of color through the materials they use in school.

With her many educator contacts in mind, Iriti clicked share on her Facebook page and wrote: Hey, teacher friends, here are some great books to think about.

She never wouldve imagined what would happen next.

One of my teacher friends commented that she was embarrassed to say shes never heard of any of the books titles and said she was going to purchase some of the books, said Iriti. And then, another one of my friends chimed in and said, Ill buy a book for each of ten teachers who will use them in their classrooms.

That friend was Celina Farabaugh, a mother of two in South Fayette, Pennsylvania, who knows Iriti through volunteer work outside of Pitt.

I had been reading quite a bit about ways to be an anti-racist, and one of the suggestions I read was to donate an anti-racist book to a teacher, said Farabaugh. So, when Jen posted a list of suggested books, I felt called to take this small step. Her first donation: Separate is Never Equal, by Duncan Tonatiuh, to a teacher in the Keystone Oaks School District, located about 10 miles from downtown Pittsburgh.

I thought to myself, Anti-racist? What the hell is that? So perhaps this is how the book found its way into my daughters virtual classroom. (It is worth noting this book was not a random book plucked from the library shelf but mandatory reading for the entire class.)

So, I did more research on the term Anti-Racism. I quickly learned this seemingly new terminology was linked to the Black Lives Matter movement.

White people who feel they are guilty for the atrocities of their ancestors now claim to be anti-racist instead of just genuinely not being racist. If this sounds completely unintelligent, thats because it is.

The Harvard Graduate School of Education has released a video titled, Education Now: Practicing Antiracism in Your School. It proclaims: The disparities that students face today, magnified during the COVID-19 outbreak, are rooted in systemic racism that has been ingrained in education for generations. But even as we reevaluate the system, we must also recognize the critical impact of individual educators who are committed to the fight against racism and injustice

Another headline I found during the search was this from MinnPost: Stay in public schools: The anti-racism we need from white families during the pandemic. In this article it says white America owes black students a large educational debt, and funding public schools is one part of paying back that debt.

In short, they are asking for money.

These new phrases and words that creep up in society are not by accident. So-called social justice advocates do not really strive for equal justice at all. There is a much larger agenda.

Black Lives Matter doesnt mean that black lives should actually matter. It is a political movement. Their website and mission statement actually advocate for the dismantling of the traditional family. Instead, BLM wants a so-called community or village to raise your children.

BLMs website says, We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and villages that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

It continues to demean a Heterosexuality. They call this heteronormative thinking.

As someone who is knee-deep in politics on a daily basis, I knew my children would face a certain degree of indoctrination in public schools. But I naively thought my second grader would not be spoon fed this garbage so soon.

My wife and I have decided to remove our daughter from Metro Nashville Public Schools and are now exploring private school options. While the financial aspect will be a challenge, we are determined to give our kids the opportunity to learn about civil rights and racism in a constructive way. Perhaps a history class and not a story book that pits our children against each other. After all, they are our greatest asset.

I believe that the racial tension we see in America today is because our nation has yet to begin to heal.

Our country is young.

Our shameful and hideous scars are still fresh.

Now is the time to move along and focus on what brings us together.  Not dwell on the evils of our past.

(c) 2020 Breaking911  T. Grant Benson / @GrantB911

* * *

There can be no doubt that our parents must carefully monitor the information, the materials, and the intent of which, is being force-fed to our children. Just as parents must monitor what our children discover on the Internet, parents must have a firm control of the adage that was described many years ago as GIGO  Garbage in, Garbage out.

In todays world, it is the parent who must be the watchdog. Stay faithful. Be diligent. Be a parent.

royexum@aol.com
Technical Forecast for the Australian Dollar: Neutral

The two major AUD -crosses have stalled in key technical zones, suggesting that AUD/JPY and AUD/USD could go either way. Patience is required.

There are no medium or high rated events on the DailyFX Forex Economic Calendar this week for Australia, suggesting that event risk and thus breakout risk is low  particularly in context of the time of year.

The IG Client Sentiment Index s uggests that the AUD-crosses have a neutral bias tilting towards bullish.

Australian Dollar Rates Week in Review

Last week proved to be a mixed bag for the Australian Dollar, with several crosses posting modest losses, others posting doji candles, and some scratching out minor gains. AUD/NZD rates eased off by a mere -0.12%, while AUD/JPY rates, the biggest mover, fell by -0.89%. GBP/AUD rates added +0.18% while EUR/AUD rates dropped by -0.23%. A similar story emerged for AUD/USD rates, which by -0.16%.

What was an uneventful week may be a precursor to the week ahead. There are no medium or high rated events on the DailyFX Forex Economic Calendar this week for Australia, suggesting that event risk and thus breakout risk is low  particularly in context of the end of the summer, one of the lower volatility periods of the entire year (next to the week between Christmas Eve and New Years Day, Thanksgiving week in the United States, and the weeks around Easter).

AUD/USD RATE TECHNICAL ANALYSIS: DAILY CHART (December 2018 to August 2020) (CHART 1)

AUD/USD rates have lost their uptrend from the March coronavirus pandemic low, and have started to flag if not carve out what could be considered a potential head and shoulders pattern on the daily timeframe. For now, however, with AUD/USD rates struggling to gain traction through the descending trendline from the July 2014 and January 2018 highs, it would appear that the bullish technical structure is facing a stress test in the near future. Yet that may need to wait until the calendar turns to September; nevertheless, traders should be vigilant to see how AUD/USD rates deal with the 0.7100/50 area over the coming week.

IG Client Sentiment Index: AUD/USD RATE Forecast (August 21, 2020) (Chart 2)

AUD/USD: Retail trader data shows 43.83% of traders are net-long with the ratio of traders short to long at 1.28 to 1. The number of traders net-long is 2.48% lower than yesterday and 2.14% higher from last week, while the number of traders net-short is 1.78% lower than yesterday and 13.88% lower from last week.

We typically take a contrarian view to crowd sentiment, and the fact traders are net-short suggests AUD/USD prices may continue to rise.

Positioning is more net-short than yesterday but less net-short from last week. The combination of current sentiment and recent changes gives us a further mixed AUD/USD trading bias.

AUD/JPY RATE TECHNICAL ANALYSIS: DAILY CHART (DECEMBER 2017 to AUGUST 2020) (CHART 3)

AUD/JPY rates have been consolidating in an ascending triangle since the beginning of June, and have found themselves once more capped by a familiar zone: the dynamic support and resistance band in the 76.30 to 77.55 area, which has proven itself a nuisance to traders going back to January 2019. To this end, with the uptrend from the coronavirus pandemic low now broken, momentum has proven weaker in AUD/JPY rates. As is the case with AUD/USD, the end of the summer (effectively) is not fertile ground high volatility or elevated trading volumes, making the likelihood of a breakout developing depressed for the time being.

IG Client Sentiment Index: AUD/JPY Rate Forecast (August 21, 2020) (Chart 4)

AUD/JPY: Retail trader data shows 35.61% of traders are net-long with the ratio of traders short to long at 1.81 to 1. The number of traders net-long is 6.35% lower than yesterday and 0.56% lower from last week, while the number of traders net-short is 1.59% higher than yesterday and 9.97% higher from last week.

We typically take a contrarian view to crowd sentiment, and the fact traders are net-short suggests AUD/JPY prices may continue to rise.

Traders are further net-short than yesterday and last week, and the combination of current sentiment and recent changes gives us a stronger AUD/JPY-bullish contrarian trading bias.

--- Written by Christopher Vecchio, CFA, Senior Currency Strategist
14:05 | Cerro Colorado (Arequipa region), Aug. 23.





"We ask the Public Ministry to conduct a rigorous investigation and demand an exemplary punishment for the owners and organizers of this event," he said.





The Head of State noted that it is unacceptable that events like these take place in Peru, adding that he has different feelings and emotions as a person and authority.





"Obviously, I feel sorry and sad for the victims and their relatives, but I also have anger and indignation for those who were responsible by organizing this type of event," Mr. Vizcarra pointed out.





Moreover, the Peruvian leader referred to the 23 detained people, of which 15 tested positive for COVID-19.





"Please reflect, let's not lose more lives due to negligence," he added.









At least 13 people have died in a crush during a police raid at a nightclub in Lima's Los Olivos district where a party was being held despite a coronavirus ban on such gatherings as partygoers tried to flee, according to Peruvian National Police General Orlando Velasco.



Declaraciones del presidente @MartinVizcarraC sobre la tragedia ocurrida en discoteca de Los Olivos. pic.twitter.com/owc9XW2DdH  Presidencia Peru (@presidenciaperu) August 23, 2020





(END) RMCH/RMB
Mumbai, Aug 23 : The CBI team probing Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death went to a resort where he had spent two months on Sunday, while carrying on questioning of his flatmate and personal staff as it found some "inconsistencies" in their statements.

A day after recreating the crime at his Bandra flat, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team spent over two hours at the Waterstone resort as it tried to determine how Sushant was behaving when he was staying there.

Meanwhile, a team of forensic doctors arrived at the IAF-DRDO guesthouse in Santacruz area, to discuss the details of Saturday's findings from the late actor's flat and the doctors of Cooper hospital where his post-mortem was conducted on June 15, agency sources said.

The sources also said that Sushant's flatmate Siddharth Pithani, his cook Neeraj and helper Dipesh Sawant were also being questioned, as it had found some stark differences and inconsistencies in their statements.

The CBI has questioned Pithani thrice earlier and Neeraj thrice since Thursday after the team arrived in Mumbai from Delhi, as it seeks to ascertain what really happened between June 8 to June 14, when his girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty left for her house and who all visited his flat.

It also wants to find who all Sushant spoke to in absence of Rhea and how he was behaving when his sister stayed with him till June 12.

The team is soon expected to question Rhea and her family members in the coming days.

An agency source also said the CBI will ask for the call detail records of Sushant, Rhea and others.

The CBI and CFSL teams reached Mumbai on Thursday evening and were exempted from the mandatory quarantine by the BMC.

The CBI had taken over the probe on August 6 on the orders of the Central government following a recommendation by the Bihar government in wake of an FIR lodged by Sushant's father, K.K. Singh, at Patna's Rajiv Nagar police station on July 25.

The case was registered against Rhea, her father Indrajit, mother Sandhya, brother Showik, Sushant's former manager Shruti Modi and house manager Samuel Miranda and unknown persons.

The Enforcement Directorate is also probing a money laundering angle in the matter.

On Friday, it recorded the statement of Sushant's sister Priyanka Singh in Delhi.

Earlier, the financial probe agency had recorded the statement of Sushant's father, sister Meetu Singh, besides Rhea, Showik, Indrajit, Miranda, Shruti Modi, Pithani, Rumi Jaffery and several others.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
Control measures to check the spread of crop-threatening migratory pest locust have been taken in 10 states covering more than 5.66 lakh hectares area till now, the Union Ministry said on Sunday.

The country has been facing the locust problem since April. The problem is largely prevalent in northern India.

In a statement, the ministry said Locust Circle Offices (LCOs) have taken locust control operations in 2,78,716 hectares area in states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana till August 22.

Whereas state governments have done control operations in 2,87,374 hectares area in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Bihar.

On August 23, control operations were carried out at four places in three districts of Jaisalmer, Jodhpur and Bikaner of Rajasthan and two places in Kutch district of Gujarat against hoppers by LCOs.

The ministry said adequate manpower and control teams with spray vehicles were deployed in Rajasthan and Gujarat.

"No Significant crop losses have been reported in the states of Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Haryana. However, some minor crop losses have been reported in some districts of Rajasthan," the ministry noted.

On August 23, hoppers were active in Jaisalmer, Jodhpur and Bikaner districts of Rajasthan and Kutch district of Gujarat.

As per the August 14 update of the Food and Organization (FAO), swarms persist in the Horn of Africa. More hopper bands and swarms are likely to form in Yemen due to good rainfall. Hopper groups and bands continue to form along the Indo-Pakistan border, it added.

(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.)
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump's sustained criticism of mail-in ballots is dividing his party ahead of the Republican National Convention this week amid new signs it may be discouraging his own voters as much as it is the Democrats.

A USA TODAY review of mail ballot requests in several battlegrounds shows Democrats appear to be gaining an advantage in states such as Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida as Trump hammers away with allegations of fraud.

The growing chasm between the president's rhetoric on vote-by-mail and what on-the-ground Republicans see as a central component of their turnout strategy could make for a tricky dynamic at this week's GOP convention, where the party wants to build excitement to increase turnout, not depress it.

"The narrative that hes created has backfired," asserted Michael Steele, a former Republican National Committee chairman. "Any Republican who's running a campaign knows how much we rely on absentee ballots  vote by mail  for turnout."

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In Pennsylvania  considered a must-win state for Trump's reelection  nearly 900,000 Democrats have requested a mail ballot for the Nov. 3 election so far, more than twice the number of Republicans who have done so. In North Carolina, also in play, some 177,000 Democrats requested ballots compared with just over 50,000 Republicans.

Democrats were outpacing Republicans by more than 600,000 ballot requests in Florida's primary election this week, a method once dominated by Republicans.

Still, Trump has continued to launch a rhetorical assault on the issue in the days ahead of the party's convention. Democrats used their meeting this past week to encourage voters to "make a plan" to request a ballot by mail.

"This is going to be the greatest scam in history," Trump told Fox News last week. "This will be the most fraudulent election in history."

Story continues

Broader strategy

Trumps attacks on mail ballots have been leveled in tandem with a broader, coordinated Republican strategy that has taken shape as both parties prepare for a legal firefight over voting that experts predict will only intensify in coming weeks.

The Republican National Committee earmarked $20 million last year for its election legal effort. Party officials published a website echoing the president's accusation that Democrats are trying to "eliminate nearly every safeguard." And outside conservative groups have run advertising on the issue, including in battleground states.

In a tweet this month, RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel accused Democrats of trying to "rig this election" and pointed followers to the website launched in May.

Republicans expect to train "thousands" of lawyers for the election, a Republican with knowledge of the plans told USA TODAY. Democrats also usually "lawyer up" and a Democratic source speaking on condition of anonymity said the party is building out a "voter protection" program that will be active in at least 20 states.

President Trump on July 31, 2020, in Washington, D.C.

Still, Trump's messaging has not always aligned with the party and has at times been inconsistent. He's tweeted his support this month for the mail ballot system in Florida  where he himself mailed an absentee ballot  but slammed a nearly identical system in Michigan. Trump relied on a third party to deliver his ballot to the state, but has ripped into third-party ballot delivery in other states, including New Jersey.

The president and the GOP have sought to draw a distinction between mail-in voting, which they say they support, and "universal mail voting," where states automatically send a ballot to each voter. That latter system, they argue, can lead to fraud because voter rolls in some states are not up to date.

Nine states have said they will use that "universal" system and, of those, only Nevada and Colorado are considered potentially competitive this year.

"All Americans deserve an election system that is secure and President Trump is highlighting that Democrats plan for universal mail-in voting would lead to fraud, White House spokeswoman Sarah Matthews said. While Democrats continue to call for a radical overhaul of our nations voting system, President Trump will continue to work to ensure the security and integrity of our elections.

More: Election lawsuits set record pace amid COVID-19 pandemic

More: Republicans, Democrats pursue absentee voting despite Trump's criticism

Critics counter that Trump is less worried about fraud than he is about setting the stage to challenge the election if the result is extremely close or if early returns appear to favor Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Election experts say that Trump is correct that the expected huge increase in mail ballots could significantly delay results, but they say such a delay would be an indication of the system working, meticulously, through vote counting.

Mailed ballots always take time to count, and races called on Election Day are usually projections based on in-person returns. This year, because of the pandemic, there will be a lot more mail ballots to count.

"What hes laying the groundwork for is for his supporters to believe that the election is not properly conducted so they rally behind him when or if he challenges the results, predicted Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause.

GOP mail ballots

Trump's message is falling on the ears of Republicans as well as Democrats, and there growing signs that it may be having a bigger impact within the GOP. Steele, the former party chairman, said Trump's rhetoric not only had the potential to scare off older voters who tend to skew Republican but also any GOP voter who is concerned about turning out to the polls amid a public health emergency.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll last month found that 51% of Democrats would prefer to vote by mail compared with 20% of Republicans. By contrast, GOP voters said they are more willing to vote in person.

"If I were a Republican strategist, I would be pretty concerned ... about a disproportionate decline in Republican turnout because Republicans are convinced that mail-in votes are so rife with fraud that there is no point in doing it, said Ramesh Ponnuru with the right-leaning think-tank American Enterprise Institute.

"It stands to reason that the people who are actually susceptible to a Trump message are people who are disproportionately Trump supporters," he said.

The impact is not yet clear. Several key presidential states, such as Michigan, don't keep track of party affiliation for ballot requests. Ohio officials don't expect to report the partisan breakdown of requested primary ballots until after Labor Day. Voters do not register by party in Wisconsin. In Arizona, about 1.4 million Republicans have requested a mail ballot or have been placed on the state's permanent mail vote list compared with 1.3 million Democrats.

Lawrence Tabas, chairman of Pennsylvania's Republican Party, responded to the Democratic requests for ballots by arguing that the party remains confident the president will win the state despite what he described as "issues" with mail ballots.

"We know there are issues, the president knows there are issues, and the Democrats, if they are willing to admit it, know there are issues," Tabas said in a statement. "The concerns we have as a party, related to the mail-in ballots, wont change the fact President Trump is going to win Pennsylvania."

Even if the impact on voters is not yet certain, the president's messaging has met with a mixed response among some conservative thinkers.

"Trump has managed to create some polarization among some right-leaning leadership, among thought leaders and in some state and local politicians," said Kevin Kosar with the right-leaning R Street Institute. "But, among the latter group (of) individuals, reality is reality. An election is coming, and they need a Plan B, an alternative to voting in-person. Expanding access to absentee ballots is the obvious Plan B."

"Donald Trump failed us," Joe Biden says, attacking the president's leadership in the COVID-19 crisis.

Polling places

Trump hasn't limited his messaging to mail-in ballots. He's also promised a robust monitoring effort at polling places.

Trump has hinted at the possibility of an executive order on the issue in the past, without providing specifics. During a Fox News interview on Thursday, he said he is considering deploying law enforcement and U.S. attorneys to polling places around the country  an idea that drew a swift rebuke from critics, who said such a move would be tantamount to voter intimidation.

"We're going to have sheriffs and we're going to have law enforcement and we're going to have hopefully, U.S. attorneys, and we're going to have everybody, and attorney generals," Trump said. "But it's very hard."

It's not clear if Trump has authority to dispatch local law enforcement, who are controlled by local governments, to polling places. White House officials did not respond to questions about whether Trump is planning an executive order or what such an action might look like.

Outside experts have pointed to the Justice Department's election observer program, though the powers of that office were limited by a 2013 Supreme Court decision. The Justice Department referred questions about a possible expansion to the White House.

"In no uncertain terms, we fully condemn any plans that President Trump has to deploy federal law enforcement, U.S. Attorneys, or local sheriffs to our polling sites in November," said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. "This is an old and familiar tactic pulled right from the Jim Crow playbook that is often specifically targeted at Black voters and voters of color."

'Hanging chads of 2020'

Officials in both parties foresee a sea of legal challenges even in states that aren't using universal mail voting. That's partly because state laws require voters to follow a series of instructions to cast a ballot, a process they must complete at home, without the help of poll workers.

Disputes over signatures, postmark dates and voter errors have been common for years  and often go unnoticed when races are decided by in-person votes. But this year, because of COVID-19, the number of mailed ballots will increase exponentially.

Justin Levitt, a law professor at LMU Loyola Law School, is tracking more than 200 COVID-19 election related lawsuits on the popular Election Law Blog. Those cases have been brought by both parties as well as third-party groups. It's too early to say if one side is prevailing over the other, but Levitt said one theme is that courts are wary of making wholesale changes to election systems and judges want to see proof of an alleged harm, be it fraud or disenfranchisement, before acting.

"One of the most notable aspects is that the things that you say in the court of public opinion may not fly in the court of law," Levitt said. "It turns out that judges demand evidence for claims  both of plaintiffs and of defendants."

The preponderance of litigation now could mean that the most contentious issues are addressed by the time Election Day arrives. Or it could be a preview of what's to come in November, experts said.

"I think there's a good chance that we could be shaping up for a Bush v. Gore type of situation," said Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project, referring to the Supreme Court decision that settled the 2000 presidential election.

Snead, whose conservative group spent $250,000 on advertising this year opposing expanded mail voting, predicted that issues with mail ballots "could be the hanging chads of 2020."

Mail ballots in Portland, Oregon, on May 17, 2016.

Contributing: Bart Jansen, Kristine Phillips, Palm Beach Post

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump attacks on mail-in ballots fits with broader Republican strategy
As part of measures to eradicate the agelong "no furniture adage" in our public schools, the West Gonja Municipal Assembly in the Savannah Region has procured and presented Dual and Mono Desks to the Ghana Education Service Directorate for onwards distribution to schools in the district.

Under the leadership of the Hon.Saeed Muhazu Jibreal, the assembly presented in all; 800 Dual Desks for the primary schools,340 Mono Desks for the Junior High Schools, and 480 smaller chairs and tables for the KG schools.

Speaking at a short handing over ceremony, the Municipal Chief Executive of the Assembly, Hon Saeed Muhazu Jibril said government and the assembly have since 2017 executed several infrastructure projects in the Municipality.

For the education sector, he disclosed that the assembly has constructed two Six-Unit Classroom blocks and Five Three-Unit classroom blocks for basic schools.

The government, he emphasized, also completed classroom blocks started under the previous regime at the Ndewura Jakpa Senior High Technical School with other projects including story buildings ongoing in the same school and the Damongo Senior High School.

According to him, the assembly has completed a number of educational projects abandoned by the previous government at the Damongo Agric College and other communities.

He announced that the assembly will absorb the cost of this years mock examination for all BECE candidates in the West Gonja Municipality.

The West Gonja Municipal Director of Education, Mr. Ferguson Akey, thanked the assembly for the timely intervention, assuring that, all schools in the municipality will have adequate furniture henceforth as a result of the donation.

He said the furniture will be distributed immediately to the needed schools as the government plans to reopen schools in full.
At 25 years old, Shivam Bhakta has been busy. The former Cy-Fair High School student wouldnt have it any other way.

Since graduation, hes completed two undergrad degrees at the University of Houston, worked as an engineer for Exxon, backpacked through numerous countries in Asia, and most recently secured a new job with the federal government. It sounds exhausting but it wasnt enough for the enthusiastic Bhakta who has opened his heart and a new business to give back to his community.

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Bhakta has invested in an IDEA Lab Kids franchise and opened in early August to be ready for the fall rush.

We started with about six to eight kids, but enrollment has been steadily climbing, he said.

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IDEA Lab Kids was founded as a way for kids to explore their love of science, technology, engineering, art and math subjects.

In the past, STEM was the buzzword in the education space. Arts has been added more recently.

Arts is important because thats the creative side of learning for most children, said IDEA Lab Kids CEO Devina Bhojwani.

Research shows that the more creative thinking a child has the more they grow up with those types of skills that they can apply in real life, she explained.

The Houston-based education franchise has positioned itself to become a leader in the growing STEAM education.

For Bhakta, the concept resonated with his love for the community he says has given him so much.

Thats what enabled me to get my job at Exxon and to have the opportunity to travel the world, he said of his education at Cy-Fair.

Since returning from his trip, he and his team opened up the IDEA Lab Kids Cypress location.

Now were working on inspiring other kids in Cypress so they can go and pursue STEM technical degrees and have fun in the process, the excited engineer said.

Since he was a child, hes been involved with science related activities including robotics.

I watched Bill Nye, Magic School Bus, and all the fun educational videos. I would be glued to the television watching and learning, he said. He enjoyed learning random science facts and repeating them back to his family and friends.

His curiosity also got him in a little trouble.

I also liked to dismantle things and then get yelled at for not being able to put them back together again, he laughed.

He credited growing up in the perfect era when the marriage of internet and technology was mature enough to relay all the important information to him.

I could code at home, learn important chemistry concepts at home and do all of that through the internet, he said.

He believes his dual degrees of chemistry and economics at the University of Houston has set him up perfectly for sharing his passion for STEAM and effectively running a business.

At the same time, hes balancing his new job requirements working for the national nuclear arms department in Washington, D.C.

A busy schedule is nothing new.

Ive been enjoying being busy since I was a kid, so I dont think its new for me to wear more hats, he laughed.

I have a staff that will conduct the day to day operations. A lot of the strategic operations I will still be doing, he said.

For now, he works remotely from Cypress and has applied for a full-time remote position. Otherwise, he will move to Washington, D. C. sometime in January.

My family still lives in Cypress so I will be going back and forth from Washington, D. C. to Houston. At some point, I will move back to the area permanently.

Earlier in the year he spent six months traversing several countries fulfilling another dream of backpacking the world. When he returned, he got serious about his passion for sharing education.

I was looking for some afternoon program to invest in, he said. After school he used to tutor students at a couple of programs but realized that the programs didnt really meet his criteria.

They just gave you more homework. They didnt grow your technical skills or inspire you to learn. They didnt teach you the fun, practical aspects of science.

When he saw IDEA Lab was teaching kids aerodynamics and the chemistry of cooking, he realized the potential it had to spark innovators.

They have a lot of fun, hands-on skills that kids learn, he said.

One of the concepts that sold him on IDEA was the addition of arts to the STEM category.

You can teach a child chemistry, anatomy, and teach them to memorize concepts, but thats not the way they learn, he said. The way they learn is applying it through the arts. The moment you apply arts to the field of STEM, you make it a lot more practical, more engaging and relatable. I think thats what makes IDEA Lab so innovative, he said.

With the pandemic still in play, Bhakta has pivoted with his colleagues at IDEA Lab Kids to offer pod-based learning where kids are taught in a small group of six to eight in one class.

Parents can bring their students to our campus and well put them in a pod with an instructor and take over their ZOOM classes and assist the students, he said. During their breaks or when they have finished their day, Bhakta said they will include STEAM activities.

He and the staff have introduced COVID-19 protocols to keep everyone safe.

The learning space is approximately 2,500 square feet with a room setup for each element of STEAM.

They offer a variety of pricing dependent upon the programs selected including some new opening and promotional discounts.

We want the cost to be competitive with other child care services but with us you get the better benefits of STEAM education while youre there, he said.

Students bring their own lunches and snacks and masks are mandatory for everyone during bathroom breaks.

The IDEA Lab Kids Cypress facility is located at 11808 Barker Cypress Rd., Suite C, in Cypress. For more information, visit www.cypress.idealabkids.com.

dtaylor@hcnonline.com
Analysis of a black box from inside a downed Ukrainian passenger plane has revealed the jet was hit by two missiles 25 seconds apart, Iran said today.

Tehran claims it accidentally struck down the passenger plane during a time of extreme tensions with the US in January, killing all 176 passengers on board.

The head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organisation Touraj Dehghani Zanganeh today said a second missile hit the aircraft 25 seconds after the first, but only 19 seconds of this gap was recorded due to damage from the initial hit.

He added voices heard inside the cockpit after the first missile hit 'indicated that the passengers were alive' at that time.

The announcement marks the first official report on the plane's cockpit voice and data recordings since they were sent to France for analysis in July.

Iran claims it accidentally struck down the passenger plane amid a time of extreme tensions with the US in January, killing all 176 passengers on board. Pictured: The wreckage

'Nineteen seconds after the first missile hit the plane, the voices of pilots inside the cockpit indicated that the passengers were alive ... 25 seconds later the second missile hit the plane,' Mr Zanganeh said.

'Therefore, no analysis of the performance and effects of the second missile was obtained from the aircraft's black box.'

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down the Ukraine International Airlines flight with ground-to-air missiles on January 8 moments after the plane took off from Tehran.

The nation later acknowledged the move was a 'disastrous mistake' by forces who were on high alert amid growing tensions with the US.

The head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organisation Touraj Dehghani Zanganeh ha sclaimed a second missile hit the aircraft 25 seconds after the first

He added voices heard inside the cockpit after the first missile hit 'indicated that the passengers were alive' at that time

Iran has been in talks with the Ukraine, Canada and other nations who had citizens aboard the plane, who have demanded a thorough investigation into the incident.

Iranian and Ukrainian officials have also held talks regarding compensation to the families of the victims. Another round of discussions is set for October.

An investigation into the incident is being carried out under United Nations aviation rules calling for probes aimed solely at preventing future accidents, separately from any judicial process.

The probe has been swept up in regional and domestic tensions.

'The data analysis from the black boxes should not be politicised,' Mr Zanganeh said.

More than 20 people have been jailed in Iran for participating in peaceful protests against the downing of the plane.

Some Iranians took to Twitter today to express their anger at the announcement, with one user tweeting: 'They were alive for 19 seconds ... a tragedy'.
Massachusetts police are searching for a man who has allegedly been going to a local Walmart and giving shoppers 'COVID hugs.'

The Springfield Police said Friday that they are seeking help in identifying the man who hugged a customer at a Walmart store in Springfield, Massachusetts, and told them they now had coronavirus.

The incident occurred on August 15 at about 7.10pm.

'This suspect took an item out of a victim's hands and then gave him a hug,' police said in a Facebook alert.

'He told the victim "Just giving you a Covid hug. You now have Covid." The suspect then started laughing and walked away.'

The Springfield Police Department released this surveillance image of a man who allegedly hugged shoppers at a Walmart and told them he infected them with coronavirus

Police said that the victim was a cancer survivor and had never seen the suspect before.

Some cancer patients are among the list of those with underlying symptoms due to potentially suffering from a compromised immune system which could put them at an increased risk of catching coronavirus.

The man was said to have pulled the same stunt on other customers as well.

Police released a surveillance video image of the man they claim was responsible for the 'COVID hug.'

The incident occurred at this Walmart in Springfield, Massachusetts, on August 15 at 7.10pm

In the image, the man is seen wearing a face mask, but it's unclear if he was wearing a mask at the time he hugged the victims.

A police spokesperson told Mass Live that when the suspect is found, he'll face charges of assault and battery and making terroristic threats.

Police said that claiming to have coronavirus even if you haven't tested positive for it is considered a threat and would be on par with making a false bomb threat.

Anyone with information about the man's identity is asked to call the Springfield Police Detective Bureau at 413-787-6355. Tipsters can also leave a private message on the departments Facebook page, or send an anonymous Text-A-Tip to CRIMES (2-7-4-6-3-7), beginning the message with the word SOLVE.
A 40-year-old man, Gbenga Taiwo, has been arrested by the police for allegedly defiling his daughter. Taiwo, a widower, and his 15-year-ol...

A 40-year-old man, Gbenga Taiwo, has been arrested by the police for allegedly defiling his daughter.

Taiwo, a widower, and his 15-year-old daughter live together in a rented apartment at Baruwa, Ipaja area of Lagos State.

It was gathered that the father had been constantly molesting the girl since she was 13 by dipping his fingers into her private parts.

She got tired of the molestation, was said to have reported his father to their landlord who warned Taiwo to desist from the act.

He allegedly persisted which prompted the girl to report him to her uncle recently. While the uncle was trying to handle the case discreetly, a neighbour got wind of it and escalated it.

Our correspondent learnt that the matter was reported at the Ipaja Police Station and Taiwo was arrested last Saturday.

The Coordinator of a child rights group following up on the case, Advocates for Children and Vulnerable Persons Network, Mr Ebenezer Omejalile, said that Taiwo claimed to have suspected Folake of going out with men and decided to conduct a virginity test on her with his finger.

He said, The girl said she had been constantly abused by her father since she was 13. He is about 40 years old and a retired electricity worker.

Before the intervention of the girls maternal uncle, one Mr Alagba, the girl got tired of the wickedness of her father and informed their landlord who confronted the father to stop the evil act and he let him know the consequence of his action.

But the survivors turned a deaf ear to it and kept doing it to the extent that whenever he was on night duty, he went to the office with girl to keep having her to his satisfaction.

The man claimed that he saw some pictures in her daughters phone and suspected that she was wayward. He said he did not have sex with her but only used his finger to check if she is a virgin or not.

It was gathered that Taiwos relations claimed that he had mental illness in 2018 and was admitted at a private rehabilitation centre, Ise Oluwa Hospital in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

A report signed by the hospitals Medical Director, Dr Kayode Ojomo, indicated that Taiwo was admitted at the facility on October 1, 2018 for complaints suggestive of a mild depressive episode.

The report added, He is currently on admission and will be discharged soon as he has made remarkable improvement.

He has been exhibiting strange behaviour inside the cell. At times, he would just remove his clothes, a source said.

The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, SP Bala Elkana, confirmed Taiwos arrest.

He said, Investigation has commenced on the case and tests will be carried out on to determine the suspects mental health.
Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, center, attends a ceremony commemorating the 62nd anniversary of deadly attack by China on Kinmen island, in Kinmen. (AP)

Kinmen: The U.S. envoy to Taiwan joined President Tsai Ing-wen at a military memorial service Sunday in a fresh show of warming relations that threatened to add to irritants in Washington's relations with Beijing.

Neither the director of the American Institute in Taiwan, William Brent Christensen, nor Tsai spoke at the annual event for soldiers killed by Chinese bombing in 1958 on Kinmen, a Taiwanese-controlled island near the mainland coast. Attendees, wearing masks as a precaution against the coronavirus, observed one minute of silence. Military personnel lit incense at soldiers' graves.

Washington has no official relations with Taiwan, which split with the communist-ruled mainland in 1949 following a civil war. The Trump administration has made gestures toward Taiwan as relations with Beijing soured. This month, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar became the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit, prompting a Chinese protest.

Despite that lack of official ties, the United States is Taiwan's most important ally and weapons supplier. The AIT is a non-profit corporation instead of an embassy but is staffed by State Department employees.

There was no immediate official Chinese comment Sunday about U.S. participation in the memorial.

Sunday marked the first appearance by an AIT director at the annual memorial. Christensen has previously attended events with Tsai, but Sunday's was unusually high-profile. Some Taiwan TV channels broadcast the memorial live.

Christensen, who brought an eight-member delegation, and Tsai said nothing to reporters.

Previous Taiwanese presidents have spoken at the memorial. Tsai, who took office in 2016, made no speech last year but talked to reporters about events in Hong Kong.

Washington's support for Taiwan's democratically elected government has been a chronic irritant in relations with Beijing. More recently, the two sides are at odds over Beijing's technology ambitions, spying accusations, trade, the South China Sea and China's response to the virus pandemic.

The soldiers commemorated Sunday were killed after the mainland's People's Liberation Army began artillery attacks on Kinmen, which lies near the Chinese coast, on Aug. 23, 1958.

Their intensity declined the following October but they didn't end until Washington and Beijing formed official relations in 1979.
The toddler, whose identity has not yet been released, was found in a living room after firefighters knocked down the flames, New Chicago Fire Chief Joe Eakins said.

The Indiana State Fire Marshal is investigating the cause and nature of the fire.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Sunday said the Gandhi family has kept the party united and the letter written by senior Congress leaders over the leadership issue is an unfortunate move.

Gehlot said Sonia Gandhi should continue to lead the party and if she has made up her mind, then Rahul Gandhi should come ahead and be the Congress president as the country faces the biggest challenge to save its democracy.

He said the leaders who are said to have written the letter have worked with the party for long and this was not expected of them.



"I am not aware of any such letter but if this is true, then it is unbelievable and very unfortunate. They all have worked with the party for so long and the move of writing the letter is uncalled for," Gehlot said.



He said Congress president Sonia Gandhi took reins of the party in 1998 and despite all challenges, she continued holding the party united.



"She became the party president in 1998 in challenging circumstances and has been the saviour of the party. She took all challenges head on. Today, despite her health issues, she is still holding the 'Congress Kunba' (party) united. Is it a small thing?" Gehlot added.



Ahead of the Congress Working Committee meeting on Monday, different voices have emerged within the party with one section comprising sitting MPs and former ministers demanding a collective leadership, while another group has sought the return of Rahul Gandhi to the helm.



Some Congress leaders, including ex-ministers, have written to party president Sonia Gandhi for the overhaul of the organisational structure and changes to the leadership.



The letter by former ministers and some MPs was believed to have been written a few weeks ago and sets the stage for a stormy Congress Working Committee meeting on Monday where issues flagged by dissenters are expected to be discussed and debated.



Gehlot said Sonia Gandhi declined to take up the post of prime minister and none of her family members became PM or minister at the Centre in three decades.



"If they had any fascination, Sonia Gandhi could have become the prime minister earlier, but P V Narasimha Rao and later Manmohan Singh were made the prime ministers. Congressmen in all regions have trust over Gandhi's leadership," he said.



The Rajasthan chief minister later tweeted, "I strongly believe that Hon'ble CP Smt Sonia Gandhi ji should continue to lead the party at this crucial juncture where the fight is to save the ethos of our Democracy. She has always taken challenges head on. But if she has made up her mind -- I believe @RahulGandhi should come ahead and be the Congress president as country faces the biggest challenge to save our Constitution - Democracy."



Gehlot said democracy is under threat and a struggle to save it is going on and therefore, "we should not step back".



"The Gandhi family has kept the party united and in the time of crisis, we need them," he said.



"It is disappointing that the letter was written and it was taken to the media. There is a wide acceptability of the family in all caste, creed and regions across the country," he said.



Gehlot also said that the letter has created resentment among party workers.



"If the sentiments of the party workers are hurt for personal things and the party falls apart, then history will not forgive us," the chief minister said
Coronavirus LIVE Updates: Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Monday said he had tested positive for coronavirus, days after he had tested negative for the infection after Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat was found to be COVID-19 positive.

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The US Food and Drug Administration has approved using blood plasma from recovered coronavirus patients as a treatment against the infection, reports AFP. This product may be effective in treating COVID-19 and... the known and potential benefits of the product outweigh the known and potential risks of the product, reads the FDAs statement.

The patient is suffering from some mental issues according to his family members, he said. Kasar demanded that state government install iron grills on the windows of the hospital.

The patient got down from the third floor window onto the open slab and was about to jump when some staff members rushed to him and held him back, said Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Medical College and Hospital Dean Dr P K Kasar.

Staff members of a hospital in Madhya Pradesh on Sunday foiled the bid of a 40-year-old COVID-19 patient to commit suicide by jumping off the third floor of the facility, police said.

Odisha on Sunday registered its highest single-day spike of 2,993 COVID-19 cases and 10 more deaths due to the infection, reports PTI. With this, the state's COVID-19 death toll has mounted to 409 and the infection tally reached 78,530, a health official said.

On Sunday, 58 fresh coronavirus cases were confirmed in the dormitory, a day after a new COVID-19 cluster emerged there.

The Sungei Tengah Lodge dormitory was among the largest COVID-19 clusters in Singapore with over 2,200 confirmed cases before it was declared cleared of the disease by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) last month.

Around 4,800 workers have been issued a stay-home notice at Singapore's largest foreign workers' dormitory after fresh coronavirus emerged there, reports PTI.

Indias coronavirus tally rises to 31,06,348 cases after the country reports 61,408 new infections in 24 hours. The countrys toll climbs up by 836 to 57,542.

But the epidemic has left Asia's third-largest economy reeling, and tens of millions of people have lost their jobs and livelihoods.

"At the moment we are seeing a fairly sharp rise in cases overall for India," said K Srinath Reddy, of the non-governmental Public Health Foundation of India.

Previously the main hotspots have been the teeming megacities of New Delhi and Mumbai, home to some of the world's biggest slums.

India, the world's second-most-populous nation is currently leading in new infection cases as the virus marches through impoverished rural areas in the north and the wealthier but older populations of the south.

Katras police station officer in charge Ras Bihari Lal has identified the man as 30-year-old Shantu Gupta, who was arrested on extortion charges. After he tested positive, the police admitted him to the central hospital of Bharat Coking Coal Limited.

A total of 1,792 people, including 699 security personnel, have tested positive for the infection in the state since August 1, the official said.

Sixty-nine people were discharged from different hospitals on Sunday as they have recovered from COVID-19, taking the total number of recoveries to 2,297, he said. Of the total 3,263 COVID-19 cases in the state, 961 are active cases as 2,297 people have recovered from the disease and five have died.

Arunachal Pradesh's COVID-19 tally rose to 3,263, with 40 more people including 17 security personnel testing positive for Coronavirus, a senior Health department official said on Monday.

The COVID-19 case fatality rate has declined to 1.85 per cent, while the recovery rate has risen to 75.27 per cent.

India''s COVID-19 caseload mounted to 31,06,348, while the death toll climbed to 57,542 with 836 fatalities being reported in a span of 24-hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.

A single-day spike of 61,408 COVID-19 cases took India''s virus caseload past the 31-lakh mark on Monday, a day after it crossed 30 lakh, while recoveries surged to 23,38,035 pushing the recovery rate to over 75 percent, according to the Union Health Ministry data.

"Health authorities have reported 496 new cases of coronavirus and now the total number of infections stand at 2,93,261," the ministry said in a statement.

Pakistan has resistered 496 new cases of coronavirus, taking the total number of infections in the nation to 2,93,261, the health ministry said on Monday, reports PTI. The Ministry of National Health Services said the new cases were detected as the number of diagnosis tests have been intensified across the nation.

So far, Kalyan town in the district has reported the highest number of 26,623 cases, followed by Thane city-24,459 and Navi Mumbai-23,321, an official release said.

The COVID-19 tally in Thane reached 1,14,765 on Monday after 881 new cases were found in the Maharashtra district, officials told PTI. The district also reported 28 more deaths due to COVID-19, taking the total number of fatalities to 3,268.

The Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) issued show cause notices to these hospitals following which they refunded Rs 26.68 lakh to the patients.

The audit teams checked 4,106 bills from 10 July to 21 August and found an excess amount totalling Rs 1.82 crore in 1,362 bills, the civic body said in a statement.

Following several complaints from patients, Thane Municipal Commissioner Dr Vipin Sharma constituted audit teams to check the billings of 17 hospitals in the city, reports PTI.

As many as 17 private hospitals in Maharashtra's Thane city overcharged COVID-19 patients to the tune of Rs 1.82 crore and are yet to refund Rs 1.40 crore out of it, civic officials said on Monday.

The PMO has said that each bed will also have oxygen supply. The doctors and paramedical staff will be provided by the Armed Forces Medical Services.

According to the Prime Minister's Office, the PM-CARES Fund Trust has decided to allocate funds to fight against COVID-19 by the way of establishment of 500-bed makeshift hospitals at Patna and Muzaffarpur in Bihar by DRDO. The hospitals, with 125 ICU beds with ventilators and 375 normal beds each, will be inaugurated soon.

Notably, the Speaker has tested positive two days before the monsoon session of the Assembly starts on 26 August. As a result, Deputy Speaker Ranbir Gangwa will be presiding over the House proceedings.

Haryana Assembly Speaker Gian Chand Gupta tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday, Health Minister Anil Vij confirmed. "The Assembly Speaker and two other MLAs have tested positive for coronavirus," Vij, who is also the state''s Home Minister, told PTI.

Advocate Deepak Prakash, appearing for petitioner Hashik Thayikandy, said that all he is asking for is a national policy to be formulated that would provide for uniform compensation throughout the country.

A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and R S Reddy dismissed the plea saying that every state has a different policy and gives compensation as per its financial power.

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a plea seeking formulation of a national policy for uniform compensation for families of those who have died due the coronavirus disease, reports PTI.

The total number of coronavirus cases in the Maharashtra police rises to 13,716. The police forces toll stands at 139.

Meghalaya currently has 1,141 active cases, while the number of recoveries stands at 780. Eight patients have succumbed to the infection so far.

Of the new cases, 10 were reported from East Khasi Hills district and two from Ri-Bhoi, Health Services Director Aman War said. "Nine armed forces personnel are among the new patients," he said.

At least 12 more people, including nine security personnel, tested positive for COVID-19 in Meghalaya on Monday, taking the northeastern state''s tally to 1,929, a health department official told PTI.

The state also reported 585 new cases of the coronavirus. The total number of people infected by COVID-19 now stands at 71,194 in Rajasthan and out of these 14,790 people are under treatment. The official said that 54,805 people have been discharged after treatment till now.

Rajasthan recorded six more fatalities due to the novel coronavirus on Monday, taking the COVID-19 death toll in the state to 961, according to a health department official.

"The next stage of the vaccine rollout would be expanded based on an assessment of each countrys vulnerability to the virus. A number of vaccines are now in the final stage of clinical trials and we all hope well have multiple successful candidates that are both safe and effective," reports quoted the WHO as saying.

On Monday, the WHO said that the coronavirus vaccine, once developed, will be first provided to healthcare workers around the world. Then to people over 65 years, and those with comorbidities.

"The office block where he used to sit has been closed for sanitisation work. Other staff members who sat there have also undergone the coronavirus test," Goel said. The office block is separate from the main Delhi BJP office building where the party president and other senior office bearers have their chambers.

The 60-year-old man took the COVID-19 test on Sunday and his report came positive, Delhi BJP's media cell head Ashok Goel said.

A portion of the Delhi BJP's office on Pant Marg here was closed for sanitisation work on Monday after a senior staff member tested positive for COVID-19, a party leader said.

The New York Times on Monday reported that researchers have found "the first confirmed case of coronavirus reinfection, suggesting that immunity in some people might last only a few months."

Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Monday said he had tested positive for coronavirus, days after he had tested negative for the infection after Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat was found to be COVID-19 positive.

Madhya Pradesh on Monday reported 1,292 new COVID-19 cases, with which the tally rose to 54,421. The number of active cases stands at 11,944. As many as 17 patients died of the illness on the day, taking the State-wide death toll to 1,246.

The total number of coronavirus cases in the Maharashtra police rises to 13,716. The police forces toll stands at 139.

Meghalaya currently has 1,141 active cases, while the number of recoveries stands at 780. Eight patients have succumbed to the infection so far.

Of the new cases, 10 were reported from East Khasi Hills district and two from Ri-Bhoi, Health Services Director Aman War said. "Nine armed forces personnel are among the new patients," he said.

At least 12 more people, including nine security personnel, tested positive for COVID-19 in Meghalaya on Monday, taking the northeastern state''s tally to 1,929, a health department official told PTI.

The state also reported 585 new cases of the coronavirus. The total number of people infected by COVID-19 now stands at 71,194 in Rajasthan and out of these 14,790 people are under treatment. The official said that 54,805 people have been discharged after treatment till now.

Rajasthan recorded six more fatalities due to the novel coronavirus on Monday, taking the COVID-19 death toll in the state to 961, according to a health department official.

"The next stage of the vaccine rollout would be expanded based on an assessment of each countrys vulnerability to the virus. A number of vaccines are now in the final stage of clinical trials and we all hope well have multiple successful candidates that are both safe and effective," reports quoted the WHO as saying.

On Monday, the WHO said that the coronavirus vaccine, once developed, will be first provided to healthcare workers around the world. Then to people over 65 years, and those with comorbidities.

"The office block where he used to sit has been closed for sanitisation work. Other staff members who sat there have also undergone the coronavirus test," Goel said. The office block is separate from the main Delhi BJP office building where the party president and other senior office bearers have their chambers.

The 60-year-old man took the COVID-19 test on Sunday and his report came positive, Delhi BJP's media cell head Ashok Goel said.

A portion of the Delhi BJP's office on Pant Marg here was closed for sanitisation work on Monday after a senior staff member tested positive for COVID-19, a party leader said.

The New York Times on Monday reported that researchers have found "the first confirmed case of coronavirus reinfection, suggesting that immunity in some people might last only a few months."

2,370 of 2,713 cases have recovered, he said, adding that Dharavi now has only 83 active cases.

The cumulative tally of cases in Mumbai's biggest slum colony, once a COVID-19 hotspot, now stands at 2,713, an official said. Earlier, Dharavi had reported just one COVID-19 case on 5 August.

Dharavi slum sprawl in Mumbai on Monday reported just two new COVID-19 cases, which is the second lowest single-day rise so far this month, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation ((BMC) said.

I was tested for Novel Corona Virus today. My test report has returned positive. I appeal to all colleagues and associates who came in my contact over the last week to get themselves tested. I request my close contacts to move into strict quarantine immediately.

Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Monday said he had tested positive for coronavirus, days after he had tested negative for the infection after Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat was found to be COVID-19 positive.

Madhya Pradesh on Monday reported 1,292 new COVID-19 cases, with which the tally rose to 54,421. The number of active cases stands at 11,944. As many as 17 patients died of the illness on the day, taking the State-wide death toll to 1,246.

Metro services were suspended in late March to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has infected more than 31 lakh people in the country so far.

States will, however, take the final call on reopening the rapid transport networks depending on the coronavirus situation there.

Metro rail services may be allowed from September 1 when the 'Unlock 4' phase in the graded reopening from the coronavirus-induced lockdown will begin, an official said.

Bars, which are so far not allowed to reopen, may be permitted to sell liquor over the counter for takeaway.

The Centre is likely to allow resumption of Metro train services in the 'Unlock 4' phase beginning 1 September, but schools and colleges may not reopen anytime soon, officials said on Monday.

Coronavirus LATEST Updates: Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Monday said he had tested positive for coronavirus, days after he had tested negative for the infection after Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat was found to be COVID-19 positive.

Indias coronavirus tally rises to 31,06,348 cases after the country reports 61,408 new infections in 24 hours. The countrys toll climbs up by 836 to 57,542.

'This product may be effective in treating COVID-19 and... the known and potential benefits of the product outweigh the known and potential risks of the product,' reads the FDAs statement

The number of coronavirus positive cases reported so far in the country crossed 30 lakh on Sunday, just 16 days after it crossed 20 lakh. The toll rose to 56,706 with 912 fatalities reported in 24 hours, said the health ministry in its morning update.

COVID-19 cases in the country jumped from 10 lakh to 20 lakh in 21 days, while it had taken 59 days for the cases to cross 10 lakh.

It took 110 days for COVID-19 cases in the country to reach one lakh.

However, the number of recoveries also surged to 22,80,566 with 57,989 patients recuperating from COVID-19 in a day, the data updated at 8 am showed. The country now has 7,07,668 active cases, which comprise 23.24 percent of India's total caseload, the ministry said.

The recovery rate among coronavirus patients neared 75 percent, while the case fatality rate dipped to 1.86 percent, which is among the lowest in the world, the ministry claimed.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar announced standard operating procedures (SOPs) for resuming shooting of films and TV programmes. The new guidelines include measures such as social distancing and mandatory use of face cover or masks for cast and crew, except for actors in front of camera.

In Madhya Pradesh, health minister Prabhuram Choudhary said he has tested coronavirus positive. Choudhary is the seventh minister in the state, besides Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, to have tested positive for the viral infection. Meanwhile, Delhi reported its highest single-day spike in August with 1,450 new cases.

Recovery rate touches 74.90%, says health ministry

The Union health ministry on Sunday said the average daily number of recoveries is on a "constant upward move", even as the total confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country climbed to 30,44,940 after a spike of 69,239 fresh infections.

The average daily recoveries have steadily increased from 15,018 between1 and 7 July to 60,557 between 13 and 19 August, the health ministry said. The total recoveries exceed the active cases by nearly 16 lakh (1,572,898) and the national recovery rate has gone up to 74.90 percent, it said in a statement.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research(ICMR), a cumulative total of 3,52,92,220 samples have been tested up to 22 August, with 8,01,147 samples being tested on Saturday.

With over eight lakh tests being conducted for the eighth consecutive day, the average daily positivity rate has come down from 9.67 percent during 3-9 August to 7.67 percent over the last week. the ministry said.

Centre announces SOPs for film shoots

The Centre on Sunday announced SOPs for resuming shooting of films and TV programmes to contain the spread of COVID-19. Union minister Prakash Javadekar asserted that the guidelines will facilitate resumption of shooting and provide employment to scores of people in the film industry who were affected in the wake of the pandemic.

Sharing details of the SOPs, Javadekar said barring those who are in front of cameras, all others will have to wear masks.

The I&B ministry's SOPs state that physical distancing of at least six feet to be followed as far as feasible at all locations at all times, while sitting, standing in queues, among others. These include places such as shoot locations, sound recording studios and editing rooms.

Aspects such as scenes, sequences, set-ups, camera locations, positions of various crew members, seating arrangements, food and catering arrangements, staggered meal timings should be planned while giving due consideration to physical distancing norms, according to the document.

Measures should be taken by the production team to involve a minimum number of cast and crew members during the shoot, the SOPs said.

Visitors and audiences should not be allowed on sets and for outdoor shooting, necessary coordination with local authorities should be ensured to minimise and manage the spectators, they said.

Resting or stay-over facilities should be planned while adhering to physical distancing guidelines, according to the document.

Staggered call and pack-up timings for different production units should be ensured by studios having multiple sets, the SOPs added. "There shall be designated entry and exit points for all shoot locations and other workplaces," the document said.

Common locations such as sets, cafeteria, make-up rooms, edit rooms, vanity vans, washrooms should be sanitised regularly, it said.

Sanitisation, to the extent possible, before and after the shoot should be done, the SOPs said.

Shooting of films and TV serials can be resumed using these SOPs, Javadekar said.

India may get vaccine by year-end if everything goes well, says Harsh Vardhan

Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan has said that if everything goes well, India would get a vaccine against COVID-19 by the end of this year.

Three COVID-19 vaccine candidates, including two indigenous ones, are in different phases of development in India. The phase-one human clinical trials of the two indigenous COVID-19 vaccine candidates, one developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with ICMR and the other by Zydus Cadila Ltd, have been completed and the trials have moved to phase-two, ICMR Director General Dr Balram Bhargava had said recently.

The Serum Institute of India, which has partnered with AstraZeneca for manufacturing the COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by the University of Oxford, is likely to begin phase two and three human clinical trials next week.

West Bengal, Odisha register record spike in cases

Meanwhile, several states added new cases and fatalities to their tallies. Delhi registered 1,450 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, the city's highest single-day spike in August, taking the total cases to over 1.61 lakh while the toll mounted to 4,300. The positivity rate stands at 7.74 percent, while the recovery rate is 90.04 percent.

The COVID-19 caseload of West Bengal went up to 1,38,870 after with 3,274 new infections, the highest in a day, the health department said. The toll due to the disease also rose to 2,794 with 57 more people succumbing to the viral infection, the department said in a bulletin. Since Saturday, 3,048 patients have recovered from the disease and the number of active cases is now 28,069, it said.

Odisha too registered its highest single-day surge of 2,993 COVID-19 cases and 10 more deaths due to the infection. With this, the state's toll has mounted to 409 and the infection count reached 78,530, a health official told PTI. Fifty-three other coronavirus patients have also died, but the cause of their deaths was attributed to some other reasons, the official said.

Maharashtra reported 10,441 new coronavirus positive cases, which pushed the cumulative total in the state to 6,82,383. With the death of 258 patients during the day, the toll climbed to 22,253.

Madhya Pradesh health minister tests positive

In Madhya Pradesh, Health Minister Prabhuram Choudhary tweeted that he has tested positive for COVID-19.

"My COVID-19 test report came out positive. I request those who had come in my contact to undergo a coronavirus test. Those in close contact should quarantine themselves," he tweeted. "With your prayers and blessings, I will return amidst you soon to serve the people," he said.

                    ,                                    Dr. Prabhuram Choudhary (@DrPRChoudhary) August 23, 2020

In the last week of July, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had tested positive and recovered after treatment. Besides, Public Works Department Minister Gopal Bhargava, Medical Education Minister Vishvas Sarang, state Cooperatives Minister Arvind Bhadoriya, Water Resources Minister Tulsiram Silawat, Higher Education Minister Mohan Yadav and Minister of State (Independent charge) for Backward Class and Minority Welfare Ramkhelawan Patel had also tested coronavirus for the infection.

With inputs from PTI
The ubiquity of ever-expanding tourism has robbed much of the world of such joys, driving the traveller ever further from the marauding selfie hordes, but there is still the occasional moment of felicity in a moment of discovery in some distant land

Its already more than eight months into the year, and the COVID-19 crisis in India is still far from over. It doesnt appear likely at the moment that things will go back to normal, at least for travel, before the end of the year. This is going to be a year of travelling to the grocery store and the pharmacy, and the office for those whose days of working from home are over. Travel for holidays to beautiful beaches and cool hills is a dream in the sweaty heat of all our big cities.

There are at least as many kinds of travellers as there are destinations. I have had the pleasure of knowing two very different kinds well.

There is an old friend of mine who can talk endlessly about all the cities on earth, especially when it comes to food. He is genuine foodie; he can tell you about the best sushi in Tokyo and the best curry in London. He has written a burger trail of the best burger joints in New York, which was published in a travel magazinea remarkable feat, because my dear friend K doesnt have a passport, and has never had one. K is a great traveller in the imagination. From the vividness of his descriptions it is impossible to tell that he has not been to the places he talks about. He probably knows more about those places than most people who live there. His love of places, which he will perhaps never visit because of some complication about his seemingly irremediable lack of a passport, is genuine.

My friend Sarnath is the opposite of K in this matter. I am not sure how many passports he has run through. Talk to him about any city and he will immediately start telling you about where to go, before proceeding to hand-draw a map with instructions of lefts and rights that you must take to bring you to the coolest dive in townand town could be Berlin, where he now lives, or London, Paris, Rio, Trieste, Kolkata. He used to be something of a flaneur, wandering around places, and in his itinerant existence he has been, so it seems, everywhere. Once when I was planning a visit to the French Reunion Islands near Mauritius, he had said something typical like oh wonderful place, I know a very sweet girl there.

The thing about K and Sarnath is that they are both travellers. They are not tourists. The quality that distinguishes a traveller from a tourist, to my mind, is intrinsic motives rather than ends. A tourist may go to a place to click selfies for Instagram and Facebook  but thats not what travel is for. Whether one travels in the imagination, or by the considerably more expensive method of buying a flight ticket in a world where flights go places, the difference between the traveller and the tourist is in the motive for travelling. This generally, though not always, expresses itself in how people travel. The tourist travels to check places off a list. He or she is more interested in having been to the places everyone else has been. Comfort is of the utmost importance to the tourist. Therefore, the focus of the tourist in planning a journey is on things like hotel service and what alcohol the airline serves.

Lacking genuine curiosity about the place they are visiting, or its inhabitants, culture and cuisine, the tourist, who often finds security in numbers, is most likely to settle for the familiar. The food will have to be the same cuisine as back home. The locals will be expected to be deferential to the visitors, also like back home. The visitors will behave as they do back home. They may try to maximise their moneys worth by taking the hotel towels and hair dryers on their way out, probably also like back home. The only way in which the place the tourist visits is expected to be different from back home is in scenery. The purpose of the visit is to provide a good backdrop for photos that the tourist can boast about to friends and extended family.

The traveller, in contrast, is a person whose purpose for going anyplace, physically or mentally, is driven by genuine curiosity about that place, its people, its food, its culture and its nature. The reason K is a traveller, and the tourist with many visits to foreign lands is not, is because K travels in spirit while the tourists journey is merely bodily.

The traveller does not travel to be with the same people, eating the same food, and doing much the same things as back home. He or she is in it for the experience of getting to know a new place. Serendipity and discovery, despite their pitfalls, are part of the pleasure. Maybe one day you just go off somewhere and end up, well, climbing a small mountain because you run into some trekkers and they ask you to walk alongor running away from a local funeral, because you crashed it thinking it was a partyits all part of the journey.

The ubiquity of ever-expanding tourism has robbed much of the world of such joys, driving the traveller ever further from the marauding selfie hordes, but there is still the occasional moment of felicity in a moment of discovery in some distant land. It is not always comfortable, and it is sometimes quite risky, but it comes closest to the original purpose of travel for most people in most places. That was the pilgrimage. The pilgrimage of any faith, even 200 years ago, was a journey of immense hardship and adventure. It was a journey to find god by discovering the self  a journey from the known into the unknown. Jetting it in style, staying in a luxury hotel, and having a conducted tour of a religious hotspot to a set itinerary is tourism, not travel. It is also not pilgrimage.

The soul of the pilgrimage is in the journey. The traveller is a pilgrim of the open road.

The writer is an author, journalist and former newspaper editor. He tweets as @mrsamratx

 Featured photo by ben ullman from FreeImages
Coronavirus Updates: A tally based on figures provided by states and Union Territories on Saturday showed the countrywide caseload at 30,37,657 and toll at 56,762

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"But at the same time we have also the technology to stop it and the knowledge to stop it. So we have a disadvantage of globalisation, closeness, connectedness but an advantage of better technology. So we hope to finish this pandemic (in) less than two years."

"And in our situation now with more technology, and of course with more connectiveness, the virus has a better chance of spreading, it can move fast because we are more connected now," he told a briefing in Geneva.

Tedros said the 1918 Spanish flu "took two years to stop".

The World Health Organization hopes the coronavirus pandemic will be shorter than the 1918 Spanish flu and last less than two years, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on 21 August, if the world unites and succeeds in finding a vaccine.

More than 10 lakh samples were tested for the novel coronavirus in a day for first time, said the Union Health Ministry on Saturday.

So far, 63,120 people have recovered from the disease, while three migrated out of the state. The recovery rate in the state is 73.40 percent, and the doubling rate of cases has increased to 17.7 days from 15.8 last week, as per official data.

Assam registered 1,856 fresh COVID-19 infections, taking the overall count to 87,908, said Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday.

The poll panel has also extended the option of postal ballot for electors who are marked as persons with disabilities and those above 80 years.

A separate set of guidelines would be issued for voters who are residing in areas notified as "containment zone", the Election Commission said.

The Election Commission issued broad guidelines for conducting polls during the coronavirus pandemic on Friday. As per the new guidelines, voters will be provided gloves while using EVMs and COVID-19 patients in quarantine will be allowed to vote in the last hour of the polling day.

In a bid to curb the fast-spreading COVID-19, Haryana minister Anil Vij said on Friday that all offices and shops will remain shut in the state on weekends. However, essential services will be exempted from the restrictions.

The total number of samples tested is 3,44,91,073 till 21 August, said ICMR.

So far over 3 crore people have been tested for the novel coronavirus, said the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), adding that 10 lakh samples were tested on Friday alone.

All 22 new infections were imported cases, according to a statement by the National Health Commission, marking the sixth straight day with no new locally transmitted infections.

China reported 22 cases of the fresh COVID-19 infections in the mainland on Friday, same as the day earlier, the health commission said.

Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Friday ordered that restrictions under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which bars assembly of more than four people, be imposed in the state amid rising COVID-19 cases, reported PTI.

India registered 29.75 lakh COVID-19 cases after 69,878 more individuals tested positive for the novel coronavirus, said the health ministry on Saturday. The COVID-19 toll climbed to 55,794 after 945 more patients succumbed to the highly contagious disease.

Of the total 29.75 lakh, there are 6,97,330 active cases in India, said the health ministry on Saturday. With 22,22,578 patients being cured, the recovery rate climbed to 74.69 percent.

In the past 24 hours, 1,250 new coronavirus cases were reported in Delhi, said Satyendar Jain on Saturday. At least 1,082 recoveries and 13 deaths have been recorded in Delhi, said the health minister.

Hotels in Delhi will open as per SOPs issued by the central government and weekly markets will begin functioning while maintaining social distancing, said Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain

Of the 945 new COVID-19 deaths, 339 were reported in Maharashtra, 101 in Tamil Nadu, 93 in Karnataka and 91 from Andhra Pradesh. With this, the COVID-19 toll in the nation has increased to 55,794 as on Saturday.

"It is believed that when the idol of the Ganesha is taken out for immersion, it also takes away with it various obstacles from our lives. May the blessings of Lord Ganesha be upon the people of Goa so that the obstacles of the COVID-19 epidemic and its negative effects are conquered by the people," he said.

Koshyari, in his message said, "The celebration of Ganesh Chaturthi also denotes the significance of the cycle of birth, life and death. Ganesha, who is also known as the Lord of new beginnings, is worshipped as the remover of obstacles."

On the eve of Ganesh Chaturthi, Goa Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari on Friday expressed hope that with the blessings of the deity, which is widely revered as the remover of obstacles, the coronavirus crisis ends in the state.

The information regarding the senior leader and his wife's testing positive was shared by son and incumbent Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren via Twitter.

Former chief minister and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) founder, Shibu Soren, along with his wife have tested positive for coronavirus.

"Total confirmed cases in the police force have risen to 13,468, including 10,852 recoveries and 138 deaths," said Maharashtra Police.

At least 288 more police personnel in Maharashtra have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. With this, the overall count reached to 13,468 on Saturday. After two more cops succumbed to the virus, the COVID-19 toll in the police force is 138.

Of the total confirmed cases, there are 50,503 recoveries and 24,582 active cases.

With 2,819 more people testing positive for the novel coronavirus in Odisha, the overall count reached to 75,537, said the state health department on Saturday. Nine more deaths in the past 24 hours took the COVID-19 toll to 399.

The COVID-19 tally rises to 4,780 in Himachal Pradesh, said the state health department on Saturday. The figure includes 25 deaths, 1,438 active cases and 3,268 recoveries.

Some 2.2 million people have recovered from the disease in India since the first case was diagnosed in late January.

India has the third-highest caseload after the United States and Brazil, and its 55,794 deaths give it the fourth-highest COVID-19 toll in the world.

"On getting the initial symptoms of COVID-19,I got the test done and the report came back positive. My health is fine and I'm in home quarantine. I request that all of you who have come in contact with me in the last few days, please isolate yourself and get your test done," she tweeted.

Lok Sabha MP and ruling BJD leader Manjulata Mandal on Saturday said she has tested positive for COVID-19, and was undergoing home quarantine. Taking to Twitter, the Bhadrak MP requested people who recently came in contact with her to get themselves tested.

The saliva-based COVID-19 diagnosis offers an improvement over standard nasopharyngeal swab methods because people can collect their own samples with ease - simply spit into a sterile tube and mail it to a lab for processing.

Giving a thumbs up to the alternative testing technology that is yet to be introduced in India, scientists said it would deliver results faster and more accurately and also minimise the risk for healthcare workers collecting samples.

A low-cost saliva test that will enable people to collect their own samples with minimal discomfort, without invasive nasal or throat swabs, could well be the way forward to detect the novel coronavirus, say scientists.

The official said 1,768 people were discharged on Friday, taking the total number of recoveries to 78,735 so far. About 22,386 were under treatment.

Telangana crossed one lakh COVID-19 cases after 2,474 more patients tested positive for the novel coronavirus, health officials said on Saturday. With seven more people succumbing to the virus, the toll in the state mounted to 744.

The number of deaths from the new coronavirus has surpassed 8,00,000 around the world, according to an AFP tally based on official sources at around 4.30 pm IST on Saturday. In total, 8,00,004 fatalities have been recorded globally, out of 23,003,079 declared infections. Latin America and the Caribbean is the most-affected region with 2,54,897 deaths. More than half of global fatalities have been reported in four countries: the United States with 1,75,416 deaths, Brazil with 1,13,358, Mexico 59,610 and India 55,794. The number of deaths has doubled since 6 June, and 1,00,000 have been recorded in the last 17 days alone.

Andhra Pradesh reports 10,276 new cases, taking the total number of cases to 3,45,216. There are 89,389 active cases in the state and the toll has risen to 3,189, reports ANI quoting the state government.

South Korea is banning large gatherings, closing beaches, shutting nightspots and churches and removing fans from professional sports in strict new measures announced on Saturday as it battles the spread of the coronavirus. Health Minister Park Neung-hoo announced the steps shortly after the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 332 new cases  the ninth straight day of triple-digit increases. The national caseload is now at 17,002, including 309 deaths.

Vardhan said "many intelligent people, scientists and naysayers" had estimated that India, with a population of about 135 crore, will see 300 million COVID-19 cases and about 5-6 million people will die by July-August, and the country's healthcare system was "incapable" to combat the disease."However, I am happy to say that in the eighth month of the battle, India has the best recovery rate of 75 percent and against an estimate of 300 million affected we have not even reached 3 million cases." "In fact, 2.2 million patients have recovered and gone home and another seven lakh are going to be cured very soon," he said.

India has the "best" COVID-19 recovery rate of about 75 percent, which is improving every day, and the "lowest" mortality rate of 1.87 percent in the world, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Saturday.After inaugurating a 10-bed make-shift hospital of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) in Ghaziabad near Delhi, he said India began formulating its strategy against coronavirus from 8 January as soon as the world came to know about the outbreak of the disease.

Reaching out to Indians around the world! Over 3.5 lakh stranded Indians have been repatriated with the help of @FlyWithIX and @airindiain under #VandeBharat Mission. #IndiaFliesHigh #SabUdenSabJuden pic.twitter.com/wsTdCGvKzK

Over 3.5 lakh stranded Indians have been repatriated with the help of Air India Express and Air India under the Vande Bharat Mission, said the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

COVID-19.Besides, BJP's Jorhat district president Kamakhya Mohan Das and secretary Ishwar Prasanna Bordoloi have also contracted coronavirus, Health Department officials said. "They are asymptomatic and at home isolation," the official said.

positive for COVID-19, officials said on Saturday.The two politicians were admitted to Jorhat Medical College and Hospital, its Principal Dr Atul Chandra Boro said. The condition of Bharali, the 10th MLA of the state to be infected with the virus, is serious, he said.Tasa is the first MP of Assam, who was afflicted with

My Cabinet colleague and Cooperation & Jails Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa has tested positive for #Covid19 . I wish him a speedy recovery and look forward to him joining us at work soon.

Karnataka recorded 7,330 fresh COVID-19 cases and 93 deaths on Saturday, taking the total number of the infected past the 2.70-lakh mark and the dead to 4,615, the health department said. The data released during the day did not include Mysuru district as the doctors there have gone on strike protesting over the suicide of the Nanjangud Taluk Health Officer Dr S R Nagendra after alleged harassment by his superiors.The spike in cases and deaths was reported from Bengaluru Urban district, which recorded 2,979 fresh cases and 28 deaths.

India's COVID-19 tally hurtled past the 30-lakh mark on Saturday night, just 16 days after it crossed 20 lakh, while the total number of recoveries too surged to 22.71 lakh, according to data from states and union territories. Union health ministry data updated on Saturday 8 am showed a record single-day spike of 69,874 infections, taking the country's COVID-19 caseload to 29,75,701, while the death toll due to the disease climbed to 55,794 with 945 fatalities reported in the last 24 hours. However, by night, a PTI tally showed India's COVID-19 caseload at 30,37,657, death toll at 56,762 and recoveries at 22,71,054. The tally has been compiled as per information provided by the states and union territories.

The apex health research body, ICMR, is in the process of developing a vaccine portal which will provide information related to the COVID-19 vaccine development in India and abroad, with majority of the updates in several regional languages in addition to English.The aim of creating the portal is to provide all information and updates relating to the COVID-19 vaccine development at one platform as all the information in this regard is scattered as of now, Samiran Panda, Head of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases at ICMR, told PTI. The idea behind making the updates available in regional languages is to make sure every citizen is able to access the information. The portal is likely to be functional by next week, Panda said. The portal would be made operational in phases. In the first phase, the portal will provide all information related to COVID-19 vaccine in India and abroad. Over a period of time, information about all other vaccines used to prevent various other ailments will be put on the portal, he said.

Only those crew and staff, who are tested COVID-19 negative, will be allowed to operate these flights and ships. The SOP said priority will be given to compelling cases of in distress, including migrant workers and labourers who have been laid off, short term visa holders faced with expiry of visas, persons with medical emergency/ pregnant women and elderly persons or those required to return to India due to death of family member, and students. The cost of travel, as specified by the carrier, will be borne by such travellers.

The ministry of Home Affairs on Saturday issued Standard Operating Protocol (SOP) for international travel on non-scheduled commercial flights under Vande Bharat scheme and air transport bubble arrangement. Accordingly, persons desirous to travel to India on Vande Bharat flights, will register themselves with the Indian missions in the country where they are stranded or residing, along with necessary details as prescribed by Ministry of External Affairs. However, such a registration may not be required on flights operating under air transport bubbles arrangements, the SOP said. People who will travel to India by non-scheduled commercial flights as allowed by Ministry of Civil Aviation (MOCA) and ships as allowed by Department of Military Affairs (DMA) and Ministry of Shipping (MOS).The SOP for the operations of these flights or ships will be as issued by MOCA or DMA or MOS from time to time.

Bihar's COVID-19 tally increased to 1.19 lakh on Saturday with the detection of 2,238 fresh infections, while 13 more fatalities pushed its coronavirus death toll to 601, a health bulletin said. Patna district reported the highest number of new cases at 279, followed by East Champaran (143), Madhubani (113), Purnea (101) and Gaya (83), it said.

hospitals in the day, he said.

cases in rural, civil hospital and the Pune Cantonment Board area stands at 19,393," the official said. A total of 1,427 patients were discharged from

Saturday. The cumulative toll mounted to 3,495 with 69 deaths, he said. "Of the total 3,280 cases, 1,577 patients are from the limits of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), which now has 82,170 patients. With addition of 1,039 cases, the count in Pimpri Chinchwad area now stands at 40,898. The number of

The COVID-19 tally in Maharashtra's Pune district rose to 1,42,461 with addition of 3,280 new cases in the last 24 hours, a health official said on

Coronavirus LATEST Updates: A tally based on figures provided by states and Union Territories on Saturday showed the countrywide caseload at 30,37,657 and toll at 56,762.



After a 13-day gap, Andhra Pradesh once again reported over 10,000 new coronavirus cases in a day, pushing the case count to 3,45,216.

India recorded its highest ever single-day recoveries of 63,631 in the last 24 hours, said the health ministry adding that the recovery rate has now climbed to 74.69 percent.

India has the third-highest caseload after the United States and Brazil, and its 55,794 deaths give it the fourth-highest COVID-19 toll in the world.

At least 288 more police personnel in Maharashtra have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. With this, the overall count reached to 13,468 on Saturday.

The COVID-19 tally climbed to 29.75 lakh after 69,878 more individuals tested positive for the novel coronavirus, said the health ministry on Saturday.

India's COVID-19 toll climbed to 55,794 after 945 more patients succumbed to the highly contagious disease.

So far over 3 crore people have been tested for the novel coronavirus, said the ICMR, adding that 10 lakh samples were tested on Friday alone.

India's COVID-19 tally crossed 29 lakh after registering a single-day spike of 68,898 new cases. Meanwhile, the number of recoveries rose to 21,58,946 on Friday, pushing the recovery rate to over 74 percent, the Union Health Ministry said .

The total cases of coronavirus infections mounted to 29,05,823, while the toll climbed to 54,849, with 983 new fatalities being reported in a span of 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.

The case fatality rate declined to 1.89 percent while the recovery rate rose to 74.30 percent. There are 6,92,028 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which is 23.82 percent of the total caseload, the ministry said.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a cumulative total of 3,34,67,237 samples have been tested up to 20 August with 8,05,985 samples being tested on Thursday.

EC issues polling guidelines amid COVID-19 pandemic

The Election Commission issued broad guidelines for conducting polls during the coronavirus pandemic on Friday. As per the new guidelines, voters will be provided gloves while using EVMs and COVID-19 patients in quarantine will be allowed to vote in the last hour of the polling day.

A separate set of guidelines would be issued for voters who are residing in areas notified as "containment zone", the Election Commission said.

The poll panel has also extended the option of postal ballot for electors who are marked as persons with disabilities and those above 80 years.

Electors who are COVID-19 positive or are suspected of having the infection and in quarantine at home or at an institution can also exercise the postal ballot option.

An official explained that this postal ballot facility is different from the one extended to service voters.

Here, those willing to use the facility have to fill up a form. Officials then carry the ballot to the residence of such voters and videograph the voting to ensure transparency.

"COVID-19 patients who are quarantined will be allowed to cast their vote in the last hour of the poll day at their respective polling stations, under the supervision of health authorities... Sector magistrates shall coordinate this in their allocated polling stations," the guidelines said.

Bihar may become the first state to go for Assembly elections amid the pandemic. The polls are due in October-November.

Asked why the norms have no mention of "virtual" or "digital" campaigning, another official said the "broad guidelines have been framed based on COVID-19 guidelines issued by the Health Ministry and the Home Ministry to prevent the spread of the virus."

"Based on our guidelines, states will prepare their own set of three-layered comprehensive guidelines at the state, district and Assembly constituency level." The state specific guidelines may talk of virtual campaign, he said.

Haryana govt says offices, shops to remain closed on weekends

Haryana minister Anil Vij said all offices and shops, except those dealing with essential services, will remain closed on weekends in the wake of a sudden spike in COVID-19 cases in the state.

"All offices and shops except essential will remain closed in Haryana on every Saturday and Sunday due to COVID-19," Vij said in a tweet.

The home and health minister later told PTI that the decision was taken due to a sudden spike in the number of coronavirus cases in the state during the past few days.

Meanwhile, the Punjab government on Friday imposed restrictions under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) in the state amid rising COVID-19 cases.

Delhi jails say no new COVID-19 case reported

No prisoner is COVID-19 positive and the situation in jails has much improved, the Delhi Prisons Department said.

So far, 63 inmates of the three jails  Tihar, Rohini and Mandoli  have tested positive for the infection. Sixty-one of them have recovered and two died, the officials said.

In August, only the Tihar Jail reported two cases and both the inmates have recovered. On Friday, there was no inmate who was COVID-19 positive in the three jail complexes of Delhi, PTI reported.

SP Balasubrahmanyam 'stable', says hospital

Veteran playback singer SP Balasubrahmanyam, battling COVID-19 and on ventilator was 'stable', the hospital treating him said. The 74 year-old actor-singer "continues to be on ventilator and ECMO support in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU)," Dr Anuradha Baskaran, assistant director-medical services, MGM Healthcare said in a bulletin.

"His condition currently is stable. Our multi-disciplinary team of medical experts is keeping a very close watch on the vital parameters and has been constantly updating Thiru SP Balasubrahmanyam's family regarding his clinical status and progress," Baskaran added.

His son SP Charan thanked all for the prayers and pointed out his father was 'stable' today though he was 'critical' on Thursday.

State-wise cases and deaths

Maharashtra continues to be the state with the highest number of COVID-19 cases. The state reported as many as 14,161 new cases while 11,749 patients recoved from the virus on Friday. However, 339 died from COVID-19 in the state, the Maharashtra health department said.

The total number of cases rose to 6,57,450 as of Friday, which included 4,70,873 recoveries, 1,64,562 active cases and 21,698 deaths till date.

Tamil Nadu reported 5,995 new cases, 5,764 recoveries and 101 deaths, taking the total number of cases to 3,67,430, including 53,413 active cases, 3,07,677 discharged cases and 6,340 deaths.

Delhi reported 1,250 new COVID-19 cases, 1,082 discharges/recoveries and 13 deaths. The total number of cases in the National Capital is now at 1,58,604, including 1,42,908 recovered cases, 11,426 active cases and 4,270 deaths.

As many as 6,086 RTPCR/CBNAAT/TrueNat tests and 11,649 Rapid antigen tests were conducted in Delhi on Friday. So far, 1,392,928 tests were conducted so far and Tests Per Million (TPM) stood at 73,312, according to the Delhi health department.

Kerala reported 1,983 new COVID-19 cases, 1,419 recoveries and 12 deaths in the last 24 hours, taking active cases to 18,673 and total recoveries to 35,247.

Karnataka reported 7,571 cases (2,948 in Bengaluru), 6,561 discharges and 93 deaths, taking total cases to 2,64,546 including 1,76,942 discharges and 4,522 deaths, as per the state's health department.

Uttar Pradesh reported 4,991 new COVID-19 cases and 66 deaths in the last 24 hours, taking active cases to 47,785 and death toll to 2,797, as per the State's Health Department.

In Jammu and Kashmir, 654 new cases of coronavirus reported  114 from Jammu division and 540 from Kashmir division  taking the total number of cases in the Union Territory to 31,371. The toll is at 593, as per the Jammu and Kashmir administration.

Punjab reported 1,513 new cases, 856 cured cases and 34 deaths on Friday. The total number of cases rose to 39,327, including 14,443 active cases, 23,893 recovered cases. The toll is at 991, as per state's health department.

In Mizoram, the number of COVID-19 active cases stood at 475, the state government said. The total number of COVID-19 cases stands at 895, while 420 patients have been cured/discharged.

As US deaths mount, COVID-19 takes outsize toll on minorities

As many as 2,15,000 more people than usual died in the US during the first seven months of 2020, suggesting that the number of lives lost to the coronavirus is significantly higher than the official toll, AP reported.

And half the dead were people of colour  Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and, to a marked degree unrecognised until now, Asian Americans.

The new figures from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention highlight a stark disparity: Deaths among minorities during the crisis have risen far more than they have among Caucasians.

As of the end of July, the official death toll in the US from COVID-19 was about 1,50,000. It has since grown to over 1,70,000.

Earlier data on cases, hospitalisations and deaths revealed a especially heavy toll on Black, Hispanic and Native Americans, a disparity attributed to unequal access to health care and economic opportunities.

But the increases in total deaths by race were not reported until now; nor was the disproportionate burden on Asian Americans.

With this new data, Asian Americans join Blacks and Hispanics among the hardest-hit communities, with deaths in each group up at least 30 percent this year compared with the average over the last five years, the analysis found.

Deaths among Native Americans rose more than 20 percent, though that is probably a severe undercount because of a lack of data. Deaths among Caucasians were up 9 percent.

The toll on Asian Americans has received far less attention, perhaps in part because the numbers who have died  about 14,000 more than normal this year  have been far lower than among several other groups.

Still, the 35 percent increase in Asian American deaths is the second-highest, behind Hispanic Americans.

With inputs from agencies
When protesters took to Sydney streets under the slogan Black Lives Matter, some people questioned the relevance to Indigenous people in Australia of a movement triggered by a death in police custody in the US.

In fact, as a three-part series which concludes in todays Herald shows, the police, the courts and the prison system here are stacked against Indigenous people just as badly as they are for African Americans in the US.

The problem starts with the police, who are still overwhelmingly non-Indigenous. Without cultural understanding or connections to community, police are still too often seen as insensitive, hostile outsiders. Hiring more Indigenous police officers is the obvious solution, but NSW Police has found that it is hard to retain them and many leave the force. As a result, the proportion of Indigenous operational officers in regional areas is stalled at about 1 per cent  or 183 people in a statewide workforce of 17,111.

Justice is supposed to be blind, but local court data obtained by the Herald under freedom of information laws suggests that the courts in fact treat Indigenous people more harshly.

Aboriginal people who live in the Richmond-Tweed region and Sydney city areas were twice as likely as non-Aboriginal people to go to jail for any offence in the four years up to 2019.
The number of students expelled from Victorian government schools has plunged by more than a third in just two years after students and parents were given more power of appeal.

New data reveals 184 students were expelled in Victoria last year, including 10 primary school students, a 35.4 per cent drop from 285 expulsions in 2017, the last full year before expulsion rules were reformed by the Andrews government.

School expulsions are on the decline in Victoria, data shows. Credit:Janie Barrett

There were 192 expulsions in 2018, including 12 primary students, the data shows.

Principals lost significant autonomy to expel troublesome students in July 2018, when a new ministerial order took effect, giving students and parents multiple grounds to appeal to an independent panel.
By Online Desk

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday supported the appeal of students and urged government to pay heed to their concerns and arrive at a solution.

The tweet by Gandhi comes at a time when the government has decided to conduct the JEE, NEET exams despite the rise in coronavirus cases across the country.

Students have been making pleas to change exam dates citing difficulties and mental pressure to attend the exam with existing restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic. The student community has been trending hasttags across various socia media platforms.

He said: "GOI must listen to the #StudentsKeMannKiBaat about NEET, JEE exams and arrive at an acceptable solution."

ALSO READ: 19-year-old NEET aspirant from Coimbatore dies by suicide

          NEET, JEE                 



GOI must listen to the #StudentsKeMannKiBaat about NEET, JEE exams and arrive at an acceptable solution.  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) August 23, 2020

Earlier, on Friday, making it clear that it won't further postpone competitive examinations, the government said that over 75 % students who had registered for the Joint Entrance Examination (Main), scheduled between September 1 and 6, have already downloaded their admit cards.

On August 17, Supreme Court refused to defer the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) and JEE (Main) Exams.Life cannot be stopped. We have to move ahead with all safeguards, said a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra.

JEE is scheduled from September 1 to 6, while the NEET is slated for Sept 13.

Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggesting that the exams be deferred, while Kapil Sibal said these needed to be postponed.

In a tweet in Hindi, Priyanka Gandhi said, "The COVID-19 situation in the country is yet to normalise. In such a situation, if students who are taking NEET and JEE, and their parents have raised concerns, then these should be taken into consideration by the government and those conducting these exams."

Chowdhury requested PM Modi to intervene and postpone the exams.

"The aspirants of national examination are under tremendous mental pressure as to how they could be remain immune to the infection while attending the examination physically. Right at this pandemic situation their concerns should be given due consideration. The spectre of corona will be haunting the students during the examination period stretching from September 1 to 6," he said in his letter.

Chowdhury said when the country is witnessing a spike of COVID-19 infection with single-day rise of 70,000 cases, "I think it is absolutely necessary to review the date of exam because approximately 25 lakh students are supposed to participate in the exam, hence I thought it prudent to knock the door of wisdom of Prime Minister of India"

"Your sagacious intervention may bring about the relief of those anxious aspirants. My suggestion to you Prime Minister is that the examination could be deferred for a certain period till the situation is stable," he said.

Former HRD Minister Kapil Sibal also tweeted, "Stop this injustice. NEET-JEE Entrance Exams. Elitist approach. The poor discriminated. Digital divide. Jeopardising lives. Reaching exam sites hazardous. Poor connectivity and more. Only just , fair and sensible solution is to postpone: NEET, JEE."

(With ENS, PTI inputs)
PSG forward Kylian Mbappe.

Leeds [UK], Aug 23 (ANI): Former Brazil star Ronaldo believes that Real Madrid should look to sign Kylian Mbappe ahead of Paris Saint-Germain team-mate Neymar.

Ronaldo, who is a Real Madrid great, belives that Mbappe has age on his side and he can go on to do great things for the La Liga club.

"Right now, it is not that one is better than another, but if Real Madrid had to make a big investment, they should do so thinking about the future. Neymar is 28 years old and Mbappe is 22. As an investment, it would be more logical to bring the younger of the two," Goal.com quoted Ronaldo as saying during a webinar hosted by Santander.

Both Mbappe and Neymar have been rumoured to join Real Madrid over the past few months.

Both these stars are currently preparing for the Champions League finals as PSG gets ready to take on Bayern Munich.

This is the first time that PSG is featuring in the finals of the Champions League.

Neymar had previously won the Champions League with Barcelona in 2015.

During the 2019-20 season, PSG managed to secure Ligue 1, Coupe de France, Coupe de la Ligue and Trophee des Champions.

"He (Neymar) needs to win the Champions League to complete his season. He has played very well in the last few games, especially in this final phase in Portugal," Ronaldo said.

"He has created many scoring chances, but he has lacked calmness to finish off moves. With luck and calmness, he can find himself scoring in the final" he added. (ANI)


CAIRO  Construction engineers and workers have almost completed the first restaurant at the Giza Plateau, where the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx are located. It will serve tourists visiting the plateau, the epicenter of Egypt's ancient civilization.

Those visiting the restaurant  an unostentatious structure decorated with simple furniture and tables, but potentially serving the most authentic of Egyptian cuisine  will have an uninterrupted view of the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx and other sites on the plateau.

Customers will also see the landscape behind the Pyramids, including the vast populated space making up the Pyramids district and the desert hinterland surrounding this millennia-old site.

The restaurant is part of a major development project in the area, one aiming at bringing the Giza Plateau back to its past glories, tourism planners say.

The project aims to bring the plateau back to the attention of international tourists, Ahmed Idriss, a member of the Egyptian parliament's Committee on Tourism and Civil Aviation, told Al-Monitor. It also aims to protect this precious site.

The Giza Pyramids have been at the center of Egypt's tourism promotion plans for decades, given the importance of the site for Egypt's history. A sizable number of the tourists visiting Egypt come to the Pyramids to get a glimpse of the gigantic structures and the greatness of their builders.

However, the site lacked essential services making the development project a necessary move. The project started in 2009 and should have been completed in 2012. But the security and political turmoil that swept through Egypt in the aftermath of the 2011 uprising against longstanding President Hosni Mubarak halted it. Work on the site resumed in 2017.

The project includes the relocation of the entrance to the plateau and ditching the old entrance outside Mena House, a hotel dating back a century and a half that was constructed by Khedive Ismail and hosted a long list of international celebrities, including Winston Churchill, Richard Nixon, Agatha Christie, Frank Sinatra and King Saud of Saudi Arabia.

A new entrance has already been constructed in the desert to ease the entry of tourists coming to the area from downtown Cairo through the Ring Road, a 30-minute drive from the center of the Egyptian capital.

The new desert entrance will also make it easy for tourists arriving in Cairo from the new Sphinx International Airport, west of Cairo, to reach the Pyramids in just a few minutes.

The upgrade of the plateau will make the new entrance a gateway into a totally different world  one into history. It leads to a building constructed over 4,000 square meters (1 acre) and equipped to receive visitors to the area and prepare them for what they will experience next.

The Visitors Center contains windows for tickets. Once visitors buy their tickets, they are allowed into an area that contains a cinema that screens films and materials about the history of the Pyramids and their builders, and gives them information about the area in preparation for the tour they will make.

The center also has a library with a large number of books and manuscripts about the ancient Egyptian civilization.

These facilities aim to prepare the visitors for what they will see once they are inside the plateau, Ashraf Mohieeddine, a senior Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities official and the director-general of the Pyramids area, told Al-Monitor.

Tourism authorities are also constructing 18 bazaars inside the center that will showcase a wide range of goods from replica antiquities to traditional Egyptian dresses and books about the ancient Egyptian civilization.

There will be a large parking lot outside the Visitors Center in the outer surroundings of the plateau where the buses bringing the tourists to the area can park.

Once they enter the center and leave it, visitors will also find another parking lot where electric vehicles will give them a guided tour of the plateau. The introduction of electric vehicles to the area aims to protect it from pollution and make the tour easy and enjoyable for visitors who do not want to walk, tourism officials said.

These vehicles are environmentally friendly, Mohieeddine said. They will render the tour very enjoyable for those visiting the pyramids.

The development of the Giza Plateau will also change some of the old features of the area, including the location of the Sound and Light Show, a stunning nighttime audiovisual show that tells the story of the Sphinx and the Pyramids, which is now located at the Pyramids area itself.

Just outside the Pyramids area horse and camel rides will be offered.

The Egyptian authorities have readily invested over half a billion Egyptian pounds (roughly $31 million), including 150 million pounds (around $9.4 million) before the project's suspension in 2011, for the development of the Giza Plateau, according to Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Khaled al-Anani.

This is a precious investment at an economically tight time for Cairo that strives to increase revenues from the tourism sector, which in 2018 contributed 11.9% of the national gross domestic product. The sector also employs over 12% of Egypt's workforce of 29 million people.

The development of the Giza Plateau goes hand in hand with the construction hundreds of meters away from the Grand Egyptian Museum, a gigantic building that will host around 100,000 ancient artifacts.

The museum will replace the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square as the largest gathering place for Egypt's ancient antiquities.

Constructed over almost 500,000 square meters (123 acres), it will give visitors an interactive experience and function as a bridge between life in today's Cairo and life in the same city thousands of years ago.

The Egyptian authorities will create a pedestrian-only space between the Grand Egyptian Museum and the plateau, a 15-minute stroll that takes visitors into the depths of Egypt's history, away from the traffic, the noise and the bustle of today's Cairo.

The location of the museum in close proximity to the Pyramids is very unique, independent tourism expert Magdi Salem told Al-Monitor. The walk from the museum to the Pyramids will look like one through time.
OTTAWA - Perrin Beatty was on his way home from the office when his phone rang. It was Chrystia Freeland, who 24 hours earlier had become Canada's finance minister.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/8/2020 (514 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Perrin Beatty, President and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, is shown during a news conference in Ottawa, Monday October 5, 2015. Perrin Beatty was on his way home from the office when his phone rang. It was Chrystia Freeland, who 24 hours earlier had become Canada's finance minister. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

OTTAWA - Perrin Beatty was on his way home from the office when his phone rang. It was Chrystia Freeland, who 24 hours earlier had become Canada's finance minister.

For the president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the call signalled how Freeland will approach her new portfolio  reaching out to multiple stakeholders and listening to ideas before embarking on a path forward.

"She's hard-working. She's accessible. She's pragmatic," Beatty said.

As much as some might see her as a change from Bill Morneau, who abruptly resigned Monday, there was no hint of a major shift in her earliest hours in the job.

When she spoke to reporters on Tuesday for the first time as finance minister, Freeland talked about going green, as well as equitable and inclusive growth.

Elliot Hughes, a former Morneau adviser now at Summa Strategies, said this suggests the Liberals plan to double down on their existing approach.

It was also in line with thoughts Freeland laid out in her 2012 book, Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else. She argued governments needed to be alert to extraordinarily wealthy people (think the 0.1 per cent) using their political and financial heft to enlarge their slice of the economic pie, rather than growing the pie itself.

Hughes said the Canada's business community might be surprised at how much she'll want to help the private sector, despite her writings.

"Just because she has questioned the plutocrats ... I don't think that necessarily means she's going to be anti-business," Hughes said.

Hassan Yussuff, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, suggested Freeland would also ensure all new spending has a gender lens so women, who have been disproportionately affected by job and income losses, aren't left behind in a recovery.

Programs like child care could find themselves potentially with more money, observers noted, because it would be a win-win scenario for the Liberals, opposition parties and provinces, many of whom Freeland worked with through free trade talks.

Yussuff and others said Freeland identified pressure points and political nuances on the American side to use as leverage during negotiations, all the while doing her homework and seeking input from businesses, labour, premiers and MPs.

"As hard as NAFTA negotiations were, and those were extremely difficult, leading Canada's fiscal and economic rebound from COVID-19 is going to be even harder," Hughes said.

Economic forecasts suggest that even by the end of 2021, the economy won't be where it was at the start of 2020. Unemployment is expected to remain high. The government estimates four million people will use a series of income support measures announced Thursday, including changes to employment insurance, that total $37 billion in proposed spending.

Federal spending has rocketed through the course of the pandemic with the deficit to $343.2 billion and debt to $1.2 trillion  both record highs.

Goldy Hyder, president of the Business Council of Canada, asked Freeland in an open letter to "establish clear fiscal targets" to use for judging "incessant demands for new spending."

Those demands could come from opposition parties in exchange for their support on confidence votes, from departments delivering programs or Freeland's fellow Liberal MPs, leaving her to manage multiple and politically sensitive relationships.

Rebekah Young, director of fiscal and provincial economics at Scotiabank, said the deficit and debt levels will likely act as a constraint on any new spending plans Freeland crafts because they can also slow growth in the long run.

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"If they come out with a whole lot more spending, I think that's where they risk spooking markets a bit that they are not looking at the economic conditions, they are looking at more the political side of spending," Young said.

Freeland on Thursday couldn't say what would be in her first budget, noting she didn't get an economic crystal ball at her swearing-in ceremony two days earlier. She also said the government would continue to do what was necessary to support Canadians.

One of the next steps is a promised a reshaping of the social safety net that will be detailed more in a throne speech late next month, and a budget to arrive shortly thereafter that workers and businesses at home as well as abroad will closely watch.

"Her success is critical for the country and that means that she needs to have absolute support from the prime minister and from members of cabinet," Beatty said.

"They have to understand that the whole of the world is watching."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 23, 2020.
PANAMA CITY, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Panama will suspend all international flights for another month from Aug. 22 due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis, the Central American country's civil aviation authorities said on Friday.

"The decision has been made to extend for another 30 days the suspension of arrivals and departures of all international flights ... from tomorrow, Saturday, August 22 at 11:59 p.m.," the Civil Aeronautical Authority (AAC) said in a statement. (Reporting by Elida Moreno)
Hashima Island



By David Tizzard and Benjamin Acree



One of Northeast Asia's greatest challenges is for there to be constructed an account of history that is acceptable to Koreans, Chinese and Japanese people alike. If history is real, such a thing should be possible: the facts should stand clear and distinguishable.

One should be able to read a text and not know where the Korean historian put his pen down and the Japanese historian picked his up. A single narrative that recounts the factual events that have taken place here over the past couple of centuries.

Such an idea, however, even as we enter the second decade of the 21st century seems little more than wishful thinking. History hurts, it scars, and it lingers. The past is still well and truly alive today, particularly for South Korea.

South Korea's current relations with Japan are probably at their lowest ebb in the modern age. Paradoxically, this is probably good news for President Moon and Prime Minister Abe as they bolster their relative domestic positions by mobilizing their support base against an external enemy which, in turn, helps detract from their own internal problems.

Family Housing Apartments

Single Worker Apartments



Despite suggestions to the contrary, the "make our country great again" tactic which focuses on demonization and otherization is not limited in its use by people with bad hair, white skin, and an inability to walk normally down a ramp.

The Empire of Japan extended over much of the region and ruled eventually through a process of military dictatorship and totalitarian rule. Ralph Blumenthal has described what took place as an "Asian Holocaust", and estimates the human casualties in a range from 3 to 14 million as a result of the many massacres, forced labour, sexual slavery, human experimentation, and other atrocities.

Japan's frequent apologies over the years have all been rejected as either non-existent by that do not care for them to have taken place or inauthentic by those with a closer eye on history. The latter group definitely has more of a case, particularly when such apologies are then followed by Japanese politicians making visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine which remains home to 14 Class A war criminals.

This glorification of, for what is many, a brutal and murderous history rankles. The Japanese are accused of whitewashing their past and not repenting for the imperialism and brutality to which they subjected their neighboring countries. The accusations are correct for the most part, but it is also a charge that applies to most other countries focused on post-colonial nation building, particularly in the Northeast Asian region. One doesn't find many famous Noam Chomsky-esque dissidents in places such as China, North Korea, Russia, or South Korea.

Thus the decision by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in 2015 to designate 23 Meiji industrial sites as locations of "world heritage", including Battleship Island (otherwise known as Hashima) rightly caused some consternation here in South Korea.

Lighthouse and Management Buildings

Seawall Boat Landing



Younger readers might know Hashima as the location of Raoul Silver's lair, the antagonist of the 007 film Skyfall played by Javier Bardem. Its ominous vertical buildings dropping sharply into the water that surrounds it on all sides while dust whistles through the streets of what is now essentially a ghost town.

Despite UNESCO's frequent recommendations that the Japanese government include a full account of the locations' history, and South Korea's vocal protestations that argue the same point, for the most part visitors are still subjected to Japanese rose-tinted glasses and all the chrysanthemums that come with it.

However, eventually an agreement was reached between Korea and Japan and the following declaration made public: "Japan is prepared to take measures that allow an understanding that there were a large number of Koreans and others who were brought against their will and forced to work under harsh conditions in the 1940s at some of the sites, and that, during World War II, the Government of Japan also implemented its policy of requisition."

Undersea Coal Mine Access Tunnel

Takazane Yasunori



This could and perhaps should have been a welcome resolution. However, while the Koreans took this as an admission of Japan's use of forced labour, in Tokyo the Foreign Minister played a game of semantics and suggested that being "forced to work" is very different from "forced labour". Any element of good faith was quickly lost.

Lee Young-chae, a South Korean professor at Keisen University in Japan, has long advocated a civil society approach to improving relations, particularly vis-a-vis Japan's right-wing anti-Korean sentiments. Professor Lee visited Hashima in April 2019 and lamented the fact that before departure, and on the island itself, there was no mention of the forced labour, terrible working conditions, or discrimination suffered by the Korean (and Chinese and Japanese) workers.

Instead it was presented as a site of incredible technological and industrial achievement as well as a demonstration of Japan's generosity and forward-thinking for allowing different nationalities to work together. The reality was of course far from the GAP commercial portrayed.

Suh Jung-woo was one of the Korean labourers fortunate to actually survive the island. In a 1983 interview, he recounted the harrowing experience he and others faced. For Suh, Hashima was a symbol of despair: an oceanic prison with no Napoleonic grand ending.

Former Administrative Buildings, Destroyed by Tsunami



Suh states: "I was one of two boys forced onto a truck in my village and taken to the government office, where several thousand other Koreans ranging in age from about fourteen to twenty had been gathered. After a night at an inn, we were taken by truck to a nearby city, then by train to the port at Pusan and ship from Pusan to Shimonoseki. About 300 members of the group, including myself, were then taken by train to Nagasaki, where we arrived the following morning. All of us were being sent to Hashima.

"The island was surrounded by high concrete walls, and there was ocean, nothing but ocean, all around. It was crowded with concrete buildings as high as nine stories.... We Koreans were lodged in buildings on the edge of the island. Seven or eight of us were put together in a tiny room, giving each person no more than a few feet of space."

"We were given uniforms like rice bags to wear and forced to begin work the morning after arrival. We were constantly watched and ordered around by Japanese guards, some of whom were wearing swords. It was excruciating, exhausting labor. Gas collected in the tunnels, and the rock ceilings and walls threatened to collapse at any minute."

"I was convinced that I would never leave the island alive. Four or five workers in fact died every month in accidents. Modern concepts of safety were nonexistent. The corpses were cremated on Nakanoshima, the little island beside Hashima."

Suh's distressing depiction of life in the prison is one that no-one should be forced to endure. Yet that was the reality that he and many others faced; a reality which Japan seemingly still seeks to deny.

Yet there are some dissenting voices in Japan, none more so than Takazne Yasunori, professor emeritus at Nagasaki University and director of the Oka Masaharu Memorial Nagasaki Peace Museum. Yasunori references locations such as Auschwitz in Poland, the atomic dome in Hiroshima, and Liverpool's slave-trade port as World Heritage sites that "provide materials for humanity's self-examination, and warnings of actions that must never be repeated."

If Hashima is to be remembered, he believes that it should be remembered for the correct reasons and not to celebrate a time in which humans had fallen from the light.

Yasunori has explained that he only truly became aware of the level of agony that took place through a Korean documentary rather than his own country's recounting of history. He then visited Korea and spoke to the survivors in an effort to understand their personal experiences and stories of suffering.

He has published much that seeks to shed light on the plight of Korean and Chinese forced labour at the hands of the Japanese Empire and continues to work with Korean survivors of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki.

The world needs more Yasunoris, however.

UNESCO's decision to label Hashima a World Heritage site is not in and of itself problematic as there are others around the world which similarly stand in recognition of the darkness from which we emerged. However, requiring Korea and Japan to resolve the issue of its classification and description without any external adjudication is deeply problematic.

Japan repeatedly refuses to account for its past in a meaningful way. It has certainly paid lip service to remorse and regret, yet then negates this through actions which raise the ire of its regional neighbours.

Successive South Korean governments have responded differently to the problem and there is no monolith consensus. Moreover, with current Democratic lawmaker Yoon Mi-hyang facing serious allegations of misappropriating funds donated by the public for surviving Korean victims of Japanese sexual slavery, there are demons to be addressed on both sides.

If Northeast Asia is going to get its history correct - a notoriously difficult job in a region home to states such as North Korea and China - it is imperative that locations such as Hashima are recognized for what they are. Complex, troubling, and part of a dark period of history - but still very much a part of the thread upon which the modern states stand.

Yasunori suggests that Japan has "a duty to not be swept up in facile celebrations but instead to face history earnestly." Few could argue with that.

David Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) is an assistant professor at Seoul Women's University where he teaches Korean Studies. He discusses the week's hottest issues on TBS eFM (101.3FM) on "Life Abroad" live every Thursday from 9:35 a.m. to 10 a.m.



Benjamin Acree (benjamin.acree@egs.edu) is a photographer and PhD candidate in philosophy at the European Graduate School.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 21:07:01|Editor: huaxia

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by Tafara Mugwara

MUTARE, ZIMBABWE, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- With limited access to healthcare facilities and no proper water and sanitary infrastructure, the consequences of an outspread of COVID-19 in Zimbabwe's rural communities could be catastrophic.

Regular handwashing is an important intervention in interrupting the transmission of the coronavirus. However, rural communities often find it difficult to practice proper handwashing due to the unavailability of running of water.

In the battle against the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, people from Gutaurare village near the city of Mutare came up with an innovative way of combating the spread of the virus through the use of a foot-pressing water supply system.

Lack of affordable sanitizers means villagers had to find their own innovative ways to protect themselves from the highly contagious virus.

A 2-liter or 5-liter plastic container hangs on a wooden beam that is supported by Y-shaped tree stems on both sides.

A rope is tied to the opening of the container. The other end of the rope is then tied to a wooden pedal on the ground.

When one steps on the wooden pedal, the container tilts allowing water to seamlessly flow through the opening of the container.

The hands free facility is entirely constructed from locally available materials, making it best suited for resource restricted rural communities.

The container is periodically filled with water mixed with washing powder. For ease of access, the device is placed strategically at the gate or front yard to make sure that visitors can utilize it.

Phenius Shoko, a community leader, said the device has made hand-washing more widely available, helping to stem the spread of COVID-19 in the village.

He said the idea of adopting the handwashing device was brought by local community health workers.

"Community healthcare workers at the clinic taught us to do this. So we are taking care of ourselves by sharing the information with others. As a community leader, I always tell people that they must always wash their hands. If they don't, that's an offence," he said.

Erine Denhere, a local villager said despite lack of running water, they can now easily wash their hands with flowing water.

"Regularly washing hands has proved to be useful in our lives because no one has shown flu-like symptoms in our community," she said.

She added that all villagers are required to wash their hands after visiting the toilets or whenever they are handling cooking utensils.

Elizabeth Gweshengwe, a village health worker for nearly 30 years, said the handwashing practice is pivotal in protecting families from contracting COVID-19.

"I move around the villages encouraging people to take precautions to stop the spread of this disease. I teach people to adopt to place this foot gear at their latrines, at their front yards. Even if you have a pit latrine toilet you should put the foot operated gear at the entrance so that people can wash their hands after using the toilet," she said.

"Every morning when we wake up we have to wash our hands. When we receive guests we first ask them if they have washed their hands at the entrance, if they have not, they have to go and wash their hands, only after washing their hands that's when I can entertain them," she said.

Zimbabwe has recently seen a spike in COVID-19 positive cases. The country currently has recorded 5,893 positive cases and 153 deaths since the onset of the pandemic on March 20.

Figures from the Ministry of Health and Child Care show that Harare and Bulawayo, which are the country's major urban centers, account for more than half of all confirmed COVID-19 cases. Enditem
CONTACT: Pamela D. Wilson 303-810-1816

Email: Inquiry_For_Pamela@pameladwilson.com

Golden, Colorado  August 23, 2020

The Caring Generation Radio: Adult Day Care & Making Friends

Golden CO- Caregiving expert Pamela D. Wilson hosts The Caring Generation family talk radio program for caregivers and aging adults this coming Wednesday, August 26, on the Bold Brave Media Network. The program airs live at 9 p.m. EST. The Caring Generation aired initially from 2009 to 2011 on 630 KHOW-AM in Denver, Colorado.

Solutions for Exhausted Caregivers

Adult day care services are a lesser-known alternative to help caregivers keep elderly parents and spouses at living in the home. Some of the benefits are reduced caregiver stress and social support for isolated aging parents.

The hurdle for most caregivers is that few parents, no matter their age, want to be placed in a category of needing care, including "day care." Adult day care services are viewed by elderly parents like going to a "senior center" to be with old people. Caregivers initiating this conversation are quick to learn that their elderly parents are not "old."

Talking to an elderly parent about attending an adult day care program can be a stretch for most caregivers if not approached collaboratively. Support for caregivers helps preserve family relationships. Burned out caregivers can lose patience and be plagued by negative thoughts about caring for aging parents. Some aging parents can feel like a burden.

During this caregiving radio program, Wilson answers the caregiver question, "what are adult day care programs," and offers practical information about costs, programs, services, and the benefits of socialization. Adult day care services can be a solution to more costly care and having to move an elderly parent out of the home to a care community.

Friendships Offer Social and Health Benefits

Caregivers give up parts of their lives to care for elderly parents, spouses, brothers and sisters, and other family members. Being a caregiver can mean giving up favorite activities, friendseven a career and sometimes a marriage.

Caregivers who do it all feel as lonely and isolated as aging parents. The effort required to maintain connections or to make new friends can seem daunting, especially in times of COVID when social gatherings have been placed on hold. Research confirms that people who have friendships outside of the family are healthier and live longer. How can we make friends at any age?

Guest Interview: Dr. Jeffrey Hall  How to Make Friends

The guest for this caregiving radio program is Jeffrey A. Hall is a Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Kansas and the Director of the Relationships and Technology Lab. He is the former Chair of the Human Communication and Technology Division of the National Communication Association and the founding editor of Human Communication & Technology.

He was awarded the Early Career Award from the Interpersonal Communication Division of the National Communication Association. Dr. Hall is author of the newly released book Relating Through Technology available through Cambridge University Press.

This book answers one of the most critical questions of our time, does the vast connectivity afforded by mobile and social media lead to a more personal connection with one another? Relating Through Technology focuses the conversation about media on its use in our everyday lives and relationships.

Wilson's interview with Dr. Hall offers tips for caregivers and aging adults about the benefits of friendships. Listeners will be inspired to learn that it's possible to make good friends at any age.

Join Pamela on The Caring Generation to learn about day care programs and services for the elderly. The Caring Generation radio program airs live at 6 p.m. Pacific, 7 p.m. Mountain, 8 p.m. Central, and 9 p.m. Eastern every Wednesday night. Replays of the weekly programs are available on all major podcast sites. Wilson's website features the podcast and show transcript. Information about Wilson's commitment to online caregiver education, keynotes, video conferencing, caregiver support, and talent optimization for corporations is available on her website.

#
CONNECTICUT  The latest trek to a Hidden Gem in Connecticut takes us to the forest lands of the north-central part of the state.

Welcome to Wilderness Lake Campground in Willington. It's a secluded getaway that can be found without leaving Connecticut. It is open under coronavirus protocols.

Wilderness lake is a short drive from Exit 70 on Interstate-84 (150 Village Hill Road). It's four exits from Vernon's commercial districts, but a world away from the the bustling population of the Greater Hartford area, Greater New Haven and Fairfield County.





(Chris Dehnel/Patch)



Wilderness Lake is accommodating to both tents and campers, big and small.

The campground is clean, spacious and there is a lot to do - like swimming, horseshoes and volleyball.

Swimmers, canoes and kayaks are welcome on the lake and catch-and-release fishing is offered.

There is even a playground for kids.



In all, it's a family atmosphere.

The camp store is well-stocked and the prices are reasonable.

For rates (they tend to be less expensive that the average campground) and a site map, see the Wilderness Lake website.

____

The Hidden Gems series features out-of-the-way mom and pop restaurants, small specialty stores you may have never heard of, little-known historical markers or beautiful nature spots that may be a bit off the beaten path, all located within Connecticut.

To register for free, local breaking news alerts from more than 100 Connecticut communities, click here.

This article originally appeared on the Across Connecticut Patch
An $18 home brand sunscreen by Mecca has won the best 'Hall of Fame' beauty product in 2020, after thousands of women named the budget item as their desert island beauty buy.

Mecca's To Save Face SPF50+ Sunscreen beat out stiff competition from other top beauty brands including Mario Badescu, Nars and Diptyque to win the coveted prize - with many voters saying the sunscreen is an absolute 'must have' in their beauty bags.

On the Mecca website, the sunscreen boasts a staggering 4.7 star rating out of five - where close to 2,000 women have heaped praise on the product.

An $18 home brand sunscreen by Mecca has taken out the award for 'Hall of Fame' product in 2020, after thousands of women named the budget item as their desert island beauty buy (pictured in use)

Mecca's To Save Face SPF50+ Sunscreen (pictured) beat out stiff competition from other top beauty brands including Mario Badescu, Nars and Diptyque to win the coveted prize

'I bought this a few weeks ago and it's honestly one of the best things I've done,' one woman posted recently.

'It applies easy and gives you that security of knowing your face and neck is protected without having the terrible smell of normal sunscreen.'

Another added: 'This is my favourite sunscreen, I love how it soaks into the skin and isnt greasy or shiny!'

Others highlighted that it's the perfect product for sitting underneath your makeup, as you can't see that you are wearing SPF underneath.

Many women like it, because it glides on effortlessly underneath makeup without leaving any white marks and acts as a primer (pictured in use)

Mecca's To Save Face is made with pomegranate extract and vitamin E, which simultaneously work to fight and delay ageing, while protecting against free radicals and strengthening the skin's natural barrier.

It also includes hyaluronic acid, a molecule that plumps and hydrates by retaining a huge amount of water.

The product is lightweight and hydrating in consistency, meaning it's easy to apply at the end of your skincare routine, before you put on your tinted moisturiser or foundation.

'It's been a bestseller since it entered the business, and it has stayed there,' Mecca Cosmetica Senior Brand Manager Florina Sadikay said.

Created in 2015 to 'fill a gap in beauty regimes', she said Mecca set out to launch a product that 'firstly protected from UV rays, but also looked good and felt on'.

The sunscreen is available in both 30mL ($18) and 75mL ($40) and it is one hundred per cent Australian made and owned.

Florina added that it protects from both UVA and UVB rays, both of which are incredibly strong in Australia.

Mecca's To Save Face (pictured) is made with pomegranate extract and vitamin E, which simultaneously work to fight and delay ageing, while protecting against free radicals

One of the many benefits of this sunscreen is that it applies perfectly under makeup, but doesn't leave your face looking greasy or as if there is a white shadow on it.

'It's tinted so it leaves no white cast, but also doesn't add any colour to the skin,' Florina said.

'There's no chalky or greasy feel and it's so light and hydrating on the face - like a medium weight moisturiser. I use it in place of a primer.'

It has a cult following of beauty influencers and experts, including Eva Chen and Sara Crampton.
Sandy Guardiola. Photo: Courtesy of Andrew Ocasio

Neurologist Eugene Tolomeo documented an appointment with his patient Sandy Guardiola that took place on October 3, 2017. She smiles often, he wrote. She was in good spirits.

Guardiola, a parole officer in upstate New York, was scheduled to start work at a new office location following a four-week medical leave after a car accident. She asked the doctor to sign paperwork allowing her to return to her job. She was, he noted, excited about going back to work.

When Guardiolas two adult children spoke to her that week, they said she seemed well. To this day, they do not understand why a police officer was sent to their mothers apartment in Canandaigua, New York, to carry out a wellness check on October 4. Neither of them had been called, although they were listed as her emergency contacts at work. All they know is that Scott Kadien of the Canandaigua Police Department entered Guardiolas home without her permission and shot her three times while she was in her bed. She died in the hospital that afternoon.

Everything weve turned up about this case has been outrage after outrage.

The police shooting of a Latina woman in a small upstate New York town, with a population that is 96 percent white, did not make national news. Even local coverage was scant. A grand jury declined to charge Kadien, who claimed that Guardiola shot at him first (she legally owned a gun, owing to her job).

Amid national antiracist uprisings, however, with renewed focus on the plague of racist police killings, Guardiolas son and daughter are pushing for their mothers story to become known. Hers is one of all too many deaths that illustrate the risk of entrusting police forces with overseeing community wellness. And, like most every police killing, the story of Guardiolas death is one of cop impunity, unanswered questions, and ongoing injustice.

Everything weve turned up about this case has been outrage after outrage, said Luna Droubi, an attorney representing Guardiolas children, Andrew and Alysa Ocasio. In 2018, the family filed a federal civil rights suit against the Canandaigua police, the city, Kadien, Guardiolas apartment complex, and her employer. The case is ongoing, with Guardiolas children striving to correct the public record about their mothers death. Droubi told me that even the wellness-check request call, which catalyzed the deadly course of events, was illogical.

The call was made by parole officers in Rochester, New York, where Guardiola had stopped working prior to her accident, having already chosen to transfer to a different location. According to her children, Guardiola said she faced discrimination in the Rochester office; she was due to start work in Binghamton, New York, following her approved medical leave.

Yet it was her former office colleagues who called 911 to request a wellness check. Guardiola did not pick up her phone or respond to knocks on her apartment door. Her children believe that she had gone to bed in the afternoon, taken a sleeping aid, and put in ear plugs, knowing that shed have to wake up extremely early the next day to embark on her new, three-hour commute to work.

The police officer, Kadien, entered Guardiolas apartment with a master key fob. He claims that he announced himself many times and only fired his weapon after Guardiola shot first. A bullet from Guardiolas gun was indeed found at the scene, but in the wall far to the side of where Kadien had stood to shoot her. The trajectory of that bullet, and the nature of the bullet wounds in Guardiolas body, her childrens legal team says, suggest that she was defensively covering her face when her weapon went off. According to a statement from the attorneys firm, which hired a renowned forensic pathologist to review the case, the evidence clearly suggests that Ms. Guardiola was shot while she was reaching for her weapon and that at no time did she pose a threat to Sergeant Kadien. As Droubi told me, the forensics speak for themselves.

Other troubling details haunt the scene. Why, for example, did the officer call for police backup after the shooting, before calling for the emergency medical technicians who were on standby across the street? There was a 10-minute gap, while Guardiola was still alive yet bleeding to death, between the shots firing and the medics being summoned. Why was Guardiola put in handcuffs? They were supposed to be there for her wellness, not to apprehend a criminal, her 24-year-old daughter, Alysa, told me.

And why, in the immediate aftermath, did law enforcement officials lead Guardiolas family to believe that she had effectively committed suicide-by-cop? I had just spoken to her, Alysa said, echoing the words of the doctor that she had been in good spirits and was making future plans. We knew something was very off, Guardiolas son, Andrew, said of the police narrative.

The recent antiracist uprisings have given rise to crucial and long overdue challenges to the role of policing in the U.S. A vast array of roles performed by cops, to the detriment of so many lives, should be carried out by social, health care, and community workers, untangled from a system of criminal justice, surveillance, and violence. Resource redistribution is necessary for wellness; the brutal policing of Black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities is not.

There needs to be a change in how wellness checks are done, and who does them, Alysa said. You see it all around the country  people having manic episodes being killed or detained.

Within the white supremacist context of this country, where Black, Indigenous, and other people of color are framed as a threat, summoning the police for wellness checks risks sentencing to death the person whose wellness is purportedly at stake. In New York, Chicago, North Carolina, Alabama, Minneapolis, and elsewhere in recent years, people  predominantly Black people  have been shot by police called for wellness checks. The very notion that armed cops are best suited to deal with an unwell person is belied by the sheer fact that disabled individuals make up a third to a half of all people killed by law enforcement officers. Guardiola was not ill, as her doctor had attested. Had she been, its hard to imagine a universe in which sending an armed cop into her apartment would be a solution toward wellness.

There needs to be a change in how wellness checks are done, and who does them. You see it all around the country  people having manic episodes being killed or detained.

Police killings like Guardiolas clarify the American myth of a citizens protected private property. White property is inviolable. The discriminatory application of Stand Your Ground laws make this clear. So, too, do spectacles like that of wealthy, white supporters of President Donald Trump imperiously pointing guns at Black Lives Matter protesters from an ostentatious mansion.

Racism and property are intractably bound in a country built by people owned as property, on stolen land. Police raids, deadly so-called wellness checks, and no-knock searches, not to mention the patrolling of public housing  all examples of how the state continues to treat the property of Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color as violable. For months, Breonna Taylors name has been chanted at protests across the country. She was murdered in March by plainclothes officers in Louisville, Kentucky, who entered her home on a no-knock search warrant. Taylor and her partner believed there were intruders in their home, because there were.
Members of the National Guard wearing civilian clothes volunteered with operations at polling places in three states during the primaries and would not be barred from assisting in the November general elections if called upon by governors, according to the National Guard Bureau.

"Currently, there is no formal request," Army Master Sgt. W. Michael Houk, a spokesman for the Bureau, said Thursday of Guard assistance during the November elections.

Laws barring troops in uniform from participating in political activities do not apply to Guard members in civilian clothes activated by governors and paid for by the states, he added.

Read next: Strangulation and Biting: Former Sailor Details Sex Assault and Other Allegations Against Navy SEALs Pulled from Iraq

Houk explained that Guard members would be barred from assisting at polling places if they were operating with federal support under Title 32 of the U.S. Code. "That type of support is a no-go," he said.

Several hundred Guard members assisted at polling places in Kentucky, Wisconsin and New Jersey during the primaries under strict orders to stay out of the actual voting process.

Without public complaint from Republicans or Democrats, they essentially filled in for regular workers who stayed home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Guard officials said.

Maj. Steve Martin, a spokesman for the Kentucky National Guard, said Friday that 240 Guard members assisted in 44 of Kentucky's 120 counties during the June primary. All of them were volunteers in civilian clothes and were forbidden from wearing any insignia that might indicate they were National Guard, he said.

They assisted with cleaning polling places, traffic control, maintenance support and other non-political work.

"All of their duties were non-polling related," Martin said. "No federal dollars were involved."

The Kentucky Guard is prepared to assist on a similar basis in the November elections, he added, but "we have not received a formal request yet" from Gov. Andy Beshear.

The issue of troops being involved in politics was raised again Tuesday when two soldiers in Operational Camouflage Pattern uniforms briefly appeared in the background behind delegates from American Samoa during the virtual roll call vote at the Democratic National Convention.

The two soldiers were from the Army Reserve's 9th Mission Support Command. On Wednesday, the Army announced that an investigation was being launched into the incident.

In a statement, Lt. Col. Emanuel Ortiz, an Army spokesman, said, "Wearing a uniform to a partisan political event like this is prohibited."

In Wisconsin, nearly 700 National Guard soldiers and airmen served as polling station volunteers in 40 counties for the Aug. 11 primary due to a shortage of poll workers during the pandemic, according to an Army release.

"I could not be prouder of our service members who coordinate and plan these election call-ups on short notice, as we have to ensure the county clerks have exhausted their recruiting efforts and have a critical need," said Brig. Gen. Robyn Blader, the assistant adjutant general for readiness and training.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.

Related: Army Investigating Reservists Who Appeared in Uniform at Democratic National Convention
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Janata Dal (United) and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) --- partners in the ruling alliance --- will contest the upcoming Bihar elections together under the leadership of chief minister Nitish Kumar, BJP national president JP Nadda said on Sunday.

Whenever the three parties --- the BJP, the JD(U) and the LJP --- came together, there was resounding victory (in Bihar)We will fight together and we will win again, Nadda said, addressing party leaders and workers in the state through video-conferencing.

He also appealed to BJP workers to become ambassadors of change. For this, we have to contest at each and every booth to win. We have to add value not only to the BJP, but to the alliance partners as wellWe are fighting an election during a pandemic and the challenges are immense, he said, striking a note of unity in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the concluding session of a two-day Bihar BJP meet.

Naddas remarks came at a time when Kumars JD (U) and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswans LJP have appeared to be at odds. The LJP has even questioned Kumars leadership in the run-up to the elections to the 243-member House due in October-November.

In an interview to HT on August 22, LJP president Chirag Paswan criticised the Bihar government for its alleged failure in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic and the states annual flood woes.

After Naddas address, JD(U) spokesperson Nikhil Mandal said Kumar is the first choice of the people of Bihar. The BJP, the JD (U) and the LJP will contest the polls unitedly and win the elections, he said.

LJP spokesperson Ashraf Ansari said: It is up to the BJP to decide (as to who will lead Bihar).

In his address from the national capital, Nadda said BJP workers should not only spread awareness about the central governments schemes and efforts to mitigate the Covid-19 crisis but should also highlight the good work done by the state government.

we need to take all precautions of physical and social distancing. So, the best form of campaigning is small door-to-door campaigning, he told his partymen. Reach out all sections of society, all age groups.

He also hit out at the Opposition, calling it a spent force. They do not have any vision, any thought. They are doing petty politics, Nada said.

In the Bihar elections, the NDA will be up against a grand alliance, or mahagathbandhan, of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress, Upendra Kushwahas Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) and Bollywood set designer Mukesh Sahnis Vikassheel Insan Party (VIP).

The Election Commission is yet to announce the poll schedule for Bihar, but there are indications that the voting process might be held on time. Recently, the poll watchdog released a broad set of guidelines for post-pandemic elections.

Rajesh Rathore, state Congress spokesperson, said: BJP president Nadda has made it clear that the NDA wins elections due to the alliance of three parties, and not because of Nitish Kumar...Bihars people are not going to forgive them for their misrule.
New York

A dozen people were waiting in line when Imani in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, opened for brunch on a recent Saturday morning. That evening, diners packed the sidewalk tables at Anton's, a cafe and wine bar in Greenwich Village.

In Jackson Heights, Queens, two restaurants across the street from each other, Angel Indian and Phayul Himalayan, put out outdoor seating and eagerly await customers.

Restaurants, a pillar of life in New York City, were devastated by the pandemic shutdown, and the move to allow outdoor dining has provided a tenuous lifeline for the business and a boon to residents desperate for a sliver of normalcy. Nearly 10,000 restaurants have set up outdoor seating since July, even as the ban on indoor service continues.

Yet the industry is in crisis.

Though outdoor dining has been a hit with patrons, restaurant owners said they were operating at a fraction of regular seating capacity. Many are staying open only because of the federal paycheck protection program, which supports payroll, and because they have not paid their full rent in months. A local emergency law shields restaurant owners from personal liability for commercial leases.

"It is very hard, hard times for me, I only survive here," said Amritpal Singh, owner of Angel Indian in Queens. He spent $3,000 to upgrade an outdoor dining area. "Not like before."

Hanging in the balance is a vital New York City industry that before the pandemic employed more than 300,000, from recent immigrants to musicians, artists, writers and actors who help define the city as a cultural hub.Without them, New York City may be less of a destination.

Some 160,000 people in the bar and restaurant industry in the city remain out of work, according to July federal employment data. Nearly 1,300 restaurants closed permanently between March and July.

During the week of Aug. 14, the city's restaurants were doing about 23 percent of last year's volume in terms of people seated, according to reservation data from Resy, a reservation app. But the week before, it was 18 percent. In mid-July it was 10 percent.

Bar Sardine in the West Village regularly has long waits for its six outdoor tables, but it is among the growing number of New York restaurants that have announced they will close permanently because of the pandemic. Next Thursday will be its last service.

Gabriel Stulman, who also owns eight other Manhattan restaurants, said Bar Sardine is only doing 30 percent of normal business, and its landlord refused to negotiate on rent. Without additional government relief, he predicts many restaurants will close in if indoor dining is still barred.

"I don't want to be dramatic, but this is apocalyptic for the industry," he said. "If it's not safe to open, I understand that  I'm a team player. But you got to do something about my rent, my payroll. "

Less than half of the 25,000 restaurants and bars in New York are taking part in the outdoor dining program, said Andrew Rigie, executive director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance. The rest are either closed for now or making do with delivery, catering to retail shops or charity work like meals for soup kitchens.

The alliance, and some restaurant owners, are pushing Mayor Bill de Blasio to set a date to open indoor dining, arguing that the city has met the state's virus benchmarks  positive test rates have been hovering near 1 percent for weeks. They point out that other areas of New York state have allowed limited indoor dining without raising infection rates.

"We have to see a lot more improvement in fighting this virus," de Blasio said Thursday.

The State Liquor Authority has suspended liquor licenses for dozens of city restaurants and bars that permitted indoor dining and drinking illegally.

Other owners agree that indoor dining poses particular challenges in New York City, where many restaurants operate in cramped, poorly ventilated spaces. They are asking for government support, such as assistance with renegotiating untenable leases.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

"Indoor dining scares me," said Annie Shi, an owner of King in Greenwich Village, which is serving about half as many patrons as it normally does, with about a third of the staff. "If you look at other countries, a lot of the cases come from restaurants and bars, and I don't think it's worth that risk."

Some restaurants found relative success in transformations. Olmsted in Prospect Heights reinvented its yard and sidewalk into a boozy summer destination with more outdoor tables than it had indoor, and a new food shop.

But other restaurants, near crosswalks or bus stops, found that they lacked space to add more than a few outdoor tables, or couldn't add any at all.

And the end of October looms, when the city's weather cools, and the expanded outdoor dining program and the cushion provided by the federal paycheck protection program are due to end.

"Right now we are in a holding pattern," said Ann Redding, who last week announced that she and her husband would not reopen the wildly popular NoLIta bistro, Uncle Boons.

For now, they focus on keeping afloat their newer restaurant, Thai Diner, which has more frontage for outdoor tables.

"At Thai Diner, we are paying bills with the outdoor situation," Redding said. "What happens next, we don't know. It's the uncertainty that's emotionally exhausting."

At King in Greenwich Village, staff wear face shields. Patrons are asked to put on masks when staff come to the table. Most comply. Some resisted.

"We had instances of people putting on a mask for the white server, but not the Latino food runner," said co-owner Shi.

Gertie in Williamsburg had a busy Friday night because a local DJ spun tunes and brought her friends, owner Nate Adler said.

But Saturday, few came for brunch. The heartbreak, Adler said, is that Gertie was doing well before the pandemic.
(Natural News) On July 29, YouTube terminated Del Bigtrees The Highwire account after he posted a video of Del and me discussing my debate with Alan Dershowitz on vaccine mandates. YouTube also purged hundreds of other truthful videos on vaccines.

(Article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. republished from ChildrensHealthDefense.org)

YouTubes owner, Google, is effectively a vaccine company. Two subsidiaries of Googles parent company, Alphabet, market and manufacture vaccines: Calico and Verily. Arthur Levinson, Genentechs former CEO, runs Calico, an anti-aging drug company while Verily teams with Pharma to conduct drug and vaccine clinical trials.

In 2016, Alphabet inked a $715 million deal with GlaxoSmithKline to create Galvani, another venture to develop bioelectronic medicines and vaccines and to mine medical information from Google customers. Googles Customer Services President, Mary Ellen Coe, sits on Mercks board.

In 2016, Google partnered with Sanofi launching Onduo, a virtual diabetes clinic and in 2018 in another business that uses analytics to develop new drugs and vaccines.

In 2018, Google invested $27,000,000 in Vaccitech to make vaccines for flu, MERS, and prostate cancer. Vaccitech calls itself the future of mass vaccine production. In 2020, Vaccitech started work on a COVID vaccine. Google claims to provide politically and commercially neutral searches, but it systemically manipulates search results to suppress accurate vaccine safety and efficacy information and steers users toward deceptive and fraudulent Pharma propaganda.

Googles algorithms censor negative information about COVID vaccines and positive information about therapies like hydroxychloroquine that compete with the vaccines in development. Google censors reports that diminish public panic about COVID-19. Googles definition of misinformation is any information, even if accurate and true, which criticizes vaccination products. Facebook and Google hired FactChecker (Politifact) to censor vaccine misinformation.

Politifact was launched by a grant from the Gates Foundation, the worlds largest vaccine promoter. Googles orchestrated censorship across social media is crippling legitimate debates over international vaccination policies. This is a crisis for liberal democracies.

Support Del: TheHighWire.com

Read more at: ChildrensHealthDefense.org
Portland, Oregon  Portland police repeatedly blocked a march to an East Portland police building late Saturday before officers ultimately used force to break up the crowd. Police said they decided to advance after people in the group shot paintballs and threw objects at the building.

The immediate response by officers  to block the path of what had been a nonviolent march  contrasted with police actions hours earlier downtown. The police bureau faced criticism from Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty and others after failing to break up sometimes-violent clashes between right-wing police supporters and counter-protesters Saturday afternoon. Similar types of events have attracted heavy policing since they started several years ago.

Portland police made repeated announcements to stop, but never moved in. The bureau acknowledged in a press release that the duel demonstrations met the definition of a riot. But police said they decided not to proclaim one in part because only 30 officers were on hand to respond to the crowd.

That was not the case later Saturday during a nightly demonstration that typically draws out police. More than one dozen officers quickly blocked marchers from crossing two Interstate 84 overpasses. Marchers had planned to go to a police building on East Burnside Street. They eventually found their way to the building. Officers declared a riot for the third time in four nights.

Here are the key turning points from the overnight demonstration, which capped the 87th consecutive night of protests against police violence and anti-Black racism.

March blocked:

About 200 people left Normandale Park in Northeast Portland to march to the Penumbra Kelly Building, a law enforcement building shared by police and sheriffs deputies on East Burnside Street. Demonstrations outside local police buildings gained traction in early August after federal officers stopped responding to crowds downtown. Some people in the group regularly throw things or damage public property to draw out police, ostensibly as a way to drain police resources.

The groups plans for Saturday encountered a logistical issue: the park where people met is north of Interstate 84, and the police building is south. That left only a few possible routes across the freeway.

As the march began, people chanted, Say his name! Quanice Hayes! Who killed him? PPB! Hayes was 17 when he was shot and killed by Portland police in 2017.

The march grew to 300 people and encountered police as it neared Northeast 53rd Avenue overpass. Protesters paused, then navigated through neighborhood streets toward the next overpass on 47th Avenue. Police were waiting.

Around 10 p.m., an officer used a loudspeaker to announce the overpass was closed. The officer said some people had thrown projectiles toward officers standing several dozen yards away near the south side of the overpass. The Oregonian/OregonLives journalists did not see objects thrown.

Within a few minutes, marchers slowly backed away and turned around. As they did so, police blocked their route again. Eventually people decided to drive separately to the Penumbra Kelly Building and reconvene.

Protester actions, police declaration:

By 11 p.m., the crowd numbered at least 300 outside the Penumbra Kelly Building. Some people in the crowd represented parents and veterans groups that became a common sight at demonstrations in July, but have not been as visible in recent weeks.

Police used a loudspeaker to issue repeated warnings not to enter the property and sometimes called out specific people. The man in the gray shirt with the backpack, move off the property now.

Someone briefly pushed a replica guillotine with a teddy bear in the driveway. An officer walked near it to take a picture. Police otherwise stayed away.

Most protesters stood around and continued to chant to the beat of snare drums.

Around 11:20 p.m., a few people started throwing water bottles into the driveway. One person pointed a green laser toward the building. Another person aimed paintballs toward it. Police remained out of sight. The crowd chanted, Whose lives matter? Black lives matter!

Just before 11:40 p.m., police declared the gathering an unlawful assembly and ordered people to leave, citing the paintballs and projectiles, such as water bottles.

Police push:

Dozens of officers arrived on foot within five minutes of the unlawful assembly declaration. Police set off smoke canisters and stun grenades, used pepper spray, shot impact munitions and sometimes shoved people to get them to move.

At one point, an officer pushed a protester to the ground and briefly detained the person before letting them go. Some officers pulled the shields out of peoples hands with force that caused people to fall. Other officers also pushed people at times on the sidewalk, including journalists and legal observers. Officers intermittently ran toward people to force the crowd farther west.

Police pressed people through residential streets to Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard, almost 10 blocks west from the building.

During the push, some people threw things such as paint at officers. One of those objects smashed a police vehicle window.

Police instantly declared the gathering a riot and pressed again toward the crowd around midnight.

After police began to retreat, people threw more objects at a van carrying officers. Officers threw canisters that released a harsh irritant into the air.

About 150 people made their way back to the police building, and police quickly moved in again around 12:35 a.m. to press people away by using many of the same force tactics. After police retreated, a smaller group of protesters stacked some road barriers in the middle of a street and set the pile on fire.

Demonstrations opposing racism and police brutality have happened nightly since late May, when George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police. Most of the protests throughout the city Saturday were peaceful.
For days, Bradley Brown was anxiously waiting to learn the fate of his property in Boulder Creek. After a mandatory evacuation was issued for the area on Tuesday, the winemaker was camping out in his RV at a friends house. Tracking fire maps, he could see that his home and his winery, Big Basin Vineyards, were directly in the line of the CZU August Lightning Complex fires.

Late Saturday night, Brown learned from a neighbor that his house was destroyed. Miraculously, the winery  and, along with it, his wine inventory  had survived.

He felt fortunate, but theres a lot of question marks right now, said Brown, whose winery is one of the best in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Had the wine inside the winery been damaged by heat and smoke? Were the grapevines scorched? With harvest approaching, would he be able to use the winery to make wine at all this year?

Its a set of problems familiar to many winemakers across California now, as they confront the loss of property  and the ongoing threat of further destruction  that accompanies the arrival of the harvest season.

With the fire now gone, it was a race against time to save what remained at Big Basin Vineyards. The whole 2019 vintage is inside the winery, Brown said. We finished bottling 2,000 cases the day before the evacuation order.

Jeff Vella

By Sunday, the power had been out for more than a week; wine can be ruined if exposed to heat for long periods. He hoped that the sealed doors had kept the temperature around 75 degrees, but he planned to drive to Napa to pick up a generator so that he could run the air conditioning.

Brown was certain that the grapes on the vine, the first of which would have been ready for harvesting this week, were lost to smoke damage, and he doesnt have crop insurance.

As for the other vineyards throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains from which he buys fruit, the results could be more varied. He was hopeful that the Coastview Vineyard, in the Gabilan Mountains  the source of some beautiful Big Basin Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays  had been spared, but was waiting for tests to be run to assess the presence of smoke-taint compounds.

Now Playing: Chronicle photojournalist Gabrielle Lurie captures the smoke from California State Route 1 on Thursday, August 20. The CZU August Lightning Complex fires have burned about 50,000 acres, 0% containment as of Friday afternoon, Aug. 21, 2020. Video: San Francisco Chronicle

This year may be a huge bust for the Santa Cruz Mountains, he said, though many of the region's vineyards are so far unaffected by fire. With the fires still burning, though, were still not out of the woods yet. Two other winemaker friends had already offered to let Brown use their facilities for winemaking if hes unable to return to his.

Why had the fire obliterated his home, but not the nearby winery? That, Brown said, was a mystery. Before evacuating, hed doused the sides of the winery with water, but he was sure that it had dried out by the time the fire came through on Friday. Hed moved his propane tanks away from the building, which may have helped. But that still didnt explain why the stacks of wooden barrels directly outside the doors hadnt caught fire.

Its eerie looking, he said. Its really hard to say why the winery didnt burn.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

Brown has owned this property, located next to Big Basin Redwoods State Park, since 1998. Its history as a winegrowing site stretches back to the late 1800s, when a group of French immigrants arrived and planted grapes. They sold the place around the time Prohibition was enacted, according to records that Brown has found. By the time he purchased the land, it had been mostly neglected for decades, and there were few remnants of the original vineyard. Vines were crawling up into trees, he said.

He set to work restoring the property, planting Syrah, Grenache, Pinot Noir, Roussanne and Viognier and, over time, establishing Big Basin Vineyards as one of the top wineries in the Santa Cruz Mountains. (Blake Yarger is currently the head winemaker.)

Although Brown doesnt have crop insurance, he said he does have a good insurance policy on his house, which was designed by architect Craig Henritzy. The loss hadnt quite sunk in yet, Brown said, but he was optimistic. Ill be able to rebuild better, smarter, more sustainably, he said.

In fact, despite the fact that the house was gone, there was a lasting memento of it: Musician Bill Nershi, of the band String Cheese Incident, had recorded his latest album with his wife Jillian Nershi inside Browns home in February. The house is gone, but we have this incredible music to remember it by, Brown said.

Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicles wine critic. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Esther_mobley Instagram: @esthermob
WELLINGTON, New Zealand - When Aya Al-Umari faces her brothers killer in the dock, she intends to tell him that his hatred stole away her best friend, her guardian, her hero. That she still wants to pick up the phone and tell her brother all about her day, because hes the only one who would understand.

Al-Umari is one of more than 60 survivors and family members who this week in court will confront the white supremacist who committed the worst atrocity in New Zealands modern history, when he slaughtered 51 worshippers at two Christchurch mosques in March 2019.

The gunman, 29-year-old Australian Brenton Harrison Tarrant, pleaded guilty in March to 51 counts of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and one count of terrorism  the first terrorism conviction in the nations history.

Tarrant has dismissed his lawyers and intends to represent himself during the four-day sentencing starting Monday, raising fears he could try to use the occasion as a platform to promote his racist views. He can choose to speak once the victims have spoken, although the judge will likely shut down any attempts he makes to grandstand.

Tarrant could become the first person in New Zealand to be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. New Zealand abolished the death penalty for murder in 1961, and the longest sentence imposed since then has been life imprisonment with a minimum 30-year non-parole period.

The attacks targeting people praying at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques shocked the nation and prompted new laws banning the deadliest types of semi-automatic weapons. They also prompted global changes to social media protocols after the gunman livestreamed his attack on Facebook, where it was viewed by hundreds of thousands of people.

Some victims have travelled from abroad to attend the court hearing and have completed a mandatory 14-day quarantine imposed because of the coronavirus.

Virus distancing requirements mean the number of survivors in the main courtroom will be limited to 35 at any one time. But the hearing will also be streamed to seven adjacent courtrooms, which can hold another 200 or so people.

Judge Cameron Mander said he realized the court process had been exhausting and frustrating for many of the victims. Finality and closure is considered by some as the best means of bringing relief to the Muslim community, he wrote in a court memo.

Mander is not allowing live reporting from the sentencing and has reserved the right to ban some things that are said in court from being broadcast or published. The victims also can choose to remain anonymous.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who was praised around the world for her empathy and leadership after the attacks, said she would be monitoring the hearing closely. She said the sentencing would be hard for the victims.

I dont think there is much that I can say that is going to ease just how traumatic that periods going to be, she said.

Andrew Geddis, a law professor at the University of Otago, said the case was unprecedented in New Zealand, both in the magnitude of the crime and the number of victims involved in the sentencing.

He said it was likely the judge would impose the first all-of-life sentence, with two possible mitigating factors being Tarrants guilty plea and his young age. Geddis said if Tarrant shows any remorse during the hearing, it may factor in his favour, while any attempt he makes to promote his racist agenda will likely count against him.

Tarrant moved to New Zealand in 2017 and kept a low profile in the university city of Dunedin. He frequented a gym, practiced shooting at a rifle club range and built up an arsenal of weapons. He didnt appear to be employed, and said in some online posts that hed inherited a significant amount of money when his father died.

Tarrant appeared to have a fascination with religious conflicts in Europe and the Balkans, and visited a number of sites in Eastern Europe in the years before he committed the massacre. After his attack at the second mosque, Tarrant was driving, possibly to carry out a shooting at a third mosque, when two police officers rammed his car off the road, dragged him out and arrested him.

Al-Umaris 35-year-old brother Hussein was among those killed at the Al Noor mosque. In her victim impact statement, which she shared with The Associated Press ahead of the sentencing, she says that she mourns not only the loss of her brother, but also the loss of his hopes and goals, and that she will never have any nieces or nephews.

There are no words that do justice to explain what it is like to go from having lunch with your brother on one day to burying him on another, she writes.
Recommendation by Geojit Financial Service 1. Cochin Shipyard-BUY Recommendation by Geojit Financial Service

Cochin Shipyard Ltd (CSL) is the largest public sector shipyard in India deriving major revenue from Navy. The main sources of revenue are ship building for Navy, Coast guard, commercial and ship repair.

We remain constructive on CSL over long term, given capacity expansion, improvement in order visibility and GoI focus on indigenous procurement.

We value CSL at a P/E multiple of 10x on FY22E and maintain our Buy rating with a target price of Rs 445.

2. Bharti Airtel-BUY Recommendation by Angel Broking

Telecom operators have increased tariffs by ~35 per cent in Nov'19. There is a possibility of another round of tariff hikes by telecom companies in FY21 given that tariffs are still very low . If Vodafone Idea goes out of business, Bharti would benefit significantly from addition of subscribers.

3. Alembic Pharma-BUY Recommendation by Angel Broking

Expected to gain market share from the current market share of 1.5 per cent of Indian Pharmaceutical market (IPM). We expect Apll Ltd to grow its top line by 15-17 per cent in the upcoming years. Company has incurred large capex in infrastructure in the last couple of years.

4. Aurobindo Pharma-BUY Recommendation by Centrum Broking

We maintain our positive outlook given the steady US pricing and planned 50 launches in US also more capacity in injectable coming from Q4. The upcoming niche and differentiated product launches. Established base business with consistently improving cash flows and regular debt reduction would mean Net-cash by end FY21E. We maintain Buy rating and increase the multiple in-line with peers to 17.5x FY22E, target price of Rs 1,190. Multiple upgrade has been focused on free cash generation, debt repayments and better earnings profile.

5. Petronet LNG-ADD Recommendation by Centrum Broking

Prospects remain solid for PLNG with steady demand trajectory coupled with 2.5mt expansion at Dahej/Kochi ramp up post Kochi Mangalore pipeline. We have revised Earnings by -1.3/+1.1 per cent for FY21/22E to factor changes in opex/ interest costs. Higher competition from new terminals and record low spot LNG prices to create pressure on utilization for PLNG unless renegotiation with RasGas succeeds. With the renewed uncertainty on tellurian investment amount, we see limited triggers from here despite comfortable dividend yield of ~5 per cent. ADD.

6. India Cements-Maintain Sell Recommendation by Centrum Broking

Weak operating efficiencies, moderation of realization gains as normalcy restores and higher debt will continue to weigh on the ICEM's earnings. Hence we maintain our EBITDA estimates for FY21e/FY22e while earnings are revised for FY21 to Rs 1.1 (earlier Rs0.7) due to lower working capital stress (due to weak demand) leading to interest cost savings but maintain FY22e (at Rs 4.9). Weighing the pressure on margins and balance sheet we assign a higher discount of 50% to the replacement cost (Rs7.5bn/mt) to arrive at ICEM's fair value of Rs69 (unchanged). At our TP, the stock trades at an EV/EBITDA of 7.8x.

We retain our 'Sell' rating on the stock. The stock price at the current rich valuations (9.6x EV/EBTIDA, FY22e) is due to key investor R K Damani hiking stake in ICEM to ~ 20 per cent (4 per cent earlier). We believe this will continue to keep the divergence in our target price (based on weak fundamentals) and the market price of the stock. The stock price will converge with fundamentals in the medium term.

7. Deccan Cements-Retain Buy Recommendation by Anand Rathi Share and Stock Brokers

With no major capex announced, the company is expected to be net cash and its net D/E reach -0.2x in FY22 (vs. -0.1x in FY20). On the better operating performance, we raise our FY21e and FY22e EBITDA respectively 36 per cent and 29 per cent and, consequently, our PAT. We maintain a Buy rating, at a higher target of 458 based on FY22e EV/EBITDA of 5x.

Risks: Extension of the lockdown; rise in input costs.

8. PI Industries--BUY Recommendation by Angel Broking

Market leader in fast growing custom manufacturing space catering to lading agrochemical companies globally.

9. Britannia Industries-Accumulate Recommendation by Angel Broking

BRIT has an overall distribution reach of 5.5 million outlets. BRIT has narrowed the gap with the No. 1 player. The gap with the largest distributed brand is now just 0.8 million outlets which it expects to bridge soon and thereby become the largest player over the medium to long term 10. Zee Enterprises-Upgrade to Neutral Recommendation by J P Morgan

We close our UW rating on Zee and upgrade to Neutral. Incremental disclosures on balance sheet/ZEE5 coupled with management commitment towards improving FCF and further strengthening of the Board are steps in the right direction, implying downside protection from the current depressed levels (share price halved over the past year).

Further we believe the stock can re-rate significantly (trading at 10x F22E P/E vs past 1yr median of 15x if management delivers on the stated commitments. We will wait to see evidence of sustainable improvement even if we miss the first leg of stock upmove. Zee guided for positive advertising revenue growth in 2H and 50 per cent+ PAT conversion to FCF from F22, noting further significant increase in inventory and receivables is unlikely.

Disclaimer: Views and recommendations given are those of brokerages and analysts and do not represent those of IANS. Users should check with certified experts before taking any investment decision. IANS has no financial liability whatsoever to any user on account of the use of information provided.
News

Washington, DC - On Wednesday, a federal grand jury in the District of Puerto Rico returned an eight-count indictment against legislator Nelson Del Valle Colon (Del Valle Colon), a member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, as well as two of his employees, Nickolle Santos-Estrada (Santos) and her mother Mildred Estrada-Rojas (Estrada), for their alleged participation in a multi-year theft, bribery, and kickback conspiracy.

The indictment charges Del Valle Colon, Santos, and Estrada with conspiracy as well as theft, bribery, and kickbacks concerning programs receiving federal funds. Del Valle Colon is facing two additional counts of honest services wire fraud, and one count of obstruction of justice for destroying data on his cell phone.

According to the allegations in the indictment, in early 2017, Del Valle Colon fraudulently inflated the salaries of Santos, Estrada, and another individual for no legitimate reason, and corruptly agreed that out of their inflated paychecks, the employees would keep a portion for themselves and kick back the other portion, generally between approximately $500 and $2,000, to Del Valle Colon.

Puerto Rico legislator Nelson Del Valle Colon and his employees allegedly embarked on a years-long conspiracy to enrich themselves by embezzling funds and using bribes and kickbacks to defraud the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, said Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the Justice Departments Criminal Division. As this case shows, the Department of Justice and our law enforcement partners are committed to holding elected officials accountable for corrupt conduct.

Public corruption destroys the trust we have in our elected officials, which is essential for democracy to thrive, said U.S. Attorney W. Stephen Muldrow for the District of Puerto Rico. In this case, the citizens of Puerto Rico were betrayed by legislator Del Valle Colon, an elected official who abused his position for personal gain, and who must be held accountable for violating one of the basic tenets of public trust, that is, serving his constituents with integrity and honesty. The U.S. Attorneys Office, and our law enforcement partners, will continue to relentlessly investigate and prosecute anyone who tries to undermine our system of government.

As we have said numerous times, public corruption is and will continue to be a priority for the FBI, said Special Agent in Charge Rafael Riviere of the FBIs San Juan Field Office. May today be a reminder that we will not tolerate corruption and we will act swiftly to remove those who would violate public trust. Special thanks to our DOJ partners for their support of our mission.

The indictment further alleges that the defendants used a variety of means to transfer the kickbacks to Del Valle Colon. Allegedly, Santos, Estrada, and the other individual would sometimes transfer cash by hand to Del Valle Colon. The defendants would also sometimes transfer kickbacks in approximately $500 increments to Del Valle Colon using ATH Movil, a mobile phone application that allows individuals who bank at certain financial institutions to send money to each other through an interface on their cell phones.

The honest services wire fraud counts against Del Valle Colon involve WhatsApp messages sent by Del Valle Colon that furthered the scheme to defraud and deprive the citizens and the government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico of their right to Del Valle Colons honest services.

The indictment also charges Del Valle Colon with obstruction of justice. After becoming aware of the investigation into illegal activities at his legislative office in or about July 2020, Del Valle Colon deleted data on his cell phone including communications between himself and Santos, and between himself and Estrada.

The indictment is the result of an ongoing investigation by the FBI and is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Jonathan E. Jacobson of the Criminal Divisions Public Integrity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Anderson from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Puerto Rico.

An indictment is merely an allegation and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Deserted arrivals halls. Empty baggage carousels. A wasteland of silent departure gates. Images that once seemed apocalyptic have become the new global reality. Todays coronavirus pandemic has forced people across the world into a form of captivity often bemoaned as imprisonment.

As national borders have closed, respective worlds have shrunk. Opportunities, connections and freedoms have disappeared. Birth, deaths and marriages of friends and family on the outside have been missed. 2020 will be defined for many by all that they have had to give up.

Replace the word pandemic with war and the picture above holds true for millions of people in Yemen stripped of their right to travel for the past four years. Yemeni civilians have been trapped in an open-air prison since Sanaa International Airport was shut down in August 2016.

The pandemic internment is intended to keep people safe and well. Yemens is a death sentence.

For four years, seriously ill Yemenis living in the capital and across northern parts of the country have not been able to fly out for lifesaving treatment. Thousands of children, women and men may have died prematurely because they were unable to access hospitals abroad, according to local heath authorities.

Years of bombing, shelling and gunfire have damaged half of the countrys hospitals and clinics. Medical cargo through the airport has almost come to a complete halt. Yemens healthcare system teeters on the brink of collapse.

Humanitarian work brings me to countless crisis-hit countries around the world. Airports have inadvertently become my second home. But none prepared me for landing in Yemens capital, at Sanaa International Airport. Once a bustling gateway to the world, it is now a ghost terminal. Where it previously hosted as many as 6,000 passengers a day, stray cats now stalk the hallways. Souvenir shops are long shut. Faded adverts for Pepsi and Coca-Cola line the walls.

Clocks continue to display the time in different parts of the world, showing destinations that can no longer be reached. Only a small section of the airport creaks into life for a few hours each week to process a handful of aid workers. Humanitarians are the only passengers allowed in or out.

In February this year, after two years of hard negotiations and amid much fanfare, 28 patients were flown out of the airport for urgent treatment. Then the gates swung shut again.

The rusting hangars of the capitals airport represent a wider blockade on Yemens land, sea and air routes. These closures have been responsible for escalating a humanitarian crisis regarded by the United Nations as the worst in the world.

Since 2017, vital food, fuel and medicine entering all of Yemens ports on the west coastwhere nearly all commercial food enters the countryhave been severely restricted or blocked outright. This is happening in a country almost entirely dependent on imports, and where 10 million people are at imminent risk of famine.

Before the first case of Covid-19 reached Yemen in April, the blockade and other import restrictions had left doctors struggling with obsolete equipment, and doubled the cost of many essential medicines. This stranglehold has continued during the pandemic, when obtaining the fuel to run ventilators or getting hold of a bar of soap marks the difference between life and death.

Today, hospitals in Sanas are running reduced hours because of power cutsfuel imports are at their lowest ever recorded. A quarter of a million people have had their water cut back or taps run dry because there is no fuel to run the pumps. With coronavirus added to the mix, its a toxic cocktail.

A combination of the blockade and restrictions on Yemens imports is also crushing what remains of Yemens economy. While ships carrying food and fuel wait at sea, small businesses are going under and prices are rocketing, pushing millions more people to depend on aid to survive.

The Human Rights Council believes the closure of Sanaa International Airport, plus the restriction of imports into a defacto naval blockade, violates the laws of war. Warring parties are required to do all they can to protect civilians, not collectively punish them.

Aid organisations have repeatedly called on the Saudi-led coalition and the Ansarallah authorities, the armed opposition group also known as the Houthis, to agree that medicine, food and fuel can freely enter Yemen, and restart regular passenger flights from the capital of Sanaa. But so far our calls have fallen on deaf ears. As coalition allies, the United Kingdom, United States and France also have a duty to apply pressure on both sides to end this political wrangling, which is causing endless suffering. They must do more.

People across the globe are hoping their national airports reopen and some form of normal life can resume. For Yemen, there has been no normal for too long. Opening Sanaa International Airport and the countrys air, land and sea routes is one concrete step that would have a life-changing impact for Yemeni people.

The only cost is political will.
MUMBAI (Reuters) - India reported a record daily jump of coronavirus infections on Saturday, bringing the total near 3 million and piling pressure on authorities to curb huge gatherings as a major religious festival began.

The 69,878 new infections - the fourth straight day above 60,000 - take India's total cases to 2.98 million, behind only the United States and Brazil. COVID-19 deaths increased by 945 to 55,794, data from the federal health ministry showed.

For most of western India, especially the financial capital Mumbai, the 11-day festival of Hindu elephant-headed god Ganesh is usually celebrated with big public gatherings.

Cases have plateaued in Mumbai, which now averages just above 1,000 a day and has recorded more than 134,000 in total. But strict pandemic regulations have meant the festival season, which begins this month, has been lacklustre.

(Reporting by Rajendra Jadhav; Editing by William Mallard)
Joe Bidens presidential run is pathetic because its easy to see that his mind is giving out on him, something the majority of voters recognize. Bidens presidential run is also scary because the hard leftists who surround him are using him as a Trojan Horse to advance their destructive socialist policies.

Its these puppet masters who have pushed the formerly middle(ish)-of-the-road (and invariably wrong) politician to make extremist promises. Most people tend to ignore or downplay Bidens more radical statements, seeing them as the kind of thing politicians say during campaigns. One has to ask, though, whether we can afford to ignore Bidens promise to use his executive office to shut down the entire country again should scientists recommend it.

During the Democrat presidential primaries, after the no-hopers dropped out, the remaining presidential candidates ran the gamut from left to communist, with most closer to the communist end. Biden claimed to be the moderate candidate in the race, and thats how the Democrats are trying to sell him to the general public. After all, Joes been around since 1972, and hes always been a Democrat stalwart, unlike Bernie Sanders, whos also been around forever, but as a communist stalwart.

Nevertheless, throughout the campaign, even while claiming to be a moderate, Biden has signed on to every radical idea that the Democrat party has moved into the Overton window. Hes gone so far left that even Bernie approves:

Sen. Bernie Sanders said Joe Biden told him that he believes he can become the most progressive president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The reason I say that I think Biden has a chance to be the most progressive president since FDR is that is exactly what Joe Biden said to me, Sanders, a former presidential candidate, said in an interview Wednesday on PBS Amanpour & Company. He understands the severity of this moment, said Sanders.

To that end, Bidens campaign has adopted most of Sanderss principles or scooched as close to them as possible. Given a compliant Congress, Biden says that he would reinstate the public option of Obamacare, aim for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 (so we can all look like California), pay for college for families earning $125,000 or less per year, go in big for racial (in)justice, and, grant mass amnesty to illegal aliens along with opening the borders. Democrats appear willing to stomach all of these proposals.

The big question, though, is whether Democrats can tolerate Bidens most recent commitment. He insists that, if the Wuhan virus doesnt retreat and the scientists say so, hell use his executive power to lock down the entire country all over again:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said he would close the United States down over the spread of the new virus from China if health experts recommended to do so. I would shut it down; I would listen to the scientists, Biden, a former vice president, said in an interview with ABC News. I will be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives because we cannot get the country moving, until we control the virus, Biden added. That is the fundamental flaw of this administrations thinking to begin with. In order to keep the country running and moving and the economy growing, and people employed, you have to fix the virus, you have to deal with the virus.

That is an insane promise. It ignores the fact that the virus has barely touched many states, while it raked through several poorly managed (and densely populated) Democrat-run states. It also pretends that there are no trade-offs for holding the virus at bay. People in Democrat states have watched their economies collapse; businesses close; people die from depression, suicide, substance abuse, and untreated diseases; their young people stop learning; their restaurants close; and their cities empty of businesses and high earners (aka, the entire tax base).

While leftists have been good little soldiers for the first round of shutdowns, aided in part by their extreme lack of perspective about the risks associated with the Wuhan virus, will they really be willing to become prisoners in their own homes once again? Will they be willing to see their economies get destroyed so badly that they can never recover? Will they accept all the unnecessary deaths that flow from preventing virus deaths?

I want to answer those rhetorical questions by saying, I dont think so. Sadly, the left is so maddened by Trump Derangement Syndrome, the best that I can say is, I hope not. What I really hope to see happen is normal people vote in overwhelming numbers for Trump on November 3. If that happens, the leftists and those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome slink back into the shadows where they belong.

Image: Joe Biden, altered VOA American video screenshot (public domain)
Imperial Valley News Center

Justice Department Settles with Gates Chili Central School District to Ensure Equal Access for Students with Service Animals

Rochester, New York - The Justice Department announced Thursday that it reached an agreement with the Gates Chili Central School District in Rochester, New York, to resolve the departments lawsuit alleging disability discrimination in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The departments complaint alleges that the school district denied a student with disabilities equal access to school by conditioning her use of a service dog on her parent providing a full-time dog handler, despite the students demonstrated ability to control and handle her service dog with minimal assistance and the service dogs extensive training to serve and respond to the student and follow school routines. Ultimately, the family relocated to another school district where the child could exercise her right to use her service dog without unnecessary and discriminatory conditions. Since their move two years ago, the student has successfully acted as the handler of her service dog in her new school.

For years, the school district in this case violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by limiting this childs use of her service dog based on unfounded assumptions and generalizations about her disabilities, said Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband. Families should not have to uproot their lives, disrupt their childs education, move away from friends, and pay tens of thousands of dollars because a school district fails or refuses to respect the civil rights of children. Service animals today are trained to perform tasks that foster autonomy and independence for students with a myriad of disabilities. This agreement sends a powerful message that the Justice Department is committed to ensuring that no child with a disability is limited in what he or she can achieve because of the fears or prejudices of others.

The ADA guarantees individuals with disabilities equal access and equal opportunity in all areas of community life, including in schools, said James P. Kennedy, Jr., U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York. This agreement is an important step forward in ensuring that students with disabilities can fully participate at school and in all educational programs.

Under the settlement agreement, the school district revised its Service Animal Policy consistent with the ADA and the district courts rulings in this case and will train staff on the revised policy. The school district also agreed to provide reasonable modifications to facilitate the use of a service dog by a student with a disability. Such modifications include the types of minimal assistance the school district refused to provide the student in this case, such as helping to tether or untether a service dog, assisting a student to get water for a service dog, and prompting a student to issue commands to a service dog. In addition, the school district will pay the students mother $42,000 for out-of-pocket expenses and damages for emotional distress. This matter was jointly litigated by the departments Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of New York.

July 26, 2020 marked the 30th Anniversary of the ADA. The Justice Department plays a central role in advancing the nations goal of equal opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for people with disabilities.
Gravely ill Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's condition is "very worrying", his allies say following his evacuation to Germany for medical treatment yesterday.

He was flown out of the Siberian city of Omsk in an ambulance aircraft and taken to a hospital in Berlin.

There was no word yet from the Charite hospital on his condition but the founder of the activist group that arranged the flight called Navalny's health condition "very worrying".

A long-time opponent of Vladimir Putin and campaigner against corruption, Navalny collapsed on a plane on Thursday after drinking tea that his allies believe was laced with poison.

Medical staff at the hospital in Omsk said on Friday evening, after clearing Navalny to be flown out, that he was in an induced coma and his life was not in immediate danger.

The air ambulance, arranged by the Cinema for Peace Foundation, flew to Berlin's Tegel Airport early yesterday and Navalny (44), was rushed to the Charite hospital complex.

The hospital said in a statement it would provide an update about his condition and further treatment once tests have been completed and after consulting with his family. It added this could take some time.

Cinema for Peace founder Jaka Bizilj told media outside the hospital: "We got a very clear message from the doctors that if there had not been an emergency landing in Omsk, he would have died." He added that it would be up to doctors and Navalny's family to provide further news on his condition.

Bizilj was earlier quoted by German tabloid Bild as saying Navalny's condition was stable during the flight and after landing.

Kira Yarmysh, Navalny's spokeswoman, said on Twitter that "this is another proof that nothing was preventing Navalny from being transported, and it was necessary to do so as early as possible".

German doctors flew to Russia on Friday to evacuate Navalny at the request of his wife and allies, who said that the hospital treating him was badly equipped.

However, there was then a delay flying him out as the Omsk hospital initially said his condition meant he could not travel. The Omsk doctors later said they had no objections after the German doctors deemed him fit for travel.

Navalny's wife, Yulia, sent a letter to the Kremlin directly appealing for it to intervene and grant permission for him to be allowed to be flown out. Navalny's allies feared authorities in Russia might try to cover up clues as to how he fell ill.

The doctors in Omsk said yesterday they were ready to share all information they have with the German clinic.

Two years ago, Pyotr Verzilov, another anti-Kremlin activist and a member of the Pussy Riot collective, was treated at the Charite hospital after he was poisoned.

Navalny has been a thorn in the Kremlin's side for more than a decade, exposing what he says is high-level graft and mobilising crowds of young protesters.

He has been repeatedly detained for organising rallies and sued over his investigations into corruption. He was barred from running in a presidential election in 2018.
Donald Trump has suggested bringing in the National Guard into Portland as he launched an attack on protesters in Oregons largest city.

The US president said he would like city and state officials to ask the Trump administration to stop the riots in Portland.

Mr Trump tweeted: Another bad night of Rioting in Portland, Oregon. A small number of Federal troops there to protect courthouse and other Federal property only (great job!).

"Wanting to be asked by City & State to STOP THE RIOTS. Would bring in National Guard, end problem immediately. ASK!

The Trump administration sent federal agents into Portland last month  with local and state officials saying the agents' aggressive policing of Black Lives Matter protests exacerbated the situation.

Protesters in Portland have suffered heavy violence  being tear gassed as well as suffering blows from impact rounds, batons, flash bang grenades and other weapons.

A riot outside a police precinct in Portland was announced early on Saturday as smoke poured through the air outside the precinct.

The Portland police department announced they have made at least 500 arrests during nightly demonstrations since 29 May.

Protests against police brutality and racial inequality have spread across both Portland and the wider US in the wake of the 25 May death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white officer held him to the ground with a knee to his neck in Minnesota.

Authorities in Portland worked to clear a crowd announcing a riot early on Saturday outside the departments north precinct. Smoke was deployed and officers physically forced protesters away from the area, news publications reported.

Police claimed windows were broken on patrol vehicles and items such as glass bottles were thrown and lasers were aimed at officers. Videos posted online showed several people being detained after the riot was announced but it was not immediately clear how many arrests may have been made.

Aaron Roussell, an associate professor of sociology at Portland State University, and Gisela Rodriguez Fernandez, an adjunct professor who specialises in race and ethnicity, warned the Portland Police Bureau has its own record of brutality and murder of Black Portlanders, as well as those experiencing mental health challenges and houselessness.

Writing in an article for the London School of Economics, the academics added: It was the deployment of federal agents to quell Portlands protest by overwhelming force and extra-judicial, paramilitary tactics such as taking protestors into unmarked vans, the declaration of a no fly zone in downtown Portland, a circling Air Force Surveillance plane (presumably for gathering signals intelligence), bulk data surveillance of entire social media platforms, and mass arrests and injuries of protestors, including journalists, whose constitutional rights were subsequently hobbled.

Additional reporting by Associated Press
Supporting sustainable enterprise and entrepreneurial activity in rural areas is vital to support Irelands recovery post-Covid, as this will underpin sustainable community development.

ACORNS, which is a highly successful development initiative for female entrepreneurs living in rural Ireland, actively contributes to this objective.

The call is now open for women with new businesses or well-developed ideas to join the new cycle of the free programme  ACORNS 6. The initiative will also continue to support participants from previous cycles through further development phases.

The call for applications follows the launch of the programme today by the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Dara Calleary, T.D.

Minister Calleary stated, I am committed to supporting sustainable enterprise and entrepreneurial activity in rural areas, as this will underpin sustainable community development. I also wish to see the economic potential of women harnessed to the greatest extent possible.

"Against this background, I am delighted that my Department, through the Rural Innovation and Development Fund, will continue to support the ACORNS initiative. ACORNS provides valuable peer support to early stage female entrepreneurs in rural Ireland, who have recently started or are about to start a business.

"In the challenging circumstances that we find ourselves, this support is needed now more than ever. I encourage early stage female entrepreneurs in rural Ireland to apply without delay.

A total of 50 new participants are being sought for ACORNS 6. The programme will run over six months from October 2020 to April 2021. The deadline for application for this years cycle is 21 September 2020.

Any woman with a new business based in rural Ireland  or an idea for a new venture they want to get off the ground  can get more information and download an application form at www.acorns.ie. There is no charge for participation. (Eligibility criteria in notes below)

Fitzsimons Consulting, specialising in entrepreneurship and growth, developed the initiative. Paula Fitzsimons said ACORNS is a real grassroots movement, illustrating the strength of peer support, with entrepreneurs supporting one another.

Psychological isolation is reduced, confidence is increased, and new networks are formed.

Over the next six months, we will have more than 200 female entrepreneurs in rural Ireland being actively supported through ACORNS.

I am delighted that the opportunity is being offered once again thanks to the support of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the contribution of the voluntary Lead Entrepreneurs.

ACORNS is based on peer support and collaborative learning. Each participant will have the opportunity to learn from successful female entrepreneurs - Lead Entrepreneurs.

Acting in a voluntary capacity, these Lead Entrepreneurs will share their insights and experience with the group and help the participants to address the issues and challenges they face in starting and progressing their businesses. They also act as role models, illustrating by their actions that it is possible to start and grow a successful business in rural Ireland.

This year, the ACORNS Lead Entrepreneurs are: Anne Reilly, Paycheck Plus, Louth; Caroline McEnery, The HR Suite, Kerry, Eimer Hannon, Eimer Hannon Travel, Meath; Larissa Feeney, Accountant Online, Mary B. Walsh, Ire Wel Pallets, Wexford; and Triona MacGiolla Ri, Aro Digital Strategies, Galway.

Past participants of ACORNS are also invited to take part in a further development phase, attend topic-based workshops and to join the ACORNS Community, so they can continue to build their support network of valuable connections.

For those committed to growing their businesses, they are offered the opportunity to join growth oriented round tables - ACORNS Plus and ACORNS Plus Review.

The latter part of the previous cycle  ACORNS 5  coincided with the nationwide restrictions to reduce the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.

These had a severely negative impact on businesses across Ireland and the participants were not immune to their effects. ACORNS immediately moved online, and the final round table sessions and workshops were held remotely.

Supported by their Lead Entrepreneurs and their group, 75% of participants pivoted their business to take account of the changed circumstances and 27% reported a positive impact on their business.

Notwithstanding the challenges that they faced the ACORNS 5 participants were very positive in their feedback in terms of their experience of the initiative.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, Janata Dal(United) and Lok Janshakti Party will fight elections together in Bihar under the leadership of chief minister Nitish Kumar, BJP national president JP Nadda said on Sunday amid speculations over the fate of the NDA alliance in the eastern state.

While addressing the partys Bihar working committee via video conferencing, Nadda expressed confidence in the BJP, JD(U) and LJP alliance in the state. We will fight Bihar polls together and emerge victorious, he said about the Bihar assembly polls due in October-November this year.

Naddas comments come at a time when the JD(U) and LJP have been training guns at each other with the Kumar-led party even saying their alliance in the state is only with the BJP, even as the Ram Vilas Paswans outfit has been questioning the chief ministers leadership.

People of Bihar look at the BJP and the NDA with the expectation that we will change the fate and picture of the state. You all (BJP workers) are going to be an ambassador of change. For this we have to contest at each and every booth to win and add value not only for BJP contestants but also for alliance partners, the BJP president told party workers during the virtual meeting.

Pointing towards the challenges due to the coronavirus pandemic, Nadda asked party workers to take all precautions of physical and social distancing and resort to small door to door campaigning, which he said was the best form given the trying times.

Touch all sections of the society, all age groups of people and tell them about the work done by the Centre and state, he added.

The senior leader also slammed the opposition in Bihar as well as other states saying, they have become a spent force.

He also renewed Prime Minister Narendra Modis pitch for self-reliance. In Bihar, we have to take forward the Makhana industry, Madhubani painting, and Bhagalpurs Silk industry in a push for PM Modis local for vocal initiative, he said.

Litchi of Muzaffarpur, honey of Madhubani, we all have to pursue a self-reliant India, he added.

Nadda also lauded Bihars Covid-19 recovery rate that stands at 73.48% and congratulated the state government for conducting one lakh tests and 10 crore door to door screenings.
Imperial Valley News Center

FBI Statement on the Arrest of Former Uber CSO for Covering Up 2016 Hack

San Francisco, California - Craig Fair, deputy special agent in Charge of the FBI San Francisco Division, announces on August 20, 2020, arrest of former Uber CSO for covering up 2016 hack:

Hello, I am Craig Fair, the deputy special agent in charge of the FBI San Francisco Division.

The FBI is committed to working with private sector companies in order to assist in preventing a breach and dealing with the aftermath of a breach. Of course, prevention is the preferred method of countering the loss of data and private information.

It is only through a coordinated public-private partnership that we are able to assist companies whose databases have been compromised. It is alleged that rather than report the breach openly and honestly, so that we could assist Uber, Mr. Sullivan decided instead to mislead authorities by withholding information and attempting to cover his tracks. This decision ultimately made a bad situation worse and led to the charges that were unsealed today alleging Mr. Sullivans crimes.

Here in the Bay Area, we are fortunate to have good-standing working relationships with a number of companies, including Uber, as the U.S. attorney mentioned. These relationships help the flow of information and allow us to pursue bad actors and assist companies in their recovery from data breaches.

We encourage companies to develop a relationship with the FBI and local law enforcement prior to an incident and incorporate us into their incident response plans. We are working to get ahead of the threat and be predictive in the way we approach cybersecurity. We cannot impose consequences on our cyber adversaries if companies do not step forward and provide us with evidence of an intrusion, and no one will come forward if they think that all that will come from it is shame.

Cyber intelligence should not be looked at as a competitive advantage; if we are all not sharing information in a quick and collaborative manner, we will not be able to stay ahead of the threats that are emerging.

Moreover, concealing information about a felony from law enforcement is a crime. While this case is an extreme example of a prolonged attempt to subvert law enforcement, we hope companies stand up and take notice. Do not help criminal hackers cover their tracks. Do not make the problem worse for your customers, and do not cover up criminal attempts to steal peoples personal data.

We encourage you to contact the FBI now, before your company faces a cyber breach. And we encourage you to contact us immediately if you do have a cyber security incident. The FBI will work with you to protect your companys information and the personal data of your customers. We need to work together to make the Internet safer for all of us. Please contact the FBI San Franciscos cyber program by reaching out to our field office at (415) 553-7400. Thank you.
The Roanoke City Council will discuss what to do next about the proposed downtown bus station when it meets during its annual retreat Friday.

City manager Bob Cowell said that the council has had no discussions about the bus station since the citys plans were nixed by the board of zoning appeals on Aug. 12, when it denied a request for a special exception that would allow a large outdoor bus station be built along Salem and Norfolk avenues near the Virginia Museum of Transportation.

The council will take up the matter during a closed-door session of Fridays strategic planning work session in the City Market Buildings Charter Hall.

The city appears to be left with a few options, among them possibly appealing the boards decision in circuit court or looking for a new location for the bus station. No one with the city has said what the next step will be.

[N]o new information as of right now, Cowell wrote in an email to The Roanoke Times on Thursday.

In January 2019, city leaders announced an ambitious plan to move the bus station from its current location at Campbell Court to a new facility that would include Valley Metro and Greyhound terminals and would be constructed in a large parking lot the city bought for nearly $2.2 million.

Valley Metro, the city-owned bus service that engineered the plans, immediately ran into fierce opposition from residents and business owners in the 300 and 400 blocks of Salem Avenue, a section of the city that has seen increased investments in businesses that include apartments, restaurants and the popular Big Lick Brewing Co. microbrewery.

In a well-coordinated public response during the Aug. 12 zoning appeals board meeting, business owners and residents along Salem Avenue spoke out against the planned bus station. The board voted 5-2 to deny the city the special exception it needed.

Not only is the proposed new bus station in limbo, so is a companion development piece at the current bus station site. Hist:Re Partners had agreed to renovate the Campbell Court location by demolishing the building and constructing two new buildings that would include residences, offices and retail space, all separated by a new street between Campbell and Salem avenues, an estimated $25 million project.

Lucas Thornton, managing partner of Hist:Re, said that he expects the city will ultimately complete the project as planned.

The BZA represents more of a setback, not a defeat, Thornton said on Thursday. I think its important to see it through.

He called the boards decision a provocation. He said Roanokes elected officials had taken political risks by planning to move the bus station to the Salem Avenue site, only to see those plans dashed by the board, which is made up of seven citizens.

Its probably not exciting to have power usurped by a board you appointed, Thornton said.

The Roanoke Board of Zoning Appeals is the citizens watchdog when it comes to zoning issues. According to the citys website, the board has much authority in interpreting zoning decisions and ordinances and in allowing exceptions and variances. In this case, the board took a solid stance against the special exception request.

Thornton admitted that he has a financial stake in the bus station project moving forward, but that his goal is to improve the citys public transportation system while bringing business development downtown.

Some people will write me off immediately because I have a self-interest in the project, Thornton said. But public transportation is a priority of mine. Anyone who knows me will vouchsafe the same. My North Star has always been to incrementally improve the city. Were developers, and this is how we do it. Anyone who has other ideas about how to approach problems can bring them at any time.

Bill Chapman is also a developer, and he helped lead the opposition to the proposed bus station site, which would be near some of his successful developments.

Chapmans investments have turned a small section of town once home to light manufacturing, warehouses and auto dealerships into a popular social setting and residential area.

Chapmans developments include the Lofts at West Station, Fulton Motor Lofts, Beamers 25 restaurant (currently closed during the pandemic) and the properties that are home to Big Lick Brewing and Tucos Taqueria Garaje.

Members of the Salem Avenue Neighborhood Business Association dominated the public comment portion of the Aug. 12 hearing, claiming that a bus station with its two buildings and steady flow of bus traffic would be disruptive to a block that has become more residential in recent years.

Opponents cited noise and potential decline in property values as major reasons that the board should reject the bus stations proposed location.

Reached last week by phone, Chapman declined to comment about the bus station project or the boards decision.

Glenn Gilmer, a resident and property manager at the Lofts at West Station who spoke against the Valley Metros plans, said last week that he did not expect the city would appeal the boards decision in court.

There are much more logical places for a downtown bus station, Gilmer said. I really dont anticipate them turning this into a legal matter. The BZA voted 5-2, so clearly its not going to be rezoned.

But if the city does appeal the decision in court?

We will continue to fight it, Gilmer said.

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the United Arab Emirates made a huge mistake by reaching an agreement with Israel to normalise their relationship. During a televised address on August 15, Rouhani termed the Abu Dhabis action as a treacherous act and warned them against allowing Israel a "foothold in the region".

"They (the UAE) better be mindful. They have committed a huge mistake, a treacherous act. We hope they will realise this and abandon this wrong path," said Rouhani.

US President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed issued a joint statement on August 13, saying they have agreed to the full normalisation of relations between Israel and the UAE. Calling it a historic breakthrough, they said that the deal will advance peace in the Middle East region and is a testament to the bold diplomacy and vision of the three leaders.

Read: UAE Minister Dismisses Erdogan's Criticism Over Pact With Israel

Read: Iran Threatens 'dangerous Future' For UAE After Israel Deal

Questions time and place of announcement

Rouhani opined that the UAE may have agreed to the deal thinking of guaranteed security in the region by getting close to the adversaries of Iran, but Tehran had "historically been the protector of its neighbours and ensurer of the security of the Persian Gulf." He questioned the time and place of the announcement, asking whether it was done to ensure a Trumps win in the upcoming presidential elections.

"Why then did it happen now? If it weren't a wrong deal, why was it then announced in a third country, in America? So a gentleman in Washington wins votes, you betray your country, your people, Muslims and the Arab world?"

On August 14, Iran strongly condemned the US-brokered agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and termed the agreement as an act of strategic stupidity. Irans Foreign Ministry said that it will further strengthen the Iran-backed axis of resistance which includes Syria, and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

"The oppressed people of Palestine and all the free nations of the world will never forgive the normalising of relations with the criminal Israeli occupation regime and the complicity in its crimes," the ministry said in a statement.

Read: India Welcomes 'normalisation Of Israel-UAE Ties', Hopes For Resumption Of Two-state Talks

Read: Israel-UAE Deal: Iran Terms It 'strategic Stupidity', France Lauds 'positive Step'
Australia's top nurse has warned that social handshakes and hugging should be shunned to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Chief nursing and midwifery officer Alison McMillan said although handshakes and hugs are 'very much' part of Australia's culture, they should be avoided.

'We have reached a point at the moment where a handshake is no longer something we should be doing socially,' she said on Sunday.

Two Spanish boys in Barcelona show how to do the elbow bump, which is a healthy greeting alternative to shaking hands, to show a warm welcome while the coronavirus pandemic is on

Even if wearing a face mask, handshakes should be ditched in favour of low risk gestures of showing welcome or greeting, such as elbow bumps.

And hugging should be restricted to only the people that you live with, she said.

'If you are within your family unit, the people you live with, if it is your children or your loved ones, of course if they live with you, you can hug,' she said.

'When it comes to the broader community and hugging others outside of your family unit, then no we really think at this point in time we need to think of innovative and different ways to show a welcome or a greeting to someone but not a hug.'

Passengers arrive in Sydney from Hong Kong on Sunday. Hugging and shaking hands is now off the table for extended family greetings in favour of alternative displays of welcome

Pictured: Chief nursing and midwifery officer Alison McMillan talking to reporters on Sunday

'At some point perhaps in the future we may reach a point where we will see hugging again, but not at this point in time.'

Professor McMillan also warned people to be wary of where they get their information about the potential coronavirus vaccine candidates, urging them to trust information only from reliable sources, after a number of conspiracy websites have spread fear without evidence.

'We will be ensuring we provide clear, accurate, concise information to all Australians about the nature of the vaccine and how safe it is, and we hope and encourage all Australians seek out the information from a reliable source,' she said.

Professor McMillan spoke as Australia's coronavirus death toll passed 500 on Sunday.

Most of Australia's new cases came from Victoria which recorded 208 new infections and 17 new deaths.

CORONAVIRUS CASES IN AUSTRALIA: 27,244 Victoria: 20,269 New South Wales: 4,273 Queensland: 1,161 Western Australia: 692 South Australia: 473 Tasmania: 230 Australian Capital Territory: 113 Northern Territory: 33 TOTAL CASES: 27,244 ESTIMATED ACTIVE CASES: 269 DEATHS: 897 Updated: 5.31 PM, 11 October, 2020 Source: Australian Government Department of Health Advertisement

All of Victoria's new deaths were in people aged over 60.

The worst-hit state has a total of 18,231 cases of which 4012 are active, Victoria's Department of Health and Human Services said on Sunday night.

New South Wales cases grew by four in the 24 hours to 8pm Saturday, one of whom was a hotel security guard.

The state's coronavirus tally has reached a total of 3796 of which 90 are active, NSW Health said on Sunday night.

Queensland's Brisbane Youth Detention Centre cluster grew by two infections on Sunday, adding a woman in her thirties and a baby boy to the growing total of nine.

Professor McMillan said the Federal Government is 'monitoring very closely' but said she was confident the Queensland health authorities had the situation under control.

Public health alerts have been issued over more than 40 hotspots across Brisbane, Ipswich and Logan, in the race to track any potential cases linked to the outbreak.

The Queensland government issued a health warning on Sunday night, adding several locations to its list of places and times where people may have come in contact with an infected person linked to the detention center cluster.

The state has restricted gatherings without an official covid-safe plan to 10 people across Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan, the Scenic Rim region, Somerset, the Lockyer Valley, Moreton Bay and Redlands City.

Western Australia and South Australia recorded one new case each bringing Australia's new cases to 216, for a total of 24,619 across the nation.

Worldwide the spread has now infected 23.4 million people with 808,856 deaths and 61,663 in a critical condition according to Worldometers statistics on Sunday night.

The US is still the country with the most cases at 5.8 million infections and 180,174 deaths as of Sunday night.
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Police brutality in America is an undeniable problem which is seen in every city in every state across the country. On a daily basis, video after video surfaces proving this point. But many American cops have another dirty secret  their disgusting desire to prey on children. In only the last few weeks, TFTP has reported on multiple officers who were caught distributing child sexual abuse material, also referred to as child pornography, as well as sexually assaulting children. Many of these disgusting law enforcement officers were committing these horrifying crimes while on the taxpayers dime.

While the aforementioned officers were caught running child porn networks, other cops are caught physically raping children. One of the most glaring instances of this problem was brought to light last week when the former Boston Police Patrolmens Association President Pat Rose was arrested on child rape charges.

According to WBZ-TV, Rose was arrested last Wednesday by State Police on multiple charges in connection with rape of a child, according to sources. The charges include indecent assault and battery on a child under 14.

The potential also exists that Rose committed crimes against children while on duty as Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins told reporters the allegations against Rose raises questions about his conduct as a member of the department, particularly his encounters with children and teens and the arrests he conducted, the Globe reports.

In a statement, to WBZ, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said, I am deeply disturbed by these horrific allegations, which must be investigated to the fullest extent of the law.

When the citys top cop is arrested for raping children, there might be a problem. Judging by the sheer number of reports from local media outlets across the country, there is indeed a problem.

As we reported last week, Elmore police officer Samuel T. Kurp, 26, was the latest sicko whose tarnished the badge with his desires to prey on societys most vulnerable. Last Thursday, Kurp was arrested and charged with receiving and distributing child pornography.

Kurp was literally being paid by taxpayers to prey on children. According to the complaint, he used the company network to receive and distribute child porn, regularly. He is accused of sending disturbing images of prepubescent boys and girls using police department resources.

As the Toledo Blade reports:

The criminal complaint states that the content was received or distributed while Mr. Kurp was at his parents residence, as well as at the Elmore Police Department. The offenses are believed to have started in April and continued through Tuesday when he was arrested. Mr. Kurp is accused of using on at least 12 occasions the police departments Wi-Fi service, meaning he was at work during those times the content was shared or received, according to court records. Mr. Kurp viewed or received several documents with inappropriate material on April 12 while at the department, prosecutors allege. On April 13, hes accused of receiving or sending an image of four nude prepubescent boys and one nude prepubescent girl, which came back to the police departments IP address, records show.

Last week, he posted bond and was released under house arrest  in the custody of his mother  with active GPS monitoring, a prohibition against accessing any computer or the Internet, and no contact with minors.

After he was released from jail, he resigned his position at the police department.

Over the last few weeks, many on the right have been pushing the #savethechildren tag on social media, claiming that Hillary Clinton and her cronies are kidnapping and eating children to harvest their adrenacromewhich can be purchased onlineall the while ignoring the larger problem. While we cant prove that the above claim is true, child sex trafficking is rife among the elite, but when we look at it on the lower levels of citizens, politicians and law enforcement, it is at epidemic levels.

We are less than 240 days into 2020 and the FBI database already contains more than 530 entries for sex crimes against children. None of those entries involve any high-level politically elite characters but many of them involve police officers.

Yet still, the #savethechildren crowd shamefully looks the other way when it is blue lives involved. As most people write this off to the bad apple fallacy, the fact remains that cops are some of the worst offenders when it comes to preying on children.

Their badges, authority, and protection from the law afford child predator cops abilities regular child predators do not have. In fact, just days before we reported on Kurp, a cop in Dallas who was doing the exact same thing  running a child porn network, while on the job. This cop was even using the governments network to do it.

As we reported, Sr. Cpl. Daniel Lee Collins allegedly uploaded sexual photos of underage girls to various Google accounts using the City of Dallas internet network, according to the Department of Justice.

One week before Collins, TFTP reported on Sgt. James Robert Wissmann IV, 35, of the Baltimore Police Department who has been collecting a six figure annual salary over the years, on the taxpayers dime, all the while hes been running a sophisticated child porn network. He was sentenced to just 4 years last month despite facing 5 times that sentence.
LATEST, Aug. 23, 5 p.m. Air quality deteriorated across the Bay Area through the day Sunday and at 5 p.m. vast swaths of the North Bay, South Bay and East Bay were at "unhealthy" levels, according to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. (Find the latest air-quality readings here.)

A portion of the far East Bay around Antioch was "very unhealthy" and levels were "hazardous" around Livermore. With these sooty conditions, the district advises people to stay indoors and close windows.

Due to an ocean breeze, San Francisco saw more clean air Sunday evening and was in the moderate range.

Aug. 23, 9 a.m. Dozens of wildfires around the Bay Area continue to emit massive plumes of wildfire smoke, spreading sooty air across the region Sunday.

Will conditions improve any time soon?

"I would love to say 'yes' to that question, but my concern is we have so many fires in the area that until theyre really out, were going to continue to get smoke," said Cindy Palmer, a forecaster with the National Weather Service office in Monterey.

Along the coast early Sunday, smoke was trapped under a deep marine layer. In San Francisco the Air Quality Index rose to 125, putting it into the "unhealthy for sensitive persons" category. The smell of smoke was strong outdoors.

"At this point in time, theres so much smoke, it just got trapped under the inversion," said Palmer.

The Air Quality Index operates on a scale from 0 to 500. The higher the AQI value, the greater the level of air pollution and the greater the health concern. An AQI value of 50 or below represents good air quality, while an AQI value over 300 signals hazardous conditions.

San Rafael reached an AQI of 125 Sunday morning, Gilroy 116 and San Jose 129, according to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. (Find the latest air-quality readings here.)

An ocean breeze is forecast to pick up along the coast through the afternoon, blowing smoke inland into the East Bay and Central Valley. These inland valley areas have been blanketed in thick smoke all week and will see the same conditions today with unhealthy air-quality levels likely.

Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties are experiencing some of the worst air quality in the region due to the CZU August Lightning Complex fires, said Christina Chu, a spokesperson with the Air District. The North Bay is being impacted by the LNU Lightning complex that has burned 341,243 acres as of Sunday morning and is now the second-largest fire in state history.

Cooler temperatures and fog allowed firefighters to make some gains in containment on blazes, but Sunday evening into Monday morning, there's a chance of thunderstorms with dry lightning and erratic winds in the forecast. The lightning could start new wildfires while the gusty conditions fan the flames of existing blazes in all directions, amplifying fire activity and growth.

"We do see some winds in the forecast, which is a double-edge sword," said Chu. "Winds can blow smoke out of some areas, but it doesn't help the firefighters with fighting fires."

The Air Quality District has a Spare the Air alert in effect through at least Wednesday, warning of the high amount of particulate matter pollution in the air.

"It is illegal for Bay Area residents and businesses to burn wood or manufactured fire logs in fireplaces, wood stoves and inserts, pellet stoves, outdoor fire pits, or any other wood burning devices," the district said. "In addition to not burning wood, you can help improve air quality by working remotely and driving less every day."

The district advises residents to go inside if they smell smoke outdoors. And keep windows and doors closed.

MORE WILDFIRE COVERAGE:

Map: See where wildfires are burning in Bay Area

LNU Lightning Complex fire second largest in California history

Crews harness CZU Complex fires before weather turns 'dangerous'

SCU Complex forces new evacuations in Alameda County

'It's sickening': Firefighter targeted by looters near Santa Cruz

What to do to keep wildfire smoke out of your house

Amy Graff is the news editor for SFGATE. Email her: agraff@sfgate.com.
Erdogan signals support to turn Hagia Sophia, 6th century seat of Eastern Christianity, back into mosque

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in favor of turning Istanbuls Hagia Sophia back into a mosque as a court is expected to decide within 15 days the fate of the Unesco world heritage site, which was the seat of Eastern Christianity for 900 years before being converted into an Ottoman mosque and then into a museum.

Turkeys Council of State, the countrys highest administrative court, held a hearing lasting just 17 minutes Thursday and said it would make a ruling within 15 days on the future of Hagia Sophia, according to BBC.

Hagia Sophia was built in A.D. 537 as a Greek Orthodox church and was the seat of Eastern Christianity before the city was seized by Sultan Mehmed II, the Conqueror, in the 15th century. In 1934, modern Turkeys founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, banned worship in Hagia Sophia and designated it as a museum.

Erdogan is in favor of Hagia Sophia's conversion into a mosque, according to local media, The Sunday Times reported.

Reports in Turkish media suggest that the court may ask the government to decide the status of Hagia Sophia, allowing Erdogan to take the credit for it and gain support among his conservative base at a time when the opposition party has called for early elections.

Erdogan may hold the first Muslim prayer at Hagia Sophia as early as July 15, the anniversary of the 2016 coup attempt against his rule, according to some reports.

Many Turks argue that Turkey is an overwhelmingly Muslim country and therefore Hagia Sophia should be turned back into a mosque to better reflect its identity.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has urged Turkey to continue to maintain the Hagia Sophia as a museum, as an exemplar of its commitment to respect the faith traditions and diverse history that contributed to the Republic of Turkey, and to ensure it remains accessible to all.

The United States views a change in the status of the Hagia Sophia as diminishing the legacy of this remarkable building and its unsurpassed abilityso rare in the modern worldto serve humanity as a much-needed bridge between those of differing faith traditions and cultures, Pompeo said in a statement.

Last month, the U.S.-based Christian group Order of Saint Andrew the Apostle, Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, wrote to President Donald Trump, urging him to protect the religious freedom of Christians in Turkey and the common heritage of humanity by preventing this sacrilegious and unnecessary decision.

It is part of ongoing efforts to delegitimize the remaining Christian population of Turkey, further eroding their religious freedom, and to obliterate a significant element of the Christian heritage of Turkey and the surrounding region, as well as of the entire world. Converting Hagia Sophia Museum, a UNESCO World Heritage Site to a mosque, would render it the patrimony of one nation, an unjust and provocative act as this historic site truly belongs to the world, it said.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the Istanbul-based spiritual head of about 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide, has said that the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque will disappoint millions of Christians around the world, according to Reuters.
Grant Denyer has revealed his adorable two daughters, Sailor, eight, and Scout, four, are following in his footsteps.

The Denyer's recently launched Storytime with Sailor and Scout, a series which sees the clan reading children's books for YouTube and Instagram.

Speaking to House of Wellness Magazine on Sunday, Grant said he and his wife, Cheryl, needed to find ways to keep their daughters distracted in self-isolation.

Chip off the old block! Grant Denyer has revealed his adorable two daughters, Sailor, eight,(left) and Scout, four, (centre) have launched their own video series. Pictured with wife Chezzi

'In lockdown we hunted for a family activity that might also have some homeschooling benefits,' Grant, 42, began.

The Family Feud host explained since he and his wife were not the best readers, he didn't want the same for his daughters.

'It turns out Storytime with Sailor and Scout was the right thing at the right time for Scout. A fun foundation that will shape her for a lifetime, we hope,' he said.

The Denyer's recently launched Storytime with Sailor and Scout, a series which sees the clan reading children's books for YouTube and Instagram

Grant has been sheltering at his rural property just outside of Bathurst with his wife Cheryl and their daughters, during the pandemic.

Grant and Cheryl recently announced they're expecting their third child.

The couple shared a precious video of their daughters to Instagram earlier this month.

Adding to their brood: Earlier this month, Grant and Cheryl announced they're expecting their third child with a sweet Instagram post

'We have some exciting news... coming 1 March 2021,' Grant and Cheryl both wrote on their separate social channels.

The media personality previously told TV Week, that while he's proud of their two daughters, Grant would 'love a son'.

'He'd love a little boy running around the house,' she said. 'Grant's an amazing dad, and we've spoken about it, so who knows.'
If youre struggling with open issues on your unemployment claim and deafening silence on the other end of the phone, take some comfort in knowing that you are not alone.

Pennsylvanians have spent months anxiously awaiting their benefits since March, when statewide unemployment shot up as a result of coronavirus mitigation efforts. And when an issue has popped up during the time, its nearly impossible to get ahold of someone to fix it.

But this isnt the first time the unemployed have faced long waits and busy signals when attempting to contact their unemployment agencies in the Keystone State.
A high school gets a new school gate after part of its frontage was also taken for the metro project.

Vo Khac Hung, deputy director of the second metro lines management board, said the process of site clearance and compensation has proceeded at a slow pace because there are some homeowners who are abroad and yet to return to Vietnam and receive their compensation. In addition, there are some state-owned buildings whose compensation awaits approval from the city's People's Committee, he said.
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Linkedin Ardila Syakriah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, August 24 2020

A fire that gutted the main building of the Attorney General's Office (AGO) compound in Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta, has raised questions over ongoing investigations into high-profile graft cases led by the law enforcement body.

The fire broke out on Saturday evening on the sixth floor of the building before quickly engulfing the entire structure. It lasted for more than 10 hours, according to the South Jakarta Fire and Rescue Agency.

It took 325 personnel and 65 fire engines to extinguish the flames at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday.

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More snow on the way in Pennsylvania; here's how much to expect
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- This past week the Trump Hindenburg got into an air war with the Goodyear blimp. Wednesday, Trump twitter pecked the Goodyear blimp, calling for a boycott of one of Ohios largest employers over an unverified report, during a recession induced by the Coronavirus and his inept and negligent response to it, while hes losing to election opponent Joe Biden in Ohio and across the nation.

Dont buy GOODYEAR TIRES- They announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS. Get better tires for far less! ( This is what the Radical Left Democrats do. Two can play the same game, and we have to start playing it now!) Trump tweeted
New Delhi, Aug 23 : The Congress Working Committee (CWC) would hold its meeting here on Monday amid talks of a leadership change in the party at the top, regarding which many Congress leaders have written to Sonia Gandhi even though the party has denied existence of any letter in this regard.

However, the party said that the meeting of the highest decision-making body of the Congress will discuss the current political issues. However, the issue of leadership still remains an important topic within the CWC.

"A CWC meeting will be held on August 24 at 11 am via videoconference," tweeted Congress General Secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal on Saturday.

The meeting comes weeks after the Congress saw a stormy meeting of its Rajya Sabha MPs wherein certain leaders sought introspection on the 2019 poll debacle. Thereafter, a bunch of leaders wrote a letter to Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi on issue of leadership change and elections in the CWC.

Sacked Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha said that 100 party leaders have written the letter to Sonia Gandhi for making "sweeping changes" in the party. This has however been denied by the Congress and its chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala.

Sources said that the letter, about which IANS had reported on July 29, says: "There should be full-time party leadership which should be effective and active in the field. It should work for the revival of the Congress, elections in the CWC and urgent establishment of a suitable mechanism." The letter has been signed by a number of senior leaders, including former Chief Ministers, from the party.

Sonia Gandhi took over as interim party chief in August last year after Rahul Gandhi resigned following the party debacle in the 2019 general elections.

The party leaders are said to be unhappy with "directionless and adrift" Congress affairs.

Now, there is strong chorus within the party to again make Rahul Gandhi the party President, especially from young leaders close to him.

However, a section of the party is also critical of Rahul Gandhi's team and alleged that they are "political greenhorns" who have weakened the party electorally.
Berkshires' Academy for Advanced Musical Studies established last year in the renovated St. Mark's Church. It will now expand with the addition of another church purchased by Donald Sommer. The former St. Mark's Episcopal Church has undergone a substantial renovation and now has a new heating system. The former St. Mark's Church will be the home of BAAMS. State Sen. Adam Hinds met some of the BAAMS faculty members. The church has sliding doors that open from the chapel into a large classroom space. PreviousNext

Music Academy in Adams Expanding Campus to Second Church



State Sen. Adam Hinds, left, Donald Sommer, state Rep. John Barrett II and Richard Boulger with the deed to First Baptist Church, below. ADAMS, Mass.  The Berkshires' Academy for Advanced Musical Studies campus is growing with the recent purchase of the former First Baptist Church.

Berkshires' Academy for Advanced Musical Studies faculty members thought they were just meeting at the Olga C. Sommer Center for Music & Art to tour the newly renovated building, but church owner and BAAMS partner Donald Sommer had a surprise.

He bought another church.

"It is a beautiful building but it does need a lot of work," Sommer said with the deed in hand.

Sommer said he finalized the purchase that day and invited the group to take the initial tour.

"The BAAMS campus is growing and we are just very excited to help a new generation of kids discover the possibles of themselves with the power of music," music director Richard Boulger said.

In December 2019 Sommer, a local business owner, announced his partnership with Boulger, a North Adams native, and their plans to redevelop the former St. Mark's Episcopal Church into a jazz academy for high school students. Boulger, a New York City-based professional jazz trumpet player, planned to bring in a lineup of world-class jazz musicians to teach.

"These are not five or six guys that had a band," Sommer said. "These are world-class guys that have played all over the world with some of the biggest bands in America. We are so lucky that they are willing to come to little old Adams and help with the music school, and they are committed."

Some of these faculty members were in town Friday wrapping up the third Berkshire Summer Jazz Camp  a program that preceded BAAMS.

The acquisition of First Baptist Church, just a few doors down from St. Mark's on Commercial Street., expands the footprint of the academy and although the building still needs a lot of work and its future use is unclear, Boulger saw the potential.

"We are so excited for this potential for all of our kids throughout the county," he said. "As we move forward with the new music academy it is nice to have hope ... we do feel optimistic that some great things are coming to Adams and the Berkshires."

State Rep. John Barrett III, who was on the tour with state Sen. Adam Hinds, also saw this potential and drew connections to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

"This is rebuilding a community with your past and using this beautiful building," he said. "...This is a further example of how you can use ingenuity coming from your own community. This was born here."

Barrett said this extended to Sommer who continues to invest in Adams and Boulger who went through the Drury High School band program.

"He is a homegrown guy right out of the education system in North Adams, out of the music program, who has come back to the area," he said. "He wants to give something back. It doesnt get any better than that."

Sommer said he hoped BAAMS could put Adams on the map. He said currently Adams is bookended by great cultural institutions, and he hopes BAAMS could help Adams tap into the tourist economy booming in North Adams and Pittsfield.

"Adams is right between and we missed the boat on everything," he said. "I think this is not going to be just good for the kids but a shot in the arm for the town."

Hinds agreed and said it becomes more and more important to be able to attract new people to the Berkshires.

"There are so many upsides to what is happening here," Hinds said. "It creates another center of gravity for music, arts, and culture in North County, it brings the visitors to Adams, and this investment revitalizes an old building."

BAAMS was slated to open this summer, and although the Olga C. Sommer Center for Music & Art is essentially ready to go, COVID-19 has put a halt to opening.

In the meantime, Boulger said BAAMS does plan to open virtually but donations are being accepted to help really kick the academy into gear once it can physically open.

Hinds noted COVID-19 has put a damper on a lot of exciting things in the Berkshires, but he was happy to say BAAMS still looked very viable.

"It is tangible. They are just finishing up a week of programming, you have another building, and can feel the growth and energy," he said.
TDT | Manama

The US $ 200,000-worth Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa Award for Bahraini Doctor, launched by Prime Minister HRH Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa earlier this year, has commenced working by establishing an administrative board. The court of HRH, the Prime Minister, named the board members who will set the stage for a November 4 - Bahraini Doctors Day- award ceremony.

Bahraini Doctors Day, which falls on the first Wednesday of November each year honours the outstanding contribution of Bahraini doctors in the fields of therapeutic, clinical and medical scientific research, innovation, and community service and development.

The award aims at appreciating the Bahraini doctors and motivating them to exert further efforts and contributions, encouraging the spirit of competitiveness among Bahraini doctors and improving the level of services provided in the public and private health institutions.

Undersecretary of the Court of HRH the Prime Minister, Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Khalifa, chairs the newly formed board which will oversee and set the award policies, plans and programmes. The new board members are Advisor at HRH Premiers Court, Abdulla Abbas Hamad, Director of Evaluation and Analysis at HRH Premiers Court, Farida Abdulrahim Khonji, Financial Treasurer at the Bahrain Medical Society (BMS), Dr Shaikh Salman bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, and Head of Process Re-engineering at the Ministry of Health, Mortada Hassan Hussain.

A committee under the chairmanship of Health Minister, Faeqa bint Said Al-Saleh, will select the winners. Committee members are Abdulla Abbas Hamad, Farida Abdulrahim Khonji, BMS President, Dr Ghada Al-Qassim, Regional Director of the World Health Organisation, Eastern Mediterranean Region, Dr Ahmed bin Salem Al-Mandhari, Arabian Gulf University President, Dr Khalid Abdul Rahman Al-Ohaly, and President of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland - Medical University of Bahrain (RCSI-Bahrain), Dr Samir Al Atoum.

International experts The committee also includes prominent international experts in the field of medical research from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and European and American universities as members.

They are WHO Assistant Director-General for Antimicrobial Resistance, Dr Hanan Balkhy, Professor Cathal Kelly, Professor Dame Parveen Kumar, Professor Kenneth Christopher, Professor Sotirios Nedios and Professor David Gordon.

The award committee will supervise the granting of the award, verify the nomination conditions and criteria are met, review the nominations, research papers, and other documents submitted by candidates, select winners and submit its for final decisions of the award board to announce them. The committee shall develop necessary scientific and technical criteria for award nomination, evaluation and procedures in coordination with the award board.
By Trend

Another batch of humanitarian aid arrived on May 27 from South Korea to Uzbekistan via a charter flight of Uzbekistan Airways, Trend reports citing Kabar.

The cargo includes 20 multifunctional medical beds with a mattress and a semi-automatic mechanism.

The cargo was formed with the support of the South Korean company Myung Sung Placon.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, officials promoting Niagara Falls downtown have continued to hold and plan safe and appropriate events.

Matt Guarasci, marketing consultant with the Queen Street Business Improvement Association, said members have spared no time ensuring the downtown remains alive and well while adjusting to the new normal.

Yes, it has been difficult  obviously if we could have a ton of people, that would be amazing, but given the circumstances, we just want to keep doing things on a small scale to showcase that the downtown community is alive and well, he said. The main thing is were staying positive and I think by staying consistent with these small-scale events, it will create good momentum.

Queen Street, between St. Lawrence and Crysler avenues, has been closed to vehicle traffic to allow for more events, and for restaurants in the area to create and/or expand their patios during COVID-19.

Guarasci said the BIAs new management and marketing team have been putting their best foot forward ensuring that the residents of Niagara feel safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The BIA has a list of events geared towards artisans, movie nights and vendor markets.

Theres a recurring market called Pop Up on the Promenade every Saturday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., and a recurring family-friendly movie night Wednesdays along the closed-off section of Queen Street.

This Wednesday, Pat Mastroianni, a Canadian actor best known for his role as Joey Jeremiah on the Degrassi series of television shows, is scheduled to make an appearance as that days movie night will feature the 1992 film Schools Out.

Organizers encourage people interested in attending the first-come, first-serve movie nights to arrive, with their own lawn chairs, before 8 p.m to reserve their spots.

On Friday, there was a live and physically distanced concert starring hometown band The Associates, along with several local openers. On-site catering was provided by Johnny Roccos, while a pop-up bar made its Queen Street debut.

We had sanitizer, masks, signs put on the ground to showcase proper social distancing, said Guarasci. We had a great turnout. Everyone seemed like they had a fantastic time.

New board member, and Niagara Falls city councillor, Chris Dabrowski said hes excited about the new developments and to see the progression of a new, forward thinking BIA.

I think that by expanding into safe and Stage 3 appropriate events, we are showcasing a healthy step in the right direction for people who are looking for something fun and exciting to do, he said.

The BIA has an art show called Take a Seat on Queen for which artists will design and paint an original art creation on Muskoka inspired lawn chairs Thursday between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. These chairs will act as new safe space for locals and visitors to the street.

Community favourites such as Cruising on the Q car show every Tuesday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday morning yoga between 10 and 11 will also be returning to Queen Street.

On Friday, Queen Street will be hosting a one-of-kind outdoor drag show in the new promenade development at 9 p.m.

For more information about downtown events and initiatives, visit the BIAs Facebook page and website.
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that President Trump will hold a press conference Sunday night to announce a 'major therapeutic breakthrough' for coronavirus.

McEnany tweeted late Saturday night that US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Food and Drug Administration head Stephen Hahn would be attending the 6pm Sunday press conference about the 'China Virus' breakthrough.

She did not hint at what the supposed breakthrough might be. She did, however, use one of Trump's two divisive nicknames for coronavirus.

President Trump will hold a press conference Sunday night revealing a 'major therapeutic breakthrough' on coronavirus

Trump's press secretary made the press conference announcement late Saturday night

Trump has spent the past few months pushing the use of anti-malarial drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine for the treatment of coronavirus.

The FDA revoked its authorization of the emergency use of the two drugs to treat coronavirus patients on June 15, citing the fact that clinical trials showed the drugs had 'no benefit for decreasing the likelihood of death or speeding recovery.'

On Saturday, Trump dredged up a tweet about the FDA revoking the authorization from two and a half weeks ago and wrote: 'Many doctors and studies disagree with this!'

He did not provide any examples of doctors or studies to back up his statement.

Earlier on Saturday, Trump also accused 'The deep state, or whoever' at the FDA of holding up testing for coronavirus vaccines and therapeutics.

United States Food and Drug Administration head Stephen Hahn and US Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar will be attending the press conference

Earlier on Saturday, Trump tweeted the 'deep state' in the FDA was holding up coronavirus vaccine and treatment testing and supported the use of anti-malarial drugs as treatment

'The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics,' Trump tweeted.

'Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives!'

Trump tagged FDA Hahn in the tweet.

On Thursday, Hahn had said that he could not speculate on when the FDA might approve a coronavirus vaccine, but said that the process was moving quickly.

'Thats not because anyone has been cutting corners. Its because its taken a concerted effort and we havent done things in sequence, weve done things in parallel,' Hahn told Gray DC.

Despite Trump saying that he wanted the vaccine to be ready by early November, Hahn said that: 'The only facts FDA will look at with respect to a vaccine when the data come to us is those data and science and the medicine.'

He added that 'Ive had absolutely no pressure from anyone.'

Earlier this week, a top FDA official who will help decide the fate of a coronavirus vaccine has vowed to resign if the Trump administration approves a vaccine before it is shown to be safe and effective.

Peter Marks, director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said that he would resign if the Trump administration approved a vaccine before it was shown to be safe and effective.

Like Hahn, Marks said he has not faced any political pressure and that the FDA would be guided by science alone.

'I could not stand by and see something that was unsafe or ineffective that was being put through,' he told Reuters.

'You have to decide where your red line is, and that's my red line. I would feel obligated [to resign] because in doing so, I would indicate to the American public that there's something wrong.'

He added that he would equally object if someone sought political gain by holding up approval of a vaccine that was shown to work, and that was safe.

Michael Caputo, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees FDA and NIH, said the government aims to identify a safe and effective vaccine by January 2021.

Speculation about the FDA approving a vaccine under political pressure 'only undermines confidence in the public health system,' Caputo said in a statement.

'I've never met one FDA regulator who wouldn't resign over improper pressure, and that's how America knows their seal of approval is the gold standard.'

Trump's approval ratings have fallen sharply in the wake of a pandemic that has killed more than 173,000 Americans and infected over 5.5 million. The race to produce a vaccine has become the centerpiece of his administration's response.

Earlier this month, Trump said a vaccine was possible before the November 3 vote.

In a statement on Thursday, FDA Commissioner Hahn said that under Marks' leadership, the agency's scientists are monitoring the COVID-19 vaccine trials, 'the data from which will be the deciding factor for any FDA approval.'

Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, has also said publicly that political considerations will not influence any decision on a coronavirus vaccine.

Large-scale clinical trials of the leading vaccine candidates from Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca were launched in recent weeks.

The FDA has scheduled a meeting of its advisory committee of outside experts on coronavirus vaccines on October 22.

Marks said the trials were enrolling volunteers 'reasonably well' and that it was 'possible' data could be available to interpret as early as October.

If not, the committee could still discuss broader regulatory issues regarding a vaccine, he said.
Lee Dong-hoon, president of Seoul National University of Science and Technology (Seoul Tech) speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at the university campus in Nowon, Seoul, Aug. 18. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul



By Bahk Eun-ji



Many universities are changing their roles by strengthening the links between industry and academia, breaking away from their traditionally isolated positions.



Seoul National University of Science and Technology (Seoul Tech) has been leading these new changes. Lee Dong-hoon, president of Seoul Tech, is an industry-academic cooperation expert who has held posts related to educational-industrial cooperation for about a decade.



Lee, who took the office last November, served as the university's vice president of research, was a member of the industry-academic cooperation committee and served as the head of the Leaders Industry-University Cooperation (LINC), a project of colleges and universities here funded by the government to facilitate practical training for students.



He said cultivating the optimal human resources necessary for industry through education is the direction in which universities should go.



"The goal of Seoul Tech is 'strengthening research capabilities,'" Lee said during an interview with The Korea Times.





Students of manufacturing systems and design engineering at Seoul National University of Science and Technology listen to a lecture at the university in Nowon, Seoul. Courtesy of Seoul Tech



"In order to become the country's hub in the area of university education, we need to foster core research fields with world-class competitiveness and strengthen basic research capabilities."



As a part of the efforts, the school is attracting a large number of excellent post-doctorate researchers with creativity and excellence tailored to its character which is centered on science and technology.



Seoul Tech selects young researchers, including foreigners within five years of obtaining a Ph.D., gives them positions as visiting professors in charge of research, and provides not only a fixed salary of 40 million won ($33,850) per year but also labor costs for participating in research projects.



"We expect a breakthrough in research performance and industry-academic cooperation through this recruitment of post-doctorate researchers. We are planning to hire about 20 people this year and increase the number by 50 in the future," Lee said,



In addition, full scholarships will be provided to full-time graduate students to expand research capabilities. He said the university would like to encourage the young generation, who are reluctant to enter graduate schools, to pursue higher education to concentrate on their studies and research activities.



Lee is also pushing to increase the summer vacation period to three months from the current two to produce the skills demanded by the industry in a timely manner. Using the extended summer vacation, students will be able to access various long-term internships here and abroad and participate in exchange student programs with overseas universities. The new system will be applied to freshmen from next year.



Starting in 2021, the university will establish a department of Artificial Intelligence Applications that will integrate AI into all majors.



"This is not just to train AI majors through academics, but to produce AI convergence experts who can be used practically in industry. Students in the AI department must double major in other studies besides AI."



Preparing for Fourth Industrial Revolution



"As we enter the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, there are many voices calling for changes in university education. The government is also concentrating on helping the country become an AI powerhouse, with actions such as announcing a national AI strategy for government agencies at the end of last year. In this process, the role of universities in nurturing talented students is very important," he said.



In line with this situation, Seoul Tech will establish the new AI department to foster human resources that can integrate artificial intelligence into engineering, humanities, arts and design. It plans to cultivate talented graduates who can play an active role by integrating artificial intelligence in each specialized field through engineering education, the strength of the university and close connection with industries.





This photo shows Dasan Hall in Seoul National University of Science and Technology campus in Nowon, Seoul. Courtesy of Seoul Tech
Shooting of films and TV serials can be started using these SOPs issued in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic

New Delhi: The Centre on Sunday announced standard operating procedures (SOPs) for resuming shooting of films and TV programmes, and these include measures such as social distancing and mandatory use of face cover or masks for cast and crew, except for actors in front of camera.

The guiding principles and SOPs on preventive measures for media production to contain the spread of COVID-19 were announced by Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar.

He asserted that these measures will facilitate resumption of shooting and provide employment to scores of people impacted due to the film industry being hit in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

These SOPs have been finalised after consulting the health and home ministries, Javadekar said.

Shooting of films and TV serials can be started using these SOPs issued in the wake of the pandemic, the minister said.

Sharing details of the SOPs, Javadekar said barring those who are in front of cameras all others will have to wear masks.

"We are laying down SOPs as per international experience, and with the consultation of the health ministry and the home ministry, we have issued these SOPs," he said.

"This is an important aspect of the economy and it employs millions of people, therefore, we have issued this to facilitate now the production activity to resume. I am sure everyone will welcome this and all states will implement this," Javadekar said.

The I&B document also emphasised on the health and family welfare ministry's guiding principles which state that non-essential activities will not be allowed in COVID-19 containment zones.

The guiding principles also said that employees who are at higher risk, such as older employees, pregnant employees, employees who have underlying medical conditions, should take extra precautions.

They should preferably not be exposed to any front-line work requiring direct contact with the public, according to the health ministry guiding principles.

The I&B ministry SOPs state that physical distancing of at least six feet to be followed as far as feasible at all locations at all times, while sitting, standing in queues, among others.

These include places such as shoot locations, sound recording studios and editing rooms.

Aspects such as scenes, sequences, set-ups, camera locations, positions of various crew members, seating arrangements, food and catering arrangements, staggered meal timings should be planned while giving due consideration to physical distancing norms, according to the I&B ministry document.

Measures should be taken by the production team to involve a minimum number of cast and crew members during the shoot, the SOPs said.

Visitors and audience should not be allowed on sets and for outdoor shooting, necessary coordination with the local authorities should be ensured to minimise and manage the spectators, they said.

Resting or stay-over facilities should be planned while adhering to physical distancing guidelines, according to the document.

Staggered call and pack-up timings for different production units should be ensured by studios having multiple sets, the SOPs state.

"There shall be designated entry and exit points for all shoot locations and other workplaces," the document said.

Common locations such as sets, cafeteria, make-up rooms, edit rooms, vanity vans, washrooms should be sanitised regularly, it said.

Sanitisation, to the extent possible, before and after the shoot should be done, the SOPs said.

They also stressed that measures for the safety of sanitisation staff such as adequate provisions for rational use of gloves, boots, masks, PPE, should be undertaken.

The document also states that as far as possible, the practice of work from home should be followed.

It says that sharing of costumes, hair wigs, makeup items, equipment should be kept at a minimum.

Make-up artists and hair stylists will use relevant PPE and artistes should be encouraged to do their hair styling and make-up remotely with the help of professionals, as per the guidelines.

Persons handling or working with common/shared equipment shall wear disposable gloves and efforts should be made to encourage wearing of gloves among other members of the cast and crew as well, they said.

Shooting for films and TV serials was suspended following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
Tehran, Aug 23 : Majid Takht Ravanchi, Iran's Ambassador to the UN, said that Tehran's reaction against Washington's attempts to reinstate the pre-2015 UN sanctions on the Islamic Republic would be proportionate to the state of affairs.

Iran's reaction to the US bid to snapback sanctions will be commensurate with what is happening to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), namely Iran's 2015 nuclear deal, and the UN Security Council Resolution 2231, Xinhua news agency reported citing Ravanchi as saying on Saturday.

US President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the Iranian 2015 landmark deal in 2018 and reimposed major sanctions on the country's energy and financial sectors.

In reaction, Iran dropped major parts of its nuclear obligations.

On August 20, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Washington started the process to restore all pre-2015 UN sanctions against Iran.

Recently, the US had failed to extend a UN arms embargo against Iran at the UN Security Council.

On Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the attempts by the US administration to reimpose the sanctions will further isolate Washington.
Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari will lay foundation stone of and inaugurate 35 highway projects in Madhya Pradesh on August 25, 2020, according to an official statement. These projects for inauguration and foundation laying carry a road length of 1,139 kilometers, involving construction value of over Rs 9,400 crore.

These road projects will enhance better connectivity, convenience and economic growth in the State, as per the statement issued by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.

As per the ministry, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan will preside over the virtual function, which will be attended by Union Ministers Thavarchand Gehlot and Narendra Singh Tomar and other officers from the Centre and the State.

Earlier on August 18, Gadkari laid the foundation stones of Rs 3,000-crore highway projects in Manipur and said the government will soon take up additional projects worth Rs 16,023 crore in the state. The minister also promised to also expedite the ongoing Rs 2,250-crore highway works in the state and termed it as his "priority".

Gadkari has stressed upon utilising modern and green technologies in road construction all over the country. In a review meeting on new green highways policy, he said that it should be the mission of the ministry to reduce cost of construction by 25 per cent and for this new technologies are required.

Also Read: Nitin Gadkari calls for cutting road construction cost by 25%

Also Read: Nitin Gadkari lays foundation stones for 13 highway projects in Manipur virtually

Also Read: Nitin Gadkari launches 'Harit Path' app to monitor plantation along national highways
Amarinder Singh opposes challenge to Gandhi family leadership

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Aug 23: Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has opposed the bid by some Congress leaders to challenge the Gandhi family leadership in the party, saying this is not the time to raise such an issue.

In a statement, Singh said the need today is for a strong opposition against the BJP-led NDA which is out to destroy the country's constitutional ethos and democratic principles.

The veteran Congress leader said the NDA's success was attributable to the absence of a strong and united Opposition.

'The move by these Congress leaders to demand a rehaul of the party at this critical juncture would be detrimental to its interests, and the interests of the nation,' he said.

'What the Congress needs is a leadership that is acceptable not just to a few but to the entire party, through its rank and file, and the nation at large,' he said, adding that the Gandhis were the right fit for this role.

'Sonia Gandhi should continue to helm the Congress as long as she wants,' he said, adding that Rahul Gandhi should thereafter take over as he is fully competent to lead the party.

Ahead of the Congress Working Committee meeting on Monday, different voices have emerged within the party with one section comprising sitting MPs and former ministers demanding a collective leadership, while another group has sought the return of Rahul Gandhi to the helm.

Gandhi vs non-Gandhi: Congress leaders call for changes in party, another group bats for Rahul

Some Congress leaders, including ex-ministers, have written to party president Sonia Gandhi for the overhaul of the organisational structure and changes to the leadership.

The letter by former ministers and some MPs was believed to have been written a few weeks ago and sets the stage for a stormy Congress Working Committee meeting on Monday where issues flagged by dissenters are expected to be discussed and debated.

The Punjab CM said India is currently facing not just external dangers from across the border but also internal threats to its federal structure, adding that a unified Congress alone could protect the country and its people.

Terming the demand for a leadership change as 'untenable', Singh noted the "immense contribution" of the Gandhi family to the country's progress since it achieved freedom from the British rule.

The Chief Minister pointed out that there was not a single village in India which did not have a Congress member to carry forward its ideology of upholding the constitutional principles, rights and freedoms.

He said the credit for that went to the Gandhis, without whose selfless commitment, dedication and unimaginable sacrifices, the party would not have stood like a rock in the path of the BJP and its 'Sanghi ambitions' to divide the country into the lines of caste and religion.

"At a time when the very bedrock of India's constitutional strength is under threat, it is important for every Congress man and woman to stand firmly and unitedly behind the Gandhis, who had held the party together all these decades and could continue to do so, he said.

'There is currently no leader in the Congress who could give the party that kind of strong leadership,' he said, urging one and all to put the interests of the party and the nation above their own.

'The Gandhis were the only universally recognisable face of the Congress, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari,' the Chief Minister stressed, pointing out that the five generations that had served the country since the pre-Independence times had sacrificed their lives for the nation.

'Electoral defeats could not be the yardstick for the leadership change,' he said, adding that just because the Congress was down at the moment did not mean the Gandhis' contribution to its growth could or should be undermined.

Amarinder Singh warned that any move to divide or destabilise the party would give advantage to the dictatorial forces that are seeking to trample the ideals on which our founding fathers had built modern India, that is respected by the world today.

'The destruction of those ideals would trigger the devastation not just of the Congress but India as a whole,' he cautioned.
The University of Lagos (UNILAG) chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has commended the federal government for suspe...

The University of Lagos (UNILAG) chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has commended the federal government for suspending the universitys pro-chancellor and vice-chancellor.

In a statement on Friday, Ben Goong, spokesman of the ministry of education, had directed Wale Babalakin and Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, the pro-chancellor and vice-chancellor, respectively to recuse themselves from official duties.

The ministry had also set up a panel to probe the crisis rocking in the university.

The Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) also reported that President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the senate of the university to convene and nominate an acting vice-chancellor from among its members for the confirmation by the university council.

In an interview with NIGERIAN TRIBUNE on Friday, Dele Ashiru, ASUU chairman UNILAG chapter, described the decision as a courageous step.

He said the governments decision would present an opportunity for all the parties involved in the crisis to present their cases before an independent panel which has been constituted.

Our union appreciates the federal government for this courageous step to halt Wale Babalakins shenanigan in UNILAG, Ashiru said.

Babalakin and Ogundipe have been at loggerheads since March over the institutions 51st convocation which was later suspended.

ASSU had also passed a vote of no confidence on Babalakin in March accusing the pro-chancellor of insensitivity.

At a meeting of the governing council in Abuja on Wednesday, which was presided over by Babalakin, Ogundipe was removed as vice-chancellor of UNILAG.

Although Ogundipe rejected the decision, insisting that he remained the vice-chancellor, Oladejo Azeez, the institutions registrar, appointed Omololu Soyombo as the acting vice-chancellor.
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With food deliveries expanding fast worldwide as people stay home amid the coronavirus pandemic, three players' growing dominance is realigning the industry in the United States, Japan and elsewhere.

According to L.E.K. Consulting, the food delivery market in the U.S. was worth $53 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow to about $88 billion by 2023. DoorDash, which has bought rival Caviar for about $400 million, now has the largest market share at about 45%, according to Edison Trends. Uber Eats, which has the second-largest share at 28%, announced in July it will buy Postmates, whose 7% share puts it fourth. The Netherlands-based Just Eat Takeaway.com has announced it will acquire Grubhub, ranking third with a 17% share.

In China, Meituan Dianping is an unchallenged leader with a 70% share. The IT company is attracting attention as an emerging platform like Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings. Its strategy centers on a "superapp" that performs multiple functions, such as reserving hotel rooms and finding private lodging in addition to ordering food.

In Southeast Asia, superapps have a unique ecosystem in which food delivery services evolved from ride-hailing apps, including Gojek's GoFood in Indonesia and Vietnam's GrabFood. The common use of motorcycles in these countries makes it easy for the services to find workers who can reach houses even in narrow alleyways.

In Japan as well, competition is heating up as the market grows. Uber Eats, operated by Uber Technologies, has gone on the offensive with the introduction of a fixed-rate service. Domestic player Demae-can and other startups are making their presence increasingly felt by focusing on premium and popular restaurants and hiring higher-quality delivery staff.

Demae-can became an effective subsidiary of Line in April.

"What we set out to do in five years we can now do in just a year," a Demae-can insider said.

Line, which acquired about 20% of the operator of Demae-can in 2019, invested another 30 billion yen ($280 million) to make the company a subsidiary. Hideo Fujii, a Line executive officer in charge of its delivery business, became president of Demae-can in June, and Line has dispatched 50 IT engineers to the new subsidiary. The company plans to integrate its Line Delima food delivery service with Demae-can's under the Demae-can brand name and to make it easier for users of the Line app to register for the service. Line aims to take full advantage of its technology and ample funding to enhance the service's ease of use and expand delivery offices.

The Line app has 84 million registered users and potential customers for the delivery service, which the company is positioning as the core of its strategy of providing wide-ranging services for people's lives through a superapp.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a red category warning about heavy rain in parts of central and western India over the weekend and Monday as the monsoon is likely to be active in these regions.

The warning has been issued for eastern Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh on Saturday; Saurashtra and Kutch regions in Gujarat, and eastern and western Rajasthan on Sunday; and Saurashtra and Kutch regions on Monday.

A red category warning implies that disaster management authorities should take action to prevent any rain-related or flooding disaster.

Central India has got extremely heavy rain. It may record heavy to very heavy rains for another day. But now the monsoon rains will be concentrated in south Rajasthan and Gujarat. There can be extensive urban flooding. Meanwhile another low-pressure area is likely to develop over Bay of Bengal which may not be as intense as this one. There may be some rain in Delhi NCR around August 25 or 26, said RK Jenamani, senior scientist, national weather forecasting centre.

Till Saturday, many parts of Madhya Pradesh had recorded extreme rain, including Sehore 32 cm; Dewas 27 cm; Indore and Raisen 26 cm each; Ujjain 24 cm; Dhar 23 cm; Banswara, Shajapur 21 cm and Hoshangabad 20 cm.

The Central Water Commission in its flood situation report on Saturday warned that there is a high risk of flash floods in parts of eastern Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, eastern Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. There is a moderate risk of flash floods in the Konkan region and Goa also, the report added.

There is a well-marked low-pressure area lying over central parts of Madhya Pradesh. It is very likely to move nearly westwards across western Madhya Pradesh during the next two to three days. The monsoon trough is active and south of its normal position (Ganganagar to the Bay of Bengal.)

An east-west shear zone (a zone of change in wind direction and velocity) is running across central India, according to IMDs Saturday morning bulletin.

Due to these favourable conditions, widespread to very heavy rain is likely over Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha, Telangana, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan in the next two to three days. Extremely heavy rain is likely over eastern Rajasthan and Gujarat during August 22 and 23, and in western Madhya Pradesh, and north, Madhya Maharashtra on August 22, and Saurashtra and Kutch from August 22 to 23.

Under the influence of likely formation of a low-pressure area over northwest Bay of Bengal, rainfall activity is likely to increase over east and adjoining central India from August 23. Heavy to very heavy rain is likely over Odisha from August 23 to 25, over Gangetic West Bengal on August 24 and 25 and over Jharkhand on August 25, said IMD.

Meanwhile, in Delhi the sky remained clear and blue. The air quality index was 53, in satisfactory category bordering.
Jerry Falwell Jr. and the Evangelical Redemption Story New York Review of Books

How to Raise an Environmentalist Yes!

Charles Darwins famous Galapagos Islands threatened by huge Chinese fishing fleet Mirror. Perhaps Ecuador should consider what Indonesia does. Seize the vessel, offload its crew, and sink the illegal fishing boat.

Is the Almighty Dollar Slipping? Project Syndicate. Nouriel Roubini.

Did they even hang bears? London Review of Books. Wha made the Vikings tick.

What to Stream: Alexandria: Again and Forever, a Masterpiece Hiding on Netflix New Yorker. I spied this review as I was compiling todays links and will watch the film after I upload my post for today. My brain is turning to mush during this lockdown; I need to get some more mental stimulus.

Hurricane Alley

Taken at the flood Times Literary Supplement. Hurricane Katrina, fifteen years on. I remember being riveted to the TV in an Istanbul hotel room, mesmerised by an awful disaster and ineffectual response that appears quaint a mere 15 years later. Marco, Laura approach US packing double threat to Gulf Coast AccuWeather

Big Brother IS Watching You Watch

Donald Trump Should Pardon Edward Snowden American Conservative

#COVID-19

Science/Medicine

Class Warfare

California Burning

Syraqistan

China?

India

Russiagate

Carter Page: I was a pawn in the Democrat crusade to bring down Trump New York Post. Im of an age and sensibility that I reflexively distrust things that appear in the Post. And yes, I am well aware I should apply that skepticism to all that I read. Still, with the caveat that to link is not necessarily to endorse, I offer this up to the commentariat to chew over. RAY McGOVERN: Catapulting Russian-Meddling Propaganda Consortium News

Trump Transition

2020

United States Postal Service

Mauritius

Antidote du Jour (via): The photo is a bit deceptive, given I expect readers will view it in the current California context. Its an image of a controlled burn in Kazirango National Park (Assam, India) and one of the winners in this years Bird Photographer of the Year (BPOTY award).

See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here.

And a bonus antidote (via):
U.S. Schools are facing laptop shortages and long delays that go up to several months. A report from Associated Press found that many are having hard time getting this year's most important school supply.

The three biggest computer companies in the world, Lenovo, HP and Dell told U.S. schools and school districts that they are having a laptop shortage.

This laptop shortage goes as far as many U.S. schools needing nearly 5 million laptops, affecting many students who are going through distance learning.

To make matter worse, some cases were made worse by the Trump administration's sanctions on Chinese suppliers. This was said in interviews with over two dozen U.S. schools, districts in 15 states, suppliers, computer companies and industry analysts.

The tensions grew after the said companies were believed to use forced labor, or are involved with human rights abuses. To be specific, abuses in China's Uighur population in Northwest China were linked to the claims, reported Newsweek.

On top of the sanctions, the increased demand for laptops has also fueled the shortage.

Laptop Shortage Worries Educators

As the school year is going virtual due to the coronavirus pandemic, educators in U.S. schools worry about the effects the shortage will do. It won't just affect them as educators but will give headaches for students and their families.

"This is going to be like asking an artist to paint a picture without paint. You can't have a kid do distance learning without a computer," said Supt. Tom Baumgarten of the Morongo Unified School District in California.

The Morongo Unified School district serves 8,000 students with free lunch and most of the need computers to keep up with distance learning.

Baumgarten was about to buy 5,000 Lenovo Chromebook for the district. But he was called off by his vendor.

The vendor said Lenovos were getting "stopped by a government agency because of a component from China that's not allowed here," he said.

When he opted to get HPs, he was told they would arrive in time for the first day of school, August 26. But the delivery date was changed up to until October.

The district has roughly 4,000 old laptops that can serve about half of its students, but this leaves the others with nothing.

"I'm very concerned that I'm not going to be able to get everyone a computer," Baumgarten said.

COVID-19 Hits Hard on Computer Manufacturing

This year has made many things feel the effects of COVID-19. The computer manufacturing industry is not saved from this. According to an Axios report, the supply chain in China computer makers was disrupted due to New Year's holiday closures and virus-related slowdowns.

A Wall Street Journal report said that the start of the pandemic led to shortages in essential laptop components. But it added that many companies have been struggling even prior to the pandemic.

Microprocessor manufacturers had been struggling to keep up with demand. To add to that, cloud storage demand also raised orders for advanced processors from companies like Intel.

PC sales went up dramatically in March, as the spread of COVID-19 took over U.S. schools, forcing remote learning. Five months later, Acer America is "not even close" to meeting demand, said company president Gregg Prendergast.

Chromebooks and other low-cost PCs are the kinds of computers that budget-strapped schools are choosing amid the pandemic. But there had been delays since spring and had only gone worse because of high demand and disruptions in the supply chain.

Laptops are getting off store shelves as fast as toilet paper and other pandemic necessities did in the first few months of the pandemic.

With more disruptions in the supply chain, the shortage will likely go on as people want to study and get entertained amid the pandemic.

Check these out!

5 Best Laptops of 2020 for Video Editing

These Small Everyday Activities Put You at COVID-19 Risk

COVID-19 May Be in Your Blood If Body Exhibits These Scary Signs
Seven Virginia Tech students were suspended Thursday after local law enforcement alerted the university to reports of large groups of students gathered off-campus.

Virginia Tech remains steadfast in its commitment to expect all members of our community to follow all public health guidelines issued in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dean of Students Byron Hughes said in a message posted on Techs website Thursday afternoon.

He noted that public health guidelines  which include a recent Blacksburg ordinance limiting gatherings to no more than 50 people  are necessary to keep people safe.

Should the Dean of Students Office, the Virginia Tech Police Department, or the Blacksburg Police Department need to respond to concerns about noise violations or disruptive parties, a referral will be made to the Office of Student Conduct for their follow-up, Hughes wrote. Recent off-campus incidents that have occurred over the past week have resulted in seven students being placed on interim suspension.

Tech spokesman Mark Owczarski said in an email Thursday that the university can impose interim, or immediate, suspensions if such action is necessary to preserve the safety of persons or property.

The Office of Student Conduct received a referral from local law enforcement related to large gatherings of students not practicing social distancing, not wearing masks and being disruptive to the community, Owczarski wrote.

A student who faces an interim suspension has five days to request a meeting with administrators, according to the student handbook.

During the review, the student will be given an opportunity to demonstrate why his or her continued presence on campus does not constitute a threat to themselves, others, or property, the handbook states.

A separate student conduct hearing determines whether the student violated any university policies.

Owczarski said charges for the recent incidents could include endangerment and disorderly or disruptive conduct.

Radford University has suspended three students for endangering conduct and failure to comply with the universitys COVID-19 safety measures, The Roanoke Times reported Wednesday.

Community members in Blacksburg and Radford, as well as students themselves, have expressed concern that some students may not follow public health guidelines and could risk outbreaks of COVID-19, which has happened at universities nationwide.

Students living on campus at Tech began moving in Friday, and on-campus Radford students began moving in Aug. 1.

As classes begin Monday, we must be unrelenting and uncompromising in our commitment to public health, Hughes said in his message addressed to Hokie Nation.

This includes you. We will succeed together  or we will fail together.
PARIS  French politicians of all political views roundly condemned graffiti denying the Holocaust that was scrawled on a wall in the village that was the site of the France's biggest massacre of civilians by the Nazis during World War II on Saturday.

The rare display of unity, from French President Emmanuel Macron to the far-left and the far-right, underscored the symbolism of Oradour-sur-Glane as a perpetual reminder of the horrors of Nazi occupation of France. The village has remained untouched since the massacre.

Macron, who visited the village after his 2017 election victory, vowed that "all will be done" to catch those who defaced the wall at the entrance of the Center for Remembrance.

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Officials in Oradour-Sur-Glane, which is near Limoges in central France, threw up a tarp to cover the graffiti that was discovered Friday. The word "Lie" was scrawled on the wall, along with other graffiti, according to the regional paper Le Populaire du Centre. The inscription "Martyr Village" was crossed out.

The Le Figaro newspaper quoted the village's mayor, Philippe Lacroix, as saying that the name of a known Holocaust denier was inscribed on the wall.

"Shame on those who did this," Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti tweeted. "All will be done to find and judge those who committed these sacrilegious acts."

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin denounced the "abject filth" in a Friday night tweet. Prime Minister Jean Castex said the graffiti "dirties the memory of our martyrs."

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen tweeted that "it's time for once and for all ... to stop the recurrence of these acts that hurt us all."

Troops from the fanatical SS "Das Reich" division were responsible for killing 642 villagers on June 10, 1944, herding them into barns and a church and setting the town on fire. While a new village has been built, the ruins of the old town have been cared for as a testimony to Nazi horrors.

The massacre occurred four days after the Allied D-Day landings in Normandy. The killings were believed to have been ordered in retaliation for the kidnapping of a German soldier by the French Resistance.
Johnny Chiang, the newly elected chairman of Taiwan's main opposition Kuomintang Party (KMT), speaks during a news conference in Taipei

By Ben Blanchard

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's main opposition party the Kuomintang (KMT), which traditionally favours close ties with China, was routed in a key mayoral by-election on Saturday, a vote overshadowed by turmoil in Hong Kong and tensions with Beijing.

The KMT, under its youthful new leader, Johnny Chiang, has been trying to reinvent itself since being trounced by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in January's presidential and parliamentary elections.

The by-election in the southern city of Kaohsiung was called after its KMT mayor, Han Kuo-yu, was removed from office by a massive margin in a recall vote in June, his opponents charging he had little interest in the city.

The DPP's Chen Chi-mai, a former vice premier, won 70% of the votes, thrashing KMT candidate Jane Lee, though only about half of electors turned out.

"The election result proves one thing - a victory for democracy," Chen told cheering supporters.

Lee, wearing a pink t-shirt with the words "keep going" on it, offered her congratulations.

"I know I did not work hard enough," she said in her concession speech.

While the campaign focused on domestic issues like Kaohsiung's heavy debt load, China grabbed the domestic spotlight in the run-up, with the arrest in Hong Kong of media tycoon Jimmy Lai and Chinese military drills near Taiwan.

China claims democratic Taiwan as its "sacred" territory to be taken by force if necessary, and has repeatedly denounced Taiwanese leaders for supporting anti-Beijing protesters in Hong Kong, a former British colony returned to China in 1997 with promises of a high degree of autonomy that many fear is now being eroded.

Chen had cast the election as a way of showing support for Hong Kong and the value of democracy, while President Tsai Ing-wen told a rally in Kaohsiung on Friday evening that China's military threats were Beijing's way of trying to influence the vote.

Story continues

The KMT, for its part, complained this week that Tsai's offers of help to Hong Kong's people were all talk and no action.

Lee's campaign was not helped after she became embroiled in a plagiarism scandal a few weeks before the vote, accused of copying much of her master's thesis. She tearfully told reporters last month she was going to give up her degree.

Kaohsiung, at the centre of Taiwan's struggle for democracy in the 1970s and 1980s and home to an important port, is normally firm DPP territory, and the party was taken aback when Han unexpectedly won in 2018.

Han was also the KMT's defeated presidential candidate.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by William Mallard)
Budget carrier SpiceJet became the first Indian airline to operate the long-haul non- stop cargo flight from Amsterdam to Mumbai using its wide-body aircraft Airbus A340 on Saturday. The same aircraft also operated from Mumbai to Khartoum, Sudan, on Sunday at 11.47am.

The airline also became the first to operate a non-stop cargo flight from Europe on a dedicated freighter.

Adding Netherlands to its international cargo network, SpiceJet carried 13 tonnes of cargo supplies to Mumbai on Saturday. The flight departed from the Dutch capital at 10.50pm (local time) on August 21 and landed in Mumbai at 10.54am (local time) on Saturday.

Ajay Singh, chairman and managing director of SpiceJet, said, We successfully operated our first wide-body long-haul flight from Europe. The induction of our first Airbus A340 cargo aircraft has significantly enhanced our operational capability and will allow us to operate non-stop cargo services across the globe to destinations in Europe, Africa and CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries.

An airline official said that the A340 freighter that took off to Khartoum today carried 40 tonnes of cargo. This is SpiceJets first non-stop flight to Africa. Earlier, the low-cost carrier had flown to Sudan via Ras Al-Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates.

Since March 25, after India imposed a lockdown, the airline operated more than 5,764 cargo flights and transported over 31,800 tonnes of cargo, which according to SpiceJet, is more than double of all the domestic airlines put together. These flights carried medicines, medical equipment, fruits and vegetables to various parts of India and the world since March 25.
Four severely critical Covid-19 patients who were on ventilator support due to extensive scarring of lung tissues that leads to low oxygen levels  a complication induced by Sars-CoV-2 virus  were sent home on minimal oxygen support after pulmonologists at the Pune-based Army Institute of Cardiothoracic Sciences (AICTS) administered a new line of treatment using anti-fibrotic drug nintedanib.

We had lost hope on these four patients. But when we administered Nintedanib with a combination of steroids, their condition turned around. Very safely and without any complications or side-effects, they could be sent home with minimal oxygen support, said Brigadier (medical) HQ MG&G (Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa) area, adding that this subset of patients had clear evidence of having suffered pulmonary fibrosis in CT-scans. Nintedanib costs approximately 65,000 or less for a month (60 tablets).

Lung fibrosis is usually seen in patients who are detected late and have extensive pneumonia. Many a times, it becomes difficult to wean these patients off oxygen despite anti-inflammatory therapies, such as steroids, and they remain in the intensive care unit for a long time.

A patient infected with the novel coronavirus associated pulmonary fibrosis is put on high-flow oxygen or other ventilatory supports because he/she cannot maintain normal oxygen saturation levels on his/her own. While oxygen saturation levels for most healthy individuals is around 95% or more, it can drop to as low as 75% among Covid-19 patients, causing death.

Dr Lancelot Pinto, pulmonologist at Hinduja Hospital, said that anti-fibrotics such as pirfenidone and nintedanib may have anti-fibrotic potential, but their efficacy needs to be validated in randomised control trials (RCTs).

We have seen several patients with high oxygen requirements and bilateral lung disease improve gradually, and get weaned off oxygen with time. The recovery can be slow, and at times we have discharged patients on home oxygen support, and eventually weaned them off, said Pinto.

He added, In the absence of a control arm, it is impossible to know whether it was the drug or time that caused the resolution of clinical and radiological features. Already an RCT assessing the safety and efficacy of pirfenidone is underway, and we are looking forward to the results.

There are plenty of observational studies of drugs for Covid (such as HCQ) that have had promising results, but have failed to show efficacy over placebo in clinical trials. We should definitely not change practice based on a case series of 4 patients, said Pinto.

The team said anti-fibrotic drugs are generally used to treat other types of lung fibrosis such as secondary to autoimmune diseases  rheumatoid arthritis and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).

Nintedanib is a medicine which has often been used by some immunologists and rheumatologists in cases where the lungs have developed fibrosis as a result of an autoimmune disease in which the bodys own immunity goes haywire, begins recognising its own organs as foreign and starts attacking it, said a spokesperson of the team. In some of those conditions, lungs develop fibrosis and Nintedanib has been used effectively for clinical management of the condition because its an expensive drug, the spokesperson added.

Taking this as a cue, the pulmonology department at AICTS decided to try a combination of steroids with nintedanib in four patients with Covid-19-associated lung fibrosis who were difficult to wean off of oxygen due to extensive lung fibrosis and their condition was steadily deteriorating. Doctors said the anti-fibrotic drug was used on four patients who were at a very advanced stage of Covid-19 that required intense treatment.

Having recovered, these patients will have to be on minimal oxygen support at home even after turning Covid-19 negative, and follow-ups will continue clinically and through laboratory investigations and CT-scan imaging. The team said nintedanib is reasonably safe but may cause diarrhoea followed by liver function derangement in some.

A patient cannot be discharged unless oxygen saturation level is not above 93-94% which will help him/her carry on with daily activities. The reason these four patients require low-level oxygen and follow-ups is because while their saturation levels will stay at 93-94% when stationery (like sitting), it will drop to 90-91% with little activity, said the spokesperson.

As an observational study, a report is in the pipelines for an internationally peer-reviewed scientific journal on the clinical management using ninetedanib on these four patients. Going forward, the team proposes to recognise similar subsets and utilise the same treatment protocol.

The team said that at present there is no published case report of this drug being used on patients who have developed severe pulmonary fibrosis due to Covid-19 and are unable to wean off ventilator.

HOW THE PATIENTS ARE CHOSEN

Covid-19 patients who are detected late or progressed to the critical phase of illness  meaning they are unable to maintain their oxygen saturations without high-flow oxygen or ventilator support  are evaluated extensively.

Computerised tomography pulmonary angiography is carried out to rule out the possibility of pulmonary embolism (clots in the lungs) and check the extent of fibrosis that may have developed in the lung.

The patients also undergo various blood tests to look for ongoing inflammation by evaluating the inflammatory markers among other parameters.

If the inflammation is controlled with steroids (which are the first line for Covid-19) and CT pictures reveal evidence of prominent fibrosis leading to the patient requiring continued supplemental oxygen and make it difficult to wean him/her off, the therapy with nintedabin begins.

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RACINE COUNTY  For several months, many American court systems had been largely shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But it has reopened for the most part and cases have been moving through the system. Here is a look at three high-profile cases:

Spiegelhoff

A former Washington-Caldwell School teacher originally accused of inappropriately touching a child was sentenced to 9 months in jail and 8 years of probation for two counts of exposing a child to harmful materials.

Justin D. Spiegelhoff, 37, of Burlington, was initially charged with felony second-degree assault of a child. According to the original criminal complaint, the victim said that she was asked to grab something in the schools kiln room when Spiegelhoff came up behind her, touched her breasts, played with her bra, kissed her and put his hand down the back of her pants. She also said he took off his shirt to show her his tattoos.

Spiegelhoff reportedly spent extra time with the victim, meeting with her one on one. He also allegedly wrote the girl notes and gave her a necklace.

During the trial, phone records showed that 42 phone calls occurred between Spiegelhoff, then 30, and his victim between February 2012 and June 2012.

The two reportedly spoke more than 10 hours on the phone, with 31 of the phone calls originating from Spiegelhoff. The conduct reportedly occurred during the 2011-12 school year at Washington-Caldwell, a K-8 school located on Highway 164 in the Tichigan area of the Town of Waterford.

In February, he accepted a deal extended by the Racine County District Attorneys Office, pleading no contest to two felony counts of exposing a child to harmful materials. He was sentenced in June to 9 months in jail and two consecutive sentences of four years of probation.

If he violates his probation, he could face 18 months of incarceration and two years of extended supervision.

LaRoche requests trial

Linda Sue LaRoche  the woman accused of killing Peggy Lynn Schroeder in 1999 and dumping her body in a Raymond field  has acquired an attorney and requested a jury trial for her case.

LaRoche appeared in court six times without representation. She was arrested Nov. 5 in Florida and had told the court she had been trying to sell her home in order to finance her defense. On May 22, Laura Walker was appointed to represent her.

At a status conference on Monday, LaRoche requested her case go to trial. It has been tentatively scheduled to start Feb. 8. Her next status conference is scheduled for Sept. 21.

Before LaRoche was charged, Schroeder had been known only as Jane Doe for 20 years. According to an investigation led by the Racine County Sheriffs Office, Schroeder had been living with LaRoche as a nanny for about five years. But LaRoche had become abusive during that time, according to investigators, and subsequently caused the death of Schroeder.

The break in the case came after someone in Florida told authorities they had heard LaRoche talking about having killed someone decades ago in Illinois, where she lived with her family and Schroeder.

LaRoche is currently being held in the Racine County Jail on a $500,000 bond.

Fettes case advances in Illinois

The case of former Racine County Register of Deeds Tyson Fettes, who was arrested in Rockford, Ill., for soliciting a prostitute as part of a sex-trafficking operation, is still working its way through court.

Fettes is one of 27 men and one woman who were charged in connection to the sex-trafficking operation uncovered in Rockford. According to Winnebago County court records, he attended a hearing on June 30 but his hearings on April 22 and July 1 were canceled.

His next scheduled status hearing is at 9 a.m. on Sept. 1 at the Winnebago County Courthouse.

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Local residents sit next to a vineyard as they watch the LNU Lightning Complex fire burning in nearby hills in Healdsburg, Calif., on Aug. 20, 2020. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Trump Declares California Wildfires a Major Disaster

President Donald Trump declared the wildfires raging in California a major disaster, which will allow federal funds to be used by people and businesses harmed by the fires in seven counties to pay for temporary housing, home repairs, and other needs.

More than two dozen massive wildfires continued to ravage parts of California on Aug. 23, fueled by high temperatures and ongoing lightning strikes, including 100 on Aug. 21, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire).

The president had previously threatened to withhold federal funding due to Californias failure to manage its forests.

I said, you gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your foreststhere are many, many years of leaves and broken trees and theyre like, like, so flammable, you touch them and it goes up, the president said at a rally on Aug. 20. Maybe were just going to have to make them pay for it because they dont listen to us.

The declaration opens up federal funds to people in the counties of Lake, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma, and Yolo.

The wildfires have already claimed five lives; 43 firefighters and civilians have been injured, according to CalFire.

Wildfires are threatening parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, the forested region near the University of California at Santa Cruz, and a wide swath of the area between San Francisco and Sacramento, the state capital.

California asked other states and local jurisdictions in California for help, as nearly 14,000 firefighters battled the blazes but havent contained the largest fires.

Theyre scrambling for bodies to help, said Jay Tracy, a fire marshal with the city of Fresno who was deployed as a spokesman for the LNU fire complex. The LNU fire complex has burned 314,000 acres in five counties, including some of the states storied wine country and communities between San Francisco and Sacramento.

Firefighters have improved containment of the southern edge of that fire, but winds are expected to push it northwest toward the wine country towns of Healdsburg and Guerneville, Tracy said.

Additional lightning storms are expected on Aug. 24, and the danger of new or growing wildfires is extreme, CalFire spokesman Daniel Berlant said.

The fires increased modestly in size on Aug. 22 after more than doubling a day earlier, becoming some of the largest in state history and threatening small towns in the path of the flames.

While about 175,000 people were told to leave their homes, many in the community around Vacaville between Sacramento and San Francisco have been allowed to return.

In Santa Cruz, a city of roughly 65,000 people on Californias central coast, residents were told to prepare go bags as bulldozers cut fire lines, and flames came within a mile of the University of CaliforniaSanta Cruz campus.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Only 0.01 per cent of preschools and primary schools in England experienced a Covid-19 outbreak when pupils returned to classrooms in June, a new study has revealed.

A Public Health England (PHE) report found the reopening of schools following the easing of lockdown was associated with a total of 198 confirmed Covid-19 cases, 70 in children and 128 in staff.

There were 67 single confirmed cases, four 'co-primary' cases and 30 outbreaks of Covid-19 in schools during June, it added.

A total of 121 cases were linked to the outbreaks - defined as two or more connected cases - with 30 infections detected in children and 91 in staff, the analysis said.

Outbreaks in schools were typically small in size and more than half involved just one secondary case, the report added, with PHE insisting they were all 'successfully contained'.

A Public Health England report found the reopening of schools following the easing of national lockdown was associated with a total of 198 confirmed Covid-19 cases, 70 in children and 128 in staff (file image)

It comes as the UK's Chief Medical Officers last night told parents their children face an 'exceptionally small risk' from Covid-19 when they return to classrooms next month.

In an unusual 'consensus statement,' all 12 Chief and Deputy Chief Medical Officers agreed that 'very few, if any, teenagers will come to long-term harm from Covid-19 due solely to attending school'.

Education settings in England were asked to reopen to children in nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 at the start of June, extending to Year 10 and 12 students from June 15.

The PHE report today warned staff need to be ''more vigilant' for exposure to Covid-19 outside school, as the majority of cases linked to outbreaks were in employees.

Analysis found that in half of the 30 confirmed outbreaks, the 'probable transmission direction' was staff-to-staff, with seven staff-to-student, six student-to-staff and two student-to-student.

But the report said early detection and isolation of staff and students can prevent the progression of an outbreak 'in most cases'.

It added: 'Within the educational setting, the higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 among staff highlights a need to strengthen infection control measures at two levels.

There were 67 single confirmed cases, four 'co-primary' cases and 30 outbreaks of Covid-19 in schools during June, it added (file image)

A total of 121 cases were linked to the outbreaks - defined as two or more linked cases - with 30 infections detected in children and 91 in staff, the analysis said (file image)

'Staff members need to be more vigilant for exposure outside the school setting to protect themselves, their families and the educational setting.

'Within the education premises, stringent infection control measures between staff need to be reinforced, including use of common staff rooms and cross-covering staff across bubbles.'

The report added there was a 'strong correlation' between community coronavirus incidence and risk of outbreaks in educational settings, even during a period of low Covid-19 cases.

The analysis also found further school closures may be necessary in regions with increasing community infection, but this should only be considered 'in extremis'.

It said: 'The potential for spread within educational settings, as observed from the wider swabbing of some schools in our surveillance and from recent reports from other countries, does suggest that school closures may be necessary as part of lockdown in regions with increasing community infection, although given what is known about the detrimental effects of lack of access to education on child development, these should probably be considered only in extremis by comparison with other lockdown measures.'

The report comes the day after the UK's chief medical officers warned children are more at risk of long-term harm if they do not attend school than if they return to the classroom despite coronavirus.

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary, of the National Education Union, said schools and colleges needed to know what should happen if an outbreak of the virus occurs in individual schools or through national, regional or local spikes.

The analysis comes the day after the UK's chief medical officers warned children are more at risk of long-term harm if they do not attend school than if they return to the classroom despite coronavirus

He said the Government needed to issue guidance on moving to teaching rotas or limited openings and to hire more teachers to allow education to continue if infection rates rise.

Mr Courtney added: 'Government advice needs to cover the possible self-isolation of bubbles and, in extremis, moving to rotas or to more limited opening.

'It needs to cover advice to heads about the protections needed for staff in high-risk categories if infection rates rise.

'Government should be employing more teachers and seeking extra teaching spaces to allow education to continue in a Covid-secure manner if infections rise.'

All 12 Chief and Deputy Chief Medical Officers last night agreed that 'very few, if any, teenagers will come to long-term harm from Covid-19 due solely to attending school'.

And they say that small risk has to be offset against 'a certainty of long-term harm to many children from not attending school'.

The experts concluded that 'teachers are not at increased risk of dying from Covid-19' compared to other workers, and say that the evidence from other countries is that reopening schools is not linked to a surge in cases.

In their statement, the Medical Officers brushed aside teaching unions' safety fears by declaring that 'there is an exceptionally small risk of children of primary or secondary school age dying from Covid-19'.

Chris Whitty added that the 'incredibly small' health risks should be balanced against the overwhelming evidence 'that not going to school damages children in the long run'

They said the fatality rate for children aged five to 15 who become infected was just 14 in a million, 'lower than for most seasonal flu infections', and while every death of a child is a tragedy, 'almost all deaths [from Covid] are in children with significant pre-existing health conditions'.

The experts reported that just one in a thousand children under nine who show Covid symptoms would need hospital treatment, a figure that rises to three in a thousand for ten-to-19-year-olds.

That is still an order of magnitude lower than the four per cent rate for the general population, and the experts add: 'Most of these children make a rapid recovery.'

Set against this tiny risk, the scientists said: 'We are confident that multiple sources of evidence show that a lack of schooling increases inequalities, reduces the life chances of children and can exacerbate physical and mental health issues.'

England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty added that the 'incredibly small' health risks should be balanced against the overwhelming evidence 'that not going to school damages children in the long run and that includes their long-term chances.'

'It increases the risks of disparities, it entrenches deep-rooted problems, it increases the risk that they have mental and physical ill health in the long run,' he said.

He added the transmission rates across the UK were broadly flat and said: 'The evidence from other parts of the world is that, when schools have opened, this has not led to a sudden surge in transmission that looks as if it's due to the schools opening.'
New Delhi:

Several Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) have expressed concerns over the fee exemptions and waivers to students that are hurting the institutes financial health.

Sources said that the issue has been raised in a meeting with top officials of the HRD ministry. The IITs mentioned that the system of giving exemptions to a large number of students without giving reimbursements was affecting their funds.

The government has announced free education for undergraduate courses to students who belong to SC, ST and persons with disabilities categories. Students from families with a yearly income of less than Rs 1 lakh are also able to study in the IITs for free. Those belonging to families with an annual income of less than Rs 5 lakh also get a partial waiver.

Officials said it was suggested in the meeting that the cost of education of such students should be reimbursed to the IITs either by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment or the HRD ministry itself.

The matter is likely to be recommended to the IIT council, a source said.

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What on Earth is going on with aristocratic marriages?

Last week I revealed the Earl and Countess of Mornington, Arthur Wellesley and Jemma Kidd, had split after 15 years.

Now Im told that, sadly, Britains most famous aristocratic supermodel, Stella Tennant, has split from her husband David Lasnet after 21 years of marriage.

Britains most famous aristocratic supermodel, Stella Tennant, has split from her husband David Lasnet, pictured together at their wedding, after 21 years of marriage

Stella, pictured, met David while at the height of her fame, when he was a dashing French photographer assigned to a New York shoot with her

Stella met David while at the height of her fame, when he was a dashing French photographer assigned to a New York shoot with her.

After a high-profile society wedding, they settled down near her parents sprawling 16th Century estate in the Scottish Borders.

David became an osteopath, and the couple went on to have four children, now aged between 15 and 22.

Im told Stella  granddaughter of the 11th Duke of Devonshire and Deborah Mitford, one of the notorious aristocratic siblings  and her husband quietly separated earlier this year.

The couple own a property empire that includes a luxury mews house in Edinburgh and a stately home near her fathers estate.

Stella, 49, was known for her androgynous looks during her 1990s modelling heyday.

It was revealed last week that after 15 years and three children, the Countess of Mornington, Jemma Kidd, has separated from her husband Arthur Wellesley, Earl of Mornington

'They were unhappy together for a very long time,' sources said. 'They decided to separate during lockdown  a time during which they were barely speaking to each other'

Her first shoot made the cover of British Vogue in 1993, and at the end of that days work she was asked to do a Versace campaign in Paris, which ended up as the cover of the Italian edition.

David will now have to eat the words he once uttered in an interview in which he asserted: Theres nothing better than growing old together.

But then he conceded: And its very easy to destroy something. Quite so!

Designer Jenny Packham is delighted so many of her dresses have appeared in Bond films  but theres one problem: 007 keeps removing them before audiences can appreciate them.

Rosamund Pike shed hers very quickly in Die Another Day, Jenny recalls, So when we did the next one for Caterina Murino [in Casino Royale], we made this dress that laced up the back so she couldnt get it off quickly.

But that, too, backfired as she ended up dead in it.
One of Britain's first gay fathers has proposed to his daughter's ex-boyfriend - while on holiday with them both.

Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, 50, who is originally from Manchester, is engaged to his bisexual assistant Scott Hutchison, 25, who previously dated his 20-year-old daughter, Saffron, for several months.

The couple announced earlier this year that they are expecting a baby together in October via surrogate.

This week Barrie took to Instagram to reveal that he and Scott are engaged, sharing a video of the elaborate proposal that took place while on holiday with his daughter and her ex.

Scroll down for video

Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, 50 (right) and his assistant Scott Hutchison, 25 (left) have revealed they are engaged

Barrie (left) proposed to Scott (centre), his PA of seven years, while on holiday with daughter Saffron (right), who previously dated Scott for several months

The romantic moment took place on a motor yacht near the Croatian island Hvar. Barrie had decorated the boat with candles and rose petals as well as laying out a bottle of champagne.

Barrie then revealed a huge diamond and silver ring, and can be heard teasing in the Instagram video: 'What happened here tonight?

'I wonder what it could be? There's Champagne, there's roses, uh, uh, uh, oh... what do you think happened here?

'And is that something over there?'

Barrie took to Instagram share a video of the elaborate proposal including a huge silver and diamond engagement ring

Barrie followed up the post by sharing pictures of himself posing with both Saffron and Scott, hailing his daughter 'his everything'

Barrie's post racked up over 3,000 views and over 200 likes, with several users congratulating the pair and hailing them the 'perfect couple'.

'Congratulations! So happy for you both... the perfect couple', said one.

'Wonderful news. Congratulations. So happy for you both,' gushed another.

'Awwwww that's just the cutest ever!!! Happy future together both of you', wrote a third.

Barrie followed up the post by sharing pictures of himself posing with both Saffron and Scott, hailing his daughter 'his everything'.

Barrie's post racked up over 3,000 views and over 200 likes, with several users congratulating the pair and hailing them the 'perfect couple'

Barrie and his former partner Tony, 55, hit headlines in 1999 when they became the first same sex couple to be formally registered as parents. Their surrogate gave birth to twins Aspen and Saffron.

The fathers, who are worth 40million and live in a 6million 10-bedroom mansion in Florida, went on to have three more children.

The pair, who made their millions through ventures including a surrogacy agency and medical research firm, became civil partners in 2006 and married in 2014.

But Barrie previously told how they 'slid into a platonic relationship' after Tony was diagnosed with cancer in 2006.

He said Scott, his PA of seven years, became a 'shoulder to cry on' when Tony, who is now in remission, was in hospital during treatment in 2018.

Barrie has said Scott, his PA of seven years, became a 'shoulder to cry on' when former partner Tony, who is now in remission, was in hospital during cancer treatment in 2018

The couple previously announced they were expecting triplets, but in April shared a scan photo revealing just the one baby girl is on the way

Last year Barrie announced that Tony remained his 'true love' but they had ended their 32-year relationship.

Meanwhile Saffron has said she is 'not bothered' by her father and ex's relationship, provided they are happy together.

Earlier this year Barrie revealed he is expecting a baby girl with his daughter's ex-boyfriend via surrogate, with Barrie's ex Tony agreeing to be the baby's godfather.

In 1999, Barrie and Tony hit the headlines when a surrogate gave birth to twins Aspen and Saffron (pictured)

From left: Tony, Barrie, Saffron and Scott live together in their 6million Florida mansion

Their surrogate, Marie, is from San Francisco and has previously worked with the couple for their agency, the British Surrogacy Centre.

The couple transferred three blastocysts (embryos) - two girls fertilised by Scott and one girl fertilised by Barrie.

All three men and the Drewitt-Barlow's children still live together in their Florida mansion, which has separate wings.
The Supreme Court (SC) of India seeks to protect its dignity by proceeding in contempt against Prashant Bhushan whose tweets, the court believes, have shaken the confidence of the people in the institution. On this, opinions may differ. Some would say that, in the recent past, both the courts judgments and actions have contributed more significantly in shaking public confidence in the institution. Punishing Prashant Bhushan is not likely to restore it.

But there is a more blatant contempt being witnessed that the SC has failed to address. It is the contempt that the State and its institutions have for the Constitution and the laws, which has shaken the foundations of our democratic values, even as the institution that is obliged to protect those values looks helplessly on.

Recently, the High Court (HC) of Rajasthan dealt with the merger of six members of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) legislative party into the Congress. The merger happened on September 18, 2019. While the politics of disruption was being played out in the open, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), opportunistically, moved a petition in the HC seeking to disqualify the six BSP Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs). The speed with which this matter was taken up by the HC was evidence, perhaps, of the touching concern of the court for upholding constitutional values, which the BJP allegedly espouses. A single-judge bench of the HC was to dispose of the matter of the disqualification immediately. The SC has kept the matter pending awaiting the judgment of the HC. At the same time, the court was aware of the constitutional values being thrown to the winds when the governor chose not to call the assembly session, contrary to the advice of the Council of Ministers.

Let us shift to the events that happened in Goa on July 10, 2019 when 10 Congress MLAs, representing two-thirds of the Congress presence in the assembly merged with the BJP legislative party  the opposite of what happened in Rajasthan. In Rajasthan, the BJP considers the merger of BSP MLAs to be illegal but in Goa, the merger is alleged to be perfectly legal. In Rajasthan, the matter is fast-tracked in court but in Goa, the Speaker has not shown any urgency to decide the disqualification and the matter is now pending in SC, where it is being adjourned whenever taken up. No urgency, though a year has gone by. In Goa, the BJP is the beneficiary of the merger but in Rajasthan, it chooses to challenge it to bring down the government.

In Manipur, the situation is even more bizarre. Between April and July 2017, eight MLAs of the Congress, by their acts, showed open allegiance to the BJP. Petitions to disqualify them were filed in November 2018. The Speaker chose to keep the petitions pending. It was only on January 21, 2020, that the proceedings gained some momentum when SC directed that all pending disqualification petitions before Speakers across India be decided in three months. In Manipur, the Speakers orders are under challenge. Hopefully, the court will show the same urgency in deciding these matters as the court did in Rajasthan.

No other Speaker has honoured the SC judgment by deciding on such disqualification petitions within the time-frame prescribed by it.

In Tamil Nadu, disqualification petitions have been pending before the Speaker since March 2017. The term of the Assembly ends in 2022.

In Madhya Pradesh, disqualification petitions against 19 Congress MLAs who joined the BJP were filed in March 2020. But only a pro-tem Speaker adorns the chair. A duly-elected Speaker alone can deal with them.

Speakers of legislative assemblies seek to protect the members of the party to which they belong and choose to delay, for one reason or another, resolution of disqualification petitions. Courts, time and again, have chosen not to interfere. This gives constitutional protection for openly unconstitutional acts. The Speaker does not decide on these matters for years, and if courts cannot direct the Speaker to decide them, then those who have openly defied the constitution continue to be members of legislative assemblies without any judicial resolution. The courts inaction allows for the perpetuation of an illegality.

There is yet another dimension of the manner in which elected governments are toppled. With new platforms of information, the goings-on in destabilising governments are matters of public knowledge. Willing legislators are flown out in chartered flights, cloistered in five-star facilities with the sole intent of usurping power by blandishments offered to willing takers. This display of arrogance of power and disregard for constitutional values have now become the cornerstone of political activism.

It is the contempt for Indias constitutional values and laws that is a wake-up call for those who, under our constitutional scheme, have the duty to protect them.

Kapil Sibal is a former Union Cabinet minister and senior Congress leader

The views expressed are personal

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I was disappointed to see the South Jersey Times publish another misleading editorial (A watchdog emerges for planned LNG site, Aug. 20) about liquefied natural gas.

LNG does not explode when being transported as proposed (by rail tank cars). Continued efforts to undermine the safe and efficient transportation of affordable, low-carbon energy will needlessly hurt New Jerseyans and Pennsylvanians.

The degree of risk of a BLEVE event (boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion) articulated by opponents is nothing more than a scare tactic propagated by radical anti-fossil-fuel interest groups.

Natural gas is a bridge fuel to a cleaner energy future. There would be no need for LNG transport on rail cars if other energy transmission projects and pipelines were not repeatedly killed for political reasons, to great fanfare by the likes of editorial boards and environmental groups.

Natural gas provides reliable home heating and cooking energy that is cleaner than other fossil fuels. It is the main source of reliable baseload power that will be required to manage the intermittency of wind and solar power in the intermediate future.

If we allow ourselves to be led by editorial writers and radical environmental groups, we can look forward to blackouts on hot summer days, skyrocketing utility bills and the abortion of a budding industrial renaissance in places like Western Pennsylvania.

Chris Buckingham, New York City

Airbnb has party house problem under control

The Aug. 18 editorial, Cure Airbnb headaches, but skip the windfall, A.C., missed the mark widely on Airbnbs work with Atlantic City and the State of New Jersey to combat party houses and nuisance issues.

The editorial failed to mention that, weeks ago, we removed or suspended 35 listings in New Jersey that had previous complaints, or that we recently updated our policies to restrict some U.S. guests under age 25 from booking entire home listings in their local area.

Reducing the number of unauthorized house parties and nuisance issues on Airbnb has always been a priority, and its more important now than ever. With this and the continued interest of public health in mind, just this week we announced a global ban on all parties and events at Airbnb listings, including a cap on occupancy at 16. We are also clear that guests who violate these policies may face legal action from us.

We are serious about this issue and are committed to partnering with Atlantic City and cities around the globe to ensure short-term rentals remain an important part of the safe return of the tourism economy.

We agree with the editorial that Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. should be clear about his intentions with a proposed ordinance and the vastly higher fees that would be imposed on hosts. The proposed fees are far above those charged by nearby municipalities. We believe there are better, tiered models that work best in the interest of revenue and compliance.

Further, if the mayor is interested in additional revenue, we believe Atlantic City should consider altering its law to follow state guidance, so that it can finally begin to benefit from tax revenue from short-term rentals.

Liz DeBold Fusco, senior policy communication manager-NJ, Airbnb

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MINSK, Belarus: A former Soviet republic on the fault line between Russia and Europe is boiling with revolt this summer. Sounds familiar but Belarus 2020 isnt Ukraine 2014, and thats why its hard to predict what will happen next.

Here is a look at whats different this time, and why it matters:

LEADERLESS RESISTANCE

The uprising in Belarus erupted last week in a democratic vacuum, in a country where challengers to President Alexander Lukashenko are jailed or exiled and where there is no experienced parliamentary opposition.So those at the forefront of Minsk protest marches have been ordinary Belarusians, instead of established political leaders like those who helped galvanize crowds and funding for Ukraines 2014 protest movement, centered around the Maidan independence square in Kyiv.

READ | Belarus' Massive And Unprecedented Protests - In Pictures

In Belarus, the absence of bright leaders undoubtedly weakens the protests  Leaders bring awareness, independent political analyst Valery Karbalevich said.

So Belarusian protesters formed a new Advisory Council this week to try to offer the street a clear plan and agenda, he said.

However, opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova argues that the mass protests this month in Minsk, which came together in decentralized clusters via messaging app Telegram, show that Belarusians no longer need a vertical hierarchy telling them what to do.

And a leaderless protest has one key advantage, she said: It cannot be beheaded.

ORDERLY, AND OK WITH RUSSIA

When unprecedented crowds of 200,000 people marched through the tidy, broad avenues of Minsk on Sunday, they came to a halt at red traffic lights, waiting obediently until they turned green.

In Ukraine, by contrast, protesters burned tires and threw Molotov cocktails, said Syarzhuk Chyslau, leader of the Belarusian White Legion organization.

Thats in part because the Minsk marches lack the kind of far-right and neo-Nazi militant groups that joined Ukraines uprising and fanned the violence.

Its also because Belarusians arent driven by the deep-seated anger at Russian influence that fueled Ukraines uprisings in 2004 and 2014, or Georgias ground-breaking Rose Revolution in 2003.

While Ukraine has been geopolitically split between pro-West and pro-Russian camps since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Belarusians are broadly Moscow-friendly.

Not a single European Union flag has appeared at the Minsk rallies, and the protesters arent pursuing NATO membership at the Kremlins expense; they just want to freely choose their own leader after an election they believe was stolen from them.

Pavel Latushko, a former Lukashenko loyalist now on the protesters Advisory Council, hopes this could allow Belarusians to count on help from both Brussels and Moscow to settle the current tensions.

If the EU and Russia together acted as a mediator in resolving the Belarusian crisis, this would be an ideal option, Latushko told The Associated Press.

SHOESTRING BUDGET

While Ukraines protest movement built a huge tent camp in the center of Kyiv, complete with food delivery and security forces, the only perks for protesters in Belarus so far are bottles of water.

There are no oligarchs in Belarus who would give money for hot meals, medical treatment and tents. Even to pay police fines, Belarusian protesters collect money themselves, analyst Alexander Klaskouski said.

Unlike Ukraines largely privatized economy, Belarus economy remains 80% state-run, and little has evolved since the Soviet era. That makes it even more remarkable that workers at state-run factories have joined this weeks protests and strikes.

The structure of the economy allowed Ukrainians not to be afraid of the state, which in Belarus could throw any person out on the street with nothing at all, said Klaskouski.

The EU and U.S. also had economic interests in Ukraine before its 2014 uprising, but have only a marginal role in the largely closed-off Belarusian economy.

MOSCOWS HAND

Given that, the Kremlin cant easily portray Belarus protests as a Western-backed effort to sow chaos in its backyard the way it could in Ukraine. Russia used that argument to justify its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and backing for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine in a war that still simmers, six years on.

But Russias role in Belarus is pivotal, as the countrys top trade partner and main military ally.

So far, Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear to Germany and France that they should steer clear of any interference, but hasnt revealed how he wants to deal with the protesters or with Lukashenko, the only leader in the former Soviet space whos been in power longer than Putin himself.

POTENTIAL PARALLELS

Ukraine has been a cacophonous democracy for much of the 29 years since winning independence from the USSR, and Belarus is dubbed Europes last dictatorship but they share some similarities.

Lukashenko made the same mistake as (former Ukrainian President Viktor) Yanukovych he began to brutally beat peaceful protesters, which sparked a tsunami of popular protest, insulted dignity and triggered a revolution, said analyst Vladimir Fesenko, director of the Penta Center in Kyiv.

Belarusian economist Dmitry Rusakevich, 46, participated in the Kyiv protests on the Maidan, and now goes out to Minsks Independence Square every evening.

Maidan woke up Belarusians and showed that we need to fight for freedom, he said. It took the calm Belarusians a long time to muster the courage to say no to the dictator.
A visitor wearing a face mask walks near a banner showing precautions against the coronavirus at the Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2020. AP



South Korea repeated its call for trainee doctors to stop walkouts and return to their duties on Saturday as they have entered an indefinite strike in protest of the government's medical workforce reform plan amid the COVID-19 pandemic.



The health ministry said it will soon issue a return-to-work order to protesting trainee doctors working at hospitals in the greater Seoul region in a move that could involve stringent punishments, including license revocation, for violators.



Earlier in the day, Health Minister Park Neung-hoo issued a public message calling for trainee doctors to return to their work of treating patients as the country faces a flare-up in virus cases.



"It is time for the medical sector and the government to closely cooperate to stem another wave of the COVID-19 pandemic," Park said.



"We are calling on doctors to return to their work of treating patients," the minister said.



Thousands of trainee doctors, including interns and resident doctors, kicked off unlimited walkouts on Friday on a staggered basis in a bid to protest the government's plan to increase admission quotas at medical schools. A group of doctors also plans to stage a three-day strike starting Wednesday.



The health ministry said about one third of the country's trainee doctors participated in Saturday's strike. Of the 2,996 trainee doctors registered at 244 medical institutes, 932 took part in the collective action, it added.



The figure was lower than the previous day when more than 44 percent of the country's trainee doctors joined the strike, according to the ministry.



Trainee doctors held a one-day strike on Aug. 7 and also participated in doctors' similar walkout a week later.



As part of the country's medical workforce reform plan, the health ministry is planning to expand admission quotas at medical schools by 4,000 over the next 10 years, starting in 2022, and to open a new public medical school as it seeks to broaden the reach of health care services.



This will increase the number of students admitted annually to medical schools to 3,458 in the 2022-2031 period from the current 3,058, according to the plan.



Doctors have opposed what they called the government's "hasty and unilateral" decision.



But their collective actions have spawned concerns about potential disruption in the health care system as the country has reported spiking virus cases in Seoul and surrounding area.



Park said the government is willing to temporarily suspend its push for the medical workforce reform until after the country contains a surge in virus cases in the wider Seoul area.



By end-August, the health ministry is supposed to notify the education ministry of by how many it seeks to increase the number of medical students.



"We plan to suspend the move until the COVID-19 pandemic is brought under control," the ministry said.



South Korea's new daily virus cases topped 300 for the second straight day on Saturday, with more than 2,200 new infections reported in past nine days.



The government warned it is ready to take stern actions if the strike poses a threat to the people's safety and lives.



"If health workers do not return to their duties, the government will take necessary measures," Park said.



The central and provincial governments can issue an order to resume operations when medical workers suspend treatment without due cause or when doctors' collective walkouts disrupt or could hamper the health care system.



A violator of the order could face a prison term of up to three years or a fine of up to 30 million won (US$25,220). A medical license could be revoked if a breach of the medical law leads to punishments that are heavier than imprisonment without forced labor.



The Korean Medical Association (KMA), which represents 130,000 doctors, said it will press ahead with the planned strike while slamming the government's move to suspend the reform plan as "political rhetoric that cannot be trusted."



The medical sector has urged the government to recant its medical workforce reform drive as the condition for ending its collective action.



"As long as the government's stance is not changed, doctors will push ahead with the walkout as scheduled," the KMA said.



A group of trainee doctors also called on the government to stop handling the contentious issue in a unilateral manner and instead launch discussions over it. (Yonhap)


Theres a feel-good vibe you get going up to a dog stand that has a good look to it. It can be a beat-up old shack like Fat Johnnies on Western Avenue or Joeys over on 115th Street thats got all the bright colors. All the stuff looks cool, Dennis Foley said.
New Delhi:

If you have nothing to do, don't do it here. Four Chinese nationals should have paid heed to this adage as they landed in the police net at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) here for trying to spend time with a friend flying to Hong Kong by allegedly using fake e-tickets to enter the terminal area.

Officials said the four, three men and one woman, were intercepted by CISF personnel on Thursday night after their movements were found to be suspicious.

The four entered the airport using fake e-tickets in order to see off a woman friend who was flying to Hong Kong.

They were handed over to Delhi Police which booked them under sections 447 (criminal trespass), 465 (forgery), 471 (using as genuine a forged) and 417 (cheating), they said.

Police said out of the four, two had valid air tickets to travel to a foreign location which they cancelled last moment while the other two had allegedly faked their tickets to gain entry into the terminal area.

It added that the four were staying at a hotel in Gurgaon and were employed with a Chinese firm. Entering the secured airport terminal using fake travel documents is a criminal offence under law.
Iran has offered UN inspectors the opportunity to visit two controversial nuclear sites as part of a diplomatic charm offensive to have the international arms embargo against it lifted. Photo: AP

Iran has offered UN inspectors the opportunity to visit two controversial nuclear sites as part of a diplomatic charm offensive to have the international arms embargo against it lifted.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN-sponsored body responsible for monitoring Iran's nuclear activities, had been highly critical of the Iranian regime over its refusal to co-operate following claims it had undertaken illicit activities at two nuclear facilities.

Earlier this year, the agency issued a report publicly rebuking Iran on a number of key nuclear issues and for denying inspectors access to two key installations, which it believed had been used for developing and storing nuclear material as part of Iran's weapons programme. Iran consistently refused access to the sites despite signing a 2015 nuclear deal.

However, the regime has now reached an agreement to allow inspectors on to the sites, according to Western diplomatic sources. The same sources believed that, in return for access to the sites, the agency had given Tehran undertakings that it would no longer insist on investigating historical issues relating to Iran's nuclear programme.

"Iran is desperate to get the arms embargo lifted, and so has decided to co-operate with the IAEA," said a senior Western diplomat.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]
Without fanfare, the federal and provincial governments have begun targeting drug possession and drinking and driving offences as potential charges that can be diverted out of the criminal justice system to help reduce massive backlogs that have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

But just as the pandemic accelerated the modernization of Ontarios courts  with teleconferencing and Zoom trials replacing the need for some face-to-face court appearances  the policy shifts on relatively minor criminal charges are being hailed as unprecedented, with some predicting theyre going to lead to historic, significant and long called for reform of the criminal justice system.

Theres a lot of components of the justice system that COVID has provided the opportunity to look more critically at and ask ourselves: Are there ways we can do this better? said Rebecca Jesseman, director of policy at the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction.

This past week, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC) publicly released new guidelines that direct federal prosecutors to focus on the most serious drug cases that raise public safety concerns, while pursuing alternative measures and diversion from the justice system.

Jesseman said she was particularly struck that the directive included the admission that criminal sanctions, as a primary response, have a limited effectiveness, in deterrence and in addressing public safety concerns when considering the harmful effects of criminal records and short periods of incarceration.

That, Jesseman said in an interview from Ottawa, is a very important statement in recognizing that we need to take a better approach to this. She added: It recognizes there are alternatives that are more effective, that we can be investing our money more wisely in prevention, harm reduction, in treatment, in recovery services, that are going to provide individuals with better outcomes and better protect society.

Prominent Toronto defence lawyer Greg Lafontaine said the PPSC has taken a significant step toward, ultimately, the outright decriminalization of the possession of illicit substances or drugs  something public health experts have advocated for years and now has the support of Canadas chiefs of police.

The PPSCs directive has changed the analytical starting point to a presumption of non-prosecution in favour of diversion, he said. This policy shift in perspective will have an impact of real substance for the many Canadians who find themselves before the court on simple possession charges.

The Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General is also giving its prosecutors new instructions. Theyre being advised to consider the impact of the pandemic as an exceptional circumstance justifying the withdrawal of some Criminal Code drinking and driving offences  in exchange for guilty pleas to careless driving under the Highway Traffic Act (HTA), which would see offenders avoid a criminal record.

Prosecutors will review all incoming and existing criminal matters on a case-by-case basis to assess the viability of the prosecution and consider all available and appropriate sanctions, consistent with public safety, to resolve cases as early as possible, ministry spokesperson Brian Gray wrote in an email.

He said there is no estimate on the number of charges that could be affected.

Daniel Brown, a Toronto defence lawyer and vice-president of the Criminal Lawyers Association, said it makes sense for the province to focus on impaired driving cases. They clog up the court system and are at most often at risk of being tossed out because of delay.

Eliminating even a small portion of impaired driving trials could ensure that other serious criminal cases are prosecuted successfully, he said.

According to Statistics Canada, impaired driving offences (9.1 per cent) and fraud (9.1 per cent) were the highest proportion of cases in 2017-18, surpassing the 18-month time limit set out by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Jordan in 2016, followed by drug offences (8.7 per cent).

While the pleading down of drinking and driving cases is not something Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) generally agrees with in principle, the influential organization recognizes the unique circumstances created by COVID-19 and understands why the ministry has taken this step.

If these things were being done because of incompetence or shortage of staff or any type of rationale where the government was at fault, you could be appalled that they were doing this, said Andrew Murie, CEO of MADD Canada.

But COVID closed the courts ... and then youre left with this dilemma, you have all these cases that need to be dealt with, otherwise they risk being thrown out of court because of untimely delay.

The criteria for which offenders this applies to are also appropriately stringent, he added. So, for instance, the ministry says no Crown attorney should accept an HTA plea by an impaired driver who caused a death or injury or a crash. Also ineligible are repeat offenders or someone who had a blood alcohol reading of 120 mg or more within two hours after operating a vehicle.

Calvin Barry, a Toronto defence lawyer specializing in impaired driving cases, says the reason the cases are such a burden on court resources is because the stakes are so high. People will throw money trying to fight a charge because they cant afford a criminal conviction, they cant afford the insurance going into facilitator, they have to travel, theyre scared about the American border restrictions and getting jobs, he said.

And prosecutors, until now, were not allowed to withdraw them and would only take a plea to careless driving in exceptional circumstances.

But people who plead out to careless driving are not getting just a slap on the wrist, he said. There remains a significant social stigma after losing a drivers licence, a hefty fine and, in some cases, being required put an ignition interlock on a steering wheel  a show-stopper on a first date, let me tell you.

He believes the provinces move now could set the stage for Ontario to adopt a system thats been in place in British Columbia for a decade. That province has an immediate roadside prohibition program in which some first-time offenders are diverted to an administrative system, rather than charging them with a Criminal Code offence.

Critics say the approach violates the presumption of innocence and imposes automatic sanctions, such as driving bans, vehicle seizures or fines.

Proponents argue the system works by ensuring immediate, powerful penalties for impaired driving, providing a rehabilitative focus that helps change dangerous driving behaviours. Also avoided are criminal court proceedings that can take months or even years before offenders face the full consequence of their actions, if they are convicted.

Moving to an administrative system was a key recommendation made to the provinces in MADDs latest policy paper. A similar program is also in Manitoba and is currently being implemented in Alberta.

As soon as it was brought in British Columbia, they had a 50 per cent reduction in impaired driving deaths, Murie explained. There was a fundamental shift  people did not want their cars impounded. They didnt stop drinking, but they stopped drinking and driving.

Barry and MADD are unlikely bedfellows. But Barry, a former prosecutor, also sees the benefits of an administrative system similar to what exists in B.C. Hes aware of lawyers there crying the blues because impaired driving work has dried up and theyre no longer in court arguing to get clients off because of constitutional delays and other technicalities.

Obviously, its not good for defence lawyers if that model comes but I think its better for the public in the long run, because then you can put the resources, at least in Ontario, into the real violence, the guns, the drugs, guns and gangs, the murders, the rapes. Its not a bad panacea really.

The Ministry of the Attorney General did not provide a specific answer to the Stars question about whether the province is looking at adopting an administrative system similar to those in Western Canada.
Google is making a change in Android 11 that will force all the applications on your mobile to use built-in camera application for images and videos instead of other third-party camera applications, and users will not be able to select default camera app in some specific situations. Now, Google has confirmed this and the company has also explained why the upcoming version of Android will force applications to use the built-in camera app.On August 17, the Android engineering team stated that they think it is the right trade-off to protect the security as well as the privacy of users. The team wrote that applications that need to use a camera app will have to explicitly name each third-party camera application they would like to support. The company explained that this change in Android 11 will keep bad actors from harvesting the location data of users.With this change, it seems that the company is taking away the freedom of allowing people to choose from third-party camera applications to take images or clips on behalf of other apps. Previously, if someone wanted to use a camera in an Android application that is not created for photography, Android OS offered a camera picker that allows users to choose a camera app such as the built-in app or third-party apps such as Snapchat.However, Google is removing the camera picker in Android 11 and you will be forced to use the stock camera application. If you are a person who anyway chooses the default camera app, this change will not be a big deal, however, for those who rely on third-party camera apps like G Cam or Snapchat for pictures and videos, this obviously is not good news. It is important to note that users will still be able to use third-party apps by opening them from the home screen of their smartphones, and for apps that have built-in cameras such as the Instagram app or TikTok app, users can still take photos and videos with those apps.The company has cited the new change as a privacy measure. For instance, if a person downloaded a malicious camera app unknowingly, they might end up sharing personal pictures while using such apps. Images are often geo-tagged and a non-camera application might steal this data by piggybacking on a third-party camera application. This change is important as it means that third-party camera applications cant access your location data.Read next: Google Can Now Recreate Landmarks In 3D With Crowdsourced Photos Only
A man in Southeast Portland early Sunday became at least the eighth person shot in the city in five days.

The man injured Sunday was taken to a hospital after he was shot a little before 3 a.m. near Southeast 157th Avenue and Stark Street, officers said. Portland police havent released any information about the mans condition or any other details about the shooting.

Police havent announced any arrests as of 10:40 a.m. Sunday in any of the recent shootings, including separate shootings that led to the deaths of three men on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. Police havent revealed any more details to the public about the circumstances of any of the shootings, other than they occurred and people were injured, citing ongoing investigations.

Five of the seven shootings since Wednesday happened in Southeast Portland.

Portland police reported in July that the number of shootings every month has been higher in 2020 than in 2019, except for March. The tallies in June and July in particular doubled the amount of shootings from the previous year. Fifteen people were killed in Portland in July, the largest number of homicides in a single month in the city in more than three decades, and 10 of them died via gun violence. This includes one case where a man is accused of fatally shooting three people in Northeast Portland.

In recent days, a man was killed after being shot around 7:40 a.m. Wednesday on Southeast Alder Street near 161st Avenue. He hasnt been publicly identified by police.

A woman was taken to a hospital after being shot around 2:15 a.m. Thursday on Southeast 130th Avenue just south of David Douglas High School.

Thomas Hammond, 66, died after being shot near Northeast Skidmore Street and 90th Avenue around 4 p.m. Thursday. He is the only shooting victim police have publicly identified.

A 16-year-old boy said he was shot in the ankle outside a convenience store at Southeast Woodstock Boulevard and 72nd Avenue sometime after 1 a.m Friday. Police said he didnt know who shot him.

Police havent yet identified the third man fatally shot after midnight Saturday on Southeast Main Street near 139th Avenue.

Two men were injured after being shot around 3:45 p.m. on North Oberlin Street near Stanford Avenue. Police havent told the public if they shot each other or were injured by someone else.

Portland police asked anyone with information related to shootings in the city to call the bureaus non-emergency line at 503-823-3333 or email crimetips@portlandoregon.gov.

-- Everton Bailey Jr; ebailey@oregonian.com | 503-221-8343 | @EvertonBailey

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She's set to make a comeback to her hosting duties for BBC's Strictly Come Dancing in October.

But before returning to the grind, Tess Daly treated herself to a romantic lunch date with her husband Vernon Kay at luxury hotel Chiltern Firehouse in central London on Saturday afternoon.

The presenters, 51 and 46, looked happier than ever before as they cosied up to each other during a rare outing ahead of their 17th wedding anniversary next month.

Romantic: Tess Daly, 51, treated herself to a rare lunch date with her husband Vernon Kay, 46, at Chiltern Firehouse in central London on Saturday afternoon

Turning heads, the BBC star cut a sensational figure in an off-shoulder dress, complete with polka dot patterns throughout.

The media personality boosted her frame in a pair of wedge espadrilles, while carrying her essentials in a designer, chain-strap handbag.

Rounding off her outfit with kooky square-framed glasses, Tess wore her tresses in loose waves and complemented her beauty with neutral-toned make-up.

Broadcaster Vernon, meanwhile, looked dapper in a baby blue zip-up shirt, straight-leg jeans and canvas trainers.

Working it: Turning heads, the Strictly host cut a sensational figure in an off-shoulder dress, complete with polka dot patterns throughout

Loved-up: The presenter looked happier than ever before as they cosied up to each other during a rare outing ahead of their 17th wedding anniversary next month

Standing tall: The media personality boosted her frame in a pair of wedge espadrilles, while carrying her essentials in a designer, chain-strap handbag

Their outing comes after the host revealed he refuses to hand over his 5million fortune to his daughters Phoebe, 15, and Amber, 11, due to his humble upbringings.

The TV star, who started work at the age of 14, told Radio 5 Live according to The Mirror: 'Im not giving my kids a future. Im not giving them anything. Im not saying, "heres a trust fund go and do whatever you want''.

'No way  they will have to graft to make a living. The world is not going to give you anything. My kids will have to work for it. Thats the way I was brought up and my parents and their parents too.

'It worries me some young people think they can sit at a keyboard, pout their lips and be an influencer  but thats not real life.'

Elsewhere, Vernon revealed that he's 'been asked' to appear on the 20th series of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!.

The presenter enthusiastically added that he's a 'fan of the show' and would 'give anything a go', reported the Daily Star.

The show has started to gear up for its first UK-based series, set to take place at the haunted 200-year-old Gwrych Castle in Wales due to the coronavirus guidelines.
The Bahrain Association of Banks (BAB) will organise a series of online meetings with stakeholders in the government, private and civil sectors to discuss ways of settling disputes in banking and financial sector.

This was announced by Adnan Ahmed Yousif, Chairman of the Board of Directors of BAB during a meeting organised by BAB in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice, Islamic Affairs and Waqf, and the Central Bank of Bahrain.

A visual presentation was made by lawyer Ali Abdullah Al Aradi on mediation and its advantages as an alternative means of dispute settlement.

Adnan expressed gratitude to Sheikh Khalid bin Ali Al Khalifa, the Minister of Justice, Islamic Affairs and Waqf and Rasheed Al Maraj, Governor of Bahrains Central Bank, for their favourable response to BABs views on the use of mediation to settle disputes and the need for upgrading the Arab banking industry.

The forthcoming meetings organised by BAB on this topic will attract an elite group of lawmen and experts on arbitration and mediation and will review the experiences of regional and international arbitration centres to avoid the drawbacks while consolidating the advantages. This is in addition to reviewing all arbitration laws in the countries of the region and making a comparative study, especially with regard to appointing arbitrators, implementing arbitral decisions, appealing them, and how to set up arbitrators lists and selecting them, Adnan said.

The legal provisions relating to banking, financial markets and companies are among the most difficult legal processes due to the overlapping of concepts and their complexity. Therefore, we believe that mediation can provide a solution characterised by speed and effectiveness and provide impartiality and justice to litigants. Also, the speed in settling investor disputes is one of the most important factors and criteria for measuring the competitiveness of the investment climate and developing the financial and banking industry in Bahrain, he added.-- Tradearabia News Service
Indigenous land activists took down the last barricades blocking traffic on Argyle Street in Caledonia this weekend even as they condemned an OPP ultimatum over the standoff.

Argyle reopened between Highway 6 and Braemar Avenue late Saturday night after a cleanup and safety inspection.

Skyler Williams, a spokesperson for the self-described land defenders occupying a contentious development site in the town, said members were upset after provincial police threatened Friday to tear down the barriers on Argyle Street despite ongoing Haudenosaunee community consultation.

He said the group removed the street barriers Saturday to de-escalate the situation, but warned members still occupying the McKenzie Meadows development  renamed by Indigenous activists as 1492 Land Back Lane  would resist further police violence.

Weve pulled our people back; the barriers are down  Now it is time for real consultation, real negotiation around land claims ... (and) the illegitimate development in our territory, he said in a phone interview.

Provincial police served court injunctions on demonstrators related to the blockade and occupation earlier this month, but would not say on the weekend if they set a deadline to tear down the two-week-old street barriers.

OPP spokesperson Const. Rod LeClair said police offered assistance in removing the barricades Friday and kept up an open dialogue with demonstrators through the weekend.

Barriers first went up on the street as well as on the Highway 6 bypass Aug. 5 in response to provincial police forcibly removing a group from Six Nations occupying the site of a planned housing development on McKenzie Road. (They later returned.)

The activists argue the site is unceded Haudenosaunee territory. Developers and Haldimand County say the property is privately owned and was surrendered by past Indigenous chiefs.

Highway 6 reopened Friday, the same day federal and provincial officials confirmed a willingness to discuss the fraught land claim dispute.

Both Indigenous demonstrators and Haldimand Mayor Ken Hewitt have called on the federal government to step in to negotiate a solution to the land dispute.

A large group of Indigenous activists and supporters remained at the stalled development site on the weekend. People gathered to hear live music and to play lacrosse for much of Saturday. On Sunday, a Land Back solidarity march in Hamilton attracted more than 70 people.

Williams said he understands there is a commitment from the federal and provincial ministers in charge of Indigenous relations, Marc Miller and Carolyn Bennett, to sit down at the table in the near future.

He said he did not know on the weekend exactly when or where that might happen.

But any meaningful conversation has to be about protecting the land, not financial compensation, he said.

We are here as land defenders. We are protecting our land from development for the sake of future generations, he said. The way we have been criminalized for doing that is appalling.
Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited. - Lord Acton

It is a study both troublesome and perplexing. To what end can a state trample on human rights ostensibly to preserve such objects a public health? The coronavirus lockdowns have become a feature of global politics and relentless mandatory intrusion, the health department made sovereign, assisted by vigorous policing. States have used, and continue to use all manner of measures to confine individuals to homes, mask them, restrict movement, while, in some cases, shutting them up as dissenters and hurrying them into obscurity. The end sought: viral suppression, flattening the curve, elimination. But what might be saved in terms of health will be lost in terms of liberties.

One country made the brave, somewhat quixotic journey to battle the coronavirus to elimination. New Zealands Ardern government was determined to quash it. In doing so, it imposed one of the most onerous of lockdowns over the course of March and April, 2020.

It was not without controversy, and Wellington lawyer Andrew Borrowdale took issue with its sheer expansiveness. A particular point of interest for him were the early stages of the five-week lockdown, specifically the calls between March 26 and April 3 by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her officials for New Zealanders to stay home under pain of penalty. The timing is important here as the stay home restrictions were only formally passed on April 3.

The countrys 1956 Health Act provides for what is called a Section 70 notice, issued by a Health Officer to restrict movement. This can be done if the relevant minister has issued an Epidemic Notice pursuant to the Epidemic Preparedness Act of 2006. This, the Prime Minister did on March 24. Unfortunately for Ardern, the Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfields Section 70 notice, which came into effect on March 26, only covered the closure of businesses. It was, in other words, defective. There had been, for instance, no formal instrument legitimising the need for New Zealanders to stay at home in their bubbles or not go to such public spaces as the beach.

In an assessment by insolvency practitioner and columnist Damien Grant, Ardern proceeded to imperially issue a slew of orders that were outside her remit. Parliament had deliberately kept that power out of our elected representatives and placed it into the hands of competent medical officials. Those elected representatives were now running amok  at least for a short time.

Other officials also did the same. The then police commissioner Mike Bush, charges Grant, was operating outside his jurisdictional remit in saying youre better to stay on the comfort of your own couch or your own home than be cooling yourself on a very cool bench in a police cell.

The result of this bungling in drafting was only rectified by another Section 70 notice, designed to square the implemented lockdown measures with what authorities could legally do. But it had taken nine days of over-extended and illegitimate power.

The finding by the New Zealand Supreme Court was not exactly a sweeping triumph for Borrowdale or his lawyer Tiho Mijatov, who had argued that generous and permissive interpretations of such health provisions should not happen even during the course of a pandemic emergency. The court took with one and gave with another. But with that, Borrowdale had made a salient and pressing point. The three judges acknowledged that, even during times of emergency, and even when the merits of the Government response are not widely contested, the rule of law matters. The executive was not entitled to behave absolutely.

While the court dismissed two out of the three grounds, they did accept Borrowdales first contention, in part. They noted announcements by the executive between March 26 and April 3 stating or implying that all New Zealanders needed to stay at home and in their bubbles when there was no such requirement. These duly limited certain rights and freedoms affirmed by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, including in particular, the rights to freedom of movement, peaceful assembly and association. The court accepted that the requirement was a necessary, reasonable and proportionate response to the COVID-19 crisis at that time but it was not prescribed by law.

The substantive effect of the decision will be minimal, even if the lesson on illegitimate power is telling. Prosecutions for breaching the lowdown rules will remain, for the most part, valid. Attorney General David Parker emphasised the didactic point behind the measures: the State as instructor and guide on how to cope with a dangerous pandemic. The Government was trying to educate people about the health risks and transition them quickly to take actions that curtailed normal freedoms like staying at home to stop the spread of the virus. He claimed these actions to be a success. In the end the measures taken by the government worked to eliminate COVID-19, save lives and minimise damage to our economy.

The virus, however, has shown a guile to throw off epidemiologists, health specialists, and politicians. Like Galileos observation on the earth, it moves. Even the harshest measures have not guaranteed elimination. Where there is mobility, there is transmission. Even the most sedentary of people will eventually feel the urge to step outside. COVID-19, and more lockdown measures, are now in place in Auckland. To date, Arderns reassurance, and one that may have to be revised in due course, is that community transmission has been prevented. She is bound to be more legally attuned this time around.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]
Saturdays protest comes before August 25 deadline for parliament to agree on a budget plan or trigger new elections.

Thousands of Israelis continued to protest outside the prime ministers official residence on Saturday as months-long demonstrations against Benjamin Netanyahu maintained their momentum.

The protesters want the embattled Netanyahu to give up his post while he is on trial for corruption charges. The governments mishaps in handling the coronavirus crisis after relative success in its early stages have also driven the demonstrations.

Saturdays protest comes in advance of Tuesdays deadline in which the coalition government must agree on a budget plan or trigger new elections that would be the fourth in slightly more than a year.

Ignoring police suggestions for alternative routes, the protesters marched from several parts of Jerusalem through key roads trying to reach Netanyahus residence on Balfour Street.

Outside the residence, they hoisted giant balloons depicting smeared heads of Netanyahu and his rival-turned-coalition partner Benny Gantz of the centrist Blue and White party, waved Israeli flags and the black flag of one of the grassroots protest movements.

A sign read Balfour is in our hands, referring to the residence address. Other signs called on Netanyahu to quit and a placard described him as Crime Minister.





Israeli police said they arrested seven protesters on suspicion of violating public order and assaulting police officers.

Last week, Netanyahu announced a US-brokered deal to normalise ties with the United Arab Emirates, making it the third Arab country to establish full relations with Israel. The historic breakthrough has not helped calm the demonstrations against him.

Netanyahu has rejected calls to step down while he is on trial and claimed the protests are the work of leftists and the media.

Israel appeared to contain the pandemic in its first phase, but the quick reopening of the economy led to a spike in cases.

More than 100,000 Israelis have tested positive for the virus. The country has also recorded 809 COVID-19 deaths among its population of nine million.

The pandemic has caused unemployment numbers to hover above 20 percent.

Netanyahu was charged last year with bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three long-running corruption investigations.

In January, the trial will move to a witness phase with three sessions a week.
U.S.-led troops have been withdrawn from Iraqs Taji base, coming after missile attacks earlier this year, as the facility was handed over to Iraqi security forces over the weekend.

The coalition confirmed the development on Sunday in a statement.

The movement of coalition military personnel is part of a long-range plan coordinated with the government of Iraq, the Combined Joint Task ForceOperation Inherent Resolve said.

The statement added that Camp Taji, located about 50 miles north of Baghdad, the capital, is a prime location for training. Coalition troops were sent there to combat the rise of the ISIS terrorist group in Iraq and Syria, but the base came under attack from Iran-backed militias in the region, who fired rockets at the facility several times in 2020.

This is truly a historic day, said Maj. Gen. Kenneth Ekman, the deputy commander of the task force. For the past six years, Camp Taji has served as a primary installation for Coalition partners to train the Iraqi Army, Iraqi Air Force, and the Qwat al-Khasah. The Coalitions efforts have enabled the Iraqis to train themselves. From this day forward, the ISF will take full responsibility for the facilities and programs at Taji and continue to use the site to lead and conduct training as part of the mission to defeat Daesh remnants.

The coalition said that some 2,000 coalition members historically were stationed at Camp Taji, but many of them departed over the summer. The remaining coalition troops will depart in the coming days after the base and equipment is handed over to Iraqi security forces.

Sundays announcement marks the eighth transfer of a coalition portion of an Iraqi base back to Iraqi forces.

The withdrawal just days after President Donald Trump, in a meeting with Iraqs prime minister, stated that he would withdraw American soldiers from Iraq. The United States has approximately 5,000 soldiers in Iraq, while about 2,500 coalition troops are still there.

This is what success looks like, said Australian Brig. Gen. Simon Johnstone, CJTF-OIR director of strategy, in a statement. The transfer of bases like Taji is part of our campaign plan for the ISF to secure their own future and defend Iraqi sovereignty. The tremendous efforts by the ISF and the Coalition demonstrate our shared commitment from the Coalition and Australia to ensure safety, security, and stability for Iraqi citizens.

Earlier this year, in the midst of heightened Iran-U.S. tensions, Iraqs parliament voted for the departure of American and other foreign troops from Iraq. The vote came after the United States authorized the airstrike of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, who officials said killed hundreds of U.S. troops over the years and was plotting more attacks on American assets in the region. Iran then launched a volley of rockets at two Iraqi bases housing U.S. forces, causing dozens of minor injures.
NOIDA: Seventeen people were arrested across Noida and Greater Noida on Sunday over alleged violation of the curbs imposed due to the COVID-19 outbreak, Gautam Buddh Nagar police said.

Also, challans were issued to owners of more than 1,600 vehicles while 10 vehicles were impounded for similar violations across the district, which has so far recorded 7,077 cases of the novel coronavirus including 43 deaths, according to official figures.

Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) Section 144, which bars assembly of more than four persons, is in force in Gautam Buddh Nagar in view of the pandemic. Security checks were also intensified in view of the lockdown-like curbs over the weekend that began Friday at 10 pm and will continue till Monday 5 am.

"Six FIRs were registered and 17 people arrested for violating the COVID-19 curbs. A total of 4,483 vehicles were checked across 200 barrier points in the district and challans issued to 1,641 of them while another 10 were impounded," the police said in a statement.

Altogether, Rs 91,200 were collected in fines during the action, the police said.

The Noida-Delhi border, which was closed for normal public movement since the outbreak of the coronavirus in March, has been reopened since August 1, officials said.
After successfully launching the NPP manifesto in Cape Coast last weekend, the NPP Japan branch 1st vice-chairman- Mr. Michael Awuah has blasted and sent a strong warning to the NDC and their leader H.E John Dramani Mahama not to dare copy the manifesto of the great kukuruku party as they have done in the past.

Mr. Awuah recalled how the NDC stole and tried to photocopy the free senior high school agenda with the proposal to build 200 SHS day schools. This was a way of blind-folding Ghanaians of the good intention of NPPs free SHS policy. Available records show that your government was able to build just 23 of the 200 promised day SHS, this shows that you are a complete failure, and Ghanaian cannot put the destiny of the country into your hands for the next four years, he said.

Mr. Awuah praised all and sundry who worked so hard to get the manifesto launched. So far, this is the most comprehensive and ambitious manifesto by any political party in Ghanas history since re-gaining our independence.

Mr. Awuah said the manifesto has allayed his fears for the SHS products who might have financial challenges to access tertiary education. He expressed his happiness that every tom, dick, and harry who will qualify and get admitted into any tertiary institution can access a guarantor free loans to finance his/her education. What more do we need as a country in building our human resource base than this thoughtful and brilliant idea from the NPP, he said.

He finally reminded Ghanaians to make it easy for the NPP government to govern Ghana in the next four years by voting massively for the party come December, 7th.
Sudhir Suryawanshi By

Express News Service

MAHARASHTRA: When he was an infant crying in a corner of a thatched hut where his mother distilled mahua (local drink), his grandma would put some drops of the brew into his mouth to make him sleep.

One day, as a school boy, a customer demanded him to go get some chakhna (a snack). The boy told him he couldnt as he was studying for his exams.

You behave as if you would be a doctor or an engineer, the customer scoffed and snapped. That boy is Rajendra Barud, District Collector in his home district Nandurbar in Maharashtra.

Barud, a resident of Samode in Sakri taluka, cracked the civic service exam with all-India rank of 427 two years back.

The success frequently takes him back to that hut, the hundreds of humiliations, a life of innumerable wants; and to an open sky of thousands of possibilities.

My father died during my mothers pregnancy. My maai had no land or any education. She distilled local liquor from the mahua flower and sold bread and butter, says Dr Barud.

My Maai took care of me; and with the passage of time became my friend, and guide  strongest pillar of my life, said Barud.

He remembers that customer whom he had refused to serve. My refusal and his angry remark was a trigger for me. I decided along with my mother that I would complete my education and show what I am capable of, said Barud. He had no family title to boast. I drew solace from the fact that I could study and that only hard work would take me there the boy in Barud told him.

The boy got outstanding marks in 10th and 12th exams which helped him to get admission in one of the reputed medical colleges of Mumbai. When he was in the final year of his medical degree course, he decided to simultaneously prepare himself for the civil services. I had no money to join the classes for competitive exams. Self-study and determination kept me moving ahead. In the first attempt, I got 709 all-India rank, and in the second, I rose to the 427th rank. His mother had no idea about his achievements; she didnt know what a Collector is all about.

When prominent local personalities started coming to our small house to congratulate me, then she realised the significance of the moment.

In any competition, the chances of failure tend to outweigh the prospects of success, especially when you think you are fighting an unequal battle.

Yet, a student should think big with an open and innovative mind and learn to challenge ones circumstances, says Barud. I am indebted to the place I was born, the schools I studied. I am happy I got an opportunity to serve the people as a District Collector, he says.
SV Krishna Chaitanya By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: When 42-year-old Rajesh* came down with cold and fever in July, he blamed it on the cold drink that he had recently consumed. But, his condition deteriorated rapidly. He started experiencing breathing difficulties.

As Rajesh had a history of diabetes and kidney ailments, his family decided not to take a chance with home care.

We were not sure about the quality of care provided at government hospitals, so we went to a private facility, says his wife Sumitra.

Rajesh tested positive for Covid, and was admitted in the ICU. The family had to shell out Rs 4 lakh at the very beginning, of which just Rs 2 lakh was covered by insurance.

In a matter of five days, Rajesh looked better. His health was improving. The family was relieved. But, the relief did not last long.

After the initial progress, his health started to deteriorate. Rajesh was put on a ventilator. Meanwhile on the side, the financial pressure started to grow, like a towering dark shadow.

I was asked to pay another Rs 10 lakh, says Sumitra. Rajeshs business had been hit badly due to the lockdown, and the family had very few means to source that much money.

Sumitra pledged her jewels. It still was not enough, says her brother-in-law Suresh. The bill had crossed Rs 16 lakh.

As we did not have that kind of money, Sumitra had no options but to sell her house, adds Suresh.

Meanwhile, they also approached a family friend for help, who pointed out that the hospital was overcharging, way beyond the government-stipulated norms.

The family then began negotiating with the hospital management. Even as they were requesting for the cost to be reduced, the hospital management kept increasing the bill with every passing day.

The family friend then intervened, and threatened to initiate official action against the hospital for overcharging.

Simultaneously, the medical team treating Rajesh kept lowering his chances of survival, from 50 per cent to just 20 per cent.

We had paid Rs 8 lakh until that point, of which Rs 6 lakh came from our pocket and the balance from insurance, says Sumitra.

It was at this juncture that the hospital told the family that Rajesh had suffered multiple-organ failure. They had to initiate dialysis.

The next day, Rajesh passed away.

The hospital, threatened with official action, did not collect the balance money that they had charged.

But the damage was already done. Sumitra and her two children  daughter studying in college and son in Class 10  live in a rented house now, wondering how they will financially support themselves after losing their sole breadwinner.

The single mothers hopes are pinned on the money she got from selling the house, to educate her children and help them settle down. At least a dozen families Express spoke to, had similar tales to tell.

They had lost their loved ones after spending lakhs of rupees from their lifetime savings at private hospitals, trying to save them.

World over, the impact of the Covid pandemic has been higher on countries that have ignored to strengthen and develop their public healthcare systems.

The cost of treatment has also been drastically high.

In India, Tamil Nadu is among the few States that have a robust public healthcare system.

The government here also fixed a price chart for the private healthcare units to follow. Yet, stories of the poor and the middle-class approaching private hospitals being fleeced, are galore.

Fixed rates, but conditions apply

As per the government mandate, top private hospitals (in grades A1 and A2) can charge non-critical patients Rs 7,500 per day and critical patients up to a maximum of Rs 15,000 a day.

Several patients and their family members, however, tell Express that in reality, they are charged anywhere between Rs 50,000 and Rs 70,000 per day.

Many of those who could not afford the incremental costs anymore, shifted out and went home, or to government facilities.

The private hospitals justify their sky-high rates citing the challenges that they have to face, including an alleged shortage of manpower. Earlier, we used to pay Rs 15,000-Rs 18,000 for a staff nurse. Now, we have to pay Rs 30,000, claims doctor TN Ravisankar, founder of a private hospital in Chennai.

Doctors are paid up to Rs 1 lakh. We cannot blame them as they are risking their lives, treating Covid patients. If we do not pay them that kind of salary, how will they come to work?

So, are nurses being paid better now? Global Nurses Association of Tamil Nadu secretary Raja, who is also a member of Basic Pay Committee, claims the payouts have increased for nurses attending to Covid patients.

Prior to 2017, an entry-level nurse was being paid Rs 8,000 as monthly salary. This was revised to Rs 11,000 after we organised a strike. This was the pay nurses got even in big, established hospitals in the city. Now, they have hiked the salary to Rs 30,000 apart from free food and accommodation.

Thanks to Covid, the wages of sanitary workers and ward boys have also doubled, from Rs 7,500 to Rs 15,000 in city hospitals.

The increase is considering the risk factor. But, we are still concerned as we have no insurance cover. Only a few hospitals are offering insurance for their sanitary workers, says one such staff member of a private hospital. The increased payouts have shot up overall operating cost for private hospitals.

The cost of drugs required to treat Covid is also high, claim managements.

The cost of Remdisivir is around Rs 5,000 while Tocilizumab costs Rs 30,000 for a vial, says Dr CN Raja, President of Tamil Nadu branch of the Indian Medical Association.

Medium and small private hospitals cannot survive if they function under the rates fixed by the government. We have been requesting authorities to revise the treatment costs. We are even ready to surrender the hospitals to the government and let them run it with their manpower and infrastructure. Let them pay us the rent alone, adds Raja.

We have overheads to pay  for instance the maintenance costs, which can be substantial. Ventilators need regular maintenance. But cost factor aside, service providers are not willing to come to the hospital and fix the ventilators, as they are scared of contracting the virus.

The pricey doctors

There obviously, is another side to this story. Even government officials are astounded by the new ways through which patients are being fleeced at some hospitals.

There is no problem if a hospital charges reasonably and then explains to the patient what the expenses were, says a senior official in the Directorate of Medical Services.

But in the case of many hospitals, a hefty amount goes towards doctor consultation itself. At least 50 per cent of doctors in any hospital are regular staffs, who are paid nothing but monthly salary. Hospitals get consultants only if they have to treat comorbidities such as diabetes or kidney ailments.

The official goes on to say, One hospital recently charged a patient Rs 45,000 for just the consultation. This is apart from the charges levied for consultants who were called for advice. Another hospital was found charging Rs 3,000 for phone consultation, that too for a non-Covid patient. They cannot do that. It may be different if the hospital was providing special amenities. But consultation fees cannot be this high.

Anant Jains* family believes its this corporate greed that took the sexagenarians life while leaving them poorer by several lakhs.

My 61-year-old uncle Anant used to run a small business in Sowcarpet, says Devesh.*

He was admitted to a private hospital in the city on May 30 for a bypass surgery. He was tested for the virus upon admission and the results came negative. But, they could not perform the surgery as he had high fever. Finally, we discharged him on June 4 as the bill was shooting up and the surgery was not happening. On the day of discharge, too, another test was taken. Again, the results turned out to be negative.



The very next day my uncle suffered a cardiac arrest. We admitted him again and the surgery was successfully performed on June 6. We were relieved that he was recovering and would be discharged soon, when the hospital told us that his kidneys were failing. They shifted him to the ICU and put him on the ventilator. By June 26, we had already spent Rs 12 lakh. We decided to take him home, when, on June 27, the hospital said he had tested positive for Covid. This came as a big shock for us. Did he get it from the hospital?

The hospital kept him on the ventilator till July 4, and then declared him dead.

They wanted us to pay another Rs 8.72 lakh to claim the body. We refused. Finally, the hospital took Rs 1.5 lakh in cash and Rs 5 lakh through medical insurance and released the body. My aunt is a cancer patient. With uncle gone and most of their money spent on his hospital bills, her situation now is sad.

Investment returns, the root cause of higher costs?



The Planning Commission of India, in a report titled Healthcare in India - Vision 2020, Issues and Prospects, authored by R Srinivasan, states: There is the compulsion of returns on investment whenever expensive equipment in installed as part of practice. Increasingly, this has shifted the balance from individual practice to institutionalised practice, in hospitals, polyclinics, etc. This conjunction explodes into unbearable cost escalation when backed by a third party payer system. This in turn, induces increases in insurance premiums making such cover beyond the capacity to pay. There is a distinct possibility of such cycles of cost escalation periodically occurring in the future, promoted further by global transfer of knowledge and software, telemedicine, etc., especially after the advent of predictive medicine and gene manipulation.

(* names changed)

With inputs from Sinduja Jane and C Shivakumar
Chicago police officers blocked West Washington Boulevard on Aug. 22, 2020, as activists marched from Whitney Young Magnet High School to the Fraternal Order of Police building on Washington calling for a defunding of the Chicago Police Department, CPD school resource officers out of schools and a number of other things. Leaders of the march included Alycia Kamil and Jalen Kobayashi of GoodKids MadCity, 13-year-old Whitney Young freshman Amari Sails and Naira B. of Black Rising.

(Erin Hooley)
Nobody wants to be the bearer of bad news but in the case of local health officials in Wuhan, their reticence in coming forward with the truth in January may have been a decisive factor in allowing the coronavirus to inflict global havoc.

Workers line up for a test at a large factory in Wuhan. Credit:ChinaTopix

China's communist leadership has come under fire globally for its mishandling of the early days of the pandemic but a more nuanced consensus is now emerging that a cover-up by lower level officials was a fatal error that allowed the highly infectious virus to spiral out of control.

In this more complex scenario, local bureaucrats, acting out of incompetence or a fear of punishment, may have initially kept their Beijing bosses in the dark about the virus.

In May, when I interviewed Chuang Yin-ching, a senior official working for Taiwan's Centres for Disease Control and one of the first foreign infectious diseases experts to access Wuhan, he provided a fascinating window into the early confusion on the ground.
Last year, the Paris-based group put Pakistan on a grey list of countries with a high risk of money laundering and terrorism financing but which have formally committed to working with the task force to make changes. Currently, only Iran and North Korea are blacklisted, which severely restricts a countrys international borrowing capabilities. Pakistan is trying to get off the grey list, said the officials.
Donald Trump, center, attended the gala opening of the Trump Taj Majal Casino Resort in Atlantic City on April 5, 1990, with his mother, Mary, father, Fred, and sister, the U.S. District Court Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, right. On the left are Donald Trump's brother Robert Trump and his wife Blaine Trump. Read more

Maryanne Trump Barry was serving as a federal judge when she heard her brother, President Trump, suggest on Fox News, maybe Ill have to put her at the border amid a wave of refugees entering the United States. At the time, children were being separated from their parents and put in cramped quarters while court hearings dragged on.

"All he wants to do is appeal to his base," Barry said in a conversation secretly recorded by her niece, Mary L. Trump. "He has no principles. None. None. And his base, I mean my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this."

Barry, 83, who retired last year from the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, was aghast at how her 74-year-old brother operated as president. His goddamned tweet and lying, oh my God, she said. Im talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit.

Lamenting "what they're doing with kids at the border," she guessed her brother "hasn't read my immigration opinions" in court cases. In one case, she berated a judge for failing to treat an asylum applicant respectfully.

"What has he read?" Mary Trump asked her aunt.

"No. He doesn't read," Barry responded.

In the weeks since Mary Trump's tell-all book about her uncle has been released, she's been questioned about the source of some of the information, such as her allegation that Trump paid a friend to take his SATs to enable him to transfer into the University of Pennsylvania. Nowhere in the book does she say that she recorded conversations with her aunt.

In response to a question from The Washington Post about how she knew President Trump paid someone to take the SATs, Mary Trump revealed that she had surreptitiously taped 15 hours of face-to-face conversations with Barry in 2018 and 2019. She provided The Post with previously unreleased transcripts and audio excerpts, which include exchanges that are not in her book.

Barry has never spoken publicly about disagreements with President Trump, and her extraordinarily candid comments in the recordings mark the most critical comments known to have been made about him by one of his siblings. No one else in the family except Mary Trump has publicly rebuked the president.

The transcripts reveal the depths of discord between the president and his sister, illuminating a rift that began when she asked her brother for a favor in the 1980s, which Trump has frequently used to try to take credit for her success.

At one point Barry said to her niece, "It's the phoniness of it all. It's the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel."

Mary Trump, 55, told The Post recently that her uncle is unfit to be president and she plans to do "everything in my power" to elect Joe Biden. Her father, Fred Trump Jr., died of an alcohol-related illness when she was 16 in 1981. In her book, she says Donald Trump and his father mistreated her father.

The Post sought comment about the tapes from Barry and White House officials on Friday and Saturday and did not receive a response.

The allegation that Trump paid someone to take his SATs, which was one of the most publicized allegations in Mary Trump's book "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World's Most Dangerous Man," stems from a conversation that Barry had with her niece on Nov. 1, 2018.

Barry told how she tried to help her brother get into college. "He was a brat," Barry said, explaining that "I did his homework for him" and "I drove him around New York City to try to get him into college."

Then Barry dropped what Mary considered a bombshell: "He went to Fordham for one year [actually two years] and then he got into University of Pennsylvania because he had somebody take the exams."

"No way!" Mary responded. "He had somebody take his entrance exams?"

"SATs or whatever. . . . That's what I believe," Barry said. "I even remember the name." That person was Joe Shapiro, Barry said.

Donald Trump was friends with a person at Penn named Joe Shapiro, who is deceased. Shapiro's widow and sister told the Post last month that he never took a test for anybody, including Trump. Mary Trump has said it was a different Joe Shapiro, but that person has not surfaced.

During a Post Live interview last month, Mary Trump was asked whether the source of her information was Barry. "I prefer not to say who it is," she responded. "It's somebody who would have absolutely no reason to make it up."

Chris Bastardi, a spokesman for Mary Trump, said that she began taping conversations in 2018 with Barry after concluding that her relatives had lied about the value of the family estate two decades earlier during a legal battle over her inheritance, in which she received far less than she expected.

Under New York law, it is legal to tape a conversation with the consent of one party, which in this case was Mary Trump.

The inheritance dispute was settled privately in 2001, but Mary Trump has said she was duped into an agreement because the family said the estate was worth $30 million and she later believed the value was closer to $1 billion.

Bastardi said she recorded the conversations with Barry to gain information that would show she had been misled by the family about the estate's value. "She hoped to prove this, as is often done, by recording words contrary to their sworn statements. She never expected to learn much of what she heard," Bastardi said.

He said that Mary believed the information was particularly relevant given the federal charges that have been brought this year against prominent individuals who took "unethical steps to get their children into college."

Trump has said he got into what was then called the Wharton School of Finance at Penn - which he called one of "the hardest schools to get in to" - because he is a "super genius." The Post reported last year, however, that Mary's father, Fred Jr., was close friends with a Penn admissions official. That official, James Nolan, told The Post that Fred Jr. asked him to interview Trump for admission, which he did. Trump was granted a place at the school, which Nolan said was "not very difficult" because more than half of applicants at the time were accepted, compared to last year's 7.4 percent rate.

The Trump siblings have been publicly supportive of the president. The president's other sister, Elizabeth, has stayed out of the public eye. The president's younger brother, Robert, who died on Aug. 15, said in 2016 he supported his brother "one thousand percent."

In 1999, when the family patriarch Fred Sr. died, Barry joined with Donald and Robert in a lawsuit to prevent Mary from getting a larger amount of the inheritance. Mary had said in a probate case that she and her brother should have received an amount closer to what would have gone to their father, if he had lived.

On another matter apparently related to Fred Sr.'s will, Barry told her niece that she and Donald had a rift so serious that "he didn't talk to me for two years."

Barry received her undergraduate degree from Mount Holyoke College, a master's from Columbia University and a law degree from Hofstra University. After being a homemaker for 13 years, and having eschewed the Trump family's real estate business, she became one of only two women out of 62 lawyers in the office of the United States Attorney in New Jersey, where she worked from 1974 to 1983.

Barry has avoided talking publicly about her brother's presidency while she was on the federal bench. In a rare public appearance, she used empathetic language far removed from her brother's tough rhetoric.

"Success can be as simple as the warm feeling you get when you smile at a stranger, someone you know must be lonely, and having that stranger return your smile," Barry said in a speech to graduates of Fairfield University in Connecticut in 2011.

President Trump, meanwhile, has publicly spoken glowingly of his sister, saying in 2016 that "We do have different views a little bit," while adding, "She's a very, very highly respected judge."

In one of the taped conversations, however, Barry revealed how a deep animosity developed between her and her brother.

She recalled how she turned to Donald for help when she wanted to be nominated by then-President Ronald Reagan for a federal judgeship. She believed that help could come from Donald's attorney: Roy Cohn, who had played an infamous role in the 1950s as chief counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy on the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Cohn was "like kissing buddies" with Reagan, she said.

"He had Roy Cohn call Reagan about needing to appoint a woman as a federal judge in New Jersey," Barry told Mary. "Because Reagan's running for reelection, and he was desperate for the female vote." Then, she said, "I had the nomination," and Donald Trump never let Barry forget it.

According to a recent documentary film, "Where's My Roy Cohn?" Cohn had been in regular touch with President Reagan. Donald Trump met with Reagan at the White House on Aug. 4, 1983, according to presidential records. Reagan talked with Barry on Sept. 13, 1983, and nominated her the following day, according to Reagan's daily diary.

"He once tried to take credit for me," Barry said of her brother, quoting him as saying, "Where would you be without me?"

Barry said she told Donald: "You say that one more time and I will level you." She told Mary that it was "the only favor I ever asked for in my whole life." She said that she deserved the nomination "on my own merit" and that she was subsequently elevated to higher judicial posts without her brother's intervention.

"Donald is out for Donald, period," Barry said.

Mary questioned Barry about what Donald had accomplished on his own.

"I don't know," Barry said.

"Nothing," Mary responded.

"Well he has five bankruptcies," Barry said. (Donald Trump's companies filed for six corporate bankruptcies but he has never declared personal bankruptcy.)

"Good point. He did accomplish those all by his self," Mary said.

"Yes, he did. Yes, he did. You can't trust him," Barry said.

Maryanne said on another occasion that Donald Trump kept asking about Fox News. One day, Barry said, President Trump called her and said, "Did you watch Fox News?"

"No," Barry said she told the president.

"Why not?" President Trump said.

"I don't watch much television at all," Barry said she responded.

"What do you do?" the president asked.

"I read," Barry replied.

"What do you read?" the president said.

"Books," Barry said.

The president was incredulous. "You don't watch Fox?"

Around the same time the conversations were being conducted, an internal investigation was underway of whether Barry violated judicial conduct rules regarding her role in working with her siblings in determining their tax liability. The investigation stemmed in part from an action that Mary Trump had taken: She had provided boxes of family tax records to the New York Times, which published a Pulitzer Prize-winning report in 2018 that found Donald Trump had engaged in suspect tax schemesthat increased his the family wealth.

Barry retired shortly after the investigation was launched, which ended the probe.

One of the most emotional conversations between Mary and her aunt occurred when they discussed the 1999 funeral of the family patriarch, Fred Sr., at Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue in New York City. During that ceremony, Donald spoke more about his own accomplishments than his father's life, Barry said.

"Donald was the only one who didn't speak about Dad," Barry said. She told Mary that "I don't want any of my siblings to speak at my funeral. And that's all about Donald and what he did at Dad's funeral. I don't know. It was all about him."

"I remember," Mary responded.

Mary Trump said she has not talked to her aunt since the book was published. She said in the Post Live interview that she would not be surprised "if she never contacted me, and I think that's fair. I understand why she would not want to."

The Washington Posts Alice Crites contributed to this report.
United States President Donald Trump, in a Fox News interview airing on August 23, raised the possibility of decoupling the US economy from China, a major purchaser of American goods.

In a video excerpt, Trump initially told interviewer Steve Hilton "we don't have to" do business with China, and then later said about decoupling: "Well it's something that if they don't treat us right I would certainly, I would certainly do that."

Trump entered into a high-stakes trade war with China before reaching a partial Phase 1 trade deal in January. Trump has since shut the door on Phase 2 negotiations, saying he was unhappy with Beijing's handling of the pandemic.

In June US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said a decoupling of the US and Chinese economies will result if American companies are not allowed to compete on a fair and level basis in China's economy.
<! Aisha Buhari: butt of attacks on Twitter >

Aisha Buhari, wife of Nigerias President has been the target of attack on Twitter over what some termed her cheeky comment about the state of Nigerian hospitals.

Aisha slipped out of Nigeria last week for medicare in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, only to return on Friday to preach the need for our hospitals to be properly funded.

She even suggested they take advantage of the loan facilities by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

I recall hosting the private healthcare Providers earlier in the year and we had a very productive engagement where the issue of building the capacity of Nigeria health sector was the major focus, and funding was discovered to be the major challenge, she wrote in a statement she signed.

I therefore call on the healthcare providers to take the advantage of the Federal Governments initiative through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) guidelines for the operation of NGN100 Billion Credit Support for the Healthcare Sector as was released recently contained in a circular dated March 25, 2020 to the Commercial Banks.

This will no doubt help in building and expanding the capacity of the Nigerian health sector and ultimately reduce medical trips and tourism outside the Country, she added.

Nigerians on Twitter found her comment insulting, condescending, like rubbing pepper into Nigerian eyes, especially after she had taken herself to enjoy a better healthcare in Dubai, at tax payers expense, when her husband has failed to fix Nigerian hospitals.

Here are samples of what Nigerians are saying:

Aisha Buhari evangelizing on the need for good hospitals in Nigeria and preaching against medical tourism abroad After coming back from a medical trip to the UAE Lawyers who are stuck in lockdown since March are fighting a Muslim lawyer vs Christian lawyer battle Animal farm  nafeeu (@nafeezi) August 22, 2020

Aisha Buhari fits into the narrative of The Wicked Step Mother. https://t.co/D9OdwEFfBL  President One.acre says Free Dadiyata (@NekkaSmith) August 23, 2020

Aisha Buhari is that individual that lives in Canada just to tell other Nigerians that the place is too cold for them.  Premier (@SodiqTade) August 22, 2020

Aisha Buhari will flex taxpayers money recklessly then comeback to start seeking fake better governance with the masses as if she didnt wake up in the same bed with the president Her own type of hypocrisy is VERY ANNOYING, shes literally throwing jibes at us.  President Christian (@Chrisblin) August 23, 2020

Green Cycles: Nigeria is rich in irony: Ganduje lectures on corruption, el Rufai on the Rule of Law, Aisha Buhari on Medical Tourism, OBJ on Democracy, GEJ on effective governance, Oshimole on Election Violence . Nigerians dont understand irony.

#TPAC Mazi @FestusGreen Flag of Nigeria @FestusGreen: Aisha Buhari is the most clueless First Lady Nigeria has ever had.She only talks when her exclusive concernment is threatened.

She has not impacted Nigerians in any positive way. Its always about her personal interests.

Like husband, like wife. Selfish lots.

Aisha Buhari got back from Dubai after medical treatment just to tell Nigerians to stop travelling out for treatment.

If care isnt taken this administration go chop rice tell Nigerians sey rice ni good for body. Selfish bunch.  Premier (@SodiqTade) August 22, 2020

JUST IN: Aisha Buhari Was Never Sick, Went On Dubai Shopping For Daughters Wedding, Plane Nearly Crashed https://t.co/SwbEITLeGi  @BBNaija (@DonaldRex) August 22, 2020

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The Libyan High Council of State on Saturday called for a "rejection of any dialogue" with military commander Khalifa Hifter, and said it will hold to account anyone responsible for shutting down the gateway to the country's major oil export terminals.

Speaking in Tripoli, Mohamed Bnias, Spokesman of the Libyan High State Council, made the comments following the announcement on Friday of a ceasefire across Libya.

Bnias said a "transparent and clear mechanism for the work of the National Oil Corporation" would be set up "to improve performance, raise production, and spend revenues transparently and fairly."

The gateway to oil terminals had been controlled by forces loyal to Hifter since January.

Bnias added that preparations would be made for elections to be held that are "acceptable to all Libyans."

Friday's ceasefire marks a breakthrough following international pressure amid rising fear of a new escalation in the chaotic proxy war as rival sides mobilize for a battle over the coastal city of Sirte.

Libya was plunged into chaos when a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed.

The country has since split between rival east- and west-based administrations, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments.

Hifter, who is allied to the parliament in eastern Libya, is supported by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia.

His force have been fighting the UN-backed Government of National Accord, which has its headquarters in Tripoli.

The chaos has worsened in recent months as foreign backers increasingly intervene, despite pledges to the contrary at a high-profile peace summit in Berlin earlier this year.

Thousands of mercenaries including Russian, Syrians and Sudanese are fighting on both sides of the conflict.
Signatories of a letter, who also include Janey Godley, Jo Caulfield and Des McLean, warned the sector is at breaking point as they urged ministers and bosses at the arts agency Creative Scotland to commit cash to help keep venues afloat.

The letter, sent by the Association of Scottish Comedic Arts, said help has been provided to the grassroots music industry, after lockdown forced the closure of venues across the country.

Our open letter to @CreativeScots and Creative Industries of @scotgov to ask for immediate support to #savescottishcomedy pic.twitter.com/whJPDcNfcg  Scottish Comedic Arts (@ArtsComedic) August 23, 2020

But it added that despite a plea to ministers in July for financial support for the comedy sector, no cash has been announced.

The letter is also signed by key industry figures including Mike Jones, managing director of The Stand comedy club in Edinburgh, and Karen and Katy Coren  the artistic directors of the citys Gilded Balloon venue.

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They said: We ask that the recognition of the importance of grassroots music venues in Scotlands cultural landscape be extended to grassroots comedy venues, including the financial support these dedicated music venues have already received.

My first open mic set was @StandGlasgow over 16 years ago. Eva, Jane, Tommy etc helped me develop all the way through my career and its still the best comedy club in the UK. Come on @scotgov @NicolaSturgeon Sort them oot! @StandComedyClub #savelivecomedy  Kevin Bridges (@kevinbridges86) August 22, 2020

Scotlands dedicated comedy venues have a long history of providing grassroots support. Without them household names like Kevin Bridges, Daniel Sloss, Frankie Boyle, Danny Bhoy, Fern Brady, Susan Calman, Fred MacAulay, Greg McHugh and Larry Dean would have struggled to develop their craft.

They said the Scottish Government and Creative Scotland must provide either a sector-specific package for comedy in the coming weeks  or ring-fenced cash as part of larger support.

They warned: If this is not secured, many clubs, venues, producers, promoters and performers will be lost forever and the Scottish arts scene will be poorer for it.
AFP via Getty Images

Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump and their family joined a funeral procession from the White House as the body of the presidents late brother Robert Trump was carried into a hearse on Friday.

Robert Trump, the presidents younger brother, died on 16 August.

He was 71. Details of his illness have not been released.

Bagpipes played alongside the procession as pallbearers carried Robert Trumps casket into a hearse waiting near the North Portico of the White House. A service was held in the East Room, which has rarely been used for funeral services. A service was held in that location for former president John F Kennedy following his assassination in 1963.

In 1936, when Franklin D Roosevelt hosted a service for his political adviser Louis Howe.

Robert Trump was among four of the presidents siblings and had served as an executive vice president of the Trump Organisation.

The president visited his brother in hospital in New York prior to his death. In a statement, the president said: He was not just my brother, he was my best friend. He will be greatly missed, but we will meet again.

His memory will live on in my heart forever, he said. Robert, I love you. Rest in peace.

Although he did not reveal the cause of his brothers death, Mr Trump told reporters that his brother had been having a hard time over the past few months.

Read more

Robert Trump: Younger brother of US president
By PTI

KOLKATA: West Bengal Environment Minister Soumen Mahapatra on Sunday said he has tested positive for COVID-19.

Stating that he is asymptomatic, the minister urged people who had come in contact with him recently to be in home isolation.

"In the present alarming situation due to the outbreak of COVID-19, this contagion has not even spared me. But, I am not showing any symptoms. My request to all please stay at home and follow the guidelines of the government," he tweeted.

Mahapatra is now in home isolation at his Panskura residence in Purba Medinipur district, sources said.

Fire Services Minister Sujit Bose was afflicted with the disease in May but he recovered after undergoing treatment.
Mr. David Deribaa, the Upper West Regional Chairman of the Convention People's Party (CPP) has expressed hope that the party would work harder than before to wrestle power from the NPP come December 7.

He said the "so called two major political parties' dominance will end in December" and claimed that NPP/NDC had misruled the nation for about 28 years now thwarting development, hence the need for them to hand over the mantle of governance to the CPP.

Mr Deribaa said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Wa on Saturday on the sidelines of the party's National Delegates Congress.

The CPP had decentralised its National Delegates Congress to all the regions across the country to elect the party's Presidential Candidate for the 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

It was also to elect the National Executives of the party as well as to conduct a referendum to amend the party's constitution.

In all, 108 delegates were expected to participate in the exercise in the Upper West Region, comprising nine delegates from each of the eleven constituencies and nine Regional Executives.

Mr Deribaa noted that the NDC and NPP had nothing better to offer the good people of Ghana rather than to fight for power to enrich themselves, fulfill their parochial interest and to engage in "self-aggrandizement".

"We have been cheated and sidelined for far too long. Ghanaians are discerning, there will be a surprise in the general election", he said.

He explained that Dr Kwame Nkrumah was a development oriented leader,which the CPP stood for, and urged the electorate to vote massively for the CPP come December 7, 2020.

Mr Deribaa advised the youth to desist from engaging in practices and activities that were injurious to their lives and to stay alive and vote for the CPP in the general election to better their livelihoods.

He said the CPP would commence vigorous campaign to sell its message to the electorate after the party had determined its presidential candidate.

Mr Iddriss Nuhu Saeed, the Upper West Regional Chairman of the People's National Convention (PNC), and Chairman for the CPP National Delegates Congress in the region, urged the delegates to exercise their franchise peacefully devoid of malice.

He encouraged the aspirants to accept the outcome of the congress for peace to prevail within the party to enable them to participate actively in the upcoming general election.

Security personnel from the Ghana Police Service were present at the congress ground to ensure peace and orderliness throughout the exercise.

GNA
SEOUL : The South Korean government is studying the need to raise social-distancing restrictions to the highest level as officials warn the country is at the risk of a massive nationwide outbreak."

An additional 397 new virus cases were reported on Sunday, the highest number since March 7. A quarter of those cases were reported outside of Seouls metropolitan area. Infections have exceeded 300 for three days.

Cases are rising in 17 cities and provinces across the nation, and we are now at the verge of a massive nationwide outbreak," Jung Eun-kyeong, head of Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a briefing on Sunday.

South Korea in June adopted a social-distancing system with three levels of restrictions. The government on Sunday expanded Level 2 social-distancing rules already in place in the Seoul Metropolitan area and Busan to the rest of the country.

Level 2 restrictions forbid gatherings of 50 or more people indoors, and 100 or more outdoors, with limits placed on events such as weddings, church services and sports games. It also prevents the operation of 12 types of high-risk" facilities such as bars and standing concert halls.

Level 3, the highest, prohibits meetings and events of 10 people or more and gives authorities the power to limit business hours at shopping malls and retail stores. Rising infections and the possibility for Level 3 rules have also bolstered speculation that there could be a second round of cash handouts and another extra budget.

The government is currently studying the need, as well as the timing and method of applying Level 3 restrictions," Jung said.

Residents in Seoul must wear a mask both indoors and outdoors when in public starting Monday, Yonhap reported, citing the metropolitan governments acting mayor.

The nation of 50 million people has recorded a total of 17,399 infections and 309 fatalities. It reported more than 5,000 infections related to a religious sect called Shincheongji between February and March, which made the nation the worlds second-worst hit by the virus at that time. Earlier this month, hundreds of cases were tied to Sarang Jeil Church, also described by some as a sect.

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Communities brutally evicted by the British to make way for tea plantations seek compensation for colonial crimes.

A community of more than 100,000 people in Kenya is seeking compensation from the British government for forced displacement from their homes and farmland.

It happened under British colonial rule during the first half of the 20th century when Kenyans were cleared from their land holdings to make way for enormous tea plantations.

Most of them have lived in poverty ever since, while multinational tea companies profit from their land.

Al Jazeeras Malcolm Webb reports from Kericho county in Western Kenya, where he heard the stories of people who remember being displaced.
Government MPs Gerard Rennick and Tim Wilson say they would welcome a nearly five per cent drop in their taxpayer-funded superannuation payments after Australia's biggest super fund lobby described 13 Coalition MPs as hypocritical for opposing a rise in the super guarantee.

An analysis from Industry Super Australia of the nest eggs of specific MPs who oppose a move to put an extra $20 billion a year into superannuation funds through a higher rate shows an average $63,000 extra per politician has been netted above the 9.5 per cent rate.

Industry Super Australia chief executive Bernie Dean has accused 13 Coalition MPs of being hypocritical over the super guarantee hike. Credit:Peter Braig

By the time each is aged 67, this figure is expected to be worth $1.35 million collectively even when conservatively assuming no additional contributions are made beyond August 2020.

MPs each receive 15.4 per cent of their salary in superannuation.
BJP national president J P Nadda on Sunday accused the Congress government in Rajasthan of inaction, betraying people and failing to provide relief to them during the coronavirus-triggered lockdown.

Addressing the partys Rajasthan unit leader and workers through a video conference, he said the rising crime graph was a symbol of crumbling administration.

The Ashok Gehlot government has proved inactive during the lockdown. Instead of providing relief, the government has betrayed people, Nadda said.

He also said, Rising crime graph in the state is a symbol that the administration is crumbling and the government did nothing except nepotism. The BJP chief claimed that there has been an increase in the crime rate in the state as atrocities against women have increased by 122 per cent compared to last year and crimes against dalits and tribals grew by 92 per cent and 101 per cent respectively.

I am putting these figures in front of you because this is a reflection of the inhumanity of the Gehlot government, the nepotism, the collapse of the government structure, he alleged.

In an apparent reference to the recent political crisis in the state in which Congress MLAs were holed up in hotels, Nadda said while the people of the state were struggling with coronavirus, Congress leaders were watching movies in hotel rooms and making Italian dishes.

The chief minister and his deputy did not meet for the last 18 months. Now, there has been an agreement (between Gehlot and Sachin Pilot)... dont know on what grounds it has been done and how long it will last. Gehlot tried levelling allegations on the BJP. They failed to manage their house and were fighting among themselves, but blamed the BJP, he added.

He asked the state unit of the BJP to apprise the public about the work done by the Centre.

The state unit should be concerned with motivating workers. The commitment level should be high and this will happen only when we give them political content, he said.

He asked the state BJP chief to form WhatsApp groups of party representatives at all 52,000 electoral booths.

In these WhatsApp groups, schemes launched by the central government and local issues should be discussed, he said.

BJP state president Satish Poonia claimed that farmer organisations are agitated as the Rs 833 subsidy, which was given to them during the tenure of the previous government, has been stopped.
Gold exchange traded funds (ETFs) witnessed surge in inflow in the first six months of this year as new investors rushed to add the precious metal in their portfolios amid coronavirus pandemic. Gold ETF saw net inflows of over Rs 3,500 crore in January-June period of this year as investors continued to hedge their exposure to riskier assets amid the COVID-19 crisis. In comparison, investors had pulled out Rs 160 crore from this asset class in January-June 2019, as per the latest data available with the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi).

Exchange-traded funds backed by physical gold and silver now hold more than $50 billion of bullion this year, which is more than gold reserve accumulated by any central bank, barring that of the US Federal Reserve, as per Bloomberg report.

The United States holds the largest stockpile of gold reserves in the world, amounting to 8,133 tonnes valued at around $373 billion. The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) total gold reserves stood at around $39.785 billion as of August 7, 2020.

Gold ETFs witnessed an inflow of around Rs 3,723 crore between August 2019 to June 2020. In July, gold ETFs reported an inflow of Rs 921 crore, a sharp jump of 86 per cent from the preceding month, as the coronavirus outbreak spurred safe-haven buying. The inflows meant assets under management (AUM) of gold ETFs rose by 19 per cent to Rs 12,941 crore at the end of July, from Rs 10,857 crore at June-end.

In the financial year 2019-20, investors infused over Rs 1,600 crore in gold ETFs after pumping out money for the last six financial years. The safe haven asset had witnessed net outflows of Rs 835 crore in 2017-18, Rs 775 crore in 2016-17, Rs 903 crore in 2015-16, Rs 1,475 crore in 2014-15 and Rs 2,293 crore in 2013-14.

In the last few years, retail investors invested more money into equities as compared to gold ETFs, mainly on account of decent returns. However, gold, which is considered as safe heaven asset, has emerged as one of the better performing asset class since 2019 and this 2020 so far.

Gold-backed ETFs are passive investment instruments that are based on price movements and investments in physical gold. One Gold ETF unit is equal to 1 gram of gold and is backed by physical gold of very high purity, which may be in paper or dematerialised form.

By Chitranjan Kumar with PTI inputs

Also Read: Gold price discount in India soars to over a month's high

Also Read: Gold may become cheaper, slumps over Rs 4,000 per 10 gram from this month's high
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 01:30:29|Editor: huaxia

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Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), speaks at the board of governors online meeting in Vienna, Austria, June 15, 2020. (Dean Calma/IAEA/Handout via Xinhua)

"I have decided to come personally to Tehran so that I can reinforce the importance of cooperation and the full implementation of all safeguards commitments and obligations with the IAEA," said IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi.

VIENNA, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi will travel to Tehran on Monday to meet with high-level Iranian authorities, IAEA said Saturday in a statement.

The visit will be the director general's first to Iran since he took office last December, the statement said.

During his visit, Grossi will address the cooperation of Iran with the IAEA, and in particular Iran's provision of access to the agency's inspectors to requested locations, it said.

"I have decided to come personally to Tehran so that I can reinforce the importance of cooperation and the full implementation of all safeguards commitments and obligations with the IAEA," Grossi said in the statement.

"My objective is that my meetings in Tehran will lead to concrete progress in addressing the outstanding questions that the agency has related to safeguards in Iran and, in particular, to resolve the issue of access."

"I also hope to establish a fruitful and cooperative channel of direct dialogue with the Iranian Government which will be valuable now and in the future," he added.

Earlier in the day, Iran's ambassador and permanent representative to the Vienna-based IAEA Kazem Gharibabadi said Grossi will make an official visit to Iran.

"In line with the ongoing interactions and cooperation between Iran & IAEA and based on Iran's invitation, Rafael Grossi will visit Iran next week," Gharibabadi tweeted.

Iran is one of the main partners of the agency and Grossi's visit will hopefully lead to reinforced mutual cooperation, Gharibabadi said.

Grossi's visit comes as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo notified the UN that the United States was asking to activate the snapback mechanism to restore UN sanctions against Iran. China, Russia and the European Union have criticized Washington's move, saying it has no right to do so as it has withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018. 
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-24 00:09:42|Editor: huaxia

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SHENYANG, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Northeast China's Liaoning Province has invested 3.64 billion yuan (around 526 million U.S. dollars) this year on the construction of 5G network infrastructure, local authorities said.

The province has built nearly 17,000 5G base stations this year, bringing the total to 19,019 as of Aug. 6, said Li Zhicheng, deputy director of the provincial communications administration.

The major urban areas of the 14 prefecture-level regions across the province, key industrial parks, airports, railway stations, ports, and other important places have achieved 5G network coverage, said Li.

At present, 5G technologies have been applied in the fields of industrial networks, medical treatment, education, transport, culture and travel in Liaoning. Enditem
The Trump administration will be sending top US Officials, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior advisor Jared Kushner, to the Middle East in the coming days to capitalise on the momentum from the historic agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to establish diplomatic relations. According to international media reports, Pompeo and Kushner will be making separate, multiple-nation visits to the region.

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to depart on August 23 for Israel, Bahrain, Oman, the UAE, Qatar and Sudan. Trumps senior advisor and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, on the other hand, will be leaving later in the week for Israel, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Morocco.

READ: Trump's Vision Of American Greatness At Center Of Convention

As per reports, Pompeo will be discussing the security challenges posed by Iran and China in the region. He also reportedly plans to meet in Qatar with members of the Taliban in a bid to discuss intra-Afghan peace talks that are key to the withdrawal of remaining US forces in Afghanistan. Neither trip is expected to result in announcements of an immediate breakthrough. However, both of them are aimed at finalising at least one, and potentially more, normalisation deals with Israel in the near future.

READ: House Passes Bill To Reverse Changes Blamed For Mail Delays

Israel-UAE historic agreement

Pompeos and Kushners Middle-East trip comes after Israel and UAEs historic agreement. On August 13, Israel and the United Arab Emirates along with the US released a joint statement that US President Donald Trump, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed agreed to the full normalisation of relations between UAE and Israel.

With the signing of the deal, UAE becomes the third Arab country apart from Egypt and Jordan to normalise relations with Israel. Reports state that Israel and UAE have mulled over formalising Netanyahu's close ties with UAE, but gained fruition after six weeks of indirect talks through Jared Kushner and led to the phone call between the nations' leaders. This move grants a rare diplomatic win to Trump ahead of the November election, as his efforts to see an end to the war in Afghanistan have yet to come to fruition while efforts to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians have made no headway.

READ: Trump Accuses FDA 'Deep State' Of Slowing Vaccine Development To Sabotage His Re-election

READ: US WeChat Users Alliance Sues Trump Over Executive Order Banning Chinese Messaging App
Joe Biden's campaign is on the offensive in North Carolina after President Donald Trump tweeted on Wednesday to boycott the Goodyear Rubber & Tire Co.

According to Biden's campaign, they are releasing new ads on Sunday in North Carolina and Ohio focused on Trump's call for a boycott. Goodyear has a plant in Statesville that assembles tire molds and mold parts for the company's North American passenger and truck tire plants. The company also has a plant in Fayetteville.

Biden's campaign said the ads will "underscore Joe Bidens commitment to American manufacturing and defend the jobs and dignity of Goodyear workers after President Trump attacked them in a political tweetstorm calling for a boycott." The ads use local press clippings and accuse the president of using the situation to benefit himself while putting Goodyear workers' jobs at risk. The ads are part of the Biden for Presidents ongoing national paid media strategy and will spend $26 million next week.

Iredell County Republican party chairman Ron "Duck" Wyatt said he supported Trump's call for a boycott while several local Democrats weren't pleased with the president comments.
Never in my political career have I seen such anger from the public over a single event as what happened last week.

The citizens of Ireland are disgusted by what they quite rightly feel are the actions of a political elite who think they can act above the rules laid down for everyone else.

No one knows how long Covid-19 is going to be causing the personal heartbreak and economic upheaval it has been causing.

That is why the Government's mantra that "we are all in this together" is so critical, as continued public support for the measures is critical for defeating the virus. That solidarity went out the window last week in Clifden.

Dara Calleary and Jerry Buttimer are both very fine politicians but had no choice but to resign. Others must follow. If their positions were untenable, as the Taoiseach has said, then so is Commissioner Hogan's.

Mr Justice Seamus Woulfe needs to reflect on his position. How could there be a difference in the treatment of public figures for engaging in the same activity?

Nobody is too big to fall, especially when it is what is needed to get to a point where the public will come back on board in support of the health measures we all need to live by.

I know losing a commissioner, particularly one with the trade portfolio given the current situation in relation to Brexit, would not be ideal but this is an equation the Taoiseach needs to weigh up.

Which is more important? Keeping the public on board with the health measures and maintaining confidence that the Government is able to handle the situation, or retaining Phil Hogan as our commissioner?

There really is no choice.

The Taoiseach has said it's not in his gift to make a change, claiming the decision lies with the European Commission and its president, Ursula von der Leyen.

That is simply rubbish.

If the Taoiseach tells the Commission that Ireland no longer has confidence in the commissioner we nominated, then Ms von der Leyen will have to act, although I doubt it would come to that.

Putting aside what happened last week in Clifden, the question must be asked why a Supreme Court judge was in attendance in the first place.

The separation of powers works both ways.

I believe that if Seamus Woulfe had still been the attorney general when he attended the event, he simply would have had to resign.

The public are asking why there is different treatment because he is a judge.

We in public life know and understand the importance and nuance of the separation of powers. However, it is very clear that the event was a flagrant breach of the public health rules.

This is not something which the arm of the State that makes those rules, the Dail and Seanad Eireann, can ignore. The public won't be taken for fools either.

Let us hope that Mr Justice Woulfe understands the situation, reflects on his position, or that his chat with the Chief Justice is a considered one. Otherwise, this could move into another sphere very quickly which is not necessary.

So how do we restore public confidence again after the events in Clifden, which followed on from the behaviour of Sinn Fein representatives at the Bobby Storey funeral?

Firstly, the Dail must be recalled immediately. The idea that we are not working during the biggest pandemic in over a hundred years is simply a joke, but there is nothing funny about it.

There are times when we all have to act in a way beyond personal or party political imperatives. This is one of them.

Alan Kelly is leader of the Labour Party
BOISE  After a 2019 Idaho Supreme Court ruling upended the ability of police to make some warrantless arrests, the safety of domestic violence victims became a renewed concern for many in the state.

Researchers at Boise State University reviewed the needs of victims and issued a list of recommendations from their study, while also outlining some consequences of the courts decision.

The researchers, including BSU professor Lisa Growette Bostaph, published the report this month.

The courts decision, which came in Idaho v. Peter ODonald Clarke, revolved around Clarkes arrest for suspected battery, which occurred without a warrant. Ultimately, the Supreme Court vacated Clarkes conviction, deeming warrantless arrests for misdemeanors unlawful unless an arresting officer witnesses the crime.

Idaho is now the only state in the country without the option of warrantless arrests in domestic violence cases. Advocates argue that this greatly endangers victim safety.

Law enforcement raised concern after the decision, noting that they seldom witness the domestic violence  they arrive after it has occurred, often because of a call.

The researchers Biennial Report on Victimization and Victim Services stems from interviews with 16 policing agencies and six victim-services agencies. Findings about the Clarke decision included that 82 percent of agencies reported an immediate concern for victim safety.

Policing agencies reported spending an additional 45-90 minutes at domestic violence scenes after the ruling, attempting to obtain warrants to make arrests. This lengthy process resulted in concerns surrounding what constitutes detention, according to the report.

The report found that officers have begun recommending that victims obtain a civil protection order. But if an abuser violates a protection order, that also is just a misdemeanor, so a warrant still would be required for an arrest.

Officers have also reported using citations, rather than getting an arrest warrant, to remove the suspect from the scene. Because the suspect isnt taken into custody in that case, court appearances sometimes dont occur until 14-21 days after the domestic violence incident, according to the report.

The report was authored by Boise State criminal justice researchers Growette Bostaph, Rachel Jeffries, Laura King and Lane Gillespie.

Recommendations

Recommendations made by the researchers largely revolve around the need for victim services and the possibility of a constitutional amendment for warrantless misdemeanor arrests.

The report recommended, among other things, funding community-based victim services, such as emergency housing, counseling and legal assistance.

Growette Bostaph said the national reporting rate to authorities when it comes to domestic violence is about 45 percent.

So roughly, we can guess at least half of domestic violence is not reported to policing agencies, she said. If our first paramount concern is victim safety and getting them services to keep them safe, community-based domestic violence services work with all domestic violence victims, regardless of whether they report or not.

The report also recommended that police departments invest in victim-witness units and that there be an on-scene response at the location of the incident. Not all Idaho police agencies have a victim-witness coordinator.

One recommendation that would require legislative approval includes passing a constitutional amendment to reinstate the option of warrantless arrest for select crimes, based on the propensity for future physical harm.

Last year, the Idaho Legislature attempted to pass an amendment, but it failed to get the needed super-majority that is required for an amendment to move forward. That bill was drafted after the Clarke decision.

Growette Bostaph acknowledges that warrantless arrests could be used for other types of crimes, such as shoplifting, but her concern is crimes that endanger victims. She also takes into consideration some of the local and national dialogue around police reform.

In our mind, after listening to everybody in the state, the ability to use warrantless arrest ... still seems to be necessary sometimes, she said. But do we really need warrantless arrests for theft? No. The likelihood for harm with that is minimal.

But with crimes such as protection order violations, domestic violence or driving under the influence, there is an immediate potential for harm without arrest, she said.

Her BSU groups recommendations also included additional training for victim-witness coordinators and advocates.

Generally, they include a module on victimology, understanding the effects of victimization, the history of the victims rights movement, and then specific ways of getting information on domestic violence and sexual assault, Growette Bostaph said about the training sessions.

They also offer role-playing training on the best ways to communicate with people who have been victimized, she said.

In their research, Growette Bostaph said some victim-services agencies sought assistance in learning how to provide victims with advocacy and support when the abuser was still present in the home.

The report also recommended training for police, involving the use of on-scene risk assessments, alternative responses, domestic violence investigatory skills and trauma-focused approaches.

The report outlined 14 different recommendations in total.

Given the Clarke decision, community members need to understand that policing agencies and their responses have been limited, Growette Bostaph said. What they believe police were able to do for 30 years, they may not be able to do anymore.

But police can intervene and provide victims resources, and stop whatever is happening in the moment, so the call must be made, she said.

As a community member, as a neighbor, as a friend, as a family member, if somebody that you know is being harmed or you believe they are being harmed, you may be the best opportunity for them to be connected to resources, Growette Bostaph urged. If victims understand police cannot make an arrest, they may be reluctant to call. We hope not. But they may be.

Violence in a pandemic

The research done in the BSU report happened mostly before the coronavirus pandemic hit, leading to stay-home orders and quarantines. The impact on domestic violence has been eye-opening.

The number of calls to the Womens and Childrens Alliance hotlines and business lines were nearly double in July of what they were in July 2019, said Chris Davis, spokesperson for WCA.

Since Gov. Brad Little issued his stay-at-home order in mid-March, Davis said the WCA has seen 11 emergency intakes into shelters. An emergency intake is done only when a victim is in immediate danger. In 2019, Davis said there was only about one emergency intake per quarter.

Davis explained that these intakes are done when the lethality has increased, meaning a weapon was introduced or there was an attempted strangulation, or something that put a victim in grave danger.

The risk level is increasing, Davis said about the pandemic. For the people who are in these situations, the danger level is increasing.

She noted that during the pandemic, victims might not be seeing the types of people who might otherwise intervene in an abusive relationship, such as a friend, co-worker or doctor.

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Minsk, Aug 23 : Nato has denied "baseless" allegations by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that "foreign powers" were organising a build-up of troops on the country's border amid the ongoing tensions.

In a statement, Nato said it posed "no threat to Belarus or any other country" and had "no military build-up in the region", the BBC reported.

"Our posture is strictly defensive," it said.

Nato's remarks come after Lukashenko, dressed in military fatigues, said on Saturday that he had placed his armed forces on "high alert" and accused Nato of trying to split up Belarus and install a new president in Minsk.

He said troops in Poland and Lithuania were readying themselves, and that he was moving his armed forces to the country's western border.

Tensions have gripped Belarus after Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, won a sixth term during the August 9 elections, with the opposition refusing to recognize the results.

In the election, the President won 80.1 per cent of the votes, while the main opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya garnered only 10.12 per cent.

Protests calling for Lukashenko to resign continued in the streets of the capital Minsk on Saturday.

Crowds of protestors waved bright lights from mobile phones and flew Belarusian flags in the streets of Minsk while chanting "freedom".
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-24 00:57:34|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun will travel to Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine and Austria over the coming week, the U.S. State Department said in a Sunday statement.

Biegun will meet with senior government leaders to discuss a range of regional and international issues during his visit to Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine from Aug. 24 to 27, said the statement.

The No. 2 U.S. diplomat will also travel to Vienna, Austria on Aug. 27 to meet with counterparts at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to discuss issues related to regional security and human rights.

Biegun's trip to Russia and Lithuania reportedly would focus on the crisis in Belarus.

Belarus has been witnessing mass protests after incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko won a sixth term during the Aug. 9 elections, with the opposition refusing to recognize the results. Enditem
Good Morning America

On the eve of the one-year anniversary of his inauguration, President Joe Biden held a formal news conference at the White House Wednesday, answering reporter questions on his handling of the pandemic, the economy and legislative agenda, characterizing the country as unified -- but not as much as it could be -- and raised eyebrows by saying Russia was likely to invade Ukraine. "It's been a year of challenges, but it's also many years of enormous progress," Biden said to begin, ticking through his administration's successes before fielding questions from reporters. With Biden facing the limits of what he can accomplish with an evenly-divided Senate, unable to get either his signature social spending package or major voting rights reform through Congress in recent weeks, and with the pandemic still raging well into its second, his approval rating in polls has hit an all-time low.
In a kind-hearted gesture, a Delhi-based mushroom farmer, who had to send 10 of his workers to Bihar during the coronavirus-induced lockdown in May, has now booked flight tickets to bring them all back.

PTI

Pappan Singh has booked tickets worth over Rs 1 lakh so that his workers can return to Delhi and rejoin him in farming mushrooms during the August to April season, reported PTI.

From the 20 workers who are expected to return to Delhi on August 27, 10 of them would be flying for the first time. The entire group will work with Singh in Delhi's Tigipur village.



Also Read: Sonu Sood Launches Pravasi Rojgar App To Help Migrants Find Jobs With 500+ Listed Companies

A migrant named Naveen Ram said he had flown for the first time in May, and added that he and other workers tried booking railway tickets to reach Delhi, but trains were not available for the next one-and-a-half months.

"If we wait for trains, we cannot do mushroom farming this season, which starts in August. When we told our 'malik' (employer) about this, he said that he will book flight tickets for us so that there is no delay," he said.

Image For Representation

According to reports, all arrangements have been made for 20 migrant workers to reach Patna airport from their native place on August 27.

Also Read: 211 Migrants From Bangladesh And Pakistan Found Crammed In A Truck By Macedonia Police

Singh, who does mushroom farming every year on over three acres of land, said he will be covering only one acre this year as the old stock of mushroom is still with suppliers due to the closure of markets. Singh treats his workers like his family because some of them have been working with him for 15 to 25 years.

"I have an emotional attachment with my workers and that is why I have booked their air tickets so that they can earn their livelihood while working here," he said. Back in May, Singh paid around Rs 70,000 on flight tickets to send his workers to Bihar.


More than 100,00 protesters demanding the resignation of Belarus' authoritarian president rallied Sunday in a vast square in the capital, keeping up the massive outburst of dissent that has shaken the country since a disputed presidential election two weeks ago.

Sunday's demonstration overflowed Minsk's sprawling 7-hectare (17-acre) Independence Square. There were no official figures on crowd size, but it appeared to be 150,000 people or more.

Dozens of police prisoner transport vehicles were parked on the fringes, but police made no immediate efforts to break up the gathering.

Earlier this month, some 7,000 people were arrested, many of them beaten with clubs or wounded by rubber bullets, in the after the August 9 election that officials say handed President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term in office.

Protesters say the official election results, in which Lukashenko reportedly received 80 per cent of the vote, are fraudulent.

The size and duration of the are unprecedented for Belarus, a former Soviet republic of 9.5 million people that Lukashenko has ruled with an iron fist for 26 years.

The 65-year-old leader appears to be flailing about for a strategy to counter them. He has repeatedly blamed Western interference, claimed the were backed by the United States and accuses NATO of building up troop concentrations in Poland and Lithuania on Belarus' western border, which the alliance denies.

He also claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was willing to offer security assistance to his government to quell the protests if he asked for it.

Lukashenko has consistently repressed any opposition during his time in office and weariness with his hardline rule, as well as dismay over the country's deteriorating economy and Lukashenko's cavalier dismissal of the coronavirus pandemic, appear to have galvanized opponents.

A similarly enormous crowd turned out for a protest a week ago and daily demonstrations have taken place since the vote. Several of the country's key factories have been hit with protest strikes by workers fed up with government polices.

Those strikes not only threaten the already-ailing economy, but show that opposition to Lukashenko extends beyond educated white-collar circles and into his traditional blue-collar base.

Belarus has changed. Lukashenko has been able to unify everybody, from workers to intelligentsia, in the demand for change, said protester Slava Chirkov, who attended Sunday's demonstration with his wife and son.

They held a sign declaring Lukashenko, your milk has gone sour, referencing Lukashenko's former job as the director of a Soviet-era collective farm.

Lukashenko's main election challenger, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, fled to Lithuania the day after the election. Several other possible challengers fled the country even before the election.

An opposition Coordination Council was created last week to develop a strategy for a transition of power, but authorities in Belarus have opened a criminal probe into its formation.

(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.)
Japan has decided to ease entry restrictions for foreign students, imposed to curb the coronavirus, possibly within this month, government sources said Saturday.

Japan also plans to fully lift the re-entry ban on foreign nationals who hold resident status as early as next month, according to the sources.

The restrictions for foreign students will first be eased for those sponsored by the Japanese government and the relaxation is expected to be later expanded to self-supporting international students.

All foreigners will be required to take polymerase chain reaction tests and prove that they are not infected with the virus when entering Japan, the sources said, adding that they will also be requested to stay in self-isolation for two weeks to monitor their health.

Japan currently denies entry from 146 countries and regions. The denial of re-entry for those with resident status has drawn strong criticism particularly from the country's expatriate community, as it effectively prevents them from traveling abroad and returning.

Many other countries that have imposed travel bans do not discriminate between citizens and foreign residents in granting re-entry.

Most foreign students usually come to Japan in the spring and fall, when the school calendar in the country begins.




Trainee doctors across all levels have begun an indefinite strike, protesting the government's medical workforce reform plan amid the COVID-19 pandemic.







The Korean Intern and Resident Association said Sunday that the first- and second-year residents became the last group of trainee doctors to join the protest earlier in the day. Since Friday, interns and third- and fourth-year residents walked out of hospitals.







They are opposed to the government's plan to increase admission quotas at medical schools.







As part of the country's medical workforce reform plan, the health ministry is planning to expand admission quotas at medical schools by 4,000 over the next 10 years, starting in 2022, and to open a new public medical school as it seeks to broaden the reach of health care services.







This will increase the number of students admitted annually to medical schools to 3,458 in the 2022-2031 period from the current 3,058, according to the plan.







Doctors have opposed what they called the government's "hasty and unilateral" decision.







The government has pleaded with the young doctors to return to work, out of concerns that their collective actions could compromise the health care system amid a spike in coronavirus cases nationwide.







On Sunday, South Korea reported 397 cases, the highest total in more than five months. Over the past 10 days, 2,269 cases have been identified.







The health ministry has offered to shelve the reform plan until the COVID-19 situation stabilizes. But the trainee doctors' association shot back that the ministry couldn't be trusted, accusing it of a history of deception and about-faces. (Yonhap)


The letter by senior party leaders has sparked off an intense debate within the Congress, with some leaders backing the Gandhi family and others calling for change

Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi has asked party members to find a new chief and expressed her desire to step down from the post, reports said. Sonia is said to have made these statements in a response to a letter by 23 senior Congress leaders, including chief ministers, sitting MPs and former Union ministers, calling for sweeping changes in the organisation.

According to Hindustan Times, Sonia asked the leaders who signed the letter to get together and find a new chief as she does not want to carry out the responsibilities of her post any further.

The letter by the senior leaders has sparked off an intense debate within the Congress party, with some leaders backing the Gandhi family and others calling for change.

Among those who have backed the Gandhis are Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh, Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel and Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot

Singh said, "The move by these Congress leaders to demand a rehaul of the party at this critical juncture would be detrimental to its interests, and the interests of the nation."

"What the Congress needs is a leadership that is acceptable not just to a few but to the entire party, through its rank and file, and the nation at large," he said, adding that the Gandhis were the right fit for this role.

"Sonia Gandhi should continue to helm the Congress as long as she wants," he said, adding that Rahul Gandhi should thereafter take over as he is fully competent to lead the party.

Baghel, in a statement on Twitter, said, "Sonia ji and Rahul ji are a ray of light in every challenge for us. We are all with you. Party workers and citizens in Chattisgarh as well as the country as a whole are with you. The country is presently in a period of crisis and only your leadership can offer the solution."

                                               pic.twitter.com/kBjdSK5sgU  Bhupesh Baghel (@bhupeshbaghel) August 23, 2020

Gehlot also heaped praise on the Gandhi family, saying it has kept the party united and the letter written by senior Congress leaders over party leadership is an unfortunate move.

He said the leaders who are said to have written the letter have worked with the party for long and this was not expected of them.

"Democracy is under threat and a struggle for saving democracy is going on and therefore, we should not step back. The Gandhi family has kept the party united and in the time of crisis; we need them," he said.

In a similar vein, party leader and former Union law minister Ashwani Kumar has said that the need of the hour is for the Congress to stay united. "This is not the time for an electoral exercise which is potentially divisive. At this point of time and considering the extraordinary situation in the country, the need of the hour is to close ranks," Kumar was quoted by Hindustan Times as saying.

On the other hand, the leaders who called for 'sweeping changes' in the organisation include Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad; party MPs and former Union Ministers Anand Sharma, Kapil Sibal, Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor; MP Vivek Tankha; AICC office bearers and CWC members including Mukul Wasnik and Jitin Prasada and former Chief Ministers and Union Ministers including Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Rajender Kaur Bhattal, M Veerappa Moily, Prithviraj Chavan, PJ Kurian, Ajay Singh, Renuka Chaudhary, and Milind Deora; former PCC chiefs Raj Babbar (UP), Arvinder Singh Lovely (Delhi) and Kaul Singh Thakur (Himachal); current Bihar campaign chief Akhilesh Prasad Singh, former Haryana Speaker Kuldeep Sharma; former Delhi Speaker Yoganand Shastri and former MP Sandeep Dixit.

Letter had rued 'absence of direct dialogue'



The letter by senior party leaders focussed on the erosion of Congress support, especially among the youth, and mentioned the rise of the BJP and Sangh Parivars communal and divisive agenda. The signatories argued that it the partys revival is imperative at a time when the country faces the gravest political, social and economic challenges since Independence, India Today reported.

It added that the committee was unable to guide the party out of troubled times, recommending organisational elections from the block-level up till the highest level. The leaders have given various suggestions in the letter, including constituting a Central Parliamentary Board for collective thinking, the need to unite Opposition parties and the role of state Congress presidents.

These leaders argued that in the absence of a direct dialogue with the Congress chief over strengthening of the party, revival of the party has become imperative in the interest of democracy in the country.

Meanwhile, some leaders close to Rahul Gandhi have also written to the CWC pressing for the Gandhi scion's return as chief.

"Gandhis are the symbol of sacrifice. Decision by Congress CWC was a majority decision reflecting the will of 1100 AICC, 8800 PCC members, five crore workers and 12 crore supporters who want Rahul Gandhi as their leader," party MP Manickam Tagore said, referring to the 2019 decision of the CWC to name Sonia Gandhi as party president after Rahul declined to accept a unanimous CWC appeal to stay in the post.

Apart from Tagore, Challa Vamshi Chand Reddy, ex Telangana lawmaker and AICC secretary in charge of Maharashtra has also asked for the promotion of Rahul Gandhi as Congress president without any further delay.

With inputs from PTI
Churches may have closed their doors, but more Australians are opening their minds to spirituality and prayer.

Researchers have found Australians say they have been praying more during the COVID-19 crisis, suggesting the pandemic has led many to reassess their priorities in life.

The Stringer family have been praying more during the coronavirus pandemic. Credit:Steven Siewert

Katie Stringer from Leichhardt, a teacher and mother of three children aged from 6 to 13, said she and her family had been praying more at home together during the pandemic. They read passages from the Bible during family meals and in the car during school drop-off.

Mrs Stringer said the closure of their local Anglican church forced them to "assess their spiritual connection".
NEW DELHI: Sonia Gandhi is likely to resign as interim president of the Congress party, sources said amid ongoing political speculation over the leadership of the grand old party ahead of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting on August 24.

According to sources, Sonia's resignation from the presidential post may formally be announced at the CWC meet.

After the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Rahul Gandhi resigned as party president in August 2019, taking responsibility for the disastrous results of the Congress in the polls. Sonia has been the party's interim chairperson for more than a year since then.

Now the next question which arises out of the current situation is that if Sonia Gandhi does indeed resign from the post of the Congress president, who will then take over the reins of the grand old party?

A large party faction is in favour of Rahul Gandhi's re-coronation for the post of party president. However, a few days ago, Priyanka Gandhi raised political speculation by casting doubts on the presidential post stating that it may go to a member of the Gandhi family.

However, the fact remains that there is an increasing demand in Congress to anoint Rahul as the party president. Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has opposed the challenge to the Gandhi family leadership and said that this is not the time to do this. He is of the opinion that Sonia Gandhi should remain in charge of Congress' reigns as long as she wants, after which Rahul Gandhi needs to become Congress president.

Similarly, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel has also said that Rahul Gandhi should again become the party's president.

On the other hand, inside the Congress, there is also a growing demand for holding elections to the post of the party president and for the seats of the Congress Working Committee. On this issue, veteran leader Salman Khurshid said that instead of internal elections, Congress should consider checking the internal consensus once.

At least 23 Congress leaders, including some ex-ministers, have written to party president Sonia Gandhi for the overhaul of the organisational structure. However, when asked about the section of party leaders calling for elections to the CWC and presidency, senior party leader Salman Khurshid hit out at those asking for internal polls, saying why are people so anxious to make these demands in the Congress when they are not made in any other party.

Congress general secretary KC Venugopal said that the CWC meeting has been called at 11 am on August 24, which will be done through video conferencing.

In the last meeting, the manner in which some MPs had raised the issue regarding the party's defeat in the 2019 general election and had a heated debate, the meeting of the Working Committee has become very crucial. After this, some leaders wrote a letter to Sonia Gandhi, demanding a change of leadership and holding elections for the Working Committee.

Reports stated that many Congress leaders are upset that the party has become directionless.
A former Garda Superintendent who was the chief investigating officer in the Adrian Donohoe murder trial has said he received death threats as the net closed in on Armagh man Aaron Brady who was last week convicted of the late detective garda's capital murder.

Brian Mohan, who served as Granard superintendent in Longford for almost three years before retiring in January 2019, was one of three chief investigating officers on a case which turned out to be the longest trial in the State's history.

"It was without doubt one of the most difficult murder investigations I have ever been involved in," explained Mr Mohan last Wednesday after the jury reached a majority guilty verdict of 11 to 1 after 20 hours of deliberations.

A skilled and vastly experienced officer in his own right, Mr Mohan told of how he had been assigned the onerous task of leading the hunt for Det Garda Donohoe's killer in October 2013 and only a matter of months after his own promotion to the rank of Inspector in Drogheda.

The Monaghan native told of how Brady, a 29-year-old criminal from Crossmaglen, Co Armagh, quickly became a person of interest barely hours after the fatal shooting of the father of two outside Lordship Credit Union in Co Louth in January 2013.

Mr Mohan said officers and close colleagues of his even called to Brady's home and other close associates hours after the shooting as he, together with a number of close associates had been linked to a series of burglaries on both sides of the border in months previous.

"On the night of it (shooting) they were called on to see if they were at home," said Mr Mohan, who himself had already been involved in over 30 murder investigations prior to the Lordship Credit Union incident.

But this, unlike all those before was on a whole different scale.

"In a normal murder investigation, if there is such a thing, there would be anything between 300 to 500 lines of inquiry.

"With this there over 5,000 lines of inquiry, there were over 2,000 reports, there were years of CCTV to be reviewed, confidential reports, 3,000 witness statements and 1,200 exhibits."

Three months after the shooting, Brady boarded an American Airlines flight from Belfast to Newark airport in New Jersey.

Mr Mohan, together with other senior officers followed Brady out in December and found him living in the Woodlawn area of New York.

Though Mr Mohan's promotion ultimately to Granard took him off the case, his take on the man now facing up to the next 40 years behind bars was as explicit as it is damning.

I just think he (Brady) is a persistent liar who couldn't tell the truth and who clearly felt his lies were sufficient enough to get him off even in the face of all the evidence," he said.
Police believe foul play is likely behind the discovery of a 2-year-old girls body in the Brays Bayou in east Houston, hours after an Amber Alert was issued for the child who vanished in the Alief area.

The family of missing Maliyah Bass descended on a winding corner of the Brays Bayou Greenway Trail on Sunday after a jogger found the body around 10:30 a.m. in the water. Texas Equusearch founder Tim Miller said the description of the child matches that of the missing girl, who was reportedly last seen Saturday morning at her apartment complex at 10600 Beechnut Street. But a medical examiner will ultimately identify the found child, he said.

The body was found about 15 miles downstream from the familys apartment complex.

After coming up the grassy embankment where the body was found, police Chief Art Acevedo said he suspects foul play.

Based on what we know, based on reported missing children in this city, we believe  although we cant confirm its her  theres a high probability it will be her, Acevedo said, standing near the embankment where the childs body was found. He declined to elaborate on the condition of the body or clothing.

Searchers on Saturday combed the area surrounding Maliyahs apartment. According to police, she was last seen there carrying a pillow case with toy letter blocks at the complexs playground. The girls mother told police she briefly went inside and could not find the girl when she returned to the playground.

Authorities issued an Amber Alert around 12:30 a.m. Sunday for the missing girl.

Travion Thompson, 21, who has been dating Maliyahs mother for the past four months, said he felt like a father to the missing girl. Distraught and in tears, he said he last saw Maliyah before she went to the park. The child, he said, had been upset because he had broken her toy box. He gave her the pillow case  which he described as blue and white  to carry her toys instead, Thompson continued.

We dont even live over here, Thompson cried, as Maliyahs mother comforted him.

Thompsons friend, Jamarcus Davis, said he believes someone took Maliyah and dumped her in the bayou.

Someone had to bring her out here, said Davis, who held Thompson back as a medical examiner vehicle drove by with the childs body inside.

Acevedo expressed doubt on whether the child could have fallen into the bayou near her home and floated to where the waterway leads into the Gulfgate neighborhood from Third Ward.

Thats not going to be probable, the chief continued.

Thompson also contends HPD did not do enough to find his girlfriends child in the hours after her disappearance. In response, Acevedo said Texas Equusearch volunteers were called, a police helicopter was dispatched and an Amber Alert was issued.

We did what we always do, the chief said. We would do anything to have that baby alive but shes in Gods hands now. Now our job is to try our very best to find out what happened.

Investigators provided no information on possible suspects in Maliyahs disappearance. Police also reviewed neighboring surveillance video from the apartment complex but found no footage showing Maliyah leaving the complex, authorities said.

Acevedo asked residents along the Brays Bayou to check their home security cameras for signs of suspicious activity in the past 24 to 36 hours.

nicole.hensley@chron.com
It's a trend conservationists are all too familiar with: monarch butterfly numbers across North America have been slowly declining for 15 years.

But this year's decrease is an even greater cause for concern, with the population of the orange and black butterflies down by more than 50 per cent between the winters of 2019 and 2020.

"[It's] a dramatic drop," said Rachel Stewart, program manager for Monarch Nation, a program run by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA).

"Much as efforts to preserve and conserve monarch butterflies are increasing and to provide habitat  it's clear that there's still a long way to go."

Michael Charles Cole/CBC

It wasn't always this bleak; between 2018 and 2019 there was an unusual spike, which turned out to be a one-year blip.

That's why Monarch Nation organized Flight of the Monarch Day Saturday in communities across Canada  events that raise awareness and support the continent-wide effort to stabilize the species' uncertain future.

Michael Charles Cole/CBC

Toronto's flagship event took place in Tommy Thompson Park, a narrow peninsula that sits on the waterfront, tucked between Cherry and Woodbine beaches.

The event marked one of the last opportunities this season to catch a glimpse of a monarch in the city. Viceroy butterflies, which are similar to monarchs but slightly smaller, could also be seen at the park.

In the coming weeks monarchs across eastern Canada will begin their 5,000-kilometre trek south to Mexico for the winter.

Michael Charles Cole/CBC

A new generation of monarchs will then make their way back north next spring.

"They've never been to Canada before so it's kind of neat to know they just instinctively know how to get here," said Stewart.

'We're losing ground every year'

What's behind the butterflies' declining numbers, Stewart said, is a general loss of habitat mainly caused by farming and urban development. Climate change is also responsible for the dwindling population.

Story continues

The lack of habitat also means less milkweed, which is the only plant a monarch will lay its eggs on and that caterpillars will eat, she said.

Angelina King/CBC

While there are efforts in Canada to help with the planting and preserving of habitats, some of the major habitat loss is happening in the upper Midwest U.S., said Chip Taylor, the director of Monarch Watch, an organization that tracks the migration of monarchs.

"Unless we're replacing at least [809,000 hectares] of habitat a year, we're losing ground every year," he said.

Monarch Watch

That trend is something Toronto Mayor John Tory supports trying to curb.

In a proclamation signed by Tory Saturday, the city deemed August 22 as "Flight of the Monarchs Day."

"Pollinators in Toronto and around the globe are under increasing pressure due to habitat loss, climate change, invasive species and pesticides," the proclamation reads.

"We can all play a role in protecting them."

Michael Charles Cole/CBC

How can you help?

If you're interested in helping, there's a couple of different ways to go about it.

Stewart said planting milkweed is extremely effective  something that wasn't allowed in Ontario until 2014, when the plant was taken off the province's list of noxious weeds.

"There has been an awareness relatively recently that milkweed is the only plant that monarch butterflies will lay their eggs on," she said.

"If you don't have milkweed, you don't have monarchs."

Monarch Watch

Otherwise, if you see a monarch butterfly or milkweed you can submit photos online, which helps scientists track them.

Check out more images of monarchs in Mexico.

Monarch Watch

Monarch Watch
Libya's rival authorities have announced an immediate ceasefire.



The Tripoli-based and internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) published a statement that also calls for elections in March next year.The truce was also agreed by an ally of Gen Khalifa Haftar, who controls large parts of the east and south of Libya.



Libya has been riven by violence since Col Muammar Gaddafi was deposed by Nato-backed forces in 2011.



The oil-rich nation is a key transit point for migrants heading to Europe from Africa.



The conflict there has caused a split within Nato.



Last month, France temporarily pulled out of the Nato security operation Sea Guardian, accusing Turkey of violating an arms embargo against Libya.



It came weeks after Turkish ships allegedly targeted a French warship in the Mediterranean - something Ankara strongly denies.



What did the rivals say?



GNA head Fayez al-Sarraj "issued instructions to all military forces to immediately cease fire and all combat operations in all Libyan territories", it said on its Facebook page.





There has been no direct comment from Gen Haftar but Aguila Saleh, speaker of the eastern-based parliament, which supports him, also announced a ceasefire.



Both the UN and Egypt's President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, who also backs Gen Haftar, have welcomed the agreement.



What's the background?



Both sides in Libya's civil war have international support. Turkey, Italy and Qatar are among those siding with the GNA in Tripoli, while Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates back Gen Haftar.



France is also thought to back Gen Haftar, although leaders in Paris have repeatedly denied this.



A UN arms embargo is in place to stop men and materiel flowing into the country, but it has had little effect.



Turkey agreed a military co-operation deal with the GNA in 2019, and deployed troops to the country in January.











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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A Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District bus driver and and all five passengers aboard escaped injury Sunday morning when a bus was caught in gunfire between occupants in two cars.
Facebook has been in the news in India for all the wrong reasons recently. A criminal case has been registered in Raipur against a top Facebook executive, Ankhi Das, for overlooking inflammatory posts by a politician, allegedly because removing it would anger the ruling dispensation. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress have been engaged in a war of words on this issue and it is likely to spill over into the next session of Parliament. There have also been allegations about the Arogya Setu app not being fully secure, but information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has assured people that it is safe.

Let us recall what happened with Cambridge Analytica. The company was alleged to have systematically influenced the 2016 United States (US) presidential election. There were claims that the company illegally monitored the accounts of around 85 million Facebook users.

By doing this, it was able to discern what many Americans were thinking, what kind of leadership they were seeking and what policies appealed to them. These allegations were not fully substantiated, but it affected the company adversely. Facebook also had to pay a huge price for its actions, its shares nosedived by $119 billion in just one day.

Private information barriers being breached is becoming a real danger. Due to the spread of Covid-19, different smartphone apps have become almost mandatory in almost every country. The data collected through these apps, if used for anything other than medical and scientific purposes, could seriously compromise the privacy of the individual.

Until now, people were monitored through their physical movements and views expressed on social media. Now, for the first time, it would seem that your medical parameters could reach unknown corporates. They could ascertain who is a diabetic, hypertensive or what allergies a person could have. This can be abused, especially in places with a weak democracy or one without a robust and independent judiciary.

This debate actually began in the mid-1990s and was initiated by Gabriel Baiman, a researcher at the University of Haifa, Israel. After extensive research, he found that 90% of the recruitment to terrorist organisations was done through social platforms.

After a thorough reading of what topics people read, which videos they had seen, how they expressed their thoughts, what sort of messages they exchanged with loved ones and others, researchers were able to get an accurate picture of what was going on in the minds of young people.

This information made it easier to influence them. It is easier to sow the seeds of hate. Jihadi John, an ISIS member from Britain, who became notorious for his beheading videos, was recruited through social media. A number of young Indians were also misled by propaganda on social media platforms.

There was once a time when social media was the only window into peoples thoughts. This has changed over time. Various new avenues are available for people to pry into our personal space.

This moves one step ahead when one uses these platforms to even acquire information about our whereabouts. Everything and everyone is online. There is no guarantee that this data will not reach a terrorist organisation, an anarchist group, a foreign government, rogue government officials or predatory drug companies.

The Russian writer, philosopher and political prisoner, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, narrated a surreal story about the Soviet Union in his book The Gulag Archipelago. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was delivering a speech at a conference after which the audience broke into applause. Every person in the room began clapping wildly, with each person waiting for someone else to take the initiative to stop.

At last, the director of a paper factory decided enough was enough. He stopped clapping and sat down, and right after that everyone else followed suit. The same night, he was arrested and sent to Siberia for the rest of his life. Now imagine this scenario. If Stalin had the means to ascertain how many people listening to him were truly interested in what he had to say, many more may have been exiled to Siberia.

If North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, could determine how many people in his council of ministers agreed with his policies, there is no telling what would happen to them. If physical indicators such as blood pressure could be monitored to gauge reactions to changes in government policy, people could be controlled more closely by the government.

Confidential information falling into the wrong hands, or unknown hands, is a huge danger to all citizens of democratic countries.

In his seminal novel, 1984, George Orwell wrote of Big Brother who was watching everyone. Today, Big Brother has acquired much more power and can look right into your body and record your vital functions. A scary thought if there ever was one.

Shashi Shekhar is editor-in-chief, Hindustan

The views expressed are personal

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The steady growth in COVID-19 infections province-wide has one expert who keeps a close eye on the trends concerned.

While there havent been dramatic spikes in daily case counts, the increases have been consistent for a prolonged amount of time, said Ryan Imgrund, a biostatistician at Newmarkets Southlake Regional Health Centre.

Thats where I get worried.

Imgrund has been tracking the effective reproduction number  known as Rt, or how many others a person with COVID will typically infect  for Ontario throughout the pandemic.

This number fluctuates over time, depending on behaviour such as social distancing and mask use. Without any of this, the reproduction rate of COVID-19 is somewhere between two and four.

It should be below one in order to keep infections low.

Since July 29, the Rt in the province has jumped from 0.8 to 1.35, said Imgrund, who calculates it based on the daily case tallies and the dates they are passed on from one person to the next.

Its increased almost every single day. There was a little dip around Aug. 8 to Aug. 10, but it has been pretty much above one since Aug. 5, he said.

That does concern me.

Ontario reported 108 new cases Saturday, a 0.3 per cent increase, with one new death and almost 29,000 tests processed. Twenty-seven of the provinces health units reported five cases or fewer, with 16 reporting none, tweeted Health Minister Christine Elliott. Thats down from 131 reported cases on Friday, a spike the province blamed on a data reporting gap from some health units.

But when the Rt is above one for more than a week or so, it indicates more of an actual trend rather than a fluke, said Imgrund. Its hard to know where this is coming from, but it could be tied to new infections around Phase 3 reopenings of places such as bars and gyms.

If we continue to see it tick up, we need to start to make some other choices possibly at that time, which may include shutting down some of the more higher-risk things that we have allowed to open, he said, such as bars and maybe gyms, too, that dont have the proper precautions around masking when doing heavy cardio.

The provinces new cases now seem to be clustered in a few urban centres, including Ottawa and Waterloo, instead of more rural pockets where they were a few weeks ago, Imgrund said.

Torontos Rt is at 1.08, and has been above one since Tuesday, he said. There were 41 new cases reported by Toronto Public Health in the city Friday and 19 on Saturday.

Toronto seems to be following along with whats happening at the provincial level, whereas the hardest-hit region in the GTA seems to be Peel, Imgrund added.

Peel has a Rt of 0.97, but a lot of the cases have been a lot more recent in terms of symptom onset, he said. In the last 24 hours theres been 30 new cases there, according to the local public health unit.

That is definitely the most troubling region Ive seen in the GTA.

Peel Public Health staff said in an email that they have seen case numbers slightly increase recently, and any increase is concerning. However, they continue to monitor various indicators in a weekly report and it is positive to note that we have not seen a paralleled increase in severe cases.

They attribute the uptick to social gatherings such as BBQs and backyard parties. Theyve also seen an increased number of new cases related to travel, which is worth a reminder to those leaving their region, and leaving Ontario, to be extra vigilant.

Asked about concern over the increase in the daily case count on Friday, Dr. Christine Navarro, associate medical officer of health for Toronto, said in an email that some daily variability in reported cases is expected and can reflect lab testing patterns (both when people choose to get tested and how and when labs collect and run their tests) and likely represents infections that were acquired over many different days.

The agency watches for patterns closely, but considers a seven-day moving average as a better reflection of any concerning trend. We encourage the public to follow the additional indicators we are monitoring on our COVID-19 Monitoring Dashboard, she added.

According to that dashboard the seven-day moving average for new cases is a positive green at 23, as is the overall current status for the city, which includes other indicators including hospitalizations and institutional outbreaks.

The seven-day average was up provincially, as of Friday, to 102 cases and 0.9 deaths per day by the Stars count.

Most of the provinces new cases Saturday (44) were in younger people (ages 20 to 29). Earlier this past week, Mayor John Tory told reporters that the average age of those infected has shifted to 39 in the last two weeks, compared to 52 for the duration of the pandemic so far.

The proportion of cases among those who are less than 19 years of age and those 20 to 29 years of age has increased significantly in the last few weeks, he said, urging younger people to take the threat seriously and remember they are not immortal or invincible.

On Friday, Tory joined mayors from across the GTA and Hamilton in issuing a warning to Gen Zers and millennials to continue to follow public health advice, social distance and wear masks.

Its very rare for a young person to die or have serious complications from the virus, but it can happen.

In Montreal, a 19-year-old who was identified Saturday in multiple media reports as Don Beni Kabangu Nsapu, a healthy high school athlete, became that provinces first under-20 victim.

With files from David Rider and Ed Tubb
A West African delegation on Saturday met with Mali's military junta and the president it ousted, in a bid to push for a speedy return to civilian rule after a coup in the troubled nation.

The delegation, headed by former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, held talks for half an hour with soldiers who seized power on Tuesday, including new strongman Colonel Assimi Goita, an AFP journalist said.

Three envoys from the regional ECOWAS bloc then met with ousted president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita at an undisclosed location, Jonathan told AFP, adding that the "negotiations are going well".

Rebel soldiers seized Keita and other leaders after a mutiny on Tuesday, dealing another deep blow to a country already struggling with a brutal Islamist insurgency and widespread public discontent over its government.

Keita is being held with prime minister Boubou Cisse in the Kati military base outside the capital Bamako where the coup was unleashed.

Mali's neighbours have called for Keita to be reinstated, saying the purpose of the delegation's visit was to help "ensure the immediate return of constitutional order".

President Keita was reelected in 2018 but became the focus of widespread discontent. By ISSOUF SANOGO (AFP/File)

"ECOWAS appreciates what is happening in Mali and ECOWAS wants the best for the country," Jonathan said after his arrival.

"We're going to discuss with all stakeholders and I think at the end of the day we'll come out with something that is good for the country, good for ECOWAS and good for the international community."

A source close to the junta said that the ECOWAS delegation had made a "good impression".

"We understand that heads of state, like Ivory Coast's Alassane Ouattara, are working for an easing of tensions, for a peaceful solution, even if they have firmly condemned our seizing power," the source told AFP.

Malian demonstrators on Friday hailed soldiers for the military overthrow of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. By ANNIE RISEMBERG (AFP/File)

"We are open to discussion."

Adding to the international pressure, the United States on Friday suspended military aid to Mali, with no further training or support of the Mali armed forces.

'We won'

But thousands of jubilant Malians took to the streets of Bamako on Friday to celebrate the toppling of Keita, who was reelected in 2018 but became the focus of widespread discontent.

The crowds gathered in Bamako's central square draped in the national flag and blasting on vuvuzela horns.

Some demonstrators carried signs opposing UN peacekeepers and French anti-jihadist operations. By ANNIE RISEMBERG (AFP)

The rally, originally organised as an anti-Keita protest by a loose coalition that has led months of mass rallies against him, was recast to "celebrate the victory of the Malian people".

"I am overjoyed! We won," said Mariam Cisse, 38.

Speaking at the rally Ismael Wague, spokesman for the junta which calls itself the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, paid tribute to the public.

"We merely completed the work that you began and we recognise ourselves in your fight," he said.

The junta has said it welcomes the ECOWAS visit but has not talked of restoring Keita to power.

Colonel Assimi Goita is head of the military junta's National Committee for the Salvation of the People. By MALIK KONATE (AFP/File)

"A transitional council, with a transitional president who is going to be either military or civilian" would be appointed, Wague told France 24 television Thursday.

Fractured nation

Keita won election in a landslide in 2013, presenting himself as a unifying figure in a fractured country, and was re-elected in 2018 for another five-year term.

But he failed to make headway against the jihadist revolt that has left swathes of the country in the hands of armed Islamists and ignited ethnic violence in the country's volatile centre.

Thousands of UN and French troops, along with soldiers from five Sahel countries, have been deployed to try to stem the bloodshed.

In a sign of the continuing challenge facing the country, four soldiers were killed Saturday by an explosive device in the centre of the country.

Discontent in Mali has built over months. By Gal ROMA (AFP/File)

The ECOWAS visit to Mali comes after the UN's peacekeeping mission in the country said a human rights team had gained access to the ousted president and other detainees on Thursday.

A junta member said the coup leaders had released former economy minister Abdoulaye Daffe and Sabane Mahalmoudou, Keita's private secretary, calling the move "proof that we respect human rights".

While Keita and Cisse have no television, radio or phone, other detainees are in a training centre, where they are sleeping on mattresses and have a TV, according to witnesses to the visit.

The 75-year-old ousted president "looked tired but relaxed," they said, describing his conditions as "acceptable".

Tuesday's coup was the second in eight years, and has heightened concern over regional stability as its jihadist insurgency now threatens neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.
By Trend

Today marks the 27th anniversary of the occupation of Azerbaijans Fuzuli and Jabrayil districts by the Armenian armed forces, as part of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

On August 23, 1993, some 51 villages and the center of the Fuzuli district were seized by Armenians, as a result of which over 55,000 residents left their native land.

The district covers a territory stretching from the southeastern slopes of the Karabakh mountain range to the Araz River. It borders with Azerbaijani districts of Khojavand, Jabrayil, Aghjabadi, Beylagan, as well as Iran along the Araz River.

The area of the Fuzuli district is 1,386 sq. km. Some 13 settlements and 20 villages are located in this districts territory, freed from the occupation. Twelve of the settlements, constructed after liberation, accommodate the internally displaced families.

Since 1988, the Fuzuli district has been facing constant Armenian attacks. As a result of the occupation, over 1,100 residents of Fuzuli became martyrs, 113 were taken hostages and 1,450 were left handicapped.

Azerbaijani Ecology and Natural Resources Ministrys Operative Center, which inspects the devastating impact of the occupation on environmental and natural resources of Azerbaijan, found out that Armenians destroyed natural resources in the Fuzuli district during the occupation period.

Armenians cut down virtually all the trees in the Dovlatyarli village, and destroyed green spaces along the roads in the Gochahmadli and Yaglivand villages.

After the occupation of the Jabrayil district, which has a territory of 1,050 sq. km, some 72 secondary schools, eight hospitals, five mosques, two museums, 129 historical monuments and 149 cultural centers were left in the occupation zone. Some 61,100 IDPs from the Jabrayil district were settled in over 2,000 settlements in 58 districts across Azerbaijan.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 19:41:24|Editor: huaxia

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KABUL, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- One woman was killed and four civilians were wounded in a Taliban militants' mortar attack in Afghanistan's eastern Kapisa province Saturday night, authorities said Sunday.

The incident happened when a barrage of mortar rounds fired by Taliban militants struck a house in Jangal area of Alasay district, leaving one woman dead and four civilians wounded, the Afghan army's Corps 201 Selab said in a statement.

Elsewhere in Marawara district of eastern Kunar province, six Taliban militants were killed and 11 others wounded after the government security forces responded to a Taliban attack late Saturday, according to the statement. Enditem
Prof. MENG Wenxiang's group from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently reported a new mechanism by which microtubule networks instruct neuronal polarity.

The study, published in PNAS, deepens the understanding of the fundamental question of neuroscience, "What microtubular factor is decisive in the establishment of neuronal polarity?"

A typical mature neuron has one axon and multiple dendrites, forming the physical basis of neuronal function. In neurons, the establishment of axon/dendrite polarity is regulated by a variety of factors, including the polarization of signaling regulators and cytoskeletons. Microtubules are the final performer in this process. However, how microtubules instruct axon/dendrite differentiation has been unclear.

In this study, the researchers found that CAMSAP1, a microtubule minus-end binding protein, is an indispensable factor in neuronal multipolar-bipolar transition and radial migration.

Collaborating with WANG Yingchun's group, the researchers demonstrated that the polarity regulatory factor MARK2 kinase phosphorylated the serine at amino acid 1485 of CAMSAP1 and thereby regulated the ability of CAMSAP1 to bind and protect microtubule minus-ends.

This finding shows that the asymmetric distribution of microtubule-associated CAMSAP1 is a trigger in neurons and controls neuronal polarization by creating an unbalanced distribution of microtubules among neuronal processes.

In fact, in the early stage of neuronal polarization, it was the unbalanced stability of the noncentrosomal microtubule minus-ends that caused the asymmetric distribution of microtubules, which in turn promoted the changes of stability or modification of microtubules. Our research answers a question that has long plagued neuroscientists, that is, whether the stability and acetylated modification of microtubules are the decisive factors in establishing neuronal polarity." Dr. Zhou Zhengrong, first author of the study

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Basic Research Program of China.
A recent promo for Keeping Up With the Kardashians revealed that Scott Disick was devastated when the details of his rehab treatment were leaked. Though the clip didnt share who had leaked a photo of Disick, a new teaser for the show explains that he felt betrayed because someone at the treatment facility was responsible.

Scott Disick and Kourtney Kardashian | Denise Truscello/WireImage

Scott Disick shared how the leak was a huge betrayal

In the KUWTK clip, Disick addressed that when he went to a Colorado treatment center in April, someone leaked that information. That prompted him to quickly pack up and leave the facility.

There couldnt have been a bigger betrayal, he explained in the KUWTK clip. She leaked me being there to the press. In a Zoom call with some of the family, he said, I dont trust anybody here.

RELATED: Kourtney Kardashian Shares Why Keeping Her Relationships Private Is So Important Now

Kourtney Kardashian revealed that Scott Disick was really upset

In the new Keeping Up With the Kardashians promo, Kourtney and Kim Kardashian West discussed what happened with Disick after it unfolded, giving more context to who leaked the photo of him while he was at rehab.

I heard that Scott went to rehab by seeing it online and it looks like someone at the facility leaked a photo of him, Kardashian West explained. I feel really bad for him.

Kourtney called the situation really, really so awful, adding that his actual conversation with the therapist was leaked.

Kim got clarification from Kourtney that Disicks therapy sessions were one-one-one, with Kourtney explaining, He said hes never been more betrayed in his life. Hes packing and hes definitely coming home. Hes really upset.

Especially [because] he was actually going to work on himself and his traumas, Kourtney added. I think he absolutely should file a suit.

I feel like whoever did leak this information should be really ashamed of themselves, Kourtney explained during a confessional. Everyone deserves to deal with their past traumas in privacy. He was completely violated.

Fans weighed in on the Disick leak

Fans definitely felt so bad for the way Disicks private matter was on display in the media. In a Reddit conversation about the clip, one Redditor noted, I empathize with Scott here. Its insinuated that the therapist leaked the recording, if thats the case they should have their license removed.

They added, This person has now caused even more trauma and it will likely prevent Scott from seeking further treatment in the future. I sincerely hope that he pursues legal action.

The facility issued a statement at the time of the leaked photo, with Noah Nordheimer, President & CEO of All Points North Lodge, sharing with ET:

My team and I are aware of the information publicized on May 4, 2020 by the Daily Mail and other media sources regarding All Points North (APN) Lodge. The protection of our clients personal and confidential information is of the utmost importance to us. It is APNs strict policy to not publicly disclose patient-specific information, including whether or not a particular client is or was being treated at our facility, or has inquired about our services.

If it were determined that any information relating to any client was ever obtained from APN facilities and provided to a media outlet, APN will take all legal action available against that individual, including cooperating with law enforcement and other governmental authorities, the statement noted.
No ombat casualties were reported.

Ukraine has reported one violation of the latest ceasefire agreements by Russia-controlled armed groups in the Donbas warzone on Sunday, August 23.

Read alsoOSCE urges sides to continue making all efforts to keep sustainable truce in Donbas"Since Sunday midnight, no attacks by enemy have been recorded in the majority of areas of Ukrainian units' responsibility. At the same time, Ukrainian troops have documented one violation by the Russian Federation's armed formations near the town of Avdiyivka, where the enemy fired several non-targeted provocative shots from small arms and an underbarrel launcher," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation (JFO) Command said on Facebook in an evening update as of 17:00 Kyiv time on August 23, 2020.

The shots posed no threat to the lives and health of Ukrainian troops so Joint Forces did not return fire, the press center said.

No ombat casualties were reported.

In addition, the ceremonies of raising the Ukrainian flag have taken place in all Ukrainian military units today, August 23. The soldiers honored with a minute of silence the memory of their dead brothers-in-arms.

Donbas truce: background
During the two Britain British Grand Prix's at the Silverstone circuit, some F1 experts noticed that it looks like the rear wing of the Mercedes car tilts inwards in the corners. Toto Wolff denies this and says that this isn't the case.

According to Motorsport-Total.com, it is not possible to say with one hundred percent certainty whether the W11 does indeed drive with a flexible rear wing. It is possibly just an illusion.

In any case, Wolff makes it clear that the W11 does not have a flexible rear wing. "This is not the case with us," said the team boss of Mercedes. According to Wolff, the world champion does not violate the regulations of the FIA.

The rumours that Mercedes would drive with a flexible rear wing have their origin in Italy. "I don't know what kind of pictures they saw there. But we're not trying to get close to a grey area," clarifies Wolff.
Many foreigners who are living and working in Da Nang are positively contributing to the fight against Covid-19 pandemic in the central city.

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A group of foreign teachers in the central city of Da Nang have pooled their resources and mobilised their friends to purchase essential goods in an effort to help underprivileged people impacted by the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.

When receiving a message about locations that are in need of help, Micheal Harris from the UK forwarded the location to his volunteer team group chat so that they could discuss the plan. In the afternoon, the group went to the supermarket to buy food for those in need. Everyone wore face masks and gloves.

Members in Michael's team go to the supermarket to buy food for the needy people Da Nang.

The charity group was set up just a few days after the second wave broke out in Danang and more people have joined in. Harris said he just wanted to do something to help the city during the hard times. His friends also had the same idea so the charity group was born.

The group includes people from the UK, the US, Canada, etc. who have been living in Da Nang for 2-3 years.

I want to do something to help when Danang is in its very difficult days. Some of my friends had the same idea and we formed this group. When there is a difficult place need help, we contributed money to buy rice, fish sauce, instant noodles ... in supermarkets to and transport goods by motorbike to the place in need," Harris said.

"I am an English teacher and have lived in Da Nang for almost 2 years. The city is wonderful, and this is how we thank the place that welcomes us and allows us to live and work, Harris

Harris' charity group has donated hundreds of kilograms of rice, noodles, bread ... to people in difficult circumstances.

Harris notes that rice, noodles, and spices are key goods that are offered to the poor. His group has brought these items directly from major supermarkets to ensure theyre safe for local residents.



The group spends VND5 million on buying essential goods on August 18. Harris says he will continue to mobilise his contacts through social network in order to raise more funds for poor people.



In the past days, the locals in An Hai Bac Ward have become familiar with the free face masks and vitamin C provided on Tran Thanh Mai Street by South Korean people. They would often call out to the passers-by and give them face masks and vitamin C.

Kim Won Hoon, an owner of a real estate consultancy, said he had been in Danang for a year and a half and he was impressed by the friendliness of the locals. Even though his business has also been affected by the pandemic, he and his co-workers have still found a way to provide help.

His group has donated 15,000 face masks, 500 freshwater bottles, 500 vitamin C bottles and 60 hand wash bottles to the public and medical staff.

"This is our heart to this city. We hope all of us can overcome this difficult times due to the epidemic," said Kim.

Michael Harris' charity group gave food and necessities to needy people in Da Nang.

Kim Won Hoon's free Vitamin C and mask stall on Tran Thanh Mai Street became familiar to the local people.

Kim Won Hoon presents medical equipment to Da Nang city.

Ho Giap

Foreigners unite with Da Nang in COVID-19 fight A group of foreign teachers in Da Nang have pooled their resources and mobilised their friends to purchase essential goods in an effort to help underprivileged people impacted by the battle against the novel coronavirus.
Imperial Valley News Center

Two Convicted of Bribery and Public Corruption are Sentenced to Prison

Durham, North Carolina - The founder and chairman of a multinational investment company and a company consultant were sentenced to prison today for orchestrating a bribery scheme involving independent expenditure accounts and improper campaign contributions.

Greg E. Lindberg, 50, of Durham, North Carolina, the founder and chairman of Eli Global LLC (Eli Global) and the owner of Global Bankers Insurance Group (GBIG), was sentenced to 87 months in prison and three years of supervised release. Lindbergs consultant, John D. Gray, 70, of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was ordered to serve 30 months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release. Lindberg and Gray were also ordered to pay forfeiture in the amount approximately $1.45 million held in accounts established by the defendants for the purpose of funneling the bribe payments.

On March 5, 2020, a federal jury convicted Lindberg and Gray of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud and bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds following an approximately three-week trial. U.S. District Judge Max O. Cogburn Jr. presided over the trial and todays sentencing hearings.

Co-defendant, Robert Cannon Hayes, 74, of Concord, North Carolina, was also sentenced today to a one-year probationary term. Hayes previously pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI and agreed to cooperate with the governments investigation.

When Greg Lindberg and John Gray offered millions of dollars in bribes to the North Carolina Insurance Commissioner, they referred to their elaborately corrupt scheme as a win-win  unaware that the FBI was watching and listening, said Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the Justice Departments Criminal Division. Today, both men have been held accountable for their crimes, and their sentences underscore the Department of Justice's unyielding commitment to rooting out corruption wherever we find it.

Lindberg and his accomplices, driven by greed, devised an extensive political bribery scheme to illegally funnel millions of dollars to an elected official for the benefit of Lindbergs business interests. To this day, Lindberg and Gray remain unremorseful and refuse to accept responsibility for their criminal actions. The severity of their brazen conduct is reflected in the Courts sentence, said U.S. Attorney Andrew Murray for the Western District of North Carolina. Bribery of a public official is far from a victimless crime. It is our duty to the American people to stop bad actors with deep pockets and unscrupulous intentions from wrecking the foundation on which this country proudly stands. To those that greedily seek to line their own pockets through deceit and fraud, I offer the following advice: Keep a travel toothbrush handy.

When the prison bars close behind Mr. Lindberg and Mr. Gray, they will hear the sound of justice, loud and clear, said Special Agent in Charge John Strong of the FBIs Charlotte Field Office. The FBI will root out any and all forms of public corruption. We remain committed to ensuring those who attempt to interfere with the integrity of our democratic process pay the price.

According to filed court documents, evidence presented at trial, and todays sentencing hearings, in January 2018, the elected Commissioner (Commissioner) of the North Carolina Department of Insurance (NCDOI) reported concerns to the FBI about political contributions and other requests made by Lindberg and Gray, and agreed to cooperate with the federal investigation that was initiated.

According to evidence presented at trial, from April 2017 to August 2018, Lindberg and Gray engaged in a bribery scheme involving independent expenditure accounts and improper campaign contributions for the purpose of causing the Commissioner to take official action favorable to Lindbergs company, GBIG. Trial evidence established that Lindberg and Gray gave, offered, and promised the Commissioner millions of dollars in campaign contributions and other things of value, in exchange for the removal of NCDOIs Senior Deputy Commissioner, who was responsible for overseeing regulation and the periodic examination of GBIG.

According to trial evidence, Lindberg, Gray and the Commissioner held numerous in-person meetings at different locations, including in Statesville, North Carolina, and had telephonic and other communications with each other, and others, to discuss Lindbergs request for the personnel change in exchange for millions of dollars, and to devise a plan on how to funnel campaign contributions to the Commissioner anonymously. In order to conceal the bribery scheme, at the direction of Lindberg, two corporate entities were set-up to form an independent expenditure committee with the purpose of supporting the Commissioners re-election campaign, and Lindberg funded the entities with $1.5 million as promised to the Commissioner. In addition, at Lindberg and Grays direction, Hayes caused the transfer of $250,000 from monies Lindberg had previously contributed to a North Carolina state party of which Hayes was chairman, to the Commissioners re-election campaign.

According to admissions Hayes made in connection with his guilty plea, on or about Aug. 28, 2018, Hayes falsely stated to FBI agents that he had never spoken with the NCDOI Commissioner about personnel or personnel problems at NCDOI, or about Lindberg or Gray. Hayes further admitted that, at the time he made the materially false statements, Hayes knew that it was unlawful to lie to the FBI, and knew that his statements were false because Hayes had in fact spoken with the NCDOI Commissioner about Lindberg and Gray, and about Lindbergs request that the Commissioner move certain personnel within NCDOI.

The FBIs Charlotte field office investigated the case.

Trial Attorney James C. Mann of the Criminal Divisions Public Integrity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys William T. Stetzer and Dana O. Washington of the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of North Carolina prosecuted the case.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi at the prime minister's office in Baghdad, Iraq, on June 4, 2020. (Iraqi Prime Minister Media Office/Handout via Reuters)

Iraqi PM Vows to Hunt Down the Killers of Basra Protesters

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi vowed to hunt down the killers of protesters and to keep illegally armed groups in check during a visit to the southern city of Basra on Saturday.

Speaking to media after meeting with security leaders in Basra, Kadhimi said that the killers of protesters would not escape punishment.

Activist Reham Yacoub, who had led several womens marches in the past, was killed on Aug. 19 and three others wounded when gunmen, brandishing assault rifles on the back of a motorcycle, opened fire on their car.

Mohammed Qasim, a fellow activist and friend of Yacoub, told local media earlier in the week that Yacoubs death was like the assassination of all Iraqis and that he now fears for his own life after her death, adding that Basra has lost its sons and daughters because of Iran-backed militias.

Yacoub had been very active since 2018 and took a leading role in the mass anti-regime protests that erupted in October last year and continued for several months, with hundreds of thousands of Iraq is demanding jobs, services, and the removal of the ruling elite, which they said was corrupt.

It was the third incident this week in which gunmen targeted an civilian political activist, after one activist was killed and four others had their car fired upon in a separate incident.

Kadhimi told reporters on Saturday, Basra will recover again, God willing.

This is a message to all criminals and killers. This is a new government that is working to establish the prerequisites of security. It aims to establish security and prevent crime. Id like to tell everyone who carries a weapon contrary to the government laws, they wont escape punishment and the killers will be brought to justice very soon. Id like to tell the criminals who assassinated Husham al-Hashimi, Tahseen [Osama] and the young female doctor, that your blood will be a title for justice.

The challenge is big. I was in a meeting with the military commanders and I told them that Basra should be secure, and that we will challenge all, he added.

The recent wave of violence begun when activist Tahseen Osama was assassinated on Aug. 14, prompting a return of street demonstrations for three days.

Protesters in Basra set fire to parliaments local office on Aug. 21 as security forces fired live rounds in the air to disperse them, a Reuters witness and security sources said.

The protesters had gathered to demand that Iraqs parliament sack the provincial governor. Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi went ahead and sacked Basra police and national security chiefs on Aug. 17, and ordered an investigation into the assassinations and violence.

A former intelligence chief, Kadhimi took office in May, becoming the third Iraqi head of government in a chaotic 10-week period after the protests unseated the previous government last year.

His new administration has set a lofty agenda that included enacting economic reform, battling corruption, avenging protesters, and bringing arms under the authority of the state. He has pitted his government against rogue Iranian-backed militia groups.

Read More Trump, Iraqi Leader Meet to Discuss US Future Role in Iraq

Kadhimi met with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on on Aug. 20 as part of strategic dialogue aimed at increasing Iraqs defensive capabilities and helping it reduce its dependence on neighbouring Iran.

Epoch Times writer Mimi Nguyen-Ly contributed to this article.
The convention, signed in 2003 between AU member states in Mozambique, was approved by the Egyptian parliament in 2017.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi ratified on Sunday a decree allowing the country to join the African Union (AU) Convention on Combating and Preventing Corruption.

The convention, signed in 2003 between AU member states in Mozambique, was approved by the Egyptian parliament in 2017.

The AU Convention targets promoting, facilitating and regulating cooperation among AU countries to ensure the effectiveness of measures and actions to prevent, detect, punish and eradicate corruption and related offences in the country, according to its 2003 text.

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Hillard was walking back to his car when Peck asked him if the car belonged to him, the suit says.

Hillard claims he told Peck, "Yes," and Peck replied, "Hurry up and get in your car before I bash the (expletive) up."

According to the suit, Hillard continued walking to his car as Peck hit the trunk twice with a flashlight, leaving large marks.

Hillard drove about 20 yards away and stopped to check on his cousin, who was standing on a sidewalk. In his rear-view mirror, Hillard saw Peck and Komoscar pointing at his car, the lawsuit says.

Hillard claims Komoscar then walked up to the drivers side of his car, opened the door and told him to get out without asking for his drivers license or registration or explaining why he should exit.

Hillard said he was checking on his cousin, and complied with Komoscars repeated order to get out of the car, the suit says.

Hillard alleges Komoscar grabbed him, forced his hands on the roof of the car and kicked his feet apart. Peck pushed him into the car and began frisking him, the lawsuit alleges.
Keir Starmer today warned plans for children to return to classrooms in September could be at 'serious risk' due to the government's chaotic handling of exam results.

The Labour leader said Downing Street had wasted two weeks which could have been spent preparing for the new school year 'clearing up a mess of the government's own making over exam results.'

He added that Boris Johnson's pledge for all children to return to school next month could be 'at serious risk after a week of chaos, confusion and incompetence.'

Speaking to the Observer, Mr Starmer said: 'Ministers should have spent the summer implementing a national plan to get all children back to school. Instead, the last two weeks have been wasted clearing up a mess of the government's own making over exam results.

'Restoring public confidence and getting a grip on the Department for Education must be Downing Street's number-one priority this week.

'Failure to do so will leave the government's promise of "levelling up" in tatters.'

Keir Starmer (pictured) today warned plans to get children back in classrooms in September could be at 'serious risk' due to the government's chaotic handling of exam results

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson was heavily criticised this month after an algorithm used by the exams regulator Ofqual resulted in an astonishing 40 per cent of A-level grades being downgraded from teachers' predictions.

In a humiliating climbdown, the controversial algorithm was scrapped for both A-level and GCSE results just days after Mr Williamson claimed there would be 'no U-turn, no change.'

The Education Secretary said teachers' predicted grades would be used to mark pupils who could not sit their exams because of the coronavirus pandemic.

It followed a similar U-turn by the Scottish government.

The Labour leader's criticism of the exams fiasco comes as the UK's Chief Medical Officers last night told parents their children face an 'exceptionally small risk' from Covid-19 when they return to classrooms next month.

In an unusual 'consensus statement,' all 12 Chief and Deputy Chief Medical Officers agreed that 'very few, if any, teenagers will come to long-term harm from Covid-19 due solely to attending school'.

And they say that small risk has to be offset against 'a certainty of long-term harm to many children from not attending school'.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson was heavily criticised this month after an algorithm used by the exams regulator Ofqual resulted in an astonishing 40 per cent of A-level grades being downgraded from teachers' predictions

Students take part in a march from Marble Arch to the Department of Education in Westminster, London, calling for the resignation of Education Secretary Gavin Williamson

The experts concluded that 'teachers are not at increased risk of dying from Covid-19' compared to other workers, and say that the evidence from other countries is that reopening schools is not linked to a surge in cases.

In their statement, the Medical Officers brushed aside teaching unions' safety fears by declaring that 'there is an exceptionally small risk of children of primary or secondary school age dying from Covid-19'.

They said the fatality rate for children aged five to 15 who become infected was just 14 in a million, 'lower than for most seasonal flu infections', and while every death of a child is a tragedy, 'almost all deaths [from Covid] are in children with significant pre-existing health conditions'.

The experts reported that just one in a thousand children under nine who show Covid symptoms would need hospital treatment, a figure that rises to three in a thousand for ten-to-19-year-olds.

In a humiliating climbdown, the controversial algorithm was scrapped for both A-level and GCSE results just days after Mr Williamson claimed there would be 'no U-turn, no change'

That is still an order of magnitude lower than the four per cent rate for the general population, and the experts add: 'Most of these children make a rapid recovery.'

Set against this tiny risk, the scientists said: 'We are confident that multiple sources of evidence show that a lack of schooling increases inequalities, reduces the life chances of children and can exacerbate physical and mental health issues.'

England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty added that the 'incredibly small' health risks should be balanced against the overwhelming evidence 'that not going to school damages children in the long run and that includes their long-term chances.'

'It increases the risks of disparities, it entrenches deep-rooted problems, it increases the risk that they have mental and physical ill health in the long run,' he said.

He added the transmission rates across the UK were broadly flat and said: 'The evidence from other parts of the world is that, when schools have opened, this has not led to a sudden surge in transmission that looks as if it's due to the schools opening.'
I knew him very well. In the party, he was invariably non-controversial, low-profile, well-mannered and always very guarded and measured in his utterances.

A perfect description of the late George Michael Chambers, the countrys second prime minister and political leader of the Peoples National Movement (PNM), from Ferdie Ferreira, a foundation member, in his book Political Encounters 1946 -2016.
A man attempted to smuggle crystal methamphetamine in coolers and a horse saddle, according to an arrest affidavit filed on Friday.

Jose Guadalupe Salas arrived at the Juarez-Lincoln International Bridge in a 2001 Chevrolet Suburban LT. Salas gave a negative declaration to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers. He also added that he went to San Luis Potosi, Mexico, to visit his sick father.

Salas was then referred to secondary inspection because of the number of items he was transporting in addition to not remembering what he had inside some coolers. In secondary, Salas stated he was traveling back to Dallas after visiting family in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, for two weeks. He allegedly claimed full ownership of all the items inside the Suburban.

CBP officers said they noticed anomalies on a horse saddle and three coolers. Further inspection of these items resulted in the seizure of 21 taped plastic bundles within the sides of the saddle and walls of the three coolers, according to court documents.

The bundles contained 33.28 pounds of meth with an estimated street value of $665,600. Homeland Security Investigations special agents took over the case. Salas allegedly agreed to a post-arrest interview.

Contrary to his first statement about visiting his sick father, Salas stated he traveled to San Luis Potosi, Mexico, as part of his business where he takes consumable goods and charges a delivery fee of $60 and $80. He added that the coolers were to be delivered to Austin and Dallas.

Although he denied knowledge of the crystal methamphetamine found in the horse saddle and coolers, Salas stated that he travels every two weeks and brings these types of consumable goods each time, states the affidavit.

Salas was arrested and charged with importation of a controlled substance.
Luis Rodolfo Abinader was sworn in as the President of the Dominican Republic on Sunday in a ceremony attended by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Abinader, a 53-year-old businessman who has never held elected office, was elected to a four-year term on July 5, ending a 16-year run in power by a centre-left party.

Abinader finished second in the 2016 presidential election.

The elections in the Dominican Republic took place as the new coronavirus pandemic was sweeping across the Caribbean nation of some 10.5 million people.

Abinader himself had spent weeks before the election in isolation following a positive test for the virus, and the vote itself had been postponed from May due to COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

On Sunday, Pompeo was greeted by officials as he arrived at Las Americas international airport in Santo Domingo.
ALMOST 10,000 has been raised for two Limerick charities following a drive-through bingo event which took place last month.

Hundreds of people from across Munster flocked to the Woodlands House Hotel in Adare for the event which was the first to take place in Limerick after public health restrictions were eased by the Government.

In compliance with Covid-19 regulations, the event, which was MCd by Noel White, was held outdoors and those who attended on the day were required to remain in or close to their cars throughout.

The novel fundraiser was organised by front-line workers from Rathkeale and a socially distant cheque presentation took place in Adare earlier this week.

The two nominated beneficiaries are Milford Hospice and Pieta House and each organisation was presented with a cheque for 4,597.50.

One of the organisers of the drive-through bingo  Garda Enda Moroney from Rathkeale station  says hes glad to have been able to raise funds for Milford Hospice and Pieta House.

Milford Hospice would be very close to my own heart, my father died there two years ago and both charities are exceptional and they give so much to society and we just wanted to give something small back to them, he said.

For more Limerick news click here
Wahab Shittu, the counsel to the suspended acting chairman of the anti-graft agency, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, has again restated his stance that the panel probing his client has not submitted any report.

We wish to confirm that the proceedings are still ongoing and my client is yet to present his defence. We are therefore shocked at the suggestion that an interim report has been submitted to President Muhammadu Buhari, Mr Shittu said in a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES.

He said media reports claiming an interim report indicting Mr Magu was sent to President Muhammadu Buhari are false.

We are shocked that such a libellous publication against my client without hearing from him, we wish to state with a high sense of responsibility that our client is yet to formally present his defence.

Proceedings are ongoing and witnesses are still lined up for next week beginning from Monday (Tomorrow), he said.

Mr Magu is being investigated before the presidential panel over allegations of corruption and insubordination. He was arrested on July 6 in front of the EFCC Wuse II office.

The allegations were levelled against him by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami

Since his arrest, several allegations of corruption have been circulated in the media, against Mr Magu, all of which he has denied.

Read Mr Shittus full statement of Sunday below.

23rd August, 2020.

PRESS RELEASE

SALAMI PANEL CANT SUBMIT INTERIM REPORT WITHOUT HEARING FROM MAGU- WAHAB SHITTU

Gentlemen of the Press,

Based on press enquiries on my clients response to the story on The Cable news online medium captioned Exclusive, Salami panel asks Buhari to fire, prosecute Magu for corruption, we wish to state as follows:

1. We are unaware of the source of the story and we are actually shocked that such a false story is being orchestrated in the public space, contrary to the stage of ongoing proceedings before the panel. We wish to state with high sense of responsibility that our client is yet to formally present his defence. Proceedings are ongoing and witnesses are still lined up for next week beginning from Monday. Please note that the earlier report of similar import published by The Pilot was brought to the attention of the panel and we were advised by the chairman of the panel to ignore the story. Our attitude is also to ignore this latest story as falsehood not reflecting the realities on ground.

2. We all know that in spite of repeated demands, our client has not been served with copies of allegations against him.

3. The instrument embodying the Terms of Reference was not served on my client until August 8, 2020 (35 days after proceedings has commenced).

4. That the Honourable Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN), whose memo triggered the proceedings, is yet to be summoned to testify to support the allegations against our client. He who asserts must prove.

5. That our client was excluded from the initial stages of the proceedings with several witnesses testifying in his absence.

6. That counsel to our client was not allowed to cross-examine many of the witnesses who had testified until recently.

7. That our client is yet to be granted access to petitions/presentations, case files and exhibits admitted in the proceedings. Please note that we have written to the panel to that effect.

8. That our client was accosted on the street and compulsorily requested to appear immediately before the panel without opportunity to access documents to adequately prepare his defence.

9. That our client was subsequently detained for ten days after appearing before the panel in unpleasant circumstances. This detention is not covered by the Terms of Reference arising from the instrument constituting the judicial commission of inquiry.

10. That our client, owing to his suspension from office, is unable to have access to official documents and other information necessary for his defence.

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11. That cases pending before superior courts of records such as Federal High Court, Court of Appeal and The Supreme Court are being reviewed in the proceedings. We believe that this development is subjudice and unhealthy for our jurisprudence.

12. That witnesses appearing before the panel were not sworn on oath before giving evidence as stipulated under the Tribunals of Inquiry Act, 2004 on whose authority the instrument setting up the Judicial Commission of Inquiry is derived.

13. It is curious and worrisome that an administrative panel of inquiry headed by His Lordship, Justice Ayo Isa Salami, having sat and taken evidence (both oral and documentary) in the past one month, has suddenly metamorphosed into a Judicial Commission of Inquiry. How this comes within a contemplation of a commission of the Tribunal of Inquiry Act, 2004 is very questionable.

14. We also raise serious objection to piecemeal release of the so-called interim report in the social media, particularly the WHISTLER online medium which claimed to have seen the interim report.

15. It is instructive to state that the online medium went ahead to recklessly engaged in libelous publication where it listed individuals, and companies that being investigated for corruption by the EFCC allegedly paid bribes to my client.

16. We are shocked that such a libelous publication against my client without hearing from him.

17. This panel must address this weighty issue before the commencement to today proceedings.

18. The Salami panel also revealed the identities of eight suspects that allegedly paid the bribes to Magu through pastor Omale and Shanono. Shanono allegedly received NGN570,698,500 from China Zhonghao Nigeria limited through the Zenith Bank account 1018895662 of his company, Ahmed Ibrahim Shanono Investment Ltd. The transfers were in about 43 tranches between 5th December, 2014 and 23rd June, 2015. The china Zhonghao Coy is being investigated by the EFCC for abandoning a road contract awarded to the company by the Zamfara State Government between 2012 and 2019, the panel noted. An aide to a formal managing Direcctor of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Nathniel Uyo, was alleged to have paid the sum of N10 million into an Ecobank Account Number 3912014141 of the Divine Hand of God prophetic Ministry on 09/06/2018. The report said the former NDDC MD was then being investigated by the EFCC over an alleged attempt to bribe members of the Akwa-ibom State APC Appeal Committee in Abuja. Pastor Omale, according to the Salami panel, also received N10 million from a Bureau De Change operator, 7*7 BDC Limited, through his Churchs Ecobank account. The report said that the BDC was being investigated by the EFCC for, receiving over N1.6 billion (N1,600,000,000), part of the N27 billion (N27,000,000,000) Insurance Premiums looted during the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan. A former Chairman of the Niger State Pilgrims Agency, Liman Kantigi, who was being investigated by the EFCC for allegedly misappropriating funds during his tenure at the agency, also allegedly paid N200 million bribe to Magu through Shanono. Kantigi, through his company, Sadiq Air Travels, allegedly transferred N200 million into the Access Bank Account of Shanonos company, the report said. Weeks before paying the alleged bribe, the EFCC was said to have traced N4 billion to two Guaranty Trust Bank accounts linked to Kantigi. A government contractor, A.G Ferrero & Co. had also allegedly paid N213 milliom to another company belonging to Shanono, Newttech Aluminium and Roofing Service Ltd. A.G Ferrero & Co. was a contractor to Jigawa State Government during the tenure fo Sule Lamido between 2007 and 2013. Lamido was investigated by the EFCC during the period. The report said. The Salami panel said Pastor Omale, through his Church, also received N1.3 million from the company being investigated for alleged link to EFCCs N1.5 billion money laundering case against a former Plateau State Governor, Joshua Dariye. According to the panel, Apartment Le Paradisi transferred One million three hundred and twenty thousand naira (N1,320,000.00) into Divine Hand of God Prophetic Ministry Eco Bank Account Number 3912014143, on 22/04/2014. The company had testified before the EFCC, in respectof a case involving the former Plateau State Governor, Joshua Dariye who was then being investigated for laundering about One billion five hundred million naira (N1,500,000,000.00). Former Plateau State Governor, Jonah Jang, was alleged to have paid N30,744,000 to Ahmed Ibrahim Shanono Investment Limited over his investigation for alleged looting of N6.3 billion while serving as governor of the state. Senator Jonah David Jang transferred the sum of thirty million seven hundred and forty-four thousand naira (N30,744,000.00) into the UBA account Number 1018895662 of Ahmed Ibrahim Shanono Investment Ltd, on 18th July 2016. Senator Jang, a former Governor of Plateau State is being investigated by the EFCC for alleged looting of Six Billion three hundred million naira (N6.3bn) belonging to Plateau State Government, said the report.

19. The entirety of the publication above is first class falsehood from the pit of hell. None of the issues arose from the proceedings of the judicial commission of inquiry. I recall Pastor Omale appearing before the panel to confirm openly that none of the transfers into the churchs accounts emanated from Magu and that Magu never donated to his personal or church account. It is also instructive to note that no character by the name Shanono ever appeared before the judicial commission of inquiry. The purveyors of this fake news may assume they are destroying the sterling image of Magu, but I have news for them. Majority of Nigerians however cannot be fooled. I can only refer to the testimony of former SGF Babachir Lawal on Magu thus

But now in the case of Magu, the narrative is that corruption is fighting back. These are the impressions and the consequences of such conducts. Initially I had the feeling that the system would come after Magu, especially the press and social media. If you are very discerning, you will know they are with him. The preponderance of opinions is in support of Magus position. The views being laid out are as if it is a witch-hunt. There are better ways to end Magus reign because no matter what anybody tells you, Magu tried. I used to joke that if you are a thief and you are caught by Magu, nobody can release you unless you cut off his hands.  Culled from The Punch Newspapers.

20. THISDAY front page lead story of Sunday 23rd August 2020 in a banner headline reported Magu May Face More Investigations, Criminal Prosecution

I am at a loss of how the paper arrived at this conclusion when it is clear to all that the only thing going for Magu is his innocence. We will not join further issues on the publication with the paper at this stage.

21. We wish to confirm that the proceedings are still ongoing and my client is yet to present his defence. We are therefore shocked at the suggestion that an interim report has been submitted to President Muhammadu Buhari. We all know that this is a democracy anchored on respect for the rule of law. Central to the rule of law is the element of fair hearing.

Section 36(1) of 1999 Constitution (as amended) is explicit on this. It provides;

In the determination of his civil rights and obligations, including any question or determination by or against any government or authority, a person shall be entitled to a fair hearing within a reasonable time by a court or other tribunal established by law and constituted in such manner as to secure its independence and impartiality.

22. We urge those bent on prejudicing the proceedings of the panel by planting false stories in the public space to think of the interest of our country and not prejudge our client whose commitment all along is service to the country.

23. The only thing keeping our client going in spite of the desire of mischief makers to pitch him unfairly against the authorities is his conviction of his innocence.

Please no one is entitled to condemn our innocent client before he is heard or before he is afforded the opportunity of defending himself on the merits.

Wahab Shittu (Esq)

W. K. Shittu & Co.
Gavin Williamson photographed in his office at the Department of Education after the crisis. (Getty)

Gavin Williamson has defended his decision to go on holiday during the A-level exams fiasco earlier this month.

The education secretary has faced searing criticism for his handling of the crisis after the government was forced to perform an embarrassing U-turn on its grading system.

Despite frantic preparations for A-level results day on 13 August, The Sunday Times reported that Williamson took a week-long holiday to the seaside town of Scarborough until 9 August.

He also allegedly cancelled a crucial meeting to make the Yorkshire getaway possible.

Students from Codsall Community High School march to Williamson's constituency office. (Getty)

I cancelled our family holiday abroad this year to focus on the challenges COVID-19 created for the education sector. Over the summer, I went to see family in Scarborough for the first time since lockdown, and while there I was in constant communication with the Department.  Gavin Williamson (@GavinWilliamson) August 23, 2020

But Williamson defended the trip on social media on Sunday, claiming he was in constant communication with the department [of education] while visiting family.

I cancelled our family holiday abroad this year to focus on the challenges COVID-19 created for the education sector, he tweeted

Over the summer, I went to see family in Scarborough for the first time since lockdown, and while there I was in constant communication with the department.

It comes as Gillian Keegan, a Tory education minister, was also criticised on Sunday after sharing photographs of herself in France on Instagram as the results drama unfolded.

Keegan, 52, revealed on Instagram on August 6 that she was staying in Courchevel, an Alpine resort popular with the wealthy.

She posted a series of photos on her social media account over the next few days and even uploaded a photo on the day that A-level results were released.

Williamson was further criticised after he appeared to have liked several of Keegans pictures.

Story continues

Labour MP Neil Coyle told the Mail on Sunday: Gavin Williamsons incompetence truly knows no bounds.

Young people who have been put through hell over the last few weeks will be disgusted to learn that one of the ministers involved in this mess has been living it up on holiday in France.

But instead of Mr Williamson recognising he needed all hands on deck as this exam disaster loomed, he not only let her swan off on holiday, he even liked her holiday snaps.
Margaret Mazer / Contributed Photo

WESTPORT  An individual was hospitalized after experiencing a medical emergency while in the waters off Cockenoe Island Saturday afternoon, according to police.

Around 1:35 p.m., members of the police departments Marine Unit responded to the waters off of Cockenoe Island after a call about an unresponsive man, police said.
WASHINGTON  Several rows of stage lights could be seen peeking above the colonial style windows of the West Wing when the sun rose Friday as the atmosphere of the White House began to transition, for the first time, into a purely political venue.

Behind the scenes this past week, campaign and convention staffers began work on the White House South Lawn setting up lights, speakers and a stage that would be used for President Donald Trump to deliver his acceptance speech as the Republican Partys presidential nominee. Trucks brought in long metal poles and beams, and construction equipment was set up adjacent to the Rose Garden.

It is unprecedented in modern politics for the White House to be used as the site of an explicitly political event, with past presidents maintaining some boundaries between the office of the presidency and their re-election bids.

Trump has been smashing those norms for months  attacking Democratic rival Joe Biden from the Rose Garden and playing campaign-style videos in the White House briefing room  but his prime-time convention address will represent the most blatant blurring of the lines yet.

In suggesting the White House for his acceptance speech after surging coronavirus cases forced him to cancel plans for a large in-person convention, Trump said earlier this month it would be a very convenient location that would be by far the least expensive location. There would be very little in terms of that tremendous traveling, security with airplanes and everybody flying all over the place. I think it would be a very convenient idea.

But since the convention speech is a political activity, the expense of traveling to deliver it would have been borne by Trump's campaign, not taxpayers. The potential cost and inconvenience also didnt stop Trump from making four other campaign stops across the country this week in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Most of the setup at the White House has been kept out of view. The windows on a pair of French doors facing the Rose Garden that reporters can typically see through were covered. At one point Friday, the doors were briefly left open, providing a view of construction equipment and workers milling about.

Story continues

Days of construction on the White House grounds even upended the presidents usual routine. Trump was unable to take the Marine One helicopter Thursday to Andrews Air Force base, motorcading instead.

The stage setup with overhead lights appeared to be half the height of the White House and resembled that of an outdoor music festival, with large speakers off to the side. Unlike Biden, Trump is expected to have a visible live audience for his remarks that will include members of Congress.

At least one other convention speech will be made from the White House grounds with first lady Melania Trump expected to make her speech from the recently renovated Rose Garden. The nearby Trump hotel will serve as a workspace for convention staffers.

Image: ***BESTPIX*** White House Holds Media Preview Of Renewed Rose Garden (Drew Angerer / Getty Images)

Trump had pushed to hold an in-person convention, first in North Carolina then in Florida, but abruptly canceled those plans just over 30 days before it was set to begin, sending staffers scrambling to come up with an alternative plan. It was only on Monday that Trump announced he had settled on the White House for his speech.

The Trump campaign and Republican National Committee have said they will reimburse the federal government for any taxpayer resources used.

White House lawyers have briefed staffers on what they can and cannot do as part of the convention planning and participation, and White House press staffers last week were quick to say they had no involvement in the convention planning outside their office doors, telling reporters to direct any questions to the Trump campaign.

These government staffers are technically covered by the Hatch Act, which limits the political activities that federal employees can engage in to ensure that federal policies are carried out in a nonpartisan fashion and to protect federal workers from political coercion.

But some aides acknowledged it's a difficult line to toe.

"Even in unprecedented circumstances  it looks bad," conceded one Republican official.

After ethics concerns about the event were raised by members of Congress, Erica Hamrick, the deputy chief of the Hatch Act Unit for the Office of Special Counsel, issued a memo saying there were no issues with Trump delivering his address from the White House, since he and the vice president aren't covered by the Hatch Act. But she did have a warning for other staffers involved in the event.

"The President and Vice President are not covered by any of the provisions of the Hatch Act. Accordingly, the Hatch Act does not prohibit President Trump from delivering his RNC acceptance speech on White House grounds," Hamrick wrote. "However, White House employees are covered by the Hatch Act, so there may be Hatch Act implications for those employees, depending on their level of involvement with the event and their position in the White House."

She said employees would not be able to assist with the proceedings or attend while they are on duty or if it were to occur in a federal room or building. But the Hatch Act wouldn't apply if the employees did so on their personal time and if the event were held on the White House lawn or in the residence.

It's an opinion top Trump advisers have embraced.

I've been helping in my personal capacity, and I'll be speaking myself, said White House counselor Kellyanne Conway when asked about what to expect from the convention. I think that you're going to see and hear from many Americans whose lives have been positively impacted and measurably and consequently changed due to the efforts and the policies of President Trump and Vice President Pence.
Dhaka, Aug 23 (UNI) Bangladesh Agriculture Minister Dr M Abdur Razzaque on Sunday sought cooperation from India in terms of agro-processing and farm mechanization as both the countries have a lot of opportunities to work together to this end.

We need Indian assistance for enhancing agro-processing and marketing of the agricultural commodities as our main goal is commercialization and modernization of the agriculture, he said.

The agriculture minister made the comment when Indian High Commissioner in Bangladesh Riva Ganguly Das

made a courtesy call on him at his ministry office at the secretariat here today.

During the call on, they discussed bilateral issues and how the two neighboring countries can cooperate each other on agriculture, livestock, agro-engineering and dairy sectors.

Dr Razzaque said, Under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh already has brought

tremendous success in agriculture which once was less productive, but the country is still lags behind in agro-

processing and commodity marketing.

Dr Razzaque said, On the other hand, the minister said India is far advance in these areas compared to Bangladesh, he said, adding: So, we need Indian cooperation to bring changes in the sector.

Terming India as a true friend of Bangladesh, he said, as we have deep relationship between us, we strongly believe that the cooperation in all areas, including economic, social and cultural, would further strengthen.

Lauding Bangladeshs success in agriculture sector, the Indian high commissioner said there are lots of

opportunities between the two countries to cooperate each other in agro-processing, dairy, agro-engineering and light engineering.

During the discussion, she also assured the minister of providing all-out cooperation in the agriculture sector.

Agriculture Secretary M Nasiruzzaman was present during the call on.

UNI MAZ SHK2303
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-24 01:00:37|Editor: huaxia

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The logo of TikTok is displayed on the screen of a smartphone on a computer screen background in Arlington, Virginia, the United States, Aug. 3, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

-- Video platform TikTok's parent company ByteDance said it will file a lawsuit against the U.S. government to safeguard its rights and interests, while prepare a shutdown plan for its business in the United States.

-- Besides ByteDance's lawsuit, its U.S. employees are also planning to take the Trump administration to court over the executive order signed by the U.S. president.

-- The litigation itself is of great significance as it will not only bring legal and public pressure to the U.S. government, but may also become a landmark event for Chinese enterprises to protect their rights.

BEIJING, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- ByteDance, owner of the popular video platform TikTok, announced Sunday that it will file a lawsuit against the U.S. government Tuesday, Beijing time, to protect its rights and interests while beginning to prepare a shutdown plan for its business in the United States.

"Over the past year, we have earnestly sought to communicate with the U.S. government, and provided solutions regarding its concerns. But the U.S. administration disregarded facts, disobeyed necessary legal procedures, and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses," ByteDance said in a statement. "To ensure that the rule of law is not discarded, and that our company and users are treated fairly, we announce that we will officially file a lawsuit to safeguard our interests."

Besides the lawsuit, the company is also preparing for the worst -- a shutdown plan to keep its employees in the United States on the payroll, even if the app is shut down in the country.

U.S. authorities have repeatedly accused TikTok of being a potential threat to U.S. national security since last year.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Aug. 6, blocking all transactions with ByteDance, to address "the national emergency."

The New York Times, however, reported on Aug. 7 that even the Central Intelligence Agency assessed that there is no evidence showing China had intercepted TikTok's data, or used the app to intrude on users' mobile phones.

The order was to take effect within 45 days. On Aug. 14, the president signed another executive order, this time giving ByteDance 90 days to sell or spin off TikTok in the United States.

There has been no evidence to show that TikTok poses a threat to U.S. national security, according to TikTok's U.S. General Manager Vanessa Pappas.

File photo shows the Tiktok app icon (upper right corner) on a smartphone screen. (Xinhua/Shi Zhongyu)

TikTok has more than 100 million users, over 1,500 employees and thousands of business partners in the United States, according to ByteDance.

A shutdown, if it occurs, would cause ByteDance a loss of at least 200 billion yuan (28.94 billion U.S. dollars) at a rumored sale of 20 billion U.S. dollars to 50 billion U.S. dollars, the company said.

ByteDance worries that, due to the extremely wide scope and highly uncertain content of the U.S. executive order against ByteDance, the company is unable to ensure that a solution acceptable to all parties can be reached within the time limit set by the U.S. government.

In just a few years, TikTok has become one of the most beloved apps among the global youth population, providing a platform for people to display their talent through short videos.

Since September 2018, TikTok usage among adults in the United States has increased exponentially, doubling and reaching 14.3 million in just six months, recording the third-highest number of downloads in the world.

Data from app analytics firm Sensor Tower showed that it was the most downloaded non-gaming app globally in June 2020, and its installs were much higher than those of Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube during the first two quarters in the United States.

Besides the company's lawsuit, its U.S. employees are also planning to take the Trump administration to court over the executive order.

Under the pretext of national security, the U.S. government is obviously abusing state power to suppress Chinese high-tech enterprises, said Huo Zhengxin, a professor in international law at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing.

From a legal perspective, such actions from the U.S. have no basis, Huo said, noting that the hastily-issued executive order did not give TikTok any opportunity to defend itself. The U.S. oppression on TikTok is probably unprecedented, he noted.

"The litigation itself is of great significance. First, this is an important measure for the Chinese enterprise to protect its rights, which will bring legal and public pressure to the U.S. government," the professor said. "Second, it shows the confidence of Chinese companies and may become a landmark event for Chinese companies to protect their rights."

(Reporting by Ma Yunfei, Cheng Lu, Li Laifang, Yang Na, Huang Heng, Xie Hao) 
Subscribers might want to enjoy the podcast with their children out of the room. Unlike the mayor's former radio program, there are no federal profanity restrictions on McDermott's word choices, and the show's "cuss counter" is averaging 50 or so for each 80-minute episode.

"You can do whatever the hell you want," McDermott said. "I've been to listening to lots of podcasts to try to get an idea of what's allowed, and basically I came to the conclusion you can do any God damn thing you want when you're on the internet."

While McDermott insisted the podcast always will have a Region focus, he hopes in time it will garner viewers and listeners in Chicago, Indianapolis, and across the country who are attracted to his brand of moderate Democratic politics, freewheeling style, and interesting guests, beginning with his father, former Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Sr.

"We can go as long as we want. Like, if a show sucks then we can kill it. If the show is killing it, we keep rolling," McDermott said.

"By the way, when we do afternoon shows, I'm going to have a drink, for sure. I would do a drink at the morning shows, but then people would get the wrong idea about me."
Rishi Sunaks tenure as UK Chancellor of the Exchequer is reaching a defining moment as he decides whether millions of workers living off government aid should soon begin fending for themselves in a crippled economy.

In just over two months, his furlough plan paying up to 80% of an employees salary will finish. Sunak has dismissed mounting pressure to extend the program, whose cost now exceeds 35 billion pounds ($46 billion), albeit rising more slowly than before.

The hard line by the Conservative chancellor has raised the stakes at a time when reversing his stance would add to a list of embarrassing government U-turns. But ending furloughs could condemn millions to a sudden cash shortfall, and even a jobless future. Having helped vulnerable Britons with aid, Sunak has also put their fate in his hands.

The ultimate danger is that the labor-market fallout from ending support might entrench the UKs recession. That could invoke memories of Margaret Thatchers government, whose economic transformation in the 1980s set foundations for future growth at a cost of eye-watering unemployment that tarnished the Conservatives political brand for years.

This decision may be one of the most important decisions Sunak makes in this crisis, said Carsten Jung, a senior economist at the Institute for Public Policy Research. It will probably determine the shape of the labor market for the better part of the next five years. Once unemployment goes up, its really hard to get it back down.

In a year when Prime Minister Boris Johnsons government has bounced from crisis to crisis, Sunaks furlough plan was a rare success, raising the chancellors profile compared with colleagues. The programs scale surprised economists, supporting 9.6 million jobs and preventing mass unemployment.

But the Bank of England still sees joblessness reaching 7.5% this year, almost double the current level, and warns the labor market poses the biggest risk to any recovery.

Sunaks key problem is that restrictions to control the virus may persist after his aid program finishes at the end of October. Around 12% of the workforce is furloughed, and the IPPR estimates 3 million people will be relying on the plan at its conclusion, two-thirds of whose jobs would be sustainable if help were extended.

Taper Timetable

Sunaks options range from carrying through his plan to end furloughs, to extending them after all, even only partially, or replacing them with something else. Other countries from Germany to Canada are already preparing to swallow the debt cost of shifting support programs further into the future.

As the clock ticks for Sunak, heres a look at what U.K. think tanks are suggesting he should do.

Do Nothing

With public debt now above 2 trillion pounds, Sunak could simply let the plan expire and hope other measures announced this summer will support jobs. They include a 2 billion-pound program to pay wages of more than 200,000 young workers, and a 1,000-pound bonus for firms that keep on employees returning from furlough.

The government cannot continue to underwrite the wages of large portion of the economy, said Ben Harris-Quinney, chairman of the Bow Group, a think tank close to the Conservative Party. The alternative is worse: a debt crisis similar to post-2008.

Another argument against any extension is that it could prevent the economy readjusting to a new reality, delaying painful restructuring.

But Luke Raikes, research director for the Fabian Society -- a group close to the opposition Labour Party -- insists the consequences of a sudden end to furloughs would still be severe as joblessness spirals. He says the government should then devote extra aid to the unemployed and ramp up investment in skills and training, particularly for young workers and those over 50.

Extend the Plan

At the cost of a political about-face -- and yet more debt -- Sunak could keep furloughs going for longer.

Such a move would be relatively inexpensive, according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, an independent research group. It says keeping the plan until the middle of 2021 would cost about 10 billion pounds and pay for itself by reducing long-term unemployment.

An alternative option offered by the Resolution Foundation is to maintain furloughs in sectors most damaged by the crisis.

A slower phase out for hard-hit sectors like hospitality, retail and leisure will be evidently sensible, said Daniel Tomlinson, a senior economist there.

Something New

Sunak could end furloughs while keeping some aid in place by unveiling a totally new program.

One idea from the IPPR is to replace the current plan with a Coronavirus Work-Sharing Scheme targeting only jobs and businesses likely to be sustainable. It would run through March and cost 7.9 billion pounds.

The Resolution Foundation proposes a job-sharing initiative where two people work part-time on the same role, with the state paying for non-worked hours. It also suggests a subsidy plan for firms in hard-hit sectors.

We need a new innovation for the second part of the crisis, said IPPRs Jung. If theres a way to help hold onto workers, it would really make a huge difference.
"We're prepared to do that and we've got contingencies built in for a kind of 'if-then' thinking," he said. "We believe, at least based on all our preparations, we should be able to contain things and not have to put everything back to where we were in March.

"We're pretty confident we can make this work, and we won't end up in a situation that's all or none as we move forward," Green added.

But much of making it work comes back to student behavior. The president of the University of North Carolina system said "a very small number of students behaving irresponsibly off campus" led to the broader campus community being punished by going back to remote learning.

Seeking to stave off a similar move, University of Tennessee-Knoxville Chancellor Donde Plowman  a former executive vice chancellor at UNL  said she "won't hesitate" to expel students who go to house parties or other gatherings where the virus can be easily transmitted.

Green said UNL has a similar expectation of its students, pointing to the student code of conduct, which allows the university to bring up disciplinary proceedings against students who put others at risk.
Regarding Missouri universities plan for students to return amid virus (Aug. 12): I am an adjunct professor of psychology at St. Louis Community College. My students are not in their late teens. My students are primarily older African Americans, many of whom come to class dressed in scrubs after working all day in nursing homes or as nursing aides in hospitals.

Full-time professors were given the option to teach online courses, but some adjuncts (who have virtually no job security) are expected to teach face-to-face. I have a class capped at 20 people for face-to-face instruction, despite the colleges own recommendation that face-to-face meetings should be avoided, and should be 10 or fewer people if an in-person meeting is vital.

I am scared. I am overweight and have chronic fatigue syndrome, both of which put me at higher risk of infection. My family members are also high risk.

There have been multiple coronavirus cases across our campuses this summer, and those occurred when the campuses were almost deserted. How much greater is that risk now? We are literally being given a bag of cleaning supplies and expected to go forward. This is dangerous for both students and professors.

The St. Louis County Health Department and County Executive Sam Page need to issue explicit guidance for colleges and universities, and St. Louis Community College needs to do more to protect its most vulnerable instructors and students.

Janessa Hall  Woodson Terrace
Many bereaved families are suffering at the hands of heartless local authorities unwilling to extend council tax exemptions on empty properties that could not be sold during lockdown.

The Mail on Sunday has been flooded with heartbreaking stories of grieving relatives hit with unexpected council tax bills following our report on the issue last week.

Most were unaware they had six months after gaining legal control of a loved one's empty home  through the process known as probate  to sell it before council tax would start to be charged again.

Bills shock: Linda Constant and her mother Violet who died last year

Harry Fone, of the campaign group the TaxPayers' Alliance, says it is 'deeply unfair' that bereaved families have been put 'through the wringer'.

He adds: 'The pandemic has had a devastating impact on many people, both emotionally and financially. Now, more than ever, taxpayers should be able to retain as much of their income as possible.

'Local authorities need to exercise restraint and understanding rather than increasing the burden on already hard-pressed ratepayers.'

Linda Constant is among those to have been sent a council tax bill out of the blue.

Her mother passed away in June last year and Linda was still getting to grips with her loss in March when a council tax demand arrived from Bromley Council in South-East London for 231 a month. Her mother, Violet, had been exempt from council tax due to her age and frail physical condition.

Violet died aged 98 after a long struggle with dementia. But Linda was unaware that she would be liable for council tax on her mother's house once six months had elapsed since she was granted probate.

The four-bedroom detached property was put on the market in September 2019. But Linda, 74, says it was impossible to sell as it was in need of major renovations.

Then the property market came to a shuddering halt in March as soon as lockdown was imposed. Linda argued with Bromley Council that she had been desperately trying to sell the property, but says it was 'less than sympathetic'.

The council offered to defer the payments for three months, but Linda didn't think it was worth it.

'I am not getting any benefit from the council and am also having to pay council tax on my own home,' she says. 'It would be much fairer if councils agreed to halve the bill in cases where homes are proving difficult to sell. I am a pensioner myself and it has not been easy making the payments.'

Violet's home has now been sold, with completion scheduled for next month. Bromley Council said it was 'following' Government guidance and that residents could 'apply to a hardship fund'  resulting in a possible bill reduction.

The Mail on Sunday has been flooded with heartbreaking stories of grieving relatives hit with unexpected council tax bills following our report on the issue last week (stock image)

Denny Broadwell, 69, thought that she had found an effective solution to fund her mother's care fees when she moved into a residential home nearly four years ago.

But she had no idea that this would later make her liable for council tax on her mother's house.

Her mother, Stella Peters, moved into a care home in November 2016 and her bungalow in Christchurch, Dorset, was let to tenants to help pay the fees. Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council also had a 'charge' against the property to subsidise the care fees.

Stella died aged 92 in October last year and the tenants moved out the following month so it could be sold. But bad news followed as the local authority said council tax would be levied until the house was sold.

Denny says: 'We were told by the council that if Mum had died while living in the property we would have had a six-month grace period before council tax was charged again. But because she was in a care home and it had been rented out we would have to pay council tax straight away.

'Surely, if a parent passes away and leaves a property to be sold, council tax should either be stopped or reduced until the property is disposed of?'

Stella's home was finally sold in May, but Denny, who also lives in Christchurch, says a reprieve would have been helpful especially given the 84,100 charge on the home in lieu of care fees.

Last week,the council said it understood the 'difficulties' some people had experienced in selling unoccupied properties, but it was following government guidelines.

Anguish: We revealed the councils' harsh tactics

Although Rosemary Lovell, 74, lives in Eastbourne, East Sussex, she is being held responsible for a 1,800-a-year council tax bill on a two-bedroom bungalow more than 300 miles away in Cornwall.

This is because she is a named beneficiary with her two sisters in the will of her uncle, Terence Smithers, who died aged 86 in October last year.

Rosemary was aware that there is usually a six-month council tax exemption after probate is granted. But she says the council gave only a one-month exemption, adding: 'We had a buyer lined up in March, but then the pandemic hit and he decided to stop the purchase. The bungalow is not sold, through no fault of mine, but I am being penalised because of the pandemic.'

To make matters worse, the bill is based on the full rate of council tax, rather than the reduced single-person rate her uncle paid.

Rosemary adds: 'It is not right that I should have to pay full council tax on an empty bungalow  and pay more than my uncle was paying.

'The council says we can still use the bungalow. But we are all in our seventies and live hundreds of miles away.

'Its attitude throughout has been unhelpful and distressing at a time when help is deeply appreciated.'

Cornwall Council said it could not comment on individual cases but claims its procedures are clear and applied consistently.
Thousands of Mercedes car owners in Britain could be in line for up to 10,000 each after a law firm set up a group claim over the diesel emissions scandal.

Fox Williams has teamed up with American lawyers from Hagens Berman to investigate possible claims against Mercedes-Benz in England and Wales.

The claims relate to dirty emissions in Mercedes-Benz's 'BlueTEC' diesel vehicles. It is alleged that these vehicles emitted pollution at higher levels in everyday use than they did in tests when a defeat device deliberately hid the levels of nitrogen oxide.

Signing up: Fox Williams has teamed up with American lawyers from Hagens Berman to investigate possible claims against Mercedes-Benz in England and Wales

Hagens Berman's claim in America led to a $700 million payout to US-based owners of the German cars.

Fox Williams estimates that there are up to 1.2 million potential claimants who own, or previously owned, Mercedes-Benz vehicles in the UK that have been affected by dirty emissions.

They could receive between 3,000 and 10,000 per car.

Mercedes-Benz said: 'The emissions control system of US vehicles differs in comparison to vehicles in Europe both with respect to hardware components and configuration of the control software.

In addition, the legal framework and certification process in the US is different to that in Europe.

'We believe the claims brought forward by the UK law firms are without merit, and will vigorously defend against any group action.'
New Delhi, Aug 24 : Around the same time that Turkey was converting the historic Chora church of Istanbul into a mosque, Pakistan demolished an old Hanuman temple in Lyari, Karachi. Also demolished were the homes of about 20 Hindu families that lived near the temple.

After Hindus from the locality gathered around the rubble of the ancient temple and protested, police made investigations and sealed the area. Pakistani newspaper, The Express Tribune reported that Lyari's Assistant Commissioner Abdul Karim Memon has ordered a probe against the builder who has demolished the temple.

Locals said that a builder had allegedly purchased the land around the temple and wanted to build a residential complex. Though he had promised the Hindus that the temple would not be touched, he demolished the temple and Hindu homes amid a coronavirus induced lockdown.

Mohammad Irshad Baloch, a local, told The Express Tribune: "It is an injustice as a place of worship has been destroyed. It was an old temple. We have been seeing it since we were children." Another resident, Harsh said: "No one was allowed to visit the temple during the lockdown. He (the builder) exploited the situation (of the pandemic) and demolished our place of worship while we could not visit it", and demanded that the temple be restored. He added that the families living around it were even assured of alternative housing.

Mohan Lal, a Hindu activist, accused the builder of threatening members of the minority community who had assembled at the site and highlighted the temple's demolition. "We tried to enter the temple but were denied entry by the builder," he narrated.

Interestingly, the South Deputy Commissioner Irshad Ahmed Sodhar told The Express Tribune that there had been two temples earlier, but one had been removed earlier. Promising justice, Sodhar said: "A committee will be formed for the purpose, including an archaeologist, and the probe will be completed within seven days. We will ensure that everyone will get justice." Brick by brick, Pakistan has been getting rid of its Hindu heritage. Its Hindu minority - a handful in number, lies battered in a few pockets under the fear of conversions and kidnappings of women. With every passing year, the numbers have been dwindling.

Since the partition of India in 1947, Pakistan has made vigorous efforts to shake off thousands of years of rich Hindu, Jain and Buddhist history that dominated the region before Islam took roots as Haroon Khalid writes in this baleful feature, "How archaeology in Pakistan is forced to deny the nation's Hindu past". Even hard evidence in the form of archaeology is made evasive and forced to twist in deference to Islam.

The governments have been reluctant to accept the nation's non-Islamic heritage which keeps propping up every now and then. Just last year during excavations, which had been stopped for a considerable number of years, Hindu statues and artifacts were discovered near the 1,500-year-old Panchmukhi Hanuman Mandir in Karachi.

The search for a Muslim identity or an Islamic civilization in the land of the pure is akin to the quest for the holy grail. Unfortunately, the past - whether in the culture, the language or the history always takes a u-turn and brings back the seekers to its ancient roots - of a Hindu civilization which stood long and well-entrenched with a built heritage of temples going back 1,500 years.

The frustration has developed into resistance towards acceptance and cherishing of a minority culture and its symbols. This hate has spread across the land. It is not confined to a handful of regions or people. The poison against minorities, particularly Hindus, has seeped deep into the society. Since separation from India, hundreds of Pakistan temples have quietly disappeared and many have morphed into shops, mosques and other buildings. The efforts to erase the past have been vociferous.

Demolition and conversion of minority places of worship is not new in Pakistan. Almost every month there is a new controversy - a temple razed to the ground or converted into a mosque. Rewind to June when Prime Minister Imran Khan wanted to prove his secular credentials and allotted money to build a Krishna temple in Islamabad, but the boundary wall of the temple was demolished within days.

However, on the other side, there have been some noteworthy examples, where Pakistanis have taken the efforts to document their heritage. A few years back, Karachi-based journalist and author Reema Abbasi, painstakingly brought out a well-researched book, "Historic Temples in Pakistan: A Call to Conscience", with amazing photographs of Pakistani temples.

Once in a rare while, even the government has taken steps to give the temples, and also the minorities, the recognition they deserve. There was much celebration and cheer when the Imran Khan government opened up a historic Hindu temple in Sialkot for worship after 72 years. However, such examples are few and far between for a country where the number of temples has come down from well over 400 to a dozen in barely 70 years.

For the moment, Pakistan seems to be basking in the reflected glory of a new-found and diabolical friend Turkey. Both have made converting minority religions places into mosques a pastime. Turkey has converted two historical churches into mosques while the Pakistanis have demolished two temples during the same time.

Nevertheless, the 73-odd-year old Pakistan might it difficult to shake off a 5,000-year-old history that lies prolifically scattered across the length and breadth of the country.

(This content is being carried under an arrangement with indianarrative.com)
James Wan on the set of the first Aquaman movie

Anyone expecting (waterproof) fireworks from DC FanDomes Aquaman event would have been a bit disappointed, with no major image reveals, trailers, or cast updates. But we did get some intriguing information from director James Wan about the new films tone.

Wan was in conversation with Orm himself, Patrick Wilson, and revealed the sequel will go in a surprising new direction.

Read more: Michael Keatons Batman designs Barry Allens new Flashpoint costume

The second one is a little bit more serious, and a little bit more relevant to the world were in today, James Wan said. Thats where it wants to go.

Thats pretty intriguing, especially as so much of the praise for the first film came from its fun tone, and bright feel. Is the world ready for a gritty Aquaman?

Asked what he wants from the sequel, Wilson told Wan hed like to see the underwater world expand even more.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - DECEMBER 03: Jason Momoa, Patrick Wilson, Amber Heard and James Wan discuss "Aquaman" with the Build Series at Build Studio on December 03, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)

Im excited for some new worlds, hopefully. Im just throwing that out there, because I know you love world-building. Id like to see some of that, where else we can go, because I know youre going to push that ocean. Theres a lot of unexplored ocean out there, we only know 5% of the ocean.

Thats true! Wan replied. I can definitely guarantee you new worlds in this next one. And I think youre going to be very excited, as an actor, with what youre going to play with Orm.

Read more: Dwayne Johnson confirms Justice Society of America line-up for 'Black Adam'

Am I handcuffed the entire time? Wilson joked. Its made of seaweed, right? I can just eat my way through it?

So, a bit of an empty net when it comes to Aquaman scoops this time out, but hopefully next years DC FanDome event (which will be closer to Aquaman 2s 2022 release date) will contain a few more juicy morsels, fresh from the sea.

And, hey, these panels cant all include The Suicide Squad character reveals, or new Wonder Woman 1984 trailers, or international #SnyderCut distributions scoops, we guess

Stay tuned to Yahoo Movies UK for all the latest DC updates, and theres still some cool stuff to come on DC FanDome - including THE BATMAN.
Hong Kong: 25 COVID-19 cases reported

(To watch the full press briefing with sign language interpretation, click here.)

The Centre for Health Protection today announced it is investigating 25 additional confirmed COVID-19 cases, of which 19 are locally infected.

Of the local cases, 11 are related to previous ones and eight are those with unknown sources of infection.

The centres Communicable Disease Branch Head Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan told a press briefing this afternoon that one of the cases is a truck driver who works at the Kwai Tsing Container Terminals.

Dr Chuang said the driver lives in the Wong Tai Sin area, so he may have gotten the infection from the community.

It is possible that he might have got the disease from his working place. Of course, as he also lives in the Wong Tai Sin area, its also possible he got the infection from the community.

For consistencys sake, we have classified him as part of the Kwai Tsing Container Terminals cluster.

Three other cases involve people working at Hong Chi Lei Muk Shue Hostel residential care home for the disabled.

Dr Chuang pointed out that they were identified by the Social Welfare Departments routine screening.

It is possible that there are some unknown transmissions in the home. So thats why we need to quarantine and test all the residents and the staff - at least quarantine them.

We understand that because of the physical and mental condition of the residents, sometimes its very difficult to ask them to wear the mask properly. Thats why theres a chance of transmission in the care home.

For information and health advice on COVID-19, visit the Government's dedicated webpage.

This story has been published on: 2020-08-23. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
The Goa unit of Congress party has firmly sided with the Gandhi family in the midst of a storm raging inside the grand old party over the question of leadership and restructuring of the organization.

The Goa Congress on Sunday said that the party needed to unite behind the Gandhis to defeat the BJP, echoing a sentiment expressed by several party leaders, who expressed their disagreement with another group within the party that triggered the debate by seeking sweeping changes in the organization including devolution of centralized power through collective leadership.

Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat tweeted to say that it was important to unite behind the leadership.

The Nation looks at @INCIndia as peoples (sic) voice in critical times of Covid Pandemic. Mrs. Sonia Gandhi has led the Congress Party keeping everyone united during crisis. Lets (sic) us discuss how to strengthen her & @RahulGandhi jis hands to defeat the divisive @BJP4India, Kamat said in a tweet.

His tweet was retweeted by state Congress president Girish Chodankar while other party workers shared tweets with the hashtag #IstandwithRahulGandhi.

Chodankar called the demand for a restructure absurd.

Also Read: Reports of Sonia Gandhi resigning as Congress president false: Randeep Surjewala

We should stand unitedly with our President & support #RahulGandhi who is exposing the misdeeds of this Govt becoming [a] common mans voice. At a time when the Gandhis are fighting to help people facing the wrath of the Coronavirus on one hand and on the other fighting to save the Democracy of Our great Nation. A demand for a restructure at this point is absurd, Chodankar said in a series of tweets.

Also Read: Letter vs letter: After 23 Congress leaders question leadership, others come out in support of Sonia Gandhi

The Goa leadership, despite being depleted by the exodus of more than two thirds of the MLAs, is gearing up to take on the BJP in the 2022 assembly polls that are little more than a year away. The party is expected to field a host of fresh faces to replace those who have since exited the party.
Mikail Jaffer is about to start his junior year at Moravian Academy, and isnt yet sure what he wants to pursue after graduation.

But one thing that's clear is he isn't afraid to set his sights high.
As in 2016, a recent Pew Research Poll shows 82% of white evangelicals will again likely vote for Donald Trump. Despite four years of his bullying, incompetent Republic busting odious ways, evangelicals would give an unfit, amoral bully and dangerous autocrat another pass against all they claim to honor in the teaching of their Lord, Jesus Christ.

Columnist Elizabeth Dias states in her op-ed piece regarding a 2016 Trump Dordt University speech, Christianity Will Have Power, "Evangelicals did not support Mr. Trump in spite of who he is. They supported him because of who he is, and because of who they are. He is their protector, the bully who is on their side, the one who offered safety amid their fears that their country as they know it, and their place in it, is changing, and changing quickly." The ancient Israelites asked God for a king instead of looking to Him when feeling beaten up by Philistines. They received oppressive King Saul. Evangelicals have felt beaten up in the culture wars and asked for King Trump. They should know better; instead, they brought America our own metaphoric Kings Saul, Zedekiah and Ahab in one royal hybrid American dystopian horror show.

If the strategy of Jesus had been political, He would have preached in Rome. Evangelicals, the self-proclaimed spiritual grandchildren of Protestantisms great Reformers, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli have forgotten their motto "Sola Scriptura" (only scripture). Evangelicals admire and again crave a lying buffoon whose record shows he is incapable of the Prophet Micah's call to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God. These values don't exist and aren't understood by a biblically, constitutionally illiterate and ungodly King Trump. Jesus' words in John 15:18 are ignored, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first."

The political disenfranchisement of His church has always been when the light and love of Jesus shine brightest and most beneficial to the world. Trump is not evangelicals' metaphoric Persian King Cyrus as they justify in their Faustian bargain; Trump is the personified mirror image of America's sin, our racism, greed, pride, arrogance, division, materialism and self-seeking independence at the expense of others.

God's solution for America is not in Donald Trump nor any nexus of church and state. The Holy Roman Empire, Iranian mullah and our own Massachusetts Bay Colony's Puritan theocracies prove it. God's time proven solution is found in 2nd Chronicles 7:13-14: " When I shut up the heavens so there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if MY people who are called by MY name, will humble themselves, pray, seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land."

Bob Luceno is a 42-year resident of Missoula, Former Ward 3 Missoula City Council representative; formerly active in evangelical churches, service clubs, the business community, the arts and with his children through Missoula County Public Schools.

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An Arkansas farmer who reportedly 'confessed' to murdering a jogger he was said to have been 'familiar' with had won the 2016 Jackson County Farm Family of the Year.

Quake Lewellyn, 28, was charged with one count of capital murder after the body of Sydney Sutherland, 25, was discovered in Newport on Friday, according to online court records.

Lewellyn is said to have confessed to the crime, according to the parents of Sydney Sutherlands boyfriend Alex. Cathy Hood wrote: 'They have arrested the person that has committed this horrible crime. He has admitted doing this. Also pray for his family as they have to face what has happened.'

In 2016 Lewellyn, a Tuckerman High School graduate, was named as Jackson County Farm Family of the Year alongside his father Michael and grandfather Donald.

Quake told ArkansasOnline.com: 'Ive always worked on the farm. I began driving a yellow Ford,  hauling seed for dad. We all have our own farms, but we help each other out.'

Dad Michael added: 'We are a true family farm. From my dad, Donald, to me, to my son, Quake.' The family are said to own 5,800 acres in four counties.

Police found Sutherland's body following a three-day search operation using K-9 units and helicopter crews. She was last seen running on State Hwy 18 between Newport and Grubbs around 3pm on Wednesday.

Jackson County Sheriff David Lucas confirmed a man has been arrested in connection to her death and is expected to be charged with homicide, Fox 16 had reported.

Sydney Sutherland (left) 25, was found murdered near her home in Newport, Arkansas on Friday. Quake Lewellyn, 28, (right) a farmer from Jonesboro, has been named by local media as the man arrested Friday and charged in connection to her death

In 2016 Lewellyn, a Tuckerman High School graduate, was named as Jackson County Farm Family of the Year alongside his father Michael and grandfather Donald.

This still shared from Ring footage of a family member is believed to be the last picture of Sutherland and was taken just 90 minutes before she went on a run near her home Wednesday

Details on where exactly Sutherland's body was found and how she was killed were not immediately released.

'We do have a suspect in custody at this time. However I can't release his name until he's formally charged,' Lucas said in a press conference.

He was later identified by local news station KARK 4 on Saturday as Lewellyn.

Sutherland shared regular photos to Facebook of her work as a nurse. Pictured in her scrubs

Sydney was last seen running on State Hwy 18 near her home at around 3pm on Wednesday

He has been charged with one count of capital murder, according to online jail booking records cited by the outlet.

Footage from local media showed Lewellyn in handcuffs and being taken into the Arkansas State Police Headquarters in Newport on Friday.

Police said the man is a farmer from Jonesboro and was known to the victim, but the nature of their relationship is unclear.

Prior to Friday, police had discovered Sutherland's iPhone about a quarter-mile from her home.

She was reported to have gone on running with her phone and Apple Watch.

Dad Michael added: 'We are a true family farm. From my dad, Donald, to me, to my son, Quake.' The family are said to own 5,800 acres in four counties'

Quake told arkansasonline.com : 'Ive always worked on the farm. I began driving a yellow Ford,  hauling seed for dad. We all have our own farms, but we help each other out'

The alleged suspect 28-year-old Quake Lewellyn being taken into custody on Friday

Sutherland's body was found near her home on Friday however further details on where she was murdered and how she died were not immediately released

Sutherland lived with her boyfriend, pictured, and worked as a nurse at Harris Medical Center

A UPS driver reported to have seen Sutherland jogging in the area of Jackson County Road 41.

Other reports of a Texas truck being seen in the area were dismissed by police who said the rumor was damaging the investigation.

On Thursday, a relative shared what is now believed to be the last picture of Sutherland, taken from Ring footage at their house not long before she went on her run.

Sutherland worked as a nurse, according to her Facebook page

She is seen in pink sneakers, black shorts and a white tank top moving items on the trunk of a car.

Her car and other items remained at home as she went on her run and she was reported missing on Wednesday evening when she didn't return.

'This was at 1pm on 8/19/20 at our house. She went for a walk around 230pm by her house on HWY 18. Please help us find our sassy!!' wrote Summer Sutherland.

Her remains were found the next day just north of her home and the suspect was taken into custody a short time later.

The sheriff's office has not revealed how they identified the suspect or if evidence was found at the scene.

According to FOX16, the State Medical Examiners Office confirmed the identity of the body found Friday as Sydney Sutherland through DNA.

Her body has been sent to Arkansas Crime Lab as the investigation continues.

A bond hearing and arraignment may be as soon as Monday as after prosecutor Henry Boyce reviews the case and decides on formal charges, FOX16 states.

Sutherland worked as a nurse, according to her Facebook page, and lived with her boyfriend.

Sutherland was described by her coworkers as bright and outgoing

She regularly jogged along the highway near her home. Pictured with her boyfriend

The sheriff confirmed there was no indication of any issues with her boyfriend when the search was launched.

She worked at Harris Medical Center in Newport, where co-workers described her as bright and outgoing.

'Shes very close to her family,' her co-worker Jennifer Eddington told WMC5 before she was found.

'We just know that she wouldnt leave on her own without contacting somebody, thats not her nature at all.'

The sheriff has praised the local efforts in the search for Sutherland in what was a 'very tragic case'.

'Its taken a toll, it really has,' he said.

'Just because I know the people of this county. I know this family personally. I know this young lady personally. Ive known her and watched her grow up. It hits me personally.'

Sheriff Lucas said he knew Sutherland personally and described her death as 'tragic'

The close-knit Jackson County community has been left heartbroken by her death

Lines of cars had joined the search to find Sutherland in the small close-knit community.

Over 200 volunteers joined the sheriff's office along Highway 18 desperate for any signs of the missing woman.

'We are not surprised,' Eddington said. 'Jackson County is just that way. Were a close community. We just want her to be safe and be found.'

The discovery of her remains have left the community heartbroken as they share tributes to the young woman.

'I'm sitting here trying to find the words to say and I can't find none. No words can take away the pain Sydney's family is feeling,' wrote Jackson County Emergency Management on Facebook.

'I want to thank all the hundreds of volunteers who showed up over the last 3 days and helped in any way you could. I really do appreciate it and I tried to tell you all personally but if I missed you THANK YOU!'
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, on Saturday, were in a closed-door meeting in Abeokuta, th...

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, on Saturday, were in a closed-door meeting in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.





The meeting was held at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library Pent House immediately after the governor arrived at 2.30 pm.





The meeting ended after one hour and the governor reportedly left at 3.30 pm.





Obasanjos Special Assistant on Media, Kehinde Akinyemi, confirmed the development in a statement on Saturday.





The statement titled, Obasanjo Still Relevant For Consultations On Issues Of Governance And Challenges, described the visit by Tambuwal as an unscheduled one.





The statement partly read, After about an hour meeting behind closed doors with Obasanjo, the governor hinted that they had a successful parley and he was happy that the elder statesman was in high spirits despite the Covid-19 pandemic atmosphere.









Akinyemi quoted Tambuwal as saying, Baba is our leader and statesman. And it is always good for us to come around to see how he is doing, pay homage and consult him on very many issues of governance. That is why we have come this afternoon. And, we brought him the greetings and felicitations of the good people of Sokoto State.




Two more residents have been diagnosed with the SARS-CoV-2 virus in Vietnam, while national death toll has risen to 27 after a fatality was registered on August 23, the Ministry of Health reported at 18.00hrs.

Both fresh cases were detected in the community, with one in Quang Nam province and the other in Hai Duong province.

Foreign citizens register for COVID-19 tests in Da Nang

The Quang Nam case, 44, had taken care of a relative at Da Nang hospital where she had close contact with four COVID-19 patients. She first tested negative on August 18 but positive three days later after having a high temperature.

She is being quarantined at Da Nang Lung Hospital for observation and treatment.

Meanwhile, a 33-year-old man in Hai Duong city, Hai Duong province, tested positive on August 23 after contacting a COVID-19 patient closely tied to the ongoing outbreak at a restaurant on Ngo Quyen Street.

The man was sampled on August 20 and the results were confirmed three days later by the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology. He is now being treated at the Hai Duong Hospital of Tropical Diseases.

As of 18.00hrs August 23, Vietnam has registered 674 community acquired cases, including 534 cases linked to the Da Nang outbreak that occurred in late July. The remaining 341 cases were infected with the virus before they returned to Vietnam.

Of the 1,016 cases Vietnam has confirmed since January this year, 568 cases have been discharged from hospital after making a full recovery. August 23 alone saw five patients released from hospital.

The remaining 421 cases are receiving treatment at medical facilities across the country with 116 cases having tested negative at least once.

Also on August 23 the Ministry of Health announced another coronavirus fatality in Da Nang city, taking the death toll caused by the disease in Vietnam to 27.

Most of the fatalities were elderly people who suffered from serious illnesses such as end-stage kidney cancer, severe pneumonia, diabetes and multi-organ failure.

VOV

Foreign residents join Da Nang people to fight Covid-19 pandemic Many foreigners who are living and working in Da Nang are positively contributing to the fight against Covid-19 pandemic in the central city.
At least two other pedestrians were killed in the Washington region over the weekend. A man was killed about 2:30 a.m. Saturday in the 500 block of South Washington Street in Falls Church, police said. Another man was killed Friday night when a vehicle hit him at 16th and L streets NW in the District, police said.
Central agencies probing the sensational gold smuggling case in Kerala are now focusing their probe into the alleged import of holy books to the state from the UAE via diplomatic channel "without proper documentation", official sources said here on August 23.

Highly placed sources said the agencies are probing whether the consignments brought from the UAE "without proper documentation" were the Holy Quran or other smuggled items. "It appears that it is a huge scandal," a top official probing the case told PTI.

Kerala Higher Education Minister K T Jaleel is under the scanner of the central agencies after he publicly claimed that the consignments brought to Thiruvananthapuram during Ramzan month contained Holy Quran for distribution in his constituency, officials said.

Earlier, in a social media post, Jaleel had admitted to receiving copies of the Holy Quran from the UAE Consulate in Thiruvananthapuram. His name had also figured in the call list of Swapna Suresh,the key accused in the sensational gold smuggling case. Jaleel has said the calls were strictly professional.

The agencies said such a cargo came to India "without documentation" even from the place of its origin and that a probe is on to ascertain how the airline transported such a consignment.

The agencies also suspect that there could be smuggled goods among the consignments and it could be an "operation of security service".

Since there is no documentation of a confirmed source of origin of the large quantity of consignments, it could be "operation of security service" of a foreign country with a nefarious design, officials said.

"The Airline which had brought the consignment is being questioned. The Customs House agent hired by the UAE consulate in Thiruvananthapuram, who had apparently cleared this consignment, is also being questioned", a senior officer said.

Customs, NIA and the Enforcement Directorate are investigating the use of a state government establishment under Jaleels ministry for transporting the consignment.

Asked whether the Minister would be summoned for interrogating in the wake of his admission that the consignment contained Holy Quran, a top Customs official said "prima facie there is a violation of FCRA".

"Illegality has been committed in the case. With the confirmation given by the minister irrespective of the result of the probe being carried out by central agencies, it has already been established that FCRA violation has taken place", the official said.

He said the agencies have investigated the role of a lorry driver who had transported the consignment to north Kerala and neighbouring states as also the role of some officials in the establishment under Jaleel's department in the transportation of consignments.

The state protocol officer, responsible for permitting imports through diplomatic baggage, was already interrogated and has clarified that his office had not issued any permission for importing holy books during the last one year, the official said.

Jaleel has said he was ready to face any kind of investigation. "I'm ready to face any kind of probe in the case. I've already clarified that I'm ready to face any kind of investigation by any agency," he had said in a Facebook post.

The central agencies are learnt to have reported to the Home Ministry about the alleged FCRA violation committed by the Minister. It is the Home Ministry which takes decisions on which central agency should probe the cases related to FCRA violations, officials said.

The issue of the alleged FCRA violation came to light during the probe into the smuggling of gold through diplomatic channel, allegedly a racket being operated from India and abroad.

Several people, including key accused Swapna Suresh, Sandeep Nair and Sarith P S were arrested by the agencies including NIA, Customs and Enforcement Directorate probing the case.
GREENVILLE  President Donald Trump will touch down in the Upstate on Monday on the way to North Carolina for the Republican National Convention.

He will land by helicopter and depart by plane from Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport, according to a news release. The White House confirmed that no event is planned in South Carolina. Trump will arrive at the Greer airport on Marine One and depart on Air Force One.

Details of the trip were not available, but the GOP convention begins next week in Charlotte, and Trump is expected to make an appearance for delegates and attend another event near Asheville.

GOP officials in Charlotte are expected to vote to renominate Trump in a small in-person session on Monday, according to The Associated Press. And on Thursday night, he will use the South Lawn of the White House as the backdrop for his acceptance speech, the AP reported. The crux of his message is expected to be sounding the alarm over the consequences of a victory by Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

The Republican's last visit to the Palmetto State was in February, the night before the Democratic presidential primary.

The president held a Keep America Great rally at the North Charleston Coliseum to reinforce his South Carolina support. Voters here had solidified Trumps status as the 2016 Republican presidential nominee.

Supporters frequently broke into chants of four more years and waved his campaign signs. U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott were both invited onstage.

During his 90-minute speech Feb. 28  early in the pandemic for the United States  he said Democrats were using the coronavirus to undermine him.

They tried the impeachment hoax, Trump said, to reverberating boos from the thousands of people. And this is their new hoax."

He emphasized that no one had died here from the virus and said his administration was totally prepared to respond.

A virus starts in China, bleeds its way into various countries all around the world, doesnt spread widely at all in the United States because of the early actions that myself and my administration took, he said, before claiming that Democrats would still blame him for the coronavirus.

The rally marked Trumps sixth visit to the state since he was elected president, with previous stops including to support Gov. Henry McMasters election, to give a speech at Benedict College in Columbia, and to visit to the Boeing campus in North Charleston.

Cleve O'Quinn contributed to this report.
GOLDEN, CO - March 09: The Jefferson County Detention Facility, also known as the Jeffco jail, in Golden, Colorado on March 9, 2016. The detention center is designed to accommodate approximately 1,300 inmates in minimum to maximum-security units and houses both male and female detainees in separate housing modules. (Photo by Katie Wood/The Denver Post)
Labor appears to have survived the first major political test of the COVID-19 pandemic by retaining government at the Northern Territory election.

The counting of votes resumed at 10 a.m. on Aug. 23 after NT leader Michael Gunner told supporters in a late-night speech he would lead a Labor government following Saturdays election.

Labor is in front on the votes, Labor is in front on the seats and tonight I can tell you I am very confident Labor will form the next government of the Northern Territory, he said.

He paid tribute to health workers, police and other frontline staff who had helped the NT get through the pandemic with only 33 cases of COVID-19 and no deaths making it one of the safest places in the world.

Its not over yet. But for me, for our team, the most important battle of 2020 is not a contest between political parties.

It is a bigger fight, a fight that affects all of us, that requires all our effort to keep protecting Territorians through this crisis, the fight to keep our communities safe, to keep our small businesses open, to keep our people in work, the fight to save lives and save jobs. 

On Saturday night, Labor secured 38.9 percent of the primary vote to the Country Liberal Partys 31.8 percent.

Gunners team was on track to take at least 12 seats in the 25-seat assembly, despite a 3.3 percent swing against it.

But Labor scrutineers expected the 13th seat to be secured, delivering a majority. Labor had won 18 seats in the 2016 poll.

Despite strict rules on social distancing being the norm across the country, Gunner hugged and shook hands with supporters in Darwin.

Earlier, Country Liberal Party leader Lia Finocchiaro stepped up to the podium in a positive mood, having lifted her partys stocks from the two seats it took into the election.

It could pick up as many as nine seats but currently appears on track to clinch seven.

The 35-year-old lawyer, who has not conceded defeat, said she had started a new generation for the CLP.

There are still a lot of votes to count, but if there is one thing I know it is that the CLP is back.

The Territory Alliance formed by former chief minister Terry Mills was struck a blow with the party leader on track to lose his seat of Blain ending two decades in politics.

However, Mills was not formally conceding on Saturday night and remained positive that the NT needed an alternative to the major parties.

Territory Alliance could win at least one seat.

Gunner has faced both criticism and praise for his tough stance on COVID-19 border closures.

He comfortably retained his inner-Darwin seat.

A formal declaration of the poll is not scheduled until Sept. 7, three days after postal votes close.

In a sign of the impact of COVID-19 fears, only about 20 percent of voters cast their ballots on election day itself.

By Paul Osborne
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said Friday that he didn't feel pressure to select a black woman as a running mate because 'the government should look like the people'.

The former vice president was speaking with Good Morning America co-host, Robin Roberts, when she asked: 'Did you feel pressure to select a black woman?'

Biden was being interviewed alongside his running mate, Kamala Harris, on ABC News, when he responded: 'No, I didn't feel pressure to select a black woman.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said Friday that he didn't feel pressure to select a black woman as a running mate because 'the government should look like the people'

Biden was being interviewed alongside his running mate, Kamala Harris (both pictured) when he responded: 'No, I didn't feel pressure to select a black woman.' He explained that the 'government should look like the people, look like the country'

He explained that the 'government should look like the people, look like the country'.

'Fifty-one percent of the people in this country are women. As that old expression goes, "women hold up half the sky," and in order to be able to succeed, you've got to be dealt in across the board.'

Biden, who announced Harris as his running mate just one week before the Democratic National Convention, said: 'I cannot understand and fully appreciate what it means to walk in her shoes, to be an African-American woman, with Indian-American background, a child of immigrants.

'She cant assume exactly what it's like to walk in my shoes. What we do know is we have the same value set,' Biden said, adding that Harris 'fit the closest and the best,' in comparison to the other women who were under consideration.

The interview marks their first as running mates and comes just days after Biden and Harris were formally nominated at the DNC.

Harris has seen a favorability boost from the convention as she closed out Wednesday night with a speech accepting the vice presidential nomination and on Thursday, the last night of the convention, she appeared with Biden after his acceptance speech.

Biden, who announced Harris as his running mate a week before the Democratic National Convention, said: 'I cannot understand and fully appreciate what it means to walk in her shoes, to be an African-American woman, with Indian-American background, a child of immigrants'

The interview marks their first as running mates and comes just days after Biden and Harris (together on Thursday) were formally nominated at the DNC

Ahead of the convention, the California senator had a 35 per cent approval rating, and on Sunday the poll showed her at 41 per cent.

During the same interview, which is set to air Sunday night, when Biden was asked if he only plans to serve one term, he said 'no.'

'You're leaving open the possibility that you'll serve eight years if elected?' ABC host, David Muir, questioned.

'Absolutely,' the former vice president asserted.

Biden already holds a large majority of the favorability among the black community compared to President Donald Trump and his highest favorability in general is among that demographic with 69 per cent viewing him favorable.

Only 39 per cent of white American adults feel the same way and 52 per cent of Hispanics say they see the candidate in a good light.

Biden also saw his favorability among Democrats climb 7 per cent, from 79 to 86 per cent following the convention, which historically lends itself a boost to the nominated candidate's favorability.
Fans of the Subaru WRX hatchback werent exactly happy when Subaru announced that the new WRX would only come to the U.S. as a sedan. Then Subaru announced the 2015 Subaru Levorg, which was essentially a WRX wagon and one of the best-looking Subies in a long, long time. It, of course, was another forbidden fruit for those of us in the U.S. Now, Subaru is sticking it to U.S. Subie fans one more time with the Subaru Levorg STI  a model based on the Levorg S concept that debuted at the Tokyo Auto Salon in 2015.

So far we dont know a whole lot about the new Levorg STI, but Subaru has released a couple of images and a couple of videos to tease us before is debut this summer. At this point, were not sure if the Levorg STI will make it anywhere outside of the Japanese market, but considering the standard Levorg hasnt traveled this far, its not likely the Levorg STI will either. So, dont get your hopes up of ever seeing one on U.S. shores anytime soon.

Even though we have very little official information to go by right now, we can look back on the Levorg S concept to get an idea of what the Levorg will be like with the full STI treatment. So, with that said, lets dive on in a speculate a little on what is bound to be Japans hottest wagon come summer of 2016.

Continue reading to learn more about the 2017 Subaru Levorg STI.
Tens of thousands of people rallied in the Belarus capital Sunday and called for President Alexander Lukashenko to resign after disputed election results, a postelection crackdown, and a heavy military presence in the city.

Protesters, many wearing and waving the oppositions colors of red and white, chanted freedom and we will not forget, we will not forgive as they walked in the Minsk city center. They briefly gathered near the president's residence before dispersing peacefully.

While state media reported about 20,000 protesters took part, opposition-leaning media put the estimate at nearly 100,000 protesters, the French news agency reported.

The demonstrations began after the Aug. 9 election, in which Lukashenko claimed 80% of the vote. The results drew claims of fraud by opposition parties.

IT company director Yan Tamulyonok told the Associated Press he has been going to the protests each day to demand fair elections and freedom of speech. He said he believed the vote was rigged by the law-enforcement agencies and security services, who then violently dispersed protests.

The protests are seen as the biggest challenge Lukashenko has faced since he began to rule the Eastern European country of 9.5 million 26 years ago.

Lukashenko, seen on state media Sunday wearing body armor and carrying a rifle, called demonstrators rats.

Previously, he has used riot police to disperse rallies, but Reuters witnessed no clashes between police and protesters Sunday.

However, in the 15 days of protests, more than 7,000 people have been detained and hundreds beaten by police. Two people were killed in the postelection protests in Belarus, it has been confirmed.

The EU and United States have criticized the vote and condemned the postelection crackdown.

Ahead of Sundays rally, the Defense Ministry announced the army would take responsibility for protecting national memorials from protesters.

In a statement, the ministry said any unrest near such monuments and statues would no longer be responded to by police forces but by the army.

The statement came as army personnel were spotted being transported into Minsk in military transporters.

Thirty-one years ago, on August 23, 1989, an estimated 2 million people joined arms across the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in a protest against Soviet rule that became known as the "Baltic Way." Protesters formed a 600-kilometer-long human chain from Vilnius, Lithuania, to the Belarusian border. Two years later, the Baltic states would achieve their freedom.

On Sunday, mass protests were held in Lithuania and Latvia, and were scheduled to occur in Estonia and Prague, as a show of support for Belarus across the Baltics.

Organizers in Lithuania Sunday estimated up to 50,000 people took part in their rally. In Latvia, hundreds marched along the Belarus border, the French news agency reported. Elsewhere, human chains were planned in Estonia and Prague.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the opposition candidate who fled to Lithuania after the election and claimed to have won from 60 to 70% of the vote, said Saturday that Belarusians must "struggle for their rights" and not be distracted by Lukashenkos claims that the country was under military threat.

Also, it was announced Saturday that U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun will visit Lithuania and Russia next week for talks on the Belarusian postelection crisis.

Tsikhanouskaya's team said Saturday that Biegun would meet the opposition candidate in Lithuania.

RFE/RL contribute to this report.
The Marlins announced that catcher Francisco Cervelli will be placed on the seven-day concussion protocol injured list. A corresponding move will be made prior to tomorrows game. Cervelli started for Miami tonight in the second game of its doubleheader with the Nationals, though Cervelli was replaced by Jorge Alfaro prior to the start of the third inning.

While no concussion news is good, tonights news is particularly troubling due to Cervellis long history with such injuries. This is at least the seventh concussion Cervelli has suffered during his career, and it was less than 14 months ago that Cervelli seemed to intimate that he was done with catching, though he rather emphatically walked back that statement a few days later. Even if Cervellis symptoms (hopefully) subside quickly this time, one would imagine the Marlins might keep him out of action for longer than the seven-day minimum just to make absolutely sure Cervelli is ready, given all the past concussions on his record.

Cervelli inked a one-year, $2MM deal with Miami last offseason to provide some more experience at catcher, and since Alfaro was only activated from the IL on Friday, Cervelli has been a key player both behind the plate and at the plate. Entering Saturday, Cervelli had a .250/.361/.462 slash line and three home runs over 61 plate appearances.

Should Cervelli miss an extended amount of time, the Marlins dont have a ton of depth behind Alfardo. Chad Wallach is also on the IL, while four other catchers in Miamis player pool (Will Banfield, Santiago Chavez, Julian Leon, and Brian Navarreto) dont have any Major League experience.
Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare informed on Sunday that India's COVID-19 cases tally has crossed 30-lakh mark with a single-day spike of 69,239 cases.

Indias COVID-19 cases tally crossed 30-lakh mark with a single-day spike of 69,239 cases, Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare informed on Sunday. The COVID-19 tally in the country stands at 30,44,941 including 7,07,668 active cases, 22,80,567 cured/discharged/migrated patients, and 56,706 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health. 912 deaths have also been reported due to the infection during the last 24 hours.

The count had breached the 20-lakh mark in the country 16 days ago on August 7, with the then highest spike of 62,538 cases. Meanwhile, Maharashtra with 1,69,833 active cases and 4,80,114 cured and discharged patients continues to be the worst affected. The state has also reported 21,995 deaths due to the infection.

Tamil Nadu has 53,710 active cases while 3,13,280 patients have been discharged after treatment in the state. 6,420 deaths have been reported due to COVID-19 in the state.

Also read: India to have dedicated vaccine portal soon: ICMR

Also read: ISIS terrorist held after exchange of fire, IEDs seized

Andhra Pradesh with 89,389 active cases is the third on the list. There are 2,52,638 cured and discharged patients and 3,189 deaths reported from the state.

Delhi now has 11,594 active cases and 1,44,138 cured and discharged patients. 4,284 people have lost their lives due to the disease in the Union Territory so far.

The number of coronavirus-related deaths globally reached 800,000 on Saturday, according to figures provided by the US-based Johns Hopkins University. The United States has recorded the highest death toll of 175,429, followed by Brazil with 113,358 and India with 55,794.

The infection count is nearing 23 million mark. The United States leads the count with 5.6 million cases. Brazil has reported a total of 3.5 million cases and India 2.9 million.(ANI/Sputnik)

Also read: Atmanirbhar Bharat: PM discusses ways to boost Indias toy industry
Mali President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita announced early on Wednesday that he is resigning from his post to avoid bloodshed hours after he was detained by mutinying soldiers amid the rising political crisis in the frail West African Nation.

In a brief statement broadcasted on Malis national television, Keita said that the military intervention has left him with no choice but to resign because he does not wish blood to be shed. The President said he has decided to give up his duties from this day onwards. It is not clear whether the military is not officially in charge of the country.

Earlier on Tuesday, President Ibrahim Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse were arrested by the military troops in a dramatic escalation to the growing unrest in the country.

READ | Mali Mutiny: UN Chief Demands 'Immediate Release' Of President Keita, Prime Minister Cisse

Mali mutiny

The mutiny began after the troops arrested several ministers and high-ranking officers and held them hostage at a military camp near the capital Bamako at a key base in Kati, a town close to Bamako.

It is believed that the revolt is related to the financial grievances of the servicemen. Four disgruntled military officials are reportedly responsible for the mutiny and the Mali government has issued a statement, calling for a dialogue with the rebels.

As per reports, mass demonstrations have erupted on the streets of Malis capital amid a lack of a security presence, with gunfire occasionally heard, and rebel soldiers have been firing shots in the direction of the president's residence.

READ | Mali Mutiny: Soldiers 'arrest' President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, PM Boubou Cisse

Rising tensions

Earlier in the day, crowds took to the streets in Bamako and surrounded the capital city's independence monument. A building owned by the Minister of Justice was set on fire and looted. The attempted mutiny by the Malian troops reportedly took place in Kati, at the same camp that a successful military rebellion was launched back in 2012.

President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita had been facing growing public discontent since May after Malis top constitutional court upheld the results from disputed parliamentary elections.

READ | Mali Protesters Call For President To Resign

READ | South African President Lifts Coronavirus Lockdown Restrictions As Cases Drop
Powur is thrilled to make the top 1000 fastest growing companies in America. This is a sure sign that our business model is truly disrupting the solar industry, and making an impact on customer adoption. The best part is we've only just begun.

Inc. magazine today revealed that Powur, PBC is No. 938 on its annual Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the nations fastest-growing private companies. The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economys most dynamic segmentits independent small businesses. Intuit, Zappos, Under Armour, Microsoft, Patagonia, and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000.

"Powur is thrilled to make the top 1000 fastest growing companies in America. This is a sure sign that our business model is truly disrupting the solar industry, and making an impact on customer adoption. The best part is we've only just begun," Jonathan Budd, CEO and Founder Powur, PBC.

Not only have the companies on the 2020 Inc. 5000 been very competitive within their markets, but the list as a whole shows staggering growth compared with prior lists as well. The 2020 Inc. 5000 achieved an incredible three-year average growth of over 500 percent, and a median rate of 165 percent. The Inc. 5000s aggregate revenue was $209 billion in 2019, accounting for over 1 million jobs over the past three years.

Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region, and other criteria, can be found at http://www.inc.com/inc5000. The top 500 companies are also being featured in the September issue of Inc., available on newsstands August 18.

The companies on this years Inc. 5000 come from nearly every realm of business, says Inc. editor-in-chief Scott Omelianuk. From health and software to media and hospitality, the 2020 list proves that no matter the sector, incredible growth is based on the foundations of tenacity and opportunism.

The annual Inc. 5000 event honoring the companies on the list will be held virtually from October 23 to 27, 2020. As always, speakers will include some of the greatest innovators and business leaders of our generation.

Powur, PBC provides clean, reliable energy at significantly lower costs than your electric company, with a service-first model where our customers know we are always here for their needs. The Powur platform enables sales consultants to transform their passion for clean energy into income as they work with our customers to help them gain control over their energy usage, save money, and lower their carbon footprint. Join Powur as a customer or consultant and help us accelerate the adoption of sustainable energy today! http://www.powur.com

CONTACT:

Darlene Byrne, Marketing Director

Darlene.byrne@powur.com

More about Inc. and the Inc. 5000

Methodology

The 2020 Inc. 5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2016 and 2019. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2016. They had to be U.S.-based, privately held, for profit, and independentnot subsidiaries or divisions of other companiesas of December 31, 2019. (Since then, a number of companies on the list have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2016 is $100,000; the minimum for 2019 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. Companies on the Inc. 500 are featured in Inc.s September issue. They represent the top tier of the Inc. 5000, which can be found at http://www.inc.com/inc5000.

About Inc. Media

The worlds most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community to build great companies. Its award-winning multiplatform content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels including websites, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and print. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. The associated Inc. 5000 Conference is part of a highly acclaimed portfolio of bespoke events produced by Inc. For more information, visit http://www.inc.com.

For more information on the Inc. 5000 Conference, visit http://conference.inc.com/.
Singapore, Aug. 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- RAMP DEFI, a cross-chain liquidity on/off ramp that unlocks liquid capital from staked digital assets, has successfully closed its oversubscribed private sale with over $1 million (USD) raised. Private sale investors include Alameda Research, ParaFi Capital, XRP Capital, IOST, Signum Capital, Ruby Capital, and Blockwater VC.



Backers include Alameda Research and other leading funds

RAMPs public sale is scheduled for August 29, 2020

RAMP recently partnered with Elrond to provide eGLD holders with RAMP solutions



Following the private sale, RAMP is expected to launch its highly-anticipated public sale on August 29, 2020. The Public sale will offer 10,000,000 RAMP for participants that successfully whitelist during the public sale. A listing on decentralized exchange Uniswap is expected to occur soon after.



RAMP is the first company to develop a cross-chain liquidity on/off ramp that will allow holders of non-ERC-20 staked digital assets to conveniently utilize their staked assets. First, locked assets are collateralized into a stablecoin rUSD. Once obtained, rUSD holders can borrow, lend or exchange rUSD with eUSD (ERC-20 equivalent) in a seamless liquidity on and off-ramp solution for users with capital locked in staking arrangements across various chains. While many DeFi projects seek to lock up value into their solutions as Total Value Locked (TVL), RAMP focuses on a metric called Total Value Unlocked (TVU) that represents the additional liquidity that RAMP DEFI is unlocking for the entire crypto ecosystem.



RAMPs success comes as the DeFi market continues its incredible growth surpassing $15 billion in market value. Despite this growth, the nascent market is still in need of solutions that provide convenience and more access to various DeFi services. These needs include active liquidity management, interoperability within DeFi applications, and more staking flexibility.



RAMPs Project Lead Lawrence Lim explains, We are thrilled to have the support of some of the most prominent investors in the blockchain industry. Many of these investors experienced first-hand inconveniences with locked liquidity and saw the value in what we are building. We are excited to work closely with them to bring the DeFi market a solution that will provide access to over $22 billion of staked digital assets that can now be efficiently utilized.



Story continues

On August 19, 2020, RAMP announced a partnership with Elrond to deliver the RAMP solution for eGLD holders and will continue to announce more official blockchain foundation partners in the weeks ahead.



About RAMP DEFI:



RAMP DEFI is a decentralized finance solution that focuses on unlocking liquid capital from staked digital assets. This is achieved by letting users collateralize their portfolio of staked assets into a common stablecoin standard, rUSD, which can in turn be used to borrow fiat-back capital such as USDT or USDC. Using the RAMP solution, users can continue to receive staking rewards, retain capital appreciation potential on their staked portfolio, and recycle staked capital into new investment opportunities at the same time. The addressable market for staked assets today is upwards of USD22bn, and RAMP DEFI has a vision of USD1bn in Total Value Unlocked (TVU) for RAMP users by end 2021.



Media Contact: team@rampdefi.com



Website: https://rampdefi.com/

Litepaper: https://rampdefi.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/RAMP-DEFI-Litepaper.pdf

Medium: https://medium.com/@rampdefi

Telegram: https://t.me/rampdefiofficial

Discord: https://discord.gg/WY5TU7b




Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-24 05:16:34|Editor: huaxia

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BAMAKO, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Four gendarmes from the Rapid Surveillance and Intervention Group were killed and another seriously injured on Saturday when their vehicle hit an improvised explosive device (IED) in Mali's central region of Mopti, the Malian National Gendarmerie confirmed Sunday in an information note.

"Their vehicle hit an IED in the Bandiagara area," the National Gendarmerie said, without giving more details.

No individual or group has claimed responsibility for the attack amid political instability in Mali.

On Thursday evening, in Gao, northern Mali, unidentified armed individuals opened fire on a group of young people, killing at least three and wounding another, witnesses told Xinhua.

According to the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), it involved an inter-community revenge.

These incidents occurred after mutinous soldiers seized power on Aug. 18 in Mali.

Following the establishment of the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP) by the mutinous soldiers, a curfew was ordered from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., then shortened from 0 a.m. to 5 a.m. by the CNSP. Enditem
The UK's largest teaching union has demanded a 'plan B' from the Government on what to do if Covid-19 infections rise when schools reopen.

The National Education Union (NEU) said that facilities including more staff and extra teaching space were required alongside greater clarity on what will happen if there are further outbreaks.

It comes as pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are due to return to school in the coming days and weeks.

The UK's largest teaching union has demanded a 'plan B' from the Government on what to do if Covid-19 infections rise when schools reopen (File image)

Writing in the Sunday Times, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson sought to reassure parents and students that schools were 'ready for them' and that returning to school this September was 'more important than ever'.

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said schools and colleges needed to know what should happen if an outbreak of the virus occurs in individual schools or through national, regional or local spikes.

He said the Government needed to issue guidance on moving to teaching rotas or limited openings and to hire more teachers to allow education to continue if infection rates rise.

Mr Courtney added: 'Government advice needs to cover the possible self-isolation of bubbles and, in extremis, moving to rotas or to more limited opening.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson (pictured) sought to reassure parents and students that schools were 'ready for them'

'It needs to cover advice to heads about the protections needed for staff in high-risk categories if infection rates rise.

'Government should be employing more teachers and seeking extra teaching spaces to allow education to continue in a Covid-secure manner if infections rise.'

According to a Public Health England report published on Sunday, the reopening of schools following the easing of national lockdown was associated with a total of 198 confirmed Covid-19 cases, 70 in children and 128 in staff.

There were 67 single confirmed cases, four 'co-primary' cases and 30 outbreaks of Covid-19 in schools during June, it added.

A total of 121 cases were linked to the outbreaks, 30 in children and 91 in staff, the analysis said.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- When Staten Islander Maryann Siciliano returned home from vacation, all she saw were flags lining her neighborhood in Tottenville.

The patriotic display, she said, was seen from the corner of Page Avenue and Hylan Boulevard -- extending all the way down Hylan Boulevard to the Conference House. She said more flags were spotted on side streets off of Hylan Boulevard, as well.
New Delhi: The Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Saturday (August 22, 2020) expressed that if everything goes well, India would get its first COVID-19 vaccine by the end of 2020.

Dr Harsh Vardhan was addressing the media after inaugurating a 10- Bedded Hospital at NDRF 8th Battalion Centre in Ghaziabad and said, "Everyone across the world is trying to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. Over 26 vaccine candidates around the world have reached the clinical trial phases. In India, the work is currently progressing on half a dozen candidates, of which, three vaccine candidates are in first, second and third phases."

He added, "Analysing their progress, we believe that our country will have a vaccine by the end of this year after the phased trials are completed."

"Once the effective vaccines are available, we will start manufacturing and distributing it to the citizens of India," said Dr Harsh Vardhan.

The Minister also pointed out that the country now has the capacity of carrying out over ten lakh tests for COVID-19 every day and also boasts of more than 1500 laboratories.

Meanwhile, Indias coronavirus tally on Sunday (August 23) breached the 30-lakh mark after 69,239 new confirmed cases were reported in the last 24 hours.

As per the latest Union Ministry of Health's data, India's death count rose by 912 to 56,706.

Of the overall tally of 30,44,940, India now has 7,07,668 active cases whereas more than 22 lakh people have recovered from the infection.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has long been courageously pushing with activists for a reform that puts him at odds with some of his own cops: A civilian oversight board to investigate public complaints against police.

George Floyds killing galvanized people against brutal policing, and the kind of impunity that officers can operate with. But public sentiment only goes so far. The union sued, and in an alarming move, the state Supreme Court has now gutted the boards power.

Thats not only Newarks problem. It will neuter similar reform efforts across the entire state. The Legislature needs to fix this immediately.

We should update the law and Gov. Phil Murphys Attorney General must change his guidelines, because this board is toothless without real investigatory tools like subpoena power.

Think about it: An accused cop wouldnt even have to show up to answer questions. Witnesses might be too afraid to volunteer testimony. Police could refuse to reveal how often their probes actually result in some discipline.

It was a way of concretely showing that there is a mechanism to hold them accountable, activist Larry Hamm said of the reform. Because everybody knows that mechanism is not internal affairs.

People in Newark dont trust internal investigations, and they shouldnt. Between 2007 and 2012, the unit received hundreds of excessive-force complaints  and only one was sustained, which the U.S. Department of Justice found deeply dysfunctional, and implausible on its face.

Federal oversight helps, but as Baraka argues, we need broader community oversight to restore peoples faith in the process. Otherwise, good cops will continue to get a bad rap because of the misconduct of others.

Hamms group has been advocating for a civilian review board since the early 1980s. When police saw that officials were actually getting serious about this in the 90s, union leaders pushed back, and the momentum evaporated.

It took three more decades to build up enough steam again to push it forward, he says.

And now this. Its disappointing that other members of the Court didnt side with Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, the sole dissenter, who argued that what Newark did is similar to boards across the country and should be legal here too. Because a legislative remedy wont be easy.

Never mind that Newarks civilian board would have to yield to a county prosecutor who opts to take over the case, and leave discipline up to the police director. Or that under its ordinance, the appointed inspector general of the board could be a former Newark cop.

No matter how careful the reform, the union still commands deference from legislators who fear being cast as soft on crime.

New Jerseys biggest police union has now endorsed President Trump  the guy who retweets white supremacists; ordered his agents to fire rubber bullets, toxic gas and flash-bang grenades into a retreating crowd of peaceful protestors, just so he could do a photo op; and urged police to be rough on suspects before a laughing, applauding crowd of cops on Long Island.

This really sends a signal to those police who step outside the bounds of their job that this is ok, Hamm notes. Im your guy, youre my guy, and its ok.

Exactly the sort of attitude that leaves brutality complaints to get buried in internal affairs. And if New Jerseys leaders do nothing about it, then they, too, are complicit. They cannot let this setback stand.

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The fundamental legal question would be whether life could be treated as just another object or commodity or possession that we have which we can dispose of as though we own it.





by Ruwantissa Abeyratne

Writing from Montreal





We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Declaration of Independence of The United States





In these difficult times, when a lethal virus is killing hundreds of thousands after inflicting untold suffering, it is possible that the issue of suicide would enter the minds of those who are the worst victims of COVID- 19. Even otherwise, suicide remains a way of the world where statistics released by The World Health Organization show that close to 800 000 people die due to suicide every year, which is one person every 40 seconds. Suicide is a global phenomenon and occurs throughout the lifespan.













Recently, the alleged suicide committed by a much-valued former colleague, whose robust enjoyment of life seemed antithetical to his taking his own life, saddened me and confused and intrigued me at the same time. In a suicide note purported to have been written by him to his brother, the deceased says that he had no reason to go on living for many reasons. He was not old in the general sense believed by many - that old age starts at 65. As far as I know, he enjoyed every minute of his life, besides having a relentless and inquiring intellect which he shared with us through his brilliant journalism.





His death remains with many an enigma, prompting some to question whether it was suicide. This question apart, I would like to inquire whether one has a right to dispose of ones life at will or whether it is a matter for intervention by the State. In other words, if one survives a suicide attempt, can one be prosecuted for an offence or crime? At the least, would a rational, reasonable, right thinking society ascribe moral strictures on such an act?





It was Albert Camus who once wrote in his penetrating work Myth of Sisyphus: There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. He went on: I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions At face value, this philosophy seems at variance with the Declaration of Independence quoted above, which says that the right to life is an inalienable right endowed by the Creator which therefore seemingly implies that only the creator can take life away from a person and therefore suicide or indeed assisted suicide is abhorrent to moral and religious tenets.





Clearly, if one believes that life is an inalienable right bestowed by ones creator, an attempt at suicide, whether successful or not, is both morally and legally reprehensible. In the context of the moral aspect, many erudite persons have pronounced their own takes. For instance, in ancient philosophy Cicero said; When a mans circumstances contain a preponderance of things in accordance with nature, it is appropriate for him to remain alive; when he possesses or sees in prospect a majority of the contrary things, it is appropriate for him to depart from life. Even for the foolish, who are also miserable, it is appropriate for them to remain alive if they possess a predominance of those things which we pronounce to be in accordance with nature.





Aristotle seemingly thought more lucidly when he said that taking one's own life to avoid poverty or desire or pain is unmanly. or rather cowardly.





From a Christian point of view, St. Augustin quotes the 5th Commandment thou shall not kill to mean that the fact that the Commandment does not say  thou shall not kill thy neighbor as in other Commandments which refers to ones neighbor, ipso facto means thou shall not kill thy self. Added credibility is found in the dictum of St. Thomas Aquinas as quoted in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Suicide is contrary to natural self-love, whose aim is to preserve us. Suicide injures the community of which an individual is a part. Suicide violates our duty to God because God has given us life as a gift and in taking our lives we violate His right to determine the duration of our earthly existence.





Carl Becker, a scholar on Buddhism focuses on the basic tenet of Buddhism which is anchored on Chethana or state of mind: There is nothing intrinsically wrong with taking ones own life, if not done in hate, anger, or fear. Equanimity or preparedness of mind is the main issue. The important consideration here is not whether the body lives or dies, but whether the mind can remain at peace and in harmony with itself...the early Buddhist texts include many cases of suicide that the Buddha himself accepted or condoned. suicide is never condemned per se; it is the state of mind which determines the rightness or wrongness of the suicide situation.





In an article in the journal The Conversation the approach of the Jewish religion is aligned to Christian philosophy when it says:  In the Jewish tradition, the prohibition against suicide originated in Genesis 9:5, which says, And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning. This means that humans are accountable to God for the choices they make. From this perspective, life belongs to God and is not yours to take.





Jeyaram V. in Hinduwebsite.com speaks of the social stigma attached to suicide when he says: Hinduism does not approve suicide. Suicide in a family brings social stigma and bad reputation to the family members, and they may have to live with that for long. It also raises many questions about the reputation of the family members and their possible complicity. Hence, many suicides in Hindu families go unreported. In another learned essay elsewhere it is stated that murdering one's own body is considered equally sinful as murdering another. However, under various circumstances it is considered acceptable to end one's life by fasting. This practice, known as prayopavesha, requires so much time and will power that there is no danger of acting on an impulse. It also allows time for the individual to settle all worldly affairs, to ponder life and to draw close to God.





With regard to the Islamic faith, it is reported that like other Abrahamic religions, Islam views suicide strictly as sinful and detrimental to ones spiritual journey. However, human beings are said to be liable to committing mistakes, thus, God forgives the sins and wipes them out if the individual is truly sincere in repentance, true to the causes and determined in intention.





Finally, from the legal perspective, many jurisdictions have written into legislation that attempted suicide is a punishable crime, seemingly on the basis that one does not have the right to do away with ones life or dispose of it as one pleases as though life were a property owned by the person. Robert M. Byrn, professor of law at Fordham University School of Law has quoted a 16th Century judicial dictum: It is an unnatural violation of the rules of self-preservation, because a right to suicide is the apparent contradiction in a claim of right to destroy the life from which all rights flow.





All this having been said, the fundamental legal question would be whether life could be treated as just another object or commodity or possession that we have which we can dispose of as though we own it. To treat it as such we should have the three basic rights attached to ownership: the right to use; enjoy; and dispose of it at will. One way to think of the issue would be to evaluate the inconvenience, harm or loss that those left behind might suffer by a suicide. The defense would inevitably be just cause. As to what just cause would be is left to the moral judgment of the person concerned. As Nietzsche said: The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark nights.




Delhi Police Special Cell on Sunday (August 23) recovered huge amount of explosives on the basis of the information provided by arrested ISIS operative Mustaqeem during his interrogation. It is learnt that the police has also succeeded in recovering the explosive belt prepared by Mustaqeem to carry out 'fidayeen' (suicide) attack in Delhi. Police have also recovered two suicide vests, ISIS flags and jihadi literature from Mustaqeem's home in Uttar Pradesh.

Mustaqeem was arrested on Friday (August 21) night following a brief exchange of fire from the section of the Ridge Road between Dhaula Kuan and Karol Bagh. According to Delhi Police, Mustaqeem, who belongs to Balrampur in Uttar Pradesh, had planned terror strikes in crowded areas of the national capital.

The police recovered two Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), weighing approximately 15 kilograms in two pressure cookers, from his possession. Besides, a pistol was also recovered from him at the time of arrest

Addressing a press briefing, PS Kushwah, DCP (Special Cell), Delhi Police, said, Two pressure cooker IEDs were recovered from Mohammad Mustaqeem Khan, alias Abu Yusuf, a resident of Balarampur in Uttar Pradesh.

DCP Kushwah added that Mustaqeem had planned a terror strike in Delhi on August 15 but he failed to carry out the attack due to heavy security arrangements.

According to Delhi Police, Mustaqeem alias Abu Yusuf was in touch with ISIS handlers who instructed him to plan terror strikes in India. He had also made passports in the name of his wife and 4 children. Earlier, he was being handled by Yusuf Alhindi who was killed in Syria. Later, Abu Huzafa, a Pakistani, was handling him. Huzafa was also later killed in drone strike in Afghanistan, the DCP Special Cell told reporters. Khan had been under watch for the last year, the DCP added.
Ashlee Phan, a brand-new RN at HCA Houston Healthcare Clear Lake, had to work on the Fourth of July. She felt tired during that Saturday shift, but didnt think much about it. She was 25; COVID-19 didnt seem a threat to her and her friends.

I really did not think I would ever get it, she says.

You can guess the next part of the story. The next day, when Ashlee showed up at work, the hospitals required temperature check showed that she was running a 100.3-degree fever. Her bosses sent her home, and she went to Urgent Care to get tested. Urgent Care told her it would take five to seven business days to get the results.

Ashlee, whos saving up her new salary to move, still lives in an upstairs bedroom at her moms house. Her brother Nicholas was there too, home from college. So Ashlee quarantined in her bedroom, and her mom, Margaret Lynn, left food outside her door.

Ashlee steadily grew sicker. On Tuesday, she started to cough, and despite Tylenol and Advil, her temperature reached 105. Wednesday was worse.

Early Thursday morning, just before 7, Margaret walked past Ashlees room. Through the door, she heard Ashlee panting. She knocked, planning to ask Ashlee what her temperature was, and whether the fever was back.

No answer.

Margaret began banging on the door. She woke up Nicholas, down the hall.

Still no answer from Ashlee. No sound at all.

Margaret rushed downstairs, grabbed a mask and gloves, and ran back up to check on Ashlee. Ashlee didnt respond. Margaret shook her. She slapped her. Ashlee didnt respond.

The coma

The ambulance rushed Ashlee to Houston Methodist.

Margaret, in her terror, had forgotten the way that COVID has rewritten hospital rules. No, an ER nurse at Houston Methodist told her sadly, you cant see your daughter. You cant even stay in the waiting room. A doctor will call you.

When at last one did call, Margaret struggled to absorb everything he was saying. The hospital had tried giving oxygen to Ashlee in three different noninvasive ways; none had worked. Ashlee was in a diabetic coma. To stay alive, she needed a ventilator.

Ashlee, Margaret found out later, was prediabetic  at risk for diabetes, but not actually diabetic. Margaret hadnt known that.

Unconscious, Ashlee didnt know that specialist after specialist examined her. There was an ICU doc, an infectious-disease doc, a cardiologist, a kidney doc. At one point, the Methodist team thought Ashlee might have had a stroke.

Margaret, frantic, kept calling the ICU. It was hard to reach the nurses: COVID meant that they were spending enormous amounts of time gowning up each time they went into a patients room. At last, a social worker held an iPad to the window of Ashlees room. On the video feed, Margaret saw tubes running to a lump in the bed: Her daughter, the nurse, was one of the sickest patients in the hospital.

Struggling against tubes

For awhile, nothing good happened. Ashlee, still unconscious, struggled to remove the tubes in her arms, so the nurses had to tie her hands. She had pneumonia in both lungs. Her blood oxygen level stayed alarmingly low.

On Monday, Ashlees fourth night in the ICU, she opened her eyes. One of her nurse friends had been able to get into her ICU room, and was holding an iPhone so that Margaret and Christopher could see her. Margaret got a screenshot of those open eyes. They gave her hope.

On Wednesday, Ashlee finally began waking up. Drugged, at first she didnt even realize how awful her situation was, but slowly the nightmare dawned on her. She had a tube in her throat. She didnt know where she was. She didnt see anyone she recognized. And her hands were tied down.

Ashlee was a nurse, but shed never before been a patient. She groggily begged the ICU nurses to release her. They explained, time and again, why she needed not to struggle against the tubes that were keeping her alive. They bathed her each day. And when her own mother couldnt be there for her, they reminded her that she wasnt alone.

Corona is real

Just shy of a week after the ambulance rushed Ashlee to the hospital, she came off the ventilator. And after 13 days in the hospital, she finally came home.

Shes largely recovered, but it hasnt been easy. The arterial line that had been in her leg left her unable to walk for a long while. And in late July, a couple of blood clots in her legs  a common COVID side effect  sent her back to the hospital for four days.

One night, Margaret sent thank-you meals to the ICU nurses, the ones shed bombarded with calls. Ashlee says that being a patient taught her empathy. Having experienced the importance of nurses, shell now be a better one herself.

As for Ashlees friends, theyve all gotten tests, and no one seems to have caught it from her. But, she says, her nearly dying was a big wake-up call.

She and her friends take COVID seriously now. They always wear their masks, Ashlee says. They stay home. Weve all got our hand sanitizers. Corona is real.

lisa.gray@chron.com

twitter.com/LisaGray_HouTX
Pope Francis gives several ventilators to a Church-run hospital on the outskirts of Malawis capital to help care for patients with Covid-19.

By Vatican News

Pope Francis has made a generous donation of several ventilators to the Likuni Mission Hospital, which lies 9 kilometers from Malawis capital, Lilongwe.

The gift was made in the Popes name by Archbishop Gianfranco Gallone, the Apostolic Nuncio to Malawi and Zambia.

Archbishop Tarcisius Ziyaye of Lilongwe delivered the ventilators to the Missionary Sisters of St Francis of Assisi, who staff the facility.

Sign of Popes caring concern

The Holy Father is indeed concerned about this deadly pandemic which has shaken the whole world, said Archbishop Ziyaye.

As a token of our gratitude to the Holy Father, let us continue to pray for him, he added.

Sr Agnes Lungu, the hospitals administrator, received the Popes donation, and expressed her gratitude.

On behalf of the hospital we are very much grateful for the donation and that the Holy Father thinks of us and comes to our assistance, she said.

Struggling to cope with Covid-19

The Likuni Mission Hospital is owned by Catholic Bishops Conference of Malawi, and is reportedly underprepared to deal with the coronavirus outbreak.

Malawi has registered over 5,300 cases and 168 deaths from Covid-19.

Thanks to an influx of donations from abroad, the local Catholic Church has mobilized her network of missionary hospitals to deal with the health crisis.
The Pakistan government has declared former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, currently in London for treatment, an absconder and approached the UK government for his extradition. Adviser to the Prime Minister on Accountability and Interior Shahzad Akbar said that Sharif's four-week bail on medical grounds expired in December last year.

The government is treating him (Sharif) as an absconder and has already sent a request to the British government to extradite him, Akbar was quoted as saying by the Dawn News on Saturday.

Sharif, who was sentenced in a graft case by an accountability court, informed a court in Lahore last month that he is unable to return to the country as his doctors have told him not to go out due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Sharif submitted his medical report to the Lahore High Court (LHC) through his counsel and said doctors have recommended him to avoid going outside due to the coronavirus as he has low platelet counts, diabetes, heart, kidney and blood pressure related problems.

Akbar said the government would request the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to pursue Sharif's extradition as well and it was also looking into legalities of guarantees of Shahbaz Sharif, who was supposed to escort his elder brother back to Pakistan after his medical treatment.

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

His comments came after a new picture was shared on social media which shows Sharif walking on the streets of London with his son, Hassan Nawaz holding an umbrella.

His stroll on London roads is a slap in the face of the judiciary and the government cannot allow this. There is nothing personal in it: we are only trying to implement the law and fulfil its requirements, the adviser was quoted as saying.

The 70-year-old three-time premier is currently in London for treatment after he was diagnosed with an immune system disorder. He left for the UK in November last year after the Lahore High Court granted him four-week permission to go abroad for treatment.

Akbar alleged that ex-premier submitted fake lab reports

The adviser said that on October 29 last year the court granted Sharif eight-week bail for treatment within Pakistan and on November 16, he got a four-week permission to travel abroad for treatment.

He said that the former prime minister was supposed to keep the court and the Punjab government updated about his treatment by sharing the details of the process of his treatment and test reports which he did not do.

He said that Sharif applied to the Punjab government for bail extension on February 19.

"A medical board was constituted which sought details of medical procedures being done and test reports of Sharif, but nothing was shared," he said.

He said that the law ministry, NAB and the prison department were informed about the bail expiry and rejection of its extension when the medical board got nothing as evidence document.

He said the UK government was also informed about the development on March 2 with a request for his extradition.

Commenting on recent pictures of Sharif, Akbar said that the former premier looked perfectly fine in the pictures being shared by his sons, the daily reported.

His daughter Maryam Nawaz had said her father was a high-risk patient therefore his cardiac catheterisation/coronary intervention had been postponed owing to COVID-19.
Four males have been arrested during a protest against coronavirus regulations in Dublin, gardai said.

One arrest involved an alleged breach of the peace, two were for public order offences and a fourth was for possession of an offensive weapon.
WASHINGTON - The Republican National Convention will be heavy on members of President Donald Trump's family as well as conservative congressional allies of the president, senior administration officials and viral stars who have gained fame and a following on the right.

The lineup of speakers, released by the president's campaign on Sunday, will feature at least one person from Trump's family - many of whom work either at the White House or on his reelection efforts - on each of the four nights of the convention. Trump himself is scheduled to speak Thursday night.

"Over four nights, President Trump's 2020 Convention will honor the great American story, the American people that have written it, and how President Donald J. Trump's Make America Great Again agenda has empowered them to succeed," the campaign said in a statement announcing the list.

Ivanka Trump, a senior adviser to the president, will be introducing her father before his formal acceptance address on Thursday, according to a White House official. The White House said Ivanka Trump's appearance at the RNC will be in her personal capacity and thus does not violate federal law barring government workers from political actions.

"Like all government employees, she is free to engage in political activity in her personal capacity," White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said. "The White House worked with the Office of Special Counsel to ensure that her appearance was in full compliance with the Hatch Act."

Unlike the Democratic National Convention, which concluded Thursday, none of the GOP's living former presidents or presidential nominees are scheduled to appear at the RNC. Former president George W. Bush is missing from the list, as is 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, now a senator from Utah who was the sole Senate Republican to vote to convict Trump on one article of impeachment in February.

Also absent from the lineup released Sunday are several Republican senators locked in competitive races, including Susan Collins of Maine, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Martha McSally of Arizona and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who also faces a tough reelection campaign, will be speaking Wednesday evening.

Several governors will be speaking, including female Republican Govs. Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Kim Reynolds of Iowa, but several other GOP governors who have been the strongest defenders of Trump as they are dealing with the coronavirus pandemic in their states - Brian Kemp of Georgia, Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas - are not scheduled to appear, according to Sunday's list.

Some Trump Cabinet members, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, also will address the convention, a move that critics have argued further blurs the lines between the presidential campaign and official business.

The appearance of Pompeo, who will speak at the RNC as he is traveling abroad, has drawn particular criticism because of his role as the nation's chief diplomat. On CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel declined to say whether the federal government would be reimbursed for Pompeo's appearance at a political event.

"I'm not confirming anything having to do with Secretary Pompeo's trip," McDaniel said. "I am just saying the programming, the staging, everything that we're doing will be paid for by the Republican National Committee and the campaign."

Also scheduled to speak are Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who made headlines in June when they stood outside their mansion in a gated community and pointed guns at protesters marching past them. The McCloskeys were each charged last month with one felony count of unlawful use of a weapon.

On Monday night, Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. and his partner, Kimberly Guilfoyle, are scheduled to speak. Other speakers include the McCloskeys, McDaniel, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., former ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Andrew Pollack, whose daughter, Meadow, was killed in the Parkland, Fla., shooting in 2018 and has advocated for school safety measures while defending gun rights.

Tuesday's lineup includes first lady Melania Trump and the president's children Eric and Tiffany Trump, as well as Pompeo, Reynolds, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi. Bondi was tapped by the White House to work on defending Trump during his impeachment trial.

On Wednesday, Eric Trump's wife, Lara Trump, will speak, as will Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., Ernst and Noem are among the other speakers.

Aside from the president, other speakers on Thursday include Carson, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., who left the Democratic Party last year to join the GOP amid the Democrats' impeachment effort.

Another featured speaker on Thursday will be Alice Johnson, whose life sentence for federal drug and money-laundering charges was commuted by Trump in 2018 after personal urging and lobbying from reality television star Kim Kardashian West.
HOLYOKE  The 5th Hampden District House race features David K. Bartley, Patricia Duffy and Patrick Beaudry. Unless a strong write-in candidate pops up after the Sept. 1 primary, the winner is assured victory in November.

In January, state Rep. Aaron Vega (D-Holyoke) announced he would not seek a fifth term. Duffy, his legislative aide, made her intentions known only days later.

Beaudry, new to campaigning but not to the Massachusetts political or legislative scene, followed suit. Bartley, an attorney and the longtime Ward 3 city councilor, emerged as a candidate in March.

The candidates are highly educated and well-schooled in the citys harsh, no-holds-barred political climate.

Regardless of the victor, the future seat holder faces challenges the city still cannot shake two decades into the new century, only worsened by the pandemic that has sickened millions and killed over 170,000 nationwide.

Holyokes next state representative must contend with disparities in health, education and housing, a public-school system in its sixth year of state receivership and emerging from a post-pandemic economy.

The horrific toll COVID-19 exacted on the Holyoke Soldiers Home featured prominently in the Aug. 19 candidates debate sponsored by the Holyoke Taxpayers Association and Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce.

Duffy called the troubling episode at the Soldiers Home an unspeakable breach of trust, while Beaudry and Bartley pointed to inept management and systemic failures starting at the state level.

All three candidates supported rehabbing and expanding the facility.

Unlike its Chelsea cohort, the Holyoke Soldiers Home has been woefully underfunded, leading to staff cuts, strained services, and a facility in need of an overhaul or replacement. The regions veterans have suffered greatly.

Whether Holyoke should pursue building one or two middle schools remains a significant issue. Last Novembers ballot question to bond for two new schools drew a sharp rebuke from voters, who did not favor a debt exclusion or property tax override.

Holyoke has not built a public school in over 30 years, with the William J. Dean Technical School being the last.

The Massachusetts School Building Authority, which oversees the Commonwealths school renovation and building projects, held fast to a 60% or less reimbursement rate toward construction costs.

Holyoke submitted a new plan to the authority to build one school at the Wm. Peck School site off Northampton Street.

The citys aging public schools caused concern for teachers, staff, parents, and School Committee members during recent sessions on reopening plans. Few had faith the schools ventilation systems could adequately cleanse the air of particulates and cited windows that dont open.

While Duffy supported the tax override, she heard post-vote of residents who complained of strained household budgets.

Beaudry said the city must show the state its serious about education. Bartley, who opposed the debt exclusion initiative, favors bolstering the citys financial capacity before proceeding with any school building project.

Registration closed for the primary Aug. 22. Voters can cast early ballots at Holyoke City Hall Aug. 2428 from 8:30 a.m.4:30 p.m. For more information, visit the City Clerks voter information page.

City Clerk Brenna McGee expects a surge of mail-in ballots over the coming weeks. A special drop-off box for completed ballots is located near the lower entrance to City Hall.

Read more about the candidates at masslive.com/politics/2020/08/massachusetts-primary-election-5th-hampden-district-candidates-david-bartley-patrick-beaudry-and-patricia-duffy-on-the-issues.html
A former tax collector of a Florida county allegedly paid for sex with an underage girl and illegally used the states DMV database to look up information on the minor and women with whom he was engaged in sugar daddy relationships with.

The charges were unveiled against Joel Greenberg, the former tax collector of Seminole County until his resignation in June, in a criminal indictment filed by the US Attorneys office on Friday.

The document, which alleges six new counts against Greenberg in addition to six counts from two previous federal grand jury indictments, doesnt offer specifics about the sex trafficking charge.

However, the alleged incident involves a girl, aged between 14 and 17, and purportedly took place across a six month period in 2017. That charge alone is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The charges were unveiled against Joel Greenberg, the former tax collector of Seminole County until his resignation in June, in a criminal indictment filed by the US Attorneys office on Friday

Greenberg, who is married, is also accused of violating the Drivers Privacy Protection Act by using his access as an elected official to illegally look up information about the minor in The Florida Driver and Vehicle Information Database (DAVID).

He reportedly looked up the girls photo, driver identification number, in addition to other information, according to the indictment.

Prosecutors say he also used the database to look up other people, with whom he was embroiled in sugar daddy relationships with, the document states. The term sugar daddy refers to an older, wealthy man who dates younger people and gives them gifts in exchange for companionship or sex.

Greenberg, a Republican, used the DAVID network for a series of other prohibited purposes, including to produce a false identification documents and to facilitate his efforts to engage in commercial sex acts, prosecutors say.

The allegations stretch back as far as November 11, 2015  a year before he was elected  where by Greenberg is accused of creating a fake drivers license using the name, date of birth and address of an adult victim identified in court records as R.Z.

Prosecutors have accused Greenberg of lifting the private information from the Florida Department of Highway Safetys website.

The indictment also claims that Greenberg obtained and used the photograph and drivers license information of R.Z, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

During his four years as tax collector, Greenberg apparently stole surrendered drivers licenses, before they could be shredded by office staff, to create new IDs with his photograph but the personal information of those drivers.

Greenberg is also accused of violating the Drivers Privacy Protection Act by using his access as an elected official to illegally look up information about the minor in The Florida Driver and Vehicle Information Database (DAVID), including the girls photo and driver identification number (His Lake Mary office pictured above

The allegations stretch back as far as November 11, 2015  a year before he was elected  where by Greenberg is accused of creating a fake drivers license using the name, date of birth and address of an adult victim identified in court records as R.Z

Greenberg was first indicted by a federal grand jury in June on charges that he stalked political opponent, Brian Beute, in the Republican primary for the Tax Collectors race and for identity theft. He resigned the following day.

The former tax collector was accused of setting up fake social media accounts posing as a very concerned teacher at the school where Beute worked, FOX 35 reported.

In a series of social media posts and letter sent to the victims employer, Greenberg attempted to spread false information about Beute, the Department of Justice said.

The false information included accusations that Beute was having a sexual relationship with a student of the school, even though Greenberg knew that not to be true.

He also posted on a fake Twitter account that Beute was a segregationist in favor of white supremacy.

Greenberg was arrest on June 23 at his home in the gated community of Heathrow, near Lake Mary. A subsequent search of the home lead to Fridays charges.

Inside, agents confiscated Greenberg and his wifes cell phone and computers. A backpack found on a seat in his car belonging to the Tax Collectors Office was found to contain several fake IDs, documents show.

Agents also reported finding materials used to create fake IDs at Greenbergs office at the Tax Collectors administrative office in Lake Mary.

Greenbergs attorney, Vincent Citro, released a statement in response to the latest charges against his client, saying, We vigorously deny the allegations in the second superseding indictment. The government will not be able to prove this case, and we look forward to prevailing at trial.

The former tax collector now faces up to 12 federal charges, including unlawful use of means of identification of another person, producing false identification, child sex trafficking, identity theft and stalking. He pleaded not guilty to all previous charges.

Within months of his election in November 2016, Greenberg faced a succession of controversies that would end in his resignation two months ago.

Within months of his election in November 2016, Greenberg faced a succession of controversies that would end in his resignation two months ago (Greenberg pictured right with Roger Stone and Matt Gaetz)

An investigation conducted by the Orlando Sentinel found that Greenberg had paid out $1.9 million in contracts and salaries to close friends, business partners and others to work in the Tax Collectors Office.

Half-a-dozen of those individuals were found to be part of his wedding party in mid-2016.

That following June, he began allowing employees to openly carry firearms around the office.

Later in 2017, he followed and pulled over a woman he believed to be speeding, scolding her at the roadside while displaying his Tax Collectors badge, which closely resembles a Sheriffs badge.

The following month, he himself was pulled over by Lake Mary Police for speeding. Officers say he tried to use his position to avoid a citation.

In 2018, the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned Greenberg for what they said were multiple Islamophobic, racist, and xenophobic Facebook posts.

In one of those posts, Greenberg wrote: Very simple questionName just ONE society in the developed world that has benefited in ANY WAY from the introduction of more Muslims. Just one. Asking for a friend

Last year, Greenberg formed a private company within the Tax Collectors Office related to blockchain technology and then billed his own public office for $65,860 to buy computer servers. He and the now dissolved company later paid back the money, following an uproar.

Greenberg will face a federal judge on August 27 in Orlando to be arraigned on the new charges.
Taylor said an earlier decision to close parks and recreation centers  most of them in Black neighborhoods  and Guillorys statement about Pellerins death indicate a person disconnected from the plight of the Black man, from the person of color who is fighting to be equal and have his life valued the same as a white persons life is valued, he said.
HOOSICK FALLS, N.Y.  U.S. Rep. Antonio Delgado (NY-19) recently joined Hoosick Falls Village Trustee Kevin OMalley for a tour of the downtown area where they visited small businesses and local organizations in the community to learn more about how businesses are adjusting to reopening measures and charting a path forward.

The congressman, who was also joined by Town of Hoosick Deputy Supervisor Eric Sheffer, visited with Browns Brewing Company, Hoosac Package, Bistro 42, CiviCure-Wood Block, Hoosick Provisions, and Tri-State Federal Credit Union.

Hoosick Falls is a vibrant and dynamic village, and it was a pleasure to speak with business owners throughout the Hoosick business district to learn about how theyre adjusting to reopening measures and keeping our community safe, Delgado said.

I introduced the Rebuild Rural America Act to give our rural communities access to federal funding, and I championed multiple provisions for our small businesses throughout the COVID-19 relief legislation negotiations. Our conversations today continue to shape my understanding of how our business owners and community centers are experiencing reopening measures and preparing for the future. I will keep these discussions at the top of my mind and look forward to returning soon, Delgado added.

Both nationally and across the state, smaller communities are often forgotten, and I think local businesses were grateful to have Congressman Delgado take the time out to learn more about their challenges and see how they are working to make ends meet. In Hoosick Falls, weve faced challenges with our water and we are now moving in the right direction. It was nice to see the congressman come and focus on the economic aspects of whats happening in our community, OMalley explained.

We are so appreciative of the time Rep. Antonio Delgado spent touring Browns Walloomsac Taproom and Brewing in North Hoosick, NY this morning. He was genuinely interested in our family business and of the community in which we proudly call home, Kelly Brown, Browns Brewing owner along with her husband Garry Brown, added.

As a member of the House Committee on Small Business, Delgado believes that he has worked to elevate the voices of small businesses across New Yorks 19th Congressional District during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In March, Delgado said he introduced the Small Business Repayment Relief Act, to cover six months of loan payments for all qualified SBA loans. This was signed into law as part of the bipartisan CARES Act. Rep. Delgado also voted for the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act, signed into law on June 5.

Additionally, Delgado noted how he introduced the Prioritized Paycheck Protection Program (P4) Act which would allow smaller businesses, with significant losses due to COVID-19, to receive a second forgivable PPP loan. The congressman said he also helped introduce the bipartisan Small Business PPE Tax Credit Act which would provide a tax credit of up to $25,000 to help small businesses offset the cost of PPE including installing plexiglass and purchasing masks to protect their employees and customers.

In October 2019, Delgado said he then introduced the Rebuild Rural America Act to improve the way that the federal government supports economic development projects in small towns and rural communities to better fit their specific needs. This bill would create the Rural Future Partnership Fund through USDA, which would provide a $50 billion multi-year, flexible block grants to rural regions that have trouble navigating the complex federal grants process.

This funding would allow eligible communities to automatically receive a commitment of five-year, renewable funding to support progress on the regions locally developed goals and objectives. This will ensure that the federal government complements local economic development efforts to help make local economies more resilient, ensuring our rural communities are places in which anyone can live, work, raise a family and retire.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 22

Trend:

Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops 34 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.
Arizona News

Phoenix, Arizona - Governor Doug Ducey Thursday announced the appointment of Cecilia Mata to the Arizona Board of Regents. Mata, who founded a successful global security business in 2005 and expanded it to two subsidiary companies, is an enthusiastic advocate for women-owned and minority-owned small businesses.

Mata was born and raised in the Republic of Panama and emigrated to the United States in 2000. She is the founder, owner and president of AllSource Global Management, LLC., (AGM) a professional services company with a focus on defense. In this role, Mata helped lead the companys growth to a comprehensive enterprise offering diverse products and services to a host of public and private organizations. She founded AGM in 2005.



Im proud to appoint Cecilia as our newest Arizona Regent, said Governor Ducey. Arizonas universities already offer some of the best educational opportunities in the country. With her strong business acumen, leadership experience and passion for community involvement, Cecilia is perfect for this role and wants to do it for all the right reasons. I know she will serve our state well.



Im honored to be appointed to the Arizona Board of Regents by Governor Ducey, said Mata. Arizonas universities are engines of growth and opportunity for our state, providing students of all backgrounds the means to achieving a more promising future. I look forward to bringing my experiences and passions to the board to serve all Arizonas students and families.



Mata is the recipient of multiple notable awards, including the Women Business Enterprise IMPACT Award, WBEC West (2019); Women of Influence Minority Business Owner Finalist, Inside Tucson Business (2019); Outstanding Council Member of the Year, Workforce Arizona Council (2018); Minority Owned Small Business Champion of the Year of the State of Arizona, Small Business Administration (2016); and many more.



Mata engages with her communities through civic leadership, including as treasurer of the University South Foundation, member of the Chapter II Women Presidents Organization in Tucson, board member of the Arizona Small Development Centers Friends of Small Business Advisory Board, and former chairwomen of the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.



Mata earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Universidad Santa Maria la Antigua and a Master of Business Administration from Universidad Latinamericana de Ciencia y Tecnologia. Both universities are located in Panama. Mata is fluent in English, Spanish and Chinese.



Mata has traveled throughout Europe, Central America and South America where she held various roles in the areas of business, contracting, consulting and manufacturing. She currently lives in Sierra Vista, Arizona.
It wasnt easy to film Love in the Time of Corona. But it was doable, with a lot of care  and a lot of house-cleaning for the actors whose homes hosted the shoots. Some of the details: Filming over two-plus weeks in July, Johnson worked with a crew of seven who were tested before spending three days at each location. The showrunner monitored scenes from a van parked outside the actors homes, and gave direction via walkie-talkie.  Vulture
Even before the pandemic and the protests, I was bracing for 2020. Thats because presidential election years tend to bring out some of our toughest critics and inevitable claims of bias.

Link to protest timeline

As November nears, the tenor of reader response grows harsher, depending on the way the winds are blowing for any particular candidate. Why are you purposefully choosing photos that make Hillary Clinton look bad? (We didnt). Why did you play the Clinton story about ABC at the top of the page and the Donald Trump story about XYZ at the bottom? (We try for equal prominence for similar articles, but it is not always possible).

Right now, however, the emails, social media comments and calls are among the angriest  and ugliest -- The Oregonian/OregonLives journalists have ever received.

To be sure, they come from a small percentage of readers. They sometimes veer into the realm of vile, crude and bigoted commentary. Occasionally, they contain not so veiled threats.

The vitriol has been building almost from the start of 2020.

When the pandemic hit in February, The Oregonian/OregonLives factual updates came under criticism from those who believed the crisis was overblown or who thought the harms of closing the economy should be weighted more heavily.

That was quickly followed by controversy over whether masks helped or didnt, with emailers sending long treatises on various research studies that tended to support their position. The pandemic meant people had a lot of time on their hands to dive deep into the subject.

Then along came the protests, and a similar cultural divide played out. Some readers refused to believe few coronavirus cases had been traced to protests, raising the question repeatedly. In each case, I responded that we or other journalists had posed the question to health authorities, who had said no more than a handful of cases could be attributed to the large-scale outdoor protests.

As the tenor of the nightly gatherings changed, shrinking in size from thousands to a few hundred and punctuated by smaller groups bent on provoking police, the allegations of bias strengthened. Why arent you calling the protests riots? (Police dont always declare a riot.) Why do you keep calling them peaceful protests? (On many nights, over the months, most people in attendance did remain peaceful).

To recap, the protests early on drew more than 10,000 marchers and remained largely peaceful until late at night. Through June, crowds dwindled until attention turned to the federal courthouse and federal tactics there in early July. Crowds swelled again for a time.

After federal agents stepped out of the spotlight, the nightly protests have changed up again. The crowds are much smaller, which means the provocateurs make up a larger percentage of those gathered. Even so, peaceful chants and drumming might go on for hours before some in the crowd light fires in dumpsters or near law enforcement buildings; throw objects such as rocks and water bottles; and try to damage structures.

Last week, the protests took a noticeably more destructive turn, and a severe beating by a few people who had just left the protest sickened Portlanders who saw the unconscionable violence captured on video.

Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese talked Wednesday about the complicated dynamics after the county building was vandalized. He said the event at the county building was a largely a peaceful protest until it escalated into violence when some in the crowd set fires and broke into the building.

We have to manage the few people who are engaged in violent activity when there may be a larger crowd that is present and not engaged in violence and may be largely peacefully protesting, Reese said, speaking generally about the complexity of policing Portlands recent demonstrations.

I want to emphasize its not the questions or criticisms that are troubling to me. But I am bothered by the assumption of bad will -- the allegations that we intend to mislead the public. I object strongly to the presumption that we are not guided by our mission to seek the truth and by what our seasoned journalists see when they are out monitoring protests, sometimes for many hours at a time.

Let me be clear: We are in the business of facts. Those facts dont always fit a readers predetermined narrative, and they may not fit the image readers receive from other media. In fact, one of our best-read protest stories was Feds, right-wing media paint Portland as city under siege. A tour of town shows otherwise from July. The article was written by education reporter Eder Campuzano, a veteran of many nights of protest coverage. The reaction?

It was honestly just a surprise to hear a full-throated insistence on labeling people rioters in a simple geography lesson, Campuzano said, noting his piece was putting into context the small area where protests occurred vs. the size of the city.

He often has readers question his allegiance to the United States because he once wrote a piece about becoming a U.S. citizen as an adult.

Another reporter, who worked on a recent protest-related story, received this message on social media: People like me love journo scum like you. How hard would it be to find your address and teach you a lesson? Then I should teach your children why daddys a lying journo scumbag.

When someone makes a threat, we leave it up to individual journalists to decide whether to make a police report and we support whatever they decide. Were reporting this one:

On Saturday, someone left a Facebook message that said, Start covering the riots and condemning them unless you want HQ to get turned into swiss cheese. ... Expect us.

Most of my angriest comments come from men, who sometimes slide easily into sexist language. Recently, one emailer called me, the second female editor of The Oregonian, a lying bitch.

Most journalists are used to criticism, often from all sides. We develop thick skins and understand peoples tendency to kill the messenger. Even so, the messages in recent months stand out.

Some of you will ask whether I think President Trumps assault on the news media as the enemy of the people have engendered this. Its hard to know with any certainty. Claims of bias, angry emails, rude anonymous callers come with the territory for most newsrooms. But I can say the assaults on our journalism more frequently arrive now laced with profanity and personal attacks on our journalists and their credibility.

Again, most readers, even those angry at an editorial position or news story, are civil. They have legitimate questions or comments about our coverage and what we choose to emphasize. Many send thoughtful and insightful letters to the editor.

Its the vocal minority that sometimes make it difficult to remember that.

Ive taken recently to asking correspondents whether they are a print or digital subscriber. Ill still respond to readers, whether they are local or a onetime visitor, as I am able. I think people would say I am a fair-minded person when it comes to admitting when weve made an error or omission.

But going forward, I will put a priority on answering questions from subscribers. Those who support local, independent journalism may sharply question us, but they also want us to succeed and continue to deliver top-notch reporting.

We appreciate your support as we continue to gather the facts and  often -- put ourselves in harms way to do so, whether it is coronavirus or protest coverage. We owe you nothing less than the truth.
According to reports, Sonia Gandhi, the interim Chief of the Congress Party, has stepped down. This comes after 23 Congress leaders wrote to her, demanding structural change in the party.

According to reports, Sonia Gandhi, the interim Chief of the Congress Party, has stepped down. This comes after 23 Congress leaders wrote to her, demanding structural change in the party. At the same time, many senior party leaders have distances themselves from such messaging, and have shown faith in Gandhis leadership. On Monday, the Congress Working Committee would convene to discuss the issue.

In response to these leaders, Sonia Gandhi has said that she would be stepping down as she does not wish to carry further responsibilities, and asked them to get together and elect a new chief. At the same time, it is rumored that the party will now look to elect a non-Gandhi president

On the other hand, backing the Gandhis, Punjab CM Capt. Amarinder Singh said this was not the time to raise such an issue, ahead of a crucial CWC meeting on Monday.

Also read: Ahead of crucial CWC meet, Congress leaders write to Sonia Gandhi

Also read: BJP, LJP, JDU will fight Bihar elections together: JP Nadda

He said that it would give the advantage to dictatorial forces and that such destabilizing moves should not be taken at this moment. Apart from Singh, several other Congress leaders like Salman Khurshid, Sanjay Nirupam, Siddaramaiah, Bhupesh Baghel have also opposed this idea.

23 leaders, including the likes of Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, Kapil Sibal, Manish Tiwari, Anand Sharma, Shashi Tharoor, Jitin Prasad, Veerappa Moily, Pramod Tiwari, PJ Kurien, Sandeep Dikshit, as per sources, wrote a 5 point ketter, calling for sweeping reform.

It emphasized on the need for active leadership in the party and raised questions about the partys condition and direction, demanding an internal election to the CWC. The letter has signatories from both the old guard and the new guard of the Congress Party.

Ever since Rahul Gandhis resignation as party president in 2019 post Lok Sabha elections debacle, there has been a string of reignations in the Congress Paryt. Over 200 leaders resigned from he party citing honor and respect for Rahul Gandhi. Some, like Jyotiraditya Scindia, have now shifted over to the BJP.

Just last month, the Congress Party had a massive scare as Sachin Pilot and 18 other MLAs resigned from the party. As of now, the Sachin Pilot situation ha sbeen resolved, with Pilot and his co-defectors returning to the fold in the Rajasthan Congress Party.

Also read: Jharkhand Agriculture Minister Badal Patralekh tests Covid-19 positive
Sana Shakil By

NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation has levelled charges of abetment to suicide against actor Sushant Singh's friend Rhea Chakraborty. But getting a conviction in the case may be a tall order for the premier investigating agency given that CBI has not been able to get a single conviction in the abetment to suicide cases it has probed, as per reports.

To understand why convictions in such cases have remained quite low, New Indian Express talked to various experts including lawyers and senior police officers. This paper also asked experts what could be the challenges in probing the case.

ALSO READ | Sushant Singh Rajput death: Rhea kept her hand on actor's chest in mortuary, said 'sorry', claims witness

According to the latest NCRB report of 2018, the conviction rate of cases registered under 306 IPC was a mere 15.6%. And in metropolitan cities such as Mumbai, the rate of conviction was even lower, at about 10%.

Investigators and prosecutors both said abetment to suicide is a difficult charge to prove.

Noted criminal lawyer Rajiv Mohan said, It is not easy to get direct evidence in cases of abetment. It was brought in for cases like dowry. The investigating agency will have to prove that the accused created such a situation that the victim was left with no choice but to end his life. It is clearly defined that the instigation has to be of that level and only then can the accused be proved guilty.

Mohan, who has been a special prosecutor in the suicide case of air hostess Geetika Sharma in which Haryana MLA Gopal Kanda is facing trial, added that the case would be easier to crack if CBI finds evidence that Rhea was giving Sushant wrong medicines as is being alleged by some.

A senior IPS officer, on the condition of anonymity, said that if the mental health of the deceased was not good at the time of suicide, then it goes in favour of the accused.

The fact that Rhea Chakraborty had left Sushants house a week before his death also makes the case difficult for the CBI, investigators said adding it will be difficult to prove abetment since immediate trigger leading to suicide has to be established.

Lawyer AT Ansari, who was a special prosecutor in the Nirbhaya rape case, said that the intention and involvement of the accused to aid or instigate the commission of suicide is imperative in cases of abetment.

Suicide is never to be inferred from circumstances in absence of intentions on the part of accused to aid or abet or instigate the deceased to commit the suicide, Ansari said.

On poor conviction rates of abetment to suicide cases, Ansari said, Apart from the cases of suicide arising out of matrimonial discord, the essential ingredients of the offence are always found missing in cases of abetment. Most of the time cases are forwarded to court on the basis of unsubstantiated circumstances portrayed to be the potential reasons driving the deceased to die by suicide.

Of the total 4026 cases of abetment to suicides decided by courts in 2018, only 628 led to convictions while 3232 cases ended in acquittals and accused were discharged in 166 cases.

A total of 6239 people were acquitted in these cases, 282 persons were discharged and 1024 accused were convicted in 2018, as per the NCRB report.
Joshua Wong said it was hard to plan for the future under the threat of the national security law imposed in Hong Kong in June

Pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong told Sunday how he constantly feared arrest following the imposition of a new security law in Hong Kong, in a virtual appearance at British book festival.

The 23-year-old said his very participation in the event might put him at risk, but that it was his duty to keep speaking out about China's tightening grip on the semi-autonomous city.

Wong said that two hours before he appeared at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, he was tailed by an unknown car with a China-Hong Kong licence.

While visiting Victoria Peak in Hong Kong with friends, he said he was photographed and verbally abused by a "pro-Beijing gang".

"Those are the common tactics that they use to target pro-democracy activists," he said.

Wong said the price he paid in being under surveillance was "comparatively small" compared to protesters shot with live rounds during demonstrations last year.

But he said it was hard to plan for the future under the threat of the national security law China imposed on Hong Kong in June in response to last year's huge and often violent pro-democracy protests.

He said it was "already a kind of miracle" that he was still at liberty to speak at such an international event.

"Every day I sleep, I also worry will the government come to arrest me immediately, or the day after, storm into my house at 5:00 am just like experienced by Jimmy Lai," he said.

Media mogul Lai was among 10 people detained under the law earlier this month, and the newsroom of his Apple Daily was searched.

- 'Uphill battle' -

Prominent activist Agnes Chow, who like Wong was a key figure in the "Umbrella Movement", was also arrested. Both were released on bail.

Wong said the pro-democracy movement was only asking for the autonomy that Beijing promised Hong Kong when it was handed back from Britain in 1997.

"We are not asking something that goes too far," he said in the interview conducted by Sophie Richardson, China director of Human Rights Watch.

Story continues

Wong said he saw "no chance" for Hong Kong to have free elections under Chinese President Xi Jinping, but said activists should press on, adding that he still had hope in the people of Hong Kong.

"Hong Kong is not Hong Kong any more, but with the spirit of Hong Kongers we still go forward in this uphill battle," he said.

pau-ar/txw
Renegade military commander Khalifa Haftars forces have dismissed a ceasefire announcement by Libyas internationally recognised government as a marketing stunt.

Ahmed Mismari, spokesman for Haftars self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), said on Sunday rival forces from the war-torn countrys west were mobilising around front lines in the centre of the country.

In a media briefing, he said the eastern-based forces were ready to respond to any attempted attack on its positions around the coastal city of Sirte and Jufra, further inland.

Mismaris comments were the first by the LNA after the announcement on Friday of a ceasefire and a call for the resumption of oil production by the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA), headed by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj.

The initiative that al-Sarraj signed is for media marketing, Mismari said. There is a military build-up and the transfer of equipment to target our forces in Sirte, he added.

If al-Sarraj wanted a ceasefire, he would have drawn his forces back, not advanced towards our units in Sirte.

Mismari made no reference to a parallel ceasefire call also issued on Friday by the head of Libyas eastern-based parliament, Aguila Saleh. Saleh has gained influence compared with Haftar since Turkish military support for the GNA forced the LNA to retreat from a 14-month offensive on Tripoli in June.

Al Jazeeras Malik Traina, reporting from Misrata, said: Previously in any negotiations or any peace talks in Libya, Haftar was a very significant member and very involved in these kinds of talks  and hes feeling sidelined now.

Traina noted this was not the first time Haftar had rejected a ceasefire agreement. In January, Turkey and Russia also tried to support a truce that was signed by the GNA in Moscow, but not by Haftar.

If Haftars foreign backers stop supporting him, does this mean that the GNA will be able to make advances? Does this mean that Saleh and al-Sarraj will be able to come to a peaceful agreement and bring about a lasting peace in Libya? That remains to be seen, Traina said.





Meanwhile on Saturday, Libyas High Council of State, an advisory body to the GNA, vehemently rejected any dialogue with Haftar.

In a statement, it underlined the need to seriously work to end the state of insurgency in the country through an immediate ceasefire and the need to enable the government to take control over all of Libyan soil.

Any dialogue or agreement should be under the Libyan political agreement, which regulated the mechanism of dialogue to be only between elected bodies, it added.

With Haftar loyalists blocking oil facilities in the country in recent months, the council also called for resuming the production and export of oil  Libyas main source of income  and holding those responsible for the closure of the facilities accountable.

Libya splintered into rival political and armed groupings after the uprising that toppled and killed longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The oil-rich country remains deeply divided between factions based in the east and west that back rival governments and parliaments.

The conflict has become an arena for regional rivalries, with Haftar being supported by Egypt, Russia and the United Arab Emirates and the GNA having the backing of Turkey and Qatar.

There has been little fighting since June. In the past, both sides have accused each other of quickly violating truces and using them to rearm.
 Flash

Steve Monfort, director of the Smithsonian's National Zoo, said on Saturday that they are "really proud" of the partnership with China on conserving giant pandas, a day after a "miracle" cub was born at the zoo.

In an interview with Xinhua inside the national zoo's giant panda habitat, Monfort called the arrival of the baby panda not only a moment of "pure joy" but also "a success that we should be sharing together because we didn't do this by ourselves."

Mei Xiang, a 22-year-old giant panda, was artificially inseminated in March this year with frozen semen collected from Tian Tian, the zoo's male giant panda, after signs showed that she was experiencing a normal reproductive cycle.

"We were able to execute this in a very narrow window of time," Monfort said. Female giant pandas are only in estrus, or able to become pregnant, for 24 to 72 hours each year.

Veterinarians confirmed evidence of a fetus on an ultrasound earlier this month, which was a surprise even for professionals, considering a very low fertility rate for giant pandas and, particularly, Mei Xiang's age.

The female gave birth to the cub Friday evening, making history by becoming the oldest giant panda living in the United States to do that, a "miracle" due to a decades-long partnership across the Pacific on the unique species, which has lifted many people's spirits amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The miracle really is after almost 50 years of building up knowledge about science, of animal care and nutrition and behavior and reproduction. We know exactly what to do," said the zoo chief, stressing that the zoo communicates regularly every month with colleagues in China and that he is grateful for "all of their knowledge and their generosity of sharing that knowledge with us."

"We provide updates on the status of the pandas and we're in close communication," the director said. "With any help that we need, we know that our Chinese colleagues are there to give us advice."

"We're really proud of the partnership that we have with our Chinese colleagues. We're at 48 years now of working with China with giant pandas ... it's been a huge success," he noted.

The zoo's current cooperative breeding agreement with the China Wildlife Conservation Association will expire later this year. Monfort said the two sides have had "very productive discussions."

"We're going to come up with a really good agreement pretty soon. I think this birth maybe was a little bit of a surprise for both of us," he said. "We're hopeful. We're going to have an agreement."

The zoo, located in northwest Washington, D.C., reported that Mei Xiang and her newborn had a successful first night. Between bouts of good rest, Mei Xiang appeared to nurse her cub and was very attentive to its vocalizations.

"Right now, we think everything's going very well. We've heard vocalizations overnight from the cub, which suggests that it's strong. And we've noticed the positioning of the cub on the mother's chest, which suggests that she's nursing," Monfort said. "So everything is going very well so far."

According to the zoo chief, Mei Xiang, whose three cubs have survived to adulthood, is "a great mom" and that "she's providing all the right kinds of care."

"Once this miracle happens and the baby is born, really mom takes over," he said. "We expect ... she's really got experience already and she'll be just great. So we probably will just sit back and relax and look and wait for her to signal to us when she's needing anything."

Keepers and scientists have not been able to get hands on the new cub because they want to wait until Mei Xiang is ready to leave it for more food, which usually takes place within a week or so.

"It's really difficult to even see this tiny little cub right now, but when we do the physical exam, we will be able to identify the sex at that time. So for right now, we just know what appears to be a healthy cub. Just couldn't be happier," Monfort said.

If the new cub survives, the zoo will likely follow its tradition of holding a naming ceremony at its 100 days since birth.

"We need to give mom and the cub time to be alone and to have the cub grow and become strong. We'll do a physical examination after a couple of weeks. Perhaps at 100 days, hopefully, we'll have a naming ceremony and it'll be another joyous occasion," he added.
Offshore drilling major Valaris became the latest victim of the crisis this week as it filed for bankruptcy in the U.S., proposing a swap of some $6.5 billion in debt that will see creditors become its owners. But it is just the latest headache for offshore drillers. There is more than $20 billion in offshore drillers' debt still out thereand there are not many new drilling contracts.

This considerable debt pile is bad news. Expectations that offshore drilling orders will not begin to return until 2021 is even worse news. Nevertheless, this is what IHS Markit analysts have forecast.

In a recent report, IHS Markit said that demand for drilling rigs would start to recover next year and gather speed in 2022. But this will only happen in some parts of the world, namely South America and Western Africa. Demand for offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico will remain subdued, IHS Markit's analysts said.

Meanwhile, some of the largest offshore drillers are folding. Diamond Offshore Drilling was first, filing for Chapter 11 protection in April after collapsing under the weight of $20 oil. With a debt pile of $2.6 billion, according to the Financial Times, Diamond Drilling said the move was motivated by the unprecedented oil price crash, saying in its filing that conditions in the oil industry had "worsened precipitously in recent months."

Then Noble Corp filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this month. The filing followed the company's inability to make an interest payment on a loan. The interest payment was for $15 million. Noble's total debt burden was $4 billion.

There is some $30 billion of debt in the offshore drilling industry at risk of default, Bloomberg reported this week. And while some players in the field such as global leader Transocean are looking for restructuring options to avoid bankruptcy, others will follow Noble Corp, Valaris, and Diamond Offshore. Some analysts believe this will be good for the industry.

"Offshore drilling is structurally damaged, and recovery is not imminent," Nicholas Green from Bernstein wrote in a note cited by Bloomberg. "The March oil price crash may, ironically, help to drive an eventual turnaround, if it forces sector restructuring and clear out of the weakest names."

Related: Aramco Suspends Investment In Chinese Refinery As Low Oil Prices Bite



Perhaps it is high time for such a clearance in offshore drilling. The sector was among the hardest hit by the previous crisis, along with oilfield services providers, and it never managed to recover before the Saudi-Russian price war and the pandemic struck it down again.

Now, as E&Ps struggle to survive and cut all costs that they can, expensive offshore drilling plans are front and center in their cost-cutting plans. No wonder then that offshore drillers are going under at the fastest pace since 2017, Bloomberg's David Wethe said in a separate report.

More bad news may be on the way. Although some expect a reversal of fortunes for offshore drillers soon, it remains to be seen just how full this reversal will be. The previous crisis made the industry wary of lavish spending on new projects; this may strengthen the attitude as it remains uncertain that oil demand will ever return to pre-pandemic levels. So most exploration and production companies are keeping the strings on their purses tightened, spending only on essentials.

All in all, the majority of offshore drillers may need to visit bankruptcy court at some point in the not-too-distant future, according to analysts cited by Bloomberg's Allison McNeely in her analysis of the industry's situation. They will need to restructure, consolidate, and adjust themselves to the new price environment. A return to the good old days of $100 oil is not on the foreseeable horizon.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
New Delhi, Aug 23 : After a letter surfaced calling for reform from top to bottom within the Congress, the pro-Gandhi family lobby has come out against the letter and lashed out at those behind it.

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has also rejected the letter, as he said in a statement that "Sonia Gandhi should continue as party president. What the Congress needs is a leadership that is acceptable not just to a few but to the entire party, through its rank and file, and the nation at large," he said, adding that the Gandhis were the right fit for this role.

"Sonia Gandhi should continue to helm the Congress as long as she wants," he said, and added that Rahul should thereafter take over as he was fully competent to lead the party." While the debate within the party ahead of the Congress Working Committee meeting is on who will lead the party, the question still looms large as former Union minister Salman Khurshid said that "there should be no push for elections and consensus should be given a chance within the party on the issue. Rahul Gandhi has full support of the party and workers." The Congress is divided in terms of who will replace Sonia Gandhi and speculation has intensified ahead of the crucial CWC meet. While some Congress leaders who have signed the letter said that they are not in sync with all its content but have still conveyed their feelings which must also be considered.

There is no opposition to Rahul Gandhi per se as Amarinder Singh said that electoral defeats could not be the only yardstick for leadership change. He warned that "any move to divide or destabilise the party would hand the advantage to the dictatorial forces that are seeking to trample the ideals on which our founding fathers had built modern India that is respected by the world today." Congress sources say that the matter may be discussed in the working committee but party spokesman Randeep Surjewala said "I have not seen the letter so I will not comment on it" while denying any interview given by Sonia Gandhi on this issue.

The Congress is contemplating chalking out a strategy for a smooth CWC meet as desired by the high command and party managers are reaching out to dissenters. Sources close to leaders who are perceived to be in the Rahul camp said they have made up their minds to corner those who are behind this move.

It is anticipated by the veterans that the Rahul camp may push the name of K.C. Venugopal, so everybody is gearing up with their strategies. But if the CWC decides for elections, the matter may be laid to rest. Rajya Sabha MP P.L. Punia said: "We want Rahul Gandhi to take over, which was also raised by the group wishing for his comeback as Congress chief." Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam too urged Rahul to take over the leadership role and lashed out at dissenters and termed it a conspiracy against Rahul. Sanjay Jha, sacked as Congress spokesperson recently, said: "Around 300 Congress leaders from all over the country, representing all regions and states, are signatories to the letter, over and above the names of 23 senior leaders already in the public domain. Their names remain undisclosed as it will distract from the core message of the letter itself." Earlier, the Congress had denied the existence of such a letter but now it has surfaced with signatures of more than 20 leaders. The letter, while expressing concern on the rise of the BJP, calls for a "full-time" party chief. Sonia Gandhi has been the interim party chief since August last year.
Piers Morgan arrives for the 2019 British Academy Britannia (BAFTA) awards at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills in October 2019 (Photo by VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images)

Piers Morgan responded to a joke his Good Morning Britain replacement Sean Fletcher made about his weight by boasting of his own viewing ratings.

Morgan is currently enjoying a summer break from his usual hosting duties on the ITV breakfast show, with his position being filled by a series of stand-in presenters.

Fletcher was in the GMB hot seat for the first time last week, and couldnt miss the opportunity to make a light-hearted dig about Morgan.

Read more: Piers Morgan flies home early from France to avoid quarantine rules

Sharing a photo on social media of himself and co-host Charlotte Hawkins, Fletcher revealed he had been forced to borrow a tie from Morgans wardrobe.

Alongside the tweeted picture, Fletcher wrote: Really enjoyed working with @CharlotteHawkns and @alexberesfordTV on @gmb this week.

Sean Fletcher attends the ITV Palooza 2019 at the Royal Festival Hall on November 12, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)

FYI my red tie is from @piersmorgans wardrobe, so it normally fits around a slightly larger neck - thats why it kept loosening.

The 55-year-old was quick to respond: Shame you cant borrow my much larger ratings too.

Fletcher answered to point out they had managed just over a fifth of the total viewing figures.

Shame you cant borrow my much larger ratings too. https://t.co/E2oytHGi6K  Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) August 14, 2020

He said: "21.3% for me and @CharlotteHawkns on Thursdays @gmb @piersmorgan. Not a bad share with no promo/social media campaign."

Morgan responded to poke fun at Fletchers hair, which has grown longer during lockdown.

He tweeted: "And with that hair too!" with a winking face emoji.

Fletchers longer hair had already been a talking point on the show, with one viewer sending a message praising him for normalising black hairstyles for our black sons.

'You are normalising male black hairstyles for our young black sons.'@SeanFletcherTV reads out a message he received about his longer hairdo.



He says he used to think a shaved head was 'smarter' but now his role is to show longer hair on air. pic.twitter.com/IuShbMepzn  Good Morning Britain (@GMB) August 14, 2020

Commenting on the message, the 46-year-old said: Ive had my hair short ever since Ive been on telly.

Story continues

My hair was always long but when I joined the BBC in the late Nineties and was on screen, there was something in me that made me think do you know what I need to be a bit smarter.

I mean, I actually dont think this is not smart  its just different.

Read more: Kate Garraway overwhelmed by response to coronavirus blood plasma donation plea

And if people dont think this is smart, its because they dont see this hairstyle on air.

Its my role to put this out there and Im going to keep growing it.

GMB airs weekdays from 6am on ITV.
Irish premier Micheal Martin announced Sunday he would recall parliament following a scandal over politicians breaching coronavirus rules, over which he urged EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan to consider resigning. Meanwhile, Irish "Yellow Vests" protested against Covid-19 restrictions in Dublin.

Martin and his coalition government partners, deputy prime minister Leo Varadkar and cabinet minister Eamon Ryan, "have agreed that the Dail (parliament) should be recalled", a spokesman said.

The news came after two days of political turmoil following revelations that a number of lawmakers and senior politicians attended a gala dinner in breach of coronavirus guidelines.

The Irish Examiner newspaper revealed 82 high profile figures, including EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan, a cabinet minister and a supreme court judge, attended the Oireachtas (parliament) Golf Society dinner on Wednesday night.

The event was held just 24 hours after the government announced fresh COVID-19 restrictions to curb a new surge in cases, including no "formal or informal events or parties" to be held at hotel restaurants.

It was reported that attendees at the dinner sat at tables of ten in breach of coronavirus guidelines, and organisers erected a room divider in a bid to skirt legislation banning gatherings of more than 50.

But police on Friday said they had opened an investigation into the event for alleged breaches of that same legislation.

Martin, the head of Fine Gael, the party for which Hogan previously served as a lawmaker, said on Saturday they had "asked him to consider his position".

A spokesman for Hogan told state broadcaster RTE on Saturday he would "reflect on" the request.

Irish agriculture minister Dara Calleary and deputy chair of the parliament's upper chamber Jerry Buttimer have both already resigned for their attendance at the event.

Ireland has reported 1,777 deaths from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic and has registered nearly 28,000 infections.

Story continues

Yellow vests

Meanwhile, Irish "yellow vest" activists protested against the government's Covid-19 measures in Dublin on Saturday.

The rally was organised by the Yellow Vests Ireland group - which was inspired by the larger French yellow vest movement - at Custom House Quay.

According to RTE, there was "little sign of physical distancing and most of those in attendance did not wear face coverings."

Speakers at the Yellow Vests' rally denounced the current Covid-19 restrictions and described them as unconstitutional and unnecessary.

One speaker claimed there was no evidence that wearing face coverings protect people from coronavirus.

There have been similar demonstrations against government restrictions and in particular compulsory mask-wearing organised in the UK, the United States, Germany, Spain and France.
Washington: US President Donald Trump on Saturday accused members of the "deep state" at the Food and Drug Administration, without providing evidence, of working to slow testing of COVID-19 vaccines until after the November presidential election.

In a Twitter post, Trump said the deep state "or whoever" at the FDA was making it very difficult for drug companies to enroll people in clinical trials to test vaccines and therapies for the novel coronavirus.

The comment came after Reuters exclusively reported on Thursday that a top FDA official said he would resign if the Trump administration approved a vaccine before it was shown to be safe and effective.

"Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives!" Trump wrote, tagging FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn in the tweet.
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP)  Hungary signed a declaration of intent Wednesday to purchase air defense missiles from the United States for around $1 billion.

The agreement was signed by Hungarian Defense Minister Tibor Benko and David Cornstein, the U.S. ambassador to Hungary.

The U.S. Embassy described the deal as Hungarys largest-ever defense procurement from the United States.

According to the Hungarian Defense Ministry, it includes both air-to-air and land-to-air missiles.

Hungary has been a NATO member since 1999.

In revealing his governments plans to secure U.S.-made weapons, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said last year that the construction of the modern Hungarian army is happening now.

The Orban government has increased annual defense spending since around 2015 following deep cuts in the years following the 2008 financial crisis. NATO members agreed in 2014 to gradually raise national defense spending to 2% of GDP by 2024.

According to Hungary's 2021 budget plan, defense spending is projected to reach 778 billion forints ($2.25 billion) next year, or around 1.66% of GDP.
Arizona News

Phoenix, Arizona - Arizona is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote after more than 70 years of advocacy. Congress ratified the 19th Amendment on August 18, 1920.

Arizona is proud to recognize the anniversary of the 19th Amendment and 100 years of womens right to vote across the nation, said Governor Ducey. This historic occasion in 1920 was the result of decades of unwavering advocacy. As we celebrate this proud moment in our nations history, we honor the countless voicesmany who called Arizona homewho ushered in a more free and fair democracy.



In 1912, Arizona became the tenth state to grant women full voting rights. This historic moment took place nearly eight years before Congress ratified the 19th Amendment and granted women the right to vote nationally.



Womens Equality Day is on August 26, 2020. The Arizona State Capitol will be lit purple and gold on this day to further celebrate 100 years of womens right to vote in the United States. Organizations, businesses, and private and public buildings are welcome to join in the purple and gold lighting on August 26.
(Natural News) Lightning strikes have been triggering a lot of wildfires in the West. These are brought by the thunderstorms moving westward since last week  and extreme dry conditions and winds from the tropics are not helping.

Experts blame the southerly winds coming from the tropics for fueling the storms, which caused about 10,000 lightning strikes over the course of three days.

In California, the total active wildfires have already ravaged an area almost as big as Rhode Island as of August 21. More than a hundred thousand residents have been ordered to leave home while five people died due to the fires.

But forecasters with the National Weather Services Bay Area office said that there could be more dry thunderstorms coming in the weekend.

Lightning strikes wildfires in the West

Wildfires are very common in the western United States, especially between August to November. In an outlook statement, the National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC) said that August represents the peak of the fire season for the West. The agency warned that the following areas are at high risk for wildfires: the Great Basin, the Pacific Northwest, the northern Rockies and northern California.

The NICC added that the North American Monsoon will increase the likelihood of lightning without moisture. And with the lightning, more wildfires are expected to occur.

Given the dry fuels, any lightning will likely result in increased fire activity and above normal significant large fire potential into September, reads the statement.

The recent boom in wildfire activity in various states coincided with the lightning barrage that swept through the West. The lightning barrage was likely caused by the southerly winds that blew from the tropics, which brought a lot of moisture north- and westward and fueled thunderstorms.

The storms were high-based so rain mostly evaporated before hitting the ground. These dry storms led to lightning without rain. And abetted by the dry and hot conditions, lightning struck dry fuel grounds and started the fires.

Both Californias August fire complexes and the Pine Gulch Fire in Colorado were said to be caused by lightning. (Related: The Pine Gulch Fire is now the second largest wildfire in Colorado history.)

Wildfire in California worsens

According to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), there are about 92 active large fires across the United States. Most of the states currently reporting large fires are from the West, with California reporting the most number of cases at 27, followed by Oregon at 16.

The worst-hit is California. The fires in the state, including the smaller ones, have burned more than 771,000 acres of land as of August 21  almost as large as Rhode Island. The biggest among the wildfires is the L.N.U. Lightning Complex stretching across Napa County and four other surrounding counties. It has burned more than 300,000 acres of land.

At least 119,000 people have been ordered to leave their homes while five people died due to the fires. Three of them were found in a burned-down house in a rural area in Napa County while another died due to a helicopter crash.

Air quality is also worsening; a satellite image taken using the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite 17 (GOES-17) shows a wide swatch of smoke hovering over California and other states.

Meanwhile, firefighters are struggling to contain the fires, which are particularly extensive on the states north.

Throughout the state of California right now, we are stretched thin for crews, said state fire spokesman Will Powers. Air resources have been stretched thin throughout the whole state.

It isnt likely that Californias wildfires will start letting up soon; more dry thunderstorms are expected to come, bringing lightning without rain and strong winds to an already-burning region.

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday asked for help from other states, saying their efforts are not enough to stamp the massive fires.

Climate.news has more on the ongoing wildfires in California.

Sources include:

WattsUpWithThat.com

NYTimes.com

DisasterPhilanthropy.org

EarthObservatory.NASA.gov
Pittsburgh police, in an incident mediated by a defense attorney and local activist, arrested a prominent protester Friday night for alleged disorderly conduct after he spent another evening protesting outside the home of Mayor Bill Peduto.

Lorenzo Rulli faces multiple misdemeanor and summary charges, including possession of an instrument of crime for his use of a megaphone to shout his stance against the mayor and police outside Pedutos Point Breeze home.

Rulli, 24, has been an outspoken critic of Pedutos handling of police responses to Black Lives Matter protests throughout the summer, and hes faced charges for alleged actions at multiple protests.

On Friday, Rulli was back on Hastings Street, where in addition to protesting via megaphone from inside his car, he was also shouting obscenities and threats, according to police. Police wrote in the criminal complaint that neighbors, some with children, called 911 asking for assistance.

An officer who was patrolling the area said Rulli committed several traffic violations, including two illegal U-turns. Eventually, police conducted a traffic stop and more officers arrived. While Ruilli eventually handed over his license and registration as asked, he refused to get out of his car.

As Rulli was live-streaming the incident, a crowd of other activists began to gather on Hastings Street. He continued to broadcast his refusal to get out of the car, saying he would turn himself in to the District Attorneys Office in the morning.

He said many times that he thought police would kill him and he believed he would die in a confrontation with police. He screamed profanities at officers, asking them to leave him alone and alleging they were there to kill him.

Brandi Fisher, an activist and leader of the Alliance for Police Accountability, and defense attorney Paul Jubas arrived at the scene and worked to mediate the situation with police permission. Rulli said he was afraid of police and would only allow them to take him into custody if Jubas and Fisher could go with him.

Jubas could not immediately be reached for comment.

Police accommodated that request, bringing in a larger vehicle so Rulli would not have sit directly behind officers as they took him to the Allegheny County Jail.

It was not clear from court records Saturday morning whether Rulli was being held at the jail. He is charged with disorderly conduct, making illegal U-turns, possession of an instrument of crime and obstructing the law.
Tropical Storm Laura is forecast to hit the Dominican Republic on Sunday, as meteorologists warned 4-8 inches of rain, along with high waves, could batter Caribbean islands before the system moves into the Gulf of Mexico.

There are two storms currently churning through the region, and are expected to hit parts of the U.S. back-to-back.

Tropical Storm Marco is forecast to hit the Louisiana coast with hurricane-force winds on Monday, with Laura making landfall later this week.

Louisiana residents were ordered on Sunday to evacuate low-lying coastal areas.

The U.S. Coast Guard also raised its warning for the Port of New Orleans, calling for ships to make plans to evacuate some areas.
Dr. Alidu Seidu, Senior Lecturer, Political Science Department, University of Ghana, has advised Mr Ivor Kobina Greenstreet, Convention Peoples Party (CPP) Flagbearer elect, to resuscitate the dreams of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.



He said Mr Greenstreet ought to merge the core values of the CPP, Ghana's founding President's industrialization drive with contemporary political realities to bring back the love for the Party.



Dr. Seidu gave the advice in an interview with the Ghana News Agency following the election of Mr Greenstreet as CPPs flagbearer for the 2020 election after he demonstrated a strong character in the 2016 polls as leader of the Party.



He said the repackaging of the Party would court old members and attract new and floating voters.



Dr. Seidu said many Ghanaians were now doubting the policies of the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party and calling for a third force and asked the CPP to reposition itself for that.



He described Mr Greenstreet as a good candidate, who is dependable, mature and politically tolerant, and only needed the support of old and new party executives to get there.



I want to believe he has learnt good lessons in the last election. He understands the campaign better now and with the caliber of these new executives and support of old ones, they can get there, Dr. Seidu said.



The CPP on Saturday elected Mr. Greenstreet to lead the Party into the 2020 presidential election.



Mr. Greenstreet, a lawyer, beat two others; Mr. Bright Akwetey and Mr. Divine Ayivor, with 1,364 votes at the Partys National Congress to become CPPs 2020 Flagbearer.



Mr. Bright Akwetey and Mr. Divine Ayivor had 597 and 171 votes respectively.



The Convention Peoples Party is a socialist oriented political party based on the ideas of the first President of Ghana, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.



It was formed in June 1949 after Dr Nkrumah broke away from the United Gold Cost Convention.



It is a traditional political party that gained independence for Ghana. The party last tasted power under the banner of the Dr Hilla Liman led People National Party in 1979 which was overthrown by Flt Lt JJ Rawlings on the last day of 1981





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
The city of Amsterdam has found an innovative way to tackle the age old problem of public urination.

The city council has installed 12 special plant pots that double up as urinals spread across tourist hot spots including the Red Light District, Rembrandtplein and Leidseplein.

The planters, called GreenPees, serve a duel purpose, providing late night revellers with a place to relieve themselves if they are caught short while the urine is collected and used to make fertiliser.

The Dutch company behind GreenPees already supplies the bold invention to three other cities in the Netherlands and one city in Belgium.

GreenPees, pictured, have been installed in tourist hot spots across Amsterdam to combat public urination in a sustainable and eco-friendly way as urine is collected to make fertiliser

Designed by a Dutch company, there are 12 of these discrete urinals in Amsterdam and they are also installed in Vlaardingen and Beekbergen, as well as Mechelen and Genk in Belgium

Inventor Richard de Vries said the company worked on a pilot project with the city back in 2018 which saw four GreenPees installed and reduced 'wild peeing' by 50 per cent.

He added: 'Peeing against a wall is going to damage historic buildings.

'It is dirty, unhygienic and attracts flies. We came up with the idea of a planter to help keep the city green and provide something we can make fertiliser from.'

Mr de Vries says the planters are odour free, use less water than traditional urinals and all the urine is regularly collected from the planters for processing and phosphate harvesting.

Rembrandtplein (pictured) is one of the popular tourist spots to feature a GreenPees urinal

Amsterdam's council reportedly invested the equivalent of 50,000 in the project as the city eases back to normality during the pandemic.

The latest models have been adjusted based on feedback from the first four with added privacy and more openings to pee in.

The company also designed a special, slimmer model that can be placed in narrow alleyways.

GreenPees can also be found in Dutch cities Vlaardingen and Beekbergen, as well as Mechelen and Genk in Belgium.
She said the Postal Service preceded the official founding of the United States, and noted the House of Representatives voted to approve emergency funding to help the post office handle an increase in mail-in ballots. She said the post office should not be a partisan issue.
- Jessy Mendiola uploaded a new episode of her YouTube vlog featuring her boyfriend, Luis Manzano

- The lovebirds asked each other interesting and unique questions so that their viewers would be able to know them better

- They discussed the allegation against Jessy that she stole Luis from his ex-girlfriend, Angel Locsin

- The actress frankly stated that she got extremely offended by the accusation because it is not true

PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed

Jessy Mendiola (Photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Source: UGC

Jessy Mendiola released an insightful new episode of her YouTube vlog featuring her boyfriend, Luis Manzano.

KAMI learned that the lovebirds asked each other interesting and unique questions so that their viewers would be able to know them better.

One of the topics they discussed is the allegation against Jessy that she stole Luis from his ex-girlfriend, Angel Locsin.

According to Jessy, she got extremely offended by the accusation because it is not true. She added that she would not have gotten hurt by the rumor if it was true.

PAY ATTENTION: Shop with KAMI! The best offers and discounts on the market, product reviews and feedbacks

Hindi naman mapagkakaila na sobrang na-offend ako nung tinatawag akong palaging ahas o third party, so thats a given.

Sinasabi ng iba, dapat hindi ka nasasaktan kasi hindi totoo. Pero its mas masakit kasi nga hindi totoo.

It hurts more cause its not true. Kasi kung totoo, sige hahayaan ko kayong sabihin yan, Jessy said.

PAY ATTENTION: Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news!

Jessy Mendiola is a popular actress and endorser in the Philippines. The actress got her big break on the teleserye "Sabel" and then rose to fame when she starred as "Maria Mercedes" on ABS-CBN. She is in a relationship with actor-host Luis Manzano, the ex-boyfriend of Angel Locsin.

Luis went viral recently for praising his mother, Vilma Santos, for voting in favor of renewing the franchise of ABS-CBN.

70 congressmen voted against it while only 11 congressmen, including Vilma, voted in favor of the Kapamilya network.

Please like and share our amazing Facebook posts to support the KAMI team! Dont hesitate to comment and share your opinions about our stories either. We love reading about your thoughts and views on different matters!

Source: KAMI.com.gh
Hotly debated legislation that would have precluded the Albuquerque Police Department from taking surplus military equipment through a federal program met a relatively rare fate during last weeks City Council meeting: it failed on a 4-4 vote.

Its defeat occurred after two proposed amendments to the bill also failed on 4-4 votes.

Tie votes are uncommon because the Albuquerque City Council is a nine-member board.

But District 9 Councilor Don Harris was not present for the matter, having left last Mondays virtual meeting for good during the otherwise brief dinner break that occurred about midway through the 6-hour session. He did not publicly explain his exit.

His absence during the vote drew a social media rebuke from the bills co-sponsor, Council President Pat Davis, who lamented on Twitter that four councilors refused to formally ban APD from participating in the military surplus program, while one councilor didnt bother to show up for the vote.

Harris departure also occurred before one of his own bills had come up on the nights agenda. When it finally did, Davis bypassed it due to the sponsors absence. However, Davis brought it back at the meetings end, saying he had been told that the matter at hand  issuing bonds for the Juan Tabo Hills Estates public improvement district  was time-sensitive. The council approved the legislation 7-1.

Harris said he left last weeks meeting midway through because he had other plans that evening.

There was a class at Calvary (Church) my wife wanted me to attend with her, he said, adding that the class continues Monday nights for a few months but that he will prioritize council sessions over making the church class on time.

He said he would have voted against the military surplus bill had he participated.

Last week was the third time in the last four council meetings that Harris missed several votes. He skipped the last few hours of the Aug. 3 meeting, including a vote on the citys new energy conservation code. He said he was in Colorado at the time because his daughter was having major surgery.

He also missed several votes at the June 15 meeting, which he said was likely related to work he was doing for his business.

But Harris defended his overall meeting attendance record as pretty good.

I think its just an anomaly, he said of the recent absences.

PARK PURCHASE: The city of Albuquerque has invested in property near its problem-plagued Coronado Park, buying an adjacent office building that will support a security presence and possibly other city functions.

Johnny Chandler, a spokesman for the citys Department of Municipal Development, said the city is still deciding on an exact staffing plan for the former law office at 2040 Fourth NW but that it will include at least some city security officers.

Its something were still looking into: how much it needs to be staffed (and) if a 24/7 security presence makes sense or not, he said.

Other departments, including Family and Community Services, Albuquerque Fire Rescue and Parks and Recreation, might also use the 5,996-square-foot building the city bought for $550,000.

Two people have been killed since late May at Coronado Park, and the site, at Second and McKnight NW, just south of Indian School, is a popular destination for the homeless, given the proximity to service providers.

The city had earlier this year identified the area near Coronado Park as a finalist for its planned Gateway Center homeless shelter, which officials had once envisioned as a large facility with overnight capacity for 300. Although the city has essentially abandoned the idea of a single, 300-bed shelter in favor of multiple, smaller facilities, officials continue to refer to the park in the context of the project.

During a meeting of the multiagency Homeless Coordinating Council last week, Albuquerque Chief Operating Officer Lawrence Rael mentioned that the Fourth Street building purchase would provide space for city security and other city staff. He added, If in the future the decision is made to locate the Gateway facility at that location, we would already have at least an anchor in the corner with a facility that could be used for services as well.

Jessica Dyer: jdyer@abqjournal.com
This is the first visit to Iran for Rafael Grossi since he became director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in December, and it comes at a time of intense international pressure on the country over its nuclear program. The focus will be on access to sites thought to be from the early 2000s, before Iran signed the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Iran maintains that the IAEA has no legal basis to inspect the sites.
To escape paying EMIs on loans he had taken for his gold jewellery business, a man got his friend to wear a burqa and use a toy gun to carry out a fake robbery of items worth Rs 61 lakh at his shop in Central Delhis Chandni Mahal on Friday night, the police said on Sunday.

While the robbery itself was carried out convincingly -- the jeweller got himself thrashed and bound up with rope -- the police used the CCTV footage to determine that he had allowed a friendly entry to the robber and that it was eventually a fake robbery, said Sanjay Bhatia, deputy commissioner of police (central district).

The police have arrested three men -- the jeweller Abhijeet Samanta, and his friends, property dealer Farhan and mechanic Munna. While Farhan allegedly arranged the burqa and the toy gun, Munna was the man who carried out the fake robbery.

Also read: Family quarrel turns tragic in Odisha, three die after taking pesticide

The DCP said that 40-year-old Samanta had a jewellery-making shop and he would supply readymade gold jewellery to showrooms in Central Delhi. Between 2017 and 2018, he had taken loans of a total of Rs 61 lakh from three banks to enhance his business. But his business never took off the way he had hoped, said the DCP.

It turned worse during the lockdown, and the banks were pressuring him to pay the EMIs on loans.

Samanta thought that if he could show that his gold stock was robbed, he could avoid having to pay the loan. So, he roped in his two friends, said the DCP.

While he asked Farhan to arrange the toy gun and a burqa, he tasked Munna with the fake robbery, the officer said.

As per the plan, Samanta had returned to his shop after collecting a payment of Rs 50,000 from a jeweller around 8.30 pm on Friday.

Soon after he entered his shop, Munna wearing a burqa followed him, placed the gun on his forehead, beat him up and robbed the cash from him. Samanta then allowed himself to be tied up with a rope and then pretended that be was forced to hand over the keys to the lockers, said the DCP.

On receiving a call soon after the fake robbery, the police began checking the CCTV footage inside and outside the shop.

Samanta and Munna had done well to make it appear like a real robbery, but the shopkeeper leaving the door open behind him aroused our suspicion. So, we began observing the footage more keenly and found Samantas overall behavior during the robbery quite fishy, said the DCP.

Over the next six hours on Saturday, the police questioned Samanta before he finally allegedly broke down and revealed it all. The police have recovered all the gold, the burqa and the toy pistol.
A Grammy-winning folk rock duo is standing in solidarity with a social justice group dedicated to relocating a Confederate monument in northwest Alabama

Amy Ray and Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls will be hosting a concert at 5 p.m. today in front of the Lauderdale County Courthouse in Florence, which is the location of a 117-year-old Confederate monument. A group called Project Say Something has organized a series of events, such as dance protests and childrens marches, in an effort to get city officials to relocate the monument to a city-owned burial ground for Civil War veterans called Soldiers Rest. The organization vows to continue the protests until the monument is relocated.

In a video interview with Project Say Something on August 13, Ray and Sailers said they learned about Project Say Something through a friend and were amazed at the work and research the group has done during the past couple years to contextualize the Confederate monument.

Its time to give these monuments the correct context and reclaim the South with love and anti-racism, the Indigo Girls said on their Facebook page.

The band is asking participants to bring their lawn chairs, masks and maintain social distancing guidelines.
Police officers watch over a crowd of people near the Colorado state capitol during a protest in Denver, Col., on May 29, 2020. (Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

Dozens Arrested for Riot-Related Charges in Denver, Say Police

The Denver Police Department on Saturday night announced several dozen people, some of whom were wearing shields and helmets, were arrested amid unrest and protests.

A group organized to protest at around 9 a.m. downtown and it quickly devolved into what city officials called a riot. They were positioned outside the Denver Police Department headquarters.

They brought weapons to the table. They had guns. They brought explosives, axes, machetes, and had one intent purpose and that was to harm our officers, said Murphy Robinson, Denvers Public Safety Director, according to local media outlets. I want these anarchists to hear me clearly and loudly that this will not be tolerated in our city. You are not welcome here.

Authorities said that between 50 and 75 people were arrested for riot-related charges.

Denvers Mayor Michael Hancock said that using the term march or protest is highly inaccurate.

Last night was a riot in our city, said Denver Mayor Michael Hancock. We will not be using the words protest or march. This was a riot.

Robinson said that more resources will be allocated to stopping the riots.

Effective immediately, Im suspending the Command PR Bond Jail Inmate cap I put in place due to COVID-19 in March, he said. That measure was implemented earlier this year to curb the spread of the CCP virus in the jail.

Like in other cities across the United States following George Floyds death in May, protesters and agitators were calling for the Denver police department to be abolished, CBS Denver reported.

I want to speak to you as a black man and as a Denver native, Robinson said. The narrative that these anarchists are marching for justice for black lives is frankly false. The public needs to know that you do not represent us. Stop using the color of my skin to tear up my city.

Footage uploaded by 9News showed extensive damage to stores, including a Quiznos and other buildings. Some anti-police rioters also burned an American flag and threw a bicycle at an officer, a reporter said.

Robinson said the department will attempt to get suspects to pay for the damage they caused.

A lot of damage was inflicted on buildings last night, particularly public-owned buildings. I have instructed the City Attorneys Office to prepare, as we can prove, those who inflicted this damage on our building, prepare to hold them fully accountable for restitution, he said. This should not be something [borne] by the people of Denver, the taxpayers of this city.

A Reddit post that was circulating online publicized the Give Em Hell protest in Denver, calling on people to bring your gear.
Google Pixel 5 will use Qualcomms mid-range Snapdragon 765G chip (for the 5G variant) instead of the top-end Snapdragon 865 or 865 Plus chip. Here is what you need to know about Googles next flagship phone.

Google is set to launch its next flagship phone Pixel 5 very soon. The new premium smartphone is rumoured to launch on September 30. Ahead of an official release, Pixel 5 details have continued to leak online. Earlier this week, Pixel 5 design got leaked through CAD-based renders. And now, more details about Pixel 5 have surfaced online.

Google Pixel 5 will reportedly launch with up to 8GB of RAM and up to 128GB Storage, reports Android Central. The 5G version of the smartphone will run on Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G processor. The 4G version of the phone is said to come with Snapdragon 730G SoC under the hood.

The choice of the chipset is rather surprising as Google has used Qualcomms flagship chips on its premium phones. The SD 765G and 730G chips are found mostly on mid-range Android phones.

According to older leaks, Google Pixel 5 will look similar to the recently launched Pixel 4a series. It will a single punch-hole camera up front for selfies. On the back, it will sport a square-like camera module, also available on the Pixel 4a.

As far as specifications go, Google Pixel 5 is said to feature a 6-inch OLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate. Like Pixel 4, the Pixel 5 is also expected to house as many as two rear cameras. This time, Google may opt for a wide-angle lens for the secondary camera instead of a telephoto lens. Pixel 5 will reportedly feature support for 15W fast charging speed and 5W reverse wireless charging.

According to reports, Google will launch only one variant of Pixel 5 this year as the XL version has been scrapped.

That said, the Google Pixel 5 launch is just about a month away. Were likely to find out more about the phone in coming weeks.
Sen. Kamala Harris will be fine. Shes a Californian.

This column is not an endorsement of the vice-presidential nominee. But you can ignore all the anxiety on the left about her shifting positions. And you can dismiss the never-ending racist and sexist conspiracies from the right about her origins. You can feel confident that shell perform well in the campaign ahead.

Because her heart is from the right place.

Could there be any better preparation for running a country as insane as the United States than a political career in a state as crazy as California?

Lord knows, you shouldnt trust Harris  she is both a politician and a lawyer, two professions that deserve every jaundiced ounce of your skepticism. But you should trust the Golden State that made her  as a classroom for dealing with the widest variety of people, and as a proving ground for navigating the endless complications of 21st century life.

Lets say you were put in charge of producing an American vice president, which is to say someone who could step in as president and make all the tricky and difficult decisions that high office requires.

Where better to raise her than the Berkeley of the late 1960s and 1970s? Just by moving around the city, you would expose her  as Kamala Harris mother did  to all kinds of people, rich and poor, activists and academics, those with brilliant ideas for changing the world, and others who were off their rockers. You would make hers a mixed-race family, and her parents would be immigrant scholars from places on opposite ends of the world  say Jamaica and India  so she would understand America in that deep way that only new arrivals do.

You would have her live in an integrated community with renters and homeowners and the middle-class and the working-class. Youd have her attend a newly integrated elementary school, learn piano and ballet from real artists, and clean beakers in the university labs while going to Hindu temple and learning hymns at the 23rd Avenue Church of God.

Now Playing: Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden has named California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate. The Oakland native is the first Black woman and first person of South Asian American descent to be nominated for national office by a major party. See highlights from her barrier-breaking career. Video: San Francisco Chronicle

Maybe the vice president you were training would live in a foreign city for a few years (in Harris case, Montreal), and attend college in our nations capital. But when she came back for law school, youd send her to a place like UC Hastings. There, stuck between the powerful people of San Francisco City Hall and the state Supreme Court, and the desperate and destitute of the Tenderloin, shed get constant reminders that official decisions have consequences. Youd have her start as a prosecutor, first in Alameda County and then back in San Francisco, so she could see the horrors that ensue when societies and families fail. And youd assign her to the most wrenching cases, involving domestic violence, sex crimes and the abuse of children, so she could understand the depths of human vulnerability.

To steel her for Americas nasty politics, youd have her launch her electoral career in San Francisco, with the toughest political culture of any city in the state. You would not give her an open seat, but rather force her to beat an incumbent district attorney  her former boss  in a tricky three-person race.

Youd have her stay close to the powerful and local political machine, learning (and borrowing donors) from its greatest practitioner, Willie Brown, while also forcing her to figure out how to separate herself from the insiders and interests, and how to collaborate with reformers. You would hope the experience would teach her to survive in a political arena of attacks and corruption  and it would. One San Francisco political strategist compared Harris to the Tim Robbins character in The Shawshank Redemption who crawled through a river of s and came out clean on the other side.

And once shed triumphed in Californias Sodom, San Francisco, youd send her down to its Gomorrah, Los Angeles. Youd have her run for state attorney general against a very popular district attorney, a Los Angeles Republican named Steve Cooley, who had locked up the endorsements of all the states law enforcement organizations. And because a Republican who wins Los Angeles wins statewide, youd have her all but move to a city where almost no one knew her name, and send her into neighborhoods deeply suspicious of outsiders and prosecutors. Youd make her find a way to beat the hometown boy in his hometown.

Youd send her, victorious, to Sacramento, where she would work with the most experienced governor in history, Jerry Brown, one of a group of geriatrics  Sen. Dianne Feinstein, former Sen. Barbara Boxer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi  who dominated politics. And she would study these elders, learn how they got things done quietly, and figure out how to seize some of the power they held. Her work as attorney general also would force her to learn the whole nation-state of California, with its hyper-complicated regions that are bigger than most states.

Then youd have her run again, statewide, for the U.S. Senate. And to make it challenging, youd put her in a strange top-two system that would have her competing not against a hapless Republican  but rather against another popular Democrat, from the states largest ethnic group.

And in surveys just a few months before the November election, youd have Kamala Harris  the leading Black politician in a state with a small and declining Black population  losing Latino votes by 25 points to Loretta Sanchez. But then she and her team would go quietly to the border, to poor and Latino Imperial County, and test every message of hers they could. And wouldnt you know it? By November, she would have figured out how to be more popular with Latinos than her opponent. Through all of this, she would taste every flavor of California crazy, while retaining her powerful calm, and her sense of humor.

Of course, so many varied and challenging experiences also would make her cautious, and disciplined about protecting herself from attacks. And in a polarized time, such caution  even coming from, by voting record, the second most progressive person in the U.S. Senate  would sometimes look like moderation. This would be quite a distinguishing trick, at least in California. Most people here like to sound progressive but are actually quite moderate, while she would manage to look like a moderate while being quite progressive.

But the appearance of moderation would draw its own attacks, from progressive partisans, and end her presidential campaign before it got started. Of course, abandoning her presidential campaign  a first defeat  would allow her to regroup, to forge new alliances and address weaknesses, and to win the vice-presidential nomination.

And she would be ready for whatever came next. California, after preparing her for nearly all her life, had already made sure of it.

Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zocalo Public Square.
MATTOON  An event to raise awareness about childhood sexual abuse and trafficking was held Saturday in Mattoon.

The Save Our Children Peaceful Awareness March Against Child Trafficking started at 10 a.m.

It was one of the events held in Illinois on Saturday to end human trafficking.

About 50 people also gathered at the Thompson Center in Chicago at about 12:30 p.m. with signs reading, Protect the vulnerable and Leave our children alone.

We are walking to raise awareness of human trafficking and child sexual abuse, organizer Patrycja Bielecka said. This happens every day. Its a huge problem in our backyard.

That march was part of an international demonstration planned for about 60 sites organized by the group Freedom for the Children, which advocates for school programs to educate students and adults about warning signs of sex abuse.

The group worked with police and agreed to march on sidewalks and not to block traffic, while handing out informational pamphlets and white carnations to passersby.

The U.S. State Department defines human trafficking as any servitude forced through coercion, and sex trafficking as any commercial sexual activity that is coerced or involves anyone under 18.

The agency has estimated as many as 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year, with millions more in involuntary servitude.

In the United States, the U.S. Department of Justice has estimated up to 200,000 children are at risk of sex trafficking.

The Chicago Tribune contributed to this report.

PHOTOS: Have you seen these missing children?

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President Trump speaks, accompanied by Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn, center, during a media briefing at the White House on Sunday. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press)

On the eve of the start of the Republican National Convention, President Trump on Sunday touted a very historic breakthrough in treating coronavirus, announcing that the government had authorized the emergency use of blood plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients to combat the disease.

But scientists said the therapeutic benefits of the treatment, which has already been used on some 70,000 patients, were not yet fully understood, and some public health experts questioned whether political considerations had colored the decision-making process.

It was not the first time Trump had hailed what he described as a game-changer in treating the virus, which has killed more than 175,000 Americans. And it echoed a previous pattern of the president overriding or undermining his governments own scientists in confronting the 6-month-old outbreak, which has devastated the U.S. economy and upended daily life across the nation.

In an appearance at the White House, Trump, whose pandemic policies have come under scathing attack from Democrats, claimed credit for personally prodding what he depicted as a reluctant federal bureaucracy into action with the Food and Drug Administrations emergency order.

Thats such a powerful term, emergency use, he said. Todays action will dramatically expand access to this treatment. ... The results have been incredible.

Were not going to let it be held up, he added.

Trumps Health and Human Services secretary, Alex Azar, appearing alongside him, hailed it as a major advance in the treatment of patients. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn cited the totality of data as backing the use of convalescent plasma as safe.

The White House had contended for days that the FDA was dragging its feet on approving lifesaving therapeutics  a contention sharply disputed by Scott Gottlieb, a former head of the FDA under Trump.

I firmly reject the idea that they [the FDA] would slow-walk anything or accelerate anything for that matter, based on any kind of political consideration and any consideration other than what's best for the public health," Gottlieb said on CBS Face the Nation.

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The president's announcement came against the backdrop of public opinion polls that suggest about two-thirds of Americans do not approve of his handling of the pandemic, which has hit the United States harder than any other advanced country.

At last weeks Democratic convention, Trumps pandemic policies were excoriated, and the outbreaks grim course is expected to be a central campaign talking point by the Democrats nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden. Trump this week will formally accept the Republican presidential nomination.

The president  who has often sought to deflect the blame for failures in fighting the virus, which has killed more than 176,000 Americans  suggested in a tweet late Saturday that a shadowy deep state was trying to harm his reelection prospects.

That, he implied, might be preventing the FDA from moving ahead swiftly with regulatory approval of treatments for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. Must focus on speed, and saving lives! he wrote.

In earlier appearances on Sundays news-talk shows, Trumps chief of staff, Mark Meadows, provided no evidence to back up the presidents claim of a deliberate slowdown in approving coronavirus therapeutics, blaming bureaucrats who think that they can just do this the way they normally do it.

The presidents right to call it out, he said on CNNs State of the Union.

In a separate appearance on ABCs This Week, Meadows suggested that Hahn's job might have been in jeopardy.

Its almost impossible to fire a federal employee, regardless of what they do wrong, he said.

Telegraphing Sunday's announcement in advance, Trump last week blasted the FDA for a decision against authorizing convalescent plasma's emergency use after the National Institutes of Health cited relatively scant data.

In announcing the emergency use authorization  which is different than FDA approval  the chief scientist for the FDA, Denise Hinton, wrote that "convalescent plasma should not be considered a new standard of care for the treatment of patients with COVID-19." She added that "additional data will be forthcoming from other analyses and ongoing, well-controlled clinical trials in the coming months.

Other scientists questioned Trump's role in promoting the treatment. Benjamin Corb, public affairs director of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, said Trump was "once again putting his political goals ahead of the health and well-being of the American public."

"The FDA last week held up on issuing this authorization at the behest of government scientists who are awaiting clinical trials to prove the safety and efficacy of the treatment," he said in a statement.

In the CBS interview, Gottlieb described convalescent plasma as having "incremental" known value.

I believe plasma is probably beneficial, he said. But I think some people wanted to see more rigorous data to ground that decision. And I think that's part of what is going on here with respect to that tweet, and questions about the FDA decision-making.

Trump's move fueled existing concerns about politics, not science, taking a lead role in White House coronavirus policy. Andrew Slavitt, who was a senior healthcare official in the Obama administration, tweeted before the announcement that convalescent plasma, if given early enough in the course of the disease, did appear to result in a lowered death rate.

Slavitt, who served as acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said officials and scientists he had spoken to still had many questions and concerns about the data to date.

In the course of the pandemic, Trump has often publicly undercut senior scientists, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the governments top infectious-disease expert.

The president has denigrated mask-wearing, which is urged by virtually all public health professionals, and touted the use of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug indicated in controlled clinical trials to offer no benefit in treating COVID-19.

Trump also attracted widespread ridicule earlier this year when he mused that ingesting disinfectant might be a treatment worth studying. Poison hotlines and a number of public officials then took to the airwaves and social media to implore people not to drink bleach.

In the late spring and early summer, Trump also pushed governors to reopen their states whether or not they had achieved containment benchmarks set by his own administration. In several big Sunbelt states, including Texas and Florida, that policy was blamed for igniting some of the most serious outbreaks to date, which are now subsiding but shifting to other parts of the country.

New daily cases have dropped below 50,000 for more than a week, and deaths, which stayed around 1,000 a day for the last four weeks, are probably about to drop below that level.

The concern is that if there is sort of a third wave, a third iteration of the national epidemic, it could be more diffuse, spread across a broader section of the Midwest and the West, because cases are building in those parts of the country, Gottlieb said. And thats whats concerning people right now.




Following the announcement regarding the normalisation of relations between Israel and UAE, the Palestinian ambassador to the Arab nation is reported to have been recalled.

Israel and the UAE on August 13 agreed in mediation with the United States to establish full diplomatic ties. The Palestinians have vehemently criticised the deal and have dubbed it a betrayal of the Palestinian cause.

According to reports, the agreement between the two Middle East countries which was brokered by the United States comes as a major victory for Trump administration at a crucial time as the US President seeks re-election to office in the upcoming election due in November.

Read: Kushner: UAE-Israel Agreement 1.5 Yrs In The Making

Read: Hamas Slams UAE-Israel Deal To Establish Ties

Palestinians call agreement 'treason'

The agreement makes UAE the third country in the Middle East after Jordan and Egypt to have full diplomatic ties with Israel. In a joint statement, it was also announced that representatives from the two countries would meet and sign a bilateral agreement next week on subjects such as tourism, direct flights, and the establishment of embassies among others.

As per reports, while Trump called the agreement a truly historic moment, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the deal amounts to treason.

The Palestinian President is reported to have urged other nations not to support the agreement which he believes is at the expense of the Palestinian people. Face with severe criticism from the Palestinians, the UAE has stated that they entered into the agreement in order to stop further annexation of the West Bank and thus have tried to keep the Palestinian hope for statehood alive.

Netanyahu echoed Trump's remarks

In a nationally televised news conference earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed Trump's remarks. He said, Today we usher in a new era of peace between Israel and the Arab world.

There is a good chance we will soon see more Arab countries joining this expanding circle of peace, said Netanyahu while adding that the annexation plan was on temporary hold". On the other hand, the Emirati officials described the deal as a death blow to an aggressive Israeli move and hoped to help reshape the region.

(With AP Inputs)

Read: Netanyahu Greets UAE, Israel Diplomatic Relations

Read: Trump: More Middle East Talks After UAE-Israel Deal
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 23

Trend:

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov phoned Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Trend reports with reference to the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

During the phone conversation, Bayramov conveyed sincere congratulations to Turkey on the discovery of a rich gas field in the Black Sea.

The ministers emphasized that Turkey, which is recognized as a reliable transit country in the world energy market, will henceforth act as an important energy producer and thus make a significant contribution to energy security in the region.

During the phone call, the FMs expressed confidence that the largest natural gas discovery in Turkeys history will serve the well-being and progress of the Turkish state and people.

The ministers noted that the effective development of the strategic partnership between the two friendly and fraternal countries will continue in the future.
A West African delegation visiting Mali to push for a speedy return to civilian rule following a coup said it was "very hopeful" on Saturday after meeting with the country's military junta and the president it ousted.

The head of the delegation from the regional ECOWAS bloc, former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, said that detained Malian president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was doing relatively well.

"We saw him, he's very fine," said Jonathan, who had earlier met for half an hour with the soldiers who seized power on Tuesday, including new strongman Colonel Assimi Goita.

Jonathan told AFP that negotiations were going well and he was "very hopeful".

Rebel soldiers seized Keita and other leaders after a mutiny on Tuesday, dealing another deep blow to a country already struggling with a brutal Islamist insurgency and widespread public discontent over its government.

Mali's neighbours have called for Keita to be reinstated, saying the purpose of the delegation's visit was to help "ensure the immediate return of constitutional order".

ECOWAS Commission chief Jean-Claude Kassi Brou said late Saturday that the talks took place in a "very open atmosphere and we felt a real desire to move forward".

"We hope to be able to finalise everything by Monday," he added.

'Good impression'

Ismael Wague, spokesman for the junta which calls itself the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, also said the negotiations were going "very well".

A source close to the junta said the ECOWAS envoys had made a "good impression".

"We understand that heads of state, like Ivory Coast's Alassane Ouattara, are working for an easing of tensions, for a peaceful solution, even if they have firmly condemned our seizing power. We are open to discussion," the source told AFP.

>>A transitional 'civilian or military' president will take power in Mali, junta tells FRANCE 24

Story continues

The envoys also visited the Kati military base outside the capital Bamako where the coup began and which has become a new centre of power, the source said.

President Keita has been held at the base since the coup, along with prime minister Boubou Cisse and other high-ranking government figures.

'We won'

Thousands of jubilant Malians took to the streets of Bamako on Friday to celebrate the toppling of Keita, who was reelected in 2018 but became the focus of widespread discontent.

The rally, originally organised as an anti-Keita protest by a loose coalition that has led months of mass rallies against him, was recast to "celebrate the victory of the Malian people".

"I am overjoyed! We won," said Mariam Cisse, 38.

But it was a different story on Saturday, when several dozen people who tried to rally in Bamako were dispersed by police.

"We are here this morning to show that we do not agree with the coup. But people attacked us with stones, then the police took advantage of this aggression to disperse our supporters," said Abdoul Niang, an activist of a pro-Keita party.

There has been international pressure to restore order, the United States on Friday suspending military aid to Mali, with no further training or support of the country's armed forces.

The ECOWAS delegation will meet with the ambassadors in Mali of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the US -- on Sunday morning, according to the programme seen by AFP.

Fractured nation

Keita won election in a landslide in 2013, presenting himself as a unifying figure in a fractured country, and was re-elected in 2018 for another five-year term.

But he failed to make headway against the jihadist revolt that has left swathes of the country in the hands of armed Islamists and ignited ethnic violence in the country's volatile centre.

Thousands of UN and French troops, along with soldiers from five Sahel countries, have been deployed to try to stem the bloodshed.

In a sign of the continuing challenge facing the country, four soldiers were killed Saturday by an explosive device in the centre of the country.

The ECOWAS visit with Keita comes after the UN's peacekeeping mission in Mali said a human rights team gained access to the ousted president and other detainees on Thursday.

While Keita and Cisse have no television, radio or phone, other detainees are in a training centre, where they are sleeping on mattresses and have a TV, according to witnesses to the visit.

The 75-year-old ousted president "looked tired but relaxed" they said.

A junta member said the coup leaders had released former economy minister Abdoulaye Daffe and Sabane Mahalmoudou, Keita's private secretary, calling the move "proof that we respect human rights".

Tuesday's coup was the second in eight years, and has heightened concern over regional stability as its jihadist insurgency now threatens neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.

(AFP)
NORTH ADAMS  After serving as director of Mass MoCA for over three decades, Joseph Thompson announced on Friday that he will be stepping down from his role.

"After more than three decades as Director, it is high time for me to step away from day-to-day management of the museum, focusing for the next year on transition planning, institutional advancement, and capacity-building, Thompson said in a press release.

Thompson will be serving as special counsel to the Board of Trustees for the next 12 months, focusing on special projects and advancing the institution, as well as conducting a search for a new permanent director for the museum. Meanwhile, Tracy Moore will be serving as interim director starting Oct. 29.

While the museum has achieved many accomplishments under his reign, Thompson said there are more projects to come.

"The capacities of this wonderful place, and the great people who work here, are unlimited, and the next Director will have endless opportunities to advance Mass MoCAs mission," he said. "Weve barely touched the 17 acres of outdoor grounds, and while we have an exciting and newly conceived Master Plan in place, two of our most important and strategically situated buildings remain to be programmed and renovated.

Today, Mass MoCA is one of the most prominent non-collecting art institutions, and is the single largest museum of contemporary art in the U.S.

The idea behind MoCA first struck Thomas Krens (then Williams College Museum of Art director, eventually director of the Guggenheim) back in 1985: a large and cutting-edge home for art that didn't fit conventional museums. Two years later, Times Union freelancer Robert Phelan hailed the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art as a "radical" concept, envisioning "a museum that isn't a holding pen, that devotes more space to exhibits than storage, that is an environment for living, working artists."

When Thompson became director in 1988, he and his colleagues turned Mass MoCA into what it's known to be today, a sprawling museum that has turned a collection of factory buildings into a cultural space that has revitalized North Adams, which is about an hour's drive from Albany. They also decided they wanted the museum to be a space that would have changing exhibits and large-scale commissions built specifically for and on the site.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Even more, the museum attracts people also for concerts, music festivals, talks, comedy shows, other public events and, with a literal push outward, a leg of bike trail that now swings through the basement and connects to North Adams.

Under Thompson's leadership, Mass MoCA hosted more than 10,000 artists, including a hands-on exhibit from instrument creator Gunnar Schonbeck, light artist James Turrell and cross-disciplinary icon Laurie Anderson. Annual visitation grew from 60,000 from the years following the museum's 1999 opening, to 300,000. And the museum's campus grew from 200,000 square feet and five buildings, to 550,000 square feet and 17 buildings.

"At the end of the day, strong, sustainable institutions are about people, values, shared passions, and a disciplined work ethic," Thompson said. "If anything, MASS MoCAs future opportunities exceed its achievements to date  but thats for the next person to realize, someone with a fresh point of view, expanded social and cultural networks, and new energy.
Some of Australia's best firefighters could soon be on their way to the other side of the world to battle fierce wildfires that devastated the US west coast.

Hundreds of thousands of Californians have been forced to flee their homes in recent days due to the blazes which have already destroyed 700 buildings and claimed six lives.

Governor Gavin Newsom indicated he will ask Australia for help in fighting the devastating blazes already described as the worst in his state.

Mr Newsom said on Saturday that Australia is home to 'the world's best wildfire fighters.'

NSW RFS firefighters could be called to assist with the wildfires burning in California. Pictured are NSW RFS firies battling a fire near Bilpin west of Sydney last December

NSW RFS firefighters would be well equipped to take on the anticipated request after the state experienced one of its worst bushfire seasons on record in 2019-2020.

'No formal request has been received but we believe one could be happening in the coming days,' NSW RFS spokesman Inspector Ben Shepherd told Daily Mail Australia.

'Once that request is received, then the details would have to be worked out with other states and whether any deployment would be affected by COVID-19 restrictions.'

He added a request would have to be reviewed by the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council and Emergency Management Australia to decide how many firefighters can be deployed and from what agencies.

There are also restrictions as a result of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic to consider.

The wildfires causing devastating California on the US west coast have been described as one of the state's worst. Pictured is the city of Napa last week

If the proposed request gets the green light it will be the first time NSW RFS firefighters have been deployed to the US.

'We've sent management personnel to the US previously but not firefighters,' Inspector Shepherd said.

The 2019-2020 bushfire season was one of the worst in Australian history, destroying an estimated 18.6 million hectares and almost 6,000 buildings including 2,779 homes.

The 33 lives lost included 25 in NSW, three in South Australia and five in Victoria.

The Californian wildfires have already destroyed 700 buildings and claimed six lives

Hundreds of US firefighters were deployed to Australia last summer.

Former US servicemen Ian McBeth, Paul Hudson and Rick DeMorgan Jr were killed when their large air tanker crashed south of Canberra.

Firefighters and aircraft from 10 states began arriving in California on Saturday to relieve exhausted firies who have spent the last week on the frontline.

Canada is also expected to receive a receive an request for assistance.

'We simply haven't seen anything like this in many, many years,' Governor Newsom told reporters.

'These fires are stretching our resources, our personnel.'
When the four contenders to lead Canadas Conservative Party gathered virtually in June for an English-language debate, one subject dominated their conversation: the many ways they believed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had failed Canada.

Early Monday morning, after a vote count delayed for hours by a machine that ripped rather than opened ballots, Erin OToole, a member of Parliament from Ontario and a former cabinet minister, was eventually named as the partys leader.

With the vote, Mr. OToole became the head of the official opposition and the closest political rival to Mr. Trudeau, a Liberal, at a time when the prime minister is once again ensnared in an ethics investigation.

Several prominent Conservative Party members have argued that, no matter who wins the leadership race, the partys top priority should be offering an alternative vision for Canadas future rather than focusing on the weaknesses of Mr. Trudeau and his government or the bitter disagreements in their own party.
BJP chief JP Nadda, said on Sunday, that the BJP, the Janata Dal (United) (JDU), an the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) would all fight the upcoming Assembly elections in Bihar together. He made these remarks while addressing the BJP state Karyasamiti via video conferencing.

New Delhi [India], Aug 23 (ANI): Bharatiya Janata Party, Janata Dal (United), and Lok Janshakti Party will fight elections together and win the upcoming Assembly elections in Bihar, said BJP chief JP Nadda on Sunday.



BJP, JDU, and LJP will fight elections together and win. We have to add value not only to BJP but to our alliance partners also, Nadda said addressing Bihar BJP State Karyasamiti via video conferencing. The BJP National President urged the party members from Bihar to make people of the state aware of the welfare work done by the party at the Centre and state level. He also spoke about the various measures such as dedicated COVID-19 hospitals, production of masks and PPE kits, among others begun in this phase around the country at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.



We now have 12,50,000 dedicated beds and more than 2,000 COVID-19 treatment facilities. We have achieved a testing capacity of 10 lakhs a day. The recovery rate has reached 74 per cent in the country, he said.



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Nadda also hailed the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana under which grains and pulses will be provided to 80 crore people across the country.



Atmanirbhar Bharat, special help to the MSME sector, help extended to farmers, and the National Digital Health Mission were some of the other schemes which Nadda urged the party members to take to the people.



The party, aiming to retain power in the state, had recently appointed former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to go to the state ahead of the final leg of the preparatory phase for the elections.



Assembly elections in Bihar are due in October-November as the tenure of the current Assembly is scheduled to end on November 29.

The Election Commission has not yet taken a final call on poll dates in Bihar due to coronavirus pandemic and has sought suggestions from political parties. (ANI)

Also read: Indias Covid-19 tally surpasses 3 million mark, recovery rate at 74.6%
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Washington, DC - A complaint was unsealed Wednesday, charging two U.S. citizens with federal crimes related to Iran. Muzzamil Zaidi, 36, a U.S. citizen who resides in Qom, Iran, was charged with acting in the United States as an agent of the government of Iran without first notifying the Attorney General. Zaidi, Asim Naqvi, 36, a U.S. citizen who lives in Houston, Texas, and Ali Chawla, 36, a Pakistani national who lives in Qom, Iran, were all charged with violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

The complaint alleges that both charges stem from the defendants campaign to transport U.S. currency from the United States to Iran on behalf of the Supreme Leader of Iran in 2018 and 2019. Both Zaidi and Naqvi were arrested in Houston yesterday, Aug. 18, 2020.

Disrupting Irans ability to raise U.S. dollars is key to combating its ability to sponsor international terrorism and destabilize the Middle East, including through its military presence in Yemen, said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers. Zaidi, Naqvi, and Chawla allegedly raised money in the United States on behalf of Irans Supreme Leader, and illegally channeled these dollars to the government of Iran. As a result of todays charges, their unlawful scheme has been exposed and brought to an end. The U.S. Department of Justice and its National Security Division are committed to holding accountable individuals who operate covert networks within the United States in order to provide support and funds to hostile foreign governments like Iran in violation of U.S. law.

This case is significant on many levels, said Michael R. Sherwin, Acting United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. To begin, as alleged in the criminal complaint, the defendants have considerable operational links to the IRGC, which has conducted multiple terrorist operations throughout the world over the past several years. The life-blood of these terrorist operations is cash  and the defendants played a key role in facilitating that critical component.

Todays charges demonstrate our commitment to preventing agents of hostile foreign governments from having access and freedom to operate within the borders of the United States, said James A. Dawson, acting Assistant Director in Charge of the FBIs Washington Field Office. In addition to being charged with acting as an illegal agent of Iran, Zaidi allegedly operated with his co-conspirators at the behest of the Iranian government  a known sponsor of terrorism  to overtly solicit U.S. money to further Iranian causes, in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). This is why IEEPA was established: to prevent hostile foreign governments from leveraging the U.S. financial system in furtherance of their global destabilizing endeavors.

The arrests today are the direct result of the undeterred efforts of the FBI Houston Counterterrorism investigative team, said FBI Houston Field Office Special Agent in Charge, Perrye K. Turner. By engaging in around the clock collaboration with multiple Field Offices and Intelligence Community partners, our agents ensure that those who send money to terrorist regimes will ultimately be held accountable and lose their freedom.

As alleged in the affidavit in support of a criminal complaint, Zaidi offered his services to the Supreme Leader of Iran in or around July 2015 and said that he could serve the Islamic Republic in the socio-political or another field. The complaint alleges that Zaidi traveled to Syria in or around June 2018 and that, while there, flew to an active war zone in an armed Iranian military or intelligence aircraft. The complaint alleges that Zaidi had access to bases under the command of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) while in that war zone, including a Sepah Qods (IRGC Qods Force) base. The IRGC was designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S on April 4, 2019. Qassem Soleimani, a major general in the IRGC, was commander of the Qods Force until he was killed in a U.S. airstrike on Jan. 3, 2020.

According to the complaint, in December 2018, Zaidi and other members of an organization known as Islamic Pulse, including Chawla, received the permission of the Supreme Leader of Iran to collect khums, a religious tax, on the Supreme Leaders behalf, and to send half of that money to Yemen. The complaint alleges that permission was formalized on or about Feb. 28, 2019, in a letter confirming the permission of the Supreme Leader of Iran and another Ayatollah to spend khums money in Yemen.

Based on the complaint, in or around July 2019, Islamic Pulse released a video soliciting donations for its purported Yemen campaign that showed money moving from the United States and other Western countries to Yemen through Iran. The complaint alleges that Chawla replied to donors concerns about how the campaign was able to get money into Yemen by stating that the matter could not be discussed over email. The complaint further alleges that Chawla sought U.S. dollars specifically, stated that Islamic Pulse could not accept electronic transfers, and admitted that Islamic Pulse was not a registered charity.

The complaint alleges that after the United States placed sanctions on the Supreme Leader of Iran in June 2019, Zaidi told Naqvi that the action was a straight hit on khums. The complaint alleges that in summer and fall 2019 Zaidi and Naqvi continued to collect U.S. currency in the United States and have it transported it to Iran, sometimes via Iraq, structured in such a way as to avoid reporting requirements. After a group of 25 travelers carried money destined for Iran on behalf of Zaidi and Naqvi in October 2019, Zaidi and Naqvi discussed the screening the travelers underwent at the airport and Naqvis hope that none of the travelers would confess to authorities upon their return.

The complaint alleges that, during his current stay in the United States, which began in June 2020, Zaidi has exhibited behavior that is consistent with having received training from a foreign government or foreign intelligence service, such as the government of Iran or IRGC. According to the complaint, that behavior includes a reluctance to discuss matters over the phone, or even over encrypted applications, because Zaidi claims that doing so could be dangerous.

The charges in criminal complaints are merely allegations, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The maximum penalty for a violation of 18 U.S.C.  951 is 10 years, and the maximum penalty for a violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act is 20 years. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes.

The investigation into this matter was conducted by the FBIs Washington Field Office and Houston Field Office. The case is being prosecuted by the National Security Section of the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia, along with the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section and Counterterrorism Section of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice.
Phillip Rodriguez made documentaries about two prominent chroniclers of the Chicano movement: Ruben Salazar and Oscar "Zeta" Acosta. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

In "Ruben Salazar: Man in the Middle," director Phillip Rodriguez painstakingly explores the life and death of the reporter whose public and private lives  as well as his tragic death  have inspired artists, writers, musicians, playwrights and subsequent generations of journalists.

Rodriguez uses extensive archival footage in the 2014 PBS documentary, along with narrated snippets of Salazar's rare personal writings, to reconstruct the career of a bright young reporter from Ciudad Juarez and El Paso who got his start as an investigative journalist at the El Paso Herald-Post and quickly made a mark on Los Angeles after arriving to work at The Times in 1959. Salazar did foreign tours in Vietnam and in the Dominican Republic and served as bureau chief in Mexico City before being called back to cover a brewing political phenomenon, the Chicano movement, on the streets of the Eastside.

Cutting the figure of standard newspaper journeymen of the era, with neckties and pomaded hair, Salazar found himself at social events where the white ruling class of Southern California mingled with the ethnic Mexicans who have always been there  the less-than-equal background characters, Rodriguez argues in the film, in what remains a stubbornly Anglo-centric narrative embedded in the state's official history.

There are incredible insights throughout "Man in the Middle," including from Salazar's children. The film also offers a window into the prevailing mind-sets at the L.A. Times around the 1960s and 70s  that of a conservative newspaper with little regard for Mexican and Indigenous Angelenos. "Nobody had created the term 'diversity,' it didn't exist," says William Drummond, another trailblazing Times reporter from the era, in the film. "You had to work within the system that was there, and Ruben could do that."

Rodriguez is also known for his 2017 film "The Rise and Fall of the Brown Buffalo," about the life of a more rambunctious movement-era chronicler, Oscar "Zeta" Acosta, who was also a lawyer and helped document the Chicano Movement from a distinctly "excess"-addled perspective. Historical figures  including the late gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who transformed Acosta into Dr. Gonzo for his Rolling Stone stories  are depicted by actors who speak as though sitting for an interview.

Story continues

Rodriguez himself grew up like many of the figures in the Chicano movement, middle-class and destined for college, a profile that is generational in Southern California yet largely absent from prevailing narratives that center white "natives" or immigrants. I asked him about this topic recently and about how we should understand the legacy of Ruben Salazar as the 50th anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium approaches.





How did you first hear about the Chicano Moratorium?

Oh, it was simply part of the Mexican American lore. I probably learned about it from a Chicano studies course taught by Alex Saragoza at UC Berkeley.

READ: The Chicano Moratorium 50 years later  a special section (Martina Ibanez-Baldor / Los Angeles Times)

Why didn't you hear about it in high school? Or while growing up in L.A.?

Because I was raised in a white-flight suburb, so that really wasn't the groove. And my parents were a little bit older. They were the Greatest Generation; they really weren't Chicano-generation people. So it really wasn't their jam. Not that they were entirely unsympathetic, but it wasn't their cause.

How does your personal background inform this film? It seems that your inquiry into Salazars life is partly rooted in a search for self. Why did you make Man in the Middle?

My work is ... just trying to put myself together, trying to complete an idea of where I come from, what my moms and pops and aunts and uncles endured, and what the context of their lives was. Simple as that.





How would a figure like Ruben Salazar help you understand that?

Well, simply, Ruben was a middle-class Mexican American who was educated, like my parents, and who was pretty much thoroughly assimilated, who lived in a suburb, on a quiet street, in Santa Ana. I thought that that particular story, the Mexican American experience, has been under-told. I wanted to excavate what that experience was. Now, of course, his story intersects with the next generation's phenomenon and expression, the Chicano thing. And that makes it even more interesting.

How do you see Salazars trajectory as a journalist? Did his final columns for the newspaper make him more of an advocate?

He was definitely explaining for the readers the phenomenon they were witnessing. You've got to remember, at the time there was the L.A. Free Press, La Raza magazine. He wasn't writing for either of those. He was still writing for pretty staid media outlets. The L.A. Times reader base was white and suburban. And the KMEX audience was older, Spanish-dominant and rather conservative. So in the most mainstream environments, certainly he was explaining the phenomenon to people who were outside of it, by and large.





I found it interesting that activist Rosalio Munoz says he was wearing a button that day.

It may well be true that he was wearing a button. And it certainly may be true that he was sympathetic, or growing in sympathy. Two things frame that possibility. First, that he was assigned to Vietnam and had witnessed the U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic before that. It's very possible that maybe those things radicalized him a bit. And maybe being witness to U.S. imperialism in Third World countries may have done that.

Finally in Mexico City, he sees authoritarianism turn on its people. That may have had an effect on his thinking and about his own assimilation project, and his own respectability politics project. But there's no evidence of that, except for the articles. He did not have an active private journal that he kept during this time, during his later years.

I found his Mexico City stint so fascinating, being a former correspondent there myself. What do you think happened with Salazar and his coverage of the Tlatelolco massacre?

In my film, his old buddy makes the claim that Ruben "missed the story." I'm not entirely sure if that's fair.  He covered it, but I'm not sure how deeply he was able to penetrate the government sources or the phenomenon itself. And certainly, in [The Times] letter to Ruben, calling him back home, there's no suggestion that Ruben failed in his assignment in Mexico City. It's simply that he was deemed to be valued. They had to figure out East L.A. and what was going on in town, and they brought him back.

As far as Mexico goes, we all know, as Mexican Americans, certainly at that period, how we might've been viewed by Mexican elite. We've all had our encounters.





Oh yeah.

Right. I'm not entirely sure what that dynamic was, to have been living in Mexico. A foreign correspondent for a major publication, such as The Times, was a position of considerable privilege. And I can imagine that maybe in his imperfect Spanish and his pocho status, with a gabacha wife, that maybe some members of the PRI [Institutional Revolutionary Party] of the Mexican government, may have been slightly bemused or hostile or unhelpful.

You also reveal in the film the fascinating status of his home life; you mention his Anglo wife and living this kind of like bifurcated life. What do you think that reflects?

It was certainly a complicated negotiation, or a renegotiation of a guy who had made a deal with whiteness and had benefited from that deal with whiteness. And now in the midst of a renegotiation of whiteness, vis-a-vis the two groups, he has to reassess. I'm sure it was complicated for Ruben.

As for his death, are we really to believe that this was fully just a freak, tragic coincidence? Or do you think there is any room for still pursuing maybe a deeper layer of truth or intent in the death of Ruben Salazar?

There's always a possibility of that. But I looked thoroughly through the files, the photos, the L.A. Sheriff's Department audio from that day. I listened very carefully through every moment of it. And I found nothing to lead me to believe [he was targeted by the deputy] ... I spoke with the Mexican American owner of the Silver Dollar, a gun aficionado. And he says to me, it'd be impossible on such a bright day with such a crude instrument that you had never used before to accurately shoot into a dark space, without a sight or something more sophisticated, and get that lucky. It's not possible.

I'm comfortable with the conclusion but also quite open to any other more sensational interpretation. Now toward that end, when we sued the sheriff's department and forced them to release their files, I made those files available to USC, where we donated them. And they sit there. Anyone who has gumption or the intention to find something different, I would suggest they do. History will always be rewritten, and God bless, that's terrific. I wish I could have found it, but I didn't, because I don't think it's there.

One of the interesting aspects of the legacy is what's going on today at the L.A. Times with the formation of a Latino Caucus within the L.A. Times News Guild at what was once a virulently anti-union newspaper. How would you frame Salazar's legacy now?

When Ruben Salazar was doing his thing, Mexican Americans comprised roughly 13% of the population of this place. Now that [Latinos] are nearly 50%, or thereabouts, it seems to me that the fact that we're still having conversations about inclusion and diversity and representation in newsrooms, from a place like the L.A. Times, is an indictment of something and someone.

Oscar "Zeta" Acosta, a contemporary of Hunter S. Thompson and the subject of "The Rise and Fall of the Brown Buffalo," was writing about the same thing as Salazar  this Eastside movement. How are their stories similar or divergent?

They had some kind of reporter-activist-journalist relationship, which Acosta writes about. He calls him Zanzibar, and there is a story of a [TV] interview Salazar did with Acosta. But KMEX erased all their tapes, so theres no record of it. Immediately after Salazars death, Acosta really reared his hind legs, insisting that there be a proper investigation.

He was part of the blue ribbon commission [formed to investigate the Salazar death]. He was very verbal and he was very physical. He went to the scene of the crime, spoke to many people in the community, insisting that they testify to him and then be allowed to testify at the inquest. But, yes, one was playing it straight and one wasnt. One was middle-of-the-road and middle-class, and one was intoxicated with the counterculture.

Acosta died, or is presumed to have died, in 1974, in Mexico. His remains were never found.

Both of them didnt go out pretty: mysterious circumstances, you can certainly say that. And Acostas death was likely violent as well. Easy to chalk it up as the death of a loon, of an extreme personality, but with Salazar, that argument is impossible to make because he was as sober as a judge.

How should that generation be historicized today, given that L.A. is, for example, significantly more Central American now, and Asian, and of course Black  and that conversations and political currents have sort of turned away from the ethno-nationalism and the machismo of that era?

Well, first of all, I object to the conflation of the use of "machismo" with ethno-nationalism. I mean, my father used to say macho was the only word that gringos know that's in Spanish.

So as for the answer ... I don't know. I mean, they certainly have a place, an important place in the cultural and political history of this city. And I don't think that the arrival of new Latin American exiles from other places in any way contradicts or takes anything away from that. I was hoping that we can fuse these experiences  and that the young girl from Guatemala, a child, can somehow make Gloria Molina's examples her own as she moves into a position of influence in her own life. So I don't see a contradiction. I think Mesoamericans are pretty much the same people, divided by imaginary boundaries. That's my take.

An advertising image for the documentary "Ruben Salazar: Man in the Middle" by Phillip Rodriguez. (PBS)
There was panic at 3 am on Sunday as water released from check dams after heavy rainfall in the area flooded the Patiala Ki Rao seasonal rivulet or choe, inundating a 100 houses because of clogged drains in Chandigarhs Khuda Lahora Colony near the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, reports say.

Opening up of the Sukhna Lake floodgates to drain out the water too led to flooding of other areas in Mohalis Baltana.

The worst affected areas in Baltana were the police station, cremation ground and two marriage palaces. Senior officials of administration, including the sub divisional magistrate (SDM), have reached the spot.

Khuda Lahora residents alleged no warning had been issued by the administration about water being released from the check dams.

Residents clear out homes in Khuda Lahora. (HT photo)

Rohit Thakur, a local resident, said, Water entered the houses at around 3 am when we were sleeping. Of the 450 houses here, around a 100 were under three feet of water. There was panic. We didnt know that the water had been intentionally discharged by the government.There was no alert from the UT administration.

MC officials visited the area more than an hour after the flooding and started working on the cleaning up the storm drains in the choe, and by 6 am water levels had started to recede, Thakur added.

Sewage was mixed with the water overflowing from the choe and flooded the houses and street. The main sewage pipe and storm water drainage of the colony opens up in the choe, the level of which at some places is elevated because of heavy siltation, said PC Rana, a local whose home was inundated.

An auto stranded in Baltana. (Keshav Singh/HT)

While the sewage lines are maintained by the MC, the UT engineering department handles the desiltation work. We have been requesting to both for the last 10 years to clean up the area but no action has been taken, Rana added.

When contacted Raj Bala Malik, Chandigarh mayor and also councillor of the ward, said, When the flooding reports came from Khuda Lahora Colony, immediately MC teams were sent. All the 22 drainage pipes were clogged with sand and other floodwater debris. We have now cleaned up three of these, and work on cleaning up the rest of the pipes is going on.

Malik said the villagers or MC had not received any warning that water would be released upstream for the rivulet, adding that the civic body had been regularly requesting the administration to clear up the stream, but this problem persists.

Till the filing of the report, water had receded from houses, but the streets remained waterlogged.

Engineers of the UT administration also had to open the floodgates of the Sukhna Lake early on Sunday after water levels touched the danger mark of 1,163 feet.
Tropical Storm Laura continued to swirl Sunday afternoon in the Gulf of Mexico, battering Haiti and the Dominican Republic with high winds and flash floods -- but experts said wind and storm surge are the main concern if the storm strengthens and meanders into the Houston area.

Forecasters say the storm could make landfall in Louisiana later in the week Theres a possibility the system will strengthen up to a Category 2 hurricane as it moves across the Gulf, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Its still too early to determine when and where exactly the storm will make landfall.

But the brunt of Lauras damage, if it strengthens and affects Houston, wont look much like Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Space City Weather meteorologist Eric Berger said.

The Fujiwhara Effect: What would happen if two storms met in the Gulf of Mexico?

Storm surge could be up to 15 feet above normal tide levels. The warm waters of the Gulf could turn Laura into more of a threat than it is now, but the forecast is still uncertain about how strong exactly the storm could be, he said.

Regardless of the track Laura takes, the storm is likely to keep moving, Berger said.

The possibility of where Tropical Storm Laura could make landfall is wide -- its a swath of Gulf coastline ranging from Matagorda Bay to eastern Louisiana. And if winds pick up and Laura is bumped up to hurricane status, that carries a possibility of significant damage.

There are some projections that push that onto the Texas coastline, Gov. Greg Abbott said in a Sunday afternoon press conference announcing a state disaster declaration. This is the time when everyone needs to begin preparing for an oncoming hurricane.

A hurricane that causes severe flooding, such as Harvey, could bring chemicals and other unwanted substances into a home. A storm with powerful winds, such as Ike, would cause more damage to flimsier structures -- think RVs and mobile homes.

Its a bit intuitive when you have a stronger system, said Amaryllis Cotto, a National Weather Service meteorologist. Typically, the impact is more wind and storm surge damage versus a weaker system -- it doesnt necessarily have to be, but it could be more a rainmaker.

Should the storm barrel into Louisiana, then Southeast Texas might see slightly less severe impacts by virtue of being on the western side of the system, Cotto said.

If you divide the system into four parts, the strongest side of the storm is the northeastern side, Cotto said. If youre on the southwestern side, thats considered the weaker side.
Agence France-Presse

New York: Video app TikTok said Saturday it will challenge in court a Trump administration crackdown on the popular Chinese-owned service, which Washington accuses of being a national security threat.

As tensions soar between the world's two biggest economies, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on 6 August giving Americans 45 days to stop doing business with TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance  effectively setting a deadline for a potential pressured sale of the viral video sensation to a US company.

"Even though we strongly disagree with the Administration's concerns, for nearly a year we have sought to engage in good faith to provide a constructive solution. What we encountered instead was a lack of due process as the Administration paid no attention to facts and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses," TikTok said in a statement.

"To ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and users are treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the Executive Order through the judicial system," it said, adding it expects to file its suit next week.

TikTok's kaleidoscopic feeds of short video clips feature everything from hair-dye tutorials to dance routines and jokes about daily life. It has been downloaded 175 million times in the US and more than a billion times around the world.

Trump claims TikTok could be used by China to track the locations of federal employees, build dossiers on people for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.

The company has said it has never provided any US user data to the Chinese government, and Beijing has blasted Trump's crackdown as political.

The US measures come ahead of 3 November elections in which Trump, who is behind his rival Joe Biden in the polls, is campaigning hard on an increasingly strident anti-Beijing message.

Trump and China

Trump has increasingly taken a confrontational stance on China, challenging it on trade, military, and economic fronts.

Shortly after Trump announced his moves against TikTok in early August, the United States slapped sanctions on Hong Kong's leader over the Chinese security clampdown after last year's pro-democracy demonstrations.

Microsoft and Oracle are possible suitors for TikTok's US operations.

Reports have said Oracle -- whose chairman Larry Ellison has raised millions in campaign funds for Trump -- was weighing a bid for TikTok's operations in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

The Trump administration has also given ByteDance a 90-day deadline to divest in TikTok before the app is banned in the United States.

The measures move away from the long-promoted American ideal of global, open internet and could invite other countries to follow suit, analysts told AFP previously.

"It's really an attempt to fragment the internet and the global information society along US and Chinese lines, and shut China out of the information economy," Milton Mueller, a Georgia Tech professor and founder of the Internet Governance Project said previously.
El Minsa y la Cooperacion Alemana GIZ suscribieron un convenio que permitira equipar establecimientos de salud donde se brinda atencion a comunidades indigenas de San Martin y Ucayali, asi como fortalecer las acciones de prevencion ante el #COVID19 en la Amazonia. #LaSaludNosUne pic.twitter.com/D8Y2ukaTJN
Harry and Meghan have revealed they adore US academic and self-help guru Brene Brown.

The University of Houston professor describes her field as the study of courage, shame, vulnerability and empathy and she has written a string of best-selling motivational books.

Her Ted Talk, The Power Of Vulnerability, has been viewed almost 50 millions times, and Oprah Winfrey and Melinda Gates are among her celebrity followers.

Speaking at a web event discussing social media and its potential as a force for good, the Duke of Sussex said he and his wife were big fans of Ms Browns work.

Always straddling the tension and trying not to tap out.



Forever convincing ourselves that we can hold so many contradictory pieces and feelings.



Not only are tension and contradictory pieces OK and normal  they're the magic sauce. pic.twitter.com/lb7k15NGB4  Brene Brown (@BreneBrown) August 20, 2020

The event was hosted by the Queens Commonwealth Trust, of which the duke and duchess are president and vice-president respectively.

Among the guests was Hunter Johnson, founder of The Man Cave  an Australian organisation working to encourage healthy masculinity in men and boys.

Mr Johnson quoted one of Ms Browns philosophies: Vulnerability brings connection and connection is why we are here. It brings meaning and it brings purpose to our lives.

He also referred to Tristan Hunter, co-founder of the Centre for Humane Technology, which works to promote the positive evolution of social media, rather than platforms that hijack users attention.

Mr Hunter coined the phrases human downgrading and system of harms to describe the methods social media relies on  addiction, distraction, isolation, polarisation and fake news.

 @hunterjohnson91 is the CEO of @themancave_aus, a preventative mental health and emotional intelligence charity for young men, their parents and teachers. Hunters work has led him to facilitate programmes with over 25,000 young people worldwide. pic.twitter.com/aCYkIMKbDS  The Queen's Commonwealth Trust (@queenscomtrust) August 21, 2020

Harry said: I love the fact that you are bringing up Brene Brown and also Tristan Hunter  two people that we absolutely adore and that we know as well.

Five years ago, six years ago, talking about your mental health was a sign of weakness. Just as much as vulnerability was a form of weakness.

If were all able to show our vulnerability that doesnt mean you are weak, if anything I believe that shows mostly your strength, the duke added.

If you are so in-touch with your emotions that you know where you are on each day, well thats a superpower.

Meghan said: Everyones mental and emotional wellbeing are perhaps more fragile than ever before, certainly with Covid and our dependability on devices right now in the absence of human interaction.

People are going online more than ever before to feel community.
This month marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, a landmark extension of the most basic right of democratic citizenship to American women. The passage of this amendment to the U.S Constitution granted 26 million women the right to vote, forever shifting the playing field of American politics.

Yet we cannot in good conscience celebrate this anniversary of mass enfranchisement without attention to the millions of Americans who remain disenfranchised a century later.

At most recent count, approximately 2.5 percent of the U.S. population, or 6.1 million voters, are currently disenfranchised due to felony convictions, many even after their release from prison. This suspension of fundamental rights is not only inherently antidemocratic, but also represents a legacy of racist disenfranchisement policies in the U.S.

Today, the prevalent narratives of the movement for women's suffrage have been whitewashed and distorted. In the decade following the amendment's ratification, loopholes in state constitutions and voter suppression laws effectively disenfranchised the vast majority of Black women, much as they had done to Black men in the years after the passage of the 15th Amendment.

The most notorious of these disenfranchisement practices were ultimately overturned by the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, but policies of racialized disenfranchisement were not entirely stricken from the books. A report from the Brennan Center for Justice found that felony disenfranchisement laws that remain in place in New York today are direct descendents of Jim Crow-era laws that sought to prevent Black New Yorkers from gaining political leverage in local elections.

The effects of these laws, which prohibit those who are currently incarcerated or on parole from voting, compound the dramatic racial inequities of the criminal justice system as a whole. In New York, where almost 75 percent of everyone on parole is Black or Latinx, the disproportionate effects on communities of color are undeniable. Similar laws across the country continue to restrict or deny voting rights based on criminal justice histories, barring the civic participation of scores of voters and rendering them second-class citizens.

Recent trends and legislative decisions do point encouragingly towards the state-by-state restoration of voting rights for some. Earlier this month, Iowa became the last state to overturn a policy of permanent felony disenfranchisement with an executive order from Gov. Kim Reynolds, while the passage of Amendment 4 in Florida in 2018, a ballot measure that reenfranchised 1.4 million formerly incarcerated Floridians, has also been hailed as a major victory in the fight to restore voting rights for all U.S. citizens.

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.

But even these incremental changes are embattled, and they remain insufficient in the face of such broad-based, anti-democratic policies. What we can learn from this historical trajectory is that the nationwide disenfranchisement of those with felony convictions is part of a larger project to systematically deny marginalized groups the ability to participate in democratic processes and be fully empowered citizens. The refusal of such basic rights as voting and access to education to anyone is an attempt to both strip them of civic personhood and prevent them from dismantling the very systems that first marginalized them.

Celebrating monumental legislative achievements like the passage of the 19th Amendment and the milestone of women's suffrage must be predicated on a commitment to recognizing the work that is left to be done and fighting for those to whom such rights continue to be denied.
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When her daughters toes and fingers started turning blue, San Juana Rios knew it was time for drastic action.

The 9-year-old had been having fevers on and off since late July. Twice, Rios had taken daughter Makayla Rodriguez to an emergency room in Laredo, where the family lives. Could the cause be the coronavirus?

The blue color alarmed Rios. She called an ambulance. The paramedic told her if he was Makaylas parent, he would take her to a hospital in San Antonio.

William Luther /Staff photographer

The trip normally takes two-and-a-half hours, Rios said. I got there in a little over an hour.

On Aug. 6, Makayla was admitted to Methodist Childrens Hospital at the Medical Center. She tested positive for the virus and would undergo treatment for 11 days.

Her experience was unusual in that most children with COVID-19 dont wind up in a hospital with such severe symptoms and for that long. Still, Makayla had joined the growing ranks of children infected by the virus, sometimes unknowingly.

The proportion of children in Bexar County infected by the virus has doubled over the last two months, officials reported last week. People 19 and under now account for 12.6 percent of all coronavirus cases, up from 6.4 percent in mid-June.

Lisa Krantz /Staff photographer

Similarly, pediatric hospitalizations related to COVID-19 have increased from 1.8 percent to 3.7 percent of all hospitalizations.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports the same trend nationally, with the number and rate of coronavirus cases in people ages 17 and under rising steadily from March to July.

A joint report by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Childrens Hospital Foundation found more than 380,000 children were infected in the nation by the end of July  8.8 percent of all COVID cases.

Lisa Krantz, Staff / Staff photographer

Now, health officials and others are bracing as schools and colleges reopen here and across the country, worried that the spread of viral cases among younger people will only get worse. It took just days for a number of schools elsewhere in the U.S. to open for in-person instruction then shut due to a rash of positive cases.

On ExpressNews.com: Young adults in Bexar County contracting the virus at higher rates

In San Antonio, some important indicators of the virus presence are moving in a hopeful direction of late, but not far enough to allow students, teachers and staff to return fully to schools and campuses yet.

Lisa Krantz /Staff photographer

Assessing the risks is complicated by the many unknowns when it comes to kids and COVID, medical experts say.

They are confident that children, as a rule, dont contract the virus as readily as adults. When they do, they dont get as sick. Many dont show symptoms at all.

What we dont know

But how adept are children and teens at spreading the disease?

Dr. Dina Tom, associate professor of inpatient pediatrics at UT Health San Antonio said the general assumption is that children dont give or get the virus as easily as adults.

Lisa Krantz, Staff / Staff photographer

But more definitive studies are works in progress. Tom said there hasnt been widespread, universal testing of children. When adults and teens get tested, its because they have symptoms. When younger children are tested, its often because they have something unrelated, such as a skin infection or trauma. When theyre screened for the virus, it comes back positive. So far, many of these children are asymptomatic, Tom said.

So its difficult to know really how prevalent COVID is among children and adolescents.

On ExpressNews.com: Review of 100 studies show kids dont suffer much from virus

The other thing is, we dont have a good sense of how long kids are carriers, she said. They may carry the virus around in their nasal cavity longer than teens or adults, but we dont know if thats significant or not.

Lisa Krantz /Staff photographer

When asymptomatic kids under age 10 go back to school, she said, they may have a lower risk of spreading the virus, but the concern is that a child might spread it to one staff member or teacher, and then that person develops symptoms and spreads it among the adults.

Tom said there are theories why children dont catch and spread the virus as easily. They may have a partial immunity from all the vaccines they receive for other illnesses. They may not cough as forcefully as adults, and so spread fewer aerosol droplets, the main way of transmission.

Children tend to have fewer underlying conditions  diabetes, hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and so on  than adults do.

Lisa Krantz /Staff photographer

They are far less likely to die from the virus, she said. Of local COVID-related deaths, 0.6 percent were people under age 19  three out of more than 700.

The increase in more children testing positive in Bexar County may stem from hospitals and other places doing more widespread testing  including testing kids if their adult family members test positive  as well as testing requirements connected to summer activities, such as camps.

When schools fully reopen with in-person instruction, the number of children being exposed to the virus will go up simply because of more social interactions, Tom said.

Lisa Krantz /Staff photographer

Children age 4 to 7 or 8 might not be as susceptible to infection, she said, because theyre more likely to wear masks, wash their hands and not be constantly in close proximity to adult caregivers.

Children younger than that are much more likely to be in their caregivers faces, with their diapers being changed and such, and are much more likely to come into contact with secretions, Tom said.

But as children reach age 10 or older, transmission begins to look more like how adults spread the virus, she said.

Learning to live with the virus

Dr. Alvaro Moreira, a neonatal intensive care pediatrician at University Hospital and faculty member at UT Health San Antonio, said some studies suggest children 10 and older may have more receptors in their noses for the virus to bind to. This may explain why older children may not only have more symptoms, but are more likely to be hospitalized.

We know that a lot of children who are getting the disease have co-morbidities, such as being overweight or obese, he said. Potential reasons why this subset of children are at higher risk is that fat cells have more receptors to the novel coronavirus. This may also explain why obese adults are at increased risk for death.

Moreira said that currently, the most common way a child catches the virus is through an infected family member. Studies from the CDC also show that Black and Hispanic children are much more likely to be hospitalized, and develop a severe inflammatory form of the disease, than white or Asian children.

Moreira said a number of things could account for that  genetic factors, socioeconomic factors and an increased risk of underlying conditions in Black or Hispanic kids. Some theorize that the cultural tradition in communities of color to have multiple generations living in the same household could account for more  and more intensive  exposure to the virus.

Moreira said he hates to sound like a broken record, but when it comes to protecting children from the virus, everyone should know the drill by now: Masks. Social distancing, be it at home or school. Hand washing. If a child has a fever or symptom like a cough, they should stay home.

And children should get a flu shot this year, he said.

Dr. Robert Sanders is a pediatrician with PediExpress, an urgent care clinic with the University Health System at the downtown Robert B. Green Campus.

He said his clinic has been all coronavirus, all the time since March.

Ever since the beginning of the pandemic, weve been seeing children with COVID in the clinic on a daily basis pretty much, he said.

He said patients range in age from one month to 18 years. In mid-May, the pediatric patients had a viral positivity test rate of almost 30 percent, at a time when adults visiting the urgent care clinic were testing positive about 50 percent of the time.

That has tapered off quite a bit, Sanders said. Were now seeing 1 to 2 percent positivity rate among kids in the clinic, where we only test patients if theyre having symptoms.

Those symptoms range from the mild sniffles up to what youd expect with the flu  fever, body aches. Teens especially struggle with headaches and a flu-like malaise, he said.

Sanders has his own theories as to why kids might not be as affected as adults.

Children are exposed to viruses, including coronaviruses (such as the common cold) more frequently, and may have some potential innate immunity to the virus, he said.

At the height of the pandemic, his clinic was seeing 30 or 40 pediatric patients a day. Now its down to five to 10, he said.

The goal is to learn to live with this thing, because were not going to be able to eradicate it for a while, Sanders said.

The virus attacks an entire family

The virus tore through Zenaida Jeana Tijerinas family, infecting her and all four of her children, three of whom would go on to develop symptoms.

One child, Gabriel, 12, ended up at Methodist Hospital South in Jourdanton, where he received IV treatment for four hours when his fever refused to break.

He had an almost constant fever for 10 days, said Tijerina, who works in the health care field and lives in Poteet.

Nah, I didnt really feel it, said Gabriel, grinning as he hung out with his siblings at home on a recent afternoon. I just kept playing video games.

Tijerina said she worried that her sons high fevers were going to trigger seizures in him. Her other children had less severe symptoms, she said - headaches, body aches.

Tijerina lost her sense of taste, which, weeks after everyone recovered, is only now returning. Her son Derrin, 11, has recurrent headaches.

Tijerina herself ended up in the hospital after recovering, with complications from a pre-existing kidney ailment, dehydration and mental fogginess, which doctors told her could be a case of post-COVID.

Tijerina said she kept her kids home ever since the pandemic broke, and she only left their home to go to H-E-B. She thinks she picked up the virus while waiting for one of her kids prescription medications.

She brought the disease home in mid-July.

It was so hard, because even though I was sick I still had to take care of them, she said. Im all they have and they really depend on me.

She has been able to work only part-time since the illnesses and is behind on her car payment and other bills. Her children receive health care under Medicaid. During the worst of their illness, family and friends brought casseroles and other food and left it on the front porch of Tijerinas modest home.

Tijerina is studying to become a paramedic. She says she was so traumatized by the virus that she checked her kids temperature and oxygen level every four hours when they were ill. But she does plan to send them back to in-person school, when that becomes an option, so she can get back to work.

Plus, I figure that theyre immune, at least for the next three months, she said.

A mothers fury

Once in San Antonio, Makayla, Rios daughter, would end up receiving a number of medications through an IV, including a blood thinner to prevent blood clots, one possible complication of COVID-19.

Rios thinks Makayla contracted the virus from her grandmother, with whom Rios and her four children live, and who had tested positive during weekly checks for her home health job, although she had no symptoms.

When Makaylas fevers started, Rios took her to a hospital emergency room, where doctors didnt test her for the virus. They sent her home with Tylenol.

The fevers continued, so Rios got tested, along with all of her kids. Only Makaylas 14-year-old sister tested positive. She had mild symptoms  a headache and occasional chills.

Makayla continued to spike fevers, some dangerously high. A doctor prescribed antibiotics over the phone.

More fevers. A second trip to the emergency room showed the girl had mild pneumonia. She was tested again for the virus and sent home, to await the results. The next morning, her toes and fingernails were blue, a sign she wasnt getting enough oxygen.

Then came the frantic drive to San Antonio.

Dr. Kelly Spence, a hospitalist with Pediatrix Medical Group of Texas, affiliated with Methodist Children's Hospital, was Makaylas physician.

She said she first started seeing COVID pediatric patients in May, and that their numbers increased over the summer but have since plateaued.

Methodist Childrens has treated 52 patients ages 17 and under during the last four months  two in May, 16 in June, 24 in July and 10 in August, said a hospital spokeswoman.

The average length of stay for pediatric COVID patients is four days, she said. So far, none has required the use of a ventilator or other extreme measures.

Most of the hospitals COVID pediatric patients are older teens  15 to 17  and many have underlying health problems, such as diabetes and obesity, Spence said. Most of the pediatric patients in the hospital are asymptomatic - they were admitted for unrelated issues or illnesses and then tested positive, she said.

Makayla was in the hospital for an uncommonly long period, Spence said. But it speaks to the unpredictable nature of the disease and how the symptoms progress in each person.

Rios still cant believe her daughter caught the virus and became so seriously ill. From the start of the pandemic, like Tijerina, she made sure to keep the whole family home, except for trips to the grocery store or Walmart.

The whole time Makayla was being treated in San Antonio, Rios stayed quarantined with her in her hospital room. She looked on as the nurses took care of her daughter, praying over her when her fever triggered hallucinations.

It was so super-scary, said Rios, an optometrists assistant who hasnt been able to work.

Rios said she plans on homeschooling her kids this fall. Shes not about to send them out into the world. Not yet.

Makayla now is on a steroid and long-term inhaler to help mitigate any lung damage the virus caused and will continue to see a lung specialist.

Her prognosis is unknown at this time.

I dont think any of us know long-term what is going to happen with these children, who present with significant respiratory symptoms, Spence said.

Rios becomes infuriated when she sees clips on the news of people gathering in large crowds for parties and cookouts.

Theyre not going to get it until their own kid is in a hospital bed, having hallucinations, she said. Then maybe theyll understand.

Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje is a general assignment reporter covering breaking news, cultural trends and interesting people and goings-on around San Antonio and Bexar County, as well as all across South Texas. To read more from Melissa , become a subscriber. mstoeltje@express-news.net | Twitter: @mstoeltje
The US government tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses, ByteDance said.

The lawsuit would argue that President Trump's far-reaching action is unconstitutional because it failed to give the company a chance to respond, NPR reported two weeks ago quoting a source. (Photo | AFP)

New York: Video app TikTok said Saturday it will challenge in court a Trump administration crackdown on the popular Chinese-owned platform, which Washington accuses of being a national security threat.

As tensions soar between the worlds two biggest economies, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 6 giving Americans 45 days to stop doing business with TikToks Chinese parent company ByteDanceeffectively setting a deadline for a potential pressured sale of the app to a US company.

To ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and users are treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the executive order through the judicial system, TikTok said in a statement.

Even though we strongly disagree with the administrations concerns, for nearly a year we have sought to engage in good faith to provide a constructive solution, it said.

What we encountered instead was a lack of due process as the administration paid no attention to facts and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses.

ByteDance said in a separate statement that the suit would be filed on Monday.

An NPR report two weeks ago had said that the lawsuit would be filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of California, where TikTok's American operations are based

NPR said that it had learned that the lawsuit would argue that President Trump's far-reaching action is unconstitutional because it failed to give the company a chance to respond. It also alleges that the administration's national security justification for the order is baseless, according to the source.

It's based on pure speculation and conjecture, the source was quoted as saying. The order has no findings of fact, just reiterates rhetoric about China that has been kicking around.

The White House declined to comment on the expected litigation but defended the president's executive order. The Administration is committed to protecting the American people from all cyber related threats to critical infrastructure, public health and safety, and our economic and national security, White House spokesman Judd Deere was quoted as saying by the NPR report.

TikToks kaleidoscopic feeds of short clips feature everything from dance routines and hair-dye tutorials to jokes about daily life and politics. It has been downloaded 175 million times in the US and more than a billion times around the world.

Trump claims TikTok could be used by China to track the locations of federal employees, build dossiers on people for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.

The company has said it has never provided any US user data to the Chinese government, and Beijing has blasted Trumps crackdown as political.

The US measures come ahead of November 3 elections in which Trump, behind his rival Joe Biden in the polls, is campaigning hard on an increasingly strident anti-Beijing message.

Microsoft and Oracle are possible suitors for TikToks US operations.

Reports have said Oraclewhose chairman Larry Ellison has raised millions in campaign funds for Trumpwas weighing a bid for TikToks operations in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The Trump administration has also given ByteDance a 90-day deadline to divest in TikTok before the app is banned in the United States.

The measures move away from the long-promoted American ideal of a global, open internet and could invite other countries to follow suit, analysts told AFP previously.

Its really an attempt to fragment the internet and the global information society along US and Chinese lines, Milton Mueller, a Georgia Tech professor and founder of the Internet Governance Project said previously.
Experity, a Machesney, IL-based provider of clinical and practice management software to the urgent care space, acquired Calibrater Health, a provider of feedback management solutions.

The amount of the deal was not disclosed.

The acquisition enables Experity to strategically expand its patient engagement offering with reputation management capabilities tailor-made for the urgent care industry. The deal integrates technological functionalities and data collected across all workflows within an urgent care business, including patient feedback and clinical data.

Led by Tim Dybvig, CEO, Calibrater Health provides a feedback management technology platform which contributes to a seamless patient experience through:

Reputation management

AI-powered issue tracking

Text-based patient surveys

Net promoter score (NPS)

Team scorecards and engagement

Performance insights

Led by David Stern, CEO, Experity is a dynamic HIT company that provides integrated technology solutions to more than 4,000 on-demand healthcare practices, primary care clinics, diagnostic testing centers, and health systems nationwide. The companys complete suite of software and services includes EMR and PM, patient engagement, teleradiology, business intelligence, consulting, and billing solutions. It is a Warburg Pincus portfolio company.

FinSMEs

23/08/2020
- Luis Manzano was recently featured in Jessy Mendiola's recent vlog entitled 'Heart-To-Heart Talk with the HOWHOWS'

- Both of them have to answer a set of questions which they have never discussed before

- One of the questions Luis had to answer was if there was a time when he thought of breaking up with Jessy

- According to him, relationships are not always smooth sailing and it's normal for you to sometimes think of going on separate ways

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Luis Manzano was Jessy Mendiola's special guest in her latest YouTube vlog entitled 'Heart-To-Heart Talk with the HOWHOWS'.

KAMI learned that the couple answered a set of questions they have never asked each other before which makes the video extra special.

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One question that caught the attention of netizens was if Luis ever thought of breaking up with Jessy.

"Lahat naman tayo may mga matitinding away. It's not always lambing.

"Umaabot naman tayo sa point na baka nga, you're meant to be on separate paths. Not necessarily naman na different partners agad-agad," Luis said.

The actor-host emphasized the importance of being able to surpass the challenges that come your way as a couple.

"Nalalampasan naman 'yon. Darating naman diyan 'yung maikli talaga 'yung pasensiya niyo.

"It's okay to think of those things pero kailangan babalikan mo rin 'yung thought kasi kung why you're in a relationship," he further explained.

Jessy couldn't agree more and said that doubts in a relationship are perfectly normal, "It's more of like, dadating talaga sa point na, 'Will it happen kaya? Totoo kaya 'yung sinasabi niya.

"Lahat naman tayo may trust issues din. Susuntok tayo kaunti ng doubts. It's a normal thing."

Watch the video below:

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Luis Manzano is a well-known actor, TV host, and product endorser in the Philippines. He is currently in a romantic relationship with Jessy Mendiola.

He recently announced that he will be launching his new online show with Long Mejia. The host-actor also went viral after imitating Jerry Yan's photos on social media.

POPULAR: Read more news about Luis Manzano

Please like and share our Facebook posts to support KAMI team! Dont hesitate to comment and share your opinion about our stories either. We love reading about your thoughts!

Source: KAMI.com.gh
Iranian official says black boxes acquired from the jet show two separate missiles hit it 25 seconds apart.

Iran has retrieved some data, including a portion of cockpit conversations, from the Ukrainian plane accidentally downed by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces in January, killing all 176 people on board.

Analysis of the black boxes showed it was hit by two missiles, 25 seconds apart, and that passengers were still alive for some time after the first impact, an Iranian official said on Sunday.

The announcement by the head of Irans Civil Aviation Organisation marks the first official report on the contents of the cockpit voice and data recordings, which were sent to France for analysis in July.

Tehran has said it accidentally shot down the Ukraine airliner at a time of extreme tensions with the United States.

In remarks quoted by state media, Captain Touraj Dehghani Zangeneh said the black boxes have only 19 seconds of conversation following the first explosion.

Nineteen seconds after the first missile hit the plane, the voices of pilots inside the cockpit indicated the passengers were alive  25 seconds later the second missile hit the plane, he said, adding that the first missile explosion sent shrapnel into the plane, likely disrupting the planes recorders.

Demand for thorough probe

Iran has been in talks with Ukraine, Canada and other nations that had citizens aboard the plane, and who have demanded a thorough investigation into the incident.

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The IRGC shot down the Ukraine International Airlines flight with a ground-to-air missile on January 8, just after the plane took off from Tehran.

The shooting happened on the same night Iran launched a ballistic missile attack targeting US soldiers in Iraq, its response to the American drone attack that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on January 3.

At the time, Iranian troops were bracing for a US counterstrike.

Days later, Tehran acknowledged the incident as a disastrous mistake by forces on high alert during the confrontation with the US.

Iranian and Ukrainian officials have held talks on compensation to be paid to the families of the victims. Another round of talks is set for October.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-24 00:41:30|Editor: huaxia

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COLOMBO, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- The breakthrough ceremony of a storm water drainage tunnel expected to alleviate flooding in the capital city of Colombo was marked with the attendance of local officials, local media reported on Sunday.

Construction of the New Mutwal Tunnel in northern Colombo was completed on Aug. 21 by China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Company Limited in a breakthrough ceremony attended by State Minister of Urban Development, Coast Conservation, Waste Disposal, and Public Sanitization Nalaka Godahewa and Charge d'affaires of the embassy of China in Sri Lanka Hu Wei.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, State Minister Godahewa thanked the Chinese contractor for working through difficulties posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in order to deliver infrastructure that would benefit more than 50,000 people living in the capital.

A statement from the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing said the tunnel was built, "with the objective of mitigating the adverse physical, social, and economic effects caused by the constant flooding experienced in the Colombo Metropolitan Region."

The 778-meter long tunnel will carry flood water at a capacity of 15,000 liters per second from a canal in the Colombo neighborhood of Aluthmawatha, under the town of New Mutwal, and out to sea from an opening at the Mutwal Fisheries Harbor.

The project was first proposed in 2010, after which a feasibility study was conducted in 2013 and construction began in 2019.

The New Mutwal Tunnel is part of the Sri Lankan government's Metro Colombo Urban Development Project. Enditem
Prince Charles has always lived in luxury as a senior member of the royal family. He has been the heir to the throne his entire life. This has allowed him to acquire a massive amount of wealth, including an incredible real estate portfolio. One of the properties the Prince of Wales owns isnt just a vacation home, its an entire island.

Prince Charles | Ben A. Pruchnie  WPA Pool Getty Images

Prince Charles owns homes in different locations throughout the UK

As the oldest son of the reigning monarch, Prince Charles inherited possession of the Duchy of Cornwall. He also received the title of Duke of Cornwall when he was born. The purpose of the duchy is to manage all of its landholdings in England.

Charles cant sell any of the assets from the duchy for his own personal gain. However, he can purchase properties. And, he has acquired numerous homes throughout the United Kingdom.

His official residence is Clarence House, which is located in central London. This is a royal residence that was previously the home of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. The Queen Mother lived in the home until her death in 2002.

According to Hello magazine, the Prince of Wales purchased his country estate  Highgrove House in Gloucestershire  in 1980. His private residence in Scotland, Birkhall, sits on the Queens Balmoral estate. For his visits to Wales, Prince Charles owns the Llwynywermod property which he purchased in 2007.

Other homes include The Castle of Mey and the Dumfries House, which are both located in Scotland.

Prince Charles owns an entire island

Another home on the list of Prince Charles impressive properties is Dolphin House. This six-bedroom home is located on Tresco, in the Isles of Scilly. Not only does the Prince of Wales own Dolphin House, he also owns the entire island of Tresco.

According to Veranda, Tresco is a car-free island with just 175 residents. It is located less than 30 miles off of Englands Cornish coast. It is accessible by ferry, helicopter, and airplane. The island also appears to be the ultimate vacation spot, thanks to its sandy-white beaches and crystal blue waters.

RELATED: Queen Elizabeth Is Passing On One Very Unexpected Title to Prince Charles as He Prepares To Take the Throne

However, this isnt just a royal paradise. Dolphin House is actually open to the public for vacation rentals. The weekly rates during the high season start at 4,865 ($6,430). The home can accommodate up to ten people. It features a private patio, a grill for summer cookouts, and spectacular sea views.

Prince Charles vacationed at Dolphin House in 1989 with Princess Diana, Prince William, and Prince Harry. The Duke of Cambridge later returned to the property with his own family in 2020.

Prince William and Kate Middleton took their kids to Dolphin House for vacation

Prince William and Kate Middleton recently took a break from their busy schedules as senior working royals. The couple took their three children  Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis  to Dolphin House for a short staycation, according to You magazine.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge previously visited the island of Tresco in 2016. During that official appearance, he promised that he would return soon.

RELATED: Prince William and Kate Middleton Need to Be Careful Not to Overshadow the More Reserved Prince Charles Royal Expert Claims

This was a work trip for William and Kate. However, they did take some time out for bike rides, and they also chatted with local residents. The royal family of five traveled to and from the island by helicopter.

William and Kate were both smiling widely and looked really happy and relaxed, an eyewitness told The Mail on Sunday. Their bodyguards had big smiles too  it was clear to see that it had been a really good holiday.

When Prince Charles becomes king, Prince William will inherit Dolphin House and the island of Tresco from his father.
Indias total recoveries now exceed the total active cases by nearly 16 lakhs, says health ministry

More than 14 Lakh Covid tests conducted in Delhi so far, says state govt

Europe is currently experiencing a coronavirus surge but health experts and lawmakers believe that is less deadlier than the first wave. Italy reported more than a thousand cases for the first time since mid-May. Death rates fell in France but new daily Covid-19 cases remained above 3,500. New cases in Germany had led to students and teachers quarantining.

India added 397,277 cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), including more than 5,700 deaths, in a week, taking the countrys infection tally to over 3 million, data from the Union health ministry showed on Sunday. The Union health ministry on Sunday said that the total number of samples tested for the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) has reached 3.52 crore after more than eight lakh samples were tested for six days in a row.

Click here for the complete coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic

University of Washingtons Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation predicted that US deaths could cross the 300,000-mark. Arizona reported a spike in both Covid-19 cases and deaths. Texas and Florida saw cases recede over the last three days. Delhi saw a rise in the number of new coronavirus cases after almost a month.
The facts show that Trump is engaged in a child abuse scheme of massive proportionsin violation of the very laws he is claiming to uphold.





by Sonali Kolhatkar





President Donald Trump thinks of himself as a champion against human trafficking. He addressed a White House Summit on the issue in January claiming there was a humanitarian crisis at the border fomented by criminal organizations and that traffickers victimize countless women and children. He signed an executive order and diverted $400 million in funding to combat the issue, boasting in his usual manner that we have signed more legislation on human trafficking than any other administration has ever even thought about. But in recent months, the administration has been found to be flouting the United States own anti-trafficking laws by deporting thousands of children and families seeking asylum, practically delivering them into the hands of traffickers across the border in Mexico.













Dr. Amy Cohen, executive director of Every Last One, explained to me in an interview that under the Trump administrations so-called Remain in Mexico program, the United States has been essentially feeding vulnerable migrant children and families to cartel traffickers in Mexico continuously. The program, officially known by the Orwellian-sounding title of Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), sends immigrants seeking entry into the United States across the border to Mexico to await the adjudication of their cases. While the Department of Homeland Security claimed that MPP would decrease the ability of smugglers and traffickers to prey on vulnerable populations, in fact it does the opposite.





Cohen elaborated on this horrific phenomenon, saying, migrants are dropped off with nothing on the other side of the border, with no shelter, with no protection, with no food, with no money. And within minutes, they are picked up by cartel gangs that are waiting. As a child and family psychiatrist who works closely with traumatized migrant children, she did not mince words, saying that families are, kidnapped and used for extortion, which is a form of trafficking. Sometimes they are tortured. Sometimes they are raped. Children are compelled to watch. Sometimes children themselves are raped.





The only way to view the outcome of this policy is that the United States is actively participating in a trafficking operation. The Trump administration cannot claim ignorance of the outcome of MPP. According to Cohen, This is happening in cities literally all along the border. This is not a secret; this is widespread. So extensive is the abuse that according to her, The vast majority of asylum seekers who weve placed into the MPP program have at one time or another experienced at least one, sometimes multiple, episodes of what I would consider trafficking, of kidnapping, and some form of psychological or physical torture.





Because of the extreme danger that the Trump administration has put families in, according to Cohen it has forced many parents into a decision about whether to keep their children with them or send them unaccompanied across the U.S. border.





But under cover of the coronavirus pandemic, the federal government has accelerated the expulsion of even unaccompanied children to Mexico and Central Americain violation of federal law. The Associated Press explained that More than 2,000 unaccompanied children have been expelled since March under an emergency declaration enacted by the Trump administration, which has cited the coronavirus in refusing to provide them protections under federal anti-trafficking and asylum laws.





Now reports have emerged of the government hiring a private security and transportation firm to move immigrant families and children into hotels in the United States before expelling them. According to the New York Times, which broke the story, the Trump administration has created a largely unregulated shadow system of detention and swift expulsions without the safeguards that are intended to protect the most vulnerable migrants. Children, some as young as one year old, are being cared for in hotels like Best Western and Hampton Inn by private security personnel who have no childcare training.





Cohen says advocates like her believe that this has been a way for the United States to try to hide a number of these children who they are deporting. Those children held in government facilities have to be registered as having entered the United States, which then triggers legal protections for them. But by holding children in hotels, effectively off the books and out of public view, government attorneys are denying that they are actually in the custody of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, says Cohen. Bizarrely, they are claiming that the children are in the custody of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) over concerns of COVID-19, and thereby flouting the legal mandate known as the Flores Settlement to maintain the safety, care, and oversight of the children.





Where the children end up once they are removed from the U.S. is not known, and the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency will not say. According to Reuters, Between April and June, U.S. officials arrested more than 3,300 unaccompanied children on the southwest border, but CBP has declined to say how many have been expelled under the new process or give a breakdown of arrests by nationality for that time period. During that same time frame, out of the thousands of children apprehended, only about 160 remain in U.S. custody.





It is ironic, to say the least, that some of Trumps most loyal followers are conspiracy theorists who label themselves QAnon claiming that the president is facing off against a cabal of Democratic pedophiles. So mainstream is this movement that one of its followers just won a GOP congressional primary in Georgia. QAnon is now appropriating the social media hashtag #SaveTheChildren and promoting fantastical claims of a widespread child sex trafficking ring. Its followers have even joined the anti-trafficking movement in the United States. But they have entirely ignored the very real trafficking and exploitation of children at the U.S. border that their president has unleashed.





More than two years ago, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions claimed that the government cared about children when he officially announced Trumps zero tolerance policy, saying, If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law. It was a thinly veiled attempt to punish those fleeing poverty and violence for a better life in America. And while mass public outrage forced Trump to back off (he signed an executive order in June 2018 to end what his own discretionary policy initiated), in truth the torture and trauma facing immigrant families did not end. It was simply moved out of our view across the border into even more dangerous conditions.





As America hurtles toward November 3 with a desperation unlike any weve felt for previous presidential elections, the issue of how President Trump has treated immigrant families and children has been largely off the radar. But if we care about children and about protecting them from horrific torture and abuse, Trumps role as Child-Trafficker-in-Chief ought to be central to our election discourse.





This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.





Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host and executive producer of Rising Up With Sonali, a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations.
The human body is home to trillions of microbes. Through its natural functioning, much of the time, this ecosystem regulates our health. But like the environment of the world at large, this bodily ecosystem is delicate, and any change in the composition of the microbial community, also called the "microbiome," can cause an overall imbalance in their collective functioning, resulting in disease.

Now, advances in research in this field have yielded a technique called next-generation DNA sequencing, which allows for very accurate identification of the members of this microbial community, thereby offering insights into microbial community composition. For several diseases, knowing which microbes densely populate the organ/tissue in question or become absent from it during disease can help develop effective treatments. Such is the case for dental caries, a type of tooth decay in which acid-producing bacteria eat away at the out layer of teeth and cause cavities.

A type of bacteria called the mutans streptococci are the most commonly implicated microbes in dental caries. Their increase causes dental decay. But, could other microbes be responsible as well?

Scientists globally have looked into this question. However, focus on the younger demographic has been low. Meanwhile, in Japan, the number of young adults developing dental caries is increasing.

Spurred by this increase and this insufficient literature, a team of researchers from Japan, led by Dr. Uchida-Fukuhara from Okayama University, called for Japanese university student volunteers for oral examinations at the Health Service Center in Okayama University.

The students answered a survey about their dental health at the beginning of the study and during a follow-up after three years. This told the researchers which students had significantly increased dental caries after this time and who didn't. The researchers grouped the students accordingly during the follow-up (let's say, Groups A and B respectively). They then collected saliva samples of randomly selected students from these groups, which they analyzed via next-generation DNA sequencing to obtain microbial profiles.

It turned out that very similar oral microbial diversities existed in both groups. But in Group A, the abundances of the bacterial families Prevotellaceae and Veillonellaceae, and genera Alloprevotella and Dialister, were greater than those in Group B. These two families are known to comprise species that produce acid as well. This finding, therefore, suggests new prevention possibilities for dental caries that does not focus on keeping mutans streptococci populations in check.

Interestingly, both groups had low levels of mutans streptococci. Should the focus of research on what causes dental caries change?

The striking results of the study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, underscore the necessity of updating current knowledge on the oral microbial community and its role in the development of dental caries. But Dr. Uchida highlights limitations in the study's applicability and advises taking these findings with a pinch of salt. "Among other things, all our participants were from Okayama University, so our results may not be generalizable to the wider population," she says.

Yet, Dr. Uchida is hopeful, "For many years our group has been conducting population studies to reduce oral diseases. We believe that the results of this new study will help us develop novel strategies to prevent dental caries and our students will achieve greater life satisfaction because of better teeth and oral health."

Perhaps, in the future, students' teeth will be clean as a hound's tooth.
Kangana Ranauts views on mental health have left many Twitter users questioning her authority on the subject. After she claimed to have taken private tuitions in human psychology, a Twitter user hit out at her, saying that visiting a psychiatrist is not counted as private tuitions in psychology. He also took a dig at her for knowing everything about everyone everywhere.

Replying to the Twitter user, Kangana said that she might not know everything but she does know a lot. She wrote, I did screen writing in New York we were taught human psychology as a part of the 6 months course I extended psychology classes with my professor for another two years, I might not know everything but yes I know a lot, does that hurt ?

Earlier, Kangana had claimed that there is no valid medical proof of mental illness, to which a neuroscientist replied saying that she should not comment unless she can back her statements with learned information or experiences.

Another Twitter user then said that Kangana knew nothing about the workings of the brain, to which she replied, I know about grey matter, neurons and their interactions through electrical events n neurotransmitter, I have been a science student, have done a project on brain where I constructed 3D model of human brain, I have also taken private tuitions of human psychology.

Also read | The Batman teaser: Robert Pattinsons Dark Knight brings the vengeance against unrecognisable Colin Farrell. Watch

Recently, Kangana questioned Deepika Padukones depression and asked how a person could feel the effects of a break-up after several years. She said, in Hindi, in a recent interview with Republic TV, Deepika Padukone suddenly says in 2015-16 that she was dumped in 2008 and is feeling depressed about it now. After eight years. After her break-up, she had affairs, she was doing well professionally, she dressed up to go out and everything. She even got married but the depression continued. What kind of depression is this, which happens after eight years?

If @deepikapadukone says she suddenly got depressed for a break up which happened 10 years ago, we believe her so give me and Sushant same respect if I say I am not mentally ill or if Sushants father says he wasnt mentally ill believe us also na. Why you forcing illness on us?, Kangana wrote on Twitter.

Kangana was referring to reports that Sushant Singh Rajput was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The Mumbai Police, in a press conference, said that he was under medication for it. It has come to surface that he had bipolar disorder, he was undergoing treatment and taking medicines for it, Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh said earlier this month.

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Williamson said she is stressing this strongly for parents of Carmel School students.

I had a mother who called and said she had one child with a fever and one child without and she asked if she could bring the one who doesnt have a fever, Williamson said. I said, no, you cannot.

BalmesJohn said the hope is that if people are wearing masks, washing their hands and maintaining social distance, there should be fewer cases of cold, flu or other diseases that are commonly passed around when school is in session.

If a child is in class and does start to feel sick, that child would go to the school nurse for evaluation, Williamson and Fry said.

The health department recommends that the school nurse use CDC clinical criteria to determine if COVID-19 is suspected.

COVID-19 would be suspected if the students presents with at least two of the following symptoms: fever, chills, aches or pains, headache, sore throat or new olfactory and taste disordersor exhibits cough or shortness of breath or difficulty breathing.
Declaring former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif an "absconder", the incumbent Imran Khan-led government has approached the UK government for his extradition, according to an official. "The government is treating him (Sharif) as an absconder and has already sent a request to the British government to extradite him," Dawn news quoted Adviser to the Prime Minster on Accountability and Interior Shahzad Akbar as saying said while addressing a press conference in Lahore on Saturday. "His stroll on London roads is a slap in the face of the judiciary and the ...

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Say youre fortunate enough to own a large private manufacturing business. In 2016 you built a $100 million factory and paid for it 100% in cash.

This year your business will generate $1 billion in revenue and $980 million in expenses. You might think thats a $20 million profit. But it wont be reported that way, because you will subtract about $8.8 million for depreciation on the factory building and the machinery inside. Reported profit: $11.2 million.

In reality, no cash is going out for the factory and equipment this year; you paid for it all four years ago. Your reported profit may be only $11.2 million but your cash flow is nearly twice that.

Some professional investors say that cash flow, not reported earnings, is the true measure of profitability. I say that there is no single true measure. You get a better picture by looking at both.

Today, lets look at a few companies that look good based on the ratio of the stock price to cash flow. MarineMax Inc. (HZO) is my favorite, with a price-to-cash-flow ratio under four. I also like FutureFuel Corp. (FF), Talos Energy Inc. (TALO) and Travelers Companies Inc. (TRV).
N. Oregon Coast Overcrowding, Trash, Parking Cause State Officials Take Action

Published 08/22//20 at 5:11 AM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Manzanita, Oregon)  The north Oregon coast is in trouble when it comes to overcrowding. Between bursts of overwhelming trash, out-of-control parking issues and visitors being surly and not wearing masks, its become an epidemic in the midst of the pandemic. (Photo above courtesy OPRD showing illegal parking issues on the coast)

Its all enough that state officials are starting to take action. Cannon Beach and Tillamook County (which includes Manzanita, Rockaway Beach, Oceanside and Pacific City) seem to be taking the brunt of it, which includes gobs of trash on beaches and even visitors blocking residents driveways. Oregon State Parks and Recreation Department (OPRD) released a statement Friday saying there will be heavier parking enforcement  which will include ticketing and getting towed  along with more resources put towards trash pickup.

There dont seem to be as many reports coming from farther south in Lincoln County, and at least one southern Oregon coast tourism official told Oregon Coast Beach Connection the area is not experiencing the same kind of overload.

Up north, however, some residents are working behind the scenes to possibly close some areas. They are fed up.

In Tillamook County, Visit Tillamook Coast executive director Nan Devlin is actually asking visitors to stop coming to the beaches for a little while, at least until after summer is over.

Yes, the weekends have been inundated, she said. This is what overtourism looks like. Visitors must rethink trips to the coast: save the visits for later in the year.

In Cannon Beach, locals and agencies like Haystack Rock Awareness Program (HRAP) have noted excessive garbage on beaches. Volunteers there are picking up bags full of trash every day. One documented incident included a pile of food and drink refuse along with dirty diapers. HRAP volunteers have hauled away excessive masses of stuff, some of it large, such as the frame for a tent simply left on the beach.

At Oceanside and other areas, there have been numerous incidents of visitors parking in front of driveways, blocking residents from their own homes. At Oswald West State Park, its a parking free-for-all, with not just a few but lines of cars parked illegally on the side of the highway.

The worst kind of garbage keeps appearing in Tillamook County parks in the forested sections: what are nicknamed TP flowers. Piles of used toilet paper are simply getting left in various corners of greenery.

But more importantly, the impact on the environment and communities has been big, Devlin said. Trash left on the beaches, not burying or cleaning up human waste, illegal and dangerous parking, people from states where masks are not required pushing back on businesses here who have the right to refuse service if a mask is not worn.

We all understand the need to get out, breathe fresh salt air of the ocean. Weve all been cooped up for a long time and feeling uncertain and anxious about many things, including our safety.

Earlier this month, Oregon Coast Beach Connection ran a story about trash on beaches, but in talking to central Oregon coast officials it seems the problem wasnt as bad down there. Even Devlin at the time didnt indicate the magnitude of it all that is now being revealed, and much of that could be that populations simply skyrocketed a bit later. Amid More Trash: Pack Out Your Garbage, Say Oregon Coast Officials

Its in August when things really got out of control, worsened by the heatwave last week.

Whats the solution? Some visitors are going to get tickets and get their cars towed. The latter is a severe issue you dont want to encounter while youre out of town, especially if you come back to your vehicle after dark. There may be no one around to lead you back to your car to retrieve it.





OPRD said it is now working with other state and local agencies to attack the trash and parking issues.

State and county agencies will be doing the following:

Designate safer, legal parking options and advise drivers to keep traveling if parking lots are full. With support from ODOT, more than a dozen new advisory and No parking signs will be installed along U.S. 101

Increase restroom and trash services where money and labor are available,

Step up enforcement, ticketing unsafely parked cars and calling for tows at the owners expense, where needed.

If you love the coast, show it, says Lisa Sumption, OPRD Director. Take care of it and yourselves with some very simple steps.

Other guidelines you should follow:

Park only in designated stalls,

Bypassing full parks and going someplace else,

Packing out anything brought in and leaving no trash,

Using restrooms before arriving or after leaving.

Visiting mid-week early in the day

Devlin remains concerned, however.

Up and down the coast, weve asked people to leave no trace and warned of limited or no services, such as park closures, no bathrooms available, limited parking, restaurants closed or at half capacity, etc. And visitors keep coming.

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A stricken oil tanker moored near the city of Hodeidah is slowly leaking more than a million barrels of oil.

The United Nations is urging the warring sides in Yemen to work together to prevent a potential environmental disaster.

A stricken oil tanker moored near the city of Hodeidah is slowly leaking more than a million barrels of oil.

And, as Al Jazeeras Mohammed al-Attab reports, there are fears it could all spill into the Red Sea by next month.
Vietnam has registered no new coronavirus cases, both imported cases and local transmissions, during the past 12 hours, therefore keeping its tally of infections unchanged at 1,014, while the death toll remains at 26.

As of 6.00hrs August 23, Vietnam has recorded 672 locally transmitted cases, including 532 cases tied to the Da Nang outbreak that occurred in late July. The remaining 316 cases were infected with the virus before they returned to Vietnam.

Thousands of foreigners living and working in Da Nang, the epicentre of the country's largest coronavirus outbreak, have tests to check if they have the virus or not.

The new outbreak has spread to 15 cities and provinces since the SARS-CoV-2 virus recurred in Da Nang on July 25. Da Nang is the hardest hit locality, recording more than 370 cases, followed by Quang Nam, Hanoi, Hai Duong and Ho Chi Minh City.

Of the 1,014 cases Vietnam has confirmed since January this year, 563 cases have been discharged from hospital after making a full recovery. The remaining 425 cases are receiving treatment at medical facilities across the country with 129 cases having tested negative at least once.

The death toll caused by the disease has risen to 26 after a fatality was reported late August 22. Most of the fatalities were elderly people who suffered from serious illnesses such as end-stage kidney cancer, severe pneumonia, diabetes and multi-organ failure.

VOV

Da Nang: over 2,000 foreigners to be tested for Covid-19 More than 2,000 foreigners living in Son Tra district of the central city of Da Nang have been taken samples for Covid-19 test.
Imperial Valley News Center

Former Police Officer Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Sexual Assault

Chattanooga, Tennessee - Desmond Logan, 35, a former officer with the Chattanooga Police Department (CPD), was sentenced by the Honorable Curtis L. Collier, U.S. District Court Judge in the Eastern District of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Logan will serve 20 years in prison with three years of supervised release for crimes involving sexual misconduct while on duty. Logan previously pleaded guilty to two civil rights offenses on Sept. 12, 2019.

The Department of Justice will vigorously prosecute officers who commit sexual assault, said Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband of the Civil Rights Division. This case is a reminder that sexual assault allegations involving law enforcement officers should be fully investigated. The department will continue to take such allegations seriously and work to vindicate the Constitutional rights of those who are victimized by officers acting under color of law.

The actions of Desmond Logan jeopardized public safety and violated the trust of the citizens of Chattanooga he swore to protect. This case exhibits our continued efforts to prosecute those who would use their power to commit acts of violence and injustice against members of our community, said U.S. Attorney J. Douglas Overbey of the Eastern District of Tennessee. Our office will continue to stand by and protect the victims of such crimes.

"Civil Rights violations, particularly when they involve a member of law enforcement, are of tremendous concern, said Special Agent in Charge Joe Carrico of the FBIs Knoxville Field Office. The entire law enforcement profession is tarnished when an officer betrays the oath to protect and serve. The FBI will vigorously investigate any officer or agent of the law who is breaking the rules that he or she is sworn to uphold or is violating the civil rights of others."

According to court documents filed in connection with the defendants guilty plea, the first offense occurred during the early morning hours of June 12, 2018. The defendant, while on duty as a CPD police officer, handcuffed and arrested K.B.V. Rather than transporting K.B.V. directly to the Hamilton County Jail, the defendant drove K.B.V. in his squad car to an empty and isolated parking lot. There, the defendant sexually assaulted K.B.V.

The second offense occurred on the evening of Jan. 2, 2016. The defendant, while working a security detail at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga, entered the passenger seat of D.H.'s car and asked for a ride to his own car, which he claimed was parked in a different parking lot. The defendant then directed D.H. to an empty and isolated parking lot. He took out his taser and put it against D.H.'s leg, causing D.H. to fear that he would cause her further physical harm. When D.H. tried to escape, Logan prevented her from getting out of the car.

In addition to these two offenses, the defendant admitted as part of his guilty plea that he sexually assaulted two other women. In each instance, one on July 31, 2015, and the other on May 30, 2016, the defendant arrested each victim, and instead of transporting her to jail, drove her to a deserted area where he sexually assaulted her.

This case was investigated by the Knoxville Division of the FBI, with the support of the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney James Brooks of the Eastern District of Tennessee and Special Litigation Counsel Fara Gold and Trial Attorney Olimpia Michel of the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice prosecuted the case.
US president Donald Trump on Saturday accused the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of trying to delay human trials of vaccine candidates against the coronavirus disease until after November 3, the day the United States goes to polls.

The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives! @SteveFDA, he wrote on Twitter tagging FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn.

Trump, however, did not share any evidence of the claim he made. The comment apparently came after a Reuters report on Thursday that quoted a top FDA official saying he would resign if the Trump administration approved a vaccine before it was shown to be safe and effective.

Trumps dangerous statement drew a sharp response from US House speaker Nancy Pelosi who said the presidents attempt to influence the decisions of the FDA can jeopardise the health and well-being of all Americans.

Pelosi said the drug regulatory body must not give in to the political pressure and approve drugs or vaccines based on their safety and effectiveness.

The FDA must approve drugs or vaccines based on their safety and effectiveness  NOT political pressure from the White House. The Presidents dangerous attempt to inject himself into the scientific decisions of @US_FDA jeopardizes the health & well-being of all Americans, she tweeted.

Also read| The bully pulpit: Donald Trump pushes Washington, but coronavirus resists

Scientists, public health officials and lawmakers have expressed concern over Trumps push for early clearance of a vaccine by the FDA in a bid to get an edge in the upcoming US polls.

Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said last week he would resign if the agency rubber-stamped an unproven vaccine.

The US has reported 5,666,673 confirmed cases of the coronavirus disease while the toll due to the infection stands at 176,345, according to the Johns Hopkins Universitys tracker.
Indias first cases were reported in the southern state of Kerala in late January. They were three university students who had been studying in the disease epicenter of Wuhan, China. But community transmission took hold in cities thousands of miles (kilometers) to the north, with the financial center of Mumbai reporting huge spikes in late spring followed by New Delhi, the capital, in early summer.
Thanks to a $25K grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the Trenton Downtown Association was able to partner with Trenton artist Leon Rainbow for the fourth consecutive year in bringing live mural painting to Front and Broad Streets in downtown Trenton.

The show's curator, Leon Rainbow talks about the project.Michael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

With a career in Trenton spanning more than 20 years, Rainbow, who is curating the show says, Were bringing the art to the people.

One of the things that I try to do is really just bring quality artists together that I know are really talented and then just allow them to do something creative.

The show's curator, Leon Rainbow works on a ladder painting his multi-level mural titled "Uprising."Michael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

The popular project provides the opportunity to different artists, most of whom have Trenton connections, to transform boarded-up panels of an old parking garage into striking, meaningful works of art. The live painting began on Thursday, July 30 and will continue through Sept. 20.

A view of some of the artworkMichael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Rainbows own contribution to the show this year is very personal, based on a cremation ceremony. His recently deceased father lived on an Indian reservation in Yuma Arizona and Rainbow says he would travel across the country off and on for the past twenty years to visit with his father.

The show's curator, Leon Rainbow paints his multi-level mural titled "Uprising."Michael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Most of the murals are at street level but for this piece, Rainbow chose a panel that rises up to higher levels of the parking garage facade.

To have that elevation and give it that feeling of rising up that I wanted, he says.

Rainbow will call it Uprising when its finished.

The show's curator, Leon Rainbow paints his multi-level mural titled "Uprising."Michael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

The project usually coincides with the Levitt AMP Trenton Music Series, a TDA-sponsored series of 10 free concerts in Mill Hill Park, located opposite the murals. Those live concerts could not happen this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. In their place, a Sarah Dash Birthday Bash livestream concert took place Aug. 18. Trenton native Sarah Dash, part of the groundbreaking group LaBelle, is a Grammy Hall of Fame inductee.

This has been such a wonderful collaboration with Leon that would not have been possible without the generous support of the Trenton Parking Authority, says Meaghan Singletary, Development and Project Manager for TDA. (They have allowed us to use the panels on an old garage and turn them into art.

Local artist, Dean RAS Innocenzi steps back to take a look at a mural he is working on in his signature style of semi-realism.Michael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust. Michael Mancuso may be reached at mmancuso@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @michaelmancuso. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Once Ms. Clinton was at home, she was given support to help her care for her family and fight the eviction. Like many bail funds and bailouts, SONG has an abolitionist vision of pushing toward a world without prisons by supporting people so theyre safe in their own communities. The group helps people find things that the state should be helping them access instead of criminalizing them: housing, health care, counseling and other basic needs that keep people from being harmed and harming others. Community bail funds are temporary infrastructure, not permanent solutions to the crises of poverty and criminalization.

Ms. Clinton soon went to a strategy meeting at SONG, where she says she was blown away. She added, I never knew there were people taking action in solidarity with people like me. Bail funds often engage in broader organizing and political work  pressuring district attorneys to stop asking for exorbitant bail, working to pass legislation that would end the use of money bail, pushing for decriminalization of quality of life and other offenses, and calling for the redistribution of state resources away from punishment and toward collective care. Ms. Clinton jumped into the work, and she was eventually hired as the regional bailout coordinator. In that role, she pays bail for people and provides supportive services. This year, she launched her own initiative, R.E.S.I.S.T., raising money to buy land on which to build healing, sustainable cooperative housing for formerly incarcerated women.

The ferocity of the backlash against this work shows its power. It is not just the media and the Trump campaign; many politicians are pushing back against the broader message that bail funds lay out. In Massachusetts, politicians from all corners are attacking: the Boston police commissioner, William Gross, declared the Massachusetts Bail Fund a detriment to the community; the states attorney general, Maura Healy, announced that her office will investigate the fund; and the Boston district attorney, Rachael Rollins, called the bailing out of Shawn McClinton the act of a coward.

Conservative news outlets have feigned shock that bail funds are working to release not just protesters, but also ordinary people. They ignore the thousands of people whose stories, whether they are charged with low-level misdemeanors or so-called violent felonies, demonstrate how their freedom, in the aggregate, lies on the side of safety.

Think of Michael Penn, 46, whose $35,000 bail was paid by the Massachusetts Bail Fund in July in a felony case alleging gun possession. Mr. Penn will now continue to go to his court dates while living with his mother and sister, and maintaining social distancing measures  something that would be impossible in jail. The truth is, bail funds literally save peoples lives, Michael said. They saved mine.

Mary Hooks (@MaryHooks) is co-director of Southerners on New Ground. Jocelyn Simonson (@j_simonson) is professor at Brooklyn Law School and on the advisory board of the Community Justice Exchange.

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With uncertainty around reopening of schools that were closed in March owing to the pandemic, city stores that had already stocked up on summer uniforms have now become obsolete.

Kingsway, a store that had been providing uniforms for various private schools since 1973, had to close their Sector 22 shop this month. Owner Gurdeep Singh Narula said, We had taken the shop on rent and had to vacate it this month. The timing of the lockdown was the worst since we had already purchased summer uniforms in bulk, but were unable to sell even a single pair.

Kingsways Phase-7 store in Mohali is still open, however, Narula has had to tap into other markets like innerwear and casual wear. They have been able to sell patkas to go with uniforms, but the rest of the stock remains unsold.

BANKS NOT GIVING US LOANS

Proprietor of Shiksha School Uniforms in Sector 40, Abhishek Aggarwal, said, We arent able to meet even 1% of the sales that we would make otherwise. There is no point in opening the shop daily, so we only open a few days a week. We are venturing into the stationery line, but a capital investment is needed to start a new business and banks are refusing to give us loans when they find out we are in the uniform business.

If there is some clarity on when schools will open it will help us plan better, Aggarwal added.

WONT BE STOCKING WINTER UNIFORMS

Some of the smaller uniform retailers in Sadar Bazaar in Sector 19 have been the worst hit as sales here are at an all-time low. Proprietor of Puja Garments, Rakesh Mohan, said, Normally, we would earn 30,000 to 40,000 in April, but this year the stock lies untouched. It is likely that schools will reopen at the end of summer, so most people wont buy uniforms. Due to this, we plan not to stock up for winters. Instead of uniforms, we will sell other clothes.

President of Sector-19 market Narinder Singh said the market that mostly houses garment sellers has recorded no sales, and most sellers, like Mohan, will not stock uniforms till next year.
The British economy rebounded faster than expected in August but the figures, issued on Friday, were clouded by warnings of an impending crisis for retailers, a jobs crunch, ballooning public debt, and signs that trade talks with the European Union will fail.

While IHS Markit's monthly Purchasing Managers Index, which measures private-sector business activity, jumped to a seven-year high, the report showed that business confidence had declined and companies continued to cut jobs.

Employment fears also proved a drag on consumer confidence, taking the shine off data showing retail sales volumes recovering to pre-virus levels.

The British Retail Consortium said the sales figures "mask a crisis" in the sector. Marks & Spencer Group this week announced 7,000 job cuts, adding to a string of bad news on employment and store closures in recent weeks.

Hours after the data release, UK and EU officials said there's been little progress in talks for a trade deal when the Brexit transition finishes at the end of the year. That sent the pound to fresh lows on the day.

The upturn so far has been fuelled in part by huge state spending that's pushed government debt above 2trn (2.22trn) for the first time. While that's affordable for now because of ultra-low borrowing costs, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak said "difficult decisions" will be needed.

One of those is what to do with his flagship furlough program, which has protected millions of jobs and is currently scheduled to end in October.
In June, India began using cheaper, faster but less accurate tests to scale up testing for the coronavirus  a strategy that the United States is now considering.

These rapid tests boosted India's testing levels nearly five-fold within two months. But government numbers suggest some parts of the country might have become over reliant on the faster tests, which can miss infections. Experts warn that safely using them requires frequent retesting, something that isn't always happening.

Cases surged faster than labs could scale up testing once India's harsh lockdown was relaxed. So far authorities have rationed the use of the more precise molecular tests that detect the genetic code of the virus. But on June 14, India decided to bolster these with faster tests that screen for antigens, or viral proteins.

Albeit less accurate, these tests are cheap and yield results in minutes. Most don't require a lab for processing or any specialized equipment or trained personnel. The plan was to rapidly increase testing to identify infected people and prevent them from spreading the virus. Samples tested using both tests increased from 5.6 million in mid-June to 26 million two months later, and nearly a third of all tests conducted daily are now antigen tests, health officials say.

But India's experience also highlights the inherent pitfalls of relying too heavily on antigen tests, at the expense of more accurate tests. The danger is that the tests may falsely clear many who are infected with COVID-19, contributing to new spread of the virus in hard-hit areas.

Rapid test results can be backstopped with more accurate laboratory tests, but these are slower and expensive. Experts also warn that since the two types of tests vary in accuracy, they need to be interpreted separately to properly assess the spread of infection -- something India isn't doing.
A provision in the Contempt of Courts Act of 1971 that criminalises statements on grounds of scandalizing the court is vague and susceptible to a dubious interpretation, former Supreme Court and high court judges said.

Scandalising the court as grounds for criminal contempt is found in Section 2( c)(i) of the 1971 Act and states that a publication or act will amount to such contempt if it scandalises or lowers the authority of any court.

The definition of criminal contempt on the ground of scandalising the court is very vague. The word scandalising must be clarified by giving a precise definition of what scandalising the court means. That is essential because the provision entails serious criminal consequences, said retired Supreme Court judge V Gopala Gowda.

Section 2( c)(i) has come under the scanner recently after proceedings were initiated against lawyer Prashant Bhushan under that provision for his tweets critical of the Supreme Court and the current Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde.

The word scandalising is subjective and will depend on the perception of the concerned person. The provision is not clear as to whether it has to be looked at from the perception of the court, the individual judge or public. As long as the words scandalising the court are present (in the statute book), it will be susceptible to arbitrary exercise of power, retired Madras high court judge K Chandru said.

Prashant Bhushans case is not an isolated example and there have been many instances in the past when cases were initiated for criticism of the judiciary.

In Tamil Nadu, a person who used to run a magazine, wrote a letter to the high court after the high court had acquitted a murder accused. The letter stated that since the high court has acquitted the accused, it should tell public as to who is the actual culprit. The high court punished him for criminal contempt of court. What is scandalising in that letter? He was not attributing any motives to the judges. It was only an immature statement and also showed the persons lack of understanding of criminal law. Such instances go unnoticed because the people punished are not famous persons, retired justice Chandru said.

Indias contempt of court law is derived from British law, but in 2013, the United Kingdom abolished scandalising the judiciary as a form of contempt of court on the grounds that this went against freedom of expression while retaining other forms of contempt like behaviour causing disruption or interference with court proceedings.

One of the reasons why England, in 2013, repealed scandalising judiciary as a ground for contempt is to allow constructive criticism. A strong judiciary in a democratic republic is the bulwark of masses of this country. It must work towards fulfilling the goals set out in the constitution -- to secure social economic and political justice for the masses and to uphold their fundamental rights. If the judiciary is not functioning keeping in mind these objectives, an individual, be it a lawyer, law student or a layman, should have the freedom to point out the same and it cannot be said to be criminal contempt. Freedom of expression is a fundamental right, retired justice Gowda said.

Is this fundamental right being curtailed by courts using contempt of court provisions?

Judges are using this as a weapon to silence critics. The word scandalises is susceptible to dubious interpretation. Therefore, it has to go. It violates Article 14 and 21 of the constitution, said retired justice Chandru.

Contempt of court law is intended to protect the institution and not individual judges and the law should not be used to stifle healthy criticism, retired justice Gowda said.

Majesty of the court is built on its functioning and its judgments. There are thousands of cases in which directions of Supreme Court and high courts are not being implemented. If courts decide to initiate civil contempt in all those cases, then the entire institution will have to function only for hearing contempt proceedings, he added.
By PTI

ISLAMABAD: Days after including India's most wanted terrorist Dawood Ibrahim on its new sanctions list, Pakistan on Sunday tried to wriggle out of its admission on his presence in the country by claiming that its notifications about the 88 banned terror groups and their leaders were based on the details provided by the UN.

Seeking to escape from getting blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog, Pakistan on Friday imposed tough financial sanctions on 88 banned terror groups and their leaders, including Ibrahim, 26/11 Mumbai attack mastermind and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar.

The Pakistan government ordered the seizure of all movable and immovable properties of these outfits and individuals, and freezing of their bank accounts.

Underworld don Ibrahim, who heads a vast and multifaceted illegal business, has emerged as India's most wanted terrorist after the 1993 Mumbai bombings.

In 2003, the US declared Ibrahim as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. India has repeatedly asked the Government of Pakistan to hand over Ibrahim to India so that he can be prosecuted for the crimes committed by him.

ALSO READ | Pakistan admits sheltering Dawood Ibrahim, puts curbs on terror groups to avoid FATF blacklisting

It is reported that Ibrahim is based in the southern port city of Karachi.

Pakistan's Foreign Office issued a midnight statement in response to the media reports that Islamabad had admitted in the two new notifications issued on August 18 that Ibrahim was residing in the country.

It said that the SROs (Statutory Regulatory Orders) issued to reflect the information contained in the list entry of UN-designated individuals/entities.

It said the reports in certain sections of the media about Pakistan imposing new sanctions measures, through these SROs, were not factual.

The assertions made by some sections of the media, as to Pakistan admitting to the "presence of certain listed individuals on its territory, based on the information contained in the SRO, are baseless and misleading", it claimed.

"It is once again reiterated that the information contained in the SRO is reproduced as per the details in the list entry of the individuals/entities designated under the two sanctions regime, which is publicly available, and contains names of individuals who despite their confirmed deceased status still continue to be on the sanctions list," it said.

ALSO READ | UK government refuses Dawood Ibrahim aide Hanif Tiger's extradition to India

The Foreign Office said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued two consolidated SROs on August 18, reflecting the current status of the UN Taliban and ISIL (Da'esh) and AQ Sanctions list.

These lists contain names of individuals and entities designated under the two sanction regimes established pursuant to the UN Security Council resolutions, it said, adding that the consolidated SROs are issued periodically as a routine matter.

Similar SROs have been issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the past, as per statutory requirements to meet our international obligations.

The last such SROs were issued in 2019, the Foreign Office said.

The Paris-based FATF put Pakistan on the grey list in June 2018 and asked Islamabad to implement a plan of action by the end of 2019, but the deadline was extended later due to COVID-19 pandemic.

Though various sanctions were in place against almost all of those listed by the UNSC, the Pakistan government through the new notifications on Friday consolidated and documented the previously announced measures, Pakistani media reports said on Saturday.

The UNSC Sanctions Committee deals with sanctions on entities and individuals declared as terrorists. All states, including Pakistan, are bound to implement the sanctions which include assets freeze, an arms embargo, and travel ban.

It is believed that the latest move by the Pakistan government is part of its efforts to wriggle out of the grey list of the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog FATF.

ALSO READ | Dawood, other terrorists continue to enjoy 'patronage' in a neighbouring country: India to UNSC

On August 12, Pakistan Parliament's lower house passed four bills related to the tough conditions set by the FATF after the government and the Opposition reached a consensus.

The legislation was part of the efforts by Pakistan to move from the FATF's grey list to the white list.

In its third and final plenary held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic in June, the FATF decided to keep Pakistan in the "grey list" as Islamabad failed to check the flow of money to terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).

The plenary was held under the Chinese Presidency of Xiangmin Liu.

With Pakistan's continuation in the 'grey list', it will be difficult for the country to get financial aid from the IMF, World Bank, ADB, and the European Union, thus further enhancing problems for the nation which is in a precarious financial situation.

If Pakistan fails to comply with the FATF directive by October, there is every possibility that the global body may put the country in the 'Black List' along with North Korea and Iran.

The FATF is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 to combat money laundering, terrorist financing, and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.

The FATF currently has 39 members including two regional organizations - the European Commission and Gulf Cooperation Council.
(Newser)  British police are facing the possibility that five murder-suicides of elderly couples might really be double homicidesperpetrated by a killer who's still on the loose, the Guardian reports. Stephanie Davies, the top coroner for Cheshire police, compiled a 197-page report linking two apparent murder-suicides in the 1990s to at least three similar tragedies in northwest England. Similarities abound, like victims who were beaten and stabbed, and husbands who unexpectedly killed their partners before committing suicide, per the Mirror. It dates back to 1996, when 78-year-old Bea Ainsworth was found in the upscale town of Wilmslow with a knife in her forehead. She had been beaten with a pillow left partly over her head.

story continues below

Police said her husband, 79-year-old Howard, had taken her life and his own. Three years later, another older couple was found in the same town; the wife had been beaten, stabbed, and suffocated with a pillow left partly over her head. Her husband had a knife stuck in his heart. Davies made freedom-of-information requests and uncovered 39 cases of elderly couples who died in similar ways between 2000 and 2019. She read police files on three of them and spotted similarities. Now she's calling for the National Crime Agency and Interpol to get involved. "The concerns raised in this report need to be taken very seriously," an English prosecutor tells the Sunday Times, which broke the story. "We could potentially have a serial killer in our midst." (Read more murder-suicide stories.)
Allentown, PA (18103)

Today

Cloudy with morning snow ending, then windy and turning colder with falling temps and some afternoon clearing. A coating to 1-2" of snow expected in the morning. .

Tonight

Partly cloudy, windy, and very cold. Wind chills near or below zero later at night.
The Democrat National Convention is already fading in the rear-view mirror of history, and the country is preparing for the Republican National Convention (which sounds as if it will be a more cheerful, optimistic affair). The passage of time, however, has allowed people to compare Bidens acceptance speech to other speeches and, lo and behold, Biden is back to plagiarizing, whether its stealing ideas from Trump, words from other politicians, or whole passages from himself.

Once upon a time, the American media was not in love with Joe Biden. Thats why, in 1987, when it emerged that Biden had copied a Welsh Labour politician almost word for word (albeit without the Welshmans elegance and passion), the media ran with the story:

What political watchers have discovered is that, thirty-three years later, Biden is back up to his old tricks. As weve already pointed out, Bidens grand plan for dealing with the Wuhan virus is simply a rehash of what Trump has been doing since the end of January. That counts as plagiarizing ideas. Its also pathetic that, despite criticizing Trump non-stop, Bidens best idea is to repeat Trumps playbook.

On Saturday, Canadians noticed that Bidens speech echoed a public letter that Jack Layton, a Canadian politician wrote in 2011:

Layton served as the leader of the left-wing New Democratic Party from 2003 until his death in 2011. Prior to his passing, at the age of 61, Layton penned a letter, which read in part: Love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. During Bidens speech on Thursday night, he stated: Love is more powerful than hate. Hope is more powerful than fear. Light is more powerful than dark. While the words are not identical, a number of Canadians took to Twitter claiming that Biden may have mimicked Layton. One stated: With respect, Joe, if youre going to quote the late Canadian NDP leader Jack Layton, at least give him credit.

Admittedly, the words are not identical, but the rhythm, the sentence structure, and the ideas are still remarkably close.

One doesnt have to go all the way to Canada, though, to find more examples of Biden copying things. It turns out that Biden was also copying himself for what should have been the crowning speech of his career:

This is unbelievable. Same exact speech. pic.twitter.com/doY5R6QqKA  Power Tie (@realPowerTie) August 22, 2020

One would think that, due to his experience in 1987, Biden would have been so scarred by the harm his plagiarism did to his presidential run that he would, in future, go out of his way to avoid even the appearance of plagiarism. And maybe if Biden were still in his right mind, he would have. Since he is mentally fading, however, its easy to believe that Bidens handlers decided that it would be easier for him to read the teleprompter and give the speech if the ideas were familiar.

All of us know that, as we age, we develop certain narratives that we can easily summon. And those of us who have watched a loved one fall victim to dementia know that its these well-traveled narratives that are among the last things they lose.

The Democrat party faithful may be relieved that Biden, with or without technological cheating, was able to give what sounded like a reasonably long, coherent speech. However, as it becomes increasingly apparent that Joe is repeating himself, normal Americans are going to be unimpressed.

What we see here is the equivalent of applauding a trained monkey pounding away at a typewriter. We may be charmed by the fact that the monkey can mimic typing, but were not going to expect him to produce a book. And while Biden can still read a simple and familiar speech, that doesnt prove hes fit to be president.

Image: Monkey typing, 1907; New York Zoological Society, Public Domain
The United States is set to elect its 46th president as the nation goes to vote on November 3 with Donald Trump seeking reelection for a second term. Former vice president and Delaware senator Joe Biden has been nominated as the Democratic presidential nominee.

In the US presidential elections, there is a system of deciding the winner called the electoral college. The electoral college does not exist for any other elections in the US where the winner is decided on the basis of popular votes. There are 538 electors in the electoral college and to win, a candidate needs 270 votes.

The process

In the US general elections, voters vote for their candidate but primarily they vote for their candidates choice of electors, who are also known as slates. Each state has a number of electors. The number of electors is decided by the number of congressional districts the states have along with the number of members it has in the US House of Senate. For example, Minnesota gets 10 electoral votes as it has two members in the US House of Senate and eight congressional districts.

Also Read: A simple guide to US elections 2020

After the general elections are over, the governor of a particular state prepares a Certificate of Ascertainment which consists of the names of all the individuals on the slates for each candidate. This certificate also shows the number of votes each individual has received and shows who is appointed as a states electors.

These electors meet on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December after the general election. The meetings are generally held in the respective states of the electors where separate ballots are set up and the electors vote for the president and the vice president.

Also Read: Designed to distract citizens from their real troubles, Harris responds to Trumps remarks

Several states have a winner takes all policy where the state awards the electors to the candidate who won the mandate in the state due to different set of rules of the states even though the Constitution allows electors to not follow their states popular vote.

The votes are then sent to the US Congress for counting and to the National Archives and Records Administration for keeping records of the election. The US Congress convenes on January 6 following the year of the election where members of the US house of representatives and senate conduct the official counting of the electoral votes. The vice president dons the role of the president of the Senate counts the vote and announces the result. The president of the senate then declares the president-elect and the vice president-elect of US elections.

What happens if either candidate fails to secure 270 votes?

The presidential election moves from the electoral college to the US Congress if either of candidates fail to secure the 270 votes. The House of Representatives will then elect the president from the three presidential candidates who have acquired the most number of votes. State delegations are allotted one vote per state and the states can determine how they want to vote.

Also Read: Trump post office turmoil imperils lifeline for rural Republican voters

The presidential candidate must receive 26 votes (a majority of states) to be elected the president of the US.

The election of the two vice presidential candidates is conducted by the House of Senate. Each senator casts one vote for the vice president. The candidate has to acquire 51 votes (the majority of senators) to be elected. The vice president-elect serves as the president of the United States if the House of Representatives is unable to elect a president by the day of inauguration and until the deadlock is resolved in the US House of Representatives.

(With inputs US government website and National Archives)
Twitter has flagged another tweet by Donald Trump for spreading "misleading health claims" after the president implied ballot boxes could spread the coronavirus.

Mr Trump claimed in a post shared on both Facebook and Twitter early Sunday morning that ballot drop-off boxes are a "voter security disaster" as they are not "Covid sanitised" and would allow for people to "vote multiple times".

Hours later, Twitter took action on the tweet by placing a warning over it, which limits the interactions on the tweet.

"We placed a public interest notice on this Tweet for violating our Civic Integrity Policy for making misleading health claims that could potentially dissuade people from participation in voting," Twitter said in its warning.

It added: "Per our policies, this Tweet will remain on the service given its relevance to ongoing public conversation. Engagements with the Tweet will be limited. People will be able to Retweet with Comment, but not Like, Reply, or Retweet it."

Mr Trump has made a number of unsubstantiated claims about the integrity of ballot drop-off boxes  which voters can use to securely drop off their ballots at locations such as schools or libraries to be collected by election officials  as part of a concerted effort against mail-in voting.

His reelection campaign is pursuing legal action to block the use of the boxes in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, a move that could foreshadow similar fights across the country. The lawsuit seeks to prevent the use of the boxes in Novembers presidential election.

Voting rights advocates have warned the lawsuit is an attempt to undermine the democratic process and suppress the vote in a state that the president won by only 44,000 votes in 2016  or 0.7 percent.

This lawsuit is part of a strategy to make it harder for eligible voters to vote in November  by introducing confusion, eliminating choices about how to return a mail ballot, and raising meritless questions about the integrity of our elections, Suzanne Almeida, of voting rights group Common Cause Pennsylvania, told The Independent this week.

The move comes amid a surge of requests for mail-in ballots during the coronavirus pandemic, as states seek to expand access to remote voting as a way of protecting against the virus.

The battle over ballot drop-off boxes has been given added urgency in recent weeks amid repeated attacks by Mr Trump on mail-in ballots and attempts to hobble the postal services ability to handle them.

In recent weeks, Mr Trump has blocked emergency funding asked for by the USPS deal with an expected increase in voting by mail due to the coronavirus, and even explicitly linked the decision to his desire to limit the use of mail-in ballots in the upcoming election.
Bodies of five members of a family including a 62-year-old man and a 4-year-old child were found in their house in Madhya Pradeshs Tikamgarh district, 343 km north of capital Bhopal, on Sunday morning, said police.

The deceased were identified as Dharmdas Soni, 62, a resident of Khargapur town of Tikamgarh district, his wife Pooni Soni, 55, his son Manohar Soni 27, his daughter-in-law Sonam Soni, 25 and grandson Sanidhya, 4.

Tikamgarh superintendent of police Prashant Khare said, A milkman informed neighbours in the morning that family members of Dharmdas, who was a retired government employee, were not opening the door of the house. The neighbours informed the police.

Police broke the door to get into the house and found Manohar hanging from a ceiling in a room. Later, the police team found Dharmdas and his wife Pooni Soni dead in another room along with Sonam and his son Sandhiya. No suicide note has been recovered from the house as yet, said the SP.

Odisha woman strangles infant daughter, attempts suicide

The bodies have been sent for postmortem examination.

Police are not sure whether it is a case of death by suicide or murder. Some relatives claimed the family had a property dispute with some relatives. Police are investigating the matter, said Khare.

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When the Austin City Council voted recently to shift about $150 million out of the Austin Police Departments budget, it placed the capital city on an island.

Nowhere else in Texas is a city undertaking such measures in reaction to the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others. And Austin has the distinction of being the only major city in a red state to take such action.

Predictably, it ruffled feathers with Republican state lawmakers, who immediately condemned the action of the Austin City Council. But on Tuesday, Gov. Greg Abbott ratcheted up the pressure on Austin when he announced that any city cutting its local police departments budget would face retribution where it hurts the most: their pocketbooks.

Abbott offered a legislative proposal that would freeze the property tax revenue of any Texas city reducing a police departments budget. For cities like Austin and most of urban Texas that have been growing rapidly, such a measure would force major cuts to city programs.

Cities that endanger residents by reducing law enforcement should not then be able to turn around and go back and get more property tax dollars from those same residents whose lives the city just endangered. Abbott said at a news conference on Tuesday.

Abbott made the announcement in Fort Worth flanked by Lt. Gov. Ken Paxton and House Speaker Dennis Bonnen. The setting was deliberate, his office confirmed.

Amid protests of police violence against Black people, Fort Worth voters in July resoundingly approved a measure that made sure their police force would have a dedicated funding stream from local sales tax. The city has proposed a 2.2 percent increase to its police budget this year.

Fort Worths Mayor Betsy Price, sitting at the end of a table of Republican politicians, said her constituents had made it clear.

Our city wants law and order and public safety, she said. We support the  enhanced funding for public safety.

Governor, she continued, thank you for helping us ensure those of us who are working on the front lines every day; that these fine men and women will have what they need.

In Austin, the governors legislative proposal was met with indignation from local elected officials. Mayor Steve Adler implored Abbott to focus on the coronavirus instead of politics. And for Austin City Council members, Abbotts plan could be seen as a common refrain: an encroachment on local control only being proposed because the political agendas of the council and the GOP mix like oil and water.

Today, a group of all-white members of our state government, including Gov. Greg Abbott, attacked the Black Lives Matter movement, Council Member Greg Casar said in a written statement. Gov. Abbott could have held a press conference to express his support for the George Floyd Act. Instead, he held a press conference to fear-monger and lie in order to distract from the fact that 10,000 Texans have now died from COVID-19.

Casar and Adler both pointed to Abbott-mandated cuts to the Texas Department of Public Safety two years ago as signs that Abbotts announcement was disingenuous.

To Peck Young, a veteran Democrat consultant who is executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Voices of Austin, both the action of the Austin City Council and Abbott were politics as usual.

You want to talk about pandering, the handbook was written by the Republican Party, Young said. I absolutely condemn what the council did, but the governor is simply playing to his audience, which isnt in Austin.

The Austin City Council did nothing to fix the problem of public safety or racism, and now youve given them nothing to fix it, Young said. What did Abbott do, decide to be stupider than they were?

Voices of Austin has come out against the councils decision to move money out of Austin polices budget, as well as the upcoming mass transit election and Austins stalled effort to update the citys land development code.

Proportionately large

Adler has attempted to frame the councils action as something different from defunding the police department, saying that most of the funding being shifted is still being used to provide police services. But the $150 million being moved from the police budget is proportionately large when compared to actions from other liberal-minded cities across the country.

Portland, Ore., cut $16 million, a 6.5 percent decrease, from its police department in June. That city has been the site of extended protests against police. Seattle, another city with left-leaning local leadership, cut roughly $23 million  14 percent  from its police departments budget. The list goes on. In Oakland, Calif., a $14.6 million cut. Washington, D.C., a $15 million cut. Baltimore: $22 million in cuts.

The $150 million shifted out of the Austin Police Department is roughly one-third of the $434 million initially proposed for the departments budget for the coming fiscal year.

The council approved a plan that calls for $21.5 million to be immediately cut from the departments funding through canceling three upcoming cadet classes, slashing overtime costs and other steps. Another $128 million was moved into two transitional funds, one to remove primarily civilian functions from police control and another to divert dollars from police to alternative forms of public safety over the next year.

By comparison, the total funding shift of $150 million is roughly equal to recent cuts in Los Angeles, a city with more than four times the population of Austin and five times as many cops. For Los Angeles, it would be an 8.3 percent budget cut.

In a blue state, Austins sanction might be widely cheered outside of the capital city. But Texas is no blue state.

Gov. Abbott has again shown that state government, under his direction, is more than willing to step in and override progressive policies enacted by the Austin City Council, Austin-based Republican consultant Tyler Norris said.

He called the state of public safety in Austin a disgusting mess, but said the councils police budget cuts would have little political consequences for council members.

There should be no illusion that progressives on the Austin City Council should feel under threat electorally, Norris said. They are only boosted with their base when they clash with the governor, and citizens have yet to show they have the political will to remove any of them from office.

Its a different story in Oklahoma.

Norman, Okla., the Oklahoma City suburb with a population of 123,469 that is home to the University of Oklahoma, is the only other city in the U.S. to cut its police budget in a GOP-dominated state. While state lawmakers have not retaliated against Normans city leaders, some of its residents have.

The $865,000 cut, a 3.6 percent reduction from the citys $23 million police budget, has led to petition effort to recall Normans mayor and three city council members from office.

Our state legislature is known for preemption, and preempting us specifically, because were often the first to try something progressive in our red state, Norman Mayor Breea Clark said in an email.

Other Texas cities

About a three-hour car ride south on Interstate 35 at the site of Abbotts news conference on Tuesday, Fort Worth is set to approve a 2.2 percent increase to its police budget. But the police-friendly community is not the only major Texas city proposing an increase to its police budget.

Houston approved a 2 percent increase to its police budget in June. San Antonios police department got a 1.7 percent budget increase. El Paso has a 3.1 percent increase to its police department. Dallas is slated to approve a 3 percent increase to its police budget.

Mayor Sylvester Turner has made increasing the number of police officers in Houston a talking point of his administration in Texas largest city. He told the American-Statesman that has not changed amid the upheaval following Floyd and Taylors killing, even as it led to protests in his city.

But Turner said the governors proposal to restrict property tax revenue was disappointing. He also said Austins political leaders should be mindful of the consequences their progressive agenda has on the state.

It is frustrating, he said. I tell you, you cant just say this is happening to Austin and you cant think that the same sort of comments are just directed at Austin and Austin alone.

State lawmakers have created a litany of laws over the years directed at Austins blueberry-in-the-tomato-soup policies. From Austins stance as a so-called sanctuary city, to a battle over driver background checks for Uber, Lyft and other ride-hailing services, to threats over the citys camping ordinance, Abbotts ire with Austin can have a far reach.

But Abbotts proposal to place a hard cap on property tax revenue might be the most punitive yet. The details on how that would work have not yet been specified, likely being left to the Legislature to figure out in next years session.

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson and El Paso Mayor Dee Margo did not want to comment on the governors proposal before seeing the details. The Texas Municipal League, which advocates for Texas cities, offered a similar statement. San Antonio Mayor Eric Nirenberg did not respond to a request for comment.

However, Johnson said each citys residents should decide the priorities for municipal budgets.

Generally, I believe it should be up to voters to hold their local elected officials accountable for their budgetary decisions, which should reflect the peoples priorities, Johnson said in a written statement..

Each Texas community has a different perspective on police policies along with a different political makeup. Margo noted that in the city he leads, El Paso residents recently marked the one-year anniversary of the horrific mass shooting at a Walmart perpetrated by a North Texas man targeting Latinos.

We have real heroes here and that still resonates here in our community, Margo said. The fact is we have a chief held in high esteem and a track record that many people would want to emulate. We hire good people, we dont have that much turnover and we have a training regiment that other cities emulate.

Despite other Texas cities reluctance to reduce their local police departments budget, outside of Central Texas, some activists are looking at Austin as a sign post.

Im proud of the leadership of Austin, honestly said Kristian Hernandez, co-founder of Our Cities, Our Future in Dallas. Hopefully its setting an example for other cities on how to you respond to the needs of their constituents and how you uphold democracy at its very
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Linkedin Sally Mairs (Agence France-Presse) Belgrade, Serbia  Sun, August 23, 2020 14:41 515 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066fcfdb8 2 Art & Culture Belgrade,Ratko-Mladic,arts,Serbia,Bosnia,war-crime,exhibition Free

For nearly four years Serbian artist Vladimir Miladinovic started his day with a morning coffee and the diary of one of the Balkans' most notorious war criminals, Ratko Mladic.

Word for word, he painstakingly copied the notebook's 400 pages by hand onto fresh white sheets, which now cover the walls of a Belgrade exhibit raising questions about how to confront one of the region's darkest chapters.

For the 39-year-old artist, the task was in part a "performative act of trying to deal with this very harsh material which we are still forced to deal with today, 25 years after the war", he told AFP from the austere gallery on the banks of the Danube.

His subject, the 77-year-old former Bosnian Serb commander whose troops committed genocide in Srebrenica among other war crimes during Yugoslavia's collapse, was sentenced to life in prison by an international tribunal in The Hague in 2017.

His appeal trial is due to start on August 25.

Yet while the legal process moves forward, the wounds he left in former Yugoslavia still fester and his personal legacy remains a battleground.

Many Serbs still consider Mladic a hero and deeply distrust international courts they feel are biased against them.

After his conviction in 2017, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic called on the country to "start looking to the future".

But Miladinovic has gone in the other direction: finding artistic inspiration through immersing himself in the granular details of his country's troubled history.

His previous works have involved a similar redrawing of wartime newspaper pages and primary documents that deal with the "problematic parts of the past that are still negotiable in the present".

Read also: Sounds of Syrian prison nominated for UK art prize

'Banal'

Lining the walls of the stark gallery space, the diary entries are easy to read -- written in simple, spare language with ink wash -- but their sheer number makes them difficult to fully absorb.

Spread out page for page, they make visible the effort needed to face one's history, individually and collectively through institutions like a court.

And yet the pages themselves reveal little about the writer.

Drafted in militaristic prose, these are not the crazed scribblings one might expect from a man deemed the "epitome of evil" by a UN rights chief.

Rather, they are a neat log of notes from political and military briefings, with bullet-point lists recording each speaker's remarks.

"In the end we can say that it's even banal, banal language that says nothing but at the same time says a lot," the artist said.

Some entries are purely logistical, for example one that notes the limited supplies of flour and oil for a local bakery.

Another details the precise number of Serbs in various Bosnian towns, eerily bringing to mind the ethnic cleansing that took place as Mladic carved out a Serbs-only statelet in an area once shared with Croats and Muslims.

"We have a state on a platter, we just need to take it," reads one comment in a conversation with Momcilo Krajisnik, a Bosnian Serb political leader also convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Mladic's own point of view is hard to find, though in one entry he writes under the words "my contribution" that Bosnia's Serbs need "unity", "manpower and officers", "funds for conducting a war" and "allies".

Read also: Ai Weiwei to address the Rohingya refugee crisis in new documentary

'Opposite' of forgetting

The art exhibit, titled "The Notebook", is only the latest incarnation of the diary.

Dating from 1992, the start of Bosnia's war, it was one of some 18 notebooks discovered by ICTY investigators behind a fake wall in the Belgrade home of Mladic's wife a decade ago.

At the time, the man himself was still on the run and would not be arrested until a year later in Serbia, ending a 16-year manhunt.

Handwritten in Cyrillic, the diaries were transcribed by a team of graphologists into a digitized version.

This text was then translated into English and French for the court's international members.

Miladinovic continued the cycle, using the English text as the basis of his own work.

The exhibit has garnered more attention internationally than at home, which does not surprise him.

"The work itself is trying to do something which is the opposite of what (Serbian) society is trying to do, to forget -- to deny, to erase such important issues from the past," he said.
USPS; Mail

Stacks of boxes mail are seen at the U.S. Post Office Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

In nine of the 10 Texas counties with the most registered voters, almost 99% of nearly 199,000 votes cast by mail-in ballot during the July election were counted, and most that weren't were rejected by election officials because they arrived too late, according to an analysis by The Texas Tribune.

As the state braces for a significant increase in mail-in voting this November  and Republicans nationwide foment unsubstantiated concerns about widespread fraud  the low rejection rate during the Texas primary runoffs offers reassurance to those pushing absentee voting as safe and reliable during the coronavirus pandemic.

But the small number of voters who missed the cutoff to submit mail-in ballots on time also highlighted longstanding disconnects between state election law and the realities of the U.S. Postal Service that may mislead voters into believing they have a larger window of time to vote by mail than actually exists.

Data gathered by the Tribune from nine major counties  Harris, Tarrant, Bexar, Travis, Collin, Denton, El Paso, Fort Bend and Hidalgo  showed that 2,598 of 198,906 votes cast by mail-in ballot went uncounted. (Dallas County did not provide data.) Some were derailed by mistakes, like returning ballots without a signature. But Harris County alone accounted for 2,034 ballots that weren't counted based on tardiness. Overall, at least 2,114 ballots went uncounted because they arrived too late.

For most people voting absentee, Texas counties must receive completed ballots by Election Day. If they're postmarked by 7 p.m. that day, they'll be counted if they come in the next day by 5 p.m. The U.S. Postal Service recommends that Texans ask for mail-in ballots no later than 15 days out from that due date. But state law allows voters to request the ballots up until a week and a half before Election Day, so some may not receive their ballots until it's too late to mail them back in time.

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The misalignment between the state's deadlines and USPS processes is hardly novel, but the ill-matched timelines will be newly tested this general election as more Texans are expected to try to vote by mail to avoid the health risks of voting in person. At the same time, a troubled U.S. Postal Service is facing cost-cutting measures and ensuing mail delivery delays.

Although they represent a small sample in a low-turnout election, the mailing woes that kept voters from being heard in the July runoffs are spurring local election officials and voting rights advocates to work to minimize similar problems come November.

"What we have been telling voters is that [voting by mail] is the safest and most secure way to vote, period, in a global pandemic," said Ali Lozano, voting rights outreach coordinator with the Texas Civil Rights Project. But some local officials "are fully aware that they have to do something because there is just no possible way they can maintain the same infrastructure and handle the inevitable influx of ballots they're going to get."

During the runoffs, the state's deadline for requesting mail-in ballots  11 days out from Election Day  left a troop of Harris County election workers, including County Clerk Chris Hollins, working furiously on the Sunday of July Fourth weekend to send ballots to the last of the voters whose applications had come in.

The county had been told by the U.S. Postal Service that Texans hoping to have their votes counted should send back their completed ballots at least one week before the state's deadline for accepting mail-in votes. On that timeline, the Harris County voters whose applications for ballots were being processed that Sunday would possibly end up receiving their ballots on the same day they were already supposed to be on their way back to the county. And that was under the best-case scenario.

"We were well ahead of the cutoff legally, but in a COVID scenario, meeting the legal deadline is not helpful to voters," Hollins said. "It leaves them very much in a pinch."

Texans seeking to vote absentee must navigate the state's strict rules, the beleaguered postal system and, in November, a lightly used voting system that could be strained by a growing number of mail-in voters.

Texas is among the states that have not relaxed eligibility rules during the pandemic, fending off legal challenges by the state Democratic party and voting rights groups to allow all voters to apply for mail-in ballots during the pandemic. All voters 65 and older qualify for a ballot to fill out at home. Voters who are younger qualify if they will be out of the county during the election period, if they cite a disability or illness, or if they're confined in jail but still eligible to vote.

Those voters must deliver their applications for an absentee ballot either in person at their local elections offices before the start of early voting or by mail. (Applications can be submitted by fax or email, but the county must receive a hard copy within four business days.) Mailed applications can be received through the 11th day before Election Day  four days after the 15 days USPS says voters should consider as a cutoff.

To help navigate that mismatch, Harris County's to-do list for November includes purchasing more mail-sorting equipment and hiring hundreds of temporary workers who will be solely focused on processing voting-by-mail applications and ballots. Harris County posted voting-by-mail numbers in a typically small runoff election approaching general election figures, Hollins said, and the county will continue to encourage eligible voters to use the vote-by-mail option in the fall. With thousands of ballot styles to draw up for the general election, the complex endeavor requires ballot requests to be processed by hand.

The runoff election "was taxing on our system, so thinking about an election that's going to be seven or eight times larger than that in the fall, our operation has to be seven or eight times larger," said Hollins.

But not all Texas counties can attain that sort of exponential growth. In the mostly Republican county of Aransas  population 24,763  the elections department is typically a two-person office. During the March primary, it took Election Administrator Michele Carew and her deputy eight days to get through mail-in ballot requests from Republican voters while still preparing for in-person voting.

Aided by the election funding her county received through the federal coronavirus relief package, Carew hired an election worker solely dedicated to mail-in ballots. But Aransas is facing a continuous stream of applications that will need to be fulfilled while the county prepares to manage six extra days of early voting that Gov. Greg Abbott ordered for the fall.

"Every day, we get up to a dozen requests," Carew said. "Before, it used to be far and few between."

Neither Abbott's office nor the Texas secretary of state's office responded to questions on what guidance the state is providing to local election officials on handling the dueling deadlines.

To bypass mailing issues, some other states rely on or are expanding the use of standalone ballot drop boxes that allow voters to hand-deliver their absentee ballots, but Texas law doesn't allow for them. To return their ballots, voters can either rely on the postal service or drop them off in person at their county elections offices.

Harris County used the runoffs to pioneer expanded ballot drop-off sites, opening up 11 of the county clerk's branch or annex locations for voters seeking to hand-deliver their ballots, and will be doing so again for the general.

But that option is seemingly unavailable in the large number of Texas counties where elections are overseen by an appointed administrator and not a county clerk with branch office locations. It's why Jacque Callanen, the Bexar County elections administrator, is instead focusing on developing a campaign to "flatten the ballot-request curve" to convince voters to jump ahead of the state's deadlines and apply for mail-in ballots earlier in the calendar.

With work ongoing to finalize the county ballot, Callanen, like other election administrators, says she is aiming to get mail-in ballots into voters' hands at least 30 to 36 days out from Election Day.

"That is usually a race when we have these large elections because so many are involved, and right now with COVID, I'm literally hoping the right people will be working when we send the ballot proofs," Callanen said.

But voting rights advocates are calling for more adjustments to the state's voting practices during the pandemic, particularly increased options for dropping off ballots. Abbott has used executive power to delay the primary elections and extend early voting. Texas voters will also be able to drop off their completed ballots at county election offices.

Abbott's office, which indicated the governor will be voting in person in the general election, did not respond to questions on whether he would consider using executive power to enable Texas counties to set up drop boxes or additional drop-off sites.

"Gov. Abbott has used emergency powers before," said Lozano, with the Texas Civil Rights Project. "And I think this is an emergency."

Disclosure: The Texas secretary of state has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans  and engages with them  about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

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Northeastern University warned students on Saturday that anyone intending to host or attend large parties during the coronavirus pandemic will be met with expulsion from the school.

In a letter sent to students on Saturday, Madeleine Estabrook, the Senior Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, said that parties are prohibited within the schools standards outlined in the Expectations for Return to Campus Attestation. Each student must accept those protocols to return to campus.

Estabrook said the university will rescind their offers of admission to students that dont abide by the requirements. The disciplinary action pertains to both incoming and current students, the university said.

The punishment will also include immediate loss of student housing, the school said. Estabrook said the disciplinary processes will be expedited so that Northeastern can move swiftly to protect the health and wellbeing of everyone.

The school offered the statement after it said it learned through social media of students expressing their intent to host large gatherings. The university said it contacted the students in question to remind them of school policy.

The university asked students to advise others to avoid hosting or attending large gatherings. If a student learns of any planned large gathering, the university asks students to contact the Office for Student Affairs at svcstudentaffairs@northeastern.edu.

Northeastern expects the same simple, healthy behaviors of each person in its communityto practice healthy distancing, wear face coverings, participate in testing as required, and to comply with university policies and public health guidelines, the letter said. We are confident that our community will show respect for others, care for each other, and responsible actions as we reopen our campuses.

Northeastern is scheduled to begin in-person classes on Sept. 14. As of Saturday, the school had conducted 5,030 coronavirus tests with only one resulting in a positive case of coronavirus.

The letter from the school comes after the College of the Holy Cross reported last week that authorities broke up a large off-campus party in Worcester that was attended by at least one COVID-19 positive student.

Unlike Northeastern, Holy Cross plans to conduct classes remotely this fall.

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Google Camera app v7.5 currently works only with Android 11 and is in Beta.

You click several images in portrait mode every day when you are out with friends or with family. But Pixel smartphone users might have noticed that whenever they click in portrait mode, the handset creates two folders  one with blurred background and other with a regular version. This however, became difficult to see in handsets that dont have Google Photos app or on the desktop. Now, Android Police notes that version 7.5 of Google Photos ditches this system as it will save the Portrait mode camera shots in the base camera folder only. Changes to the naming scheme have also been made.

And to differentiate between the images, Google will apparently also name the two images differently. In the new version of the app, the firm will name the portraits as PXL_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.PORTRAIT-01.COVER.jpg while the last digit 01 will be replaced with 02 for the regular version.

NNew Google Camera naming scheme for images. (Android Police)

If youd notice, the new naming scheme will also include the year, date and month. The regular single-shot images that arent clicked in portrait mode will have a naming scheme likePXL_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.jpg. In case youre clicking Motion photos, Google will now add an MP before the .jpg extension and Nigh Sight shots will include NIGHT in the name.

Another interesting change is that the new name of the images will include PXL instead of IMG, suggesting the shot has been taken from a Pixel smartphone.

Also read: Android 11 will limit third-party camera apps due to location spying fears, says Google

The news website adds that Google Camera app v7.5 currently works only with Android 11 and is in Beta. It is not for sure if the app will be rolled out before the arrival of Android 11 or will be arrive alongside the new OS version.
Retired Wing Commander IK Khanna, who says he trained the Indian Air Forces first batch of female pilots, has written an opinion column for The Print, claiming that much of what was shown in the recent film Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl, especially with regard to the IAF, is inaccurate.

I was one of the instructors back in July 1994 when the first batch of seven women pilots arrived at the Air Force Station at Yelahanka, Bengaluru, to commence training on IAF transport aircraft, Khanna wrote. Wondering if the films screenplay was shared with the IAF, Khanna wrote that under his watch, all women pilots were treated as equals, and No one had to run to their room to change as shown in Gunjan Saxena.

Also read: Gunjan Saxena responds to claims her biopic is peddling lies: Trying to dent hard-earned reputation with nonsensical rants

Khanna narrated the story of Harita Kaur Deol (later Fg Offr Harita Deol), who was supposed to be accompanied by a journalist on a training flight, in which she would perform an operation not unlike the one Gunjan performs in the film -- shutting down an engine and restarting it in air. As she went through the paces with a demonstration of the exercise by the instructor followed by practice by her, I could see the journalist sweating more than Harita, Khanna wrote.

Also Watch | IAF writes to censor board over negative portrayal in Gunjan Saxena

He continued, Gender bias has been part of Indian society for ages, but women have been part of the defence services in many fields for years. He remarked, And to believe that Gunjan Saxena, or for that matter any other woman pilot, was subjected to arm wrestlingas the film on her shows!

Directed by Sharan Sharma and starring Janhvi Kapoor, Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl has been at the centre of a controversy ever since its August 12 release. Several veterans of the IAF have said that it inaccurately portrays the air force, and one of Gunjans fellow officers, Sreevidya Rajan, has said that she was the first female pilot in a combat zone, and not Gunjan, as the film claims. In the movie, Gunjan Saxena was shown as the only lady pilot to fly in Kargil operations. This is factually incorrect. We were posted together to Udhampur and when the Kargil conflict started, I was the first woman pilot to be sent along with the male counterparts in the first detachment of our unit which deployed at Srinagar, Sreevidya had written in a Facebook post.

Also read: Gunjan Saxena responds to Sreevidya Rajans claims of being first female combat pilot: Never flew with her at the same time

Gunjan, in an interview to NDTV, responded, From July 1999 till today, my name has featured in a number of headlines, in a number of articles, and in the Limca Book of Records, and in one of the promotion exams taken by the air force. Between July 1999 and today, I dont see what has changed. The only thing that has changed is this movie being released.

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New Delhi: Scores of National Security Guard (NSG) commandos and Bomb Disposal Squad (BDS) have been deployed near Buddha Jayanti Park in Ridge Road area on Saturday and will analyse the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) recovered on Saturday from a suspected ISIS operative.

Pramod Singh Kushwaha, Delhi Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Delhi Police Special Cell had said, "One ISIS operative arrested with IEDs by our Special Cell after an exchange of fire at Dhaula Kuan."

According to the Delhi police, the suspect was on a bike when intercepted by the police. Search operations are underway at several locations in the national capital. He was taken to the Special Cell office in Lodhi colony after the arrest.

Security has been heightened near Buddha Jayanti Park in Ridge Road area, with teams of NSG commandos and sniffer dogs keeping a tight vigil in the area.
10.25pm Update: Police can confirm one person has died following a crash northbound on SH2, Mt Maunganui in the area of the Sandhurst Drive on-ramp and Maunganui Road.

The single vehicle crash was reported to Police at 5pm on Sunday.

Two other people were injured in the crash suffering moderate to serious injuries.

Four other passengers were medically checked but are not seriously injured.

Those injured have been transported to hospital.

The road is now open to traffic following a scene examination and the recovery of the vehicle.

Police are seeking witnesses to the crash.

Anyone who can assist is asked to call 105 and quote file number 200823/8265.

Earlier, 6.30pm

Due to a single vehicle crash, the on-ramp of the SH2 motorway between Sandhurst Dr and Te Maunga Roundabout is closed this evening

Motorists are advised to follow the detour and allow extra travel time for travel.

The single vehicle crash was reported to Police at 5pm. It is unknown if there are any injuries.

Emergency services are at the scene and delays should be expected.

Detour: Exit at Sandhurst Dr off-ramp, turn left and continue onto Mangatawa Link Rd, left onto Truman Rd, right onto SH29A then left to continue onto SH2 northbound.

Motorists are asked to avoid SH2, Mt Maunganui north bound in the area of the Sandhurst Drive on-ramp and Maunganui Rd.
Dairy firm Milk Mantra is planning to acquire a plant in Kolkata and set up a new plant for curd at its existing facility in Odisha at an estimated investment of around Rs 70 crore as part of its strategy to expand business, a top company official has said. In an interview with PTI, its founder Srikumar Misra said the company is in discussion with a few players to acquire a dairy plant in Kolkata.

At present, the company has two dairy plants at Puri and Sambalpur in Odisha with a processing capacity of 300,000 litres per day. It sells around 100,000 litres of pouched milk per ...
Boursa Kuwait saw a net profit of KD5.63 million ($18.3 million)for the six month period ended 30 June 2020, an increase of 46.5% compared to the same period in 2019, when the company recorded a profit of KD3.85 million.



The company generated 28.05 fils earnings per share, which is an increase of 46.5% compared to its total of 19.15 fils over the same period in 2019, while the companys total assets came in at approximately KD41.7 million, which is a 22.4% increase versus its2019 total for the same period of KD34.1 million.



Shareholder equity increased 24.1% from KD26.4 million in June 2019 to KD32.7 million for the period ended 30 June 2020.



Total operating expenses were KD3.12 million, a decrease of 27.7% over the same periods 2019 total of KD4.31 million, while total operating revenue came in at KD6.77 million, a marginal contraction of 4.6% over the same period in 2019, when the total operating revenue for the six month period was approximately KD7.1 million.



Boursa Kuwaits Chairman Hamad Mishari Al-Humaidhi said: The results we see today mirror the strength of the operational model and the solid strategy in place as well as the companys financial solvency, which have allowed us to overcome the various challenges brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic and deliver an exceptional performance.



These key components are the effective catalysts of our stability and growth, allowing us to drive the successful journey of transformation further and take the exchange to new heights. The company has demonstrated strong operational resilience since inception and we look forward to building on these results and further diversifying our operations and products.



Mohammad Saud Al-Osaimi, Boursa Kuwaits Chief Executive Officer said: Throughout these trying times, brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, Boursa Kuwait remained focused on ensuring the seamless and efficient operations of the exchange, by rolling out a series of precautionary actions, and following through with existing development plans.



Today, we continue to work towards strengthening our infrastructure and operational model to withstand any challenges that come our way. Boursa Kuwait will continue down the same path of market developments, elevating the overall status of the Kuwait Capital Market and contributing to creating a diverse product base that serves the interest of all our stakeholders.  TradeArabia News Service
Love Island star Kim Hartnett has confirmed her romance with Bachelor In Paradise's Matt Whyatt.

On Saturday, the 25-year-old shared a vlog, titled 'New Boyfriend', to YouTube of the couple's recent romantic trip to Queensland's Magnetic Island.

The blonde beauty also told Daily Mail Australia that her relationship with the hunky BMX rider, 28, is 'stronger than ever now'.

Scroll down for video

'We're stronger than ever now': Love Island star Kim Hartnett confirmed her romance with BIP hunk Matt Whyatt in a loved-up holiday vlog on Saturday

'[This was our] first proper holiday together and we have plans to go back up north in two weeks time and will definitely be planning more,' she said.

Kim continued: 'We make each other laugh from the minute we wake up to when we go to bed. Everything just works.'

She admitted things were a little tense after Matt's season of Bachelor In Paradise aired and he was accused of dating multiple women in a short space of time since ending his relationship with co-star Renee Barrett.

'Things were a little more tense, but there was nothing said that Matt hadnt already told me prior to the show. He's been super honest, so I was never in the dark about anything,' Kim said, adding: 'we've definitely stronger than ever now.'

Romantic trip: In the video, Kim and the hunky BMX rider spent their holiday paddle boarding and soaking up the winter sun

'It's so easy, we hardly have any fights. We're super supportive of each other's goals,' she boasted of their relationship.

In the video, Kim and Matt appeared absolutely smitten with one another.

They enjoyed a holiday paddle boarding session and soaked up the winter sun at the beach.

Relationship goals: The blonde beauty also told Daily Mail Australia, her relationship with the hunky BMX rider, 28, is 'stronger than ever now'

Earlier this month, Married At First Sight's Jessika Power revealed on the So Dramatic! podcast that things didn't work out between Matt and Renee.

'He's dating Kim Hartnett from Love Island... Sorry to anyone that's watching Bachelor in Paradise,' Jessika quipped.

Meanwhile, fans will remember Kim from season one of Love Island Australia in 2018, which was filmed in Mallorca, Spain.

The single mother entered the villa as an intruder, but was booted off after just nine days on the show.
A transgender teenager has successfully sued his school after being told he wasn't allowed to use the men's toilets despite having begun his transition.

Drew Adams, now 19, from Tallahassee, Florida, took legal action against the St. Johns County School District in 2017, after he was forced to use either the girls bathroom or a single-stall gender neutral bathroom.

The teenager started the legal process at the age of 16 and has spent the last three years engaged in a grueling battle to allow transgender students to use toilets which match their gender identity.

Speaking to Radio 1 Newsbeat, he told how after being denied use of the male toilets at the age of 14, he felt 'small, nervous and terrified', and as if he'd 'done something wrong' for wanting to use the men's bathroom.



Drew Adams, now 19, from Tallahassee, Florida, pictured last year, has successfully sued his school after being told he was not allowed to use the men's toilet

The teenager, pictured with his mother Erica Kasper, started the legal process at the age of 16 and has spent the last three years engaged in a grueling legal battle

Though his assigned gender was female at birth, Drew began his transition to male before he enrolled in Allen D. Nease High School in Ponte Vedra Beach.

The school district, however, pointed to forms filled out when Drew was in his fourth year at school that listed him as a girl, and said he couldn't use the boys' bathroom as a result.

Drew's mother Erica Kasper filed a civil rights complaint in 2016 - which can be filed in the US if you believe that you have been discriminated against because of your race, color, national origin, disability, age, sex, or religion.

A year later, Drew and Erica decided to take legal action, after they claim their various complaints went ignored. An original lawsuit filed in 2018 was won by Drew, however the school appealed the decision, which led to Drew's latest victory.

The teen, pictured following his win at the court of appeals, has told how after being denied use of the male toilets at the age of 14, he felt 'small, nervous and terrified'

However, Drew suspects the case could go all the way to the Supreme Court if there are future appeals.

'I can't speculate on what might happen,' said Drew. 'But I do know that trans people can't wait. The right time for trans rights is now.'

The latest ruling covers schools in Florida, Georgia and Alabama, but the victory is considered a milestone for transgender rights that will resonate beyond high school bathroom use.

The ruling noted that Drew had already undergone physical transitions, including a removal of breast tissue and hormones that promoted secondary male characteristics and a deepening of his voice.

Drew, pictured last year, has since graduated from the high school and attends the University of Central Florida

The ruling dismissed school board claims that male students' privacy would be compromised if Drew used the boys' restroom and that some boys might claim to be 'gender fluid' in order to be voyeurs in the girls' restroom. The court said there was no evidence that either was the case.

Drew has since graduated from high school and attends the University of Central Florida.

Paul Castillo, a lawyer for Lambda Legal, an organization that fights for LGBTQ rights, said at the time of the ruling, though immediately affecting a few states, the outcome could have a national impact.

'I could not be more impressed with his resolve over the years and his steadfast commitment for LGBTQ equality, particularly for transgender youth,' Castillo said.

'Even though he's graduated, he continues to put himself, through his case, in a position to help thousands of transgender youth across the country.'
The coronavirus has delivered the biggest economic shock in nearly a century. And yet spending across most of the country is holding up. Several measures show the level of weekly purchasing by households is similar to before the pandemic.

Consumers are emulating the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote who routinely finds himself suspended in mid-air after running off a cliff in pursuit of his nemesis, the Road Runner.

Australia too has sped off the economic precipice. But household spending is being sustained by JobKeeper, the JobSeeker supplement, one-off stimulus payments, early superannuation withdrawals and the deferral of mortgage payments, rents and utility bills.

Analysis of household cashflow by analytics firm AlphaBeta, a part of Accenture, shows the slump in wages suffered by households due to the pandemic (plus and the fall in unincorporated business income flowing to households) was more than offset by government payments, superannuation withdrawals and private sector hardship support between April and June. It reveals a net increase in household cashflow of nearly $24 billion over that period.
Turkeys Erdogan orders historic church be turned into mosque for Muslim prayers

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About a month after converting Istanbuls landmark Hagia Sophia into a Muslim house of prayer, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has now ordered another ancient Orthodox church to be turned into a mosque.

Erdogan, who is seeking to gain support among his conservative base amid economic and political uncertainty, has officially ordered that Istanbuls medieval Church of the Holy Saviour in Chora  also known as the Kariye Museum  be handed over to Turkeys religious authority for its conversion into a Muslim house of prayer, The Associated Press reported.

Originally built in the early 4th century by Constantine the Great, the Holy Saviour church was converted into the Kariye Mosque about 50 years after the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks. In 1945, the building was designated a museum by the Turkish government. The museum was opened for public display in 1958 after American art historians helped restore the original church's mosaics.

The foreign ministry of Greece, where millions of Orthodox Christians live, condemned Erdogans decision for once again brutally insulting the character of another U.N. world heritage site.

This is a provocation against all believers, the Greek ministry said in a statement. We urge Turkey to return to the 21st century, and the mutual respect, dialogue and understanding between civilizations.

Turkeys Opposition HDP party lawmaker Garo Paylan called the move a shame for our country.

One of the symbols of our countrys deep, multicultural identity and multi-religious history has been sacrificed, he tweeted, according to France 24.

Before opening the structure for Muslim prayers, the churchs walls will be covered up or plastered over to hide the Christian art. And that would be destruction, Ottoman Empire historian Zeynep Turkyilmaz told the AFP. It is impossible to hide the frescoes and mosaics because they decorate the entire building, he said.

Last month, Erdogan declared the Hagia Sophia site a mosque open to Muslim worship. Turkish people have no less right to Hagia Sophia than those who built it first 1,500 years ago, Erdogan said in a televised speech at the time.

Istanbuls Hagia Sophia, built in A.D. 537 as a Greek Orthodox church, was the seat of Eastern Christianity for 900 years before the city was seized in the 15th century by Sultan Mehmed II, the Conqueror, who converted it into an Ottoman mosque. In 1934, modern Turkeys founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, banned worship in Hagia Sophia and designated it as a museum.

We are disappointed by the decision by the Government of Turkey to change the status of the Hagia Sophia, State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement at the time, according to Reuters. We understand the Turkish Government remains committed to maintaining access to the Hagia Sophia for all visitors, and look forward to hearing its plans for continued stewardship of the Hagia Sophia to ensure it remains accessible without impediment for all.

U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman James Risch, R-Idaho, and ranking member Bob Menendez, D-N.J., called the move a deep affront to Christians around the world who look to Hagia Sophia as a shining light and deeply revered holy site.

We strongly denounce President Erdogans decision to convert Hagia Sophia from a museum into a mosque, they said in a joint statement at the time. At points in its history, Hagia Sophia served as a place of worship for Muslims and Christians, and for decades has been an extraordinary and welcoming center to people of all faiths.
A former Co Longford superintendent who was the chief investigating officer in the Adrian Donohoe murder trial has said he received death threats as the net closed in on Armagh man Aaron Brady who was last week convicted of the late detective garda's capital murder.

Brian Mohan, who served as Granard superintendent for almost three years before retiring in January 2019, was one of three chief investigating officers on a case which turned out to be the longest trial in the State's history.

"It was without doubt one of the most difficult murder investigations I have ever been involved in," explained Mr Mohan last Wednesday after the jury reached a majority guilty verdict of 11 to 1 after 20 hours of deliberations.

A skilled and vastly experienced officer in his own right, Mr Mohan told of how he had been assigned the onerous task of leading the hunt for Det Garda Donohoe's killer in October 2013 and only a matter of months after his own promotion to the rank of Inspector in Drogheda.

The Monaghan native told of how Brady, a 29-year-old criminal from Crossmaglen, Co Armagh, quickly became a person of interest barely hours after the fatal shooting of the father of two outside Lordship Credit Union in Co Louth in January 2013.

Mr Mohan said officers and close colleagues of his even called to Brady's home and other close associates hours after the shooting as he, together with a number of close associates had been linked to a series of burglaries on both sides of the border in months previous.

"On the night of it (shooting) they were called on to see if they were at home," said Mr Mohan, who himself had already been involved in over 30 murder investigations prior to the Lordship Credit Union incident.

But this, unlike all those before was on a whole different scale.

"In a normal murder investigation, if there is such a thing, there would be anything between 300 to 500 lines of inquiry.

"With this there over 5,000 lines of inquiry, there were over 2,000 reports, there were years of CCTV to be reviewed, confidential reports, 3,000 witness statements and 1,200 exhibits."

Three months after the shooting, Brady boarded an American Airlines flight from Belfast to Newark airport in New Jersey.

Mr Mohan, together with other senior officers followed Brady out in December and found him living in the Woodlawn area of New York.

Though Mr Mohan's promotion ultimately to Granard took him off the case, his take on the man now facing up to the next 40 years behind bars was as explicit as it is damning.

I just think he (Brady) is a persistent liar who couldn't tell the truth and who clearly felt his lies were sufficient enough to get him off even in the face of all the evidence," he said.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 23

Trend:

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev sent a congratulatory letter to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of the Republic of Turkey.

"Dear Mr President,

Dear Brother,

On my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan, I extend my heartfelt congratulations to you and the brotherly people of Turkey on the occasion of the discovery of the biggest natural gas reserves in Turkey`s history," Azerbaijani president wrote.

"Turkey has made another important step in the field of energy security. The development of this gas field will benefit the brotherly people of Turkey. The discovery of this field also demonstrates Turkey's industrial potential and rising power," the head of state said.

"Azerbaijan and Turkey have for many years been successfully implementing huge energy and transport projects. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum, TANAP, Baku-Tbilisi-Kars projects provide new opportunities for our countries and peoples, strengthening Azerbaijan-Turkey partnership," President Ilham Aliyev wrote.

"I am convinced that other exploration projects being currently implemented by Turkey will be successful too. We are happy for the brotherly Turkey`s success as much as for our own success. I am confident that the Azerbaijani-Turkish brotherhood and friendship will continue to develop and strengthen," the head of state said.

"Availing myself of this opportunity, I wish you strong health, success in your work, and the brotherly people of Turkey everlasting peace and prosperity," Azerbaijani president wrote.
A 29-year-old man has been arrested on a murder warrant for the shooting death of a woman found dead at a Northwest Side duplex earlier this week.

Police arrested Jorge Izquierdo without incident Saturday in coordination with the Oxnard, Calif. Police Department, according to a news release. Cora Nickle, 27, was found shot to death on Thursday inside a home on the 8000 block of Maverick Draw, near Old Tezel Road, police said.
Vienna, Aug 23 : Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi will travel to Tehran to meet with high-level Iranian authorities next Monday, IAEA said in a statement.

The visit will be the Director General's first to Iran since he took office last December, the statement released on Saturday said, Xinhua news agency reported.

During his visit, Grossi will address the cooperation of Iran with the IAEA, and in particular Iran's provision of access to the agency's inspectors to requested locations, it said.

"I have decided to come personally to Tehran so that I can reinforce the importance of cooperation and the full implementation of all safeguards commitments and obligations with the IAEA," Grossi said in the statement.

"My objective is that my meetings in Tehran will lead to concrete progress in addressing the outstanding questions that the agency has related to safeguards in Iran and, in particular, to resolve the issue of access." "I also hope to establish a fruitful and cooperative channel of direct dialogue with the Iranian Government which will be valuable now and in the future," he added.

Earlier in the day, Iran's ambassador and permanent representative to the Vienna-based IAEA Kazem Gharibabadi said Grossi will make an official visit to Iran.

"In line with the ongoing interactions and cooperation between Iran & IAEA and based on Iran's invitation, Rafael Grossi will visit Iran next week," Gharibabadi tweeted.

Iran is one of the main partners of the agency and Grossi's visit will hopefully lead to reinforced mutual cooperation, Gharibabadi said.
Women won suffrage 100 years ago this week, on Aug. 26, 1920, when the 19th Amendment was certified as the law of the land. The vote was not given  it was taken. American democracy doubled without firing a shot.

Given our historical hour of discontent and Black Lives Matter marches, the suffrage story speaks straight to now. The arc over 70 years of struggle beams clear: It was only when women went out on the streets of Washington to protest a president, Woodrow Wilson, that they won the day.

Votes for women was the first American mass movement centered in Washington, on the president. The federal strategy practiced nonviolent resistance, later the blueprint for the civil rights movement and the March on Washington.

For that we have to thank not Susan B. Anthony, who was dead at the time. Nineteenth century founders  Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth  were long gone.

Alice Paul, 28, represented a generation of modern young women rising to claim citizenship rights in the 20th century. Many went to Seven Sisters colleges. She led the languishing movement to victory with fresh blood.

Pauls vanguard departed from Anthonys old guard: ready to make street scenes to get in good trouble, as the late John Lewis, a champion of freedom, put it.

Ladylike no more.

The hundredth anniversary of woman suffrage speaks to us all over again, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, declared in an interview.

Spanning seven years, Paul directed a lightning movement. Women held vigils, got arrested, chained themselves to White House gates, even burned the presidents speeches in bonfires. The last action hurt. Wilson loved oratory, the last president to write his own.

Out on Pennsylvania Avenue, the new day dawned. The Suffrage March on March 3, 1913, was stunningly successful street theater, a forerunner to the 2019 Womens March. For the young guard, conventions in Cleveland were past; the future arrived and converged in the capital.

Wilson, staunchly opposed to votes for women, was not to be given a days peace until he surrendered.

Poor Wilson, born in the antebellum South. He didnt stand a chance against a political genius half his age, who also possessed a Ph.D. He arrived for his March 1913 inauguration from his beloved Princeton, where he sang Tiger songs with students to say goodbye.

But in Washington, gleaming Union Station was empty. President-elect Wilson demanded to know where his crowds were. (Sound familiar?) Lore has the answer: Everyones at the suffrage parade, sir.

That was Pauls way of saying hello. On jammed streets, the parade drew thousands of women, a spectrum of America, with labor lawyer Inez Milholland riding a white horse. Chicago journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett joined the Illinois delegation and broke the citys Jim Crow code that Black women march in back.

Paul learned her lessons by getting arrested with the London suffragettes at demonstrations. Her counter-inaugural parade went well, except that some marchers were attacked by police and mobs of jeering men near the Capitol. The cavalry had to be called to protect the women.

Wilson, previously a Princeton student, professor and president, was arriving at the train station, so he missed the drama. He was sworn in the next day, as scheduled, but Paul stole the show.

Its a shame Wilson didnt witness the power harnessed by the sea of women. At 56, he was a cultural Southerner who held harmful views on women and Black people, blocking their progress. His worst act was to segregate the federal workforce. Historians see Wilson as a Democratic Progressive and foreign policy visionary, yet he was tragically behind his times.

As a birthright Quaker, Paul took the nonviolent faith into political action, wrongly described as militant by Smithsonian museums. It was not for the faint of heart to break jail windows or go on hunger strikes. The sisterhood became stronger under siege.

As women engaged in open protests, the needle of public opinion and conscience moved. Sympathy for suffrage grew, as people saw their mother, wife or sister shivering on the streets or brutalized by authorities. Cabinet members expressed qualms on Wilsons stubborn stand.

The friction between Wilson and Paul became personal. Once he called protesters outside the gates in for tea. Like a professor, he lectured them and suggested a state-by-state approach, belittling the revolution out on the streets. Tea did not go well. Wilson met his match in Paul, a Swarthmore class of 1905 graduate.

As Americans fought in World War I in 1918, suffragists were beaten by soldiers and sailors. As Pelosi became immersed in the struggle, she noted how many suffered for suffrage: Some were rejected by their families.

Wilsons entrance into war gave him an exit from his stand against votes for women. He rightly declared women played a key part in the war effort, with nurses sent overseas and women aiding mobilization at home. A graceful, face-saving surrender on suffrage.

Wilson, to his credit, urged Congress and states to ratify a constitutional amendment.

Paul still campaigned against Wilson in the 1918 midterms, which his party lost. Even after his failed League of Nations and disabling stroke, she kept the pressure on the president from her Lafayette Square base, where peaceful protesters were assailed June 1, 2020.

In 1920, that late summer day of suffrage finally came.

You made history. We stand on your shoulders, Pelosi said of the spirited women of the movement. Now we must make progress.

Jamie Stiehm writes on national politics and history as a Creators Syndicate columnist. Based in Washington, she has lived in San Francisco.
A couple of days ago, Egypts Al-Sisi sent a message by courier to General Haftar - right after a meeting in Tripoli between the defense ministers of Turkey and Qatar (both allies of the GNA). No one knows what the message said, but Egypt is locked and loaded for military action in Sirte. So, at this point, there are only two options: A ceasefire or an all-out military confrontation between Turkey/Qatar and Egypt/Haftar, which would have massive implications for the entire region. There would be no coming back from a confrontation on that level, and it would spread across the region.

If a ceasefire does not succeed, Sirte - the gateway to Libyas oil facilities - will become an instant battleground for regional forces. The Egyptian military, Russian mercenaries, and Haftars LNA (with UAE weaponry) against Turkish forces, Syrian and other mercenaries, and the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA).

Breaking developments in Libya suggest that this is the end game, and what happens over the weekend will determine the fate of Libyan oil. General Haftar has not yet confirmed a ceasefire announced by the speakers of parliament of both rival governments on Friday. This is either the calm before the storm or the start of negotiations to end the crippling oil blockade and hold elections for a new government.

This Weekend, Libyas Fate Is Decided

Breaking developments in Libya suggest that this is the end game, and what happens over the weekend will determine the fate of Libyan oil. General Haftar has not yet confirmed a ceasefire announced by the speakers of parliament of both rival governments on Friday. This is either the calm before the storm or the start of negotiations to end the crippling oil blockade and hold elections for a new government.

If a ceasefire does not succeed, Sirte - the gateway to Libyas oil facilities - will become an instant battleground for regional forces. The Egyptian military, Russian mercenaries, and Haftars LNA (with UAE weaponry) against Turkish forces, Syrian and other mercenaries, and the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA).

A couple of days ago, Egypts Al-Sisi sent a message by courier to General Haftar - right after a meeting in Tripoli between the defense ministers of Turkey and Qatar (both allies of the GNA). No one knows what the message said, but Egypt is locked and loaded for military action in Sirte. So, at this point, there are only two options: A ceasefire or an all-out military confrontation between Turkey/Qatar and Egypt/Haftar, which would have massive implications for the entire region. There would be no coming back from a confrontation on that level, and it would spread across the region.

The lead-up to this saw some interesting statements regarding Haftars apparent approval of the ports opening up temporarily to load crude from some storage tanks. Some of that crude/condensate would be allowed for export, and some would be sent to the east to resolve a power supply crisis. It was clear that it was not a lifting of the oil blockade and only a brief emptying of storage tanks, but the nature of the communications suggested that something was changing. Also, the fact that the NOC did not follow this up with its usual press release indicated that it remained extremely fluid.

While there are plenty of talking heads out there who are fond of saying that the GNA/Turkey alliance has the upper hand since they scuppered Haftars attempt to take Tripoli, we would have to disagree. Egypt changes this game, and Cairo isnt just allying with Haftar. Its also been courting mighty tribes around Sirte, with its intelligence agencies even hosting a massive conference in Cairo where it brought together all of the sheiks from Libyas Supreme Tribal Council last month. If a ceasefire deal indeed emerges today and sustains through the weekend, it likely means that Egypt has drawn a line in the sand with its weaponry and alliances well beyond Haftar, giving it the upper hand.

AND

While the brinkmanship going on in the Mediterranean is as intense as the run-up to any major conflict, it is indeed good news that Turkish President Erdogans Friday announcement turned out to be a gas discovery in the Black Sea and not the Eastern Mediterranean.

Earlier this week, Erdogan said he would have good news on Friday. The rumor was that it was a gas discovery, which saw the Turkish Lira rise against the dollar and refining and petrochemical stocks make gains, along with the Istanbul stock exchange.

As promised, on Friday morning, Erdogan announced a gas discovery in the Tuna-1 zone off the Danube block in the crossroads between the Bulgarian and Romanian maritime borders in the Black Sea. Erdogan claims Turkish exploration has discovered around 11 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, which he says are only a piece of a larger resource. If true, it is Turkeys most significant find to date, but questions remain about how much can actually be commercially extracted. Its also worth noting that it could be a decade before it's ready to be extracted. Turkey consumes about 1.6 trillion cubic feet of gas domestically a year.

More importantly, though, for Turkey is the fact that this is a tool for leverage in Turkeys geopolitical ambitions in the region. Turkey desperately needed a discovery because it has lost all relevance in the regions energy equation, which is exactly what all of its provocations from Cyprus and Greece to Libya and Syria are about. And it is also good for Turkey that this discovery was not in the Eastern Mediterranean or in disputed territory, so it will not be hampered in potential development should this discovery be proved up. Turkey also has the TurkStream pipeline in the Black Sea to enable exports. An Eastern Mediterranean find would have also given it leverage, but it would have been a geopolitical football and far more dangerous.

The discovery announcement comes just days after Turkey dispatched a drillship off Cyprus southwestern coast in another bid to fuel the fires of an ongoing territorial dispute in this same area. It also comes amid a maritime dispute with Greece, which is fighting back with a new maritime delimitation deal with Egypt. Egypt, at the same time, is Turkeys nemesis in Libya, where Turkey itself has redrawn maritime borders.

In other words, the entire eastern Mediterranean is being redrawn, and it could easily lead to a massive regional confrontation at sea that will necessarily draw in enough forces to brand it a global conflict of major proportions.

Turkey resumed exploration off the coast of Greece on Monday after Germany - the mediator in diplomatic talks with Greece - refused to approve an EU statement calling for an immediate cessation of exploration by Turkey. This is prompting a wider diplomatic row, with Greece then refusing to support an EU resolution on Belarus in retaliation (more on that this week in our Global Forecasts column).
After more than a week of double-digit positive tests, Manitoba set a record for daily COVID-19 cases Saturday with 42 new cases identified in the province, bringing the total number of lab-confirmed positive cases to 872.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/8/2020 (515 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After more than a week of double-digit positive tests, Manitoba set a record for daily COVID-19 cases Saturday with 42 new cases identified in the province, bringing the total number of lab-confirmed positive cases to 872.

More than half of Saturdays new cases were identified in the Prairie Mountain Health region where 24 new cases were identified as of 9:30 a.m. Saturday. An additional 16 cases were recorded in the Southern health region and two were identified in Winnipeg.

Data from provincial health authorities shows that six individuals are currently in hospital, including one in the intensive care unit. There are currently 290 active cases of the virus in Manitoba and 570 people have recovered. Twelve Manitobans have died as a result of the virus.

New cases identified across the province have held steadily in the double-digits for 10 days, reaching the previous peak of 40 new cases on Sunday. The majority of cases have cropped up in the Prairie Mountain Health region, where clusters have been identified in Brandon, primarily stemming from an outbreak at the Maple Leaf Foods plant.

Most new cases in previous days have been linked to close contacts of known cases, though Manitobas Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin has acknowledged evidence of community spread in Brandon.

As a result, the province has placed restrictions on the Prairie Mountain region in accordance with the #RestartMB Pandemic Response System. As of Monday, those living in the Prairie Mountain region will be required to wear masks in all indoor public places and at all indoor or outdoor public gatherings. Gathering sizes have been restricted to 10 people both indoors and outdoors.

The Prairie Mountain region leads the province for currently active cases with 125, according to government data. Winnipeg follows with 80 active cases, the Southern Health region with 79 and the Interlake-Eastern region with six. The government reports no active cases in the Northern health region, where all three previous recorded cases of the virus have been resolved.

In a release posted to Facebook on Friday evening, Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation announced one active case of the virus had been identified in the Fox Lake community after an individual travelled from the Prairie Mountain region to visit family in the northern Manitoba town of Gillam. The individual was in Gillam from August 12 to August 21, the release said, and returned to the Prairie Mountain region upon testing positive Friday. The individual was reportedly informed of potential contact with a confirmed case of COVID-19 in the Prairie Mountain region and immediately self-isolated away from family.

Contact tracing in Gillam has taken place, and all close contacts to the case are self-isolating, Fox Lake Cree Nation said in the release.

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The current five-day test positivity rate is 1.8 per cent in Manitoba, down slightly from two per cent on Friday. The province reports an additional 1,849 laboratory tests were completed Friday, bringing the total number of tests completed since early February to 124,140.

The provinces public health officials are asking Manitobans to return to the "fundamentals" of COVID-19 prevention, including staying home when feeling ill, proper hand-washing, covering coughs, maintaining two-metre physical distancing when possible and wearing masks when unable to physically distance.

Public health officials have also announced a new testing site will open at 2735 Pembina Highway in Winnipeg as of Tuesday. The site will be open to the public on a walk-in basis, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., seven days per week, replacing the Access Fort Garry testing location which will close after Monday.

Only Manitobans experiencing symptoms of the virus should go for testing, the province said, unless recommended by public health.

julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jsrutgers
The second round of stimulus checks could come as there could be a breakthrough for a bipartisan agreement after the House of Representatives is set to vote today, Saturday for a bill that will give the cash-strapped US Postal Service (USPS) with $25 billion.

The leaders of House Democratic are calling for the chamber to be back to Washington, D.C., to vote on the request for $25 billion funding of USPS amid the increased demands due to COVID-19 pandemic. According to CNN, the bill would try to prohibit changes to the USPS that slowed the mail service and raised concerns about some mail-in ballots for the U.S. election that might not reach voters before the election day.

The bill has the Democrats' initial request of funding for the Postal Service worth $25 billion as Senate Democrats continue to criticize Louis DeJoy, Postmaster General, for the changes in the USPS that the Democrats said will affect the ability of Americans to vote.

According to NewsWeek, the HEROES Act of Democrats includes funding for USPS that has been reflected by the Republicans. The voting on Saturday with negotiations deadlocked over a second stimulus package could open for a deal that Mark Meadows, White House chief of staff, said that President Donald Trump is willing to sign this week.

Meadows told CNN, "Let's go ahead and get a stimulus check out to Americans. Let's make sure that small businesses are protected, and put the postal funding in there. We'll pass it tomorrow. The president will sign it."

Senate Republicans have reportedly proposed a $500 billion stimulus package that did not mention stimulus payments. However, the proposal included $300 in weekly unemployment benefits, more money for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), and the funds for health and education, as per Politico.

The return of lawmakers for the USPS funding vote and the apparent willingness of President Trump to strike a deal and fund the USPS can give ground for an agreement on the next round of stimulus checks. Democrats may not agree to any agreement without direct payments, but if Congress could agree on the amount, there might be a good result after the voting, as per Forbes.

"Stimulus checks are one more important item that could be affected by any mail delay. Those delays affect people in all 50 states and D.C., so this is a pretty universal concern," Kris Cox, a senior tax policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told CNBC.

According to NewsWeek, DeJoy told a panel of congressional lawmakers that the election ballots would be prioritized and would not be delayed on Friday. "I think the American public should have the opportunity to vote by mail," DeJoy said.

Check these out:

Stimulus Check: Kamala Harris Wants to Give $12,000 to Beneficiaries Right Away

Direct Stimulus Payments: Trump Wants to Send Within One Week of Deal, Officials Say

Stimulus Payments Could Be $50,000 for Eligible Families If Bill Backed by Harris, Sanders Passes
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
The COVID-19 pandemic is proving a mixed bag for the New Zealands IT workforce. On the one hand there is more need for tech expertise as companies grapple with e-commerce and remote working. On the other, large IT projects may have been put on hold until there is more certainty in the economy.

A progress report on the Digital Technologies Industry Transformation Plan (ITP), a partnership between NZTech and the Ministry of Building, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), outlines the IT environment during COVID-19. Domestically, as customers moved to remote working, IT service providers saw work continue. However, there was a freeze on major projects and forward planning. This has continued with many IT projects still on hold or experiencing substantial delays, the report notes.

[ Keep up on the latest thought leadership, insights, how-to, and analysis on IT through Computerworlds newsletters. ]

While large corporations and government departments view digital as critical and some new projects are being considered, across the sector there has been a general hiring freeze, with 15% of firms having to reduce staff during April and May [2020] and an additional 18% expecting to have to make future staff reductions due to COVID-19.

Overall, New Zealands digital technology sector is showing good resilience, with some areas, such as fast-growth digital and software-as-a-service exporters, experiencing minimal impact. Their primary concern is around access to capital, although its noted later in the report that the $300 million Elevate Fund, which matches public capital with that raised by private investors, is designed to assist with this issue.

In addition, digital companies that may have relied on immigration to fill skills gaps are expected to find it tougher with the borders closed to all but returning New Zealanders.

What is the Digital ITP?

Addressing issues such as skills shortages and capital constraints is the purpose of the Digital ITP, which is part of a series of plans being initiated by the MBIE. It is still in development and has seven workstreams: skills, role of government, investment, artificial intelligence, Maori tech success, and telling the New Zealand tech story.

The progress report outlines several initiatives already underway, including the release of an Algorithm Charter for Aotearoa New Zealand, announced by Minister for Statistics James Shaw in July 2020 and which more than 20 government departments are signed up to.

Perennial issues: procurement and skills

The report examines the role of government procurement, which IDC estimates accounted for 29.6% of all IT spending in New Zealand in 2019. Persistent concerns include the ability for smaller suppliers to participate, the often slow and expensive process and the government being too risk-averse with the need to be more entrepreneurial and agile when procuring tech solutions.

Among the initiatives to address this issue are new rules introduced in October 2019, which require government agencies to consider broader environmental, social, economic or cultural outcomes when going out to market. It also requires government agencies to consider how they can create opportunities for local businesses through their procurement processes.

The ITP addresses another ongoing pain point: lack of digital skills. Issues here include IT graduates not being industry-ready, a lack of AI skills and embedding the new digital curriculum into schools. The government has created Workforce Development Councils, one of which includes technology, but there is disquiet about them in the sector with IT Professionals CEO Paul Matthews, calling for one of the WDCs to focus on the future of work.

The next steps for these issues is more consultation and research, with a virtual workshop being held in September 2020 to gather views on government procurement, and an update on a digital skills survey taken three years ago that is scheduled for completion by 2021.

Meanwhile, input is sought across the industry on the development of the Digital ITP. During the NZTech annual general meeting, its CEO Graeme Muller encouraged representatives from each of the workstreams to pitch the opportunity to join their respective teams.
The Concerned Advocates for Good Governance (CAGGC) has advised former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to shelve any ambition he might be nursing for the presidency in 2023.

National Coordinator of the group, Olusegun Bamgbose who disclosed this in a chat on Sunday pointed out that Northern politicians such as Tanko Yakassai, Paul Nnongo, Balarabe Musa, Governor Nasir El-Rufai, Senate President Ahmed Lawal and others have spoken the minds of the people in the region which Atiku should respect.

Tanko Yakassai, Paul Nnongo, Balarabe Musa, Governor El-Rufai, Ahmed Lawal and others will forever be respected and reckoned with, in the scheme of things, Bamgbose said in chat with DAILY POST on Sunday.

They are the new faces of great Nigerians. They deserve to be commended for standing for what is just and equitable.

They have actually spoken the mind of the North. Its on this basis, Ill humbly urge Atiku Abubakar, to shelve his presidential ambition come 2023 Presidential elections.

He should respect the views of these noble, patriotic and detribalised Northerners. In 2007, I kicked against the third term of Olusegun Obasanjo, this is well known to Atiku.

The best bet for him is to support a Southerner to emerge as the next President of Nigeria, come 2023. His name will be written in gold, if he will summon the courage to do this.

When it comes to holding this nation together, the North should be respected. As President, the North will never for one day regret they supported a Southerner, to emerge as President.
Weather Alert

...Spotty Black Ice Tonight... Slick spots on area roads may persist overnight as temperatures continue to fall. Snow will linger across west Kentucky through about midnight then diminish. Untreated roads and bridges are most likely to see black ice development. Motorists should use caution if driving overnight.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 23

Trend:

The commemoration ceremonies took place to honor servicemen who have died as Shehids (martyrs) during the battles while repelling an enemy attack in the direction of the Tovuz region of the Armenia-Azerbaijan state border, Trend reports referring to Azerbaijani Defense Ministry.

Under the instruction of the Minister of Defense, a group of servicemen has visited the graves of Major General Polad Hashimov, Colonel Ilgar Mirzoyev, and other Shehids, laid wreaths and flowers, honored their memory and, on behalf of the leadership of the Ministry, once again expressed condolences to their families.

Shehids family members (members of martyr families), their comrades-in-arms of Shehids, representatives of local executive authorities, government agencies, public organizations, and veterans took part in the commemoration ceremonies held in different regions.
Updated: Sept. 2, 2021.

Portland Fire & Rescue battled a three-alarm fire in a Southwest Portland home early Saturday and despite several reports that no one was inside, firefighters later found a body after the fire was out.

The victim was later identified as 43-year-old Aaron Daniel Smith, fire officials said.

Around 2 a.m. on Saturday, a fire alarm company reported an activation at the three-story home on Southwest Madison Street. Three minutes later a neighbor reported seeing the fire.

The neighbor reported that the home appeared unoccupied with no cars in the driveway. A contractor working on the home also later said the owners were out of state on vacation.

Firefighters reported finding all three levels of the home and the basement consumed by fire with numerous windows blowing out from the heat. The neighboring home, about 20 feet away, sustained cracks in all of the windows facing the burning home, according to fire officials.

By 2:47 a.m., a third alarm was called for more crews to battle the fire on the 5,500-square-foot house. The fire was under control but still burning by 4:30 a.m. About an hour later, crews working from a ladder outside the home saw an adult dead on the ground through a second-floor window.

The Multnomah County Medical Examiner and fire officials are investigating.
Webb County and the City of Laredo reported only 36 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, but four more deaths. And the number of hospitalized patients remains elevated at 164, a slight uptick from the previous few days.

After weeks of experiencing a constantly growing positivity rate and hospitalizations at or above capacity, local officials noted on Wednesday that the numbers had finally started to tend downward. However, they ask the community to not let up their efforts in stopping the spread of the virus  to continue avoiding social gatherings and wearing a mask in public.
With four more years of Donald Trump on the ballot, and the nation spinning into a recession, and an unprecedented global pandemic, its a more or less consensus judgment that the coming election will be a very big deal.

The presidential contest alone will represent perhaps the starkest choice between two competing visions for the nations future since the elections of 1860 that set the Union on course for a civil war writes Reid Wilson in The Hill, with a breathlessness thats become familiar this year.

Then again, its also familiar from four years ago. This is by far the most important vote youve ever cast for anyone at any time, said Trump, in what was surely one of his few points of agreement with Democrats. Its what conservative commentator Dennis Prager said of 2012: The usual description of presidential electionsthe most important in our lifetimeis true this time. Its what liberal columnist Michael Tomasky said about 2008: In 2004, many Americans, particularly liberals fearful about a second Bush term, took to calling that election the most important of my lifetime. And it was, for a while. Now this one is.

Rewind the tape and youll hear Nancy Reagan in 1980 (This is the most important election of my life  The outcome will affect the nation and the world), Harry Truman in 1952 (This is, my friends, the most important election in your lifetime,), and even the Atlantic Monthly describing the 1868 Grant-Seymour race (It would, indeed, be no exaggeration to say that it will be the most important election that Americans ever have known). That was just 12 years after the New York Times called an 1856 election for the Pennsylvania Legislature by all parties conceded the most important election that has been held since the organization of our Government.

So if youre feeling nostalgic for a time when it seemed like less was at stake, you may be mostly out of luck.

Except for one year. While there may be a platoon of contenders for the Most Important Election of Our Lives, there can be no doubt whatsoever about the prevailing contender for the Least Important. By every reasonable measure, the election of 1996 stands alone as the least suspenseful, least intriguing, least consequential election of my lifetime, your lifetime, anybodys lifetime. It is the campaign equivalent of Andy Warhols Empire, the eight-hour-long film of the unmoving Empire State Building, or the Christmas Yule Log video, or the line at the New York City Department of Motor Vehicles. Search for memorable moments, a dramatic shift from one candidate to another, a history-changing result of the outcome, and you find yourself in a haystack where there is no needle.

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What was it about 1996? Start with the terrain. In 1996, America was a hotbed of  rest. The economy was in the best shape in decades: a jobless rate of just 5 percent, inflation under 3 percent, real growth at a more or less steady 2.5 percent and a budget that was approaching balancedand on a clear path to future surpluses of several hundred billion dollars. A debate among economists was seriously focused on whether to eliminate the national debt entirely or keep it alive just for credit purposes. Abroad, Boris Yeltsin was winning reelection as president of Russia; Vladimir Putin was a relative unknown who had just moved to Moscow to assume the lofty position of deputy chief of the Presidential Property Management Department. Even terrorism wasnt a front-burner issue: Al Qaedas attempt to bring down the World Trade Center Towers with a truck bomb in 1993 had ended in failure, and Osama Bin Laden was a name known to a relative handful of government officials.

As for intense political combat? The government shutdown of 1995-96 had ended with the more militant Republicans in Congress conceding defeat; indeed, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the White House were in negotiations for a series of bipartisan efforts, starting with welfare reform. In his State of the Union address, which marked the unofficial kickoff of the political season, President Bill Clinton, still chastened by the 1994 midterms that had delivered both houses of Congress to the GOP, proclaimed: the era of big government is over. As fierce as Gingrichs early fights had been, both parties had tacked to the center, and by modern standards it was the Era of Good Feelings in Washington.

But every race still requires an challenger, and the primary season began with a clear Republican favorite: Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, a veteran of 35 years in Congress, one of World War IIs great heroes, with the soul of a great legislator who lived for bargains, compromise and the middle ground. The instincts that had made him a distinguished figure in the Capitol did not make him a compelling presidential candidate. Legend has it that when a child asked him what he would do to make schools better, Doles answer was: That bills in markup. (In this case, the legend is true.)

His chief competitors were arrayed along a moderate-to-conservative axis. Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander, whose campaign signature was, with unconscious irony, a plaid shirt; Steve Forbes, the novelty flat-tax advocate whose principal asset was his familys wealth; and Texas Senator Phil Gramm, who began his campaign with the inspiring observation that I have the most reliable friend you can have in American politics, and that is ready money.

The only frisson of the entire campaign was provided by Pat Buchanan, the speechwriter-political strategist-columnist-commentator who had embarrassed President George H.W. Bush four years earlier with an impressive 38 percent of the vote in New Hampshire, running a campaign that presaged the nationalist message of Donald Trump. He ran with the nothing-to-lose approach of Senator John McCainhe was so transparent that when I interviewed him in his hotel room, he paused for a few moments to write a campaign ad. He managed to win the primary again, with 28 percent, finishing one point ahead of Dole while garnering the smallest plurality in the history of the states GOP primaries.

GOP presidential hopefuls Steve Forbes, left, Lamar Alexander, center, and Pat Buchanan, right.

In the wake of Buchanans victory, a New York Times report declared the race was wide-open. Well, not exactly. Spooked by the prospect of a Buchanan nomination, the party did what people might have expected it to do in 2016 against Trump: It quickly closed ranks, and Dole won 41 of the next 42 contests, losing only the Missouri caucuses. This made things easy for the GOP, but did not make for compelling Tuesday nights in front of the TV.

That Buchanan victory, it turned out, was the dramatic high point of not just the primary, but the whole election. The nomination fight had left Dole bereft of moneyhe could spend no general election funds until he was formally picked by the GOPwhile President Clinton and his allies shelled Dole with a series of ads linking him to the unpopular Gingrich.

Long before the conventions, the election cake was essentially baked. In mid-March, a Gallup Poll had Clinton with a 10-percentage-point lead, and, except for a brief post-convention bounce that brought Dole within 9 points, Clinton kept that double-digit margin until the very end of the campaign.

And it wasnt just the peace-and-prosperity mood of the country that made it so sleepy. Dole himself was not the kind of figure to wage a Manichean battle for the soul campaign. True, hed had a reputation as a hatchet man in earlier timesas the GOPs 1976 vice presidential nominee, hed talked about four Democrat wars in my lifetime. But his truer nature was on display when in June he resigned from the Senate to pursue the campaign full time. It was a 50-minute farewell, with Dole strolling through the Senate, recalling the great work hed done with Democrats like George McGovern, Mike Mansfield and Tom Daschle.

An equally revealing moment came during Doles acceptance speech at the convention, when he contrasted himself with Clintons bridge to the future theme by literally offering a bridge to the past. Let me be the bridge to an America that only the unknowing call myth, he said. Let me be the bridge to a time of tranquility, faith and confidence in action.

In drawing distinctions between himself and Clinton, Dole said: That is not the outlook of my opponentand he is my opponent, not my enemy. It is a generous sentiment, one almost unimaginable in todays politics. But is not a sentiment designed to get the blood rushing as a call to political arms.

Left: GOP nominee for president Bob Dole at the 1996 Republican National Convention. Right: President Bill Clinton, First Lady Hillary Clinton, VP Al Gore and others at the 1996 Democratic National Convention.

As for the Democratic convention  Well, the highlight was the news out of Washington that Clinton adviser-Svengali Dick Morris had been caught out with a prostitute, whom hed allowed to eavesdrop on his telephone calls with the president. (Morris ultimately resigned and went on to a lucrative career spreading rumors about Hillary Clintons various alleged felonies and searching for black helicopters). The other thrilling moment was at the end of one nights proceedings, when a rostrum full of high-ranking women led the delegates in the Macarena.

And then came the debates.

I have watched every presidential and vice presidential debate since the very first JFK-Nixon encounter. Thanks to a memory that stores gigabytes of useless information, I can recall moments from just about all of them. But when it comes to 1996, if you put a gun to my head and demanded a recollection of any moment from any one of that campaigns debates, youd have a corpse on your hands. (During one debate, which I was covering from the balcony of the debate hall, I persuaded my camera operator to turn our monitor to a Yankees-Orioles playoff game.)

Those debates were a microcosm of the entire year. The polls simply never changed. Bill Schneider, CNNs pollster, struggled to find anything to report about daily poll numbers that resembled the EEG line of a flatlined patient. One of Clintons key White House advisers told a group of journalists (off the record) that he was afflicted with a serious case of boredomnot the usual emotional state of a high-placed operative. On the GOP side, the grasping at straws was of Olympian reach. (I remember being in the Nightline green room when Gingrich predicted that Dole would win California on the strength of the backlash to affirmative action. Spoiler alert: Dole lost California by 1.3 million votes).

In fact, the election was a bit closer than the polls were predicting, the product of a late fall fundraising scandal that implied funds from foreign sources were flowing into the Clinton campaign. But it still ended with an easy 49-41 victory. (Reform Party candidate Ross Perot won 8.4 percent.) Clinton became the first two-term president since Woodrow Wilson to never win a majority of votes, but his 379 electoral votes were decisive, and more than any president since. The Congress was essentially unchanged, as befits a Seinfeld about nothing contest; Democrats picked up two seats in the House and lost two in the Senate.

If there was neither suspense nor drama, what about the consequences? Most Presidential elections, even the less compelling ones, matter if for no other reason than the Supreme Court. (The Dukakis-Bush race in 1988 was a meh election, but the presence of Clarence Thomas on the court has mattered a lot.) But as it happened, a Dole victory would have made no difference at all here, because there were no vacancies on the Supreme Court until 2005. Even a two-term Dole presidency would have had no impact on the court. As for lower courts, it was a very different time back then; there was no list from the Federalist Society giving a GOP president a roster of young, zealous conservatives out to undo the past several years of Court decisions. There was far more bipartisanship, and far more comity, in how judges were picked.

And when it comes to domestic policy, its arguable that a President Dole might even have had a rockier time with the GOP Congress than Clinton did. For one thing, Dole held Gingrich in minimum high regard, which is Washingtons way of saying he couldnt stand his guts. When Gingrich ran for president in 2012, Dole said: Gingrich had a new idea every minute and most of them were off the wall. An effort by Gingrich to bring his revolution to fruition would have met with implacable opposition from a Dole White House.

There is, of course, one way in which a Dole presidency would have led to a very different time. With Clinton out of the White House, the ongoing effort of independent counsel Ken Starr to probe the Clintons Whitewater investments, and his alleged sexual harassment of Paula Jones, would have been far less newsworthy. It is highly possible that, without his presidency to defend, Clinton simply would have settled with Jones, ending the case and thus any probe into the interactions between the president and an intern. At best, the story would have been a footnote, and not the dominant political story of 1998.

That quirky possibility aside, I think the case is overwhelming. When 2021 rolls around, it will mark the silver anniversary of a campaign that has already descended deep into oblivion. I suggest we mark the anniversary in the most appropriate manner possible: by launching a fleet of lead balloons.
Irans supreme leader Ayatollah Sayyid Khamenei on August 8 opened an official Twitter account in Hindi. While taking to the micro-blogging site, the Iranian leader has been posting tweets written in Devanagri script from his new account. Khameneis Hindi account has amassed over 1,800 followers since going live.

READ: Iran's Khamenei Rejects Talks With US, Says 'brutal Sanctions Aimed At Collapsing Economy'

So, far Irans supreme leader has posted two tweets from the new account. Khameneis first Hindi Twitter post read, "In the name of Allah, who is very kind and compassionate.

Khamenei is currently not following any Indian leader from his new Hindi account. He recently has also created Twitter accounts in other languages, including Persian, Arabic, Urdu, French, Spanish, Russian, and English.

READ: Iran Supremo Khamenei's Backing Breaks Back Of Hardliner Motion Against President Rouhani

India-Iran relations

Meanwhile, India and Iran have significant trade ties, particularly crude oil imports. The two countries have been improving bilateral connectivity and infrastructure.

Back in July, Iran and India also discussed ways to expand transport cooperation between the two countries. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani have also expressed their determination to develop comprehensive relations.

READ: Iran's Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Claims Floyd's Death Shows 'US Nature'

READ: Trump Vs Twitter: White House Hits Back, Calls Out Khamenei Tweet 'glorifying Violence'
Mahershala Ali and Kevin Feige during 2019 Comic-Con International at San Diego Convention Center on July 20, 2019. (Photo by Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images)

John Wick director Chad Stahelski has declared his interest in directing the already announced reboot of Blade, which will star Mahershala Ali and see the human-vampire join the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Stahelski made this declaration during his recent discussion with Comic Book.com, admitting that even though he is not a gigantic superhero guy he enjoys watching them.

"I love the Avengers. I loved Captain America. I like James Gunn's take on Guardians. I really dig him as a director and what he's done with that. Ragnarok, I felt was really funny. I thought that was clever. I've come around."

Read More: David Leitch interested in directing Mahershala Ali in 'Blade'

It was at this point that Stahelski remarked, "If the opportunity ever came, I would like to take a stab at... the one that really jumps out to me would be like Blade.

Director Chad Stahelski attends a promotional event of movie "John Wick: Chapter 2" in Tokyo, Japan June 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

If they were going to redo Blade or something like that, just because I feel that one, for some reason, the vampire martial art action vibe. That would be a cool one to stretch and try and reinvent."

Stahelski has actually already proven that he has the chops to thrive in the genre, as he worked as the second unit director on Marvels Captain America: Civil War and then DCs Birds Of Prey.

Read More: Mahershala Ali to Star in Marvels Blade Reboot

If he is approached to direct Blade, the former stunt coordinator and stunt double might have to try and find room in his schedule to actually do it. Not only have a fourth and fifth John Wick film already been confirmed, but he has been working on a reboot of the Highlander franchise since 2017, too.

"Im really curious about what I can do with Highlander and how I reinvent the hero worship stuff, Stahelski admitted. Those fascinate me a lot, a little also more than ... I just like more of the original properties that you can grow from as opposed to step into a number five or a number six. That's all. Just choice."
Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Mark Warner (D-Va.) told NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday that the panel passed the fifth and final volume of its report on Russian interference in the 2016 election with a 14 to 1 vote.

Why it matters: It underscores the bipartisan nature of the explosive report, which found that Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, passed sensitive polling data and campaign strategy to a Russian intelligence officer who may have been involved in the hacking of Democratic emails.

The 966-page report goes into more detail than the Mueller report in showing the extent of Russia's connections to the Trump campaign.

The big picture: Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) was the sole member of the committee to vote against the report. He said he did so because it "fails to explicitly state" that the investigation "found no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election."

In a statement accompanying the release of the report, acting Senate Intelligence Chair Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said, We can say, without any hesitation, that the Committee found absolutely no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government to meddle in the 2016 election."

While both sides agreed on the facts laid out in the report, Democrats vehemently dispute that the report found no evidence of "collusion."

What he's saying: "Respectfully, I disagree with Marco on that," Warner said. "Richard Burr was chairman for most of the investigation as I was vice chair. We decided that we would not join any other comments that we would let the report stand as it is. This is a report that was passed 14 to 1."

Between the lines: Warner explained that the report went into "much more detail than Mueller" because it was a "counterintelligence report, not a criminal report."

The report laid out "unprecedented contacts between Russians and folks on the Trump campaign. The Trump campaign officials welcomed that help. And maybe one of the most stunning was the level of detail of the then-campaign manager Paul Manafort sharing very specific campaign information with a Russian agent," Warner continued.

"We'll never know what the Russians did with that information. But think about that, a campaign manager sharing with a known Russian agent during the middle of a campaign."

Go deeper: Mueller prosecutor says there are new revelations in Senate Russia report
After Pakistan was left humiliated by its long-standing ally Saudi Arabia with Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud refusing to even meet General Qamar Javed Bajwa, the country has now run to its all-weather friend China. Sources report that Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has flown to China for a two-day summit to "strengthen relations" with the Communist country days after General Bajwa was snubbed by the Crown Prince, who not only refused to honour him with a medal, but also refused to grant him an audience.

Pakistan has been facing the brunt of its own misdeeds after motormouth Foreign Minister threatened to split open the OIC if Saudi Arabia did not convene a meeting over Kashmir. Since then, the country has been desperately trying to mend bridges with the Arab nation. However, the revocation of Saudi Arabia's three-year financial package to Pakistan is being seen as the final nail in the coffin of Islamabad's shattered ties with Riyadh.

While speaking to RepublicTv, SP Vaid, who has served as the former DGP for J&K, spilt details on how Pakistan was not only isolated but 'frustrated' by the complete and utter failure of its policy on Kashmir. "Pakistan is increasingly getting isolated and today with an ally like Saudi Arabia, their relationship is at its lowest after the threat given by Pakistan's foreign minister over the call for an OIC meeting on Kashmir. This indicates their frustration and failure on their foreign policy and Kashmir. In fact, their own Minister admitted that Pakistan's Kashmir policy is a big failure."

Pakistan's failed agenda on Kashmir

Pakistan has been, since kingdom come, trying to use the OIC to further its agenda against India. Qureshi's threat of Prime Minister Imran Khan pulling out friendly nations from the OIC to convene a meeting over Kashmir backfired massively on the debt-ridden nation since Saudi Arabia has maintained healthy relations with India. Last year, PM Modi was conferred with the highest civilian award by Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud at the Royal Court where they held extensive talks on a range of bilateral, regional and international issues. Also, as Pakistan tries to pull weight by feeding the Islam angle to the OIC, Saudia Arabia and the Arab world is well aware that India has the second-highest population of Muslims in the world, home to over 180 million people who practise Islam.

With Pakistan neck-deep in debts, hell has also befallen Qureshi, with rumours of him being kicked out as the Foreign Minister circulating widely. This, also after he slapped Principal Secretary to Prime Minister, Azam Khan over a heated exchange of words. It seems like Qureshi aims to take down the last bits of the nation's respect along with him on his exit.

"The nations (OIC) have realised that Pakistan's agenda is something different. Qureshi saying that don't call meeting on Kashmir, we will call our friendly nations, we can see what has happened. Pakistan Army Chief Bajwa was then sent to Saudi Arabia to mend fences, he was not even given audience by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, this is the level at which their relationship has fallen," opined Sp Vaid adding that Saudi Arabia also had its own interests and foreign policy with India.

Pakistan's obsession with the narrative of Kashmir has not only severely hurt its foreign policy but also its business dealings with countries like Saudi Arabia which is seen as a de-facto leader of the Islamic world, that provided bounties of financial assistance and oil to the former for decades. The flashpoint with Pakistan also comes at a time when the isolated nation already owes millions and billions of dollars to Saudi Arabia, desperately borrowing from China to pay back its debts.

Today as Pakistan stands isolated in the global community it is extremely important for the country to revisit its foreign policy on Kashmir and its relentless agenda against India which has borne no fruits for the nation apart from rupturing its ties with countries worldwide.

Read: 'Don't Interfere': India Rejects Cornered Pakistan-China's Attempt To Discuss Kashmir

Read: Pakistan Releases Statement About Dawood Ibrahim; Lies After Admitting To His 3 Safehouses
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 14:35:53|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Steve Monfort, director of the Smithsonian's National Zoo here, said on Saturday that they are "really proud" of the partnership with China on conserving giant pandas, a day after a "miracle" cub was born at the zoo.

In an interview with Xinhua inside the national zoo's giant panda habitat, Monfort called the arrival of the baby panda not only a moment of "pure joy" but also "a success that we should be sharing together because we didn't do this by ourselves."

Mei Xiang, a 22-year-old giant panda, was artificially inseminated in March this year with frozen semen collected from Tian Tian, the zoo's male giant panda, after signs showed that she was experiencing a normal reproductive cycle.

"We were able to execute this in a very narrow window of time," Monfort said. Female giant pandas are only in estrus, or able to become pregnant, for 24 to 72 hours each year.

Veterinarians confirmed evidence of a fetus on an ultrasound earlier this month, which was a surprise even for professionals, considering a very low fertility rate for giant pandas and, particularly, Mei Xiang's age.

The female gave birth to the cub Friday evening, making history by becoming the oldest giant panda living in the United States to do that, a "miracle" due to a decades-long partnership across the Pacific on the unique species, which has lifted many people's spirits amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The miracle really is after almost 50 years of building up knowledge about science, of animal care and nutrition and behavior and reproduction. We know exactly what to do," said the zoo chief, stressing that the zoo communicates regularly every month with colleagues in China and that he is grateful for "all of their knowledge and their generosity of sharing that knowledge with us."

"We provide updates on the status of the pandas and we're in close communication," the director said. "With any help that we need, we know that our Chinese colleagues are there to give us advice."

"We're really proud of the partnership that we have with our Chinese colleagues. We're at 48 years now of working with China with giant pandas ... it's been a huge success," he noted.

The zoo's current cooperative breeding agreement with the China Wildlife Conservation Association will expire later this year. Monfort said the two sides have had "very productive discussions."

"We're going to come up with a really good agreement pretty soon. I think this birth maybe was a little bit of a surprise for both of us," he said. "We're hopeful. We're going to have an agreement."

The zoo, located in northwest Washington, D.C., reported that Mei Xiang and her newborn had a successful first night. Between bouts of good rest, Mei Xiang appeared to nurse her cub and was very attentive to its vocalizations.

"Right now, we think everything's going very well. We've heard vocalizations overnight from the cub, which suggests that it's strong. And we've noticed the positioning of the cub on the mother's chest, which suggests that she's nursing," Monfort said. "So everything is going very well so far."

According to the zoo chief, Mei Xiang, whose three cubs have survived to adulthood, is "a great mom" and that "she's providing all the right kinds of care."

"Once this miracle happens and the baby is born, really mom takes over," he said. "We expect ... she's really got experience already and she'll be just great. So we probably will just sit back and relax and look and wait for her to signal to us when she's needing anything."

Keepers and scientists have not been able to get hands on the new cub because they want to wait until Mei Xiang is ready to leave it for more food, which usually takes place within a week or so.

"It's really difficult to even see this tiny little cub right now, but when we do the physical exam, we will be able to identify the sex at that time. So for right now, we just know what appears to be a healthy cub. Just couldn't be happier," Monfort said.

If the new cub survives, the zoo will likely follow its tradition of holding a naming ceremony at its 100 days since birth.

"We need to give mom and the cub time to be alone and to have the cub grow and become strong. We'll do a physical examination after a couple of weeks. Perhaps at 100 days, hopefully, we'll have a naming ceremony and it'll be another joyous occasion," he added. Enditem
Dr. Javier Arranz, the spokesperson for the Balearics committee for the management of infectious diseases, believes that "normality" can be recovered by the middle of 2021. The "nightmare still has a way to go", but he points to vaccines becoming available and to what he believes will be less intense waves of the virus.

Speaking at the weekend, Arranz said that pandemics tend to evolve in the way that this one is. He is not surprised by the current situation and insists that the state of alarm de-escalation process was carried out "quite well" in the Balearics and other regions. "It had to be done at some point. Life must go on. It also prepared us for what we now have. Mobility is greater in the summer, while we all tend to forget the bad times."

Arranz stressed that closing the islands during the state of alarm "helped us a lot". "Social relationships are the basis of contagion. We should now have greater control over people arriving from regions or countries with higher incidence of the virus than on the islands. So far, we have managed to stop the arrival of cruise ships. But the problem isn't tourists; it lies with countries with high incidence, and these aren't necessarily European. Unfortunately, there hasn't been the scope that we have wanted for this. In order to be able to track and trace, we must know who is coming in. This would have limited the current increase in cases."

On the German government's decision to advise against travel to the Balearics, Arranz suggested that it is "too simplistic" to just consider the number of cases. "World Health Organization criteria apply, but countries use them according to their interests". Spain uses other parameters, "and we are less restrictive". "I can understand the German attitude, but do you trust data from Greece or Turkey?"

Asked if he would advise a friend in Germany to come to the Balearics, Arranz replied that of course he would. But he would ask his friend what he planned to do while in the Balearics. "The problem is not where we go, it is personal behaviour. Cases involving tourists are minimal."

Touching on the behaviour of young people, Arranz said that "if we don't change our attitudes, we will have more cases". Older people, he observed, "have learned the lesson and protect themselves". "The young want to experience the summer without taking precautions.

"We don't have a high degree of immunity, like with the flu. It is difficult for people to accept the new way of behaving, such as with the correct use of masks. We are dealing with a new disease, and there are many things we still don't know. Decisions are made based on the information we have."

Accepting that economic consequences influence decision-making, Arranz added that "returning to total confinement would be very difficult". The idea is to adopt specific or partial actions in order to avoid there being a return to confinement, even if these may have negative economic consequences. "In Palma, where most of the cases are concentrated, we will look to identify the most troubling points."

He believed that the indicators will change by next year and that tourism in the Balearics will recover. First, however, there is the winter, when it will be important to prevent growth in contagion.

Finally, he was asked what he would say to virus deniers. "They should volunteer to go into a Covid intensive care unit without protection. Then we can talk. I'd be willing to discuss their proposals."
Lionel Bonaventure/Getty Images

TikTok confirmed Saturday that the company planned to sue the US government over President Donald Trump's executive orders targeting the popular app.

A company spokesperson said TikTok experienced "a lack of due process as the administration paid no attention to facts and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses."

TikTok, which has surged in popularity over the past year, was known as Musical.ly until it was purchased by the Chinese company ByteDance in 2017 and renamed.

The president on August 6 and August 14 signed executive orders targeting TikTok.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

TikTok on Saturday announced it plans to sue the US government over President Donald Trump's executive orders pertaining to its ownership, arguing the company was deprived of its due process rights.

The president, who began targeting TikTok in July, issued an executive order August 6 making it illegal for American companies to do business with TikTok, giving ByteDance until September 15 to sell it. On August 14, Trump issued another executive order giving the company 90 days to divest its US assets and data the company had gathered in the US.

"Even though we strongly disagree with the administration's concerns, for nearly a year we have sought to engage in good faith to provide a constructive solution," a TikTok spokesman told Business Insider and other media outlets in a statement. "What we encountered instead was a lack of due process as the administration paid no attention to facts and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses."

Companies like Microsoft and Oracle have reportedly expressed interest in purchasing TikTok from ByteDance. TikTok, which has skyrocketed in popularity over the past year, was known previously as Musical.ly until it was purchased by its current owners in 2017 and then renamed TikTok.

Story continues

"To ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and users are treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the Executive Order through the judicial system," the company said.

Trump, along with other lawmakers, has expressed concerns that TikTok and ByteDance were allowing the Chinese government to use the platform to spy on Americans, posing a risk to US national security. The company has repeatedly denied these accusations.

According to a report from CNBC, TikTok plans to file suit next week specifically in regard to Trump's August 6 order, arguing that the president's usage of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act deprived the company of due process. It also intends to challenge its classification as a threat to national security.

According to the report, the lawsuit would not prevent the company from being forced to sell the app, because Trump's August 14 order is not subject to judicial review. As CNBC noted, it's unclear in what court the company will file its lawsuit.

Read more:

Alphabet reportedly wanted to buy a small stake in TikTok as part of a mystery group bid, but the talks fell apart

TikTok employees have started referring to Trump's deadline to ban the app as 'D-Day' over fears of catastrophic job losses

TikTok's marketing head says that brands need to create specific ads for the app

TikTok's exclusive creator ambassador program helps influencers land brand deals and grow their followings

Read the original article on Business Insider
Online Day of Prayer initiative slated for 24 August hopes to help women "bridge the sense of solitude and isolation experienced in lockdown, to support each other and to reinforce a sense of sisterhood."

By Fr. Benedict Mayaki, SJ

Catholic women in South-Africa are encouraged to participate in an online Day of Prayer organized by the countrys Union of Catholic Womens Organization (SAUCWO) on 24 August.

The initiative themed I cant breathe, stems from the desire to bridge the sense of solitude and isolation experienced in lockdown, to support each other and to reinforce a sense of sisterhood in this time of global suffering, reads a poster released for the occasion.

In an interview with Vatican News, Mrs. Fikile Motsa, President of SAUCWO explained the idea behind the Day of Prayer and its importance for South African Catholic women.

Invited guests at the occasion include Sr. Hermenegild Makoro, Secretary-General of the South African Bishops Conference who is scheduled to speak at the event. Mrs. Motsa will give the welcoming address at the event which will take place from 2:15 pm to 4:00 pm (South African time) on Monday.

Day of Prayer

Motsa explained that the online prayer initiative was born from the desire to reach out and strengthen women despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and the difficult moments of anxiety that have come with it.

We want to strengthen our women who are now scared. Some of them have lost their jobs, staying at home, their husbands without jobs, and the numbers escalating. We have lost a number of our women due to Covid-19, she said.

The prayer initiative, therefore, is to give them a word of hope, praying together, to show the sisterhood that we are together in this, and that we can conquer if we are together in prayer. To try and support each other though we cannot see each other physically.

Interview with SAUCWO President, Fikile Motsa

August, dedicated to South African women

This prayer initiative is organized in the context of the month of August which, in South Africa, is dedicated to women. The country annually marks 9 August as National Womens Day to commemorate 9 August 1956 when women participated in a national march to petition against pass laws (legislation that required black people to carry a document to prove that they were allowed to enter a white area).

Mrs. Motsa pointed out that the month is dedicated to women in the country because they are special. And, as women of hope, women of love working together, they need to be strong and in turn, strengthen each other. Especially at this time of Covid-19, they need our support, they need our love, she stressed.

She said that during August, she would love to see more attention brought to gender-based violence issues because we are losing a lot of women through gender-based violence, murder and rape she said, adding that it is her wish to see all women better protected.

I cant breathe

Responding to a question concerning the theme I cant breathe, Motsa explained that its use for the initiative is unrelated to the protests for racial equality sparked by the tragic death of George Floyd in May 2020.

With us, she clarified, we have chosen this theme looking at the cases of Covid-19: a lot of our women have lost their jobs, they have their husbands staying at home, they have children out of school.

It is just too much for us women, she exclaimed. It is just around our necks. We cannot breathe because there is so much happening! And as women  mothers, the pinch is all on us.

The theme, therefore, refers to the growing sense of being overwhelmed by the deaths and other difficulties stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic as well as other gender-related issues.

We are asking God to just be with us because there is just so much death around and we want to ask God to just help us on this, she said.

South Africa has been particularly hard-hit by the coronavirus crisis. As of Friday, it has over 90,000 reported active cases and is currently the fifth most affected country in the world.

Open invitation to all

Mrs. Motsa throws open the invitation to the online Day of Prayer to all Catholic women in the country, as well as all sodalities and organizations that can access the program through the online video conferencing platform Zoom.

This, she said, is so that they can come together and pray together and also share some ideas on how to get through these trying moments.

Encouraging participation, she encouraged all women to hold on to our Jesus and not be scared because He is the only one who can calm the storm of Covid-19 in which the world currently finds itself.

Ending on a hopeful note, Mrs. Motsa expressed her desire that we will all be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel when the storm is over. And, to all women, she says: let us just hold on, let us not lose hope, let us not be scared.

Interested participants can find further information on the Day of Prayer initiative from the flyer shown above.
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More than 250 surfers gathered in the sea at New York's Rockaway Beach yesterday to host a floating memorial service for Breonna Taylor, the black EMT who was killed by police in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 13.

Sitting on their boards in a circle, the surfers threw flowers in the sea and splashed water towards the sky, while chanting slogans against police brutality and racism.

A paddle-out is a traditional Hawaiian tribute to the life and legacy of loved ones who have died, but these ceremonies are also used as a form of protest.

More than 250 surfers gathered in the sea at New York's Rockaway Beach to host a floating memorial service for Breonna Taylor, the black EMT who was killed by police on March 13

The paddle-outs at Rockaway Beach have organized in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter protests that have been held across the United States throughout the summer

The surfers entered the water at 73rd street and paddled 13 blocks with flowers in their teeth and on their boards to commemorate the date that Taylor was killed.

As they arrived at 86th street they were met by a crowd who had gathered on the beach with signs protesting racial inequality and police brutality.

The event was organized by Lou Harris, 48, a surfer who founded the East Coast chapter of the Black Surfing Association four years ago in Rockaway, Queens.

He told DailyMail.com the paddle-outs showed that surfers could support the Black Lives Matter protests and keep the memory of those who died alive without resorting to violence.

He said: 'All you see on the media now is protests with people getting arrested, looting, burning, fighting, tear gas. I want people to see that surfers - especially us here in Rockaway - are peaceful.

The event was organized by Lou Harris, 48, a surfer who founded the East Coast chapter of the Black Surfing Association four years ago to introduce the sport to more kids in Rockaway

The paddle-outs at Rockaway Beach are part tributes to those who have died and part protest against police brutality and racial injustice

'We can protest in peace and still get our point across. You don't have to yell, you don't have to burn buildings, you don't have to throw Molotov cocktails.'

August 22 was the fourth paddle-out the Black Surfers Association has hosted this summer in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter protest, with a fifth planned for September.

Previous paddle-outs have involved surfers paddling eight blocks along the shoreline to represent the time George Floyd had his neck pinned to the ground and singing Happy Birthday to Taylor on the day she would have turned 27.

Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old medical worker, was shot eight times after cops burst into her home just before 1am on March 13 while operating on a no-knock search warrant for a drug investigation.

Taylor was asleep at the time at the residence she shared with her boyfriend Kenneth Walker. The warrant to search her home was in connection with a suspect who did not live there and no drugs were found.

Drone footage above Rockaway Beach captured the surfers paying tribute to Breonna Taylor in traditional paddle-out

As the surfers arrived at the shoreline of 86th street they were met by a crowd who had gathered on the beach with signs protesting racial inequality and police brutality

Saturday's event was the fourth paddle-out the Black Surfers Association has hosted this summer in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter protest, with a fifth planned for September

Attention on the death of Taylor heightened after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis on Memorial Day earlier this year.

The black 46-year-old father of five died during an arrest after a white police officer pressed his knee against the man's neck for close to nine minutes. Former cop Derek Chauvin lost his job after the slaying and has been charged with Floyd's murder.

In the past, paddle-outs have taken a stand against offshore drilling, oil spills, water pollution and construction, and Harris told DailyMail.com that the ceremonies at Rockaway are part tributes and part protests.

Along with chants of the name of the person who died, during the paddle-outs at Rockaway you'll hear shouts of 'Black Lives Matter', 'No Justice, No Peace', and 'Whose waves? Our waves!'

Harris explained that paddling 13 blocks is strenuous, but he wanted people to feel sore when they woke up today as a reminder to keep Taylor in their thoughts.

The East Coast chapter of the Black Surfing Association offers free surf lessons to local kids

The paddle-outs are designed to show that in the surfing community protests are peaceful

'Breonna didn't get the chance to wake up,' he said. 'She was a woman sleeping in her apartment, minding her own business and the cops kicked the door down. She got killed for nothing.

'I don't want it to get swept under the rug, because these cops still haven't been brought to justice.'

Harris, who grew up in Long Island, started the East Coast chapter of the Black Surfing Association in 2016 after hearing about the case of a fire in nearby Coney Island in which a responding police offer was killed.

Marcell Dockery, the teen who confessed to starting the fire, said he did so because he was bored. 'That blew my mind,' said Harris. 'So I reached out to Tony Corley, who founded the West Coast chapter and asked to start an East Coast chapter.'

He added: 'When I first moved here 15 years ago a couple of black kids saw me on the corner with my surfboard and they said to me: "Black people don't surf."'

Lou said that this response upset him but it made him realize there was a lack of opportunity in Rockaway, so he started free surf lessons designed to keep kids busy and to introduce them to the sport.

A paddle-out is a traditional Hawaiian tribute to the life of loved ones who have died. Surfers form a circle holding hands and throw flowers into the center, chant and splash water. Pictured is the memorial for skateboarder and surfer Jay Adams in Venice Beach, California, in 2014

Two surfers attend the memorial for surfer John Kissel in Huntington Beach, California, in 2009. During paddle-outs surfers often carry flowers in their teeth or on their boards, which they then throw into the water in memory of the a loved one

He explained that surf lessons typically cost anywhere from $100 to $125 an hour, which is an expense most families in Rockaway simply cannot afford.

Harris added: 'If you give these kids the right boards, the right wetsuits and the right opportunities they can excel.'

Yesterday's paddle-out was meant to be the last one of the summer, but Harris said he has now planned another for September and that the organization will keep supporting the Black Lives Matter movement until they start to see real change.

He added: 'The only way we will see change when arrests start being made and these police officers start being held accountable. These protests are not going to stop until then.'
Stolen or photocopied? What really happened to the Rafale documents

AG says judges need education as MP HC asked molester to tie rakhi and protect victim

Attorney General says no to contempt against Swara Bhaskar

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Aug 23: Attorney General of India has rejected request to file contempt case against actor Swara Bhaskar for her comments on Ayodhya order.

"The statement was the "perception of the speaker" on the judgment of the Supreme Court and "does not offer any comment on the Supreme Court itself or say anything that would scandalise or tend to scandalise... the authority of the Supreme Court", Attorney General K K Venugopal said in a statement.

"In my opinion, this statement does not constitute criminal contempt," the Attorney General said.

As a Yogi, I will not go for Ayodhya Mosque inauguration says UP CM Adityanath

K K Venugopal's consent was sought to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against Bollywood actress Swara Bhaskar for her alleged "derogatory and scandalous" statements against the Supreme Court on its verdict in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute case of Ayodhya.

The plea has alleged that Bhaskar made these statements at a panel discussion on February 1, 2020, organised by 'Mumbai Collective'.

It claimed that Bhaskar had made "derogatory and scandalous" statements against the courts in the country and mentioned the Ayodhya case judgement.

The consent of either the Attorney General or the Solicitor General is necessary under section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act 1971, for initiating contempt proceedings against a person.

A five-judge constitution bench of the apex court had on November 9 last year delivered a unanimous verdict paving the way for construction of Ram Temple at the disputed site at Ayodhya and had directed the Centre to allot a five-acre plot to the Sunni Waqf Board for building a mosque.
Justice minister Helen McEntee has asked the chair of the International Protection Appeals Tribunal to "urgently" review a speech given by one of its part-time members at an anti-mask protest in Dublin on Saturday.

Barrister Una McGurk spoke against the wearing of masks at the event, which was organised by the Yellow Vests Ireland group.

A statement from the Department of Justice said that Ms McEntee would ask Hilkka Becker, the chair of the tribunal which hears and determines appeals by asylum seekers, to prepare a report on Ms McGurk's appearance at the event.

"The International Protection Appeals Tribunal is run independently of the Department of Justice and Equality, by law," the statement read. "The part-time members are appointed following a recommendation from the Public Appointments Service.

"It is expected that the code of conduct that applies to part-time members of the tribunal will apply. The minister has statutory powers to remove a part-time member of the IPAT, but obviously can only act in a considered fashion, following a report from the tribunal itself.

"The minister has asked the chair of IPAT to act urgently on this matter. It would not be appropriate to comment further before any report has been prepared."

Minister for Children, Disability, Equality and Integration Roderic O'Gorman said that he had raised concerns with Ms McEntee.

"It is vital that all members of the IPAT are objective in their work and that they are seen to be objective. Ive raised my concerns over yesterdays protest with Minister McEntee and Ill be keeping in contact with her about this issue."

Sinn Fein's justice spokesperson Martin Kenny said that the issue must be addressed quickly.

Ms McGurk claimed that the Government is asking people to wear masks, not for their own protection, but to 'test how compliant (people) are'," he said.

This is dangerous nonsense and it is of great concern to me that someone affiliated to such a group would have any say about the appeals of people seeking asylum in this State."
Wilkes-Barre, PA (18701)

Today

Cloudy skies early, followed by partial clearing. A few flurries or snow showers possible. Morning high of 30F with temps falling to near 20. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Bitterly cold. Considerable clouds early. Some decrease in clouds late. Low 9F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, following suspicions over his growing ties with Iran, said that it would be a great idea to purchase missile systems from the Islamic Republic after Colombian President Ivan Duque Marquez accused him of such shrouded plans.

In a tongue in cheek remark, Maduro lauded the Colombian President for suggesting so and said the idea of buying missile systems from Iran had not occurred him or his administration.

Growing ties between Iran and Venezuela

According to Independent UK reports, during a televised meeting, wherein Maduro was speaking to his cabinet ministers, the Venezuelan President told his Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino to take note of the idea and then joked that they should also try to keep it a secret. Bilateral ties between Venezuela and Iran have seen an uptick in recent months with both nations joining hands against aggressive US sanctions.

In defiance of US sanctions, Iran delivered 1.53 million barrels of gasoline to Venezuela and has also been providing the Latin American country with supplies and skilled labour.

Earlier, Colombian President Marquez had cited anonymous intelligence reports in his accusations against Venezuela and claimed that in addition to trying to secure missile systems, Venezuela was also supplying armed groups in Colombia with weapons made in Russia and Belarus.

The Colombian President, as well as 50 other countries, do not consider Maduro to be the legitimate head of Venezuela and have called him a dictator. They consider opposition leader Juan Guaido to be the nations president.

The allegations against Venezuela were made by the Colombian President during a virtual event, and immediately after Venezuelas Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza termed them baseless. She claimed the accusations were made up in an attempt to distract people from the fact that Colombia still suffers from constant massacres, uncontrolled violence, and drug trafficking.

Read: Venezuela Offers Assistance In Producing COVID-19 Vaccine To Russia, China

Read: Online Exchange Blocked In Venezuela Ahead Of Health Bonuses

However, the accusation, irrespective of its merits, alarmed people in Washington. Florida Senator Rick Scott, in a tweet, said any attempts by Venezuela to buy missiles from Iran were dangerous and that the continued presence of China and Iran in the country was a threat to the United States and regional.

Venezuela and the surrounding region have been in a volatile state for years now. In the last national election, the results were contested with led to both Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido declaring themselves as President of Venezuela.

The move was followed by political turmoil in the country forcing thousands of people to flee from Venezuela. Currently, more than 1.7 million Venezuelans reside in Colombia. Venezuela also contains one of the largest reserves of oil in the world making the country extremely strategically important.

Read: Colombia Accuses Venezuela's Maduro Administration Of Trying To Acquire Missiles From Iran

Read: A Visual Impaired Radio Host Faces Pandemic From Venezuela
"I have certainly seen it and Ive heard similar reports from colleagues," Austin Hospital director of intensive care Dr Stephen Warrillow said. "There may be something about COVID where oxygen levels fall and they kind of feel okay and they can even look okay and they suddenly hit a wall." Austin Hospital director of intensive care Dr Stephen Warrillow, in one of the hospital's wards earlier this year. Credit:Justin McManus Doctors historically sedated people with very low levels of oxygen, quickly hooking them up to mechanical ventilators. But now, many are keeping COVID-19 patients conscious for as long as possible and having them roll over in bed, continuing to breathe on their own with oxygen support. There are also notable differences with coronavirus when compared to other viruses that invade the lungs such as swine flu. COVID-19 patients often become sickest seven to 10 days after testing positive. There seems to be this pattern where they may have a second, later deterioration," Dr O'Brien said.

Patients have appeared to be recovering from the virus only to be taken off a ventilator and then deteriorate quickly again a few days later. Everything about the way we nurse has changed, Royal Melbourne Hospital intensive care nurse Annette Dlugogorski said. We used to have all the staff gathered together in a room with a patient, but now, we might have one nurse in there speaking to a doctor with a team on loudspeaker on the phone outside the room. Annette Dlugogorski and a colleague care for a patient in Royal Melbourne Hospital's intensive care unit. Credit:Joe Armao As Australian doctors and nurses watched their colleagues in faraway lands grapple with the unusual virus in January, they have had to learn as they went. Ms Dlugogorski spent days in simulation training learning how to safely put on and remove full protective equipment. Then, there was a sense we had dodged a bullet in April, before a second, more deadly surge of infections.

Staff in the intensive care units across Australia have learnt to sweat beneath pale blue isolation gowns, masks and face shields that dig into their skin as they check vitals, hovering inches away from the airways of coronavirus patients. Loading Hospitals with empty waiting rooms and bedsides have become the new normal. But it is the absence of family in the intensive care units that doctors and nurses struggle with most; the calmness that comes with having a loved one by a patients bedside or feeling their touch. The way their presence can slow down the heart rate of a distressed patient. You can learn so much about the patient from their family, said Ms Dlugogorski. "It's really hard seeing a family member saying goodbye to a dying patient and not be able to give them a hug. Whenever I think about it, it makes me really sad."

Royal Melbourne Hospital intensive care nurse Annette Dlugogorski. Credit:Joe Armao When Ms Dlugogorski calls families to update them, sometimes she puts the phone on loudspeaker so their loved one can hear their voices. Other times, she quietly reassures patients with messages from their family. If it was my loved one, thats what I would want for them, she said. "Its privilege to look after these people. We try our best to comfort them. Unless death is imminent, families are not allowed to visit. Gut-wrenching decisions are made over which two people should witness their loved ones final living moments. "It is heartbreaking," Western Health intensive care doctor James Douglas said. "Hard conversations with families are made even more challenging."

Intensive care doctor James Douglas at the ICU ward at Western Health's Sunshine Hospital. Credit:Penny Stephens It was late in the evening during his shift at Sunshine Hospital early this year, when an elderly man gasping for breath with a fever walked in. Chest x-rays revealed shadows on his lungs. I remember thinking this is probably it, Dr Douglas said. It's been incredible to see how quickly research is being done and new treatments are coming out." But in between the sheer exhaustion, the seemingly endless cycle of hard shifts of caring for our sickest in the toughest of times, there are stark moments of beauty when the ordinary becomes the magical. There are the days a coronavirus patient sits up in bed for the first time, or a group of nurses and doctors clapping and cheering as another patient takes their first step in weeks. It can be hearing a patients voice for the first time as they are weaned off a tracheostomy tube inserted into their throat to help them swallow.

At the start, they cant speak or they dont have their voice back yet," Dr Douglas said. "But as they get better and their lungs slowly improve, you can deflate the little balloon in it and suddenly they can speak again. Seeing their eyes widen and the smile on their face when they hear their own voice is incredibly special." Without a vaccine or cure, Melbourne hospitals are trialling the promising antiviral drug remdesivir with preliminary evidence suggesting it can hasten the recovery of hospitalised COVID-19 patients by interrupting the virus ability to replicate. Doctors are also administering anti-inflammatory drug dexamethasone which seems to reduce the chances of dying if you're in hospital. Each week, Western Health runs a medical journal group where doctors analyse the latest coronavirus studies emerging globally and tweak their treatments.

We now know the people who are more at risk, Dr Douglas said. Men seem to get sicker and need ICU care more than women. Elderly people seem to preferentially be hit along with those with underlying health problems like heart disease and obesity." Loading Dr Douglas has also cared for young, healthy patients and men in their 40s, like him. We are very lucky in Australia that we have incredibly good healthcare system, Dr Douglas said. At Western Health, we are seeing some of the highest caseloads of anywhere. The fact we have still been able to do one nurse per critically ill COVID patient and we havent expanded our ICU into triple or quadruple numbers has meant that we can give the same model of care more that we normally do. More than 2000 healthcare workers have become infected with COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Some have been left fighting for life and fears are growing that many are being infected in their workplaces.

It something that causes a lot of anxiety, Dr Douglas said. "It is always in the back of your mind. Youre in this uniquely horrible, yet incredibly privileged situation of actually being able to help people during a very, very difficult time. ICU nurse Steph Lord treats a coronavirus patient at The Austin hospital, one of the many facilities to undergo expansions in preparation for a surge in patients. Credit:Justin McManus Recovery for coronavirus patients is gruelling. For every day spent in intensive care, a patient will likely spend a week in a recovery ward. For those who experience organ failure, the prognosis declines sharply. If a patient is sick enough to need dialysis mortality rates hover at 50 percent. Loading As the rates of new infections plummet across Melbourne for the first time in weeks, promising signs are on the horizon. On Friday, just one coronavirus patient was in The Austin's intensive care unit.
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has declared that the massive wildfires wreaking havoc across California, which have already burnt over 1 million acres of land and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents, were a major disaster and has released federal aid.

Currently, more than 14,000 firefighters were battling to contain the blazes which were caused by over 12,000 dry lightning strikes last week during a historic heat wave in which temperatures in the Death Valley National Park reached the highest since 1931, the BBC reported.

On Saturday, CalFire, the state's fire department, said that people should brace for more lightning till Tuesday and make further evacuation plans.

According to local authorities, at least six deaths were linked to the wildfires that are believed to be the "largest ever".

Most of the destruction has been caused by three large fire complexes in mountainous and wooded rural areas.

On Saturday, California Governor Gavin Newsom said the S.C.U. Lightening Complex group of about 20 fires south and east of San Francisco is the third-largest in the state`s history, the BBC reported.

Video tweeted by the Governor showed burnt tree stumps against the reddened fumes-filled sky and plumes of white smoke rising from ash-laden ground.

Although California is used to wildfire, Newsom called the fires unlike anything the state had seen before.

"If you don't believe in climate change, come to California," the BBC quoted the Governor as saying.

An evacuation order on Saturday extended to thousands of people in the Bay area near San Jose and warned others to be prepared to abandon their homes at short notice.

It is about 10 per cent contained.

The largest wildfire, called the L.N.U. Lightening complex, is in the prominent wine-growing areas of Napa and Sonoma north of San Francisco and is just 15 per cent contained, CalFire said on Saturday.

Further south in Santa Cruz county, 115 homes have been destroyed and some residents evacuated.

California is also facing electricity shortages, which have caused rolling blackouts for thousands of customers.

Officials have appealed for residents to use less power or risk further cuts.

Satellite images show smoke blanketing nearly all of California, as well most of Nevada and southern Idaho.

Officials have advised people to remain indoors due to the poor air quality outside.

The largest fire recorded in the state was the Mendocino Complex blaze in 2018, according to Cal Fire.
A Suffield woman said her military veteran brothers cremated remains went missing for 12 days after she tried to mail them to her sister.

Jean Egan told news outlets Friday she had tried to mail the remains of Scott Egan to her sister in Maryland on Aug. 7, the Journal Inquirer reported.

She said she mailed the package with two-day expedited shipping and noted their contents on the outside of the package. A week later, they still were not delivered.

Speaking before a group of reporters with U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn, in Suffield Friday, Egan said her brother was missing in action inside the postal service due to budget cuts, and that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy had been derelict in his duty to the American people and military families.

Everyone is harmed by this, and I hope that by sharing our familys private pain that we can bring public attention and Senator Blumenthal and other members of congress can do their duties to pass full funding for the United States Postal Service, Egan said Friday while holding a portrait of her late brother.

In a tweet, Blumenthal said Egans remains were lost for 12 days due to the delays & disruptions from Postmaster Generals cutbacks & downsizing, the latest broadside against the embattled federal agency that has faced criticism for service delays ahead of the November elections.

Blumenthal, who appeared beside Jean Egan and a photo of her deceased brother during Fridays press conference, in his tweet called on DeJoy to apologize to the Egan family and offer an explanation for the delay.

A spokeswoman for the postal service said the agency apologizes for the delay.

There was misdirection given at the point of mailing and we are working with our personnel around the state to, again, raise awareness in proper procedures for handling cremated remains, said Maureen Marion, a spokeswoman for the postal services New England region.

Later on Saturday, the Connecticut senator called for DeJoy to resign in another tweet.

By conducting cutbacks & downsizing, DeJoy is sabotaging our mail with damaging, debilitating delays, the tweet reads.

The cutbacks Blumenthal is referring to include removing mail sorting machines, erasing overtime pay and cutting leadership positions.

That came as communities around the state rallied in support of the United States Postal Service Saturday, a week after President Donald Trump admitted he was blocking money to the agency to make it harder to process mail-in ballots in the election this fall.

Jean Egan said her brother died in a Veterans Administration hospital in Virginia. He served in the military from 1973 to 1988 and has a son currently serving in the U.S. Navy.

Scott and Jean Egans father served during the second world war, she said.

Egan contacted Blumenthal and U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy after entering the tracking number for the package on the day it was supposed to have been delivered, and realizing it had first been scanned into the system that same day  five days after she dropped it off.

The package sat in a U.S. Postal Service facility in Springfield until they were found, the Journal Inquirer reported.

Some 12 days after those remains were sent they were delivered by a postal worker who drove for two hours each way... without overtime to deliver those remains to Jeans sister, Blumenthal said Friday.
According to data from Eurostat, residents of the Grand Duchy face the second-highest prices for meat in the EU.

Compared to the average EU price level index, meat in Luxembourg is 1.41 times more expensive, beaten only by Austria (1.45).

France (1.31), the Netherlands (1.27) and Belgium (1.25) round out the top five.

On the other end of the scale, if you're looking for a cheap barbecue, head to Poland or Romania (0.63 times the average price).

Maybe it's a good time to consider vegetarianism!
Spokeswoman for former prime ministers party says 59-year-olds condition is serious, with high fever.

Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has tested positive for the novel coronavirus and is in a serious condition with a fever, her partys spokeswoman has said.

Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) has warned the country is on the brink of a nationwide outbreak following the highest daily number of coronavirus cases recorded since March.

India has had the highest number of daily new cases in the world for the last 18 days, with more than 50,000 new cases every day.

More than 23.1 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 around the world, and more than 14.91 million have recovered. At least 804,400 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Coronavirus is circulating four times more among people under 40 in France than among those over 65, health minister Olivier Veran said, as France reported an additional 3,602 new COVID-19 cases.

Here are the latest updates:

Sunday, August 23

23:15 GMT  Trump announces plasma treatment for COVID-19

US President Donald Trump has announced the emergency authorisation of convalescent plasma for COVID-19 patients, in a move he called a breakthrough, one of his top health officials called promising, and other health experts said needs more study before it is celebrated.

The announcement came after days of White House officials suggesting there were politically motivated delays by the Food and Drug Administration in approving a vaccine and therapeutics for the disease that has upended Trumps reelection chances, according to AP news agency.

On the eve of the Republican National Convention, Trump put himself at the centre of the FDAs announcement of the authorisation in a news conference on Sunday evening.

The blood plasma, taken from patients who have recovered from the coronavirus and rich in antibodies, may provide benefits to those battling with the disease. But the evidence so far has not been conclusive about whether it works, when to administer it and what dose is needed.

According to Johns Hopkins University, the US has almost 5.7 million cases and almost 177,000 deaths linked to COVID-19.

20:05 GMT  Whats behind the record rise in global COVID-19 infections?

Nearly nine months since the new coronavirus was detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the COVID-19 disease it causes appears to be spreading faster than ever around the world.

Some countries are reporting their highest daily infection rates. India passed three million cases after recording just under 70,000 on Sunday.

South Korea  a country praised for its initial handling of the coronavirus pandemic  has reported its highest daily total since March, while Germany, France, Spain and Italy are also recording rising daily figures.

Should we be worried, and are further lockdowns needed?





18:45 GMT  Virus cases keep rising in Italy

The number of daily coronavirus cases recorded in Italy has nearly doubled in the past five days, jumping to more than 1,200 over the past 24 hours.

The rise was closely linked to travel and summer entertainment for holidaymakers, according to an official report.

Italy recorded 1,210 cases in the past 24 hours, compared 642 on Wednesday, latest official figures showed. On Saturday, 1,071 new cases were recorded, with 947 cases registered on Friday and 845 on Thursday.

The biggest number of cases was recorded in the northern Lombardy region with 239, followed by the Rome region where there were 184 further cases and the Venice region which had 145.

18:30 GMT  Trump administration considering UK COVID-19 vaccine before election

The Trump administration is considering fast-tracking an experimental COVID-19 vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca Plc and Oxford University for use in the US ahead of the November 3 elections, the Financial Times reported.

One option being explored would involve the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) awarding emergency use authorization in October to the potential vaccine, which was developed by Oxford and licensed to AstraZeneca, the FT reported.





18:25 GMT  France reports post-lockdown daily record of 4,897 new coronavirus cases

The French health ministry has reported 4,897 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, marking the highest daily level since the end of a two-month lockdown in May to combat the pandemic.

The ministry said the total coronavirus deaths in the country had risen by one in the past 24 hours to 30,513.





17:45 GMT  Florida reports fewer than 3,000 new coronavirus cases

Floridas coronavirus case load has surged past the 600,000 mark but the state has reported one of its lowest daily totals in two months over the past 24 hours, continuing a downward trend that began five weeks ago.

A total of 2,974 new cases were reported on Sunday, only the second time since June 22 that fewer than 3,000 new cases have been tallied in a day. The other time was Monday, when 2,678 cases were reported. Sundays and Mondays often have a low number of reports as not all hospitals report on the weekend.

The daily total peaked on July 15 when more than 15,000 cases were reported, but has been declining since.

Hospitalisations due to COVID-19 have also been declining. Late on Sunday morning, 4,578 patients were being treated for the disease in Florida hospitals compared to Saturdays 4,773. It is a drop of almost 800 since Thursday. Hospitalisations peaked at above 9,500 on July 23. Overall, the state has now reported 600,571 confirmed cases.

15:35 GMT  UK records 1,041 new coronavirus cases

The United Kingdom has recorded 1,041 new cases of COVID-19, down from 1,288 on Saturday, government figures showed.

Six people died after testing positive for the coronavirus within the previous 28 days, compared with 18 deaths announced on Saturday.





15:25 GMT  Peru: 13 killed as police raid club breaking coronavirus curbs

Thirteen people have been killed in a stampede at a nightclub in Perus capital, Lima, after a police raid to enforce the countrys coronavirus lockdown measures, according to officials.

At least six others were injured, including three police officers, as about 120 people tried to escape the Thomas Restobar club on Saturday night shortly after police arrived to break up a party on its second floor, national police and government officials said.

Local media reported that the victims were in their 20s.

Read more here.





15:05 GMT  Ukraines ex-leader Tymoshenko in serious condition with coronavirus

Ukraines former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has tested positive for the novel coronavirus and is currently in a serious condition, her partys spokeswoman said on Sunday.

Sadly, this is the truth, Marina Soroka, spokeswoman for the Fatherland party, said in a Facebook post. The 59-year-old politician is fighting with a temperature of 39 degrees, Soroka said. Local media reported that some members of Tymoshenkos family were also infected.

Tymoshenko was twice prime minister of Ukraine and became famous in 2004 as the face of widespread protests against corruption and election rigging, known as the Orange Revolution. She has also been jailed twice.

She stood for the third time in Ukraines presidential elections in 2019, but failed to gain sufficient support. Ukraine has so far recorded 107,379 cases of the virus, and a death toll of 2,313.

14:05 GMT  UKs top medical officers defend opening of schools

Englands chief medical officer has joined his counterparts in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales in saying that children are less likely to contract the virus than adults and have an exceptionally low risk of dying from COVID-19.

By contrast, they said studies show that not going to school limits childrens ability to succeed in life and may worsen physical and mental health problems.

Very few, if any, children or teenagers will come to long-term harm from COVID-19 due solely to attending school, they said in a statement. This has to be set against a certainty of long-term harm to many children and young people from not attending school.

The statement comes as parents and teachers express concern about reopening schools next month amid fears that social distancing measures wont keep children safe.





14:00 GMT  Pakistan reports four new coronavirus deaths, 591 cases

Pakistani authorities have reported four new COVID-19 fatalities in the past 24 hours, the fewest deaths since March.

The announcement raises hopes that Pakistan is on the right path to fully contain the coronavirus despite having a fragile health system. The National Command and Control Center also reported 591 new cases, increasing the countrys caseload to 275,836, including 6,275 deaths.

Pakistan witnessed a sudden spike in infections and deaths in June, but confirmed cases and fatalities have gradually declined since then. The latest development comes days after Pakistans drug regulatory agency approved final-phase testing of a Chinese-made coronavirus vaccine.

Pakistan hopes it will get the vaccine on priority from neighbouring China if its clinical trials show success.





12:30 GMT  Irish parliament to be recalled early in wake of virus breach scandal

Irelands parliament is to be recalled from its recess early as public anger grows over the breach of coronavirus restrictions by senior politicians.

Opposition leaders have been calling for an early recall after it emerged last Thursday that senior government figures and the European Union Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan had breached regulations by attending a golf society dinner with more than 80 diners.

A government spokesperson told national broadcaster RTE Saturday that Prime Minister Micheal Martin and his deputy Leo Varadkar had asked the commissioner to consider his position.

The Minister for Agriculture Dara Calleary resigned his post on Friday along with Deputy Chairman of the Senate, Jerry Buttimer, over their attendance at the event.

12:00 GMT  Sicilian president wants to expel migrants due to COVID-19 risks

The president of Sicily has issued a decree ordering the mass expulsion of asylum seekers from the island because of novel coronavirus contagion risks.

It is unclear how the drastic measure could be implemented, and whether the Sicilian has the authority to issue it. There was no immediate response to the move from the Interior Ministry in Rome.

Sicily cannot be invaded, while Europe is turning a blind eye and the government is not enacting any pushbacks, President Nello Musumeci wrote on Sunday on Facebook, publishing his decree which is valid until September 10.

11:35 GMT  Local virus outbreak in Myanmar sparks fears for Rohingya camps

Rohingya in Myanmars conflict-wracked Rakhine state expressed fears of a coronavirus outbreak reaching their overcrowded camps, after a spate of infections sent the state capital into lockdown.

Nearly 130,000 Rohingya Muslims live in what Amnesty International describes as apartheid conditions in camps around Sittwe.

The city has recorded 48 cases in the past week, making up more than 10 percent of the about 400 cases so far registered in Myanmar.

We are extremely worried about the virus because we are living in limbo and it wont be easy to control, said Rohingya Kyaw Kyaw.

10:32 GMT  Russia plans COVID-19 vaccine output at 6 million doses a month

Russia expects to produce between 1.5 million and two million doses per month of its potential COVID-19 vaccine by the years end, gradually ramping up production to six million doses a month, the RIA news agency cited industry minister Denis Manturov as saying.

Large-scale testing of the vaccine, developed by Moscows Gamaleya institute, is due to start in Russia next week.

10:15 GMT  Philippines coronavirus cases rise close to 190,000

The Philippines recorded 2,378 new coronavirus infections, its smallest daily spike in nearly four weeks, but the nationwide tally rose to 189,601, still the highest in Southeast Asia.

In a bulletin, the department of health also reported another 32 fatalities, bringing the countrys death toll to 2,998

09:00 GMT  Italy rules out new lockdown as coronavirus cases rise

The Italian government is not considering new lockdowns to curb coronavirus infections despite a steady rise in new cases over the past month, health minister Roberto Speranza said.

Speranza told daily newspaper La Stampa the current situation cannot be compared with February and March when the disease was out of control and it was difficult to track and isolate infected people.

I am optimistic, although prudent. Our national health service has become much stronger.

08:35 GMT  Indonesia reports 2,037 new coronavirus cases

Indonesia has reported 2,037 new coronavirus cases, bringing its tally to 153,535, data from the countrys COVID-19 task force showed.

The Southeast Asian country also added 86 COVID deaths on Sunday, taking the total number of deaths to 6,680  the highest in Southeast Asia.

07:58 GMT  Bangladesh: Religious secretary infected by coronavirus

Bangladeshs religious affairs secretary and his wife tested positive for the novel coronavirus, an official said on Sunday.

Religion Secretary Md Nurul Islam and his wife tested positive for the coronavirus. Both of them are under treatment at the Rajarbagh Police Hospital, Mohammad Anwar Hossain, a senior information officer at the Ministry of Religious Affairs, said.

According to the directorate-general of health services, the death toll in the country rose to 1,907 and the total number of confirmed cases is 292,625.

06:38 GMT  UK PM Johnson says schools must reopen

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has told allies that failure to reopen schools is not an option, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported.

Earlier this month, Johnson said reopening schools in September was a social, economic and moral imperative, insisting schools would be able to operate safely despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Sunday Times reported this month that Johnson had ordered a public relations campaign to ensure schools open on time.

05:40 GMT  India surpasses 3 million COVID-19 cases

Indias coronavirus tally crossed the 3 million case mark, the countrys health ministry said, just 16 days after the number of cases surpassed 2 million.

An update released by the health ministry showed the death toll stands at 56,706. In the last 24 hours, the country recorded close to 70,000 new cases.

Ministry figures show the western state of Maharashtra reported the highest number of cases in the country.

Read more here.

Hello, this is Linah Alsaafin taking over from my colleague Ted Regencia.

04:45 GMT  Germany reports 782 new cases

Germanys Robert Koch Institute has reported at least 782 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, bringing the countrys total to at least 232,864.

The country also reported two more deaths, bringing the total fatalities to 9,269.

At least 207,600 patients have recovered, which is equivalent to an 89-percent recovery rate.

04:30 GMT- Australias Victoria reports another 208 infections

Australias state of Victoria reported another 208 new cases and 17 new deaths on Sunday.

Australia now has a total tally of more than 24,800 infections and 502 deaths.

But Victorias top health official, Peter Sutton, made an assurance that overall the situation remains positive, and that if the trend continues, he expects the daily numbers to drop below 150 next week.

04:05 GMT  Italy links surge in new cases to vacationers from Sardinia

Confirmed cases increased from 947 on Friday to 1,071 on Saturday, with many infections confirmed in travellers who were tested as they disembarked from planes or ferries [Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via AP]

Vacationers returning to the Italian mainland from Sardinia helped push Italys daily caseload from 947 on Friday to 1,071 on Saturday, with many infections confirmed in travellers who were tested as they disembarked from aeroplanes or ferries.

Authorities in Lazio, the south-central region including Rome, say 45 percent of its 215 new cases Saturday were from people returning from Sardinia, where several clusters have been linked to discos or private parties on the posh Emerald Coast resort area.

While the average age of infection early in the outbreak hovered near 70, it is now 30.

Italy has more than 258,000 confirmed cases. With three more deaths, the known total has reached 35,400.

03:40 GMT  China reports 12 new cases

Chinas National Health Commission reported on Sunday at least 12 new confirmed coronavirus cases, bringing to over 89,600 the total number of infections.

The agency also said the death toll since the outbreak started in the city of Wuhan stands at 4,634 with no new deaths.

According to the government, 422 patients remain in the hospital, 16 in critical condition.

02:15 GMT  South Korea reports highest daily cases since March

Health authorities said many of the new cases were traced to a church in northern Seoul and a massive weekend rally also in the capital [Ahn Young-joon/AP]

South Koreas daily new virus cases spiked to 397 on Sunday  the highest since March 7- as infections were reported in all major cities and provinces, according to Yonhap news agency quoting the health ministry. The countrys total caseload has risen to 17,399 while the number of deaths remained at 309.

Of the new cases, 387 were local infections, 297 of them in Seoul and the surrounding areas, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).

Health authorities said many of the new cases were traced to a church in northern Seoul and a massive weekend rally also in the capital.

01:58 GMT  Mexicos coronavirus deaths pass 60,000, cases top 550,000

Mexicos coronavirus death toll has surpassed 60,000 after the countrys health ministry reported 644 additional fatalities.

The government also said there were 6,482 new confirmed infections as of the end of Saturday, bringing the total to 556,216 cases.

00:20 GMT  Coronavirus spreading four times more among 40-year-olds in France

The coronavirus is circulating four times more among people under 40 in France than among those over 65, Reuters quoted Frances health minister as saying.

Olivier Veran said in an interview with Frances Journal Du Dimanche (JDD) that the higher number of cases being detected was not solely down to more testing. Like President Emmanuel Macron, he ruled out the need for another total lockdown but said localised measures could be taken as cases grow.

France reported a 3,602 new infections over the past 24 hours on Saturday, a smaller rise than the previous day. Earlier in the week, however, the number of daily cases had reached a post-lockdown high.

00:01 GMT  Brazil registers 50,032 new cases of coronavirus, 892 deaths in 24 hours

Brazil has reported 50,032 new cases of the novel coronavirus and 892 deaths in the past 24 hours, according to Reuters, citing the health ministry.

Brazil has registered 3,582,362 cases of the virus since the pandemic began, while the official death toll from COVID-19 has risen to 114,250, according to ministry data from the worlds worst coronavirus outbreak outside the US.

______________________________________________________________

Hello and welcome to Al Jazeeras continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Im Ted Regencia in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

For all the key developments from Saturday, August 22, go here.
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Linkedin Juliette Michel (Agence France-Presse) New York, United States  Sun, August 23, 2020 09:43 515 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066fc6f5c 2 Science & Tech TikTok,Donald-Trump,China,united-states,Bytedance,App,crackdown Free

Video app TikTok said Saturday it will challenge in court a Trump administration crackdown on the popular Chinese-owned service, which Washington accuses of being a national security threat.

As tensions soar between the world's two biggest economies, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 6 giving Americans 45 days to stop doing business with TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance -- effectively setting a deadline for a potential pressured sale of the viral video sensation to a US company.

"Even though we strongly disagree with the Administration's concerns, for nearly a year we have sought to engage in good faith to provide a constructive solution. What we encountered instead was a lack of due process as the Administration paid no attention to facts and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses," TikTok said in a statement.

"To ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and users are treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the Executive Order through the judicial system," it said, adding it expects to file its suit next week.

TikTok's kaleidoscopic feeds of short video clips feature everything from hair-dye tutorials to dance routines and jokes about daily life. It has been downloaded 175 million times in the US and more than a billion times around the world.

Trump claims TikTok could be used by China to track the locations of federal employees, build dossiers on people for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.

The company has said it has never provided any US user data to the Chinese government, and Beijing has blasted Trump's crackdown as political.

The US measures come ahead of November 3 elections in which Trump, who is behind his rival Joe Biden in the polls, is campaigning hard on an increasingly strident anti-Beijing message.

Read also: TikTok ramps up defense against US accusations

Trump and China

Trump has increasingly taken a confrontational stance on China, challenging it on trade, military and economic fronts.

Shortly after Trump announced his moves against TikTok in early August, the United States slapped sanctions on Hong Kong's leader over the Chinese security clampdown after last year's pro-democracy demonstrations.

Microsoft and Oracle are possible suitors for TikTok's US operations.

Reports have said Oracle -- whose chairman Larry Ellison has raised millions in campaign funds for Trump -- was weighing a bid for TikTok's operations in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The Trump administration has also given ByteDance a 90-day deadline to divest in TikTok before the app is banned in the United States.

The measures move away from the long-promoted American ideal of a global, open internet and could invite other countries to follow suit, analysts told AFP previously.

"It's really an attempt to fragment the internet and the global information society along US and Chinese lines, and shut China out of the information economy," Milton Mueller, a Georgia Tech professor and founder of the Internet Governance Project said previously.
US President Donald Trump speaks during an event at the Whirlpool Corporation Manufacturing Plant, Aug. 6 in Clyde, Ohio. AP-Yonhap



By Kim Yoo-chul



Ahead of the upcoming U.S. presidential election, the issue of the alleged theft of trade secrets relating to electric vehicle (EV) lithium-ion battery technology between LG Chem and SK Innovation is becoming a political matter with the Korean companies being asked to agree on what has become a "multi-billion" dollar fight.



Such a scenario is gaining clear momentum after U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, Gainesville, asked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to probe what he referred to as "an ongoing effort to illegally employ foreign nationals" at the SK Innovation battery plant in the state of Georgia. SK Innovation is expected to employ more than 2,000 people at the plant in line with the expansion of its production facilities.



The U.S. politician reported the matter to top federal officials citing a May 29 incident at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, when border officials say they "intercepted 33 Korean nationals  who were attempting to enter the United States with fraudulent work authorizations."



SK Innovation officials declined to comment. However, the requests by Collins came as settlement talks are currently under way between LG and SK legal representatives. The USITC recently ruled in favor of LG Chem in a preliminary ruling. Specifically, it said SK Innovation stole LG's battery trade secrets. The body plans to issue a determination in October this year, which if adverse, could block SK from importing equipment to outfit its Georgia plant which in turn could seriously jeopardize contracts with EV manufacturers such as Volkswagen.



LG Chem officials said the company "doesn't want to see a worst-case scenario" reiterating its stance that an agreement could be reached following an apology by SK and a commitment not to repeat "wrongdoings." Of note is that the USTR is in a position to veto a final ruling by the USITC.



SK Innovation is expecting the possible reelection of U.S. President Donald Trump would provide a "fresh impetus" from its standpoint in terms of reversing the USITC ruling.



But industry officials contacted by The Korea Times said Sunday the request by the U.S. politician was demonstrating the de-facto hope by the Trump camp of a settlement in the case as the spread of the pandemic is taking a toll on the recovery trajectory in the U.S. economy.



A recent report issued by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) said a lot of U.S. economists are worried about slowing growth, rising debt and uncertainty over Trump's trade war with China. The CFR said more competitive foreign economies and the rise of automation are reshaping the U.S. labor market, and noted the ongoing criticism by U.S. politicians who said global trade deals were resulting in the losses of manufacturing jobs.



"Clearly, the legal tussle between LG Chem and SK Innovation isn't a matter only between them. The issue is being complicated as a lot of interested parties are involved. The impact of the final USITC ruling will depends on the U.S. presidential election which is approaching. LG and SK will initiate relevant processes for an eventual settlement anytime now," a senior industry executive familiar with the issue said.



SK Innovation is building a new battery plant in Georgia with an investment of 1.1 trillion won. The plant is scheduled to begin operations in 2022. In April, it decided to make an additional 894 billion won investment to build a second plant, there.



As the settlement efforts are reaching a climax, legal representatives for the two Korean companies are discussing details related to the finalization of terms. Sources familiar with the matter said SK Innovation hopes to make a one-off payment of between 1.5 trillion won and 1.8 trillion won to LG Chem, while LG Chem is seeking a comprehensive cross-licensing contract in return for a settlement before the final USITC ruling.



LG officials said its 2017 agreement with China's ATL, for which the latter agreed to pay 3 percent of its sales of safety-reinforced separators is far from the possible settlement with SK in terms of the gravity of the issue. ATL infringed on three of LG's battery separator patents.



"Just like U.S.-based mobile chipset giant Qualcomm is doing to LG Electronics, LG Chem was hoping to receive royalties in sync with the amount of battery sales from SK's battery plants for a certain period. That scenario, if it happens, will clearly help LG Chem continuously invest in its battery business but will be a burden for SK. The point will be how they find a middle ground," the executive added.


When the Democratic Party tapped Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III to deliver the response to President Donald Trumps first State of the Union address in January 2018, it was obvious that party insiders viewed the then-37-year-old congressman as a rising star.

Now, with Kennedy looking to best Sen. Ed Markey in the Democratic Party's Sept. 1 primary, and with the race having turned increasingly bitter, opponents have begun endeavoring to use Kennedy's star power, and his family name, against him.

His effective response: Bring it on.

Folks who know their history, or who are old enough to remember, understand well that Kennedys grand-uncle, the late Edward M. Kennedy, was also once accused of trying to play on his family name, using it as a ticket to a seat in the Senate. That was in 1962, when Jack Kennedy was president and kid brother Ted was just 30. He won that election and went on to serve in the Senate for 47 years, becoming, by any reasonable measure, one of the most consequential lawmakers of his era.

There's little doubt that at least some of those who back Joe Kennedy's candidacy want to see him continue the family tradition. If he could accomplish even a fraction of what his grand-uncle did, he'd serve the Bay State, and the nation, proudly.

The sitting senator, one could reasonably argue, seems sometimes to have forgotten that those in the upper chamber are elected to serve both the nation and their home state. He has increasingly focused on the former, but not always on the latter, and even less so when it comes to Western Massachusetts.

Primary day will also see a contest on the Republican side. Republicans, and unenrolled voters who choose the party ballot, will pick between Shiva Ayyadurai, an entrepreneur who has promoted all manner of conspiracy theories, and Kevin OConnor, a reality-based lawyer. Those voting in that primary should choose OConnor.

Though it's become something of a commonplace to suggest that there's little policy difference between Markey and Kennedy, it's likely that this is largely a function of campaigning, 2020-style. Though both check all the progressive boxes, Markey has increasingly embraced pie-in-the-sky notions that will never become law. Kennedy, one suspects, could be a more grounded senator.

We urge voters to choose Kennedy in the Democratic primary.
By tolerating attacks on police, politicians are setting a reckless example that will inevitably and seriously damage not just other communities, but the very fabric of intergroup relations upon which our city depends.

Over $1 million of damage has been done to police vehicles in vandalism shared on social media and celebrated. Cops out working - diverse men and women who are your siblings, cousins, parents, children and neighbors - are now regularly attacked and disparaged with language that in any other situation would be hate speech.

In the midst of a public health crisis with no end in sight, police and other first responders are depended on to keep a city of nearly 9 million people safe. But no first responders other than cops are being vilified. No first responders other than cops are having their jobs micromanaged by politicians who are rushing to out left one another. No first responders other than cops are being threatened with arrest for doing their job in situations that are always unpredictable, always dangerous and always involving people who do not want to be interacting with law enforcement.

Discussions about policing and accountability are happening locally, statewide and nationally. Recent events, some tragic, have put police work in a spotlight. Police unions are an important voice in those discussions, so lets really talk.

Engage in a thought exercise with me.

Education policy and politics deeply impact issues of diversity, opportunity and equity. There is inequality in our school system that damages outcomes for generations. How to address these problems in ways that keep all students and families engaged in our city is incredibly complicated. Tempers often flare among families, students, unions, activists and public officials.

On the issue of student demographics at Stuyvesant High School, the most prestigious of the specialized high schools students test into, there is an allegation that the school is too Asian, with not nearly enough students of color attending.

Would debate and legislation around that issue justify attacks on Asian-American students? Or vandalizing stores in Chinatown, Flushing, Sunset Park or Dyker Heights? Would it legitimize encampments outside Department of Education headquarters? Would it excuse vicious anti-Asian slurs spray painted on government buildings? Would violence against Chinese and Korean Americans become an acceptable form of social protest?

How to protect tenants from the economic devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic is a constant worry. Whether increased unemployment benefits, hardship vouchers to cover back rent, allowing security deposits to be used for payments or pausing eviction proceedings -- policymakers and advocates have been creative in addressing this critical problem.

Gentrifying neighborhoods have luxury condo towers across the street from affordable housing. Balancing the worries of tenants and the needs of owners to cover their costs is difficult. Anger towards landlords is spiking, fueled by radical tenant activists who want to cancel rent and believe that property itself is a form of theft from the collective good. A prominent tenant organizers profile, when she was on the Steering Committee of the NYC Democratic Socialists, said she hates landlords.

Would any of the above justify violence against landlords? Would City Hall make excuses for a firebomb thrown into a property owners car? How would social media characterize vandalism against the owner of a building in Crown Heights? In the Bronx? In Sheepshead Bay? In East New York?

Race and class impact healthcare. Maternal health, cancer treatment, preventative medicine, emergency care, addiction services and mental health are just some examples of areas in which the race and economic status of the patient contribute to lesser care. Despite enormous gains addressing this disparity, challenges still exist that cost lives. Are healthcare executives targeted the way police are? Hospitals? Doctors? Nurses?

The anti-cop crowd driving too many of the conversations about law enforcement insist that the venom and violence and hate being hurled at cops is a form of expression. Change the nouns in their slogans and you get an entirely different view of things, a more honest view.

Activists -- from the ones inside City Hall to the ones who were camped outside City Hall -- are being intellectually dishonest. Their behavior and their excuses are a slippery slope which is going to hurt us all.

(Ed Mullins is president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association of the NYPD.)
The Ghaziabad Police on Sunday arrested three men who allegedly robbed a guard of his gun from a fuel station in Muradnagar late night on August 16.

The three were identified as Manish Kumar, Vinit Singh and Manoj Sharan, while a fourth suspect identified as Rahul Kumar is absconding.

The police said that Manish, Vinit and Rahul had gone to the motorcycle to the fuel station where they snatched the licensed double barrel gun of guard identified as Naresh Kumar, 47, and fled after firing a shot at him from another weapon, an illegal one.

Vinit was riding the bike while Rahul and Manish rode pillion. Manish sat between the two. Suddenly, there was an accidental fire from Rahuls illegal weapon fired and injured Manish in the back. Thereafter, they took him to hospitals, but all asked them to approach police too, said an officer who requested not to be identified. Thereafter, the men took shelter in a vacant house in Govind Nagar and started treating their injured friend on their own. They also sought help from some people, one of who passed on the information to the police.

The three were arrested from Nabipur near the Eastern Peripheral Expressway.

The men were arrested after investigation involving electronic surveillance and information through informers. The gun which was looted was also recovered as well as the bike which was used during the incident, said Kalanidhi Naithani, senior superintendent of police.

The cops said that a team is trying to track absconding suspect Rahul Kumar and those arrested also have past criminal records registered against their names at Muradnagar police station.
California has lost critical manpower in its fight against the wildfires after more than 800 inmates in a controversial firefighting program were released from state prisons due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The state relies on the prison population to make up a staggering 43 percent of its fire crews, meaning it has been left with a shortage of much-needed resources at a time when they are needed most.

The current crisis facing the state has brought the debate over using prisoners for the essential public service to the fore, given they earn just $1 an hour for the dangerous work and many liken the scheme to slave labor.

Around one million acres of the Golden State have been destroyed over the course of the last week after adverse lightning strikes and hot weather sparked more than 500 mammoth fires.

One of the huge blazes has grown to become the second largest in the state's history and at least six people have been killed.

Firefighting resources have been pushed to the breaking point in the face of the escalating wildfires and Gov. Gavin Newsom is calling on other states and nations to draft in help.

Firefighters work to contain a blaze during the CZU August Lightning Complex Fires on Friday. California has lost critical manpower in its fight against the wildfires after more than 800 inmates in a controversial firefighting program were released from state prisons due to the COVID-19 pandemic

A home is engulfed in flames along Empire Grade Road in the Santa Cruz Mountains community of Bonny Doon near Santa Cruz. The state relies on the prison population to make up a staggering 43 percent of its fire crews

Around 800 inmate firefighters have been released since the pandemic began, under measures aimed at protecting the prison population from a deadly outbreak.

Around 600 of the inmates have taken place since July as cases began to soar again across California.

Prisons are known coronavirus hotbeds, with cramped and often unsanitary conditions creating breeding ground for the virus.

This has taken the state down to 1,659 inmate firefighters from the 2,255 available in April, reported Los Angeles Times.

Cal Fires union leadership spoke out about a loss of inmate firefighters back in April, warning that they make up two-thirds of its force.

As the state now buckles under the weight of some of the biggest fires in its history, its reliance on prison labor for the critical service has been thrown into the spotlight.

Inmates are tasked with carrying out some of the most difficult and dangerous work of fire crews, under a scheme critics slam as exploitative and have long called for abolition.

Incarcerated firefighters are paid just $1 an hour when working on the front lines in the dangerous jobs battling wildfires that regularly strike the state.

Six inmate firefighters have been killed in duty over the last three and a half decades, in what many describe as slave labor.
Lithuanians stood in a human chain stretching more than 30 kilometers from Vilnius to the border with Belarus on August 23 in a show of support for protesters in their neighboring country who are calling for the end of President Alyaksandr Lukashenkas rule.



Organizers estimated that up to 50,000 people participated, many of them dressed in white and wearing face masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.



Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, who participated along with former leaders of the Baltic country, said he was pleased to join so many people in a demonstration of unity with people of Belarus.



"We are with you, free Belarus, and we extend our hand to you," Nauseda said after linking hands at the border in the Freedom Way human chain.



"The nations who had lost their freedom cherish it the most. That is why Lithuania did not hesitate to declare its full support to the Belarusian people who seek to shed the shackles of captivity," he said.



U.S. Ambassador to Lithuania Robert Gilchrist was also in the chain, joining many who held the Belarus opposition's red-and-white flag.



In Vilnius, a hot-air balloon lifted the flag above Cathedral Square, and planes flew over releasing flowers into the crowd.



Opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who has left Belarus for Lithuania, did not attend because of security concerns, according to her team. But she issued a video acknowledging the gesture in the country where she has been staying since the election.



"More than anyone else, you can understand Belarusians, because not so long ago you went through the same as we do now," Tsikhanouskaya said.



Tsikhanouskaya was the main opposition candidate in the August 9 presidential election that officials say Lukashenka won by a landslide. The opposition has disputed the results and said the election was rigged.

Since the election there have been protests daily calling for new elections and Lukashenkas ouster. The streets of the capital, Minsk, were packed with protesters again on August 23.



The Lithuanian human chain marked the anniversary of a mass protest on August 23, 1989, when 2 million people joined arms across the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Known as the Baltic Way, it was a peaceful protest against authoritarian Soviet rule.



Hundreds of people also marched on August 23 in Latvia along the border with Belarus and then formed a human chain in the village of Piedruja as Belarusian border guards looked on from the other side of the Daugava River.



Solidarity rallies and human chains were also held in other European countries, including Estonia and the Czech Republic.



Hundreds of people turned out in Washington to form a human chain, wearing masks and standing about 2 meters apart in keeping with measures to control the spread of the coronavirus. They expressed support for Belarus as they commemorated the 31st anniversary of the Baltic Way.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, and dpa
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Progressives Congress (APC) leadership of the House of Representatives

to shut down the sitting of various committees carrying out

investigation on the executive is a deliberate design to cover the

stench of corruption oozing out of the APC administration.

The party charges the Speaker of the House of Representative, Femi

Gbajabiamila, to stop circumventing the statutory duties of the House of

Representative and placing of wedges in the way of the fight against

corruption by the legislature.

The PDP describes the shutdown order by the APC leadership of the House

of Representatives as a clear example of corruption fighting back from

within the government circle, which must be condemned by all Nigerians.

The party notes that such incursion into the activities of the

committees is to quench the fight against corruption as well as to

frustrate whistle blowers just because APC has become an ocean of

corruption where the members are swimming.

It is clear that the shutdown directive is targeted at frustrating

revelations from ongoing investigations on the $500 billion foreign loan

from China, particularly as it relates to the mortgaging of our nations

sovereignty to China.

This is in addition to the investigations into the humongous corruption

in government agencies including the Niger Delta Development Commission

(NDDC), the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) the N300 billion

unremitted revenue to the federation account as well as allegations of

corruption in government earnings and the expenditure in Ministries,

Department and Agencies (MDAs) under the APC.

It is therefore unfortunate that under the Gbajabiamila-led leadership,

the basic responsibility of the House of Representatives, which is its

oversight on the executive, has just been maimed through a forced

holiday on the members of the respective committees and their Chairmen.

It is equally distressing that the APC leadership of the House of

Representatives is breaching parliamentary rules, practices and

procedures to shield APC leaders and their cronies who have been

fleecing our nation.

Our party therefore holds that any parliament that deliberately

frustrates its statutory responsibility to call the activities of the

executive to question has lost the essence of its own existence. The

leadership that led it into such constitutional suicide must be held

culpable.

Indeed, never in our parliamentary history has committee activities been

suspended or shut down on the ground of holiday or suspension of

plenary.

For us in the PDP, it is shocking that the APC leadership of the House

of Representatives could by any consideration shut down, its

legislative investigation, which is exclusively vested on it under

sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), on the guise

of being on break.

Such an action is calamitous to our democracy.

The PDP however commends the members of its caucus and other minorities

in the National Assembly for standing against corruption and striving to

ensure that the APC does not sell Nigerians into slavery with its

reckless foreign borrowings.

Our party urges the lawmakers not to be deterred but continue in their

assignments, as they are only answerable to the Nigerian people.

The PDP therefore charges the Hon. Gbajabiamila-led APC leadership of

the House of Representatives to immediately reverse itself as Nigerians

expect nothing but seamless investigations without unnecessary

interferences and incursions.

If the Honoruable Speaker is inclined towards allowing the covering of

corruption, against the purpose for which he was elected to lead the

House, then, he should take a bow and step aside.

Signed

Kola Ologbondiyan

National Publicity Secretary

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 23)  Vice President Leni Robredo has raised suspicions over brewing talks of a supposed "revolutionary government" among administration supporters in the middle of a pandemic.

"Ang laking kalokohan niyan (That's such a huge nonsense)," she said in her weekly radio show on Sunday.

Contrary to the usual notion of revolutionary government, Robredo warned that such initiative coming from those who support the administration may only be seeking to overthrow the Constitution.

"Una, ano ba ang gustong sabihin ng call for a revolutionary government? Ang hinihingi dito itapon na yung Constitution natin," she said. "Diyan pa lang iligal na yan. Ang tanong ko, bakit hinahayaan?"

[Translation: First of all, what do they mean when they call for a revolutionary government? They're asking to overthrow our Constitution. That in itself is already illegal. My question is, why is this being tolerated?]

She also said that even the invitation to other public officials such as Philippine National Police chief Archie Gamboa poses an "irony" in one's function to guard the country's institutions.

With a visibly irked tone, Robredo stressed that the government should instead fully devote its attention to more pressing issues while the country continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Pwede ba? Sa panahon na lahat ng Pilipino dapat nagtutulung-tulong...ang dami nating kababayang nagkakasakit, namamatay," she said. "Ang daming frontliners nakataya ang buhay, tapos ang paguusapan natin ganito, parang hindi makatarungan."

[Translation: Please? At a time when Filipinos should be helping each other...our fellow citizens are getting sick, are dying. Many frontliners have been sacrificing their lives, yet we make room for such discussions. It is unjust.]

The Vice President has repeatedly criticized seemingly "misplaced priorities" by the government such as the signing of the Anti-Terror Law and ABS-CBN shutdown over the past months which she said had nothing to do with solving the crisis.

Opposition senator Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan shared the same sentiment on Sunday.

Govt focused on pandemic

Amid these criticisms, Malacanang maintained that the administrations focus remains on the coronavirus pandemic, stressing that the crisis is the most pressing and most urgent concern of the country at this time.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque, however, noted the call to establish a revolutionary government came from a private group and that the concerned individuals are free to "publicly express their opinion.

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra previously said that while there is no harm in advocating for charter change, pushing for a revolutionary government is a different matter as it paves the way for drafting a new constitution altogether.

Defense chief Delfin Lorenzana, on the other hand, said that he will not support groups pushing for the revolutionary government.

Last week, the Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte-National Executive Coordinating Committee launched an event at the Cark Freeport in Pampanga to express their support for a Duterte-led revolutionary government which will help fast-track federalism before the President's term ends in 2022.

Just last month, a group of municipal mayors who were allied with the Duterte administration also called for Cha-cha.

There are still no moves to tackle constitutional amendments in the House and Senate so far, after lawmakers noted that they need to focus on the government's COVID-19 fight for the meantime.

Duterte had previously campaigned on a promise to shift to a federal form of government to spur development in the countryside. But in a speech last year, he indicated acceptance that change is not likely to happen during his term.
With the COVID-19 pandemic still lingering, more large retail chains are filing for bankruptcy and potentially leaving behind empty storefronts in Southeast Texas while local businesses owners try to adapt in order to avoid a similar fate.

The third week of August was a tough one for chain retailers with locations in Southeast Texas, as three different companies announced their bankruptcy filings.

Houstons Stage Stores, which closed out the last holiday season with a huge sale in preparation for turning all of its stores to the discount Gordmans model, officially folded earlier in the week.

It tried to muster hiring fairs in Vidor and Beaumont through March, but met scheduling issues and problems recruiting staff because of the pandemic.

It joined Stein Mart on the growing list of soon-to-be empty stores in Southeast Texas, as the company announced its own bankruptcy last week.

The company tried to revamp its brand with new offerings and even partnered with Amazon to offer pickup services in locations like the Beaumont store.

Beaumonts own Parkdale Mall also faces challenges ahead. Its parent company, Chattanooga, Tennessee-based CBL Properties, announced on Aug. 19 that it could soon be filing bankruptcy after reaching a restructuring agreement with some of its lenders.

It reported the current process would eliminate $900 million in debt and it would continue negotiating with the senior lenders that hold the rest of its millions in debt.

Our goal is for this process to proceed as smoothly and as quickly as possible with no disruption to CBLs operations, CBLs CEO Stephen Lebovitz said in a statement.

Once the process is complete, we will emerge as a stronger and more stable company, with an enhanced ability to execute on our key strategies of diversifying our sources of revenue and transforming our properties from traditional enclosed malls to suburban town centers.

The company took a large hit after it had to temporarily close 68 malls and reportedly collected only 27% of rents in April.

The pandemic and ensuing economic insecurity was the last nail in the coffin for already flagging brick and mortar retailers struggling to keep up with online behemoths like Amazon, but there are also signs that the companies still holding on may have longer to wait before customers return in full force.

The Refinitiv and Ipsos Primary Consumer Sentiment Index used to predict how likely consumers will spend money showed a 2.5% decline in consumer confidence between July and August as severe COVID-19 cases spiked in several states.

The index was at 47.1 in the latest report, a 13.5% fall from the same time last year.

As consumers deal with potential financial difficulties because of massive unemployment from the pandemic or fears about going out in public, businesses have had to adapt to keep their heads above water.

For Traci Tucker at Cottoncreek Winery in Beaumont, that might just take the form of delivering bottles of wine to customers if it helps improve her businesses outlook.

Since Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the closure of any businesses operating under a 51% liquor license, she said the winery has lost any kind of progress that might have built during the two months of limited business they had after reopening in May.

She said she has worked to integrate an online marketplace for the winerys website that has helped make pickup orders easier and allowed her to ship wine within Texas, but it hasnt made up for the drop in revenue from a closed tasting room.

Frustrating is the only word that covers it, she said. We were on track for a record year before COVID, but now were not even making half of what we made in a regular year.

The number of people picking up bottles from the winery ebbed and flowed since the closure in July, but after Tucker joined several other winery and brewery owners to protest Abbotts visit to Beaumont she said customers have flocked to support the winery.

The next move is to try to keep those customers coming consistently, which is why Tucker said she is trying to develop a wine club.

The pandemic has also impacted food prices, as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week, causing fluctuations in commodities and straining supply chains.

Locally, grocers are holding tight but are seeing the occasional shortage and challenges securing enough workers to meet heightened demands.

Skylar Thompson, president of Market Basket Foods, said there have been occasional cost increases for certain items, but business has mostly remained high.

We noticed a slight dropoff when most restaurants reopened, but that didnt last long, he said.

People are cooking at home in larger numbers which has increased our business.

Some of the peaking demands have caused their own problems, like an increase in consumption of canned beverages as fewer people use soda fountains in restaurants.

Thompson said the store has started creating promotions for bottled sodas as its suppliers deal with a shortage of aluminum cans.

The Beaumont-Port Arthur MSA recorded a nearly 12% unemployment rate in July, but hiring has still been an issue for companies like Market Basket.

Thompson said there havent been any major issues because of a lack of available workers, but there have been some concerning trends since the beginning of the pandemic.

Since the beginning of COVID, weve had higher turnover, he said. That said, weve actually seen an increase in positions, but those have mostly been part time jobs.

jacob.dick@beaumontenterprise.com

twitter.com/jd_journalism
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 21:37:29|Editor: huaxia

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GAZA, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- A senior Hamas leader said on Sunday that Israel bears full responsibility of any further military escalation against the Gaza Strip, warning of the continuation of the Israeli blockade.

Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza, told reporters that "the Palestinian resistance has the right to respond to the Israeli crimes against our people in the coastal enclave," referring to the arson balloons launched into the Israeli towns.

Israel had threatened that it would "restore its policy of assassination against us, but it does know very well that we are ready for any new military escalation in Gaza," he added.

Since Aug. 6, the Palestinian coastal enclave has witnessed military tensions with the Israeli army, as the Palestinian youths have been restoring the launch of incendiary balloons toward Israeli cities adjacent to the strip.

As a result, Israeli warplanes targeted dozens of military sites belonging to Hamas movement, in response to the launch of arson balloons.

Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas movement leader, said that there are ongoing communications with the mediators to stop the tensions in the Gaza Strip.

He added that "our position is clear. We will not be patient with the continued Israeli blockade," stressing that the Palestinian people "have the right to defend their rights by using all appropriate means." Enditem
The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the National Democratic Party (NDP) has cleared eight aspirants, in the phase one of its Parliamentary vetting exercise to represent the Party in the Volta Region for the December general elections.



Two other aspirants, Madam Melody Johnson and Julius Kukah, who came up tops for the Ho West Constituency, would have to go through primaries to determine the sole spot for that Constituency.



The aspirants are, Mr Innocent Yao Klodzi, Ketu South; Mr Edem Bankas, Afadzato South; Mr Murama Sanusi, Akatsi South; Madam Innocentia Agbavitor, Ho Central; Mr Gilbert Kassah, Ketu North; Mr Emmanuel Bali, Hohoe; Mr Shadrack Morti, Adaklu and Mr Eugene Siabi Mensah, Central Tongu.



Mr Prince Mensah, Volta Regional Chair of NDP, who disclosed these to the Ghana News Agency at the weekend in Ho, said the rest of the aspirants would go through phase two of the vetting process to enable the Party file candidates for the rest of the constituencies to make up for the 18 slots in the Region.



He said the exercise was a prelude to the Partys national congress slated for September 4-5, this year, in Accra to outdoor its flagbearer, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings.



He said the Party is expected to amend its Constitution and fine-tune strategies to conform to the changing times.



Mr Mensah said regional and constituency campaign teams would be inaugurated in due course to kickstart processes to reach out to the people with the Partys messages and strategies.



Mr Gideon Amoasi Ampah, a representative of the National Executive Council of NDP, said the Party was focused and resolute to change the governance dynamics of the country through tried and tested leadership.



He said the Party was poised to wrestle power from the NPP and the NDC with its laser-guarded campaign messages to change the trend of voting.



The alternative is the NDP, we are ready to transform the fortunes of the country to affect the core of the society.



He said the NDP would deepen participatory democracy by unveiling its Community Organisation Bureau (COB) to reach out to every household with their messages.



Mr Kassah in an interview, said the NDP would win the general elections and was optimistic of annexing the Parliamentary seat from the claws of the National Democratic Congress candidate.



He said the Party stands for youth upliftment and therefore had a prudent programme targeting the youth for nation-building, adding Ghanaians were tired of the government and the NDC, and that the NDP was here to salvage the country for accelerated development.

Source: GNA









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New Delhi, Aug 23 : Amidst tumult and upsurge within a directionless and rudderless Congress, which has virtually been on auto pilot since the last Lok Sabha election, the leadership deficit that is costing the party dearly virtually every day, is once again grabbing centre-stage.

With several leaders deciding to reveal their hand and asking openly for clarity on who calls the shots in the party, the trifurcated leadership of Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is only adding to the confusion.

Like last year's shambolic leadership tussle which finally resulted in Congressmen asking Sonia Gandhi to become interim president to maintain status quo, a repeat cannot be ignored. The sham of picking a new president turned out to be a farce. Equally, at the same time, names of potential candidates for the job who have a buy-in from the family trinity that dominates the party's discourse are being bandied about in a virtual action replay of last year's hurly burly which resulted in the status quo.

Last time, the grapevine spoke of a Working President and regional Vice Presidents under him to reinvigorate the party. None of that happened as the party fell victim to its 'family first' thought process.

The names that are doing the rounds this time for Congress President are Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot who has been in the wars recently and survived in the state, former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, engaged in winning the crucial by-elections in his state, former leader of the Congress in the previous Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, as also Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and outliers like ex Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Hooda and former Information & Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari.

That the time has come for a non-Gandhi family loyalist to be appointed Congress President is now a given and this, to Rahul Gandhi's credit, has been his call from the day the Lok Sabha debacle was known. Organisational elections and a revival of the rank and file of the party on the ground is a huge task which someone like Gehlot can set out to do, after all he was General Secretary (Organisation) for the party till the Congress won Rajasthan.

This will also pave the way for Sachin Pilot's anointment in the state. Gehlot, it is understood, has the approval of both Ahmed Patel and Rahul Gandhi and may well be the consensus man. However, if the status quoists prevail once again and the 'family first' approach gains currency, a consensus may evolve on regional veeps to galvanise the party across the length and breadth of the country.

The election whirligig never ends in India and despite Covid-19, Bihar looms large on the radar followed by West Bengal, Punjab, Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry in April-May 2021. The grand old party remains in complete disarray and barring Punjab and Kerala, and to a lesser extent in Assam, has no presence whatsoever in the states that will go to the polls next year.

A viable opposition is essential for the lifeblood of bipolarity but a leadership deficit due to a reluctant prince running away from his coronation has kept the Congress in suspended animation. For the party to go beyond optics and the usual lip service, it is vital to show genuine inner party democracy and cut the umbilical cord from being merely a family enterprise. That moment may have arrived again but a rerun of last year will leave it further debilitated.
The requirement by many hospitals in Japan that women wear face masks while in labor to prevent coronavirus transmission has stirred debate among new mothers online, with some saying it was distressing while others argue it is essential to reduce infection risks.

Health experts say mask-wearing during delivery poses no danger of oxygen deprivation to mother and child -- one of the concerns raised by critics. But some suggest medical facilities should take a more flexible approach by recognizing the additional stress imposed by the pandemic on parturient women.

In mid-July, an online conversation was sparked when a photo of a notice requiring women to wear face masks during childbirth was posted on Twitter. It is believed to have been taken by a woman during a hospital visit.

"Won't it lead to a lack of oxygen?" asked the woman. "Labor is already tough as it is," one person responded, while another countered by saying, "It is necessary to prevent infections at hospital."

A 26-year-old woman who shared online her experience of giving birth to a daughter in May at a Tokyo hospital while wearing a face mask told Kyodo News she thought the requirement could not be helped.

But she said it made it harder to breathe after her contractions started, adding that she was only told of the hospital's requirement after labor pains hit. "I wish they could have explained it to me earlier," she said.

According to a May survey conducted by the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology, to which 766 delivery facilities across Japan responded, 64 percent ask mothers to wear face masks during childbirth.

Mask-wearing by both medical service providers and mothers lowers the risk of the virus spreading, the society said, asking people to "cooperate as much as possible."

The University of Tokyo Hospital, which oversees around 1,000 deliveries a year, has required women in labor to wear a face mask since April.
Over 20 kilograms (kg) of explosives concealed in jackets, belts and polythene covers, three lithium batteries and a flag of the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group were among the items recovered from the Uttar Pradesh home of Mohd Mustakim Khan (36), the terror suspect who was arrested by the Delhi Police after a brief exchange of fire near the national capitals Dhaula Kuan on Friday night, the police said on Sunday.

Khan, who has been sent to police custody for eight days, is from Uttar Pradeshs (UP) Balrampur district.

Khan, a former cosmetics shop owner, who goes by his alias Abu Yusuf Khan acording to police, was allegedly riding a motorcycle from Dhaula Kuan towards Karol Bagh on Friday night, when he was arrested from the Ridge area. Police said two pressure cooker-based improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were seized from him. The IEDs were loaded with around 12 kg of explosives. A pistol and a few bullets were also recovered from Khan.

Pramod Kushwah, deputy commissioner of police (DCP) (special cell), Delhi Police, had said on Saturday that Khan was acting at the behest of his ISIS handlers, who are based abroad, to carry out lone wolf attacks at places with a high footfall in the national capital.

Also read: I asked him to stop - Wife of alleged ISIS operative held in Delhi

On Sunday, the DCP said that a host of explosives and devices meant to be used for detonation have been recovered from Khans home in UP.

We found a brown and a blue-coloured jackets containing seven explosive packets. Each of these seven packets was wrapped with transparent tape and contained explosives and cardboard sheets pasted with ball bearings. Electric wires were jutting out of these packets, said Kushwah.

The police claimed to have recovered cylindrical metal boxes containing explosives and electric wires wrapped with transparent tape, two more cylindrical boxes with ball bearings pasted over them and a broken wooden box that Khan would allegedly use for target practice.

A dozen boxes containing ball bearings, three lithium batteries, a table alarm watch, an ampere, wires and other smaller subversive items were also seized from his home, said DCP Kushwah.

An IS flag was another incriminating piece of evidence recovered from his home, the DCP said.

Khan was trained in making IEDs with timer mechanism, suicide vests and suicide belts, Kushwah said. Earlier, he had tested an IED at a graveyard near his home, the DCP said.

Khan is accused of being a member of the IS sleeper cell for the past five years. The police are on the lookout for accomplices.
President Trump faces many challenges as the Republican National Convention starts Monday: a pandemic that has killed more than 175,000 Americans, an economy in free fall, high unemployment, and a blossoming racial justice movement firmly opposed to him.

Its no wonder hes trailing Joe Biden in the polls, even in battleground states he won in 2016.

His script was easy before COVID-19: Happy days are here again, said Thad Kousser, a professor of political science at UC San Diego. But COVID and the social movements and the economy complicate that message of, Are you better off than you were four years ago?

In 2016, Trump ran as a change agent promising to make America great again. When he accepted the Republican nomination in Cleveland, he portrayed a crumbling America where attacks on our police and the terrorism in our cities threaten our very way of life.

It was an appeal largely to white people who had an array of grievances  theyd lost jobs to outsourcing or to the 2008 crash and never fully recovered, and some saw immigration as an economic or cultural threat. Trump played to that with baseless warnings of undocumented immigrants with criminal records who were roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens.

It will be hard for him to paint a similar picture again after being in charge for four years. Instead, the theme of Trumps re-election campaign is emerging: If he is voted out, radical Democrats will usher in a return to those dark times.

Look for California to feature prominently as a talking point to drive home that message as the Republicans, like the Democrats last week, gather for a virtual convention to avoid spreading the coronavirus.

Trump has already held up the state as a cautionary tale of what life under Democratic leadership would look like: a place where wildfires enabled by anti-logging environmentalists burn homes and choke the skies with smoke. Where social movement protesters attack police and property in cities including San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles. Where Democratic politicians intentionally implement rolling blackouts.

Each charge is partly or wholly false  many factors contribute to wildfires, most recent protests in California cities have been peaceful, and the states electricity grid is run by the nonprofit California Independent System Operator, not politicians.

Still, Republicans feel this story is easier to tell now that California Sen. Kamala Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney and state attorney general, is on the ticket with Biden.

Its the San Francisco-ization of the Democratic Party, said Shawn Steel, a Republican National Committee member from Orange County.

That imagery is effective, Steel said, because folks in the suburbs dont like to see their cities burning.

Steel said Democrats are making oversimplifications of their own when they attack Trump. Blaming COVID on the president is silly, he said. The president has sought to blame China for covering up the extent of the outbreak there last year, allowing it to spread around the world, though the lack of a quick and consistent federal response when it arrived in the U.S. has contributed to infections here.

Steel added that for voters, This question in this election is going to be: Who is going to get us out of this (situation) the quickest? And I dont think its going to be Joe Bidens socialist policies.

Here are some other trends and story lines to watch for at the four-day convention:

How will Republicans attack Biden and Harris? Whats emerging from the GOP is an argument that radical leftists will slip into power with the 77-year-old Biden hardly realizing it.

Republicans portray Biden as an aged hermit lacking the stamina for the job, something Democrats hope Biden defused with a convention speech in which he was focused and energetic. A Trump campaign ad last month referred to him as hiding in his basement and diminished. Last week another ad juxtaposed clips of him appearing energetic five years ago with 2020 campaign moments in which he lost his train of thought. Its tagline: Did something happen to Joe Biden?

At the same time, Republicans scorn Biden as a willing puppet of the left. Steel calls him a chameleon. Hes changing all the time.

The real power in a Biden administration is going to be a socialist masquerading as a moderate former prosecutor, Republicans say: Harris.

The radical left is firmly in control of the Democrat Party and doddering Joe Biden, Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove (Sacramento County), told the conservative website Newsmax last week. Theres no question that Joe Biden will be a mere figurehead, the real decisions will be made by the radical left, and Kamala Harris is one of them.

While Harris had the most liberal voting record in the Senate in 2019, according to the nonpartisan GovTrack, shes hardly part of the radical left, said Kousser, the UC San Diego political scientist. He pointed out that before Harris abandoned her own presidential run in December, most of the Democratic left wing supported Sens. Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.

Harris isnt the only scary figure for Republicans. The GOP will also portray first-term New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the Democrats rising progressive stars, as a lurking Biden mastermind. Her rhetoric and support for progressive proposals like the Green New Deal environmental plan make for frequent fodder on Fox News, as do those of the three other members of the Squad  fellow first-term Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

Kousser said that may be one reason Democratic Party leaders completely sidelined Ocasio-Cortez during their convention  giving her just one minute of speaking time to second Sanders presidential nomination.

They anticipated that the Republicans would do that, he said.

I alone can fix it: That was Trumps signature line from the 2016 convention. Nobody knows the system better than me, he said then.

Little has changed. Trump has become the center of the Republican universe, to the point where few GOP officeholders dare cross him for fear hell retaliate on Twitter and support a primary challenger.

Trump will be featured every day of the partys virtual convention, which is hardly surprising  Biden was the central figure in the Democratic gathering. But Trumps presence will be outsize: Hes going to give his nomination acceptance speech from the White House grounds, a first. His team is negotiating with the National Park Service to shoot off fireworks over the National Mall afterward.

I think it goes to who he is as a person. Hes very hands-on. He likes to be involved, said Corrin Rankin, a Republican from Redwood City who sits on the campaigns Black Voices for Trump advisory board.

At the same time, Rankin said, the party plans a focus on real people and real stories of how President Trump helped them at the convention.

Its not going to be Hollywood people, Rankin said, drawing a contrast to the celebrities who hosted the Democratic convention. Its going to be real people.

Can the GOP broaden its appeal? Democrats tried to expand their coalition by featuring dissatisfied former Trump backers at their convention and highlighting more people of color and young voters.

Racial and ethnic diversity has never been a strength of the GOP.

You can throw a handful of BBs at a Republican convention and not hit a Black person, comedian Greg Proops, a Biden supporter, told The Chronicle last week.

That imagery is reflected in a Pew Research poll this month that found that 89% of Black registered voters, 67% of Latinos and 63% of Asian Americans surveyed supported Biden. Fifty-four percent of white people surveyed backed Trump.

Meanwhile, Trumps base has remained loyal. A Washington Post-ABC News poll said 82% of Republicans approve of Trump. Trumps overall approval rating, however, is 42%, according to FiveThirtyEight.com.

Trump is doing nothing to show he thinks he needs more than an energized base to win. His political career took off when he made a racist accusation that former President Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and he took a similar line against Harris after Biden named her as his running mate.

Trump said he had heard that she doesnt meet the requirements to be vice president because her parents were immigrants who hadnt gained citizenship. That is false; Harris was born in Oakland, making her a natural-born citizen, the constitutional requirement for being president or vice president.

During a campaign stop in Minnesota, Trump called Harris nastier and meaner and more vicious than Pocahontas, a racist slur he has used for years to refer to Warren.

If anything, Trump appears to believe a racial fear campaign will work with the white middle class as well as economically suffering voters. He repeatedly warns that Democrats want to destroy suburbs by allowing low-income housing to be built there, a thinly veiled racial appeal rooted in the fact that many residents of public housing developments and rent-assisted housing are people of color.

Trump has governed toward his base since day one, Kousser said. Thats not likely to change now.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli
Birmingham Police said they had to break up more than 70 illegal parties on Saturday night despite a rising number of coronavirus infections in the city.

A street rave with marquees and a DJ in the Northfield area of the city, and a large house party in the Quinton area, were among those to be dispersed by officers enforcing the governments social distancing guidelines.

Birmingham Police tweeted: Our officers are out tonight responding to calls about large gatherings.

Please stick to government guidelines and keep safe. House party just dispersed in #Quinton lots of people complying with our advice tonight.

A street rave with marquees and a DJ in the Northfield area of Birmingham. (SWNS)

Great work by our #OpReliant teams tonight who have responded to over 70 street and house parties and other unlicensed events so far. Most people understand why we are doing this - stay safe - dont risk spreading the virus @waheedsaleem pic.twitter.com/brrXGmu3Pm  Birmingham Police (@brumpolice) August 23, 2020

Everyone packed up and went home after we arrived  thank you for complying. Please understand we are still in a pandemic.

Great work by our #OpReliant teams tonight who have responded to over 70 street and house parties and other unlicensed events so far.

Most people understand why we are doing this  stay safe  dont risk spreading the virus.

Birmingham was placed on the government watch list this week after a sharp rise in coronavirus infections.

New COVID-19 cases in the city have been increasing for a few weeks, with 351 recorded in the week to 16 August  up from 256 the week before and 144 the week prior to that.

A large house party in the Quinton area was also peacefully broken up. (SWNS)

It has been designated as an "area of enhanced support" amid growing concerns it may have to enter a local lockdown.

Story continues

Birmingham will see more testing and health secretary Matt Hancock is due to meet city leaders to discuss further steps.

West Midlands mayor Andy Street, who is attending the meeting with Hancock, said some people "had not been strict enough" in keeping up the basic steps.

"People across the region have made an enormous sacrifice since the start of lockdown to keep the virus at bay, but the virus is now returning and recent efforts to counter that have been insufficient, he said.

The government announced on Sunday that fines of up to 10,000 for those organising illegal raves in England will come into force ahead of the bank holiday.

People facilitating or organising illegal raves, unlicensed music events or any other unlawful gathering of 30 people or more will face a 10,000 penalty.

Participants can continue to be issued with fines of 100, while those who have already been fined will see the amount double on each offence, up to a maximum of 3,200.

Home secretary Priti Patel said: "These gatherings are dangerous and those who organise them show a blatant disregard for the safety of others.

"I am pleased the police have already stepped up their response and I am giving them the tools they need to continue to keep us safe.

"We will continue to crack down on the small minority who think they are above the law."

Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK News

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Kamdhenu Paints, a leading manufacturer of high-quality emulsions in the country, is planning a public interest campaign through an exciting contest on its social media platforms. The contest campaign to promote awareness on available options to protect exterior walls from the harmful effect of rain such as algae, fungus, and more, this campaign will be live on social media platforms, Facebook from the 22nd to 24th August 2020.

The gamified campaign involves a bucket of Kamdhenus Weather Classic Max that the users will have to catch inside an outline. Participants can share a screenshot of their catch to stand a chance of winning some exciting vouchers from Kamdhenu.

The onset of monsoon is welcomed with joy as it provides relief from the soaring heat and humidity. However, for homes and other structures, constant exposure to rain can be a cause for worry as exterior walls can become damp, causing the concern, without any timely protective measures. Today there are various products available in the market that will help ensure a worry-free monsoon for one and all.

Talking about the contest, Mr. Saurabh Agarwal, Director, Kamdhenu Paints said, Monsoons are here, and so is the danger to exterior walls from harmful showers of rain, algae, fungus, and more. Kamdhenu Paints have always been known to provide a range of Exterior Emulsions that protects the walls against any weather extremes, and this time we wished to convey the same with the help of a small and interesting contest. Our Weather Supreme & Weather Classic Max emulsion range on the exterior walls makes them water and dirt resistant, has anti-microbiological properties, and provides protection from algae & fungus. The objective behind carrying out this contest is to promote awareness and appeal to our consumers to adopt exterior wall protection products.
Unlike previous years, there was no colourful rally on the streets of nearby Tripunithura on Saturday, as people largely celebrated the Atham festival indoors, marking the start of the 10-day Onam festivities in Kerala, in the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The low-key celebrations began with Tripunithura MLA M Swaraj hoisting the Atham flag symbolically at Tripunithura, officials said.

Locals said various folk art forms like Ammankudam, Pulikkali, Theyyam and Mayilattom and classical art forms like Kathakali used to add colour to the traditional Athachamayam procession at Tripunithura, the erstwhile capital of kingdom of Cochin.

Hundreds of people including foreign tourists used to gather at Tripunithura to enjoy the traditional Athachamayam procession accompanied by floats and folk dance performances, they said.

In the year 2018 and 2019, Athachamayam processions held in Tripunithura were dampened by devastating floods.

This year, the celebrations are marred by Covid-19 pandemic, officials said.

Big celebrations are missing this year due to the measures taken by the administration to prevent the fast spread of novel coronavirus, they said.

The Ernakulam district administration issued a guideline banning public celebrations in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the days of kings, the Maharaja of Kochi used to participate in the procession from Tripunithura to the Vamanamoorthy temple at Thrikkakara.

According to legend, the festival is celebrated to welcome King Mahabali, whose spirit is believed to visit Kerala at the time of Onam to see his subjects.

(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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By PTI

NEW DELHI: Students from across the country have demanded that CBSE compartment exams be cancelled and entrance exams such as UGC-NET, CLAT, NEET and JEE be postponed in the wake of rising COVID-19 cases.

Over 4,200 students participated in a day-long hunger strike demanding the cancellation and postponement of exams.

Using the hashtag SATYAGRAHagainstExamInCovid, students took to Twitter to urge the government to heed to their demands.

Manoj S, a JEE aspirant from Karnataka, said, "We have to report to the JEE exam centre at 7 am. My centre is almost 150 kilometres away and there are no train or bus services available currently.

"Many of my friends have said that their centres are 200 to 250 kilometres away. How are we supposed to travel? How will we write exams wearing masks for seven to eight hours?" He urged the government to postpone the exams till normalcy is restored.

Anisha, hailing from Odisha, said with all the hotels and guest houses closed, where would they stay in case they have to travel for exams.

"I am from Balasore and my NEET exam centre is in Bhubaneswar. I will have to travel for five hours to take my exam. There are no hotels or guesthouses that are open. Where will we stay?" she said.

Siddh Dutt, who will be appearing for CBSE compartment exam, said, "I am an asthma patient. I am scared of what may happen to me if I catch COVID-19."

Madhurima, who said she has to take four different entrance exams, wants authorities to listen to her appeal -- "Please produce a vaccine so that we can take exams.

"I am a JEE, IISER, DUET aspirant and also have to take another entrance exam," she said.

ALSO READ | NEET, JEE exams: Listen to students' Mann ki Baat, arrive at acceptable solution, says Rahul Gandhi

Md Danish Khan from Bhagalpur in Bihar said he has been "allotted an exam centre in Patna, which is a COVID-19 hotspot".

"I do not want to risk the lives of my relatives by staying at their place when I go to take the exam. I also stay in a joint family and if I contract the virus, it will create a chain of infection," he said.

A Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) aspirant from Kolkata, who requested anonymity, said she fears for her parents' safety during this time.

"My father is a diabetic and my mother just had an operation for a tumour. Even if they go to drop me to the exam centre using public transport, I will be putting them at risk. The government is not ready to listen to us.

"We will have to sit and write the exams wearing masks, gloves and headgear under hot weather conditions," she said.

Other students also shared similar woes and urged the government to postpone entrance exams and declare the academic year as a "zero year".

The Left-backed All India Students' Association lent solidarity to the demands of the students.

Top Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, on Sunday, requested the government to defer the all-India medical and engineering entrance examinations taking into consideration the concerns raised by a section of students and parents amid the coronavirus pandemic.

A day ago, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had appealed to the central government to cancel medical and engineering entrance exams JEE and NEET in view of the COVID-19 situation.

He also an alternative admission methodology should be used this year and the exams should not be conducted.

On Friday, Education Ministry officials had said the Joint Entrance Examination (Main) and the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) will be conducted in September as scheduled.

Universities and schools across the country have been closed since March 16 when the Centre announced a countrywide classroom shutdown as part of measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.

A nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24, which came into effect the next day and threw economic activities out of gear.

India's COVID-19 tally sprinted past the 30-lakh mark on Sunday, just 16 days after it crossed 20 lakh, while 22,80,566 people have recuperated in the country so far pushing the recovery rate to 74.90 per cent, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
By AFP

MINSK (BELARUS): Demonstrators massed in central Minsk on Sunday after opposition leaders called for a huge rally to demand the resignation of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, the latest in a wave of protests against his disputed re-election.

The authoritarian leader dispatched his notorious riot police to disperse spontaneous rallies that erupted after he claimed a sixth presidential term in an election two weeks ago that critics say was rigged.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators draped in the red-and-white flags of the opposition flooded Independence Square and marched through the capital chanting "freedom" and "we will not forget, we will not forgive" as passing cars honked in support.

"We have just two demands: fair elections and stop the violence," 32-year-old Igor told AFP.

Officials issued a warning to Belarusians against participating in "illegal demonstrations" and local news outlets published videos on social media showing water cannon and riot police with shields moving towards Independence Square.

The defence ministry said it would intervene to protect "sacred" World War II memorials and several metro stations in Minsk were closed.

Opposition-leaning media and Telegram channels reported that more than 100,000 protesters had convened for the second Sunday in a row and an AFP journalist said smaller demonstrations erupted in provincial cities.

"Lukashenko wants everyone to leave and live like it was. But it won't be like it used to be," said Nikita, a 28-year-old protester.

Solidarity rallies were also due in neighbouring Lithuania, where demonstrators planned to form a human chain from Vilnius to the Belarus border, three decades after residents of the Baltic states joined hands and linked their capital cities in a mass protest against Soviet rule.

No 'second Ukraine'

The EU has rejected the results of the election and has vowed to sanction Belarusians responsible for ballot fraud and a police crackdown that saw nearly 7,000 people arrested and sparked gruesome allegations of torture and abuse in police custody.

Top EU diplomat Josep Borell warned that Belarus should not be allowed to become a "second Ukraine" and said it was necessary to deal with the 65-year-old Lukashenko, Europe's longest-serving leader.

The man branded "Europe's last dictator" has brushed aside the calls to go, dismissed the possibility of holding a new vote and instructed his security services to quell unrest and secure the borders.

His judiciary opened a criminal investigation into the opposition's Coordination Council that is seeking new elections and the peaceful transition of power, after he said opponents wanted to "seize power".

The former collective farm boss ordered the military into full combat readiness during an army inspection on Saturday near the border with the EU and warned about NATO troop "stirrings" in neighbouring countries.

"The fatherland is now in danger. We cannot joke," Lukashenko said.

Lithuania's President Gitanas Nauseda said Lukashenko was trying to "divert attention" from unrest at home, while NATO dismissed the claims as baseless.

'Not afraid'

The unlikely leader of Belarus's opposition, 37-year-old Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, fled to Vilnius fearing reprisals for mounting the greatest challenge to Lukashenko and claiming election victory.

In an interview with AFP ahead of the demonstrations, she urged protesters to continue to exert pressure on the authorities, saying it was "important to continue to be united in the struggle for the rights".

The authorities have to understand "we are not a protest movement... we are a majority and we will not step away. We are not afraid of them any more."

Lukashenko's opponents have organised strikes and the largest protests in the ex-Soviet country's recent history over his re-election, with more than 100,000 people turning out in Minsk alone last weekend.

Yet fewer workers at state-run factories -- usually a bastion of support for Lukashenko -- have continued to strike, with activists citing pressure from the authorities.

The president has threatened from Monday to shut down production lines where workers have put down their tools.

Staff at state-run media outlets have also staged walkouts and Lukashenko admitted this week that journalists from Russia had been flown in to replace them.

His powerful ally, Russia, has warned European leaders against interfering in Belarus and the Kremlin has said it would intervene in the post-election unrest if necessary.

US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun will visit Lithuania as part of a trip next week that will also include a stop in Russia for talks on the election fallout.

He is planning to meet with Tikhanovskaya, her representatives told AFP.

Lukashenko's army inspection came ahead of large-scale military exercises planned on the border with the European Union between August 28 and 31.
Tony Hall will claim he has made the BBC leaner and more efficient than ever in his final speech as director-general today.

His remarks will raise eyebrows among critics who claim the corporation has been wasteful with licence-fee payers cash.

Lord Hall took up the role in 2013 amid the fall-out from Jimmy Savile scandal.

Tony Hall will claim he has made the BBC leaner and more efficient than ever in his final speech as director-general today

He is set to say at the opening session of this years Edinburgh TV Festival: I dont need to remind you, seven years ago we were an organisation in crisis.

There were failings over executive pay-offs. There were fundamental questions hanging over our future.

Today were an organisation transformed, inside and out. Were leaner and more efficient than ever.

Despite Lord Halls claims, the annual report for 2018-19 showed that the staff headcount at the BBCs public service arm had actually gone up from the year before from 18,210 to 19,231 people.

It also showed that the number of on-air talent paid more than 150,000 had gone up from 64 to 75 individuals, although a snapshot for 2019-20 showed it was about the same at 74. The report also showed that overall spending on on-air roles had increased.

Disclosures about on-screen salaries revealed that Gary Lineker was the highest paid star, earning up to nearly 1.75million. But the same report showed the headcount of senior leaders had been slashed, as had other costs.

The BBC is going through a process of severe cuts which is expected to result in thousands of job losses.

In his speech Lord Hall is set to reveal that the corporation has asked for more money from government to help it try to reach a global audience of one billion by the end of the decade.

Despite Lord Halls claims, the annual report for 2018-19 showed that the staff headcount at the BBCs public service arm had actually gone up from the year before from 18,210 to 19,231 people

The BBC currently reaches 468million people each week.

He is expected to say: The forces of disinformation and social media tend to feed on fracture and drive polarisation... What we do, as a public service broadcaster, is a force in the opposite direction.

It is understood he will say the BBCs role is to help protect the countrys democratic integrity.

Lord Hall will be replaced by Tim Davie on September 1.
The plea filed by one Usha Shetty had alleged that Bhaskar had made 'derogatory and scandalous' statements against the courts in the country and mentioned the Ayodhya case judgement at a panel in Mumbai in February 2020.

Attorney General KK Venugopal on Sunday rejected a petition seeking court's nod to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against actor Swara Bhaskar for her alleged "derogatory" remarks on the Supreme Court's verdict in the Ayodhya Ram Janmabhoomi case, reported Live Law.

While rejecting the petition, Venugopal said that the statement referred to in the application appears to be a "factual one", referring to a judgment of the Supreme Court and is not an "attack on the institution."

In his letter declining consent, the Attorney General said that the tweet appears to be a " factual one" referring to a judgment of the Supreme Court and is not an "attack on the institution."#SupremeCourt #contempt pic.twitter.com/aqGjSdJXYs

 Bar & Bench (@barandbench) August 23, 2020

The petitioners reportedly referred to two statements made by Bhaskar at the panel discussion Artists against Communalism in Mumbai in February this year.

"We are living in a country where the Supreme Court states that the demolition of the Babri Masjid was unlawful and in the same judgment rewards people who brought down the mosque," the actor had reportedly said.

Venugopal mentioned both these statements in his letter and observed that they do not constitute criminal contempt.

"The statement in the first part appears to be a factual one and is a perception of the speaker. The comment refers to a judgement of the Supreme Court and is not an attack on the institution. This does not offer any comment on the Supreme Court itself or say anything that would scandalise or tend to scandalise, lower or tend to lower the authority of the Supreme Court. In my opinion, this statement does not constitute criminal contempt," Venugopal said in his letter to the petitioners.

"We are ruled by a government that doesn't believe in our Constitution; we are ruled by police forces that do not believe in the Constitution. It seems we are now in a situation where the courts are not sure whether they believe in the Constitution or not, what do we do then? And it seems to me that as everyone has said that path is clear to us and has been shown to us by you all, whoever of you all have been part of the protests by the students, by the women and by the citizen protestors  and it is to resist," is the second statement referred to by Venugopal.

AG Venugopal in his letter declining consent says that the tweet appears to be a " factual one" referring to a judgment of the Supreme Court and is not an "attack on the institution."#SupremeCourt #contempt pic.twitter.com/aqGjSdJXYs  Bar & Bench (@barandbench) August 23, 2020

According to Live Law, Venugopal stated that the second statement is "a vague statement not related to any particular court" and is so "general" that no one would take any serious note of it. "I do not think this is a case where the offence of scandalising of Court or of lowering the authority of the Court would arise," he said.

A five-judge Constitution Bench of the apex court on 9 November last year had delivered a unanimous verdict paving the way for the construction of a Ram Temple at the disputed site at Ayodhya and had directed the Centre to allot a five-acre plot to the Sunni Waqf Board for building a mosque.

The plea filed by advocate Mahek Maheshwari along with lawyers Anuj Saxena and Prakash Sharma had alleged that Bhaskar had made "derogatory and scandalous" statements against the courts in the country and mentioned the Ayodhya case judgement at a panel discussion organised by the Mumbai Collective on 1 February, 2020and sought to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against the actor.

The petitioner Usha Shetty through the advocates had claimed that the comments intended to incite a lack of confidence in the judiciary among the people and question the integrity of the Court.

Under section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act 1971, the consent of either the AG or the Solicitor General is required for initiating contempt proceedings against a person.

The petitioners have now moved the office of Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta for permission, reported Bar&Bench.

The Supreme Court had on 14 August found lawyer Prashant Bhushan guilty of contempt in the suo motu case for his tweets against the Chief Justice of India SA Bobde and the apex court. The top court on Thursday gave Bhushan two days to reconsider his statements and apologise. The lawyer, however, refused the offer stating that his statements "are well considered and well thought of."

With inputs from PTI
Poor wheat harvests can have a knock-on effect in pricing. Photo: Getty

The UKs worst wheat harvest in about 40 years has prompted fears that prices of flour, and subsequently products such as bread, could be hiked.

Heavy rain last October meant that only 60% of what would normally be planted went into the ground. Alongside this, spring was the sunniest since 1929, substantially drier than usual, and followed the wettest February ever recorded  not ideal conditions for growing.

Recent droughts, with the longest period of temperatures above 34C since records began in 1961, followed by August downpours and thunderstorms have reduced the quality of wheat, according to the National Farmers Union (NFU) and reports by Sky News.

Farmers are grappling with increasingly wild weather, as concerns about climate change mount.

Poor harvests spell trouble with looming Brexit negotiations too, as fears mount that World Trade Organisation tariffs will come into effect on imported grain needed to meet demand if there is a no deal Brexit.

The current numbers leave the UK as a net importer of grain, rather than a net exporter.

Ed Horton, a farmer in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, told Sky his crops usually yield about 2,500 tonnes of wheat but this year they are down to 580 tonnes.

Many other factors this year have meant it has been a hard year to be in the arable trade. Coronavirus lockdowns have meant a shift in consumption of milky coffees, meaning dairy farmers have suffered poor sales, while the halt in the restaurant and chip shop trade has seen plummeting demand for locally-produced vegetables. Many farms pivoted to other business ventures, such as selling veg boxes to households to hold onto their margins.

READ MORE: Lockdown easing sees haircut, dentist, and petrol prices rocket

Inflation figures last week showed that UK inflation rate rose to 1% in July, as the easing of coronavirus restrictions prompted businesses across the country to reopen. The year-on-year growth in prices was up from 0.6% in June.

Food prices, meanwhile, fell by 0.3%, thanks to a decline in the cost of fruit, vegetables, fish, meat, milk, cheese, and eggs. This could be temporary, however, if fears about the production and import of wheat play out.
Attorney General William Barr called on Rupert Murdoch to muzzle Andrew Napolitano, the Fox News senior judicial analyst who has been highly critical of President Donald Trump, according to a new book by CNN media reporter Brian Stelter. The book, which dives into the relationship between Trump and Fox News, is set to be released Tuesday, but the Guardian obtained a copy.

Barr and Murdoch met at the billionaire media moguls New York home in October 2019. Journalists reported on the meeting at the time, and there was lots of speculation on what the two discussed, considering it took place amid the impeachment inquiry. Stelter claims in his upcoming book, Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth, that during this meeting the two talked about several issues, including media consolidation and criminal justice reform. But the meeting was also about Judge Andrew Napolitano, Stelter writes in the book.

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Trump was once a big fan of Napolitano, who reportedly told friends the president had even considered him for a spot on the Supreme Court. But the New Jersey Superior Court judge who joined Fox News in 1998 later became a staunch Trump critic, and he said that the way Trump tried to use the power of his office to get Ukraines leader to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden amounted to both criminal and impeachable behavior. When Trump was acquitted in the Senate impeachment trial, Napolitano called it a personal victory for the president but a legal assault on the Constitution.

Stelter, citing an unnamed source, says the president was so incensed by the judges TV broadcasts that he had implored Barr to send Rupert a message in person  about muzzling the judge. [Trump] wanted the nations top law enforcement official to convey just how atrocious Napolitanos legal analysis had been. Although Barrs plea to Murdoch carried a lot of weight, Stelter claims that no one was explicitly told to take Napolitano off the air. Napolitano did appear to suffer some consequences for his anti-Trump views, though, as he found digital resources allocated elsewhere, saw a slot on a daytime show disappear, and was not included in coverage of the impeachment process, notes the Guardian.

Napolitano apparently believed it was producers who had moved to keep him off the air as much as possible. And while its true that some employees justified the benching of the judge by claiming that viewers hated him, writes Stelter, some anchors also didnt want anything to do with him and his criticism of the president. Despite these roadblocks, Napolitano has continued to appear on Fox News and publish opinion columns.

For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
(Natural News) Portland continues to burn at the hands of Antifa agitators who are using a court order that has prevented Federal officers from taking action against the press. In other words, rioters are holding cameras and claiming the Feds cant touch them because they are journalists.

(Article by Steve Watson republished from Summit.news)

With the Democratic Mayor refusing to order police to crackdown on rioters, federal officers have stepped in and been somewhat effective. However, as RT reports, a federal judge last week issued a temporary restraining order on the agents, forbidding any action against anyone reporting on the scene.

Now, some on the ground in Portland, are relating that antifa rioters are using this to their advantage:

This fake Antifa press problem is a pandemic This man defies orders, insults officers, and makes sexual references to them And claims hes press with a $40 handicam mounted on a gas station tripod Due to a court order police cant do anything This puts real press in danger pic.twitter.com/cVvenAof0S  ELIJAH RIOT (@ElijahSchaffer) July 27, 2020

Damn the fake press! I think there are more fake Antifa press than there are real press here A mob of them scream about having the right to rush officers due to press immunity move towards the Feds aggressively then they fire rubber bullets & flash bangs at the real press pic.twitter.com/0OsUA82K4X  ELIJAH RIOT (@ElijahSchaffer) July 27, 2020

FAKE PRESS  This rioter gets pissed when Feds aim their sights down on her after she provokes them. She claimed to be press. @ElijahSchaffer has posted the moments leading up to me pressing her. pic.twitter.com/AayCHnQ7c8  Kalen From Scriberr (@FromKalen) July 27, 2020

Antifa Rioters are posing as press in Portland riots Press do not engage in political activity during protests or riots, unless undercover This is putting open reporters at risk to being caught in the cross fire Antifa is deteriorating our constitutional system from within  Drew Hernandez (@livesmattershow) July 26, 2020

Armed Leftist shot this weekend during a BLM protest, after he and a mob swarmed a mans car. He learns quickly that there are consequences for his actions

Some so called reporters are openly bragging about aligning with rioters:

The first taste is always the best pic.twitter.com/cl5nIMFEax  Laura Jedeed (Misanthrophile) (@1misanthrophile) July 26, 2020

Recent reports from Portland have documented the violence, with conservatives being targeted, and law enforcement even being doxxed by antifa, and Federal agents being blinded with lasers.
In a COVID-free world, Larry Romo would have spent the past week in Milwaukee, devouring German food at Maders Restaurant and joining his fellow Joe Biden supporters in celebratory cheers from the floor of Fiserv Forum.

Instead, Romo, a San Antonio native, Air Force veteran and director of the Selective Service System during the Barack Obama/Joe Biden administration, settled for watching a virtual Democratic National Convention from the distant comfort of his home.

Romo, 64, was a national delegate for Biden and, while hes way too self-effacing to say such a thing, he could lay claim to being the most ardent, loyal Biden backer in South Texas.

Even with the convention largely reduced to living-room speeches and socially distanced musical performances delivered in empty venues, Romo found ways to participate.

He produced a video of himself delivering the Pledge of Allegiance for Mondays DNC Hispanic Caucus. (In the video, Romo stands in front of a wall adorned with photos, including one of him with Joe and Jill Biden, during a 2010 Hispanic Heritage Month event at the U.S. Naval Observatory.)

Romo also co-hosted a Bexar County Virtual Watch Party on Thursday night, featuring appearances from Lloyd Doggett, Joaquin Castro, Gina Ortiz Jones and Wendy Davis, among others.

Basically, every national political convention of the TV age has been an elaborate four-day infomercial. But this year, with the actual physical gathering removed from the equation, it was harder to disguise the DNC as a meeting where real political business gets done.

On ExpressNews.com: Former councilwoman reflects on aquifer program she helped create

For the most part, Democrats used the artificiality of the virtual-convention format to their advantage, with a slickly produced succession of intimate, promotional clips that didnt have to bother with the pretense of entertaining a restless arena crowd.

Bidens campaign mantra of Build Back Better is based on the notion (also conveyed at the local level by Mayor Ron Nirenberg) that we can emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic with a blueprint for a more equitable, healthy, productive and unified country.

In his Thursday night acceptance speech, Biden  who often came across as tired and uninspired during the Democratic primary campaign  put his message across with rare effectiveness, simultaneously conveying urgency and calm assurance.

While his speech was short on policy details, Biden pulled off the essential trick of looking and sounding presidential.

What was good about (the convention) was they showed different aspects of why Joe Biden is qualified to be president, Romo said, in his deep, authoritarian baritone voice. They showed the empathy he has for working families.

Hes gone through heartache, losing his wife, losing his daughter, having to make his family whole again when he married Dr. Jill Biden. And then the unfortunate death of his son, what he had to go through when he was vice president.

Romo grew up on the Southeast Side, the son of two Democrats. His devotion to the party was sealed when, as a senior at Highlands High School, Democratic Congressman Abraham Chick Kazen nominated him for induction into the Air Force Academy.

Romo became the first member of his family to attend college and was one of only 19 Latinos in his 1978 graduating class of 800 cadets.

While he ended up serving in the Obama administration, he initially backed Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary. After Obama secured the presidential nomination, his campaign enlisted Romo to help with veterans outreach.

Look for Romo to take on a similar role for Biden. While he describes himself as merely a super-volunteer for the campaign, his military connections could be valuable to the general election campaign.

Its the independents, the people in the middle, Romo said, that are going to decide the election.

Romo understands that young progressive activists possess the energy in the party, even if a 77-year-old lifetime politician, often defined as a moderate, owns the nomination.

Hes evolved, Romo said. They criticize him for things that happened a long time ago, but his philosophy has evolved as the country has evolved.

Romo has a point.

On ExpressNews.com: VIA finds campaign team for public-transit referendum

Because Biden first won election to the Senate at the age of 29, he grew up as a political thinker in public. Elizabeth Warren, one of the Democratic Partys most revered progressive voices, was a Republican well into her 40s, but because she didnt hold office during her years as a free-market conservative, her fellow Democrats dont hold it against her.

In the end, Romo, an old-school believer in the spirit of bipartisan governing, saw Biden as the right person for a challenging time.

He has experience; hes been around. He knows every nook and cranny in Washington, Romo said.

He has a relationship with the common man and woman. And our country was built on that.

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
Corporations should be looking at the people theyre hiring, the people theyre promoting, if they are using their power to help Black businesses to get a foothold in the economy. All of those things are very important.

But whats much more important to me is: How are corporations using the power that they have in Congress? The power that they have to force the mayors of cities to do things to make the cities more equitable?

What would it mean if major corporations decided that they were going to join the fight for school integration? Its actually a good recruitment strategy that you dont have to have your executives forking over $30,000, $40,000 a year for private school because youre fighting for quality public schools.

So Im thinking much, much bigger than, you know, Can we raise our Black staff from 6 percent to 10 percent? Thats very minimal, if were talking about a moment of reckoning. There are much, much bigger societal issues that corporations often drive and that corporations certainly could be pushing at a bigger level.

Lets talk about one of those, perhaps the biggest, which is reparations. What role you think that businesses can or should play in that dialogue and debate?

What racism was designed to do was actually justify the economic exploitation of Black Americans, first through slavery, then through our system of legal segregation. Because of that, Black Americans have 1/10th to 1/100th of the wealth of white Americans.

What the polling shows is the vast majority of white Americans are opposed even to the idea of reparations, and in order to get Congress to take this issue seriously, you have to be able to move the needle on how Americans are thinking about it. We know that corporate lobbying can be very effective in that way.
Environmentalists have urged the Maharashtra government to stop City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) from developing real estate on Kharghar hills and along the quarried Parsik Hills in the Mumbai metropolitan region, saying that the landslides during the recent rains in Mumbai were a warning not to play with nature.

On July 28, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had launched a CIDCO project to develop 250 acres into a real estate property including villa plots in Khargar hills.

In a letter to Thackeray, environment NGO NatConnect Foundation pointed out that the hills, extending from quarried Parsik Hills could be prone to landslides and the soil could have become loose due to continuous blasts used for mining. Moreover, Kharghar node itself has been witnessing relentless quarrying, the petition said.

It is prudent to avoid the development of Kharghar hills into real estate projects and instead conserve it as a Nature Project, said B N Kumar, director of NatConnect Foundation.

The urban planners must learn lessons from the landslides at Kandivali and Malabar Hill and abort the Kharghar Heaven Hills plan, he said, calling for a thorough Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) before urban planners venture into such projects.

Environmentalists also vehemently opposed CIDCO plan to develop an affordable housing project along the quarried Parsik Hills under the PM Awaas Yojana.

These houses in the vicinity of the Parsik Hills could face landslides, Nandakumar Pawar, head of Shri Ekvira Aai Pratishtan, said. This is forest land and must be preserved and conserved as one, he said and cautioned CIDCO against playing with bio-diversity.

CIDCO seems to be only commercially minded, ignoring and destroying nature be it at Belapur, Uran or Kharghar, he said.

Kumar pointed out that the land below the Parsik Hills is also being dug up now for real estate projects. In fact a big private hospital has come up cutting into Parsik Hills in Belapur, he said and wondered as to how these will be safe from possible landslides or mud-floods. We do not seem to learn any lessons from Kerala and Mumbai floods despite the environmentalists warnings. he lamented.

Activist Jyoti Nadkarni pointed out that residents of Kharghar have been trying their best to save the hills by planting trees and educating the people about the importance of the hills. The government must take ownership of the hill conservation and develop it as a nature project for education and botanical research with limited hours of eco-tourism, she said.

The hills will be ruined once a real estate development starts, she argued.

Another activist Chaya Taralekar said the government could develop organic farming and rainforest on the hills rather than promoting concrete jungles.
U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw so far is the only Texas Republican expected to be featured during the weeklong Republican National Convention, according to President Donald Trumps campaign.

Crenshaw, a retired Navy SEAL from Houston, is expected to be part of the segment that will include New York Rep. Elise Stefanik. Both are 36 years old, the two youngest Republican House members. That is scheduled to be on the program on Wednesday night, when Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to address the convention.

Crenshaw is just finishing his first term in Congress representing the 2nd Congressional District, which runs from west Houston, north to Spring and east to Humble.

Its another major step in the fast-rising political career of Crenshaw. Just over two years ago, Crenshaw staged a comeback to win a Republican primary against better-funded opponents such as Houston GOP financier Kathaleen Wall and former state Rep. Kevin Roberts. Crenshaw slipped into the GOP primary runoff by edging Wall by just 155 votes, then defeated Roberts in the runoff in May 2018.

IN-DEPTH: Three keys for Joe Biden if hes going to win Texas

Crenshaw grew up in the Katy area. He says he became enamored with the Navy SEALs as a young boy. After graduating from Tufts University, Crenshaw went into SEAL training in 2006 and was twice deployed to Iraq with SEAL Team 3. In 2012, an Afghan interpreter stepped on an improvised explosive device that instantly dismembered the interpreter and blinded Crenshaws right eye.

His rise to national prominence started even before he took office, when Saturday Night Live comedian Pete Davidson mocked Crenshaws eye patch. Crenshaw went on the show where Davidson publicly apologized for the joke. Since then, Crenshaw has been on other national shows including ABCs The View and has been a regular speaker at Republican events such as CPAC, the annual meeting of conservatives in Baltimore.

Crenshaws inclusion in the RNC speakers list comes despite notable clashes with the president. For example, in March 2019 when Trump criticized U.S. Sen. John McCains service to the nations veterans, Crenshaw publicly told him to stop.

Mr. President, seriously, stop talking about Senator McCain, Crenshaw wrote in a tweet.

TEXAS TAKE: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox

He also penned an op-ed and released a video opposing Trumps foreign policy as it related to Syria.

While Crenshaw gets a starring role during the convention, other Texas Republicans appear to be on the sidelines.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, former Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, were all among featured speakers in 2016. It will be the first convention without Cruz since 2008. Cruz spoke at both the 2012 convention in Tampa, Fla., and in Cleveland in 2016.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is also scheduled to speak at the convention on Tuesday. Paul lived in Brazoria County while his father Ron Paul was a congressman. Rand Paul graduated from Brazoswood High School and attended Baylor University.

Paul is one of six Republican senators so far on the schedule. U.S. Sens. Tim Scott of South Carolina, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky are the other senators with speaking time at the convention.

Last week, the Democratic National Convention initially had few Democrats on its prime-time speaking lineups. But over subsequent days, Democrats including U.S. Rep. Colin Allred and state Rep. Victoria Neave, both North Texas Democrats, were announced as keynote speakers. Others, including Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo and former Congressman Beto ORourke were featured in other, smaller roles.
Challenging the Donald Trump administration over an executive order, Chinese video-sharing application TikTok on Sunday said it will file a lawsuit on August 24.

Chinese video-sharing application TikTok on Sunday said it will file a lawsuit on August 24 against the Donald Trump administration over an executive order, banning transactions with the parent company ByteDance in the United States.

Confirming the development to Global Times, the company said in an online post, For nearly a year, we have been faithfully engaging with the US government to look for ways to address their concerns. However, the US government has turned a blind eye to facts and violated the normal legal procedure, even trying to force its will into commercial negotiation among companies, it added.

To ensure that the rule of law is not disregarded and that our company and users are treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the executive order through the judicial system, the company stated.On August 6, Trump signed an executive order banning any US transactions with ByteDance, set to take effect in 45 days. On August 14, the US President issued another executive order, requiring ByteDance to divest its interests in TikToks operations in the US within 90 days.

ALSO READ :India slams China, Pakistan over interference in Kashmir matter

US firms including Oracle and Microsoft are among those in talks to buy TikToks US assets.

This is the second litigation against the Trump administration within a week.Earlier on Friday, a group of WeChat users in the US sued the Trump administration, challenging its ban on the Chinese messaging application, Global Times reported.

ALSO READ : ISIS terrorist held after exchange of fire, IEDs seized
North Sydney councillors are unhappy. Again. Not about North Sydney Olympic Pool. Not about cancellation of fines at Neutral Bay Tennis Club, which CBD previously reported on, this time it's over something much closer to their hearts: the minimalist catering arrangements at council suppers. Councillors had complained about the blandness of the dinner offering and that it lacked seasonal produce.

Thus, a new regimen means dinners after Monday's council meeting will be provided by Sakura Japanese Restaurant, a block from the council chambers on Miller Street. Good to see they are buying local, but not sure sashimi qualifies as seasonal produce?

In line with the catering provision policy, council directors and other staff attending the council meeting also get dinner, but apparently do not dine with the general manager, mayor Jilly Gibson and councillors in the council's Supper Room. They get to eat at their desks. How upstairs, downstairs.

On the agenda for Monday night's meeting: a progress report on the council's 22.5 per cent rate increase over three years, a report on the performance review of general manager Ken Gouldthorp, and, presumably, whether Sakura's pink dragon roll is superior to the Tasmania sunset.

The expense of council suppers has split councillors before, and some don't attend the supper in protest, arguing it is a waste of taxpayer money.
Sixty police officers are undergoing testing for Covid-19 after an outbreak at two stations in Northern Ireland.

A total of eight have been diagnosed with the infection, the Police Service of Northern Ireland said.

The number testing and self-isolating has increased from 51 on Saturday.

Antrim and Newtownabbey stations have been closed for deep cleaning.

The news comes ahead of further lockdown restrictions that will be imposed from Monday as Northern Ireland continues to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

Assistant Chief Constable Alan Todd said: 'Yesterday we confirmed that eight of our officers had tested positive for Covid-19. This number has not increased.

Sixty police officers are undergoing testing for Covid-19 after an outbreak at two stations - including one in Antrim (pictured) - in Northern Ireland

The two stations in Northern Ireland are around 17 miles apart. The news comes ahead of further lockdown restrictions that will be imposed from Monday as Northern Ireland continues to tackle the coronavirus pandemic

'However, the number of officers who are currently self-isolating and undergoing testing for Covid-19 has increased from 51 yesterday to 60 officers today.

'In line with public health guidance, we are taking all appropriate steps to address and manage the issue.

'While we hope to return frontline officers to their duties in the coming days, our officers' health and welfare is of paramount importance and we will ensure they return to duty when it is safe to do so.'

Antrim's Serious Crime Suite has been used in the past to interview those suspected of paramilitary involvement as well as other major crime.

Newtonabbey police station has also been closed while deep cleaning is undertaken

Health minister Robin Swann this week warned that the R-number in Northern Ireland is currently 1.3, meaning the virus is at risk of spreading.

On Thursday he announced new restrictions aimed at curbing the infection rate, which will come into effect from Monday.

The number of people meeting indoors is to be reduced to six from no more than two households, and the limit on numbers at outdoor gatherings will be slashed in half from 30 to 15.

Meanwhile, Mr Swann also announced there would be focused PSNI enforcement of coronavirus regulations in hotspot areas.
A n education minister has come under fire for sharing photos of herself enjoying a holiday in France while thousands of students were facing A-level chaos in England.

Gillian Keegan took to Instagram to share images of herself hiking, mountain biking and swimming, while school leavers were contemplating a disrupted future after thousands of grades were initially downgraded due to an algorithm-based system.

Ms Keegan is Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills at the Department for Education. She is jointly responsible for education strategy after the age of 16.

But despite this, she remained in France as the results chaos took place, with her boss, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, even "liking" some of her photos.

While she was on holiday, France was put on the UK's quarantine list, meaning people who came back from the country from August 15 had to self-isolate for 14 days.

This could have cut Ms Keegan's trip short, but she wrote on Instagram: "We will have to make the most of it as we will be quarantined for 14 days when we get back." Mr Williamson "liked" this post.

Gavin Williamson says Government had every confidence moderated A Level grades would be fair

It is unclear when the Chichester MP returned to the UK but she posted that she was "back in Blighty" on Saturday.

Depending on when she got back, Ms Keegan may be unable to go back to the House of Commons when it sits again at the start of September.

Sources close to Ms Keegan defended the trip, saying she was still working during on holiday and that Michelle Donelan, who shares the post-16 education strategy brief, was on duty while she was away.

They told the Mail on Sunday: "She wasnt just sitting with her feet up all the time."

But Labour slammed Mr Williamson for letting Ms Keegan "swan off on holiday" during such an important time.

Ofqual announces A Levels and GCSE results U-turn with students to receive teacher's predicted grades

Labour MP Neil Coyle told the newspaper: "Gavin Williamsons incompetence truly knows no bounds.

"Young people who have been put through hell over the last few weeks will be disgusted to learn that one of the Ministers involved in this mess has been living it up on holiday in France.

"But instead of Mr Williamson recognising he needed all hands on deck as this exam disaster loomed, he not only let her swan off on holiday, he even liked her holiday snaps."

The Education Secretary hit like on several of her holiday photos, including a post two days before A-level results day when she wrote that she was enjoying "another wonderful day #hiking in the mountains".

But at the same time the media were already warning of the results crisis to come, with reports in the week leading up to results day that up to 40 per cent of grades submitted by teachers could be marked down.

Boris Johnson faces calls to intervene to end A-levels crisis

Mr Williamson was forced to abandon the algorithm-based system for awarding A-level and GCSE grades in England in the middle of exam results season.

Ofqual revealed that nearly two in five (39.1%) A-level grades in England were reduced from teachers predictions. They were then reverted back to teachers' grades unless the moderated grade was higher.
WASHINGTON  At the Democratic National Convention, Kristin Urquiza essentially accused President Donald Trump of killing her father, Mark, who died of the coronavirus after he went to a karaoke bar with friends.

My dad was a healthy 65-year-old. His only preexisting condition was trusting Donald Trump  and for that he paid with his life, she said.

Urquiza told fellow Democrats that one of the last things her father told him was that he felt betrayed by the likes of Donald Trump  which is sad.

Also at the DNC, former President Barack Obama tossed out the horrible death toll from the pandemic  more than 170,000 Americans  and job losses that he laid at Trumps feet.

It shows how partisan organizers are that they staged Urquizas and Obamas decision to blame Trump for the coronavirus deaths, and nonetheless booked New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who told the confab: For all the pain and all the tears, our way worked. And it was beautiful.

Beautiful. The COVID death toll for New York is more than 32,451, according to The New York Times.

On Twitter, outraged family members of the 6,600 or so seniors who died in New York nursing homes were especially incensed. On March 25, in a bid to free up hospital beds, Cuomo issued an order that told nursing homes they had to accept patients that may be infected. Cuomo later withdrew the order.

Still, no Democrats blamed Cuomo for the casualties in the true blue Empire State.

The blame lies with Trump, they argued, because he didnt take the virus seriously when it hit the United States. When he should have ordered Americans to stay home, instead he urged people to go about their business. He cared more about the economy than American lives, critics claimed.

On March 7, Trump said of the virus: We closed it down. We stopped it. And: Were doing very well and weve done a fantastic job.

Which sounds pretty bad  if you dont know that on March 8 Cuomo told reporters: There is more fear, more anxiety, than the facts would justify. This is not the Ebola virus, this is not the SARS virus, this is a virus that we have a lot of information on.

In her acceptance speech, Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris faulted Trump for turning tragedies into political weapons  even as she and fellow Democrats did just that.

The left wants to blame Trump so much that some are willing to put the onus on infected family members who got sick, they claim, because they trusted Trump.

In April, The New York Times ran a story about a bar owner and Trump supporter Joe Joyce who died of the coronavirus after taking a cruise to Spain. If Trump had gone on TV with a mask on and said, Hey this is serious, I dont think he would have gone, Joyces daughter told the paper in a story that chronicled the Trump voters gullibility thanks to a reporters credulity. As the saying goes, some stories are too good to check.

In the National Review, senior writer Dan McLaughlin tore apart the Times story. In a piece headlined, Stop Dancing on the Graves of Trump Supporters Who Die of the Virus, McLaughlin noted that Joyce and his wife left for the cruise on March 1. Thats the day New York saw its first known COVID-19 death.

If only Trump had worn a mask? The day before the Joyces boarded ship, Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweeted: Seriously people  STOP BUYING MASKS! They are not effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but are needed by health-care providers.

In an obituary she wrote about her fathers death, Urquiza wrote, His death is due to the carelessness of the politicians who continue to jeopardize the health of brown bodies through a clear lack of leadership, refusal to acknowledge the severity of this crisis, and inability and unwillingness to give clear and decisive direction on how to minimize risk.

The left likes to say that the right should listen to the science. But when Trump voters get COVID-19, they blame their politics.

Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7391. Follow @DebraJSaunders on Twitter.

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Idk if I can call out any moments but these songs make me feel like Im dissolving and spreading out into the night:



Carry Me Out by Mitski

Science by Allie X

Downtown by Allie X

River by Ibeyi

Fade Into You by Mazzy Star

Buried in Water by Dead Mans Bones

Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up) by Florence and the Machine

When Im Small by Phantogram

Bassically by Tei Shi

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love Fade into You <3

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Ibeyi are so talented. Every song of theirs just shakes me up in the best way

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I love Fade Into You.

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fade into you & into dust fuck me up big time. I love them so much

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Fade Into You is so good.

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Thank you for reminding me of Phantogram that just took me WAYYYYY THE fuck back.

Mazzy Star Fade into you is also a huge throw back!

Great list!

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I like a few songs from her but I wasn't a fan but I remember when Lioness album came out and got emotional/goosebumps when she starts singing on this demo version of tears dry on their own. It was mostly because of how sad and young she was when she passed. The way she sings right in the beginning was so effective to me.





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this one

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OP, what a creative post!



I'm trying to think of which soul or rnb songs could be added :)

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This song always gets me.





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I swallow the sound and it swallows me whole

'Til there's nothing left inside my soul

I'm as empty as that beating drum

But the sound has just begun

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I only know her more famous songs but I'll sing Drumming Song and Howl at the top of my lungs.

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drumming song is so underrated

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forever bop--I always restart this one before it ever finishes

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Love this post!



I believe Merry Clayton herself has disputed the rumour regarding the miscarriage (or more specifically that her work in the studio was not related/did not cause it to happen)

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yeah i'd always heard it was an urban legend. in the LA Times profile she says she couldn't listen to the song for a long while afterwards but i think that had more to do w the timing of the miscarriage than anything else.

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Oh yeah, I can only imagine how difficult the association must have been. Especially with people constantly wanting to discuss the song with her 'cause she does such an amazing job on it. There are certain artists/albums/individual songs that I cannot bear to listen to because of the memories they bring up and I'm just a listener. :/

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LOTR NOSTALGIA GETS ME HYPED!





The Portals theme from Endgame had me emotional when watching the movie





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oh hell yes at spirited away! such a beautiful soundtrack.

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Love this post!



Hmm, these are the first ones that come to mind

the drop in Dance Yrself Clean by LCD Soundsystem

*that* part in Shallow by Gagita

all of Weird Fishes/Arpeggi by Radiohead

all of Lark by Angel Olsen

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Yas shallow

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yesss your icon

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Emo king!

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I love, love, love Weird Fishes. Lianne La Havas' cover is incredible. I've alternated listening to the cover and the original every days since she released her S/T.

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weird fishes omg  like a warm sad bath that i will always want to take.



its in my top 3 radiohead songs, it just means a lot to me and i get chills thinking about the memories and feelings it brings 



Edited at 2020-08-23 08:11 pm (UTC)

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YES to Dance Yrself Clean!

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The first songs I thought of were Weird Fishes and Nude

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lion king soundtrack, anyone?

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this land gets me every time

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Yesss to everything Charlotte OC, her live shows are such an experience.

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thanks for sharing these OP <3

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Both Sides Now - "I really don't know, really don't know life at all."

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a classic

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Only Skin by Joanna Newsom (humming a threshing song...)

Should have known better by Sufjan Stevens ("my brother had a daughter* part at the end)



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i looove no hard feelings! the manchester orchestra cover is great

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In context: Despite its popularity, TikTok continues to attract the gaze of U.S. lawmakers who fear the app could be a conduit for Chinese espionage. The Trump administration has issued a pair of executive orders aimed at banning ByteDance and forcing a TikTok divestiture in the U.S. And while it seems an acquisition of TikTok's U.S. operations is likely, ByteDance is preparing to answer in kind with legal action of its own.

Update (Aug 24): TikTok has confirmed they are filing a complaint in federal court challenging Trump's efforts to ban the social platform in the US.

Rumors have been swirling for weeks about a potential legal backlash from TikTok over its ban in the United States. Between Friday and Saturday, multiple reports surfaced suggesting that a lawsuit is all but certain, and that legal filings could be finalized as early as next week. The Verge seems to have removed any speculation from the matter, as they were able to obtain a statement from TikTok spokesman Josh Gartner.

Even though we strongly disagree with the administrations concerns, for nearly a year we have sought to engage in good faith to provide a constructive solution. What we encountered instead was a lack of due process as the administration paid no attention to facts and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses. To ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and users are treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the Executive Order through the judicial system," Gartner told The Verge.

"To ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and users are treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the Executive Order through the judicial system"

The legal action would primarily challenge the first executive order President Trump handed down in early August. It stated that within 45 days, all transactions with ByteDance (TikTok's parent company) would be banned. Then, Trump levied another executive order, giving ByteDance 90 days to divest its U.S. TikTok operations.

It seems ByteDance's legal defense would center on proving it was denied due process, as Trump's first executive order invokes the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Furthermore, ByteDance also plans to contest its classification as a national security threat in the United States.

TikTok remains mired in controversy as US-China tensions continue to escalate. ByteDance's lawsuit seems to come at a time when more and more companies and investors are interested in acquiring the U.S. portion of TikTok. Most recently, both Oracle and Twitter have thrown their hats in the ring. Meanwhile, Microsoft is still in talks to buy TikTok, and is looking to close a deal by September.

Image credit: Joaquin Corbalan P
New masking requirements: Effective immediately, anyone entering the Milwaukee VA Medical Center and its community clinics MUST wear a medical-grade cough, surgical, procedural or N95/KN95 mask.      . Appropriate masks will be available at all facility entrances. Anyone entering the facility, even those fully vaccinated, must wear a mask at all times.

Prepare for a visit: Due to COVID-19, the Milwaukee VA Medical Center is restricting visitation. Learn more here.

COVID-19 vaccines: All Veterans, spouses and caregivers can get a COVID-19 vaccine at VA by appointment only. To schedule a shot, call 414-384-2000, ext. 49069.

All COVID-19 shots are given in the ZIHP/Quick Shot clinic, located in Building 70, directly west of the main hospital. Learn more here.

Visit our vaccine information page.
India has threatened to expose Pakistan at the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for misleading the international community on terrorists Dawood Ibrahim and Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi.

Following up on their claim that Pakistan's 2015 and 2019 statutory resolution mentioning Ibrahim, Indias most-wanted terrorist, were "back-dated lies," Indian agencies have used technology to establish that all these documents of 2015 and 2019 were uploaded in 2020 and the move is only an attempt by the neighbouring nation to save face. "All our URL search shows the documents did not exist before 2020. They were all uploaded in 2020," an official said.

Pakistan in its statutory resolution of August 18, 2020, had for the first time accepted that Ibrahim, the perpetrator of the 1993 Mumbai blasts, lived in Karachi, Pakistan.

However, a Pakistan Foreign Office statement called this routine. "The consolidated SROs are issued periodically as a routine matter. Similar SROs have been issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the past, as per statutory requirements and to meet our international obligations. Last such SROs were issued in 2019," the Pakistan Foreign Ministry said in a said.

It added, "The assertions made by some sections of the Indian media, as to Pakistan admitting to the presence of certain listed individuals on its territory, based on the information contained in the SRO, is baseless and misleading. "

However, Indian agencies say that reverse search of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs URL conclusively exposes the misleading claim of Pakistan.

"These are all MOFA URLs. How will they deny this?" an official said. He, however, conceded that Pakistan can argue to save face that resolutions were passed in 2015 and 2019, but put on the website later.

To counter any such claim, Indian agencies point out that Interpol, UN and other international organisation links that the statutory resolution shares also exposes Pakistan. For example, the SRO from December 22, 2015, to January 16, 2020, had a reference to 2020/01 in their URLs. "If a resolution was passed in 2015, how can it have a link of 2020 in it for reference," another said.
Former Maharashtra Chief Minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis offered prayers to Lord Ganesha at his residence on the first day of the 10-day festival of Ganesh Chaturthi. (Image: Twitter)
The vomiting happened with little warning and for no apparent reason.

Sometimes it would strike the day after Alice Moon had been out with friends. Often it happened while the Los Angeles public relations specialist was in a car on her way to the airport - or on the plane. The episodes became so frequent that Moon began packing a plastic trash bag, just in case. Friends speculated that vomiting was her reaction to travel anxiety.

One of the worst episodes occurred in March 2018 when Moon spent five days in New York City on a much-anticipated birthday celebration for her mother.

"We had just gotten frozen hot chocolate, which I'd wanted forever," she recalled. Suddenly Moon was overcome by waves of abdominal pain, nausea and sweating so profuse she stripped off her hat, coat and gloves despite the 30-degree temperature. She spent much of the trip sequestered in a hotel room with her worried mother, too sick to do the things they had long planned.

A few weeks later, a gastroenterologist zeroed in on the probable cause of Moon's unpredictable vomiting and prescribed a course of action. But Moon was skeptical and spent the rest of the year engaged in an increasingly fraught trial-and-error experiment that ultimately left little doubt about the diagnosis.

Now 31, she continues to grapple with its ramifications, which altered her life physically, emotionally and professionally in unexpected ways.

- - -

The first episode occurred on Halloween night 2016, as Moon and a friend were strolling around her neighborhood admiring the trick-or-treaters. Suddenly Moon began to vomit. "It made no sense," she said.

She went home and smoked some marijuana, which she knew could quell nausea and vomiting and is used by some people undergoing chemotherapy. Moon, who promotes cannabis products, had worked in the marijuana industry since 2011, including at a dispensary where she said she "saw all the people it was helping." (California legalized cannabis for medical use in 1996 and for recreational purposes in 2016.)

For several years Moon had used cannabis at night to combat long-standing insomnia and to moderate anxiety and depression. She described herself as a daily user who was not addicted. "I was never one of those people who was stoned all day," she said.

A few days after the Halloween episode, which lasted a few hours, she saw a doctor who diagnosed reflux. He advised her to eliminate spicy or acidic foods, such as tomatoes, and to take a nonprescription acid-blocking drug.

For a few months, those measures seemed to work. But by early 2017 the vomiting returned. Moon noticed that the episodes, which occurred weekly, appeared to coincide with her consumption of alcohol, even in small amounts, so she stopped drinking.

The vomiting, however, continued. She flew about once a month for business and "lost count of how many Ubers I threw up in," she said.

"I was definitely concerned," Moon said, "but I didn't know what to do." Typically thin, she began to lose weight; at 5-foot-6, she weighed 110 pounds.

In late 2017 she read a blog item about an alarming condition affecting some regular users of cannabis: intractable and untreatable vomiting that could last for days.

"I remember it had an illustration of a person with crazy eyes," Moon said. "I did let it sit in my brain for a while but it didn't make sense. I was throwing up the day after using weed."

As the episodes increased in frequency and severity, Moon discovered that the only thing that seemed to quell hours of vomiting was a hot bath. "I wasn't sure why it worked," she said. "As soon as I'd get out of the water I would start" throwing up. Some nights she fell asleep on the bathroom floor, spent and dehydrated.

- - -

The gastroenterologist Moon saw shortly after her disastrous New York trip performed a physical exam and questioned her closely after Moon told her she was a regular user of cannabis. Based on Moon's symptoms and the relief hot baths provided, she suspected cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS), the same disorder Moon had read about - and dismissed - a few months earlier.

The unusual condition was first reported in 2004 by doctors in Australia, who described a small number of frequent cannabis users who developed severe vomiting relieved by hot showers or baths. Like Moon, a few had unsuccessfully tried to quell the vomiting by using marijuana, which has anti-emetic effects in some people. But in some heavy users cannabis, which affects the GI tract, has a paradoxical effect and can trigger severe uncontrolled vomiting. The only way to stop it, Australian researchers reported, was abstinence from marijuana.

Once thought to be rare, doctors in the United States are increasingly reporting CHS cases in states that have legalized cannabis.

"My cannabis use had her really concerned," Moon remembered. The gastroenterologist advised Moon to stop using marijuana for three to six months and return if she was still having symptoms. The specialist told Moon she did not want to order potentially risky, expensive tests for other disorders that might not be necessary.

Moon demurred. "I was unconvinced this was the cause," she said. As she was mulling it over, Moon decided to attend a cannabis-themed dinner party in Malibu.

A few hours after she got home, Moon began throwing up and didn't stop for more than two weeks.

Four days into her ordeal, Moon went to an urgent care center near her home. The doctor on duty had never heard of CHS. He administered intravenous fluids to treat severe dehydration and gave her anti-nausea medication, which is typically ineffective against CHS. When she seemed better, he sent her home.

Several hours later, Moon began vomiting again. Her roommate ran out and bought a nonprescription capsaicin-based cream derived from the active ingredient in chili peppers that has been found to reduce vomiting caused by CHS. Moon rubbed a small amount on her abdomen and fell asleep.

She awoke a few hours later in terrible pain.

"It felt like somebody had put a blowtorch on my abdomen," she said. She scrubbed her stomach with a wet cloth in a frantic attempt to remove the cream, but it only intensified the burning. (Moon subsequently learned that she should have used milk, not water.)

Three days later, still vomiting, a friend drove her back to the urgent care center. The doctor she had seen previously hooked her up to an IV and called the gastroenterologist she had consulted. She ordered blood tests as well as CT and MRI scans; all were normal.

The gastroenterologist reiterated her suspicion that Moon's vomiting was caused by cannabis; she couldn't predict when the vomiting would stop. A few days later, it did.

For the next five months Moon said she mostly avoided cannabis, while struggling with insomnia and depression.

In late September she began intermittently using CBD capsules, hoping they might be less likely to trigger vomiting than edibles or vaped marijuana. That seemed to be the case until Dec. 22 when, on a holiday visit to her family, Moon developed the worst attack she had experienced. The vomiting was so severe Moon cut her trip short and returned to Los Angeles, where she spent four days in a hospital. Doctors there, she said, diagnosed gastroparesis, a disease caused by the stomach's failure to empty properly. Moon was also diagnosed with an ulcer and a bacterial infection. She said she told her hospital team about her CHS diagnosis; they told her they had never heard of it.

- - -

"People said I looked like I was dying," remembered Moon, who slowly recovered. It was the last time she used the drug in any form. "I have no desire to touch it," she said. "It's just not worth the consequence."

But Moon said she did not anticipate the void abstinence would leave, particularly because her professional and social lives revolve around cannabis. "It's been very hard," she said.

To Itai Danovitch, chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Moon's experience reflects the difficulties many patients face, even when cannabis causes days of convulsive vomiting. (He did not treat Moon.)

"People have strongly held ideas about substances they use," said Danovitch, who specializes in addiction psychiatry. "There are a lot of cultural, spiritual, social and community aspects" to cannabis that strengthen users' attachment to it.

Many people, he added, are reluctant to tell doctors they use the drug or that they are dependent on it. CHS remains "way underrecognized" by doctors, he said, and is a diagnosis of exclusion typically made after other conditions have been ruled out.

It is not known why some users are susceptible or why hot water quells symptoms. One study found that, on average, patients racked up seven emergency room visits and three hospitalizations before being diagnosed with CHS.

"CHS is a very frustrating and alienating condition to have," Danovitch added. "It often takes people a long time to be diagnosed and there's a lot of suffering along the way."

Moon is glad she has put that suffering behind her. She now uses meditation to treat her insomnia and takes medication for depression. She said she has encountered hostility from those who don't believe CHS exists or claim she exaggerated her symptoms.

She hopes her openness about her experience will help others. Recently Moon helped the Canadian Institute for Safe Medication Practices draft an informational handout for cannabis users. Her website also contains information about CHS. "I'm trying to spread the word," she said.
Isabel Vazquez clutches a photo of her late mother Irene Bernal, 87, remembering the final moments of her life. After 20 days in hospital, she died of COVID-19, with Vazquez at her side.

"Two minutes before my mother died, she was screaming, and I said to her, 'What do you want?' and she said 'No more, for mercy's sake,'" Vazquez told CBC News, sitting in her home in Iztapalapa, a borough of Mexico City and an area hard hit by the virus.

The family says Bernal was taken to a public hospital in June suffering from an intestinal infection. Two days later, she was transferred to a private hospital. The family suspects Bernal may have contracted the virus during that first hospital visit because, until that point, they had been in self-quarantining as a precaution.

Their story highlights just some of the challenges facing Mexico, which sits behind only the U.S. and Brazil in the total number of deaths from COVID-19. From a fear of doctors to a public health system under pressure, the country has struggled to contain the virus.

Limited testing

According to figures from the Mexican government, the country has close to 560,000 confirmed cases and this week surpassed 60,000 deaths.

In early June, Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell had said that reaching 60,000 deaths would represent a "very catastrophic scenario." At the time, the country had just over 12,500 deaths.

Despite the extent of the crisis, the country has decided not to pursue mass testing. Lopez-Gatell has argued that limited testing and statistical modelling were a more effective and efficient use of resources.

Edgard Garrido/Reuters

It's a decision that has confounded public health experts. Currently, Mexico is testing about seven people per 100,000 people in a country of approximate 129 million people, according to data compiled by Oxford University-run Our World in Data. The United States, by comparison, tests about 214 per 100,000 in a country of 330 million people, and Canada, with a population of roughly 38 million, tests about 130 per 100,000.

Story continues

On Friday, the World Health Organization said the scale of the pandemic in Mexico is "under-represented" and that the country is seeing a significantly higher impact in poorer and indigenous communities.

"More could and probably needs to be done to really address the surveillance issues and the differential outcomes for patients and different groups," said Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO's health emergencies program.

WATCH | In Mexico, case and death numbers don't reflect the full scale of the crisis, says Mike Ryan of the WHO:

A political gamble

From the beginning of the pandemic in March, Mexico's president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has also argued that widespread testing isn't necessary. He has continued to hold public events and refuses to wear a mask.

Like U.S. President Donald Trump and Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, AMLO, as he's known, has dismissed the severity of the virus and highlighted the economic cost of quarantines.

"Early on, he held up a sort of a little prayer card and a four-leaf clover that had been given to him by a migrant and said that these things will protect him from the virus," said Gladys McCormick, an associate professor in history who studies Mexico-U.S. Relations at Syracuse University in New York state.

McCormick said the Mexican government's approach has been haphazard but that the government had to balance the pandemic response with a precarious economy. The challenge: close to 60 per cent of the workforce is classified as informal  labourers and vendors working in sometimes unregulated businesses without a safety net.

"The logic from the Mexican government was to basically hold off until they could no longer and then impose quarantine measures, knowing full well that individuals in the informal economy wouldn't necessarily be able to abide by social distancing or staying home, in part because they needed to be out to be able to make a living," McCormick said.

Hector Vivas/Getty Images

The hidden toll

McCormick says some state and local governments are trying to tackle the virus on their own. In Mexico City, for example, the mayor has set up testing kiosks in the worst-hit areas.

A recent study of excess mortality suggests that between the end of March and the beginning of July, the number of excess deaths when compared with the same period last year is more than three times higher than the number of COVID-19 deaths reported by the Ministry of Health in that period.

That hidden toll, experts say, could be the result of inadequate testing but also a population with a deep-seated fear of doctors and the health care system. Some people are waiting until they're very sick before seeking treatment or dying before they ever make it to hospital.

"That distrust [of the medical system] really can go all the way back to colonial times," McCormick said. "Then there's also this fear that medical personnel, such as nurses and doctors, are carriers of the virus."

In a survey taken last month, close to 70 per cent of those surveyed said they'd be reluctant to take a loved one to the hospital because they don't think it would be safe.

A broken health-care system

Adding to the fear is a reality that the level of care available to many Mexicans outside the private system is inadequate at the best of times, said Dr. Mandeep Dhillon, a Canadian who works in the emergency room at Hospital General Regional de Orizaba, about four hours east of Mexico City.

Daniel Becerril/Reuters

"People don't receive the care that they need or deserve, I think that's a constant," said Dhillon.

She says a lack of personal protective equipment, medicine and other equipment has thwarted her and her colleagues' efforts to fight the virus. Those problems were made worse by the lack of testing and medical staff themselves falling ill, including Dhillon.

"Things could have been done a lot better at every level, from federal down to state, municipal and even at individual hospitals," she said.

She says the lack of testing has left health care workers fighting in the dark as they try to stop the spread of the virus.

"It doesn't allow us as health care workers to actually have an idea and predict how to best organize ourselves in terms of providing care."

WATCH | Isabel Vazquez describes her mother's struggle with COVID-19:

The social divide

Studies looking at the impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable populations in Mexico reveal the toll this takes. One study found that COVID-19 is three times more deadly for a patient in a government-funded hospital than in a private one.

It also found a 40-year-old with serious COVID symptoms in a public hospital is as likely to die as an 80-year old in a private hospital.

"Perhaps it could be a lack of equipment, lack of medications, a lack of care, or that patients themselves also wait too late, but that is nevertheless a damning statistic of how it breaks down by class," McCormick said.

Dhillon says she thinks the government should have done more to ensure those who contracted the virus stayed home and quarantined.

"I think we could have mobilized a lot more resources during these last couple months to allow people to stay home when they were sick or were in contact with someone who was sick  and that hasn't happened."
CHARLESTON  A defense attorney has filed a motion to dismiss two Coles County DUI cases, saying that an assistant state's attorney sought sexual favors from the defendant in these cases.

Attorney Todd Reardon filed this "motion to dismiss due to prosecutorial misconduct" late Friday afternoon on behalf of his client, a 21-year-old Coles County woman, regarding the alleged misconduct of Assistant State's Attorney Brady Allen. The motion alleges that Allen sought to advance his sexual desires with the defendant by communicating with her about her cases.

Allen could not be reached for comment Sunday afternoon.

State's Attorney Jesse Danley said that he had not been aware of the allegations against Allen prior to the motion to dismiss being filed on Friday and that he is still reviewing the contents of this filing.

"We are going to investigate the allegations and take the appropriate action," Danley said, adding that an outside agency could be brought in to assist with this investigation if needed. He declined further comment.

The defendant said in an affidavit that Allen communicated with her via cellphone calls and text, and by social media. She said that he sought sexual favors and pornographic photos from her in exchange for favorable treatment of her cases, noting that she did ultimately give him a photo, according to the affidavit. She said that Allen also told her to ignore her attorney's advice and to take a plea deal in her cases.

Watch now: Eastern Illinois University starts fall semester with COVID-19 precautions Eastern Illinois University is preparing for the fall semester to start on Monday while taking COVID-19 safety precautions.

In addition, the defendant said that she is friends with a woman who is a defendant in another DUI case and that Allen also requested sexual favors and pornographic material from this woman in exchange for assistance in that case, according to the affidavit.

Reardon said in his motion to dismiss that his defendant's constitutional rights, specifically her right to counsel, were violated by Allen's actions and that his actions also are a violation of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct for court proceedings.

"As a result of the state's action by Brady Allen, the defendant's defense has been irreparably harmed," Reardon wrote in his motion.

Danley and Reardon are running for the state's attorney's office position in the November general election.

Status hearings in the defendant's two DUI cases were already scheduled for Tuesday prior to the filing of the motion to dismiss.

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While numerous NGOs and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have accused Greece of using the Covid-19 epidemic as pretext to abandon hundreds of migrants at sea since March, Athens denies the charge and denounces misinformation.

After revelations in the New York Times and accusations by NGOs that Greece has abandoned the migrants at sea, the Greek section of the UNHCR said on Friday it had reports and testimonies that people were left adrift in the Aegean Sea without being rescued by the Greek coastguard.

UNHCR specified in a statement that these people were left adrift in the open sea for a long period of time, often in hard-to-manage and overcrowded boats, waiting to be rescued.

The reports, which include a series of direct and credible testimonies have been recorded by the UNHCR office in Greece and have been brought to the attention of the authorities responsible in Greece, the statement said. The high commissioners office said the Greek government should seriously investigate the allegations of the expulsions of migrants towards Turkey without further delay.

Misinformation, Athens says

Two days before these appeals, Greeces Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis categorically denied the accusations, branding them as misinformation orchestrated by Turkey. Greece is a country that respects the rule of law, we have granted asylum to tens of thousands of people, Mitsotakis said in an interview on US television station CNN on August 19.

For Legal Centre Lesbos, an NGO that offers assistance to refugees and migrants trying to enter Europe via the Greek island, Mitsotakis is in denial of reality.

This practice is widespread, systemic and illegal, the organisation said on Twitter after the prime ministers television interview.

Catherine Teule, vice president of EuroMed Rights, an NGO that promotes human rights in the Mediterranean region, takes the same position. These kinds of expulsions are nothing new, whether among the Greeks, Italians or Maltese," she said to FRANCE 24. "But Greece has taken advantage of the confinement due to the Covid-19 pandemic to step them up!

Story continues

Report: Over 1,000 migrants pushed back since March

The New York Timess investigation published on August 14 claims that Greece abandoned migrants at sea to be rescued by the Turkish coastguard. According to the US daily, Greek authorities brought migrants to the limit of the country's territorial waters before leaving them to their fate on "inflatable and sometimes overburdened life rafts.

The newspapers investigation found that at least 1,072 people were turned back in at least 31 separate incidents. The investigation gathered testimonies from survivors and evidence from three independent human rights organisations, two researchers and the Turkish coastguard.

Rights expert: Athens took advantage of pandemic

According to experts, the alleged illegal practices grew more frequent during the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent lockdown period in Europe. The Greeks seized the moment, Francois Crepeau, a specialist in international law and a former UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, told the New York Times.

The coronavirus has provided a window of opportunity to close national borders to whoever they wanted, he said.

Matthieu Tardis, a researcher at French international relations think tank Ifri, shared this viewpoint with FRANCE 24s colleagues at InfoMigrants: The Greek government took advantage of the pandemic to tighten its migration polices.

Greek authorities have gone far beyond the acceptable, according to Teule. We even have cases of asylum-seekers already on the Greek islands who were led to believe that they were going to be transferred to the mainland  but were sent back to Turkey! These are deportations, plain and simple, she said.

IOM report: 'collective expulsions'

Like the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which in June issued a statement expressing its concern about reports of pushbacks and collective expulsions of migrants across the Aegean, Legal Centre Lesbos sounded an alarm last July. The organisation, based on the island that is the main gateway for asylum seekers in Greece, indicated it had collected information and testimonies on the abandonment of 30 migrants in the Aegean between March and June.

According to the NGO, Greek authorities developed the habit of damaging boats before abandoning them. The practice of damaging migrants boats is also cited in the New York Times article, which states too that the Greek coastguard transferred migrants to sometimes undersized rescue boats near Greece and Turkeys maritime borders and set them adrift.

Ankara and Athens are at loggerheads on many subjects. Among them is the question of migration, but Turkey's search for hydrocarbons in the eastern Mediterranean in areas it disputes with Greece and Cyprus is also at issue.

In March 2020, triggering an escalation of tensions, Turkey announced it would open its borders with Greece to let refugees through. It was precisely at this time that Greece increased its expulsions of migrants according to UNHCR.

This article has been translated from the original in French.
Aviva is trialling part-time home working for staff in the latest sign that workers may never return to the office full-time following the Covid-19 lockdown.

The insurance giant has said it will start testing out how to combine home and office working when some of its staff begin returning to its offices in September.

Its pilot will take place over the next few months.

Trial: The insurance giant has said it will start testing out how to combine home and office working when some of its staff begin returning to its offices in September

Direct Line, RSA and Legal & General have also kick-started efforts to offer staff more choice over where they work in future.

Direct Line said it was re-assessing how to offer more days at home to staff after conducting an extensive survey on how employees feel about their working location. It has sites in Bromley, Leeds, Manchester, Ipswich and Doncaster.

RSA expects to have more remote working after it discovered staff were keen to have a more flexible work pattern. It has started a phased return to its office in Peterborough, where it has brought capacity up to 30 per cent.

Legal & General has responded to the pandemic in three stages, under the slogan 'respond, recover, reset'. It is now in the 'reset' phase and intends to examine how it can improve its working practices.

The FTSE100 firm said around a quarter of its 6,700 employees in the UK had already been allowed to routinely work away from the offices before the pandemic.

L&G said: 'Our policy will evolve and on a pragmatic, case-by-case basis. Not all employees and locations are the same. Some key functions can only be done with an office presence, equally some employees find it difficult to work productively at home.'
News presenter Natasha, 47, was the inaugural winner of Strictly Come Dancing. Shes an ambassador for Save The Children and President of Barnardos. She lives in East Sussex with husband Justin Bower and their two children, Arlo, 11, and Angelica, ten.

For the first seven years of my life, I lived in Kikuyu, a town about 15 miles west of Nairobi in Kenya. My dad, Raphael, worked for the United Nations; my mum, Catherine, ran a woodwork factory. They were always keen to instil in my younger brother, Ben, and me just how fortunate we were.

On one occasion, they planned to take us to a remote village with some of Mums handicraft. Before we set off, she asked me to find toys to give to the children wed be meeting. I decided there was nothing I could spare, but Mum wasnt having any of it. I was sent back to my room, and sulkily chose a rather distressed-looking doll

Natasha Kaplinsky, 47, (pictured) explained the importance of letting kids know how lucky they are, as she reflected on her own childhood

We eventually arrived at the village. These children had never seen a car before, let alone a white person. They ran behind us, shouting Mzungu (thats white man in Swahili). When we stopped, I reluctantly gave my doll to a girl much the same age as me  about six at the time  and the scene that unfolded stays with me to this day.

This little girl was mobbed by every child in the village as my doll was torn to pieces so everyone could have a little bit of it. My overwhelming emotion was shame: the realisation my doll was so wanted by so many other children that it ended up being utterly destroyed.

I wonder now whether the trauma of that early experience sowed the seeds of my work with charities dedicated to evening out the inequalities of children around the world. Ive travelled the globe with Save The Children. Ive also witnessed, as a result of Covid, a picture of escalating poverty for many vulnerable children in the UK.

Now, when my own two children receive a glut of gifts at Christmas and on their birthdays, I always like to find a gentle way of reminding them of my early experience in Kenya.

For more information go to donate.barnardos.org.uk or email supportercare@savethechildren. org.uk
MELBOURNE, Australia, Aug. 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Bubblegum Casting is a longstanding, highly successful and reputable casting agency. They focus on acting, modelling and influencer opportunities and have been running for the past 38 years. But when serial entrepreneur, Adam Jacobs, took over the company in 2018, he was able to take it to a whole new level by quadrupling revenue, increasing the team size and revitalising the agency back to its top tier status. They recently pushed into an adult agency Hunter Talent, which has recently been named fastest growing talent agency in Australia.

Adam Jacobs - Managing Director Bubblegum Casting + Hunter Talent

With vast experience in brands, digital marketing, and business acquisition and planning, and a career which has seen him do everything from owning a mail order sock subscription company to overseeing digital marketing campaigns for some of the country's biggest banks and retail brands, Jacobs has turned the family business around in an incredibly short timeframe.

By working tirelessly to sign on great new talent, rejuvenate relationships with big brands and organisations, and creating plans for ongoing education, platforms and growth opportunities for his talent, Jacobs has been able to ensure plenty of incredible briefs and opportunities are flowing through the doors, brands like Disney, Marvel, Nike just to name a few.

Jacobs has recognised the years of success the company has had in bringing young faces to Australian media  across TV, print, billboards, large and small campaigns, and wanted to ensure that Bubblegum and Hunter continues to be widely respected as an affordable, supportive and nurturing agency.

He said, "After so many successful years, the time has come to rebrand, as the business takes strides into adding in additional opportunities for its talent. It's an exciting time for us to grow, nurture, and support Australia's next rising stars."

Following in his mother's talent management footsteps, Jacobs is eager to continue to grow the business as a 'Jacobs family legacy'.

"With a focus on encouraging and developing the next big rising stars through offering up classes and courses, launching a drama school and more. Bubblegum Casting and Hunter Talent is looking to continue to expand its team, grow its database and work with as many brands and great people as possible to offer up opportunity to our brilliant talent," he said.

The business now works with some of the biggest brands in the country and is also on top of every TV, film or musical brief that is released.

"Having established ourselves as a dominant player in Australia our next adventures look to growing the adult division," he said.

It certainly seems that the company is well on its way to establish itself on that stage too.

To speak with Mr. Jacobs about his plans, please feel free to contact:

Adam Jacobs

[email protected]

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Adam Jacobs - Managing Director Bubblegum Casting + Hunter Talent

Adam Jacobs - Managing Director Bubblegum Casting + Hunter Talent

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Announcing Our New Adult Division - Hunter Talent

SOURCE Bubblegum Casting
What would you be willing to do for them to love you? Love Me, Fear Me is a reflection on the roles we play and the shapes we take, the stages we chose, the audience we try to impress, and the price of acceptance.

Graduation film by Veronica Solomon made at Film University Babelsberg, Germany, 2018.

Winner of over 25 festival honors and mentions, including Audience Award (Monstra Lisbon), Young Talent Award (Animateka), Emerging Talent Award (Festival Stop Motion Montreal), Technical Achievement Award (KROK), and Most Popular International Film (Primanima).
BOISE  The $300 new federal supplements to jobless Idahoans unemployment compensation are a step closer to being paid.

Unemployed Idahoans could soon have the extra money in their pockets after a federal agency approved Idahos application for extended benefits under an executive order issued by President Donald Trump.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved the application submitted several days ago by Idaho officials to join the program.

Emily Callihan, a spokesperson for Gov. Brad Little, said Friday that the Idaho Department of Labor expects to announce in the coming week when claimants can expect the money.

Were working with (Labor) Director (Jani) Revier so that when those dollars show up, we will get them into peoples pockets as fast as possible, Little said Friday at a news conference.

An estimated 20,000 Idahoans will be eligible for the payments, the Idaho Department of Labor said. The number could vary, based upon the number of people who apply for unemployment benefits each week.

The amount is $100 less than Trump announced Aug. 8 when he ordered the payment of new, supplemental unemployment compensation to workers who have lost their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic.

These payments are a successor to the $600-a-week supplements to state unemployment compensation that Congress also approved in March. Those expired July 25.

The expiration left millions of Americans with only state unemployment compensation, which generally pays less than half of a laid-off workers wages  in Idaho, the average is 41%. The average Idaho recipient had been receiving $866 per week since pandemic-related layoffs began in March, but now is getting $266. Minimum-wage workers get just $72.

Trump signed the executive order after Congress failed to approve a plan that would have extended those benefits. Trump tapped previously appropriated disaster funds. At the time, he said the federal government would provide $300 and states would chip in the other $100.

Many states objected, saying they lacked the money to contribute. In Idaho, Gov. Brad Little said Idaho still had funds it could spend

from $1.25 billion that Congress awarded Idaho in March as part of its coronavirus-relief package.

The Trump administration then said states could count $100 in their existing state unemployment benefits as a match without having to spend additional money. Little then decided to stick with that and not contribute the extra $100.

Little said Monday that it is the states understanding that the federal money will last five weeks.

So far, only Montana, Kentucky and West Virginia have said they will provide the entire $400. South Dakota turned down the $300.

Arizona began distributing the money to its unemployed workers this week.

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<p>The findings come after England's chief medical officer said reopening schools brings less risk of long-term harm than keeping children at home.</p><p>PHE's research detected just 67 single cases and 30 outbreaks, defined as two or more linked cases, in schools across England in June.</p><p><strong>The study also found:</strong></p><ul><li>Only 0.01% of open educational settings had an outbreak</li><li>Out of more than one million children attending pre-school and primary school in June, just 70 children were affected</li><li>Infections in the wider community likely driving cases in schools</li><li>Children were more likely to acquire SARS-CoV-2 infection at home than in school</li></ul><p>SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) is the virus that causes the disease <a href="https://news.sky.com/topic/covid-19-8518" target="_blank"><strong>COVID-19.</strong></a></p><p>Reported <a href="https://news.sky.com/topic/coronavirus-8483" target="_blank"><strong>coronavirus</strong></a> cases, clusters and outbreaks were reviewed daily across all educational settings in England until the end of July as part of the study.</p><p>PHE found that there were more likely to be outbreaks in those areas that also had a high COVID-19 incidence, suggesting transmission in the community was driving the spread in schools.</p><p>The study also found staff members were more likely to be affected by the virus than students, though not more likely than the general population as a whole.</p><p>Where children did contract the infection, they were most likely to catch COVID-19 at home, usually from a parent.</p><p>Half the outbreaks did not involve any students at all and transmission between students was very rare.</p> <p>Sue Hannam, headteacher at Lichfield Cathedral School in Staffordshire, has said there will be an element of "trial and error" when her pupils return.</p><p>She told Sky News: "I think the problem for me at the moment is, if we have someone in the school who is symptomatic, we know that we have to send them home, we know that if they are tested and the tests are positive, that we contact our local public health office who will then give us further guidance.</p><p>"Our real concern is that we know in the autumn term, lots of children will be coming to school with coughs and colds and sneezes... there is a real risk I think of sending a lot of children home because we have to."</p><p>She added: "There's going to have to be a degree of trial and error as we go into next term."</p><p>Professor Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, has acknowledged the government is having to "balance risks" in relation to whether children should return to their education during the coronavirus outbreak.</p><p>But he added he believes pupils are more likely to be "harmed by not going than by going, even during this pandemic".</p><p>Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants all pupils to return to school next month, saying it is the "right thing for everybody".</p> <p>Professor Whitty said: "The first thing to say is that the evidence that not going to school damages children in the long run is overwhelming and that includes their long-term chances.</p><p>"It increases the risks of disparities, it entrenches deep-rooted problems that people may have, it increases the risk that they have mental and physical ill health in the long run."</p><p>He added: "The chances of many children being damaged by not going to school are incredibly clear and therefore the balance of risk is very strongly in favour of children going to school because many more are likely to be harmed by not going than harmed by going, even during this pandemic."</p><p>Professor Whitty has said the reopening of schools will "put pressure" on the R number and could lead to the closure of pubs and shops at a local level.</p><p>He also said there is "overwhelming clear evidence that the chances of children dying from COVID are incredibly small" as he aimed to address parents' concerns over the health risks of children returning to school.</p><p>Professor Whitty added "there's some evidence that children, particularly in primary school, are actually less likely to catch COVID in the first place".</p><p>He said: "There's also very clear evidence from the UK and around the world that children much less commonly get a severe illness and end up having to be hospitalised if they get symptomatic COVID at probably a rate of less than a tenth of the general population."</p><p>He has been joined by the chief medical officers and deputy chief medical officers for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales in saying children should return to school during the pandemic.</p><p>Professor Whitty acknowledged that children will undoubtedly bring households together who wouldn't come into contact if schools were closed.</p> <p><strong>:: Listen to the Daily podcast on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sky-news-daily/id951048357?mt=2" target="_blank">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc3ByZWFrZXIuY29tL3Nob3cvMzI4NzI0Ni9lcGlzb2Rlcy9mZWVk" target="_blank">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/3RdXZrbbG3NydLsPYmRSJy" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.spreaker.com/show/sky-news-daily" target="_blank">Spreaker</a></strong></p><p>He added some of this will happen directly as children from households will meet, but it was also happen indirectly as it will free up some people to go to work.</p><p>Professor Whitty said: "By opening schools, which I think everybody agrees is absolutely essential for the education of children, we are going to bring households together who might not otherwise be together.</p><p>"The result of that is that it will create some upward pressure on the R, it may increase it... if that happens we will have to respond."</p><p>The R number is a measure of how many people on average each infected person transmits the virus on to.</p><p>Professor Whitty said it is possible other areas of society will face restrictions in order to keep schools open.</p><p>He said the aim will be for these measures to be put in place locally to target areas where there has been a surge in transmission.</p> <p>Professor Whitty continued: "If it was shops in a particular area we would need to look at shops, if it was hospitality, we would need to look at hospitality."</p><p>He added: "But I do want to be really clear, even with all the information we have got now, even with all the tools we have at our disposal now, we have still got a really serious challenge of coronavirus for at least the next nine months."</p><p>Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said the prime minister's promise to get all children back to school had been put at "serious risk" by a "week of chaos" over exam results.</p><p>He said the last two weeks have been "wasted clearing up a mess of the government's own making", telling The Observer: "I want to see children back at school next month, and I expect the prime minister to deliver on that commitment.</p><p>"However, the commitment is now at serious risk after a week of chaos, confusion and incompetence from the government.</p><p>"Ministers should have spent the summer implementing a national plan to get all children back to school. Instead, the last two weeks have been wasted clearing up a mess of the government's own making over exam results."</p><p>Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation has said children aged 12 and over should wear masks when they cannot guarantee social distancing of at least one metre to limit the spread of the virus.</p><p>Children between six and 11 should use them on a "risk-based approach", the global body added.</p><p>The UK recorded a further 1,041 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, down from 1,288 on Saturday, according to government figures.</p><p>Six people died after testing positive for coronavirus within the previous 28 days, compared with 18 deaths announced on Saturday.</p>
The U.S. Census Bureau is also currently following up in-person with households nationwide that have not yet responded to the 2020 Census. In addition, Aurora has contracted census workers who have been working throughout the summer to increase response rates.
Labor is projected to retain government in the Northern Territory but may not have enough seats to win a majority in its own right after Saturday's election.

With more than 60 per cent of the vote counted, Michael Gunner's Labor government, which campaigned hard on its coronavirus management credentials, had 11 seats to the Country Liberal Party's three. Two seats have been won by independents and 11 are undecided.

NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner is confident of victory in the 2020 Territory election. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

"Labor is in front on the votes, Labor is in front on the seats, and tonight I can tell you I am very confident that Labor will form the next government of the Northern Territory," Mr Gunner said, to chants of "four more years" from the party faithful.

The result is a dramatic shift from 2016, when the Liberals had been reduced to two seats at the 2016 election with Labor holding 18.
Traffic in many residential neighbourhoods in Peterborough may soon be calmer.

The city is seeking public feedback on traffic concerns in five neighbourhoods, one in each ward in Peterborough.

Consultants will study the neighbourhoods and recommend traffic calming measures  speed bumps, for example  and council will consider those ideas in November.

But then the project goes further. The traffic calming measures put into place in those five pilot neighbourhoods will be part of what the citys calling a tool kit to address traffic concerns elsewhere in Peterborough.

As part of Calm Streets PTBO, the city will also develop a formal set of protocols for citizens to follow to report traffic concerns.

Mayor Diane Therrien ran on a platform that included a promise of safer residential streets and this week she said this project aligns with that goal.

Safe neighbourhoods are key to a healthy community, and traffic calming is a key way to improve safety for all residents, she wrote in a text message.

The five neighbourhoods in the pilot project are:

Town Ward: Romaine Street (from George Street South to the Canadian Canoe Museum at Monaghan Road)

Otonabee Ward: Sherburne Street (off Lansdowne Street West, just west of McKnights gifts and flowers), as well as Morrow Street and Montgomery Street

Ashburnham Ward: Auburn Street (off Parkhill Road, just east of the Inverlea Bridge) and Dunlop Street

Northcrest Ward: Franklin Drive (off Cumberland Avenue)

Monaghan Ward: Westridge Boulevard (which is off Lansdowne Street West, west of the Mapleridge Plaza) and Cherryhill Road

A second phase of the project will focus on additional neighbourhoods later this year.

City staff selected the neighbourhoods for the pilot project after council ordered last fall that one residential area per ward have a traffic study.

Council asked staff to recommend traffic-calming measures for those five neighbourhoods by November and implement them soon thereafter.

Consultants have also been hired to help: Paradigm Transportation Solutions of Cambridge, Ont. will offer expertise in traffic engineering and planning, and LURA Consulting of Toronto will facilitate community engagement.

As part of the city-funded project, LURA is hiring one resident in each of the five neighbourhoods to help plan community engagement activities.

Meanwhile, theres an online survey on the citys website asking residents of the five pilot neighbourhoods about their traffic concerns and what traffic-calming measures might help.

The citys not presupposing what the solutions are  or even what the problems are, said city communications manager Brendan Wedley in an interview this week.

Wedley said theres a range of tools available to help calm traffic and the consultants will consider them all.

Some of those tools will likely include speed bumps and rumble strips (which are applied to the pavement and cause vibration and rumbling inside a vehicle).

The city may also consider painting traffic lanes so they are narrowed, which Coun. Andrew Beamer said at a meeting in October has been used in Hamilton to calm traffic.

Beamer had suggested the project at the meeting last year, saying that traffic concerns are an ongoing issue. He said narrowed lanes can be an effective solution.

It decreases speed and it decreases emissions  which is very important, since we have declared a climate emergency, he said.

Coun. Stephen Wright said at that meeting that neighbours in his ward of Northcrest have concerns about speedy drivers.

Some streets in the area, youd think theyre 401 light, he said.

Coun. Kim Zippel said then that she liked the equity inherent in the project, given that theres a pilot neighbourhood in each ward.

Coun. Henry Clarke had enthusiasm for the project too, at the meeting.

Skinny streets  even paint in the right place can make a real difference, he said. Im all for it.

joelle.kovach@peterboroughdaily.com

Calm Streets PTBO

To learn more about the project, see maps of the pilot neighbourhoods or take the online survey, visit connectptbo.ca/TrafficCalming

To apply for a job organizing community engagement activities, the deadline is Aug. 28 to send your resume to radamson@lura.ca
A federal appeals court panel ruling a few months ago showed that state prosecutors are not above the law, according to Bruce Hamilton, the ACLU attorney who had just helped win the case.

His jubilation was fair enough, for the court had rejected the prosecutors' claim that they enjoyed unqualified immunity to civil lawsuits. The notion that we are all equal under the law is one of the blessings of being American.

Growing up, we might even believe it. But five minutes in an average courthouse will be enough to persuade the most naif patriot that the law is no impartial instrument. Prosecutors, for instance, can get away with antics that would leave ordinary mortals, including defense attorneys, in a heap of trouble.

We may soon get further evidence of that.

The ruling that gave rise to the peculiar conclusion that prosecutors are not above the law came after an attempt to dodge any consequences for the lies and dirty tricks that some of them regard as acceptable in the fight against crime.

We have grown so used to such stunts that prosecutorial misconduct was long ago absorbed into common parlance. But what has turned out to be the swansong for Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro was a doozy, a deception planned and executed to a professional level.

Cannizzaro and his assistants printed up bogus subpoenas with which they coerced testimony they needed to win convictions. Although these pieces of paper had no legal force whatsoever, they included a warning that fines or jail awaited any potential witness who chose to defy them.

Cannizzaro et al had a charming habit of locking up battered women as material witnesses if they were reluctant to testify. Sometimes, according to civil rights attorneys, prosecutors would fool judges into issuing material witness warrants by citing a failure to comply with one of their homemade subpoenas.

Cannizzaro is hardly the first district attorney to hoodwink potential witnesses with what appeared to be official court summonses. His predecessor in Orleans Parish, Harry Connick, played similar tricks for many years, while prosecutors in outlying parishes followed suit.

But their efforts were relatively amateurish, and generally were not styled as subpoenas, Cannizzaro's version flashed that eyecatching word at the top, and added bogus threats of fines or imprisonment.

While such a meticulously planned and fraudulent scheme might always have earned the grudging respect of prosecutors, it would once have been impossible to imagine they would embrace tactics that, if they do not constitute forgery, certainly partake of its quality.

Prosecutors stopped issuing fake subpoenas when they were exposed in 2017 by The Lens, and whether using then was a criminal act is a question on which expert opinion is divided and which may never be settled. Harry Rosenberg, a former U.S. Attorney in New Orleans, maintained that prosecutors, though they stepped outside the boundaries, were well intentioned and meant witnesses no harm. That is a contention with which witnesses are unlikely to agree, but nobody from Cannizzaro's office will face prosecution. They may, however, be held liable for damages, the federal appeals court having decided their immunity when performing official duties does not apply if they resort to chicanery in gathering evidence.

Cannizzaro, who spent 12 years as DA after decades as a judge, is not seeking reelection, and perhaps his decision to retire showed he feared his brand of rough justice is going out of fashion. Whether he or any of his assistants will face sanctions from the state Supreme Court is impossible to predict and may never be known. Despite the recent and much-ballyhooed revision of the disciplinary system, the punishment for an errant attorney may be nothing more than a confidential admonition.

What can be asserted with confidence is that any attorney who is not employed as a government prosecutor would be in a heap of trouble, and likely face suspension, for falsifying official documents. But for a prosecutor to pay any price, even in cases of conspicuous sin, is practically unheard of in Louisiana. The Cannizzaro counterfeit caper will end in a cover-up.

Email James Gill at gill504nola.gmail.com.
Three people who tested COVID-19 positive in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar district cannot be traced as they provided fake information and phone numbers during sample collection, officials said on Sunday.

Two of them claimed to be staffers of a hospital here, while the third person had given his address as Saket Colony, they said.

Health teams went to Saket Colony on Friday and to the hospital mentioned by the other two persons on Saturday to take them for treatment at a medical facility, the officials said. It was found that they had provided fake information, Chief Medical Officer Dr Praveen Chopda said.

The two, who had claimed to be medical staffers, which turned out to be false, were found COVID-19 positive on Saturday, the officials said, adding that other person had tested positive on Friday.

District authorities have launched a search to trace the three persons, the officials said. Following the incidents, authorities have decided to check Aadhaar cards for address during sample collection, they said.
Presidential candidates usually move to the center in the general election to appeal to moderates, but Joe Biden did the opposite when he selected Kamala Harris as his running mate. Picking Harris completes Bidens sprint leftward on abortion, as she has shown an unwavering devotion to the abortion lobby and supports taxpayer-funded abortion on demand.

With this decision, Biden has left no doubt: He is the pro-abortion candidate, and the 2020 Democratic ticket is perhaps the most pro-abortion in history. That doesnt bode well for Democrats.

In recent years, the party has adopted stances on abortion that are out of step with public opinion. Democratic politicians by and large support late-term abortion, while 70 percent of Americans would limit abortion to, at most, the first three months of pregnancy. Most voters believe in reasonable limits on abortion. Only those who stand to profit from unfettered access and unlimited funding for abortion, groups such as Planned Parenthood, oppose any restrictions.

Biden and Harris also believe in using taxpayer funds to pay for abortions. In the past, Biden had supported the Hyde amendment, which prevents federal tax dollars from directly funding abortions, but he changed his mind last summer after extremists in his party threatened to vote against him if he maintained that position. Polling has shown that the American people disagree with Biden and Democrats, as 60 percent of Americans believe their taxes should not be used to pay for abortions. Even many abortion supporters realize that forcing people with strong moral objections to fund abortion on demand is a terrible policy.

If elected, Biden will try to use his administration to reshape the federal judiciary and expand abortion rights. Some liberals argue that he should increase the number of justices appointed to the Supreme Court to make it easier to achieve progressive goals. Both Biden and Harris promise a litmus test for judicial nominees, ensuring that all their judges back Roe v. Wade.

Story continues

During the Democratic primary, meanwhile, Harris promised to institute a regime of preclearance, under which her Justice Department would challenge any state law that supposedly violates Roe. In the Senate, she has sponsored the most extreme abortion legislation Congress has ever seen.

A vote for a BidenHarris ticket is a vote for abortion on demand, paid for by unwilling taxpayers.

President Trumps administration, on the other hand, has been a steadfast defender of unborn children and their mothers. Trump was the first sitting president to speak at the annual March for Life rally in Washington, D.C. All of us here today understand an eternal truth: Every child is a precious and sacred gift from God. Together, we must protect, cherish and defend the dignity and sanctity of every human life, he said.

From protecting the right of nuns to decline to provide their employees with abortifacient drugs to reinstating and expanding a Reagan-era regulation that prevents the U.S. from funding non-governmental organizations that promote abortion, President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have demonstrated that they are committed to providing equal opportunity for all  born and unborn alike.

President Trump is also committed to appointing judges who will interpret the Constitution as the Framers intended and uphold the dignity it confers upon every human being. Our Constitution and our laws contain many protections for innocent life, and I have worked hard for the confirmation and appointment of judges  including two outstanding Supreme Court justices  committed to the rule of law, a White House statement announced.

Over and over, the president has advanced policies that protect the unborn. He even barred facilities that perform abortions from receiving federal funding through Title X, a program that awards federal taxpayer dollars to family-planning organizations. Likewise, the Department of Health and Human Services has issued a new rule to ensure that health-care professionals arent coerced into performing procedures that conflict with their religious beliefs.

However, Biden and Harris would undo all of this progress that the Trump administration has made to protect unborn babies and the pro-life movement, and their administration would cause further harm. It is critical that these pro-life protections remain in place for years to come. Sadly, that would certainly not happen if the BidenHarris ticket is elected.

More from National Review
The BJP has been maintaining that the ruling National Democratic Alliance is intact in the state

New Delhi: BJP President J P Nadda said on Sunday that all three NDA constituents in Bihar, the JD(U), LJP and his party, will fight the coming assembly polls in the state together with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as the face of the alliance, and expressed confidence that it will emerge victorious.

Nadda's remarks at a virtual meet of the Bihar BJP comes amid a bitter war of words between Kumar's JD(U) and Chirag Paswan-headed LJP.

The BJP has been maintaining that the ruling National Democratic Alliance is intact in the state and has stuck to Kumar's projection as its chief ministerial face.

Nadda also claimed that the opposition in Bihar as well as elsewhere has become a "spent force" and asserted that the BJP is the only party which is being looked at by people with hope.

The opposition has neither ideology nor vision nor any spirit to serve people, and it can't rise above petty politics, he added.

He praised the Bihar government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and floods in the state.

The special package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been implemented in "letter and spirit", he said, asking the state BJP to go to people with its details.

Nadda also shared details of the Modi government's work to boost health care measures to battle the pandemic and to provide relief to people, especially the poor, with several packages.

Assembly elections in the state are due in October-November.
An Aug. 14 press release by the National Retail Federation was more optimistic.

Retail sales are starting the third quarter on a solid footing considering the nosedive we saw this spring, but we have to remember that theres uncertainty about economic policy and that the resurgence of the virus is putting pressure on the fledgling recovery, federation Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz wrote.

June retail sales were up a seasonally adjusted 8.4% from May, while those in July were up a seasonally adjusted 1.2% from June, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report.

Walmart reported its online sales have almost doubled during the pandemic, increasing 97%. Walmarts overall sales during the most recent quarter were up 10%, the New York Post reported.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 ruled that states could force out-of-state retailers to collect state and local sales taxes from their residents. The Texas Legislature acted last year to corral that additional source of revenue.

With some exceptions, retailers could choose to charge the actual combined state and local rates, which in Waco is 8.25%, or a flat rate of 8%. The Texas Comptrollers Office estimated that making online sales subject to taxation would put an extra $500 million annually in state coffers.

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A China-Europe freight train with 45 compartments of anti-epidemic supplies leaves the Xinzhu Railway Station in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, on Aug. 12, 2020, to head for Italy's Milan. (Photo by Yuan Jingzhi/Xinhua)

China has demonstrated its excellent capability of running the economy smoothly, a leading Bangladeshi economist has said, noting that the country has maintained steady gross domestic product growth, transformed its financial management, banking system and capital market, and attracted foreign direct investment from developed countries by establishing itself as a global manufacturing hub.

DHAKA, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- China's contributions to the world economy have proven significant amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a leading Bangladeshi economist told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Jamal Uddin, general secretary of the Bangladesh Economic Association (BEA), said scientific innovations from China have made the world competitive.

Chinese mobile handsets and electronic devices, including those of Huawei and cashless financial and banking systems, have reduced the cost of doing business, said the leader of BEA, which has more than 4,500 members from academia, government, businesses, civil society and the masses.

Uddin, also a leader of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ruling Bangladesh Awami League party, noted Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has invested in Bangladeshi mobile financial service provider Bkash.

Photo taken on July 3, 2020 shows the research center of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba on the "AIsland" of Zhangjiang Science City in Pudong New Area, east China's Shanghai. (Xinhua/Fang Zhe)

This has helped add value to micro-level transactions in the billions, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic when the Bangladeshi government safety net, salary and wages are paid through this mobile platform, and enabled poorer people to enjoy electronic financial services, said Uddin, also former president of the national professional accountancy body, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh.

Uddin, who obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Cardiff Business School in Britain, spoke highly of China's capacity to manage the economy, calling its model unique and competitive.

The expert noted China's discipline was "most important" in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Citizens have leisure time at a commercial street in Shanghai, east China, Aug. 7, 2020. (Xinhua/Fang Zhe)

China has sufficient resources to overcome COVID-19, such as technology, skilled health professionals, health infrastructure and management capacity, said the economist, adding that with all these necessary logistics, China can win this fight and manage its economy.

China has demonstrated its excellent capability of running the economy smoothly, the expert said, noting that the country has maintained steady gross domestic product growth, transformed its financial management, banking system and capital market, and attracted foreign direct investment from developed countries by establishing itself as a global manufacturing hub.

China's export-led and huge home market-based industrial expansion has created a market for developed and developing countries including Bangladesh, which has now been enjoying a zero-tariff facility on 97 percent of exports to China, said Uddin, also former chairman of Janata Bank Limited, one of the largest state-owned commercial banks in Bangladesh.
The Oyo State Police Command has re-arrested Sunday Shodipe, a 19-year-old man accused of involvement in the rape and murder of some female residents in Ibadan.

The state police spokesperson, Olugbenga Fadeyi, confirmed the development to PREMIUM TIMES Sunday in a telephone interview.

Sunday Shodipe has been re-arrested this morning and he is in police custody, he told our correspondent.

When asked how the arrest was made, he replied that a press statement would be released later in the day.

This newspaper reported how the police announced that Mr Shodipe escaped from custody last Sunday. He was first arrested on July 17 but escaped on August 11.

The state police command announced a N500,000 reward for anyone who may help in locating him. Two officers were also arrested in connection with Mr Shodipes escape.

Before now, this newspaper reported various rape cases and killings in Akinyele area of Ibadan during COVID-19 lockdown.

No fewer than three women were raped in the area within two months while more cases occurred across the country.

The Nigerian government has since pledged to take tougher action against rape.
Ken McQueen, Environmental Protection Agency Region Six administrator, has seen the oil and gas industry from painting wellheads and greasing pumpjacks as a summer intern to vice president of an oil company before making his way to the regulatory agency.

My goal is a cleaner, safer, healthier environment for all generations, he said during the weekly Oilfield Strong webinar presented by OTA Compression/OTA Environmental, Kimark and the Permian Basin Petroleum Association.

He said he wants to provide regulatory certainty to communities and businesses -- which share responsibility for the environment -- and increase compliance and inspections to comply with the rule of law.

I focus on effective engagement with stakeholders on responsible management of oil and gas operations, he said.

That integrated approach takes on increased importance amid the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.

Two issues dominate the region he oversees: emissions and water.

McQueen said the EPAs recent rollback of 2016 methane emissions rules will save the oil and gas industry an estimated $97 million to $12 million between 2019 and 2025. The rules had required twice-yearly inspections of equipment installed after 2015 at well sites and downstream segments such as pipelines, compressor stations and storage tanks.

It also rescinded methane limits for oil and gas production and processing segments, while maintaining volatile organic compound limits, he said.

The reason is, the EPA found regulations of both VOCs and methane to be duplicate. Control of VOCs also reduced methane emissions, so the methane limitations were redundant, he said.

The rollbacks were to ensure sound public policy changes to EPA rules that do not unnecessarily burden the development of domestic oil and gas resources, he said.

Thats especially important for smaller and mid-size operators who are responsible for 80 percent of oil and gas production and were disproportionately impacted by the regulations, McQueen said.

The EPA conducts annual flyovers monitoring for methane emissions, and McQueen said last years flyover covered 1,600 square miles of the Permian Basin of New Mexico and West Texas and found emissions had been reduced by 14 million pounds.

Before the pandemic, this area had grown production significantly, McQueen said. In Region 6, its 73 percent of the total oil production in the U.S. This rapid growth required more innovative and coordinated efforts on our part  enhanced inspections, partnering with both Texas and New Mexico, helicopter flyovers with optical gas imaging cameras to identify unlit or malfunctioning flares.

The agency is preparing to embark on its 2020 flyover of the Permian, and later in the year will conduct flyovers of the San Juan and Anadarko basins.

On the other dominant issue, water, McQueen said fresh water is a challenge, with 80 percent of states expecting shortages by 2030.

Region 6 knows the importance of water, he said.

His agency, he said, is working to bring together state, community and industry leaders to work on diversifying their water portfolios. That includes looking for ways to reuse municipal wastewater, irrigation flowback and produced water. Those efforts have resulted in the Water Reuse Action Plan that earlier this year expanded its call for reuse of produced water from oil and gas wells.

Were looking at the beneficial reuse of produced water as a larger component of our water needs, McQueen said. Were particularly interested in finding beneficial reused of wastewater, oil and gas extraction water. There was over 42 billion gallons of produced water in the New Mexico portion of the Permian Basin alone in 2018. Some are asking if it made sense to continue wasting that water, especially in areas where water is scarce. Rather than injecting it, its important to find alternative uses for this water. We must start thinking strategically about a Plan B for handling water.

The EPA has been studying how produced water is managed and evaluating opportunities to encourage its reuse inside and outside the oil and gas industry, he said.

McQueen said that, despite the current economic climate facing the oil and gas industry, it will continue its focus on ESG environmental, social and governance, with an emphasis on the environment.

Its become a difficult situation to choose what youre willing to fund and what youre not going to fund, he said. At the end of the day, environmental regulations are in place for everyones public health. Its important for companies to focus on environmental compliance. What we want at the EPA is to see a focus on compliance with environmental laws, not just from a compliance standpoint but from a public perception standpoint. Its important for companies to be good citizens with regard to the environment, even with the cost. It benefits companies in the long run to indicate to the public they are being good citizens and doing what they can to reduce their environmental footprint.
The millennials are at it again. Not just the millennials, but the zoomers too, tiktoking snapchatters like myself, partying together countrywide in these nightmarishly crowded, coronavirusy nightclubs. You've seen us at it on Facebook by now and, despite the indignant comment you left admonishing us to get our priorities straight, we do not apologise. I, for one, would hold a disco in a meat plant if they'd let me - nobody over 40 invited.

This is one of the storylines we're meant to chew over this week. The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned that young people are becoming the "primary drivers" of the virus worldwide. We've been hearing similar murmurings from local health officials for weeks, and the aforementioned Facebook videos have been scornfully shared well over a million times.

After a brutal week of climbing case rates and redoubled restrictions - paradoxically coupled with the announcement of full school reopening to come - the time, to many, seems ripe for a round of intergenerational warfare.

If this game really must be played, we youth have no shortage of ammunition. It's one thing locking yourself up in a mortgage-free home, with an upper-level management job that can mostly be done by email, but for those whose prime career-building years have been mangled beyond repair by the two greatest recessions since Keynes' day, the impulse to muddle through is somewhat more powerful.

Recent reports show that half of all Irish young people currently have "major concerns" about their mental health, with anxiety about the future being the single biggest driver of unrest. In the United States, one in four young people "seriously contemplated suicide" in June.

Now, precariousness, depression, and a well-educated sense that nothing in the future is going to make the hardships of today worthwhile, is standard millennial whinge. Anyone who has read this paper long enough will have had more than their fill of it, and more than their fill of potato-headed 50-something columnists seeking to mock it.

I'm not here to change minds, only to point out that picking a fight in such trying times with everyone born after 1980 is unlikely to serve anyone's best interest. Whoever wins, we all end up losing.

The pointlessness of the whole debate can be seen in the sheer ubiquity of the findings about youth responsibility for spreading. When the WHO put out its warning, it wasn't just Ireland it was talking about. Virtually every country where lockdowns were lifted is experiencing the beginnings of a muted second wave, and in every case, the demographic pattern of transmission is near identical. Without over-stressing the differences between myself and my 23-year-old counterpart in Jakarta, it seems highly unlikely you're going to tell a moral or cultural story about impudence and selfishness that fits the two of us, but leaves my older Irish neighbour free from sin.

What we're looking at is something more akin to an anthropological law: free a caged population and those with the most energy and the fewest inhibitions will be the first ones out and about. It's not a rule that will fit every case - in fact, I struggle to think of one young person I know who has been near a pub since all of this began - but at a sufficiently abstract level, protesting it is about as useful as trying to headbutt your way through a concrete wall.

What will work, as we have already seen, is clear, uncompromising governmental instruction. We had that, briefly, when lockdowns began in March. It would be easy to diagnose its recent erosion as just another fumble in the new Government's absurdly large catalogue of them, but there's also a sense in which the global vision underlying those early days of virus management appears to be on a shaky footing.

Perhaps one big push to flatten the curve was always a noble pipe dream. If so, then the rest of the year may be even more despair-filled and anxiety-inducing than what's already come. Intergenerational recriminations will do nothing to solve that. I just hope they buy us enough time to formulate a coherent plan for what comes next.
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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A quarter of migrants who claimed to be children after crossing the English Channel from France were older than 18, council figures have revealed.

Of the 1,668 who told officials they were children after landing on the Kent coast in the last five years, more than 400 were later found to be adults.

A source at Kent county council told The Sunday Telegraph: 'Following age assessment, around 25 percent are assessed as being 18 or over. They will then almost definitely appeal this through the courts and the council pays all the legal fees.'

Last week, Abdulfatah Hamdallah washed up dead on a beach at Sangatte, near Dunkirk. His friend, who is purportedly 16, managed to swim ashore and initially reported that he believed Hamdallah to be the same age as him. Hamdallah was 28.

Border Force officers aboard HMC Hunter speak to migrants aboard a dinghy in the Channel on August 10

Hamdallah was from West Kordofan state in Sudan which borders the war-ravaged regions of Darfur and the Nuba Mountains.

People traffickers in the country use Facebook to advertise their services, telling followers that 'now is the best time to take the boat.'

A total of 4,999 migrants, most of them north African and Middle Eastern men, have made the treacherous journey across the Channel so far this year.

Kent has started transferring the new arrivals to other councils across the country because it cannot cope with the numbers, the Telegraph reported.

On August 14, the local authority said it had reached capacity for unaccompanied children seeking asylum and would not be able to accept any more.

Mr Hamdallah (pictured) couldn't swim and drowned when their boat burst a mile from the beach at Sandgatte

Kent is looking after more than 600 under-18s who are costing tax payers 200,000 a month.

Another 950 people, aged 18 to 25, have been given temporary accommodation.

Those found to be under 18 will have the right to financial help with accommodation up until they are 25.

Those who are found to be adults will be returned to their country of origin, a roughly three year process which is fraught with legal wranglings.

Migrant men picked up by the UK Border Force arrive at Dover Port on August 20

Refugee rights organisations claim that age assessments are not scientific and make errors.

Kent Refugee Action Network told The Telegraph: 'Age assessments are imprecise, subjective and arbitrary.

'In fact, the problem is not people pretending to be younger than they are, it's age assessments that often put them as older than they are, and that has devastating consequences, leading to children in foster care being moved to adult accommodation.'
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Authorities took a Staten Island man into custody Thursday after he allegedly assaulted a woman at Newark International Airport, according to a report from the Mahwah-Ramsey Daily Voice.

Jason Strong, 30, allegedly sped off with the victim and her friend after the incident started at the airports Terminal B arrivals area, according to the report.

A Port Authority spokeswoman told the news outlet that officers caught up with the suspect after he crashed the vehicle a few blocks away. The PAPD did not respond to requests for comment Saturday night.

Police charged Strong with aggravated assault, criminal restraint, making terroristic threats and endangerment, according to the report.
The Executives of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the United Kingdom has inaugurated the West London Chapter of the Branch.



The youngest chapter of the party in the United Kingdom has Mr. Isaac Appiah- Kubi as its Chairman and the womens wing is led by Nana Pokua Antwi Twum. The rest of the executives are first vice-chair, Mr. Banahene Osei Tutu, second vice chair, Mr. Charles Afari, Secretary, Dr. John Whonderr Arthur, Communication: Mr. Patrick Baah and Alexander Forster, Organiser, Mr. Nathaniel Quinoo Abban, Youth Organiser, Mr. Kwabena Nkethia, and Treasurer as Mr. Selorm Amuzu. The chapter also named two Elders to guide the chapter and provide advice. They are Minster Gifty Asare and Mr. Opoku.



In a speech to mark the inauguration, the chairman of NPP UK Mr. Kwaku Nkansah commended the members of the chapter for bringing themselves together to identify with the New Patriotic Party.



He congratulated the new executive for the initiative and encouraged them to expand the membership to include as many Ghanaian residents in all areas of West London.



He admonished them to go and tell the story of the successes and unprecedented achievements of President Nana Addo which has made NPP so attractive in the UK leading to the opening of more chapters.



He recounted the many projects that the Government has brought to Ghanaians, as part of its Agenda for Change, Creating Equal Opportunities for all. He continued that the Government had rolled out policies such as the Free SHS, the One district one factory, Jobs for the graduates through the Nabco scheme, the upskilling of the youth through the granting of more scholarships, the delivery of medicines and blood, through the drone delivery system, infrastructural developments including Roads among several others.



The executive of NPP UK also advised and encouraged the new chapter to carry on the mantle of nation-building by supporting the policies and programs of the government and to provide the necessary resources to the adopted constituency for the 2020 election.



The Branch Organizer, Mr. Richmond Boateng advised members to impress on Ghanaians for the need to maintain the NPP in power for as long as possible for continuity in programs, projects, and policies. He further commented on the youthfulness of the group and said they constitute the future of the NPP in the UK.



On behalf of West London, the Chairman, Mr. Isaac Appiah-Kubi thanked the NPP UK executives for the support and inauguration in his speech. He said the chapter started with only 10 people and in 10 months has grown to over 70 members.



Further, he quoted Isaac Newton to celebrate some people who contributed to the successes of the chapter,



If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants, we are being inaugurated today because some Giants provided their shoulders for us to stand on and wisdom demands that we do reorganize and appreciate these people accordingly. He narrated



According to him, Mr. Kingsley Adumattah Agyapong, the second vice-chairman of NPP UK provided counseling, Mr. Lord Mcmensah provided initial support for setting up the chapter whilst Dr. Da Costa Aboagye on his part shaped the strength of the chapter foundations.



In the conclusion of his speech, the Chairman Mr. Appiah - Kubi communicated the decision of the West London membership and executives by honoring Dr. Da Costa Aboagye as a lifetime patron for the chapter in recognition of his sacrifices and commitment to the establishment of West London Chapter as a full chapter.



There were donations from existing, chapter- in -formations and some individuals to support the new chapter.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









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Linkedin (Reuters) Sydney, Australia  Sun, August 23, 2020 19:07 514 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066fdefde 2 Environment antarctic,Australia,snow,snowfall,climate Free

Antarctic air reaching Australia's south east triggered snowfall down to low altitudes across several states on Saturday, with many people out enjoying the rare event despite wild winds and heavy snow that closed some roads.

Pictures of snowy towns and landscapes across New South Wales (NSW), Victoria, the Australia Capital Territory and the island state of Tasmania flooded social media as locals rushed to capture the surprise early spring snowfall.

"We've seen light #snow make it to #Canberra today, and yes even heard a few rogue flakes landed on Parliament House," in the nation's capital, the Bureau of Meteorology said in a Twitter post.

Read also: Sea level rise quickens as Greenland ice sheet sheds record amount

Over one meter of snow had fallen in a number of alpine regions, and the cold weather would likely remain for several days, the bureau said.

"It's awesome," Raj Kumar told the Seven Network. Kumar had traveled from Sydney with his family to see the snow in the town of Oberon in NSW's Blue Mountains, an area that was under threat from widespread bushfires last year.

"I think it's better than Perisher Valley," referring to a popular snow resort about a four-hour drive south of Oberon.

Topics : antarctic Australia snow snowfall climate
Since the first cases were reported back in February, Vietnam has done a tremendous job in containing the COVID-19 pandemic, evidenced by global lows in both case count and deaths, as well as a heightened sense of normalcy among the population.

browser not support iframe.

The feat has been, in large part, thanks to exceptional and timely government measures, including a nationwide lockdown order, which lasted several months, and the sealing of borders. However, if Vietnam wishes to remain a global leader in pandemic containment, it must turn its attention to and address threats from the outside world.

Border guards patrol the borderline in the northern province of Dien Bien.  VNA/VNS Photo

On July 25, Vietnam confirmed the continuation of community transmission of COVID-19 in Da Nang, a tourism hotspot. In addition to putting an end to the countrys impressive 99-day streak without a case in the community, the resurfacing of the coronavirus drew the public eye towards a far more pressing issue: illegal immigration. That same day, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc ordered an investigation into a network that helped foreigners, particularly Chinese tourists, circumvent stringent border security measures and the fourteen-day quarantine requirement for entry. We must prosecute all cases of illegal entry, he said, especially networks that aim to bring foreigners into Vietnam."

The logic behind these new cases is simple, yet unnerving. There hasnt been a community case for ninety-nine days, and viruses cannot appear out of nowhere. Therefore, the most probable conclusion is that an infected individual had somehow been able to gain entry into the country, leading to the continuation of community transmission. Armed with this information, local and national authorities have since thwarted a number of human trafficking rings that aimed to smuggle Chinese tourists into popular destinations such as Nha Trang, Phu Quoc, and Da Nang, and even beyond to Cambodia.

These recent developments have placed the spotlight upon the inadequate enforcement of the China-Vietnamese border, but this is far from a new problem. Since 2007, The Vietnamese government estimates that 90 per cent of Vietnamese trafficking victims are trafficked into China, and 80 per cent are sexually exploited. It is highly probable that the very groups responsible for these human trafficking operations are now operating to smuggle foreigners into Vietnam during the pandemic, using their prior established knowledge of the inadequacies with border security. The demand comes chiefly north of the border, where there is always a steady supply of illegal economic migrants and workers. The timing of the second wave also corresponds to the peak summer travel season. Vietnam, with its exceptional handling of the pandemic thus far and attractive tourist destinations, becomes a tempting destination for those looking to unwind amidst the pandemic. It is for these reasons, therefore, that border security must be at the very top of Vietnams plan of action against the COVID-19 pandemic.

There are a few tasks which Vietnam has to accomplish in order to maintain stability and resilience against the pandemic in this new situation. Firstly, it has to continue its superior performance pertaining to the identification of cases and dealing with them, as well maintain a stable environment within the country. The government has done well in this regard, having established very clear guidelines and protocols in dealing with suspected and confirmed cases. All individuals returning from a high-risk area or from abroad are placed in quarantine for fourteen days, and all citizens are recommended to use phone apps to self-report potential symptoms, as well as track recorded cases. Large-scale testing has also been recently implemented. These effective measures have yielded, and will continue to yield, favourable results.

The second measure that must be taken is the continued tightening of border security. This includes both legal and illegal border crossings. Vietnam must continue stringent screening of any and all individuals seeking to enter the country at this time, upholding its mandatory fourteen-day quarantine policy. However, the brunt of the issue lies with illicit border crossings. Any attempt to enter the country or facilitate the entrance of aliens into the country illicitly must be prosecuted in a timely manner, and contact tracing must be implemented. A bolstering of border patrol agents at this time is also necessary, as the Vietnamese border with both China and its western neighbours are not natural, but largely administratively set, which may make some regions of the border susceptible to unreported and illicit crossings, something that human and goods trafficking rings have done for a long time.

Increasing public understanding of the issue is also paramount. It is important that the public view the trafficking of foreigners into Vietnam for profit as both immoral and a large risk to public health, as a deterrent for those individuals wishing to take part in these activities. This can be accomplished through government notices and announcements and other means of official communication. It should also be encouraged that citizens educate and supervise one another. In a society like Vietnams, where neighbours are tightly-knit and word of mouth travels faster than any other form of communication, intra-community supervision has always been the most effective. This principle is officially dubbed the Front of the Peoples Will, and places a large importance on the self-supervision and self-education of the populace in order to achieve a larger goal of national importance.

Already, there have been tangible and positive results from the implementation of these measures. After a brief sharp spike, the number of new cases has taken a dip in recent days. Although Vietnam has begun to register fatalities due to COVID-19, most of these cases come as a result of opportunistic infections and prior medical conditions. A large number of new border security campaigns have also been launched in response to these developments, yielding immediate results. The government has also made efforts towards promoting correct public perception of the importance of combating the pandemic.

Most of us are familiar with the story of the Trojan horse. Troy fell not because the enemy was overpowering, but rather because they brought about their own demise. Thus, Vietnam stands to suffer considerably, lest it be able to put an end to illegal border crossings, both within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. VNS

Pham Phong

Son La border guards arrest six people for illegally entering Vietnam Border guards in the northern border province of Son La said that they had arrested six members of a family for illegally entering Vietnam from Laos.
He has repeatedly blamed Western interference, claimed the protests were backed by the United States and accuses NATO of building up troop concentrations in Poland and Lithuania on Belarus' western border, which the alliance denies. He also claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was willing to offer security assistance to his government to quell the protests if he asked for it.
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  The states Rail Runner Express is in danger of missing a federal deadline to implement required safety equipment, potentially costing the commuter railroad thousands of dollars in the process.

By the end of 2020, all railroads are expected to fully implement Positive Train Control, or PTC, a safety system meant to prevent trains from derailing or crashing into one another. In the event of human error, the system can take control and adjust to avoid a crash.

The Federal Railroad Administration has issued multiple letters to the Rio Metro Regional Transit District and lists it as one of only two railroads at risk of missing the Dec. 31 deadline, the other being New Jersey Transit.

Railroads originally had until Dec. 31, 2018, to finish installing the system but could request a two-year extension, and many did.

FRA has four criteria for determining the risk of a railroad not meeting the deadline: miles of track where PTC is operational, technical issues, the interoperability of PTC systems and submission of a PTC Safety Plan.

So far, 0% of Rail Runners 95 miles of track is operational for PTC, and the railroad missed a deadline to submit a required PTC Safety Plan, according to Terry Doyle, director of Rio Metro, which oversees operation of the Rail Runner. Its the only railroad to have none of its territory fully operational.

I know FRA is worried, Doyle told the Journal. Its their way of saying, Hey, we need you to stay on top of it. 

The main holdup, Doyle said, has been funding for the project.

The PTC project is expected to cost around $60 million, which Doyle said Rail Runner didnt have yet.

Waiting for that money to arrive in the form of federal grants put Rail Runner behind many other railroads, and it has been slow to catch up. Doyle said much of the money was not available until early 2019.

Most of the other railroads started this process way before, he said. They had a lot of systems already installed.

But a January 2019 report by the Legislative Finance Committee states the Rail Runner was not the only railroad facing difficulties in installing PTC.

While the Rail Runner is further behind other commuter railroads, it is not alone in requiring an extension, the report says, adding that 14 railroads planned to start the process with less than a year before the deadline.

At the end of 2019, eight railroads were listed as being at risk of missing the deadline. Six have been removed due to progress in completing the project.

Doyle said, despite the delays, he expects the Rail Runner to have PTC up and running before the year is complete.

Were going to be tight, he said.

Rail Runner has already installed PTC hardware in its locomotives and tracks, Doyle said. The system uses GPS to keep track of where trains are in relation to each other. This leaves the testing process, which was set to start last week. Doyle said can take upward of three months to complete.

Rail Runner has taken advantage of the pandemic-induced suspension of rider service to continue installing PTC, its website says, although its at-risk status has stayed the same since December.

Failure to meet the end-of-the-year deadline, could be costly for the Rail Runner.

An FRA spokesperson told the Journal any railroad that misses the deadline could face a fine of $29,912 for every day of noncompliance with PTC. FRA Administrator Ronald Batory told the U.S. Senate Science, Commerce and Transportation Committee in 2018 that he planned to enforce fines on noncompliant railroads.

Batory said, however, that the FRA cannot impose restrictions on a railroads operations until 2022.

In the 14 years since the Rail Runner began operation, it has struck multiple vehicles and people on its tracks.

Doyle said PTC could not have prevented any of those collisions, as those instances rarely leave enough reaction time for PTC to be effective.

When we turn the brakes on going 79 miles an hour, he said, it probably takes a little over a mile to come to a complete stop.

And while it seems Rail Runner will be last to the finish line for PTC, Doyle said, there is a silver lining.

I think we benefit from being one of the last railroads in, he said. Theres a lot of experience putting this in on other railroads.

Rail Runner service is still suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic under the governors health orders.
India is set to have a vaccine against the coronavirus by the end of 2020. Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Harsh Vardhan said a COVID-19 vaccine is likely in the next 4-5 months.

"I hope that if everything goes well, India will have access to a coronavirus vaccine by the end of 2020," he later tweeted.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said one of the three COVID-19 vaccine candidates has entered the third phase of the pre-clinical human trial.

Reuters

According to VK Paul, head of the national task force on COVID-19, the vaccine candidate entering the third phase has yielded encouraging results in the initial phases of its trial. He said the other two vaccines are currently in Phase-I or II of their pre-clinical trials.

The Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine candidate - Covishield - is completing its trials soon, and will be commercialised in 73 days, a top official at Serum India told India Today.

Serum Institute of India is handling phase 3 of the trials. The vaccine is developed by Oxford University and is likely to move to production to India.

Reuters

A Business Today report quoted a Serum Institute of India (SII) top official saying that the government has given the biotechnology company "a 'special manufacturing priority license' and fast-tracked the trial protocol processes to get the trials completed in 58 days."

The phase 3 trials began August 22 at 20 centers across the country. The vaccine will be administered to 1,600 people in this phase.

The report added that the Indian government has sought 68 crore doses for 130 crore Indians, from Serum Institute by June next year.
Pakistan backtracks on Dawood admission

A day after admitting that it has sheltered India's most-wanted terrorist Dawood Ibrahim, Pakistan on Sunday backtracked from its stance and said that the media reports are 'baseless and misleading. Issuing a statement, Pakistan's foreign ministry rejected that Dawood is in their country, despite mentioning his three Karachi addresses in the UNSC's list released on August 18. In an attempt to escape from FATF blacklisting, Imran Khan's country admitted Dawood's presence; the underworld don was responsible for the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts in which 257 people were killed and 700 injured.

Read: Pakistan Releases Statement About Dawood Ibrahim; Lies After Admitting To His 3 Safehouses

India Rejects Cornered Pakistan-China's Attempt

Categorically rejecting the blatant attempt of Pakistan and China to discuss Kashmir in their 'Foreign Ministers' Strategic Dialogue', India has reiterated that Jammu and Kashmir is its 'integral and inalienable part'. Without mincing its words, the External Affairs Ministry of India said that it expects the 'parties concerned' to not interfere in internal affairs. External Affairs Ministry Spokesman Anurag Srivastava clarified that India's position is consistent with the 'so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor' - that passes through the Pak-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan region, and said that India 'resolutely opposes actions by other countries to change the status quo of PoK in J&K.

Read @MEAIndia response to a media query on the Joint Press Release of the China-Pakistan Foreign Ministers strategic dialogue  pic.twitter.com/7ml9RsfZmt  India at UN, NY (@IndiaUNNewYork) August 23, 2020

Read: 'Don't Interfere': India Rejects Cornered Pakistan-China's Attempt To Discuss Kashmir

Trump accuses FDA

US President Donald Trump on Saturday alleged the members of 'Deep State' at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were working to slow the testing of COVID-19 vaccines until after the November presidential election. He even tagged FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn while making the accusations. According to International media reports, the Health officials were apprehensive that the Trump Administration will put pressure on FDA to approve a vaccine ahead of the US presidential election in November, even if the data of clinical trials is not in favour of widespread use of the vaccine.

The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives! @SteveFDA  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 22, 2020

Read: Trump Accuses FDA 'Deep State' Of Slowing Vaccine Development To Sabotage His Re-election

Sisodia on JEE, NEET postponement

Delhi's Education Minister and Aam Aadmi Party leader Manish Sisodia on Saturday requested the Centre to cancel the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) scheduled to be held in September in view of COVID-19 crisis. The Deputy Chief Minister added that it is impractical to think that NEET-JEE is the only option for admission. He said that there can be thousands of safe ways instead of conducting NEET and JEE exams.

Read: Sisodia Urges Centre To Cancel JEE, NEET Slated For Sept & Make Alternate Arrangement

CBI to grill Rhea Chakraborty

As CBI intensifies its investigation in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case, sources on Sunday said that the central agency is all set to question Rhea Chakraborty who has been accused of abetment of suicide in the FIR lodged by the late actor's father. Additionally, CBI will also question the locksmith who was called to open the door of Sushant's bedroom on June 14, whom Republic tracked down on Saturday. Sushant's flatmate and employee Siddharth Pithani will also be questioned once again, say sources, after he accompanied the CBI team at the late actor's residence on Saturday for recreating the crime scene.

Read: CBI Likely To Grill Rhea Chakraborty In Sushant Probe; Pithani & Locksmith To Be Summoned
Martinsvilles New College Institute has partnered with Amazon Web Services to offer a program on cloud computing skills.

Karen Jackson, interim executive director of the New College Institute, said the 12-week AWS re/Start program is geared toward unemployed or underemployed learners and will prepare them for entry-level cloud roles.

Its a good solid foundation for anybody that is looking for a good IT career, she said.

Over the next year, the program will be offered to four 25-person cohorts. The first begins Sept. 14 and will be taught virtually because of the pandemic. The program, which is supported in part by the Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission, is free.

In addition to teaching technical skills, the course will provide job prep skills like resume writing and interviewing. There will also be opportunities to connect with potential employers, Jackson said.

Preferential seating will be given to learners in the tobacco commission footprint, she said, but others will be eligible depending on space.

Jackson said the AWS re/Start program has been offered elsewhere, but this will mark the first time its been run in Virginia.

As the state's former secretary of technology, Jackson already had a relationship with Amazon, having worked to recruit the company to build its second headquarters in Northern Virginia. Jackson said shes excited to partner with AWS on something in rural Virginia.

With so many people out of work because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jackson said, the AWS re/Start program comes at an opportune time.

If people have the time to go through the program then theyre going to come out with an extremely marketable skill and credential, she said. Hopefully its a good time to give people an option that they may not have ever even considered.

For more information on the program, visit https://thenewcollegeinstitute.org/degrees-and-training/corporate-training/aws/.

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This was supposed to be the summer kids were going to learn about womens suffrage. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and Lucretia Mott had planned to tell their stories on the streets of Old City. The now-closed Kimmel Center had to delay its interactive art exhibit, A Seat at the Table, where visitors could experience womens representation  or lack thereof  in places of power. At the Museum of the American Revolution, they were going to find out how New Jersey women snuck in their ballots two centuries early. (That exhibit is now scheduled to open Oct. 2.)

On Wednesday, the centennial of the certification of the 19th Amendment, there wont be a bunch of sash-wearers making champagne toasts on Independence Mall. But there will be a virtual version. Also, with exhibits at the National Constitution Center, Brandywine Museum of Art, and the return of the Betsy Ross House, kids can still learn to love the sister suffragists who went before us. (Theres also non-voting-related weekend fun, too.)

 READ MORE: How to summer in Philly: Our 2020 summer guide

Betsy Ross House

10-4 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday, $4-$5, timed tickets available, (ages 4 and up)

Old Citys cutest lil historic house reopened earlier this month. Betsy is back, and she is wearing a mask  stitched by her own hand, one can surmise. Youd think the wee dwelling of the supposed flag-maker wouldnt be able to social distance visitors, but attendants are keeping a close watch on how many people are in or out. (If you know Ross, shes not letting any fools crowd her workshop.) Although audio tours are temporarily halted, Once Upon a Nation storytellers are on hand and onstage outside to point out some of the less obvious attributes of the Arch Street address, like the cats in the fountain.

National Constitution Centers Kids Town Hall: Meet the Suffragists

Noon Wednesday, free, registration required, (ages 5 and up)

When children learn about things women werent allowed to do 100 years ago  wear pants, eat out alone, drive  the thing that should hit them hardest was that women werent allowed to vote. Vote! On Wednesday, Womens Equality Day, the National Constitution Center opens the new exhibit The 19th Amendment: How Women Won the Vote. Part of the opening includes a free, interactive Zoom featuring actors playing VIP voting activists Lucretia Mott, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Dora Lewis  Philadelphians all. Meanwhile, the exhibit and museum remain free, Wednesdays through Saturdays, through Sept. 5.

Toast to Tenacity

Noon1:30 p.m., Wednesday, free, live-streamed online, (ages 8 and up)

A livestream is replacing what should have been the biggest Womens Equality Day celebration of all, a thousands-strong event in front of Independence Hall. Oh well, the kids will probably get a bigger kick out of Women 100s virtual version, which features ringing the Justice Bell (a younger, uncracked doppelganger of the Liberty Bell), performances, and speeches by quotable notables, and, just cause were in Philly and we can, the Philadelphia Eagles, whom one would like to imagine would have been champions of womens suffrage, had they been around back then.

Votes for Women: A Visual History

10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday-Monday, $6-$18 (free under age 5), timed tickets required, (age 8 and up)

Among the purple capes, political cartoons, bright posters, and black-and-white photos at the Brandywine River Museum of Art exhibition is an eye-catching mural of suffragists of color largely left out of the 1920 celebration. Original portraits of Ida B. Wells and Sojourner Truth are displayed alongside the faces and stories of fascinating contemporaries (and future social studies report subjects) Mabel Ping Hua Lee, Jovita Idar, Sofia de Veyra, Ethel Cuff Black (who happened to be an early sorority sister of Kamala Harris at Howard), and more unsung heroines. Sibling exhibit Witness to History: Selma Photography of Stephen Somerstein recalls Civil Rights protests 40 years later. In the gift shop: flash cards and a 100-piece Votes for Women puzzle.

Storytime and River Walk

10:30 a.m.noon, 12:302 p.m. Saturday, registration required, (ages 49)

David Krisch of Lets Go Outdoors leads the last 30-minute walking tours along the Schuylkill, starting at Lloyd Hall, pointing out the Waterworks Boardwalk Trail, Fairmount Dam, and the gazebo near the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and doing COVID-friendly activities along the way. After that, he reads a story about water.
August 23: Alvarez was transferred to the 45-day injured list today, reports Brian McTaggart of MLB.com. Right-hander Chase DeJong had his contract selected for the 40-man roster, while Humberto Castellanos was optioned.

August 18: The Astros announced that DH Yordan Alvarez has been placed on the 10-day injured list (retroactive to August 16) due to right knee discomfort. Infielder Taylor Jones has been called up from Houstons alternate training site to take Alvarezs roster spot.

Alvarez has appeared in only two games for the Astros this season, as he missed all of Summer Camp for undisclosed reasons and thus needed a few weeks to ramp up before joining the active roster. Even once playing and even while homering and singling over his nine plate appearances, Alvarez was hampered by his knees, as he was a late scratch from Sundays lineup. An MRI was negative, as Alvarezs issues may simply be chronic.

I asked [Alvarez] when did he start having these problems, and he said back in Double-A, manager Dusty Baker told MLB.coms Alyson Footer and other reporters yesterday. Most of the time when you have knee problems, they dont subside very quickly. And when they do, they have a history of coming back.

The Astros were only planning to use Alvarez only as a DH this season, and it seems possible that the 23-year-old might already be ticketed for DH-only duty at this early stage in his career if his knee problems prevent him from taking the field at first base or in left field. That certainly puts a limitation on Alvarezs overall value, though he has already shown a lot of talent at the plate  a whopping .313/.412/.655 slash line and 27 homers over 369 PA in 2019 earned Alvarez the American Leagues Rookie Of The Year award.

Pitching injuries have been the story of the Astros season thus far, though the club is now missing two of its top bats with Alvarez and Michael Brantley both on the IL. Jones, a 19th-round pick in the 2016 draft, may be more suited for bench depth than a regular role, though he did hit .291/.388/.501 over 531 Triple-A plate appearances in 2019 (albeit in the most hitter-friendly Triple-A season in history). Jones made his big league debut earlier this season, appearing in one game for the Astros.
By Kang Seung-woo



North Korea's recent announcement that it would unveil a new five-year economic development plan early next year means its economy is facing a serious crisis due to the sustained international sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic, which are emerging as a "big challenge" to leader Kim Jong-un, Pyongyang watchers said Sunday.





North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presides over a plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party in Pyongyang, Wednesday. / Yonhap
Delhis labour minister Gopal Rai on Sunday said that the government would set up camps in all 70 assembly segments in the national capital to help construction workers get registered for a state-run welfare fund. The facility would be available for 20 days, starting on Monday, he said.

The process of registration was initiated at a time, when the lockdown restrictions were in place. So far, around 70,000 construction workers have registered. Most of them have taken help from employers or internet cafe owners. We have decided to intervene in the process and help them (the workers) out. Between August 24 and September 12, the government will set up camps to help the registration of workers from the realty sector, announced Rai at a press conference on Sunday.

At least one camp will be set up in each of the 70 assembly constituencies in Delhi. They will operate from government schools. Their lists have been sent to the MLAs (members of the Delhi legislative assembly) concerned and the offices of the municipal corporations. The camps will function five days a week  from Monday to Friday, he added,

The documents of workers, who approach such camps for registration, would be verified immediately, said Rai.

Also read: BSF to undergo tech upgradation, to get 436 drones and new anti-drone systems

Construction workers, including plumbers and electricians employed in the construction sector, painters, tile workers, security guards at sites, who are aged between 18 and 60, are eligible for registration under the scheme. They must possess a photo identity card, a bank account number, a residential proof for Delhi and other documents that would prove that they have worked in the construction sector for at least 90 days in the past 12 months prior to the registration, said an official, who is in charge of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led governments initiative.

On May 21, the Delhi high court (HC) had directed the Delhi Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board, which comes under the labour department of the Delhi government, to take steps to renew the membership of all the workers, in a bid to cushion lockdown-induced loss of earnings. The court had observed that over 500,000 construction workers in Delhi, who fell off the safety net under the watch of the citys welfare board, cannot be deprived of benefits just because they were unable to renew their annual registration.

Every state has a welfare board, which runs an array of beneficial schemes, funded by the cess collected from projects under the Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Cess Act, 1996.

In Delhi, the board started disbursing 5,000 a month during the lockdown, which was imposed since end-March in a bid to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and triggered a mass job loss in the realty sector, to the bank accounts of the enrolled workers.

Rajesh Kumar, secretary, Indian Federation of Trade Unions Delhi chapter, said that the move would bring relief to tens of thousands of workers engaged in the construction sector, who were taking help from internet cafes that were charging between 300 and 500 for each registration.

The process involves filling up a 12-page form. It is a huge challenge for most workers who lack adequate education and knowledge about computers and the internet. All labour department offices in the city have help desks but they have not been very cooperative so far. The government should also work towards improving their attitude and work ethics, said Kumar.

.

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Fiction

1. Final Cut by SJ Watson is published in hardback by Doubleday. Available now

Bestselling author SJ Watson (Before I Go To Sleep) is back with another disturbing psychological thriller. Like the quiet village where documentary filmmaker Alexs new project is set, the pace is slow for much of the novel.

Watson is a master manipulator of suspense  every time you think youre close to a revealing a chink of truth, it suddenly becomes a dead end. Everyone in town is a suspect, and Alexs own secrets are tied up in it all too. A complex plot centred on psychological dissociation and amnesia shatters the novels timeline, with chapters flitting between then and now. As unpredictable as the turbulent tide, youll be caught up in the relentless winding tension until the truth eventually breaks and youre able to breathe freely again.

8/10

(Review Rebecca Wilcock)

2. Homecoming by Luan Goldie - published in hardback by HarperCollins.

Luan Goldies new book has a title that suggests identity will be at its core. Instead, Homecoming sees identity pushed to the background in favour of interpersonal relationships and drama. The action flashes from past to present and focuses on four characters: Yvonne and Emma, two best friends from university who drift apart, Lewis, the father of Emmas baby who has an on-again, off-again relationship with Yvonne, and Kiama, the child.

In the present day, 18-year-old Kiama visits his mothers home country of Kenya to come to terms with her death. Goldie is skilled at drip-feeding information to keep the reader in the dark and desperate to know what actually happened.

However, with Emma being white and from Kenya, Lewis black and from London and Kiama mixed race, it feels like theres a wealth of issues around identity that are just not touched upon. Its a gripping read, but youre left wanting more.

8/10

(Review Prudence Wade)

3. The Majesties by Tiffany Tsao is published in paperback by Pushkin Press. Available now.

Gwendolyn wakes up in a hospital bed, the sole survivor of a poisoning which killed her entire family. Her sister Estella is seemingly responsible for murdering 300 people and as she lays there dying,

Gwendolyn tries to make sense of what happened. The Majesties explores the lavish wealth of one of Asias richest families and the drama that goes with it. Ideal for fans of My Sister,

The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite, it is full of suspense and steeped in opulence. Well-paced and beautifully written, ignore any comparisons made to the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy  this book is in a world of its own.

7/10

(Review by Megan Baynes)

Non-fiction

4. Intimations: Six Essays by Zadie Smith is published in paperback by Penguin. Available now.

In this slim collection of new pieces  proceeds from which are going to charity  the author of White Teeth and The Autograph Man explores thoughts, feelings and issues raised by the experience of lockdown.

Writing from New York on the verge of leaving for London, Zadie Smith confesses to a new self-consciousness about how she fills her time. Smith says she writes for something to do  and she isnt the only person who has been searching for ways to fill their time. She reflects on suffering and the limits of compassion, and sketches the centuries-old history of the virus of (racist) contempt.

Her explorations are always thoughtful and quietly provocative. The collection is strongly personal too, as Smith recounts vignettes from her own everyday existence, and reflects on some of the key figures, famous and family alike, who have helped form her. It is a slight book, but its reflections will continue to reverberate.

8/10

(Review by Dan Brotzel)

Childrens book of the week

5. Death Sets Sail by Robin Stevens, published in paperback by Puffin. Available now.

This is a thrilling end to the Murder Most Unladylike series, joining Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong on their holiday cruise along the Nile. A grisly murder is never far from this pair, and within days of boarding theyre unpacking the twists and turns of a cult leaders untimely demise before their boat docks in Aswan. Fortunately, the Junior Pinkertons happen to be onboard too, so there are four detective minds working the case  and a few extra characters who help this instalment feel fresh and well rounded.

Emotional challenges are also explored as the girls leave their childhoods behind. Ending an award-winning series can be a challenge, but Robin Stevens delivers a clever murder mystery that sucks the reader in and pays homage to queen of crime, Agatha Christie.

This is a fantastic read that should please fans, and anyone new to the series will still find it thoroughly readable.

9/10

(Review by Nicole Whitton)
The Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, on Saturday paid a visit to former President Olusegun Obasanjo. The meeting took pla...





The Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, on Saturday paid a visit to former President Olusegun Obasanjo.





The meeting took place at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) Penthouse residence.





In a statement signed by Obasanjos Special Assistant on Media, Kehinde Akinyemi, the Governor met with Obasanjo behind closed doors.





After the meeting, Tambuwal said he came to consult with the former president on the very many issues of governance.





He said: You know Baba is our leader and statesman. Its always good to come around to see how he is doing, pay homage and consult him on very many issues of governance. That is why we have come this afternoon.




TEHRAN, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, will make an official visit to Iran, Iran's ambassador and permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, Kazem Gharibabadi, announced on Saturday.

"In line with the ongoing interactions and cooperation between Iran & IAEA and based on Iran's invitation, Rafael Grossi will visit Iran next week," Gharibabadi tweeted on Saturday.

Iran is one of the main partners of the agency and Grossi's visit will hopefully lead to reinforced mutual cooperation, he said.
While the whole world is still trying to survive the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization announced that an outbreak of Ebola has taken dozens of lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

According to the WHO, 100 people have been infected with Ebola in the city of Mbandaka. Out of the 100, 43 died of the disease.

Ebola outbreak in remote places

The outbreak in Congo was declared in June plaguing the city which is home to about 1 million people. It came just as the city rejoiced the end of a previous Ebola outbreak, a strain which is genetically distinct.

The outbreak lasted for two years and more than 2,200 people died. The previous outbreak was the worst Ebola epidemic that Congo has ever seen.

The outbreak has spread to several remote villages in the province of Equateur. The province is connected to the capital by the Congo River and is located in a remote area in the east and north of Kinshasa.

However, the location of the province proved to be a challenge as it is surrounded by around 200 miles of jungle, thus the affected villages are difficult to reach, The Hill reported.

Moreover, the WHO stated that based on the data that they have gathered, 11 health zones have been affected by the outbreak and the pace of the spread has been relatively consistent.

Read also: Can Antibodies in Breastmilk Ward Off COVID-19? Researchers Find Out

To fight the outbreak, the WHO has already committed $2.3 million, however, the health ministry of Congo stated that at least $40 million is needed to get the outbreak under control. But the WHO has stated that funding to stop Ebola has recently been scare as the world is still battling against the coronavirus pandemic.

In a statement by the regional director of WHO in Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, since the virus is spreading through a wide and rugged terrain a lot of money is needed to implement interventions.

Mass vaccination to prevent possible pandemic

In the past, during Ebola outbreaks, a ring vaccination strategy has been implemented by the WHO. In this strategy, those people who come in contact with the infected individuals are vaccinated. As of today, at least 22,600 people have been vaccinated.

However, even with the dramatic boost on survival rates caused by vaccines, many have not been reached because the response in some areas controlled by armed groups has been hampered.

Meanwhile, amid the outbreak, healthcare workers and responders in Mbandaka went on strike last week. The medical professionals protested over their low pay scales and unpaid salaries by blocking access to medical and testing laboratories. The strike only ended after the government agreed to look into their claims on Monday.

According to NBC News, the outbreak that the country is facing at the moment has been of great concern since the city of Mbandaka is one of the significant points in the Congo River. Thus, it is connected to many other cities and provinces, and health officials fear that the virus may cross the borders.

If the virus crosses and reaches even one of the cities connected to Mbandaka through the river, an urban outbreak may happen.

Moeti also emphasized in his statement that Ebola should also be prioritized as COVID-19 is not the only health emergency that the world should be focused on.



Related article: California Reports First Case of Bubonic Plague After Five Years

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
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Linkedin (Reuters) London, United Kingdom  Sun, August 23, 2020 17:33 514 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066fd71d7 2 Science & Tech Britain,Facebook,Google,tax,united-states Free

British finance minister Rishi Sunak plans to drop a tax on technology companies such as Facebook and Google because it does not raise much money and could hurt a push for a US trade deal, the Mail on Sunday newspaper said.

Britain introduced the digital services tax in April after slow progress in global negotiations over how to tax tech giants, many of which are US companies.

The tax is expected to raise about 500 million pounds ($654 million) a year for Britain's public finances.

That represents only a fraction of the 200 billion pounds in extra debt the country has racked up since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read also: Facebook, TikTok among digital companies required to collect VAT in Indonesia

The tax is also a potential impediment to a post-Brexit bilateral trade deal between Britain and the United States.

France and other countries have adopted or are considering similar taxes.

No one was immediately available for comment at Britain's finance ministry.

The Mail on Sunday quoted a finance ministry representative as saying: "We've been clear it's a temporary tax that will be removed once an appropriate global solution is in place, and we continue to work with our international partners to reach that goal."
Press Release

August 23, 2020 Hiring of more emergency health personnel and contact tracers to be funded by Bayanihan 2-- Angara Support for the health sector, as it continues to address the challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, accounts for the biggest share of the pie in the soon to be enacted Bayanihan to Recover as One Act or Bayanihan 2. Senate Committee on Finance chairman Sonny Angara explained that Bayanihan 2 was crafted primarily to ensure continuity in the government's response to the pandemic so it was only natural for the health sector to receive a significant amount of funding. While the capital infusion for government financial institutions receives a bigger amount at close to P55 billion, health gets the most funding for a single sector. Total funding for Bayanihan 2 amounts to P165.5 billion, out of which P140 billion represents regular appropriations, and P25.5 billion are standby funds. Angara, who led the Senate panel in the bicameral conference committee meetings for Bayanihan 2, noted that around P40.5 billion would go to health-related programs. This includes P13.5 billion for the continuous employment and hiring of emergency human resource for health (HRH); augmentation for operations of DOH hospitals; special risk allowance for public and private health workers; free life insurance, accommodation, transportation and meals for health workers; and compensation for health workers who contract COVID-19 or die while fighting the pandemic. The Department of Health (DOH) noted that it needed to hire more HRH to expand the government's response to the pandemic, particularly in the regions, provinces and cities that manage COVID-19 cases. As of June 2020, the DOH said that around 5,100 health personnel have been recruited through emergency hiring. To meet the projected requirements for the COVID-19 response, the DOH said it needed to hire 4,200 more health personnel. "The hiring of additional health personnel, as well as the special risk allowance and benefits for our health workers, were promised by President Duterte and these are all reflected in Bayanihan 2. Our health system is under so much pressure already and we need to recognize all of the sacrifices our health workers are making at this very challenging time," Angara said. The compensation given to health workers who contract severe COVID-19 (P100,000 each) and those who die while fighting the disease (P1 million each) under Bayanihan 1 will be continued in Bayanihan 2 but in addition to this, P15,000 would be provided for those who have mild or moderate cases. A total of P3 billion is provided in Bayanihan 2 for the procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) such as face masks, gowns, shoe covers, and face shields for distribution to health workers, barangay personnel and other indigent persons who could not afford to purchase these. To provide support to local industries, the bill states that preference should be given to PPEs made in the Philippines. For the construction of temporary medical isolation and quarantine facilities, field hospitals, dormitories for frontliners and for the expansion of hospital capacity across the country, a total of P4.5 billion is allocated in the measure. This includes funding support for the repair and upgrading of the existing biosafety laboratory of the Bureau of Quarantine and the renovation of its temporary quarantine facility. Another P4.5 billion is allocated for the construction and maintenance of isolation facilities, including the billing of hotels, food and transportation used for the COVID-19 response. For the hiring of at least 50,000 contact tracers by the Department of Interior and Local Government, a total of P5 billion is also provided in the bill. "We have heard from the different members of the IATF that we still need more contact tracers, and isolation and quarantine facilities. We need to take a holistic approach in battling COVID-19. Hindi pwedeng nagtetest ka lang tapos wala kang contact tracing, isolation at quarantine. All of these components are crucial," Angara said. He said that strengthening these become even more important now when the economy is being opened up already and more people start to go out of their homes. For COVID-19 testing and the procurement of medication and vaccines, a total of P10 billion is lodged under the standby fund. A special provision on the purchase of COVID-19 vaccine once it becomes available is also included in Bayanihan 2. To help facilitate the Philippines' future purchase of a vaccine for COVID-19, a waiver on the requirement of Phase IV trials, as provided under the Universal Health Care Law, was granted for the procurement of these items. Angara explained that this will allow the country to immediately work on procuring the vaccine once this becomes available without first going through the Phase IV trial stage. However, the bill states that the vaccine to be purchased must already be recommended and approved by the World Health Organization and/or other internationally recognized health agencies. The minimum standards for the distribution of these medicines and vaccines shall be determined by the Food and Drug Administration and the Health Technology Assessment Council.
Its late August, so most of our private and public colleges and universities are back in session. Commuter students have started new or renewed routines with wake-up times, bus or drive times or perhaps timing for walks from the bedroom to the kitchen table or from the center of the bed to the edge with a laptop. Others have moved into dorms, unpacking the things needed to get them through the semester, at least until Thanksgiving.

If whats happening elsewhere is any indication, some of them are so happy to be on a campus, to see friends they havent seen since COVID-19 interrupted school and sent them home that theyre gathering on the campus blocks, yards and in nearby sorority and fraternity houses and local establishments to meet, greet and, well, see each other.

Most of us are at least minimally friendly. Some of us are even gregarious, outgoing and forever friends with people we meet only once. As we age and mature, most of us become a bit more discerning. Even outgoing extroverts set boundaries in time. But young people, especially those spending much more time away from home and parents and guardians, spend more time with each other.

Thats whats happening on campus after campus, and its not gone well at several places. Just a few days ago, The New York Times reported that more than 250 COVID-19 cases have been tied to college fraternities and sororities. That list includes Oxford, Mississippi; Berkeley, California; North Carolina and Washington. But its not only Greek organizations. Its campus and local gatherings at bars, clubs, restaurants and even outdoors. Old friends are happy to see each other. Bid and rush candidates want to make sure theyre seen as good, friendly picks. New students are happy to be free and anxious to show that theyre grown.

Even if theyre cooperating with campus health policies and rules to achieve maximum safety, enough arent paying attention after hours and on recent weekends that theyre sharing more than friendly conversation, handshakes, hugs and drinks. The virus, in the person of Rudy Rona, is happy that he doesnt have to lurk and sneak up on them since they are actively inviting Rona to the party.

The University of California-Berkeley had more than 45 cases in one week last month. The Seattle campus of the University of Washington identified 290 cases. The University of Notre Dame opened its South Bend, Indiana, campus to students on Aug. 3 then, on Monday, the wealthy Catholic school did an about-face and went to digital instruction for at least two weeks after their COVID numbers went from a few to more than 145 in a short few days. Like Notre Dame, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill welcomed students back then, on Tuesday, the nationally known blue-chip public institution shut down in-person classes after acknowledging there were four clusters in student housing.

Louisiana has more than 214, 000 public college and university students, and thats just those falling under the responsibility of the Louisiana Board of Regents. That doesnt include another 28,000 students represented by the Louisiana Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (LAICU) and its 10 private institutions. Gov. John Bel Edwards announced Thursday afternoon that higher education schools will provide campus-specific COVID case data. According to Regents spokeswoman Meg Casper Sunstrom, the schools will report faculty, staff and student cases by campus and that info will be added to the state health dashboard. She said school representatives will be trained soon to make sure the data is consistent and accurate.

The recently posted college/university data will be updated. We'll see campus-by-campus information as the institutions self-report to the health department. The Louisiana State University System and the University of Louisiana System weren't going to share this information, but they changed their minds. Thank goodness. Our public institutions and, according to Dr. Kenya Messer, president and CEO of LAICU, will cooperate so we will be informed.

We shouldnt go deep into the fall semester and the academic year without knowing whats going on with college students who have come from other states to attend our schools and those who have left our home communities to pursue degrees. This isnt personal. This is a significant public health crisis. The more we know, the more we can do about whatever were facing. We dont need to lose more people, and many of our young people, simply because higher education leaders dont want things to look bad.

Transparency is the way to go. Its best for all of us.
A 28-year-old Queensland womans life has been turned upside down after she was diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer despite having no family history.

Taylor Battersby, from Emerald  inland from Rockhampton, said she fell really sick in September and was unable to get out of bed, but chalked it up to the flu when it passed two weeks later.

While attending a couple of family weddings a few weeks later, Ms Battersby told Yahoo News Australia she began suffering from bad heartburn and acid reflux.

It got worse and worse and then I started getting awful cramping in my abdomen and nothing seemed to help  not hot water bottles or Panadol, she said.

A 28-year-old Queensland womans life has been turned upside-down after she was diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer despite having no family history. Source: supplied

I let it go for a couple of months. I thought I was stressed and just hadnt been eating well, but when it didnt I thought, Okay, I have to see a doctor.

The 28-year-old underwent a series of blood tests to rule out Crohns disease and Celiac disease, but was called into her doctors office a few days later.

She was then directed to take a CT scan at the local hospital emergency room.

Ms Battersby, who had just completed her journalism degree months earlier, said it was after doctors asked for a second CT scan that she really began to worry.

Minutes later, a physician told a shocked Ms Battersby she had a large tumour  seven by five centimetres  almost entirely blocking the middle section of her bowel.

He walked in and said, We dont normally tell people this straight away because we need further tests, but its pretty undeniable from the size of your tumour that you have cancer, she told Yahoo News Australia.

The young woman had the tumour removed from her bowel just four days after her diagnosis. Source: supplied

Four days and a helicopter transfer later, she was undergoing surgery in a Mackay hospital, she said, adding she felt like she was in a numb blur because of how quickly things were happening.

There wasnt really time to process any of it, which is probably a good thing, Ms Battersby said.

The cancer was confirmed to be Stage 4C.

Family history has to start somewhere

Ms Battersby told Yahoo News Australia she had no close family members who had been diagnosed with cancer.

Story continues

I guess all family history has to start somewhere, she said.

Because of the aggressiveness and size of the tumour, doctors sent her blood off for genetic testing, which revealed she has Lynch syndrome.

Lynch syndrome is an inherited condition that increases the risk of multiple cancers, including colon and endometrial.

Doctors estimate that around three out of every 100 colon cancers or endometrial cancers are caused by Lynch syndrome, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Months of following chemotherapy was able to remove the rest of her bowel tumour, but suddenly stopped working. Source: Supplied

Lynch syndrome also causes cancers to occur at an earlier age than they might in the general population.

Because of this, Ms Battersby said her physician explained her tumour had probably only been growing for a year, but was so large because of her bodys lack of resistance.

Its very overwhelming when youre told that because it means for the rest of your life youre going to have to be on constant alert and have every test done under the sun and be constantly monitoring to make sure you pick up any other cancers early, she said.

Months of chemotherapy was able to remove the rest of her bowel tumour, but it suddenly stopped working.

A CT scan showed Ms Battersby now has two cancerous lymph nodes in her abdominal cavity and one on the stem of her lungs.

It was devastating. I felt like I had gone through months of treatment for nothing. It just wasnt what we were expecting, she said.

Ms Battersby and fiance Joe Kirkwood will head to Brisbane together to continue her treatment. Source: supplied

The determined 28-year-old and her fiance, Joe Kirkwood, who proposed on Christmas Day after she was released from the hospital, will now take time off work and head to Brisbane so she can start a promising trial in a month.

The Stage 3B clinical trial is testing how medication for skin cancers treat metastasised bowel cancer.

Im incredibly lucky that this trial was available and that I meet the criteria, she said.

Friends and family are raising money to help the young couple as they face their upcoming battle.

They plan to get married in May 2021 and Ms Battersby said the wedding had given her and Joe something to look forward to and plan.

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.
Despite the toll of almost a thousand deaths from COVID-19 complications, only 10 of the 36 states in Nigeria have teams of trained staff for handling COVID-19 burials, a report has found.

The latest Health Preparedness Index for states published by SBM, Nigerias leading intelligence platform, made this disclosure.

It is not clear yet how coronavirus infected bodies can transmit the virus, but forensic experts believe a lack of guidelines and contingency planning could trigger a chain infection, especially among mourners.

They believe that corpse mismanagement has serious implications for broader efforts to contain COVID-19, and for grieving families.

Nigeria recorded its first fatality from the virus about 24 days after its index case, an Italian national, was confirmed on February 28.

As of Saturday, the number of confirmed deaths from the virus had reached 997.

All the states in Nigeria and the federal capital, Abuja, have reported at least two fatalities.

The NCDC had put in place an interim guideline for the safe management of copies in the context of COVID-19.

According to the guideline, only burial team members that have been trained in Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) and safe burial practices can handle corpses and conduct burials. The team should have resources such as PPE, body bags, disinfectant and appropriate transportation.

The guidance document also stated how corpses should be prepared and conveyed by the burial team to ensure the safety of burial attendees.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) also issued an elaborate guide for COVID-19 burials.

Early signs of abuse of hygienic and physical distancing protocols during funerals came in April during the burial of President Muhammadu Buharis Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari.

Despite the governments initial announcement that the burial would be conducted in private in compliance with safety guidelines, several clips showed brazen disregard of the NCDC guidelines and the WHO advisory at the event.

The Report

Majority of states are yet to constitute burial teams, the SBM report, containing data collated in late June, showed.

It would mean that the backlog of the dead to be buried will keep rising, clogging temporary mortuary facilities across the country and creating a crisis to rival the challenges the country has faced with testing and contact tracing, said Ikemesit Effiong, head of research, SBM Intelligence.

The report tagged Nigerias COVID-19 journey, mid  2020 covered a range of health and economic issues in response to Nigerias fight against COVID-19, from health preparedness to economic measures designed to mitigate the effect of a prolonged lockdown.

The report identified measures by federal and state governments, highlighting a state by state health preparedness index.

According to the data, 26 states do not have at least a burial team and or identified and trained staff in place.

Of the 26 states, 17 do not have any of the above.

They include Nassarawa; Ogun; Osun; Oyo; Bayelsa; Enugu; Ebonyi; Anambra; Abia; Cross Rivers; Ekiti; Taraba; Ondo; Kogi; Kano; Imo; and Bauchi.

While the following nine states of Sokoto, Kebbi, Rivers, Yobe, Niger, Gombe, Adamawa, Delta, Jigawa, Akwaibom said they have a burial team, the researcher could not find any trained staff in the teams.

Only 10 states: Lagos, Borno, Kaduna, Edo, Katsina, Benue, Kwara, Plateau;and Zamfara have identified and trained a burial team, according to the report.

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Lack of Cohesion

Health experts blame the lack of cohesion between the NCDC response strategy and that of the state governments for the gaps in dead body management which have been further exposed by the SBM report.

The NCDC is supposed to coordinate the national response to epidemics and pandemics. But the infectious disease outfit has not been able to work fully with state authorities.

States such as Cross River and Kogi have continued to dispute NCDC statistics on COVID-19 as state and federal officials have mutual suspicion.

Tolu Fakeye, a public health physician, said while states are to coordinate safe burials, it is the role of the NCDC to monitor the process.

The problem is that the NCDC needs the buy-in of the 36 states  with differing concerns and contexts  to effectively execute a coherent COVID-19 burial strategy. It will be interesting to see if they can pull this off, said Mr Effiong, the SBM researcher.

A burial team which coordinates all of the burial arrangements are an important part of ensuring that viral exposure is contained while family and loved ones pay their final respects to their deceased. It will be hard for a state to say it is seriously fighting COVID-19 if it does not have such a team.

For us, compliance with this along with other metrics will indicate the kind of progress that Nigeria needs to have in order to tackle COVID-19.

We have an extensive network of contacts and researchers across every state who studied each governments response and rated them across a number of markets and indicators.

The states can clearly do much better. A situation where some states governors were initially in denial about COVID-19 or spoke of religious practices and herbal concoctions to the detriment of NCDC guidelines set them up for mediocrity at the best and abject failure in some notable cases. Many Nigerians who have COVID-19 would have been protected if more sensible heads had prevailed, Mr Effiong said.

He said the SBM report was made with the backing of OSIWA (The Open Societies Initiative for West Africa).
TAMIL NADU : Tamil Nadu on Sunday recorded 5,975 new COVID-19 cases, taking the overall tally to 3,79,385, while 97 fatalities pushed the death toll to 6,517, the Health department said.

The number of active cases stood at 53,541 with 6,047 discharges from various healthcare facilities and in total 3,19,327 have recovered, a Health department bulletin said.

Of the state's tally of 3,79,385 cases, Chennai's share breached the 1.25 lakh mark to reach 1,25,389, it said.

According to the bulletin, 70,127 samples were tested today, taking the tally to 42,06,617.

Of the new infections, Chennai reported 1,298 cases while neighbouring Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur and Chengalpet districts collectively contributed 928.

Ranipet, Tirupattur, Vellore, Thiruvannamalai, Villupuram, Kallakurichi recorded a total of 676 cases today.

Coimbatore, Cuddalore, Kanyakumari, Salem, Madurai, Pudukottai, Thanjavur, Sivaganga, Tuticorin and Tirunelveli saw a jump of 1,882 fresh COVID-19 cases.

As many as 33 people who had tested positive today were returnees from domestic and overseas destinations.

Among the deceased, 87 had comorbidities.

A 21-year old man from neighbouring Kancheepuram was among the victims of the virus without any chronic illness.

Four men above the age of 90 years died due to acute respiratory distress syndrome, the bulletin said.

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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India has rejected the Chinese suggestion to disengage equidistantly from the Finger area in Eastern Ladakh. After the diplomatic level talks, the two sides are also working to hold more military-level talks to resolve the boundary issue which has been going on for more than three months now.

While efforts are underway to resolve the ongoing border dispute, India has rejected the Chinese suggestion to disengage equidistantly from the Finger area in Eastern Ladakh. After the diplomatic level talks, the two sides are also working to hold more military-level talks to resolve the boundary issue which has been going on for more than three months now.

Meanwhile, the top military commanders have also told their field commanders to be fully prepared for any eventuality or action on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) even as the Indian side is preparing for a long haul on the border.

The Chinese side had made a suggestion that both India and China should go back equidistantly from the Finger-4 area. The suggestion is not acceptable to the Indian side, Sources told ANI.

Also Read: Unshackle political caging of state admn, police: WB Guv attacks Mamata Banerjee

At the moment, the Chinese are around the Finger 5 near the Pangong Tso lake and have deployed a large number of troops and equipment at the over five-kilometer stretch from Finger 5 to Finger 8 beyond which the Chinese bases existed before April-May timeframe.

The Indian side is clear that the Chinese should disengage completely from the Finger area and move back to their original location.

Sources said accepting the Chinese sides suggestion was out of the question. India is also raising the point about Chinese violating the agreements between both sides during 1993-1996 which prohibits construction of any kind at locations where the perception of the LAC differed between both sides.

Also Read: Ahead of crucial CWC meet, Congress leaders write to Sonia Gandhi

The Chinese have done construction in the Finger area also where Indian territory extends up to Finger 8. The Indian side is firm that the Chinese should first disengage and then the two sides can discuss de-escalation from Eastern Ladakh and Depsang Plains and Daulat Beg Oldi areas.

India and China have been engaged in a dispute since April-May timeframe when the Chinese moved troops along the Eastern Ladakh sector transgressing in multiple areas like Finger, Galwan valley, Gogra heights, and Hot Springs. (ANI)

Also Read: BJP, LJP, JDU will fight Bihar elections together: JP Nadda
Spokesman for Atomic Energy Organization says authorities will reveal in due time the reason behind blast in July.

Irans Atomic Energy Organization has said an explosion last month that damaged the countrys Natanz nuclear facility was the result of sabotage.

Security investigations confirm this was sabotage and what is certain is that an explosion took place in Natanz, spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said on Sunday.

But how this explosion took place and with what materials  will be announced by security officials in due course, he was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.

The Natanz uranium enrichment site, much of which is underground, is one of several Iranian facilities monitored by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog.

Irans top security body said after the blast on July 2 that the cause had been determined but would be announced later for security reasons. Officials said the incident had caused significant damage that could slow the development of advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges.

Some Iranian officials have previously said the explosion may have been the result of cyber-sabotage, warning that Tehran would retaliate against any country carrying out such attacks.

An article by Irans state news agency IRNA in July addressed what it called the possibility of sabotage by enemies such as Israel and the United States, although it stopped short of accusing either directly.

Israeli officials declined to comment on Sunday.

IAEA head visit

Natanz is the centrepiece of Irans enrichment programme, which Tehran says is only for peaceful purposes. Western intelligence agencies and the IAEA believe it had a coordinated, clandestine nuclear arms programme that it halted in 2003.

Tehran denies ever seeking nuclear weapons.

Iran agreed to curb its nuclear programme in exchange for the removal of most international sanctions in a deal reached between Tehran and six world powers in 2015.

But Tehran has gradually reduced its commitments to the accord since US President Donald Trumps administration withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and reimposed and intensified sanctions that have battered Irans economy.

The deal only allows Iran to enrich uranium at Natanz facility, with just over 5,000 first-generation IR-1 centrifuges.

On Monday, IAEA head Rafael Mariano Grossi will visit Iran for the first time since taking up the role in December last year.

The IAEA said in a statement Grossi will address Irans cooperation with the agency, particularly access for its inspectors to certain sites.

My objective is that my meetings in Tehran will lead to concrete progress in addressing the outstanding questions that the agency has related to safeguards in Iran and, in particular, to resolve the issue of access, Grossi said.

I also hope to establish a fruitful and cooperative channel of direct dialogue with the Iranian government which will be valuable now and in the future.
Two West Auckland supermarkets have closed temporarily for deep cleans after a person, who later tested positive for coronavirus, visited the stores.

In a wide-ranging interview with Stuff, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern pushed back on those spreading blame or rumour about people infected with Covid-19.

If they had not gone and got proactively tested in the first place we would all be in a much worse situation, says Adern.

They have literally helped save lives.

An Auckland team of 70 New Zealand Post staff are self-isolating as a precaution after two of their colleagues tested positive for Covid-19.

The Labour Party has removed a video, featuring director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield, from its Facebook page after a complaint from Act leader David Seymour that it shouldnt feature public servants.

Six new cases of coronavirus were announced on Saturday, four of which were linked to the Auckland cluster.

There are now 92 cases linked to the Auckland community cluster, but the source remains a mystery.

Global toll

The global number of confirmed cases crept past 23 million infected and 800,000 dead during the past 24 hours, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The United States continues to experience the worst of the virus with 5.6m confirmed cases and 175,843 fatalities reported. Brazil and India have surpassed 3.5m and 2.9m cases, respectively.

Across the Tasman, the state of Victoria has finally managed to get the daily number of new cases below 200, with 182 new coronavirus cases and 13 deaths on Saturday.

What should I do?

Auckland is at alert level 3, with the rest of the country at alert level 2. Those levels are confirmed until midnight Wednesday, August 26.

The geographic boundary of the Auckland lockdown is the super city, with police operating roadblocks. Gatherings of more than ten people are again restricted in Auckland, while all schools and childcare facilities will be closed for all except the children of essential service workers.

People in Auckland must work from home unless they are essential workers, and stay in their bubble.

Aucklanders have been told to wear face masks, while the rest of the country is encouraged to use masks on public transport and other places in which they cannot keep a physical distance from others.

If you are sick, call your GP before you visit, or call Healthline on 0800 358 5453.

To avoid contracting and spreading the virus, wash your hands properly, cough and sneeze into the crook of your elbow and throw tissues away immediately.

Reach out, find support from people who care and connect with your community.
This article by David Roza originally appeared on Task & Purpose, a digital news and culture publication dedicated to military and veterans issues.

An airman stationed at Hill Air Force Base was charged with destroying government property on Wednesday after the airman was allegedly caught on video setting fire to a Salt Lake City patrol car while wearing a government-issued gas mask during a protest in May.

In a video of the protest, Airman First Class Larry Raynold Williams Jr., 22, can be seen wearing an M50 Joint Service General Protective Mask that the airman had been issued in March for training purposes, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Utah said in a press release on Wednesday. Investigators used several photographs and a lot number written on the gas canister to identify Williams.

The lot number for one of the gas canisters assigned to Williams was identical to the number observed on the gas mask as depicted in pictures taken at the riot, the attorneys office wrote.

Williams, a security forces gate guard with the 75th Security Forces Squadron, according to Air Force Times, entered active duty on May 7, 2019.

The airman was arrested by members of the FBIs Joint Terrorism Task Force, two months after Attorney General William Barr pledged to use regional JTTFs to track down violent radical elements participating in nationwide protests such as the one Williams participated in.

One legal expert warned that treating American protestors as terrorists and expanding domestic terrorism frameworks could have destructive consequences for civil rights.

[T]he invocation of terrorism signals to state actors and ordinary people that police protestors are enemies of the state against whom extraordinary violence is acceptable, wrote Shirin Sinnar, an associate professor law at Stanford Law School, in a commentary piece that was cross-posted on Just Security, the American Constitution Society, and the Stanford Law School blog.

A week before the May 30 protests, Salt Lake City police department body camera footage showed officers firing 34 shots at 22-year-old Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal as he was fleeing police. Though Palacios-Carbajal was armed with a gun at the time, his death coincided with nationwide protests following the shooting death of George Floyd.

According to the criminal complaint, video footage from the protest shows a white male, later identified as Christopher Isidro Rojas, 28, standing next to a Black male, later identified as Williams. The airman was dressed in a black Nike hoodie, black Nike sweatpants, black shoes, and a black gas mask as he held up a white fabric material for Rojas to light up with a cigarette lighter, the attorneys office said.

Once the fabric began to burn, the complaint alleges Williams threw the material into the window of the overturned patrol car, the attorneys office said. The burning material landed partially within the interior of the patrol car and partially on the street.

The May 30 protests began peacefully, according to the press release. Later that day, a Salt Lake City police officer knocked down a 67-year-old man named James Tobin, who walks with a cane.

"I have seen the video, and it was inappropriate," Salt Lake City police chief Mike Brown said, of the footage of police knocking Tobin down, according to the Salt Lake City Tribune. The officer was later placed on administrative leave, according to ABC 4.

Later that day, protestors surrounded a Salt Lake City police officer driving in her patrol car, forcing her to stop. Fearing her safety, the officer fled the car, which protestors then flipped over, vandalized, looted and set on fire, the press release said.

Investigators have tracked down and charged five people in the vehicle arson case since then, including Rojas and Williams. The airman was arrested at his home Wednesday morning on the arson charge by the FBI and JTTF, the press release said. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations assisted the FBI.

Williams was scheduled to make an initial court appearance on the arson charge at 3 p.m. on Thursday, the press release said. The court public affairs official was not immediately available Friday afternoon to provide an update on the appearance. Arson carries a potential sentence of 20 years in prison with a minimum mandatory five-year sentence.

This article originally appeared at Task & Purpose. Follow Task & Purpose on Twitter.

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Specialists from the NSW Rural Fire Service could soon be assisting in the fight against deadly wildfires raging across California, with a request for assistance expected to be just days away.

Six people have been killed and around 700 buildings destroyed by 560 wildfires currently raging across the western American state.

Fires approach homes in Santa Cruz. Credit:Bloomberg

No formal request has yet been made to the RFS, but spokesman Ben Shepherd said a request for incident management specialists was probable "in coming days".

Around 175,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes around the San Francisco Bay Area, forest areas at Santa Cruz and large sections stretching to Sacramento.
CHI MEAKH, Cambodia (AP)  Animal rights activists in Cambodia have gained a small victory in their effort to end the trade in dog meat, convincing a canine slaughterhouse in one village to abandon the business.

Buth Pith and his wife Khath Hach this week shut down the small abattoir they had operated for about seven years after animal protection groups agreed to provide them an alternate living by building a small convenience store for them.

Animal activists are taking the 15 dogs that had been caged at the slaughterhouse to an animal shelter in the capital, Phnom Penh, for rehabilitation, after which they will be offered for adoption, either in Cambodia or abroad.

The closure Wednesday in Chi Meakh village in Kampong Thom province follows a bigger victory in the northwestern province of Siem Reap, a popular tourist destination, which in July outlawed the buying, selling and butchering of dogs for food.

But animal lovers still have a long way to go. Dog is famously part of the cuisine in neighboring Vietnam, while eating dog meat was traditionally shunned in Cambodia, considered by an older generation to bring bad luck. In recent years, however, it has become popular.

An estimated 2 million to 3 million dogs are killed annually in Cambodia for their meat, according a recent report by the groups Four Paws International, based in Austria, and Animal Rescue Cambodia.

They say that not only is killing the dogs inhumane, but eating them is a health risk that can spread rabies. The practice also hurt the tourist industry, they say.

Katherine Polak, Four Paws head of stray animal care for Southeast Asia, told The Associated Press that the Cambodian government at both the national and provincial level takes an interest in the dog meat issue because they do not view this as Khmer (Cambodian) culture. They view this as a Vietnamese import in terms of culinary preference and ... dogs play a really critical role in national peacekeeping, in mine detection.

Story continues

Buth Pith, the 38-year-old dog butcher in Chi Meakh, explained why he entered the trade.

Before I was a seller of freshwater fish, but when I saw other villagers slaughtering dogs and earning a better income, I switched my job to start butchering dogs instead, he said.

He has no idea how many dogs he has killed, but said he usually butchered five to eight a day.

His wife Khath Hach, 37, said she never was comfortable with the business but it was necessary to support their family, including two children.

She said many villagers complained when they heard the sounds of the dogs suffering before they died, and her own parents told her that they should stop the killing because it would bring bad luck and, according to Buddhist theories of reincarnation, bode ill for their future lives.

Another villager, Rouen Veasna, said he ate dog occasionally when he was younger, but it became a habit after the local slaughterhouse opened, and he would have it for lunch or dinner, and sometimes while drinking with friends.

Prum Nhenh, who operates a small restaurant that serves dog meat, said it would be difficult to afford medicine for her 80-year-old mother without the money the meat brings in.

She said she opened her restaurant more than a year ago and initially just sold items such as soft drinks, beer and eggs. But she put dog on the menu and it proved popular, allowing her to sell meat from as many as four dogs a day.

The price of pork, the price of beef is expensive and does not sell as well, reducing my income, while dog meat is cheaper, and people like to consume it, she said.

Khath Hach, the butcher's wife, believes there are benefits more important than money to be gained from giving up the dog meat trade.

She said after she opens the familys new convenience store, other villagers will no longer look down on them and they wont have the taint of sin from killing animals.
The self-made millionaire founder of Jim's Mowing has upped the ante on his war with Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews with another scathing open letter.

David 'Jim' Penman has written to the the state's leader for the third time in as many weeks about how harsh lockdowns have destroyed the lives and livelihoods of tens of thousands of Victorians.

Melbourne is in Stage 4 lockdown while the rest of Victoria is in Stage 3 as the battle to control the state's second deadly wave of new infections continues.

Sole business operators were initially permitted to continue working alone at sites under the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services before Mr Andrews abolished the exemption a week after the latest lockdowns were enforced August 2.

Mr Penman followed up his latest letter with another furious tirade on Premier Andrews, labeling him a dangerous man.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has come under another blistering tirade from Jim's Mowing founder David 'Jim' Penman (pictured)

'He is the worst political figure Australia has had in my lifetime,' he told Daily Mail Australia on Sunday.

'No other leader has done as much damage he has caused by plunging a knife into the heart of the state.'

'The longer he remains in office, the more dangerous and toxic he becomes.'

'He has shut down an entire industry by rejecting detailed guidelines drawn out by his own government department.'

Adding to Mr Penman's fury was a photo emailed to him of a maintenance worker without a face mask mowing lawns at a school in Caulfield, in Melbourne's south-east.

'What I find outrageous is that school and council workers are fine to work in a group but a sole operator working alone with no contact with the public can't,' he said.

'My inbox is inundated with terrible stories. On Saturday, I got a call from a woman on a bridging visa who had just bought a dog-washing business.

'She has been left completely destitute and can't even buy food.'

This photo of a school maintenance worker without a face mask was emailed to Mr Penman this week, who is furious that sole operators can't work during the Stage 4 lockdown

Jim Penman (pictured) described Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews as 'the worst political figure Australia has had in my lifetime'

In his latest letter, Mr Penman asked the Premier why he overturned the expert advice of his own health department and what evidence he has of sole operators with no contact with other workers or the public being serious risk to public health?

'Your bungled hotel quarantine program has brought the state of Victoria to its knees,' Mr Penman wrote on Thursday.

'Small businesses are the lifeblood of Victorias economy. You have pushed a knife through their heart.'

'If you dont have the decency to provide answers, then you do not deserve to remain as Premier.'

The only response Mr Penman says he's received from the Premier is a comment made at a press conference that he would not depart from the advice given by experts.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews (pictured) has been accused of destroying livelihoods

'But, Mr Premier, this is exactly what YOU have done,' Mr Penman said.

'Mr Premier, mum and dad businesses may not support your Party with fundraising dinners and union dues, but they are still Victorians who deserve your respect. They deserve your answers.

He ended his letter by urging Victorians to demand answers from their leader.

'To fight this infection we must make sacrifices, but the sacrifices should be both necessary and fair. Anything else undermines our unity and the support for any restrictions,' he pleaded.

Mr Penman remains hopeful lockdown restrictions will soon ease and vowed to continue hounding the Premier for answers.

Jim Penman (pictured) called on Premier Daniel Andrews to give answers or resign

'I haven't forgotten him,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'What I find incomprehensible is why his own party is putting up with this man and the dreadful mistakes he's made.'

Melbourne was plunged into Stage 4 lockdown on August 2, where residents are required to carry permits to go to work, and need to carry a piece of paper signed by their employer when outside of their homes.

The rest of Victoria is in Stage 3 lockdown, with people only allowed to leave for essential reasons, such as grocery shopping or medical appointments.
The MoU will serve as the foundation for the implementation of a joint project to support disadvantaged groups in Vietnam in developing their labour skills, creating stable livelihood and better integrating into the society.

The project is expected to benefit Agent Orange/dioxin victims, women, the disabled and the poor by developing an open and flexible vocational training system, especially in remote and poor areas, providing training opportunities to people from ethnic minority groups, welfare beneficiaries and vulnerable people, contributing to poverty reduction.

Addressing the signing ceremony, Director of the Directorate of Vocational Education and Training Truong Anh Dung hailed the strategic cooperation between Vietnam and the Republic of Korea (RoK) over the years, especially in the field of labour and employment.

Along with providing Vietnam with US$74 million, the RoK has assisted Vietnam in developing the model of Vietnam-RoK colleges, which has produced fruitful outcomes.

The RoK has also assisted Vietnam in skill training for the WorldSkills Competition, he noted.

For his part, Cho Han Deog, KOICA Office National Director stressed the significance of training skilled work force, especially for disadvantaged groups. The signing of the deal is expected to help Vietnam show better performance in the field, he said.

Statistics from the Department of Social Assistance showed that Vietnam has more than 6.7 million disabled people, 58 percent of whom are women.

The country is providing assistance to more than 1 million disabled people, while forming a network of welfare facilities to provide care and rehabilitation services to the disabled.

Alongside, various support policies in vocational training and employment as well as capital provision have been implemented to ensure all disabled people get support.

Vietnam has ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Convention 159 of the International Labour Organisation on vocational rehabilitation and employment for disabled persons, strongly affirming the countrys commitment in making sure that disabled people face no discrimination in labour and employment.

Vietnamplus
Latest: James Murphy has been found safe and well

Gardai are appealing for help in tracing a missing 13 year-old boy in south Dublin.

James Murphy went missing from his home in Dun Laoghaire in the early hours of this morning.

He is 5' foot 8" in height, with short dark hair, brown eyes and is of slim build.

When last seen he is believed to have been wearing a black hooded jumper and black trousers.

Anyone with information on his whereabouts are asked to contact Dun Laoghaire Garda Station on 01 666 5000, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111 or any Garda station.
Prestigious London jeweller J McCarthy could be forced to close after more than 200 years - over proposed plans to turn the building into a restaurant.

The Westminster store, which counts Princess Anne and Margaret Thatcher among its customers, may have to search for a new premises after commercial property agency Metrus Property Advisors confirmed it is considering redeveloping the site.

It is likely any new location would be less central than its current home on Artillery Row - where the jeweller moved after its earlier site on Stratton Ground was destroyed in the Blitz.

Robert Mullings, who runs the store, said he was told Metrus hopes to redevelop the site into a restaurant when he attempted to secure a new five-year lease.

Prestigious London jeweller J McCarthy (pictured) could be forced to close after more than 200 years - over proposed plans to redevelop the building into a restaurant

'We were trying to secure a new five year lease on the premises, but they informed us they want to put a restaurant here and next door, where Barclays Bank is,' he told the Telegraph. 'That means there simply wouldn't be any space for us and we would have to go elsewhere.'

Mr Mullings would need to find a new location and pay incredibly high rents as a new tenant if he wanted to stay within Westminster, a move he said 'would finish us.'

'As a new tenant elsewhere the rent would be a lot higher and we would simply go out of business,' he added. 'It would be the end of our business after so many years.'

J McCarthy plans to launch an appeal if Westminster Planning Committee approves an application for change of use put forward by Metrus.

The Westminster store may have to search for a new premises after commercial property agency Metrus Property Advisors confirmed it is considering redeveloping the site. Pictured: Inside the jeweller

J McCarthy counts Margaret Thatcher (left) and Princess Anne (right) among its past and present customers

He has appealed to the Mayor of Westminster and the House of Commons for help.

Adrian Sayer, managing director for Metrus, said: 'No decisions have been made as to what will be changed even if planning permission is granted and indeed in the light of the Covid pandemic there may well be no changes at all.'

J McCarthy, one of the oldest jewellers in London, was established by Justin John McCarthy as a pawnbrokers near Victoria Street in 1798.

It traded at this location for more than a century before the premises was destroyed in the Blitz in November 1940.

J McCarthy, one of the oldest jewellers in London, was established by Justin John McCarthy as a pawnbrokers near Victoria Street in 1798

It traded at the Stratton Ground location for more than a century before the premises was destroyed in the Blitz in November 1940

The store then moved a few yards away to its current location at Artillery Row 'with only some cracked French porcelain salvaged from the wreckage.'

J McCarthy specialises in antique jewellery and silver, alongside 'sourcing beautiful items for our extensive client base built over many decades'.

It is currently run by Mr Mullings, whose great, great grandfather joined the McCarthy family by marriage.
WASHINGTON  Just as the sun was rising on April 10 near Fort Smith, Arkansas, 34-year-old Justin Battenfield ran a red light in the black Dodge Ram pickup he had purchased a few days before.

For reasons that will never be known, Battenfield, who lived on Social Security payments from a mental disability, refused to stop when a U.S. Forest Service officer tried to pull him over.

It was a decision that cost him his life.

A high-speed chase ensued, and Battenfield began weaving in and out of traffic as an Arkansas State Police trooper picked up the pursuit, the trooper's dash cam video shows.

Ordered to get the truck stopped, the trooper deliberately bumped the truck at a speed of 109 miles per hour, using what is known as a Precision Immobilization Technique, or PIT.

What happened next was predictable, experts say. The truck flipped and rolled, and Battenfield was killed in the crash.

Image: Justin Battenfield (Courtesy Battenfield Family)

He was one of at least 30 people who died since 2016 when police performed the PIT maneuver to stop a fleeing vehicle, according to a year-long Washington Post investigation featured Sunday night on "NBC Nightly News."

Combing through news reports and public records, the Post also found hundreds of people who had been injured when police used the PIT. But the actual number of deaths and injuries is unknown, because there is no federal requirement that police departments keep track.

Eighteen of the deaths came after drivers were suspected of minor traffic violations, such as speeding, the Post found. Ten killed were passengers and four were bystanders.

Nearly half of those who died were minorities: nine Black, four Hispanic and one Native American.

When the technique is used successfully, an officer in pursuit uses the cruiser to push the fleeing cars rear end sideways, sending it into a spin and ending the pursuit, according to the Post.

Experts consulted by the Post and NBC News say the PIT maneuver can be relatively safe and predictable at speeds under 35 miles per hour, but grows increasingly dangerous at higher speeds. Experts say it's also more dangerous when used against vehicles with higher centers of gravity such as SUVs, trucks and minivans, because they are more prone to flipping.

Story continues

Image: Maria Asucena Carbijal Lopez (Courtesy Brian Hochman)

"If used properly, a PIT is a good, safe maneuver," Geoff Alpert, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina, said. "And if used improperly, at high speeds, in the wrong area, against the wrong vehicle, it's deadly."

An Arkansas State Police spokesman defended his agency's actions to local media after the crash.

"PIT has been used by the Arkansas State Police for no less than the past 18-20 years and continues to be used by state troopers, particularly if innocent lives are being threatened, as was the case involving the Fort Smith incident," spokesman Bill Sadler was quoted as saying at the time.

Sadler did not respond to requests for comment Friday by NBC News.

Linda Hamm, a close family friend who helped raise Justin Battenfield, wondered why the police weren't able to stop him using less violent means  or why they didn't just break off the pursuit and arrest him later.

A temporary license plate on the new truck was in Battenfield's name, she said.

"I don't believe it should have happened," she said. "They had plenty of opportunity to stop him before he got back in town. ... I'm very hurt over it. I just don't understand why they do that rate of speed."

The PIT maneuver was developed for police decades ago in Fairfax County, Virginia, police there say. Officers gave NBC News a demonstration on their track in Chantilly, near Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C.

Lt. Jay Jackson, who supervises the training, said Fairfax County police perform the PIT about 13 times a year, and no one has been seriously hurt.

"It all comes down to training," he said. "Here in Fairfax County we do extensive training on the PIT maneuver. They have to do eight successful PITs to even become certified."

The county also has policies that prohibit high speed chases of minor offenders, which means the PIT likely would not be used on someone who ran a red light, Jackson said.

Some departments, including New York State police, have banned the PIT, while others, such as LAPD, forbid it at speeds over 35 miles an hour.

But at least 30 large police agencies allow the technique at any speed, The Washington Post found.

That was the policy of the North Carolina State Police in 2017, when a group of teenagers drove away from a state trooper trying to pull over their minivan.

The trooper bumped the vehicle at at one hundred miles an hour. It flipped and rolled and all four teens were thrown out

Two girls, ages 15 and 16, were killed.

Jonathan Thomas suffered a broken neck. The last thing he remembers before the crash is holding his girlfriend, Maria Lopez, who died.

"There's no justification in taking two lives and almost three," he said.

The trooper was not charged, police said. North Carolina instituted a new policy prohibiting the PIT over 55 miles per hour.
T witter has placed a warning notice on one of Donald Trump's tweets for making "misleading health claims that could potentially dissuade people from participation in voting".

The social media giant said the tweet violated the company's "civic and election integrity" rules.

The US president had tweeted: "So now the Democrats are using Mail Drop Boxes, which are a voter security disaster. Among other things, they make it possible for a person to vote multiple times.

"Also, who controls them, are they placed in Republican or Democrat areas? They are not Covid sanitized. A big fraud!"

The tweet has now been hidden behind a "public interest" notice and Twitter users can no longer like, reply or retweet Mr Trump's comments.

"This tweet violated the Twitter rules about civic and election integrity," the notice says.

"However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the publics interest for the tweet to remain accessible."

A statement shared on the Twitter Safety account said the "misleading health claims" could "dissuade people from participation in voting".

"Per our policies, this tweet will remain on the service given its relevance to ongoing public conversation," it said.

"Engagements with the tweet will be limited. People will be able to retweet with comment, but not like, reply, or retweet."

One of Mr Trumps tweets was first given a fact-check label by Twitter in May.

In June, Twitter placed another warning notice on one of the president's tweets, saying it violated the social media firms policy against abusive behaviour.

Twitter's civic integrity policy states: "You may not use Twitters services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections.

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"This includes posting or sharing content that may suppress voter turnout or mislead people about when, where, or how to vote."
The COVID-19 pandemic has hastened the speed of technology adoption of the healthcare industry, as patients have to rely heavily on digital technologies for seeking care, monitoring, booking diagnostic tests and buying medicines.

A new global study called Beyond Intervention released by US drug maker Abbott, which studied barriers of cardiovascular patient care, has found out that more than 80 percent of physicians and hospital administrators view technology and data as critical to addressing challenges before, during and after treatment.

In India, cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of mortality. According to the Global Burden of Disease study, the estimate of age-standardised CVD death rate of 272 per 100,000 population in India is higher than the global average of 235 per 100,000 population.

To better understand growing treatment gaps in cardiovascular health care and identify new ways to continue addressing existing challenges, Abbott commissioned the Beyond Intervention survey to capture feedback from more than 1,432 physicians, health system administrators and patients to uncover their views on how data and technology could better guide physician decision making and improve patient outcomes. The respondents to the online survey consisted of people from nine countries including India, US, UK, China, Brazil, Japan and Germany.

The key findings from India include

Imaging technology

Imaging tools topped the list of technologies enabling improved vascular care. Overall, tools like wearables, imaging, monitoring and AI-fueled technologies provide valuable information that physicians and administrators across regions deem necessary to provide a more precise intervention. Seventy-two percent Indian physicians, one of the highest in the survey, believe that advances in healthcare technology improve patient care by the ability to provide more accurate diagnosis. Amongst the most valuable tools and technologies, 60 percent of Indian physicians want patients to be more involved in their health through digital health trackers.

Data

Nearly 50 percent physicians believe population health data is under-utilised. About 96 percent Indian patients understand the benefits of health data collection for future generations and individual patient outcomes. Seventy percent of them want either the health system or the physicians to be responsible for their data. In India, 56 percent of patients highly value data that monitors how other patients like them have gotten well. Also, 65 percent of patients want physicians to use data results collected from specific procedures or treatments to make personalised recommendations.

Doctor-patient connectivity

There are growing treatment gaps in cardiovascular health care before, during and after a cardiac procedure or intervention. Forty-four percent of physicians in India stated they have little time to spend with patients and 40 percent have little insight into aftercare and patient adherence, contributing to the growing gaps in patient care. Approximately 76 percent of Indian physicians believe at-risk patients can be better identified through greater connectivity between primary care providers and patients.

Personalised care

Patients want more individualised and personalised care, which include more face time with doctors to address questions, a two-way consultative relationship, and an individualised treatment plan based on both personal data and best practices from others with similar cardiovascular issues. About 66 percent of Indian patients also said that their physicians use of new technologies that monitor their progress and provide information to show that treatment is working is valuable.
Dear Editor,

Cal Thomas, and the vacuous Michael Reagan, are consumed with trashing Black Lives Matter. Thomas, citing The Acton Institute, a libertarian Koch-funded climate denial outfit promoting the benefits of free enterprise to religious communities  castigates a BLM co-founder as a trained Marxist. Why are trained capitalists promoting free enterprise, which sees profits as God, to religious communities? Socialist Jesus Christ loved the poor, and kicked money changers out of the temple!

Capitalism and white supremacy have been intertwined since South Carolina Sen. John Calhoun in 1837 pronounced slavery a positive good. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, recently called slavery a necessary evil.

Democracy in Chains, by Nancy MacLean, elucidates the long-term project of plutocrats to shut down democracy. They saw abolishing slavery as taking of some $4 billion (in 1860 dollars!) of property or human stock by Big Government. This is why white supremacy and property supremacy (unregulated capitalism) go together. Dark Money  The Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer updates that nightmare through the Koch octopus and ultra conservative think tanks like Acton, ALEC (which generates oligarch-friendly legislation for states to enact), and the Federalist Society, which vets far right federal and Supreme Court justices.

Many libertarians equate democracy with communism and mob rule. Thus endless Republican voter suppression, currently manifesting as sabotage of the U.S. Postal Service.

As for defunding, many police protect and serve; some are truly heroic. But bullies, racists, and folks with anger issues must be weeded out. The U.S. spends far more per capita on police than other democracies. To a hammer, every problem is a nail. Money used for militarizing police, cops in schools, etc., needs to be redirected to more constructive solutions.

Edmund Haffmans

Accord, N.Y.
A Chattanooga man is facing first-degree murder after being connected with two different shootings. Police have charged 21-year-old Brandon McDaniel in a second case.

He was arrested on Thursday in the Monday killing of Donald Troutwine, 25, at a house on 15th Avenue.

In the new case, law enforcement responded to a shot person call, and officers learned the incident happened at the victims residence on Mulberry Street. Police said they found a spent .380 caliber shell casing, and then received an update from the hospital and went there.

The victim said he was outside his house when a gold SUV pulled up. The SUV was occupied by a male and female, and he told them to leave his property, which led to an argument. The victim said the man told him he knew where the victim lives, and would be coming back. The victim said he armed himself and continued to do yard work.

He said 30 minutes later, the SUV came back and the driver started talking to him as he tried to walk away. He said the victim said the driver stepped out and said (Expletive), Ill kill your (expletive) ass right now! As he was walking away, the man shot him in the back.

As the victim attempted to run, he looked back at the shooter and was shot in the hip. Police said when the shooter then fled, the victim shot back.

The next day, officers responded to the homicide on 15th Avenue, and another spent .380 caliber casing was also found there. They identified the suspect as McDaniel. He was apprehended the next day and transported to the Police Service Center.

Police said McDaniel admitted to shooting the victim on the Aug. 16 incident, and said he used the same firearm and gold SUV in both incidents.

McDaniel said he shot the victim in self-defense, and that the victim shot first and that McDaniel left the area after being shot at. Police said McDaniel told them he returned to the residence with a sibling to speak to the victim. He said he shot at the victim once he believed the victim was going to try shooting at him again.

Police said his statement contradicted physical evidence from the scene. They also noted that McDaniel never called the police after the incident happened. McDaniel was then charged with attempted first-degree murder.
San Francisco, Aug 23 : Leading Cloud software company Salesforce has said employees can work from home until at least July 31, 2021.

The company joins top tech firms like Google Facebook who have extended work from home policy till mid-2021.

"We understand that moving our offices to our homes is not always easy or comfortable - especially for those with families at home or for those who are feeling isolated - and we're working hard to address the unique needs of our employees during this time," said Brent Hyder, Salesforce President and Chief People Officer.

"To ensure that our employees have what they need to continue working from home, we are offering $250 for office tools and equipment - in addition to the $250 provided earlier in the year".

The company has expanded family care leave, making parents eligible for six weeks of paid time off.

"In June, we increased our global back-up childcare offerings through the summer so employees can get reimbursed up to $100 per day for 5 days each month. And today, we've extended that through the end of January 2021," Hyder said.

Facebook has told its 48,000-strong workforce to stay at home through July 2021 and is giving an additional $1,000 to each employee to buy supplies for a home office.

Google had earlier set January 2021 as a tentative timeline for its workers to return to offices.

Twitter has allowed employees to work from home "forever" if they wish so.

While Amazon and Apple expect their employees to return to their respective offices in January, most other tech companies also appeared to be hoping work from home to last till the end of the year.
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran said Sunday that an upcoming visit this week by the head of the U.N.s atomic watchdog agency to Tehran has nothing to do with a U.S. push to impose so-called snapback sanctions on Iran  even as Tehran acknowledged a recent explosion at a major uranium enrichment site was sabotage.

The Trump administration last week dismissed near-universal opposition to its demand to restore all U.N. sanctions on Iran, declaring that a 30-day countdown for the snapback of penalties eased under the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers had begun.

Both U.S. allies and foes have joined forces to declare the action illegal and doomed to failure. The U.S. argues that Iran has violated the restrictions imposed on its nuclear program under the 2015 deal, a charge Tehran has dismissed.

Irans official IRNA news agency quoted on Sunday Irans envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA, Kazem Gharibadadi, as saying that the visit this week is neither related to the snapback mechanism nor the U.S. demand.

Gharibabadi said the visit by the IAEA chief Rafael Grossi comes within the framework of Irans invitation.

We do not allow others to manage Iran, he said, adding that Irans trust in the IAEA has been damaged in recent months.

He expressed hope Grossis visit will lead to building trust. It is important to assure Tehran that the agency will move based on impartiality, independence and professionalism, said Gharibabadi.

The IAEA said on Saturday that Grossi will head to Tehran to press Iranian authorities for access to sites where the country is thought to have stored or used undeclared nuclear material. Gharibabadi said Grossi was due to meet with Iranian officials on both Tuesday and Wednesday.

Later Sunday, Irans semiofficial Fars news agency quoted the spokesman of the countrys atomic agency, Behrouz Kamalvandi, as saying that security investigations confirm sabotage in the July 2 blast at the Natanz nuclear facility. He said details would be released later at the proper time.

Iranian officials had initially downplayed the fire, first raising the possibility of sabotage days later, but have been careful not to directly blame the U.S. or Israel, whose officials heavily hinted they had a hand in the fire.

Kamalvandi also said the IAEA was seeking access and inspection at two places near the capital Tehran and central Iranian city of Isfahan.

The landmark 2015 nuclear deal was endorsed by a U.N. Security Council resolution and includes the snapback provision. President Donald Trump pulled America out of the accord in 2018 and imposed severe U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Last week, Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a letter to the U.N. Security Council said the U.S. has no right to demand the restoration of U.N. sanctions, arguing that the U.S. lost the right to make demands when it withdrew from the accord.

The five countries now in dispute with the U.S. administration  Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany  remain supporters of the nuclear deal to rein in Irans nuclear program and prevent its development of nuclear weapons. The five nations and Iran will meet in Vienna on Sept. 1.

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The Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) is expected to start recruiting healthy individuals for clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccine candidates in two weeks.

PGIMER is likely to issuing an advertisement calling healthy individuals to volunteer, according to a report by The Tribune. The advertisement will list the eligibility criteria for volunteers. The institute is likely to induct 300 volunteers.

The news report adds that potential volunteers must be above 18 years of age and should not have been infected by COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Follow our LIVE blog for the latest updates of the novel coronavirus pandemic

The PGIMER is likely to recruit volunteers only from Chandigarh so that they can be called to the institute for follow-ups easily. Participants will not have to get admitted.

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 Serum Institute of India (SII) is conducting phase-III clinical trials for its vaccine candidate Covishield, developed jointly by University of Oxford and AstraZeneca. PGIMER is among 17 sites across India participating in the second and third phases of human clinical trials of the vaccine candidate.

In July, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi had launched a similar campaign to enrol volunteers for human trials for Covaxin, the indigenous COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Covaxin is being developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Institute of Virology (NIV).
Shanghai Petitioners Arrested for Appeal in Beijing

On the morning of August 17, Shanghai petitioners including Gao Baoqing, Cai Yingwan, Yu Yuefang, and Chen Weihua, arrived at the National Public Complaints and Proposals Administration, Public Security Bureau, and Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and submitted their appealing documents. They checked into a hotel for the night. At 3 a.m. the next day, a group of police suddenly broke into their rooms and checked their IDs. After confirming that they were all petitioners, they were handed over to Shanghai police and sent back overnight.
Imperial Valley News Center

Iranian National and U.A.E. Business Organization Charged with Criminal Conspiracy to Violate Iranian Sanctions

Washington, DC - Amin Mahdavi, 53, an Iranian national living in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Parthia Cargo LLC, a freight forwarding company located in the UAE, were charged in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia with participating in a criminal conspiracy to violate U.S. export laws and sanctions against Iran.

Iran evades the U.S. embargo resulting from their malicious activities with the collaboration of those who pose as innocent buyers, but who are ready to send the products on to their forbidden destination, said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers. These charges against Parthia Cargo LLC and its managing director should put on notice all freight forwarders and others who facilitate illicit transshipments to Iran that their conduct will not be tolerated.

We will not abide individuals or business organizations that seek to harm our national security by providing coveted U.S. goods to Iran, and we will pursue these wrongdoers no matter where they are located in the world, said Acting U.S. Attorney Michael R. Sherwin for the District of Columbia.

Amin Mahdavi defiantly conspired and violated U.S. sanctions to benefit his company and Iran, said James A. Dawson, Acting Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Washington Field Office. Todays charges are another example of the dedicated and unrelenting efforts of the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office to pursue those who violate our nation's sanctions and put our national security at risk. The FBI is charged with protecting our nation's security and intellectual property from being used to benefit our foreign adversaries.

The actions today are a result of the ongoing coordination and collaborative counter proliferation efforts by the Office of Export Enforcement and the FBI, said P. Lee Smith, of BIS. The Boston Field Office of the Office of Export Enforcement will continue to vigorously pursue violators with all law enforcement partners to interdict illicit trade that threatens U.S. national security and undermines U.S. foreign policy.

Mahdavi and Parthia Cargo LLC were charged in a criminal complaint with conspiring to defraud the United States and to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSRs).

The affidavit in support of the criminal complaint alleges that Mahdavi was the Managing Director of Parthia Cargo LLC, a business organization that facilitated the illegal shipment to Iran of goods manufactured in the United States. Mahdavi acknowledged to U.S. government officials in 2017 that he understood a U.S. government license was necessary to lawfully ship U.S. commercial aircraft parts to Iran. But Mahdavi nonetheless agreed to help ship a U.S.-origin commercial aircraft part to an Iranian air transport company, utilizing the freight forwarding services of Parthia Cargo LLC and without obtaining a license. Mahdavi and Parthia Cargo LLC conspired with individuals and business organizations located outside the United States as part of the criminal scheme, which included falsely stating to a U.S.-based aircraft parts supplier that the goods would not be shipped to Iran unless authorized by the U.S. government.

A concurrent action was filed by the Department of the Treasury, sanctioning Mahdavi and Parthia Cargo LLC, as well as a related UAE business organization, Delta Parts Supply FZC.

If convicted, Mahdavi would face up to five years of imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000, and Parthia Cargo LLC would face a fine of up to $500,000. The criminal charge in the complaint is an allegation, and Mahdavi and Parthia Cargo LLC are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The investigation was conducted by the FBIs Washington Field Office and the BISs Boston Field Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael J. Friedman and National Security Division Trial Attorney Jennifer Kennedy Gellie are representing the United States.
Russian President Vladimir Putins staunch critic Alexei Navalny, who was recently transferred to a German hospital from Siberia, was visited by wife Yulia along with a top aide on Sunday, August 23. Navalny was flown to Germany on Saturday after doctors eventually allowed his transportation following a massive push from his family and supporters. He is now undergoing treatment at Berlins Charite hospital.

Agency sources have quoted the hospital spokesperson Manuela Zingl saying that the 44-year-old will be undergoing extensive diagnostic tests and infirmed that doctor would not be commenting on his illness or the treatment until the results are evaluated. Yulia and aide Leonid Volkov visited the Putin critic on Sunday but refused to speak with the media.

Read - Kremlin Critic Alexei Navalny Who Fell Ill Was Being Monitored By Federal Agents: Report

Navalny is a political leader and a corruption investigator who is one of the most public and fierce critics of Vladimir Putin. He had fallen ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia last week on Thursday, August 20. He was then admitted to a hospital in the city of Omsk after the plane made an emergency landing.

Even though the doctors suggested metabolic disorder due to low blood sugar causing Navalny to fall into a coma, his supporters argue that his tea cup at the airport was poisoned.

Read - Navalny's Office Thanks Merkel For His Flight To Berlin

Navalny's supporters blame Kremlin

Navalnys supporters have even placed the blame of both, his illness and the delay in transfer to the German hospital, on Kremlin. Russian health authorities on Sunday also said that as per the tests that they had conducted so far, no traces of poison were retrieved but they found an industrial chemical in the skin and hair of the 44-year-old.

A local newspaper reported that Navalny was under police surveillance before falling critically ill on August 20 and cited a law enforcement officer as its source.

Navalnys spokesperson Kira Yarmysh is reported to have said that it is a matter of shame that the Russian doctors took so long to approve his flight to Germany even though the documents were signed on Friday morning. The Putin critic will be taken to Germany on Saturday morning.

The 44-year-olds wife Yulia Navalny had previously written to the Russian President requesting her husbands immediate transfer. Eventually, the German doctors were allowed to see Navalny and said they will be able to airlift the patient out of the local Siberian hospital to Berlin. But the delay drew more backlash from Navalnys supporters who alleged that it was another plot by the authorities to let the poison become untraceable in his blood.

(With AP inputs)

Read - Navalny Arrives At Berlin Airport Ahead Of Medical Treatment

Read - Russian Politicians Divided About Navalny's Illness


BATH, Maine - A 63-day strike at Bath Iron Works  against the backdrop of a pandemic in an election year  came to an end Sunday with shipbuilders voting to return to their jobs producing warships for the United States Navy.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/8/2020 (514 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FILE - In this July 25, 2020 file photo, striking Bath Iron Works shipbuilders march in solidarity in Bath, Maine. A 63-day strike at Bath Iron Works  against the backdrop of a pandemic in an election year  came to an end Sunday, Aug. 23 with shipbuilders voting to return to their jobs producing warships for the United States Navy. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

BATH, Maine - A 63-day strike at Bath Iron Works  against the backdrop of a pandemic in an election year  came to an end Sunday with shipbuilders voting to return to their jobs producing warships for the United States Navy.

With the approval of a three-year contract, the 4,300 production workers represented by Machinists Local S6 will begin returning to work on Monday.

After falling behind schedule, Bath Iron Works is eager to get caught up on production of destroyers as the U.S. Navy faces growing competition from China and Russia on the high seas. The General Dynamics subsidiary was already more than six months behind schedule before the strike.

We are pleased to welcome back our valued manufacturing employees and get back to the important work of building ships on schedule for the U.S. Navy, Bath Iron Works said Sunday in a statement.

Robert Martinez Jr., the Machinists' international president, cast the outcome on Sunday in historic terms, saying this fight for dignity, justice and good Maine jobs will go down in the history books of the Machinists Union.

The shipyard on the Kennebec River is one of the Navys largest, and its also a major employer in the state with with 6,800 workers.

The stakes were high for both a company that feared being priced out of competition for Navy contracts and a highly skilled workforce that didnt want to give up ground to subcontractors. The test of wills ultimately ended with help from a federal mediator.

Shipbuilders represented by Machinists Local S6 got most of what they wanted when it came to work rules and maintaining the status quo for hiring of subcontractors, along with the previous proposal's annual pay raises of 3% for three years. The company got streamlined rules for hiring subcontracting, and a commitment to work together to get back on track.

Because of the pandemic, voting on the contract's approval  unanimously endorsed by the union negotiating committee  took place online and by telephone. Voting began Friday and ending at noon Sunday. The vote was 87% in favour of the contract among those who voted, said Jay Waldeigh, a district union official.

Now that we successfully protected our contract language with respect to subcontracting and seniority, we need to get back to work," said Local S6 President Chris Wiers.

The shipyard builds the workhorse of the Navy fleet, destroyers that have the ability to provide air defence while simultaneously waging war against submarines and surface warships. Destroyers are also one of the few types of warships equipped to withstand a chemical attack.

The Navy wants to increase the fleets size  something President Donald Trump supports  and Bath Iron Works has said it needs to get back on schedule and lower costs to remain competitive on those contracts.

Going into negotiations, the shipyard's production workers were already angry over past concessions that ultimately still failed to yield contracts on Coast Guard cutters and a new class of Navy frigates. The pandemic in which they were required to remain on the job only added to their feeling that the company didn't care about them  deemed essential by the Navy, the shipyard continued production despite a union request to shut down for two weeks.

Workers were determined enough to strike, despite the loss of company-paid insurance as the coronavirus raged around the country. A giant inflatable, cigar-smoking pig outside the union hall took aim at corporate greed as workers fumed over the hiring of scab workers and political leaders got involved.

Its a far cry from the way things were in the past.

The strike was the first in 20 years at Bath Iron Works. There was enough trust between management and the union in 1994 that a contract was approved allowing cross-training of workers under a formula called a High Performance Work Organization. Then-President Bill Clinton visited the shipyard to praise the collaboration.

The company hopes that mediated discussions between the union and the company will help get the relationship back on track.

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But it's going to take time. Levi Benner, a shipfitter, said there are hard feelings because management routinely rejects workers' ideas for improvements.

Its going to be hard to restore trust. We know what were doing. Weve been building ships for years and years. These guys are geeks. They know their graphs and pie charts, but they dont know how to build ships, he said Sunday.

In the end, workers and the shipyard must learn how to work together if the company is to successfully compete for contracts against lower-cost competitors, said Loren Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute.

Both sides need to understand that their best chance for having a future is to get along with each other, he said. The American landscape is littered with the debris of destroyed industries. Most of them made a good product but theyre still gone.

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This story has been corrected to show that the giant inflatable animal outside the union hall was a pig, not a rat.
Mumbai, Aug 23 : The CBI team probing Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death on Sunday took the late actor's personal staff to his flat in Bandra for further questioning and also visited to a resort where he had spent two months for investigations.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team continued the questioning of his flatmate Siddharth Pithani and personal staff Neeraj Singh and Dipesh Sawant as it found some "inconsistencies" in their statements, as per sources.

A day after recreating the crime at his Bandra flat, the agency team spent over two hours at the Waterstone resort as it tried to determine how Sushant was behaving when he was staying there.

The sources also said that Pithani, Neeraj and Sawant, who were also questioned earlier in the day after the agency had found some stark differences and inconsistencies in their statements, were, around 2.30 p.m., taken to the Bandra flat to be questioned separately on the chain of events on June 13 and 14.

Mumbai Police personnel, who had visited Sushant's flat on June 14 when the actor was found dead, were also present with the CBI and the forensic team.

The CBI has questioned Pithani thrice earlier and Neeraj thrice since Thursday after the team arrived in Mumbai from Delhi, as it seeks to ascertain what really happened between June 8 to June 14, when his girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty left for her house and who all visited his flat.

It also wants to find who all Sushant spoke to in absence of Rhea and how he was behaving when his sister stayed with him till June 12.

The team is soon expected to question Rhea and her family members in the coming days.

An agency source also said the CBI will ask for the call detail records of Sushant, Rhea and others.

Meanwhile, a team of forensic experts arrived at the IAF-DRDO guesthouse in Santacruz area, to discuss the details of Saturday's findings from the late actor's flat and the doctors of Cooper hospital where his post-mortem was conducted on June 15, agency sources said.

The CBI and CFSL teams reached Mumbai on Thursday evening and were exempted from the mandatory quarantine by the BMC.

The CBI had taken over the probe on August 6 on the orders of the Central government following a recommendation by the Bihar government in wake of an FIR lodged by Sushant's father, K.K. Singh, at Patna's Rajiv Nagar police station on July 25.

The case was registered against Rhea, her father Indrajit, mother Sandhya, brother Showik, Sushant's former manager Shruti Modi and house manager Samuel Miranda and unknown persons.

The Enforcement Directorate is also probing a money laundering angle in the matter.

On Friday, it recorded the statement of Sushant's sister Priyanka Singh in Delhi.

Earlier, the financial probe agency had recorded the statement of Sushant's father, sister Meetu Singh, besides Rhea, Showik, Indrajit, Miranda, Shruti Modi, Pithani, Rumi Jaffery and several others.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
There is an "after coronavirus" after all. That thought hit me like a brick this week when I read that Airbnb filed confidentially for its long-awaited public offering. The company's statement said little about the offering, but it showed thatall evidence to the contrarywe have come a long way in the last several months.



The timing isn't spectacular, but Airbnb's rebound in recent months and the performance of other tech IPOs should hearten investors. I spoke with a Morningstar analyst about the summer's boom in local travel and what to look for in the company's S-1 filing.



It's the last week of August, but there's still time for that summer vacation, and that's one of nine things you need to know from the past week:

(Stefan Cristian Cioata/Getty Images) 1. The Airbnb experience

In the spring, Airbnb was laying off almost 2,000 employees and haggling over the terms of two fundraising deals totaling $2 billion in debt and equityall while juggling the collapse of its industry and what looked like an impending revolt from its community of hosts.



Yet total consumer spending on Airbnb in July was 22% higher than in the same period last year, according to Edison Trends. The company said it surpassed 1 million bookings on a single day that same month, led by an increase in stays at nearby destinations.



So what changed?



There are eight coronavirus vaccines in Phase III trials, according to The New York Times, and the rate of daily deaths didn't spike alongside the summer's surge in US cases.



That appears to be enough for investors, judging by the S&P 500's record high on Tuesday. The IPO market has also been humming along. In June, the amount of money raised by VC- and PE-backed companies in IPOs reached its highest level since May 2019, according to PitchBook data.



Tech unicorns Palantir and Asana are also planning public debuts that could come this year. They're hoping to see more of the good fortune that blessed IPOs like Lemonade, Vroom and ZoomInfo.



Even still, uncertainty abounds, and it's not clear when the global travel industry will return.



"It is a precarious time to do an IPO," said Morningstar analyst Dan Wasiolek, who covers Airbnb competitors Booking Holdings and Expedia. In terms of financial performance, Airbnb may get a bit of a pass for 2020, but investors will still want to see signs of profitability.



Download Wasiolek's latest research note on the outlook for Airbnb.



Airbnb's secret sauce is its network of hosts and guests who are loyal to the platform. Wasiolek will be looking for clues in the company's S-1 to judge its network effect, with an eye on marketing expenditures. The stronger the network, the less Airbnb should have to spend per booking on marketing.



This week brought other reminders that a return to regular life is expected, if not imminent.



Seated, a restaurant rewards program, raised $30 million and acquired event-booking platform provider VenueBook. The acquisition hinges on the notion that people and companies will once again attend private events at restaurants.



Travel booking site Omio raised $100 million and said its bookings are 50% above pre-COVID levels. The company also said it has its eye on potential "opportunistic" acquisitions.



In the UK, gyms started reopening in July, and last week a startup called Gymshark, which sells fashionable fitness apparel, was valued at 1 billion (about $1.3 billion) with an investment from General Atlantic.



I went on my first vacation since February last weeknot to an Airbnb, but to a remote Alaskan cabin managed by the US Forest Service (which has an excellent reservation system and cancellation policy, by the way).



We are, bit by bit, edging toward normalcy. But if college campuses are any indication, the return will be far from smooth.



Even without a pandemic, Airbnb has the specter of old challenges to contend with. Questions around racial discrimination by hosts and the company's impact on local communities, including its effect on rent prices, haven't gone away.



Airbnb is managing its image to the extent it can.



The platform instituted a global, indefinite ban on parties, telling customers that it may pursue legal action against rulebreakers. That policy is both a public health response and an attempt to assuage hosts and neighbors over a longstanding gripe. Airbnb also continues to provide housing for medical workers and is addressing discrimination on the platform through partnerships with civil rights groups.



The nitty-gritty of the IPO filing remains a mystery, but its argument to win over investors is already taking shape.



Airbnb is the clear leader in vacation rentals, with an estimated 40% of the market, according to Morningstar's Wasiolek. Moreover, that segment has recovered faster than traditional hotel stays in recent months. The company can also show how it has managed society's growing list of demands.



Perhaps most important, people everywhere are itching for a vacation. 2. Robert Smith faces criminal tax inquiry Vista Equity Partners founder and CEO Robert Smith has become the subject of tax evasion investigations by the Justice Department and IRS, according to Bloomberg. The inquiries, which involve hundreds of millions of dollars in offshore accounts, have also reportedly ensnared fellow billionaire and business associate Robert Brockman, the CEO of automotive software company Reynolds and Reynolds. Neither Smith nor Brockman has been charged with any crimes. Believed to be the wealthiest Black person in America, Smith promised to pay off the student debt owed by last year's graduating class at Morehouse College, an all-male historically Black school. 3. The gig economy's 11th hour A showdown between the state of California and Uber and Lyft nearly resulted in the ridesharing giants shutting down their operations in the state this week. That was until an appeals court judge effectively hit the snooze button, issuing a stay on a recent ruling that would force the companies to reclassify their drivers as employees. Nothing has been resolved, but for now, Californians can keep hailing cars, drivers can keep driving, and the stocks of Uber and Lyft have gained some reprieve. 4. From Mr. Speaker to SPAC chair Is this peak SPAC? Former House Speaker Paul Ryan is set to become chairman of special-purpose acquisition company Executive Network Partnering Corp., according to The Wall Street Journal. The SPAC, which is looking to raise around $300 million in an IPO, could reportedly have smaller underwriters' fees than usual. Its founders will also be prevented from selling their interest until three years after a merger closes, rather than the typical one-year timeline. 5. Oracle has eyes for TikTok Sprightly young TikTok has another gray-haired suitor. Oracle is believed to be considering a bid for the social media star and ByteDance subsidiary, which is also being pursued by Microsoft. Larry Ellison's business software company has approached TikTok investors including Sequoia and General Atlantic about partnering on a potential deal for TikTok's operations in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, according to multiple reports. The new bid follows a deadline extension by President Trump, which allows ByteDance 90 days to find a buyer, up from an original 45-day window. 6. China's IPO hopefuls preview earnings Jack Ma's Ant Group and AI heavyweight SenseTime revealed headline-worthy revenue and profit metrics this week ahead of their IPOs. Ant Group posted an eye-popping 9.2 billion yuan (about $1.3 billion) profit in the first quarter, according to Bloomberg. The Chinese fintech company is reportedly aiming for a $225 billion valuation in its public offering, which will consist of a dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong. SenseTime's sales, meanwhile, could reportedly reach 9 billion yuan this year, an 80% increase over 2019, despite being blacklisted by the US government. The company is believed to be pondering a dual public listing in China and Hong Kong. 7. Houston, we have billions Elon Musk's SpaceX set two records this week. In its largest financing to date, according to PitchBook data, the company raised $1.9 billion from a modest army of 75 investors who pegged the company's value at a reported $46 billion. It also launched a Falcon 9 rocket for a record sixth time. The rocket was carrying 58 Starlink satellites, inching SpaceX closer to its goal of being the first companyanother record!to successfully offer global, high-speed internet from a constellation of small satellites. Its principal rival in that effort, SoftBank-backed OneWeb, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year. A consortium led by the UK government later won an auction for the struggling company. 8. Paddling into public markets Blank-check companies and electric vehicle startups seem to be a match made in dealmaker heaven. Based in the Los Angeles area, Canoo is set to merge with Hennessy Capital Acquisition Corp. IV, following in the footsteps of electric vehicle specialists Nikola, Fisker and Lordstown Motors, which have also recently inked deals with special-purpose acquisition companies. The Canoo deal will leave the combined company with $600 million in capital to commercialize its technology, with about half of that sum coming from a PIPE investment by BlackRock and other institutional investors. Canoo's electric vans will debut in 2022 with a monthly subscription model. 9. Momenta momentum Johnson & Johnson is paying $6.5 billion to purchase Momenta Pharmaceuticals, which makes treatments for rare immune-mediated diseases. The all-cash offer of $52.50 per share represented a 70% premium on Momenta's closing stock price on Aug. 18. J&J is taking advantage of its AAA rating and ultra-low yields by issuing $7.5 billion worth of bonds to help pay for the deal, Bloomberg reported.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which is probing the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput began recording the statements of his housemate Siddharth Pithani and cook Neeraj Singh in Mumbais Santacruz (East) on Sunday morning.

Pithani and Singh are the main witnesses who were present in the house at the time of the actors death.

Forensic experts and a Mumbai police team also reached the DRDO guest house around 11.15am where statements of the two men are being recorded. One team of the CBI had already questioned the two men while two other teams left around 11am from DRDO guest house. Investigators will also question the key maker who opened Rajputs room.

Both Pithani and Singh were inside the house and only they can reveal the entire sequence of events necessary to find out what happened between June 13 and June 14 when Sushant was found dead, said a person familiar with the probe.

The CBI is also likely to question former employees of Rajput later Sunday.

On Saturday, forensic experts and CBI officials visited Sushants residence and recreated the crime scene in the presence of Pithani and Singh.

CBI officials had also visited Cooper Hospital to meet the doctors who conducted Rajputs autopsy.

The actor was found dead at his Bandra residence on June 14.
Unfortunately, the Indian Muslims expressed no reaction on construction of the Ram Temple; they remained silent over this injustice as per tradition. If the Muslims in India were vibrant in this particular context, the situation could have been far different.





by Ali Sukhanver





Recently when the work of construction of the Ram Temple was planned to be inaugurated, the Prime Minister Modi himself reached Ayodhya to attend the ground-breaking ceremony. Addressing the people present at the occasion he said, Many people made sacrifices for the Ram temple. I pay my respects to all of them. He further said, Social harmony was the core principle of Lord Rams governance. The construction of the Ram temple is an instrument to unite the country. Despite efforts to eradicate Lord Rams existence, he lives in our hearts and is the basis of our culture. It would lift the economy of the entire region. Mr. Modi is no doubt a heart-capturing type of orator. He knows well what to speak and when to speak but while giving his statement on construction of the Ram Temple he simply forgot the thing that the legal trial in the Babri demolition case is yet to be completed.













The Aljazeera said commenting on the construction of the Ram Temple, Justice has eluded those who suffered the loss of life and properties in the nationwide violence that ensued in the wake of the destruction of the mosque - often dubbed the darkest chapter of modern India. Moreover, the date chosen for this epoch-making ceremony has its own significance. The Aljazeera said commenting on the date chosen for the inauguration of the Ram Temple, The date chosen for the ceremony also coincides with the first anniversary of the abrogation of the special status of Indian-administered Kashmir, India's only Muslim majority region that has been the theatre of a bloody armed rebellion for more than 30 years. Certainly this action of the BJP government would widen the distances between the two majority communities of India. The Muslims there are already in a state of suppression leading to depression. Mr. Modi says that his party is trying to promote communal harmony and inter-religion brotherhood but practically it is very much obvious that his political party is doing its utmost to construct a China-Wall of distrust between the Muslims and the Hindus.





Unfortunately, the Indian Muslims expressed no reaction on construction of the Ram Temple; they remained silent over this injustice as per tradition. If the Muslims in India were vibrant in this particular context, the situation could have been far different. It seems they are in a state of fear and fright that their reaction would add a lot of miseries to their already troubled life. However, there are a few ones who expressed their resentment over this issue. Bollywood writer-lyricist Hussain Haidry is also one of those few ones. In his recent message on his facebook page he expressed his strong disapproval over the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. He said that progressive people of the Indian society must have stepped forward and formed a movement against the construction of the said Temple. As far as the date chosen for the ground-breaking ceremony is concerned, he said that August 5 was chosen well in advance to humiliate Kashmir. On August 5 2019, the Indian government had abrogated Article 370 and paved the way for the greater integration of Jammu and Kashmir with the Union of India.





In the Guardian, on 6th August 2020, Siddhartha Deb penned down an article with the title, Modi's acolytes have reminded India's Muslims just what he thinks of them. The writer said, Since 5 August also happened to be the one-year anniversary of the BJPs unilateral suspension of the special status of Kashmir, a move that led to Kashmiris being subjected to suspension of all civil liberties, this brazen celebration will also serve to remind Muslims in India of their subjugated status in every way, a reminder that nothing is available to them in Modis India, neither history nor geography. In the days to come the Muslims of India are apprehending more atrocities of the same kind. There would be more restrictions on the Muslims, more slaughtering of the Muslims and more construction of temples after demolishing different mosques by the BJP extremists. According to the latest media reports the BJP is trying to get approval of demolition of over 3000 mosques including the Jamia Masjid Delhi. BJP extremists claim that the pointed out mosques were built after demolishing the Hindu Temples. MP Sakshi Maharaj got so much emotional that he offered to be hanged if idols are not found underneath the staircases of Jamia Masjid. Be it a temple, a mosque, a Buddhist monastery or a Church; construction of any place of worship is not a crime. All places of worship are sacred but converting a mosque into a temple or a Church into a Buddhist monastery by using force is however a crime. Everywhere in the world, it is the foremost duty of the government to provide safety and security to all places of worship and in most of the cases, governments fulfill their duty but what to do if someone like Modi is playing a leading-role in a government. By demolishing the Babri Mosque and by started working on the construction of the Ram Temple, the BJP has conveyed a very open message to the Indian Muslims that they must move to some other place as India is meant only for the Hindus.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 16:24:41|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- By the end of July, procuratorates across China had approved the arrests of 141,713 suspects in 48,217 cases for mafia-style organized crimes, according to the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP).

A total of 205,000 people in 32,371 cases had been prosecuted for such crimes by the end of July, the SPP said.

The above results come from China's three-year special campaign against the mafia-like activities.

The top procuratorate has issued a notice, and held several national teleconferences to further combat these crimes, as this year is the last year of the campaign. Enditem
Lahore, Aug 23 : Declaring former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif an "absconder", the incumbent Imran Khan-led government has approached the UK government for his extradition, according to an official.

"The government is treating him (Sharif) as an absconder and has already sent a request to the British government to extradite him," Dawn news quoted Adviser to the Prime Minster on Accountability and Interior Shahzad Akbar as saying said while addressing a press conference in Lahore on Saturday.

"His stroll on London roads is a slap in the face of the judiciary and the government cannot allow this.

"There is nothing personal in it: we are only trying to implement the law and fulfil its requirements," he added.

Akbar further said that the government would request the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to pursue Sharif's extradition as well and it was also looking into legalities of guarantees of Shahbaz Sharif, who was supposed to escort his elder brother back to Pakistan after his medical treatment.

On October 29, 2019 the Lahore High Court granted the former leader an eight-week bail for treatment within Pakistan and on November 16, he got a four-week permission to travel abroad for treatment.

According to Akbar, Nawaz Sharif was supposed to keep the court and the Punjab government updated about his treatment by sharing the details of the process of his treatment and test reports which he did not.

He said the UK government was also informed about the development on March 2 with a request for Sharif's extradition.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 00:48:33|Editor: huaxia

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ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has urged the continent to avoid coronavirus "prevention fatigue."

The urgent call was made by John Nkengasong, Director of the Africa CDC, who noted "a slight decrease" in COVID-19 infection rates on the continent, and said this "gives some signs of hope that we are beginning to bend the curve slowly," an AU statement issued on Saturday quoted Nkengasong as saying.

The Africa CDC Director, however, cautioned the continent "to maintain and increase the use of masks, social distancing, and to ramp up testing, even as countries begin to ease lockdown measures."

"We do not want the population to show prevention fatigue," Nkengasong said, adding that "we are dealing with a delicate virus that can easily flare up again very quickly, as has been witnessed in other parts of the world."

In the past week, Africa reported an average of 10,344 new cases per day, compared to 11,494 the week before and 14,447 the previous week, according to figures from the Africa CDC.

The Africa CDC, specialized healthcare agency of the 55-member African Union (AU), also announced that Africa is working towards "trusted testing" for COVID-19 to protect travel and borders. This will entail mutual recognition of certified COVID-19 testing among all member states, to allow for smooth movement across the continent.

Nkengasong said the Partnership for Increased COVID19 Testing (PACT) "will be used to enhance surveillance in different economic sectors."

The continental PACT initiative, which was rolled out in June when the continent had conducted under 400,000 tests, had a target of 10 million tests across the continent.

A few months later, 10,256,000 tests have been conducted, the majority of them in ten countries that are South Africa, Morocco, Ethiopia, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Nigeria, Uganda and Mauritius.

The Africa CDC also disclosed a new target of 20 million tests has now been set for the period from now until the beginning of November, to capitalize on the gains recorded so far.

On Thursday, the AU Commission had launched a flagship campaign to intensify the continental fight against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic towards protecting African economies and livelihoods amid the easing of COVID-19-inflicted lockdowns.

The newly launched continental initiative, dubbed "Africa Against COVID-19: Saving Lives, Economies, and Livelihoods Campaign," mainly envisaged protecting borders and travelers, economies and livelihoods, as countries ease lockdown and resume economic activities, the AU announced on Thursday.

As of Saturday, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases across the African continent reached 1,169,670 as the death toll from the pandemic climbed to 27,348, while some 891,713 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 have recovered across the continent so far, according to the Africa CDC. Enditem
19 August was the World Humanitarian Day.

In light of the occasion, several non-profit organisations decided to unite and join forces: Medecins Sans Frontieres, Caritas, the Red Cross, Handicap International, and Care Luxembourg. Together, the organisations want to raise awareness about persistent problems in the field.

Guy Berchem has been fighting for humanitarian causes for many years. In 2020 alone, a total of 203 NGO employees suffered from terrorist attacks abroad, a number that has been on the rise in recent years, Berchem notes.

He further conveys that humanitarian work has become increasingly difficult, linking it to a disrespecting of general human rights, which is why the four NGOs have now joined forces.

Berchem explains how it has also become more difficult to access certain regions in need of help. Proof would be the situation in and around the Mediterranean Sea, where MSF is now prohibited of providing assistance in some areas. War-struck regions pose a similar access problem.

Nevertheless, despite this increase in complications for humanitarian workers, Berchem applauds the relentless efforts of all volunteers fighting for humanitarian causes.
Budget carrier SpiceJet has operated its maiden long-haul cargo flight with a widebody Airbus A340 freighter aircraft to the city from the Dutch capital Amsterdam, making it the first and only Indian carrier to operate non-stop cargo services from Europe on a dedicated freighter. The Gurugram-based airline, in a release on Saturday, also said that the same A340 cargo plan will perform its next flight to Sudan from Mumbai on Sunday. SpiceJet has a dedicated fleet of nine freighter aircraft consisting of five Boeing 737s, three Bombardier Q-400s and one Airbus A340.

"SpiceJet operated its first-ever long-haul cargo flight from Amsterdam to Mumbai using its wide-body Airbus A340 aircraft on Saturday. The flight, operated by a widebody A340 freighter, departed from the Dutch capital at 10.50 PM (local time) on August 21, and reached Mumbai at 10.54 AM (local time) on Sunday, carrying over 14 tonnes of cargo to the city," the release said. The aircraft will now operate from Mumbai to Khartoum in Sudan on Sunday with 40 tonnes of cargo, the airline said, adding that SpiceJet has transported over 31,800 tonnes of cargo since nationwide lockdown began in late March.

SpiceJet, India's No. 1 cargo carrier, became the first Indian airline to operate a non-stop cargo flight from Europe today, by operating a long haul freighter flight from Amsterdam to Mumbai this evening and will fly to Khartoum on August 23 carrying 40 tonnes of cargo. pic.twitter.com/TVAIu4sMVb SpiceJet (@flyspicejet) August 22, 2020

"Today is a proud moment, we successfully operated our first wide-body long-haul flight from Europe. The induction of our first Airbus A340 cargo aircraft has significantly enhanced our operational capability and will allow us to operate non-stop cargo services across the globe to destinations in Europe, Africa and CIS countries," said Ajay Singh, chairman and managing director, SpiceJet.

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The airline also said it has operated over 5,764 cargo flights and transported over 31,800 tonnes of cargo, carrying medicines and medical equipment and fruits and vegetables to all corners of India and the world since March 25. SpiceJet's international cargo network now spans over 42 international destinations that include Amsterdam, Rome, Abu Dhabi, Baghdad, Bahrain, Bangkok, Cairo, Colombo, Dhaka, Doha, Dubai, Guangzhou, Ho Chi Minh, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kabul, Kathmandu, Khartoum, Kyrgyzstan, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait, Male, Myanmar, Shanghai, Singapore, Sharjah,, Tashkent, Ukraine, among others.
As a light summer shower passed through Delaware County earlier this month, State Sen. Tom Killion knocked on doors in Aston Township, asking people how they held up during a recent storm and handing out campaign flyers.

Walking around a solidly Republican area where Donald Trump campaigned in 2016 and easily won that year, Killion came across Kevin Uff, 64, a Steelworkers union member who worked 44 years at the old South Philadelphia refinery and retired shortly before it exploded in 2019.

Uff, standing in his driveway, identified himself as a Democrat. Its OK, a lot of Democrats vote for me, said Killion, wearing a face mask as he kept his distance in the cul-de-sac. Im a moderate Republican.

Uff soon asked Killion for his thoughts on Trump. I dont like the rhetoric at all, Killion said. He went on to explain that he gets along with members of both parties in Harrisburg. They work to get things done, Killion said, and

I understand all that, Uff cut in, but I would think that with the antics that hes pulled over the last 3 1/2 years that you would definitely say, I could never vote for this guy. 

Other voters Killion met seemed more inclined to support him; one asked about getting a Trump campaign sign. But the episode underscored the challenge facing Republicans in the Philadelphia suburbs, whose ranks have been steadily depleted over the last four years amid a wave of anti-Trump Democratic enthusiasm.

As they try to defy that trend, Republicans like Killion, U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Bucks County, and several state representatives are pitching voters on bipartisanship and highlighting their support for things like renewable energy and some firearms restrictions.

Whether thats enough for them to hold on to power will help show whether suburban voters simply want to get rid of Trump  or a wholesale repudiation of anyone associated with the party he leads. After winning the national suburban vote by 5 points in 2016, Trump now trails Democratic nominee Joe Biden among those voters by 8 points, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week. Trumps warning that Biden will destroy the suburbs and insistence that the suburban housewife will ultimately back him have so far fallen flat outside Philadelphia.

In the suburbs, the president frankly isnt popular, Killion said in an interview as he and a group of supporters handed out fliers highlighting his work to fight the coronavirus pandemic, lower the cost of prescription drugs, support public schools, and push a 2018 law to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers.

That has hurt Republican candidates down ballot, Killion said of Trump, whose nominating convention kicks off Monday. But we also here, in this district, have a history of ticket-splitting. It happened with [Democratic former Gov. Ed] Rendell. It happened with Trump last time. I dont expect anything different in November.

Killions campaign literature didnt mention his political party.

Chris Borick, a pollster at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, said voters may not have deep-seated anger with down-ballot suburban Republicans. But theyve got an R next to them right now, he said, and if youre angry at the top, you might be spreading that anger around a little more than you have in the past.

Democrats are facing similar headwinds in the southwest and northeast parts of the state, where voters went big for Trump in 2016 and the GOP is gaining voters.

The highest-profile Republican seeking reelection in the southeast is Fitzpatrick, a former FBI agent running for a third term in the Bucks County-based 1st Congressional District.

Fitzpatrick, one of just two congressional Republicans seeking reelection in a district Hillary Clinton won in 2016, is running as an independent consensus-builder who is willing to break with his party.

On Saturday, Fitzpatrick and more than 20 other Republicans joined the Democratic majority in supporting $25 billion in funding for the Postal Service, legislation Fitzpatrick cosponsored.

In an interview, he lamented a Hatfield-vs.-McCoy environment in Washington. He touted his work on police reform legislation with Rep. Karen Bass (D., Calif.), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and described the Postal Service as American as apple pie, as the Trump administration has come under fire for widespread mail delays.

 READ MORE: A Bucks County election sparks a familiar question: Is Fitzpatrick a moderate?

Fitzpatrick said he convened a meeting of local police chiefs this month to discuss reform legislation that passed the House in June after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Fitzpatrick was one of only three Republicans who voted for it.

I told them that we need to lead here, Fitzpatrick said. There are changes to the system that we need.

Fred Harran, head of the Bensalem Police Department, said Fitzpatrick wants to be a problem-solver and not sit on the sidelines and be given the rules to play by.

At the same time, Fitzpatricks campaign has paid for Facebook ads highlighting his opposition to a push by Black Lives Matter activists to defund the police and accused his Democratic opponent, Christina Finello, of supporting the cause.

Finello said that she opposes defunding the police and that Brian Fitzpatricks suggestion otherwise is a flat-out lie.

Fitzpatrick is using Donald Trumps playbook of making things up to cover for his record in Washington of silently enabling Trumps darkest moments and his record of voting with Donald Trump when it matters most to Bucks and Montgomery counties, she said in a statement. Thats what this election is all about.

Ten Republican state representatives are also seeking reelection in the Philadelphia suburbs. A few others are retiring.

In Montgomery County, State Rep. Todd Stephens campaign website features photos of him with Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, and an endorsement from the Pennsylvania State Education Association, a teachers union that tends to support Democrats.

These are Republicans who pretend to be moderates when theyre in their district but go to Harrisburg and vote with folks like former Speaker Mike Turzai, said State Rep. Leanne Krueger (D., Delaware), chair of the House Democrats campaign arm. They dont vote like moderates when theyre in Harrisburg. They vote like extreme conservatives.

Perhaps nowhere is the political climate so tough for the GOP as it is in Pennsylvanias 9th Senate District, where Killion is seeking a second term after narrowly winning in 2016.

Clinton outperformed Trump by 14 points in the district, and Wolf and Sen. Bob Casey did even better two years later. The seat is one of Democrats top targets in their long-shot bid to take control of the state Senate (they need a net gain of four seats).

The district encompasses parts of Chester and Delaware Counties, stretching east from Kennett Square to the impoverished city of Chester and north from the Pennsylvania-Delaware border to East Goshen Township.

It is almost evenly split among Democrats and Republicans.

Its the richest of the rich, the poorest of the poor, said Killion, who was previously a state representative and, before that, chairman of the Delaware County Council. I have horse country in Chester County and the riverfront: city of Chester, Chester Township, all good people.

I try to represent them all, he said.

Killion credited Wolf for doing some good things out of the gate to fight the coronavirus, but has also questioned the governors reopening plan, testing delays in nursing homes, and the process by which his administration exempted certain businesses from shutdown orders. Asked about Trumps handling of the pandemic, Killion said the region didnt have enough personal protective equipment at the outset.

Last year, he joined a citizen complaint filed against Sunoco with the Public Utility Commission over the construction of the Mariner East Pipeline, a divisive issue in the area. He noted he has cosponsored pipeline safety legislation with Democrats.

His home is less than a mile from one of the pipelines. It affects me directly, he said. It has to be done safely. I have two grandchildren. My wife watches my grandson every day.

The trends have been shifting in Democrats favor. In 2003, when Killion was first elected to the state House, there were almost twice as many registered Republicans as Democrats in Delaware and Chester Counties. Today, Democrats have a narrow registration edge in Chester County and a wider one in Delaware County.

Democrats took control of both county governing boards last year for the first time in modern history.

Killions Democratic opponent, John Kane, is business manager of Plumbers Local 690. Im a blue-collar guy. Im a straight shooter, he said. And I believe they need that type of voice up there.

Kane, asked how he contrasted with Killion, put it simply: Hes supportive of Donald Trump. That I can tell you is the biggest issue that I have with the man.

Killion said its not that simple. Some of the policies Im OK with, not all of them, he told Uff, the retired refinery worker in Aston Township. I dont agree with anybody 100% of the time, ever. Not even my own party.

Im not a party guy, he said. Im a governing guy. I believe, once you get elected, you have to govern.
Manali, Aug 23 : The construction of one of India's most challenging and a marvel of engineering motorways -- the Rohtang Pass highway tunnel in the Himalayas -- is going to finish new strategic heights with an increased length, project engineers said on Sunday.

The 8.8 km-long horseshoe-shaped single-tube two-lane tunnel -- the world's longest motorable tunnel at over 3,000 metre above the sea level, coming up under the 3,978 metre Rohtang Pass in the Pir Panjal range will attain new strategic heights with the increased length, they added.

The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has been working on the Rs 4,000-crore tunnel project -- a dream of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and named after him posthumously -- in collaboration with Afcons, a joint venture with Strabag AG.

The tunnel will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, likely by the end of September.

"Our target date to finish the tunnel is August 31. We are certain to meet the deadline. All its major works will be completed by this date," BRO Director General Lt. Gen. Harpal Singh told DD News.

He reviewed the ongoing construction work on Saturday. This was his second visit to the tunnel this month.

Describing its construction amid very challenging geology and logistics, Singh said the tunnel is situated at an altitude of over 3,000 m with an overburden of approximately two km high mountain.

"From this, you can imagine how much pressure is on the tunnel. You can see how complex its support system set up by the engineers is," he said.

The major geological challenge encountered by the engineers during excavation was the emergence of the Seri 'nullah' or rivulet fault zone, which was nearly 600 m long and located 1.7 km from the tunnel face.

The Seri 'nullah' flowing on top of the tunnel had almost threatened to derail the project, the BRO chief said.

"After the construction of the pilot tunnel, a portion of this (the main) tunnel even caved in," he said.

Describing the project as a major achievement of the BRO, Singh said this is going to be the world's longest highway tunnel at such an altitude.

Singh inspected the progress related to civil, electrical and mechanical work. He also spent considerable time on the Chandra Bridge at the north portal of the tunnel on which work has progressed at a fast pace.

The tunnel has a maximum overburden of 1,900 metres.

Officials involved in the construction told IANS that even after meeting the deadline to complete all major works by August 31, the tunnel with a carriageway width of 10.50 metres, comprising one-metre footpath on both sides, needs a minimum of three more months to make it motorable.

"Still crucial work on two ventilation and control buildings at both portals and several caverns or niches is to be done," an official, who didn't want to be quoted, told IANS.

Also, the installation of CCTVs at every 250 metres inside the tunnel and construction of one crucial anti-avalanche mechanical structure at the north portal of the tunnel to ensure safety of motorists is yet to be completed.

The entire work will take two-three months more, he added.

Chandigarh-based Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE) has designed mechanical structures to ensure the safety of motorists by countering avalanches on both ends of the tunnel that remain under snow even during peak summer.

Engineers of SASE, a Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) laboratory, said self-escape snow galleries have been erected for the safety of motorists after studying the local dynamics of avalanches like force and velocity.

The tunnel has provision of a landline telephone facility at every 150 metres, a fire hydrant every 60 metres along its length and broadcasting system to handle an exigency.

There is also a turning cavern at every 2.2 km and air quality monitoring system after every km.

The tunnel will shorten the distance between this Himachal Pradesh tourist resort and Keylong, the headquarters of Lahaul-Spiti, by 46 km, shortening the travel time by nearly three hours.

With the maximum speed limit of 80 km per hour, the tunnel is expected to see traffic of 3,000 cars and 1,500 trucks a day.

The most ambitious and expensive undertaking of its kind, the excavation of the tunnel was completed in October 2017.

The tunnel's foundation stone was laid by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Chairperson Sonia Gandhi on June 28, 2010, in the Solang Valley near Manali, some 300 km from Chandigarh.

The completion of the Rohtang tunnel is a key element in the Defence Ministry's attempts to make the entire 475 km-long Manali-Keylong-Leh highway, used by the armed forces to reach forward areas in Ladakh bordering China and Pakistan, motorable almost round the year, officials said.

Currently, the movement of armed forces to the forward areas in Ladakh from the Manali side is feasible only from June to mid-November.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)
She recently sparked speculation she faked a trip to Ibiza and had instead secretly joined her ex boyfriend Sam Gowland in Dubai.

But, Chloe Ferry, 24, stepped out in Mayfair, London with Kiki Stunting, on Saturday night, while flaunting her curves in a skintight mini dress.

The Geordie Shore star looked sensational as she cosied up to her male companion during the night of partying with Big Brother star Jemma Lucy, 32.

New man? Chloe Ferry, 24, stepped out in Mayfair, London with Kiki Stunting, on Saturday night, while flaunting her curves in a skintight mini dress

Chloe styled her long blonde tresses sleek and straight and shielded her eyes with Chanel sunglasses, despite the late hour.

The star boosted her height with a heeled pair of slip-on mules and carried her belongings in a small black top-handle bag.

Kiki donned distressed jeans, which he teamed with a white T-shirt and hung a bag across his body.

After enjoying dinner at Hakkasan, the group then moved onto Cirque Le Soir, with Kiki driving them between the London hotspots in his Lamborghini.

Looking good: The Geordie Shore star looked sensational as she cosied up to her male companion during the night of partying

Glam: The star boosted her height with a heeled pair of slip-on mules and carried her belongings in a small black top-handle bag

Edgy: Chloe styled her long blonde tresses sleek and straight and shielded her eyes with Chanel sunglasses, despite the late hour

Let's go! The group then moved onto Cirque Le Soir, with Kiki driving them between the London hotspots in his Lamborghini

Stylish: Kiki donned distressed jeans, which he teamed with a white T-shirt and hung a bag across his body

Hotty! Kiki wore a chunky gold chain around his neck and also sported sunglasses

Lavish lifestyle: Chloe's male companion Kiki enjoys a lavish lifestyle with luxury cars, private jets and heavily branded designer clothing, which he flaunts on social media

Kiki enjoys a lavish lifestyle with luxury cars, private jets and heavily branded designer clothing, which he flaunts on social media.

Chloe's night out comes after she ignored speculation she had faked a trip to Ibiza and had instead secretly joined her ex boyfriend Sam, 25, in Dubai.

It had recently been reported that the star had back together with her co-star ex - despite being in the throes of filming Celebs Go Dating.

Piling in: While Chloe took her place sitting in the front seat with her mystery man, Jemma Lucy climbed into the back seat

Time to go: Chloe followed her handsome male companion into his supercar

Cosy! Kiki sat next to Chloe during the group dinner at Hakassan

Quirky: Jemma Lucy, 32, wore a skin-tight grey playsuit with 'Racing' written across the chest

Oh dear! Unfortunately some of the group were denied entry to the London hotspot

A source has told The Sun the former-couple were said to be 'reconnecting'; but fans have also connected the dots.

A source said: 'Chloe's taking it really slowly and she's keen to keep it quiet as her friends will all be furious after all the drama. It's a chance for them to reconnect.'

MailOnline approached reps for Chloe and Celebs Go Dating for comment at the time.

Fun with friends: Big Brother star Jemma was joined by a glamorous female friend

Wow! Jemma flaunted her jaw-dropping curves in her stretchy ensemble

Fun with friends: The groups headed across town in separate vehicles

The present season of Celebs Go Dating signed Chloe up amid what appeared to be the complete end to her and Sam's romance.

The couple - who have been on/off for years and had a turbulent relationship since first getting together in 2017 - were believed to split for good in February.

This is thought to be what prompted her to sign up for the virtual version of the celebrity dating show.
When close to half the companies in the United States have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") above 19x, you may consider Flexible Solutions International Inc. (NYSEMKT:FSI) as an attractive investment with its 10.3x P/E ratio. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the reduced P/E.

Flexible Solutions International certainly has been doing a good job lately as its earnings growth has been positive while most other companies have been seeing their earnings go backwards. One possibility is that the P/E is low because investors think the company's earnings are going to fall away like everyone else's soon. If you like the company, you'd be hoping this isn't the case so that you could potentially pick up some stock while it's out of favour.

See our latest analysis for Flexible Solutions International

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Keen to find out how analysts think Flexible Solutions International's future stacks up against the industry? In that case, our free report is a great place to start.

Is There Any Growth For Flexible Solutions International?

There's an inherent assumption that a company should underperform the market for P/E ratios like Flexible Solutions International's to be considered reasonable.

Taking a look back first, we see that the company grew earnings per share by an impressive 398% last year. Despite this strong recent growth, it's still struggling to catch up as its three-year EPS frustratingly shrank by 22% overall. Therefore, it's fair to say the earnings growth recently has been undesirable for the company.

Turning to the outlook, the next year should generate growth of 14% as estimated by the only analyst watching the company. With the market only predicted to deliver 4.4%, the company is positioned for a stronger earnings result.

With this information, we find it odd that Flexible Solutions International is trading at a P/E lower than the market. It looks like most investors are not convinced at all that the company can achieve future growth expectations.

Story continues

The Key Takeaway

Generally, our preference is to limit the use of the price-to-earnings ratio to establishing what the market thinks about the overall health of a company.

We've established that Flexible Solutions International currently trades on a much lower than expected P/E since its forecast growth is higher than the wider market. There could be some major unobserved threats to earnings preventing the P/E ratio from matching the positive outlook. At least price risks look to be very low, but investors seem to think future earnings could see a lot of volatility.

Plus, you should also learn about these 2 warning signs we've spotted with Flexible Solutions International.

It's important to make sure you look for a great company, not just the first idea you come across. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with strong recent earnings growth (and a P/E ratio below 20x).

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.
A day before the crucial Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting slated for Monday, Maharashtra Congress chief and Revenue Minister Balasaheb Thorat on Sunday said former party chief Rahul Gandhi should lead the Congress.

Come back, Rahulji. Not only the Congress party but the entire country needs you, the Maharashtra Congress chief tweeted on Sunday.

Thorat also described Rahul Gandhi as a courageous, sensitive and intellectually-committed leader.

ALSO READ | If Sonia Gandhi has made up her mind, then Rahul should step up and lead Cong: Gehlot

He said until he takes over as full-time president, interim chief Sonia Gandhi should lead the Congress party.

With due respect to Rahuljis sentiments, we would like to say, Come Back, Rahulji. Under your leadership, we will be the voice of millions of Indians; we are determined to make history. This is not only the need of the Congress party but the need of the entire country as well, Thorat, who is a CWC member, said in a statement.

Under your able leadership and guidance, we would like to work for the poor and neglected in this country, he said.

ALSO READ | Get together and find a new chief: Sonia Gandhi in response to letter on leadership

Thorat said Sonia Gandhi had over the years, looked after the large Congress family selflessly and had also made innumerable sacrifices for it.

Under Sonia Gandhis leadership and guidance during the UPA government revolutionary decisions were taken keeping the interest of the people supreme. Soniajis struggle and hard work is a source of inspiration for the members of the Congress family, like us, Thorat said.

On Sunday, Karnataka Congress chief DK Shivakumar too expressed his support for Sonia Gandhis leadership. The entire Congress in Karnataka stands by the leadership of Sonia Gandhi and the Gandhi family. She has led Congress during times of crisis and saved our party. Anything that has to be discussed must be done so at the party forum and not in the media, Shivakumar said.

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By Thobo Motlhoka for The Sunday Standard in Botswana

Claims of human rights violations against Basarwa (Bushmen) by a United Kingdom based non-governmental organisation are being resurrected in the third presidency of Botswana.

Former President Festus Mogae tried to fend them off, his successor Ian Khama, with his presumed conservation credentials, somehow survived the fury from Survival International (SI) but it remains to be seen if the incumbent Mokgweetsi Masisi can put up a spirited fight against the NGO.

Recommended Aardvarks of Kalahari face extinction by starvation as world warms

SIs long-time director Stephen Corry has cautioned Masisi to desist from arresting Basarwa (Bushmen) over their nostalgic activities in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR)  an area they regard as ancestral land.

In a letter penned by Corry addressed to Masisi, the organisation reminds the government about the 2006 Roy Sesana vs The Attorney General landmark High Court ruling that upheld the Basarwas right to hunt in the CKGR.

Corrys warning follows the arrest of five men on charges of unlawful possession of government trophies in May, 2020 contrary to the Wildlife Conservation and National Parks Act.

The accused persons Tshoganetso Sesana, Monyaku Modumedi, Lefifi Roy, Tsharae Kelebatse and another one before court acting together and in concert on or about 7th day of May 2020 at or near New Xade in the Ghanzi Administrative District of the Republic of Botswana, being persons not authorised, licenced or exempted under the Wildlife Conservation and National Parks Act unlawfully possessed game meat which is a government trophy, the particulars of offense reads.

In their response to the arrests Survival International said they hoped the arrests and charges have been made by individual game scouts and court martials who may be unaware of the 2006 High Court ruling.

In March, four Bushmen from Gope community in CKGR were detained for hunting and subsequently released without charge. In May, four Bushmen from Molapo community were arrested and remanded in custody in Ghanzi. They have now been charged with unlawful possession of a government trophy and are due in court in August. We understand that several Bushmen from Xere have also been harassed recently for hunting in the CKGR, Corrys letter listed several incidents of harassment against Basarwa. He described the reports as disturbing.

The organisation also alluded to reports that Basarwa have been stopped from planting melons and other foods in the CKGR saying they hope that it is not government policy to deny Basarwa the opportunity.

Corry praised the lifting of the hunting ban by the Botswana government and support for communities which find themselves in conflict with wildlife, adding We sincerely hope that you will also ensure that the CKGR Bushman communities right to hunt is upheld since their livelihood relies to a large extent on hunting for the pot for their families.

Roy Sesana took the government to court following the 2002 decision to terminate water, food and health services to Basarwa residing in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

The service cuts were followed by relocations to adjacent areas. Access to the reserve was restricted for those who relocated, resulting in some of the Kalahari Bushmen no longer being able to enter the land they had occupied or to pursue their hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

The Court held that the refusal to allow Basarwa access into the CKGR was unlawful. The Court stated that the simultaneous stoppage of the supply of food rations and the issuing of Special Game Licenses (SGLs) was tantamount to condemning the remaining residents of the CKGR to death by starvation, resulting in a violation of the right to life set out in Section 4(1) of the Botswana Constitution.

The Court also found that the Government's refusal to allow the Basarwa to enter the CKGR unless they are issued with permits was unlawful and unconstitutional. The High Court held that, as Basarwa were lawfully in the CKGR, it followed that the legislative provision that forbade entry into the reserve did not apply to permanent residents of the CKGR.

It also followed that refusal to allow the Applicants entry into the CKGR without permit was both unlawful and unconstitutional because it violated their right of freedom of movement guaranteed by Section 14(1) of the Constitution.

This article is reproduced here as part of the Giants Club African Conservation Journalism Fellowships, a programme of the charity Space for Giants and supported by the majority shareholder of ESI Media, which includes independent.co.uk. It aims to expand the reach of conservation and environmental journalism in Africa, and bring more African voices into the international conservation debate. Read the original story here.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 18:06:13|Editor: huaxia

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BAGHDAD, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-led international coalition forces, tasked with fighting the Islamic State (IS) militant group, on Sunday handed over a military base in Taji Camp in the north of Baghdad to Iraqi forces, the official Iraqi news agency reported.

"The coalition forces handed over the site No.8 at al-Taji Camp which was used to train and equip Iraqi forces by Australian, New Zealand and American forces," the Iraqi News Agency (INA) quoted Tahseen al-Khafaji, spokesman of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command, as saying.

The military site was handed over to the Iraqi forces in the presence of a representative of the prime minister, who signed the minutes of the handover, al-Khafaji said, noting that other sites will be handed over to the Iraqi side according to a timeline.

Al-Taji Camp is a huge military base containing an airbase where some U.S. troops are stationed.

On Thursday, INA reportedly said that Iraq and the United States announced that the U.S.-led coalition forces will withdraw from Iraq in three years.

During his recent official visit to the United States, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi agreed with U.S. officials "on forming a special team to discuss mechanisms and timings for the redeployment of the U.S.-led international coalition forces outside Iraq," INA said.

On Aug. 18, al-Kadhimi and his delegation headed to Washington at an official invitation of the U.S. government, during which he held a series of meetings and attended the second session of strategic dialogue between the two countries.

Earlier, the international coalition forces handed over several military sites to the Iraqi security forces in central and northern the country.

The relation between Baghdad and Washington has witnessed a tension since Jan. 3 after a U.S. drone struck a convoy at Baghdad airport, which killed Qassem Soleimani, former commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy chief of Iraq's paramilitary Hashd Shaabi forces.

The tension pushed the two sides to hold a round of strategic dialogues on June 12, during which the United States confirmed that it does not seek permanent military presence in the country and that over the coming months the U.S. would continue reducing forces from Iraq and discuss with the government of Iraq the status of remaining forces.

Over 5,000 U.S. troops have been deployed in Iraq to support Iraqi forces in battles against the IS, mainly for training and advisory purposes.

The troops were part of the U.S.-led international coalition that has also been conducting air raids against IS targets in both Iraq and Syria. Enditem
I know several people who recently took early retirement. A few of them had planned to take a few months off, then supplement their income with a part-time job. But then the pandemic hit  and now the opportunity to land part-time jobs, especially for older adults, is significantly diminished, especially because more older people are taking early retirement or being furloughed because of COVID-19. Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and retail jobs are obvious options  but some in the older worker category might not be comfortable in those roles. What are some other options?

Allie Fleder, COO of SimplyWise, a retirement advisory company, says the company has seen a good number of our users in their 60s deciding to take early retirement due to COVID-19.

And while she says most of them are too nervous to go back into an office, many have taken up part-time work from home. In fact, a recent SimplyWise survey found that one in five Americans in their 60s have been laid off/furloughed due to the pandemic, and that 72% of Americans now plan to work in retirement  an uptick from 67% in May.

Here are a few ideas for any early retiree looking to supplement their retirement income:

Virtual tutoring

This is one category Fleder says is popular with the job seekers shes worked with. Andrea Woroch, a nationally recognized consumer and money-saving expert, says its a great option, especially considering the uncertain school start this year.

Kids of all ages are in need of tutoring more than ever as the upcoming school year remains in jeopardy. In households where both parents work, finding time to homeschool can be a struggle, Woroch says. Sites like Varsity Tutors, an online tutoring company, say they are looking to add thousands of tutors and instructors for their new School@Home program ... if you fancy yourself an expert in any field, have some free time and a computer, apply to tutor. The work is online, youll be helping kids and parents during challenging times, and youll find theres a high demand for your services.

Customer service

Fleder reports that customer service representative is a category that has been popular with older workers. Nate Tsang, founder of WallStreetZen, says theres been high demand for remote customer support specialists, and suggests searching for opportunities at weworkremotely.com.

Finn Cardiff, CEO and founder of Beachgoer, has hired virtual customer service assistants who have been instrumental to the companys success during the pandemic.

Our business employs customer service assistants online who can guide our buyers when they have queries or complaints regarding their beach products purchases such as bodyboards, Cardiff explains.

Due to the ongoing virus, weve offered same-day shipping on all orders so we can be ahead of our competitors. Because of this, we get tons of inquiries every day and we need more staff to cover this. This is one role where part-time retirees can do part-time work and earn a decent wage. Customer service professionals who are older are known to empathize more with the person on the other line and for this, part-time retirees are best to work with.

Freelance content writing

This is a big opportunity for retirees who cant risk being exposed to the virus or who simply prefer working from home, Tsang says. While publishers have suffered from lower advertising rates during the pandemic, COVID-19 has actually pushed web traffic up 70%, so there is still very strong demand for content writers, he says. You can find clients on general freelance sites like Upwork, specialized marketplaces like Textbroker, or niche job boards like Pro Blogger.

Pet care gigs

There are still plenty of people who are going to work every day, including frontline workers. Some are even working longer hours, such as first responders, nurses, doctors and store clerks, says Woroch. While theyre busy being heroes, their pets could likely use some exercise and attention. She suggests checking out sites like Rover.com to find various pet care opportunities.

Beta testing

Fleder says this is among the most popular categories older workers are turning to for extra cash. She suggests exploring opportunities with sites including UserTesting.com or UserBrain.net.

Kathleen Furore is a Chicago-based writer and editor who has covered personal finance and other business-related topics for a variety of trade and consumer publications. You can email her your career questions at kfurore@yahoo.com.
Majority of black, Hispanic Americans support universal basic income; most whites oppose: poll

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As support for guaranteed or universal basic income grows across America, a recent survey from the Pew Research Center says a majority of black and Hispanic Americans support monthly $1,000 payments from the federal government for all adult citizens regardless of work status. Most white Americans dont back it.

The survey of 11,001 U.S. adults, which was conducted online between July 27 and Aug. 2, showed that a slim majority (54% of Americans) overall oppose UBI payments. The opposition was concentrated among white Americans, Republicans, upper and middle income households and older adult Americans.

Some 73% of black Americans and 63% of Hispanic adults support the idea of UBI from the government compared with just 35% of white adults.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to take lives and disrupt economies in the United States and around the world, some groups argue that giving Americans a guaranteed income, which was a major platform issue for former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, has become necessary.

"We have people in our community who work 60 hours a week and still scrape by to feed their children and pay their rent," Mayor Melvin Carter of St. Paul, Minnesota, who supports UBI as a simple, scalable and equitable solution for families and local economies, told NBC News. "Whole neighborhoods that are in deep poverty and doing the best they can."

In June, a coalition of 16 city leaders from across the country led by Mayor Michael Tubbs of Stockton, California, launched Mayors for Guaranteed Income.

Economic insecurity isnt a new challenge or a partisan issue. Wealth and income inequality, which have long plagued our country, continue to grow. Even prior to the pandemic, people who were working two and three jobs still couldnt afford basic necessities. COVID-19 has only further exposed the economic fragility of most American households, and has disproportionately impacted Black and Brown people, the website explains. This is our New Deal moment: everyone deserves an income floor through a guaranteed income.

In the Pew survey, younger adults in both the Republican and Democrat parties and those with lower incomes expressed higher levels of support for the federal government providing a UBI for all adult citizens.

In his 2018 book, The War on Normal People, Yang, who founded Venture for America, an organization that helps entrepreneurs create jobs in cities like Baltimore, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland, argued that normal Americans who represent a majority of the population would be vulnerable to unemployment due to increased displacement from jobs by automation and technological advances.

To prevent the inevitable widespread squalor, despair, and violence that would result from millions of workers being permanently displaced by technology, Yang suggested a UBI of $1,000 a month.

The call for UBI in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic isnt just limited to the U.S. Kanni Wignaraja, United Nations assistant secretary-general and UNDP regional director for Asia and the Pacific, suggested last month that global governments should offer citizens UBI as part of a strategic sustainable economic policy.

It is time to add a new element to the policy packages that governments are introducing, one we know but have abandoned: Universal Basic Income (UBI). It is needed as part of the package that will help us to get out of this yawning pit, she wrote.

The naysayers, and there are plenty, will point out that it wont work because no country can afford to regularly dole out money to every citizen. They will argue that we will run unsustainable deficits, which cannot be financed.

This is a valid concern. But the alternative will result in a greater surge in inequality, increasing social tensions that would cost governments even more and open countries to heightened risk of societal conflict.

On Wednesday, the Times of London reported that Germany launched that countrys first systematic experiment with an unconditional UBI in which a group of 120 people will each receive just over $1,400 monthly for three years to put them just above the poverty line. The experiment is being funded by about 140,000 private donors.

The group will track their attitude and behavior change through regular surveys.

So far the debate has resembled a philosophical salon at best, and a religious war at worst, Jurgen Schupp, who will lead the study, according to German outlet Der Spiegel.

On both sides, it is characterized by cliches: critics claim a basic income would make people stop working and lie on the couch with fast food and streaming services. Supporters say people would carry on with meaningful work, become more creative and pro-social, and rescue democracy.

Some 90% of the participants in the study have opted to continue working.
Well, thats one speech Melania Trump wont be plagiarizing.

Donald Trumps wife, who famously stole parts of her 2016 address to the Republican National Convention from a speech Michelle Obama gave before the Democrats in 2008, wont find much to work with in Obamas latest oration. Thats because the speech, a galvanizing capstone to the surprisingly effective first night of the Democrats virtual convention, prosecuted the case against Melanias husband with withering power.

Enumerating the sense of perpetual chaos that has attended Trumps 43 months in the White House  the economic collapse, the pandemic death toll, the eviction crisis, the betrayal of allies, the caging of children, the violent assaults on peaceful protesters, the mainstreaming of racism  she told us what we already know. Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.

That, you will recall, is exactly what Trump said recently about tens of thousands of Americans dead on his watch: It is what it is. As they say in church, if you cant say Amen, at least say ouch.

But what lifted Obamas speech beyond the moment was not solely or even primarily its indictment of Trump. Rather, it was its appeal to misplaced ideals of American fairness and compassion, its defense of that which should not need defending, but apparently does, meaning simple decency.

When we close out the noise and the fear and truly open our hearts, she said, we know that whats going on in this country is just not right.

It isnt. And we do. Even those of us who cheer it on or make excuses for it, surely do, albeit perhaps in some subterranean recess of their souls. Sadly, said Obama, her eyes alight, her delivery impassioned, this is the America that is on display for the next generation, a nation thats underperforming not simply on matters of policy, but on matters of character.

This, she said, is not who we want to be. Note that she did not make the earnest, yet ludicrous claim too many others have made. She did not say, This isnt who we are.

Because, of course, it is. But as Obama implicitly reminded us, who we are is a choice. Which means its within our reach, even now, to be bigger and better, kinder and gentler than the small behavior of recent days.

Bruce Springsteen would surely agree. He appeared briefly in a video set to The Rising, his rousing 2002 anthem celebrating the courage and sacrifice of New York City firefighters at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. The video repurposed the song as a call for renewal, counterpointing images of Trumps dystopian America  polluted skies, police violence, the infamous Bible photo op  against images of Americans in their rainbow-coalition glory, fighting for one another, caring for one another, helping one another, with one another. The drums crack sharply, and Springsteen leads a chorus calling us up to higher ground. Small wonder the clip has gone viral.

Yes, its schmaltz, three and a half minutes of manufactured feel-good. And so what? Forty-three dispiriting months later, who needs a pep talk, more than we?

Between them, the former first lady and the bard of the Jersey Shore gave us one for the ages Monday night. They offered a resuscitation of hope. And this prayer to our better angels:

Make America good again.

Pitts Jr. is a columnist for the Miami Herald.
With major fires caused by lightning ravaging the Bay Area, the threat of another wave of thunderstorms sweeping through Northern California is striking fear around the region.

A red-flag fire warning, signaling high fire danger, began at 5 a.m. Sunday and continues through 5 p.m. Monday. The National Weather Service said conditions could cause another round of dry thunderstorms and lightning strikes.

A week ago, thunderstorms rolled through the Bay Area early Sunday and early Monday, and dramatic lightning strikes started so many fires that firefighters grouped them in geographic clusters and spread out across the state to fight them. Three major complexes of fires are burning in all Bay Area counties except San Francisco.

The storms are the product of tropical moisture heading to the Bay Area. Thats not unusual, meteorologists say, but back-to-back thunderstorms dont happen often, said Cindy Palmer, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

Last weeks storms, which lasted for several hours Sunday morning, were caused by Tropical Storm Fausto, which was moving across the Pacific Ocean from 1,000 miles away, spitting out moisture that abnormal winds pushed into Northern California. Arriving in the Bay Area, it ran into a record heat wave and produced what some meteorologists considered a once-in-a-decade thunderstorm.

This time around, the culprit is Hurricane Genevieve, which pounded the Baja Peninsula last week before fizzling and sending what remained of its moisture and energy bound for the Bay Area. While the conditions are similar, this storm may not pack the same punch, said meteorologist Jan Null of Golden Gate Weather Services.

I would be extremely surprised to see anything like we had last weekend, Null said. In 46 years of watching and predicting Bay Area weather, he said, hes seen only three or four other thunderstorms of that magnitude.

Even if the storm isnt as widespread and long-lasting, it could still bring with it gusty winds that would spread existing fires and at least some dry lightning that could ignite new wildfires, Null said. Summer thunderstorms are typically more isolated, he said, often striking in the Sierra and driven by smaller amounts of moisture.

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.

High clouds began arriving late Saturday afternoon, presaging the coming conditions, Palmer said. Thunder and lightning were most likely to jolt the Bay Area on Sunday night into Monday, she said.

By Wednesday, the remnants of Genevieve should have departed, Null said, along with the unusually high temperatures and humidity. Palmer said its unlikely that more rounds of thunderstorms are coming, but she wouldnt rule it out.

If we get a couple of more storms off of Baja, it could happen again, she said.

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan
Marc Campbell parked 3-5 favourite Casimir Richie P through quick fractions and bottomed-out the field in progress to a 1:51.4 victory with Time To Dance in the $60,000 Gold Cup & Saucer Final on Saturday (Aug. 22) at Charlottetown Driving Park.

Launching from post 2, Time To Dance dashed to the front around pylon-starter Lisburn as Casimir Richie P attempted to roll to the lead moving up the backstretch. However Time To Dance and Lisburn sealed any potential holes for Casimir Richie P, keeping the favourite hung past a :26.2 quarter and into a :54.1 half.

Its not how I thought the race would end up, Campbell said after the race. I figured if I made [the] front Id let Dale [Spence & Casimir Richie P] go. I was going to stretch him out a little bit, but he never really got close to me. Then I said Well, I got to try and get a breather in here and see what happens.

Casimir Richie P began to drop out of contention up the backstretch as the field moved for three-quarters. Lisburn continued to chase Time To Dance from the pocket moving to three-quarters in 1:23.3 while Screen Test had room to tip off the pegs and take his shot, but then soon began to lose ground into the final turn.

Into the stretch Time To Dance had Lisburn to turn away as Woodmere Ideal Art dove into the passing lane to give pursuit from third. Lisburn dug into the leaders margin through the stretch but Time To Dance held firm to give trainer-driver Marc Campbell his third victory in the Gold Cup & Saucer. Woodmere Ideal Art finished third with Simple Kinda Man fourth.

Hes pretty tough off the front; weve got him off the front a couple of times before, Campbell said after the race. And hell dighell fight right to the wire. Hes been getting better and better every week; he keeps getting stronger on us. Hes really maturing into a nice horse.

A four-year-old gelding by A Rocknroll Dance, Time To Dance won his sixth race from 18 starts this season and his 13th from 47 overall, earning $105,613. Brent Campbell and Matthew McDonald own the gelding who paid $6.90 to win.

The Gold Cup & Saucer evening card featured a slew of top-class events, including a pair of $12,500 divisions of the Joe O'Brien Memorial Gold for three-year-old pacing colts and geldings.

Imalookertoo dashed from the pocket to win the first division of the O'Brien Memorial in 1:55.2. The Shadow Play colt, sent the 3-5 favourite, sat pocket as Windemere Frank took the field through a clip of :28.2, :57.3 and 1:27.2. In the stretch driver Marc Campbell fed Imalookertoo racetrack and dashed by to a one-and-a-quarter length win with Little Manny third.

Owned by Robert Sumarah, Imalookertoo won his second race from seven starts this season and his eighth from 17 overall, earning $17,191. Daniel Romo trains the $3.30 winner.

Tobins Rebel took the other division of the O'Brien Memorial going wire to wire in 1:54.3. Trainer-driver Gilles Barrieau cleared control with the Camystic gelding from post 5 and led through splits of :27.2, :56.1 and 1:25.2 with The Big Chase sitting the pocket. Coming for the finish The Big Chase lunged for the lead late but finished a head shy in second, with Nothing To Prove closing up the inside for third.

Winning his sixth race from eight starts this season and his 12th from 16 overall, Tobins Terror has earned $76,432 for owner Daniel Ross. He paid $3.10 to win.

Dreamfair Zenfire pulled an 11-1 upset in the Confederation Mares Invitational Series Final, winning in 1:55.1. Driver Jason Hughes secured the pocket with the Marc Campbell trainee while her stablemate Arc Light sat fifth to a :29 first quarter set by Berazzled. Campbell, driver Arc Light, tipped first over moving to a :58.1 half and pressured the pacesetter to three-quarters in 1:26.3. At the top of the stretch Arc Light powered past Berazzled but failed to hold off her stablemate, as Dreamfair Zenfire shot to a two-and-a-quarter length victory. Berazzled faded to third.

A four-year-old mare by Sunfire Blue Chip, Dreamfair Zenfire won her fifth race from 12 starts this season and her 11th from 55 overall, earning $88,613. Ryan and Everett MacLeod own the $25.30 winner.

Misty Memory N went wire to wire in the $4,000 Confederation Mares Invitational Series Consolation. A seven-year-old mare by Real Desire, Misty Memory N carved fractions of :28.2, :58.3 and 1:26.4 in progress to a 1:54.4 win by two-and-a-half lengths over pocket-sitter Ashestodiamonds. Yves Sarrazin, Donald Mac Rae and Allard Racing Inc. own the now nine-time winner with $28,903 banked. The Chris MacKay trainee returned $3.50 to win in rein to Jason Hughes.

A $4,000 Open Trot and $4,000 Preferred 1 Pace also went on the stakes-laden program. Mile Hill Willie delivered as the favourite with a near-wire-to-wire 1:56.3 job in the Open Trot, collecting his third win from four starts this season and his 15th from 28 overall, growing his bankroll to $48,405 for owners John Breau and trainer Paul Morrison. Gilles Barrieau drove the $4.40 winner.

The mile ties Freddies overall track trotting record and lowers Mile Hill Willies record of fastest Maritime-bred trotter ever in Atlantic Canada that he set in his last start.

In the Preferred 1 Pace, Rockin Indy capitalized off a pocket trip to score in 1:55.1 over Pillage And Burn, who rallied from first over but settled for second by a quarter length. The seven-year-old Rockin Image gelding competes for owner-trainer Troy Murray and won his fourth race from 17 starts this season and his 29th from 137 overall, earning $90,766. Corey MacPherson steered the $5.40 winner.

To view Saturday's harness racing results, click on the following link: Saturday Results - Charlottetown Driving Park (Evening).
How symptomatic children will be tested for Covid-19 once they return to school is being considered by public health officials as teachers appeal for rapid access to test results.

Officials have developed guidelines to consider closing or partially closing schools in the event of suspected or confirmed Covid-19 outbreaks. However, there is no specific strategy in place to test pupils and teachers if there is concern Covid-19 may have infected a school.

The HSE said "the issue of testing and the management of Covid-19 in children is under consideration by the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet)".

Teachers are keen to see tests turned around for teachers within 24 hours for schools to stay open, because of a concern over access to substitute teachers. They feel a shortage of cover means principals could be forced to ask parents at short notice to keep children away from school while the teacher awaits a test result or substitute cover is found.

Covid-19 restrictions mean teachers who have symptoms will be unable to attend work until they have undergone a test and been given a negative result. It has been suggested to officials to encourage take-up of the flu vaccine in schools to minimise disruption caused by other illnesses with similar symptoms to Covid-19.

A HSE spokeswoman said in the event of an outbreak in a school the response will be managed by public health officials.

"There is currently no testing strategy for schools per se, however, the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) has developed the principles for considering closure or partial closure, of educational facilities in the context of outbreaks, or suspected outbreaks, of Covid-19. Any cases that arise in the school setting will be responded to and managed by Public Health in accordance with their policies and as Public Health have been doing previously with outbreaks in other facilities."

Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) General Secretary Michael Gillespie said members will need access to Covid-19 tests within hours of developing symptoms and encouraged the Government to target getting them back to work within a day.

The TUI said a teacher with symptoms should be able to undergo a test and get a result within a day, allowing them to return to school 24 hours after taking it if the results are negative.

"What would be in my head, would be if a teacher wakes up with a cold and calls their GP the doctor will send them for a test. Ideally they should be able to do their test at 10am that morning and at some stage the following day they should have their test back. Even it was by 12pm teachers will go in for that afternoon to teach their classes if the test is negative," said Mr Gillespie.

"The Government has said they are imposing the restrictions to protect the vulnerable, get schools back and to reopen the hospitals fully because people are afraid to go to hospital. If the rest of society is doing all this for those three reasons why wouldn't you prioritise teachers?"

It comes as the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD) urged qualified teachers who have not been working in the sector recently to return.

NAPD deputy director Paul Byrne predicted there will be strong demand for substitute cover in the coming months. There are about 6,000 teachers registered with the Teaching Council who are not currently active. It is expected there will be significant demand for Irish, home economics, modern languages and some science teachers.

"You have to have a repository of teachers," Mr Byrne said. "The key to being able to supply subs to schools will be that anyone who is qualified and Teaching Council registered but not in employment will have to register on Sub Seeker at educationposts.ie because that is where schools will look for cover.

"The demand will be there for subject-specific subs."
LAS VEGAS  As Frankie Edgar and Pedro Munhoz were battling in what turned out to be the Fight of the Night on Saturday at Apex, UFC president Dana White received a text message from a familiar face.

Former matchmaker Joe Silva, who retired after the companys sale in 2016, reached out to White about Edgar, who was making his bantamweight debut. Edgar won the UFC lightweight title in 2010 and most recently competed at featherweight.

On Saturday, he won a split decision in a spirited battle with Munhoz, who gave as good as he got for all 25 minutes. Judges Derek Cleary and Eric Colon had it 48-47 for Edgar, while Sal DAmato had it 49-46 for Munhoz. Yahoo Sports had it 48-47 for Munhoz, giving him Rounds 1, 3 and 4.

Watching Edgar perform beautifully at 135 pounds reminded Silva of Edgars obstinance years ago in making that drop.

Joe Silva texted me and he said, Remember how pissed Frankie would get at us for asking him to drop down? White said.

But clearly, even though there was plenty of doubt about the verdict, Edgar has found a new home. Munhoz felt he won the fight and said he thought Edgars reputation as a former champion and MMA legend swayed the judges to score the close rounds for him.

Munhoz, though, said that Edgar, who turns 39 in October, more than proved hes capable of being a factor in the bantamweight division.

Without a doubt [he belongs with the elite at 135], Munhoz said. He seems healthy, very strong, good cardio and he has a lot of good skills. He belongs there.

Edgar did not attend the post-fight news conference and was transported to a local hospital for a precautionary examination. Hed heard for weeks leading up to the fight how hed come to the end of the line and answered countless questions about his age.

He took a measure of revenge after the scores were read, feeling hed proved his point.

I heard a lot of [expletives] barking that Im old, Im slow, Edgar told ESPN after leaving the cage. I definitely proved them all wrong  Im showing I can compete with the best at 38 years old. I dont want to hear nothing from nobody.

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All hes going to hear over the next few weeks is praise for his gutsy effort and how he should have been at bantamweight long ago.

But Edgars choice to resist that decision until there was no other choice is representative of the attitude that so many of these fighters bring. A large reason for the sports burgeoning popularity is because of fighters like Edgar, who may appear to be physically overmatched but still are eager to take down the giant.

Frankie Edgar reacts after his split decision victory over Pedro Munhoz in their bantamweight fight during UFC Fight Night at UFC Apex on Aug. 22, 2020 in Las Vegas. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)

White learned long ago never to doubt Edgar, and Edgar rewarded him for his faith on Saturday.

The career the guy has had has been unbelievable, White said. The fact that hes still performing the way hes performing at his age and the wars hes been through and all of the things that hes accomplished, Id say he looked pretty damn good tonight.

That would have been true win or lose. Munhoz had a good argument, though, and the fight turned on how the third round was scored.

The judges agreed on Rounds 1, 2 and 4. Cleary gave the third round to Edgar, while Colon and DAmato had that round for Munhoz. Had Cleary given the third to Munhoz, he would have won the split decision, not Edgar.

Munhoz noted that 17 of 20 media scores favored him, and he noted all the damage hed delivered.

Its not just the leg kicks, Munhoz said. I was hurting him with jabs. I chased him for five rounds. He got a couple takedowns, but he couldnt do anything with them and I got up right away. I was looking for the finish.

Munhoz said he felt he hurt Edgar several times, but credited Edgar with hiding it well.

Hiding the fact that hes been hurt is one of just many things that Edgar does well, and has done well for the last 15 years. And while hes not going to get a title shot based off of one fight in the division, rest assured, hell be in the mix.

Hes one of the most courageous and tenacious fighters in the sports history and just when you start to dig his grave, he reminds you that hes not ready just yet.

There are some people ahead of him, but he put on a good show and put himself into good position, White said. Hes got some work to do there [to get a title shot]. Two or one, I dont know. It depends who he fights next. But he looked [great].

More from Yahoo Sports:
Despite the 50 percent vehicle registration tax cut and large-scale sale promotion programs, inventories are still high and sales are on the decrease.

The Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers' Association (VAMA) reported that its member companies sold 24,065 cars last July, a very slight increase of 0.3 percent compared with the month before and a decrease of 13 percent compared with the same period last year.

Meanwhile, the domestically assembled car output increased by 2 percent over June.

In the last seven months of the year, VAMAs member companies sold 131,248 products, a decrease of 28 percent compared with the same period last year. The sales of domestically assembled cars dropped by 22 percent.

In an effort to stimulate demand, the government has agreed to slash the vehicle registration tax by 50 percent, applied to domestically made products to be registered from June 28 to the end of 2020. Auomobile manufacturers and sale agents are also offering discounts and additional preferences.

However, despite the big preferences, the sales of domestically made products have not increased as expected. Some car models have even seen a sales plunge. Honda Vietnams City model, for instance, saw a sharp fall of 74 percent in sales.

In an effort to stimulate demand, the government has agreed to slash the vehicle registration tax by 50 percent, applied to domestically made products to be registered from June 28 to the end of 2020.

Automobile manufacturers noted that the demand is very weak because of Covid-19.

VAMA reported that the inventory level has increased by 129 percent compared with the same period last year.

Nguyen Trung Hieu from VAMA said automobile manufacturers are maintaining production while listening to the news so as to adjust their production and business plan. The automobile plants and sales agents in the central region have suffered most from the pandemic.

To help automobile manufacturers have better cash flow, the government has decided to extend the luxury tax payment deadline. The decree on this issue is still under compilation.

It is expected that automobile manufacturers would enjoy luxury tax payment delay for the tax periods of March, April, May and June 2020. The payment extension would be five months.



According to Hieu, in general, enterprises pay tax one month after the sale. For example, they sell cars in March and pay luxury tax in April. And now they are paying tax for the cars sold in July.

As there has been no concrete guideline on the implementation of the policy, they still cannot enjoy the tax payment delay.

The government has also promulgated the Decree 57 on the imposition of the zero percent import tariff on materials and car parts which cannot be made domestically and are used to make supporting industry products in the automobile industry.

However, many car part manufacturing companies cannot satisfy the requirements to enjoy the incentive.

Tran Thuy

Local automobile manufacturers look forward to big preferences What should automobile manufacturers do  import cars for domestic sale or assemble cars domestically? They prefer the second solution, though the first brings higher profit.
OMJ Commercial Limited have announces a strategic partnership with KT&G Corporation from The Republic of South Korea, the 5th worlds largest producer of tobacco in the world.

This partnership will play a pivotal role to diversify OMJ operations by supplying Korean manufactured cigarettes to adult consumers both in Mauritius & Indian Ocean. KT&G is a reputable tobacco company, which engages in manufacturing cigarettes, e-cigarette and nicotine-containing products. Head quartered in Daejeon, South Korea, KT&G produces popular Korean cigarette brands such as PINE, ESSE, BOHEM, THIS, RAISON, TONINO LAMBORGHINI. The company extended its operations in markets across the world, especially through its luxury brand of super slim cigarette, ESSE, which is known to be the leading slim cigarette brand globally.

KT&G now broadens its portfolio by paving its way into the Mauritian market. Under this partnership, OMJ Commercial Limited has the right to commercialize and distribute KT&G Tobacco brands; PINE RED, PINE BLUE, PINE CHANGE, ESSE BLUE, ESSE CHANGE in Mauritius.

The ESSE brand is the worlds very first super-slim cigarette and has kept an established position as the best-selling cigarette ever since its sale has continued to escalate every year following its first export. The distinctive feature of ESSE CHANGE is that it allows the consumer to enjoy two flavors in one cigarette. When the capsule in the filter is burst, the mild flavor changes into a refreshing taste.

In an attempt to meet the broad spectrum of KT&G tobacco sales in overseas market, OMJ Commercial Limited is committed to offer an ever-greater choice of tobacco products, set apart by their quality and innovation. The executive director for OMJ Commercial Limited, Umarfarooq Omarjee stated:

We are looking forward for the successful entry of the new brands PINE and ESSE into the Mauritian market. We are committed to offer some new tobacco products, a new choice to adult smokers. However, we do not set out to encourage people on taking up smoking cigarettes, or to smoke more! We firmly believe that tobacco products carry risks to health and adult smokers should be appropriately informed about the risks associated. This is central to our marketing principles and operational policies. Our business venture is based on meeting the preferences of todays adult smokers with products that are not present in the local market. We just hope to provide them with the freedom of choice they deserve.

The director of KT&G, Han Dong Won stated: KT&G is delighted to announce a strategic partnership with OMJ Commercial Limited in order to successfully enter the Mauritian market. KT&G will focus on developing the brands that meet the needs of local consumers, whereas OMJ Commercial Limited will strengthen the distribution channel in Mauritius. As per the Korean quote Many hands make light work, if we cooperate together and perform well, not only will it satisfy the needs of consumers, but it will also provide more opportunities for KT&Gs products.

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FILE PHOTO: Michael Cohen arrives at his Manhattan apartment in New York City

By Karen Freifeld

(Reuters) - Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer, on Thursday promised to show how Trump cheated in the 2016 election with Russian help in an upcoming book titled "Disloyal, A Memoir."

"Trump had cheated in the election, with Russian connivance, as you will discover in these pages, because doing anything  and I mean anything  to 'win' has always been his business model and way of life," Cohen writes in the book's foreword, which was published online on Thursday.

The 3,700-word foreword does not reveal anything new about Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election, and it was not clear if the book would.

Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller last year concluded that Russia waged a major campaign to help Trump to victory in 2016.

Mueller did not find evidence of a criminal conspiracy between Trump's campaign and Russia, but he did detail extensive contacts between the campaign and Russian operatives.

Cohen worked closely with Trump for years before turning against him, most publicly in testimony to Congress last year prior to Trump's impeachment.

Cohen said he knows where Trump's metaphorical "skeletons" are buried because he buried them.

White House spokesman Brian Morgenstern responded by attacking Cohen's credibility.

"He readily admits to lying routinely but expects people to believe him now so that he can make money from book sales. Its unfortunate that the media is exploiting this sad and desperate man to attack President Trump, Morgenstern said.

Trump has called Cohen "a rat," and a liar, and Cohen said he faced repeated death threats from Trump supporters.

Cohen, 53, is serving a three-year sentence for tax evasion, false statements and campaign finance violations, the last related to payments to silence women who alleged affairs with Trump before the 2016 presidential election. [L2N2EU0X7]

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Cohen was released to home confinement in May given the risks of catching COVID-19 in prison, but then was briefly imprisoned again last month.

A federal judge last month ruled Cohen had been subjected to retaliation for planning to publish his book, and ordered him released again.

A lawyer for Cohen declined to comment.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld, additional reporting by Nathan Layne and Jeff Mason; Editing by Scott Malone and Tom Brown)
Ctrl2GO, a global provider of predictive analytics and maintenance services, has announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership agreement with Saudi Arabia for maintaining the country's strategic assets.



Ctrl2GO has been operating in Europe, the CIS, Russia, and Asia for many years, cooperating with the largest enterprises in the regions. The company is currently seeking to expand its presence in the Middle East to offer its high-tech predictive analytics solutions on the market, aiming to target the oil and gas, railway, power engineering and other industries.



"The entry into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the culmination of a long-term product planning and development program. We are now ready with products suited to cater to the Saudi market, which is the largest and important Industrial AI market in the Middle East region," said Elina Idrisova, head of the international expansion group of Ctrl2GO companies.



The prospects of the partnership with the Saudi Arabian market are lucrative for Ctrl2GO, as the company has a proven track record of applying its technologies successfully in the country. The Kingdom is currently implementing the Smart City program, which is being applied in various sectors, such as transportation, industry and agriculture. The solutions offered by Ctrl2GO can be of great benefit to improving the efficiency of the Smart City program and increasing its value chain.



One of such fields of application is the transport and railway sector given the active development of a smart railway infrastructure in Saudi Arabia that is said to be implemented by 2030.



Ctrl2GO intends to help the country achieve higher efficiency in the railway sector with the Smart Maintenance solution, which allows for digitally redesigning transportation systems, introducing predictive maintenance and monitoring, and smart fleet management for increasing the efficiency of railway systems without capital investments. An important element of the package is the Smart Maintenance for Railways technology, which proved its efficiency in the equipment evaluation and reduction of failures, downtime and track damage by predicting repairs, and is successfully used in the leading CIS solutions such as Smart Locomotive and Smart Depot.



Another promising industry for the company development is the agricultural sector. The automation of crop yield management is of great importance for Saudi Arabia, given its geographical and climatic conditions, and the growing scarcity of water and agricultural resources. The automated farm management systems, robotics, remote probing of terrain and other smart technologies improve the quality and quantity of crop yields and require appropriate technical monitoring solutions.



Ctrl2GO offers agro sector producers its Smart Agro system  a package of innovative solutions that increases the expected crop yield by 15-20%. Smart Agro technologies solve a wide range of problems in agriculture through the effective management of data that reduces costs and the risk of unforeseen situations, while increasing the productivity of equipment monitoring seedlings and adjusting yield forecasts.  TradeArabia News Service
(Newser)  More than 100,000 protesters demanding the resignation of Belarus' authoritarian president rallied Sunday in a vast square in the capital, keeping up the massive outburst of dissent that has shaken the country since a disputed presidential election two weeks ago, the AP reports. Sunday's demonstration overflowed Minsk's 17-acre Independence Square. There were no official figures on crowd size, but there appeared to be 150,000 people or more. Dozens of police-prisoner transport vehicles were parked on the fringes, but police made no immediate efforts to break up the gathering. Protesters say the official results of the Aug. 9 election, which gave President Alexander Lukashenko 80% of the vote and a sixth term in office, are fraudulent.

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The 65-year-old has already ruled the former Soviet republic of 9.5 million people for 26 years. His main election challenger, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, fled to Lithuania the day after the election. The size and duration of the protests are unprecedented. Lukashenko appears to be flailing about for a strategy to counter them. Lukashenko has consistently repressed opposition, but weariness with his hardline rule, the country's deteriorating economy, and his cavalier dismissal of the coronavirus pandemic appear to have galvanized opponents. "Belarus has changed," said a protester. "Lukashenko has been able to unify everybody, from workers to intelligentsia, in the demand for change."

(Read more Belarus stories.)
Job seekers are being urged to focus on short courses that are tailored to respond to skills shortages as Australia attempts to reboot the economy.

PwC Australia will on Monday release a report which recommends a tighter partnership between industry and government to address future skills needs with "micro-credentials". These are shorter courses, as opposed to a full qualification that provide specific skills a business needs.

Kirsty O'Connor said extra training was accessible at home.

The report, Where next for Skills?, says full qualifications are not needed to solve all skills shortages as businesses attempt to recover amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Not all skills acquisition needs formal training," the report says. "Institutional learning is often impractical for busy employees.
Dawood Ibrahim, underworld don and one of the most wanted in India, is living in Karachi, according to a Pakistan government's document.

Underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, one of the most wanted in India, is living in Karachi, according to a Pakistan governments document. Islamabad has for years denied that it has sheltered Dawood, responsible for the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, along with other terrorists.

Dawood Ibrahim is wanted in India to face the law of the land for carrying out serial blasts in Mumbai in 1993 in which scores of people were killed and injured. India has asked Pakistan several times to hand over Dawood Ibrahim.

The document that revealed Dawoods location was related to a list of 88 terrorists that were sanctioned by the Pakistan government. His address on the document is White House, Karachi. Pakistan has imposed more restrictions on 88 leaders and members of terrorist groups, in compliance with the new list, issued by the United Nations Security Council.

Also read: Indias Covid-19 tally surpasses 3 million mark, recovery rate at 74.6%

Also read: Defence Minister holds security review meeting with NSA, CDS, three service chiefs

Hafiz Saeed Ahmad of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Mohammad Masood Azhar of JeM and Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi are on the list. According to the details, the government has also seized the bank accounts and properties of the terrorists in the country. They have also been banned from travelling aboard, Ary News reported.

Pakistan has been in the grey list since June 2018 and the government had given a final warning in February to complete the remaining action points by June 2020. The FATF extended the June deadline to September due to the spread of coronavirus that disrupted the FATF plenary meetings.

If Pakistan fails to comply with the FATF directive by October, the Paris-based body could push the Imran Khan-led country onto the Black List along with North Korea and Iran.

Also read: SSR death case: CBI to interrogate Siddharth Pithani, cook Neeraj today
New Delhi, Aug 23 : Raising a red flag against the West Bengal government's proposed steep hike in liquor prices, the associations of the Indian alcoholic beverage makers have urged Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee not to go ahead with the proposed excise policy which would "kill the industry, leave thousands of people jobless and hurt government's tax collections".

In a joint representation to the Chief Minister, the two major liquor associations - the Confederation of Indian Alcoholic Beverage Companies (CIABC) and the International Spirits and Wines Association of India (ISWAI) said: "It is well known that the alcoholic beverage industry is facing an acute fall in sales volumes in West Bengal. Sales were down significantly in the light of the additional levy of VAT of 30 per cent which was imposed after the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, consequently leading to a fall in tax revenues for the government." The letter noted that there has been a sharp drop of 58 per cent in sales volumes across segments after the tax was imposed in April 2020 and the 'AlcoBev' trade resumed in May 2020. If a 30 per cent increase in consumer prices brought by the imposition of VAT could bring sales down like shown above, it is frightening to envisage what further hiking of taxes on spirits will do to liquor sales in the state and consequently to the government's tax collections, it said.

Under the proposed policy, consumer prices of the fast-moving brands will go up by 40-90 per cent -- translating to Rs 150 to Rs 450 per bottle -- as a consequence of the changes in taxation and in the trade margins, the industry bodies said.

CIABC Director General, Vinod Giri said: "Excise policy proposed by the West Bengal Excise department on August 19, 2020 has created great concerns amongst companies. Industry fears that this policy will create undue disruptions and even possible job losses just before the peak Puja times. The proposed policy also uses a deeply flawed concept of inter-state price comparisons because the operating conditions vary considerably across states." Noting that the West Bengal government is "one of the most progressive and business friendly governments in the country", Giri said that if the proposed policy is implemented in the current form, it will lead to a great loss to all stakeholders, the government, the supplier companies, and the consumers.
New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a day long visit to Maharashtra, where he is scheduled to lay foundation stone for the grand memorial of Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and the metro rail projects in Mumbai and Pune.



During first stop in his trip, PM Modi inaugurated the newly-built campus of the National Institute of Securities Management in Raigad.

Also read: PM Modi to visit Maharashtra for Shivaji memorial, Mumbai and Pune metro

Here are the live updates:

PM Narendra Modi at the inauguration ceremony of new campus of National Institute of Securities Markets in Panvel (Mumbai)









#1:18pm: My aim is to make India a developed country in one generation: PM Modi

#1:18pm: Those who profit from financial markets must make a fair contribution to nation-building through taxes: PM

#1:17pm: SEBI should work for closer linkage between spot markets like e-NAM and derivatives markets to benefit farmers: PM

#1:15pm: The true measure of success is the impact in villages, not the impact in Dalal Street or Lutyens Delhi: PM

#1:14pm: Stock markets need to raise capital in innovative ways for projects in agriculture: PM

#1:14pm: We have a long way to go, our stock markets needs to raise capital in innovative ways for agricultural sector: PM Modi

#1:13pm: Our markets should show that they are able to successfully raise capital for projects benefiting the majority: PM

#1:10pm: India has earned a good name for its well regulated securities markets: PM Narendra Modi

#1:09pm:We need to focus on skill development and start-ups and for that we need robust financial markets: PM Modi

#1:08pm: For financial markets to function successfully, participants need to be well informed: PM Narendra Modi in Raigad

#1:08pm: Govt will continue with sound economic policies to ensure India's bright future in long run;no decisions for short term political gains: PM

#1:07pm: We have made progress and improved ease of doing business. FDI has now reached record levels: PM Modi

#1:06pm: 'Demonetisation is short-term pain with long-term gain': PM Modi

#1:05pm: Constitutional amendments on GST that remained pending for years has been passed and the long awaited GST will soon be a reality: PM Modi

#1:02pm: India is been seen as bright spot. To see how far we've travelled we shld look back to 2012-13 when the currency was falling sharply-PM Modi



#1:00pm:



Maharashtra: PM Modi inaugurates the new campus of National Institute of Securities Markets (NISM) in Raigad pic.twitter.com/eq38bz1440  ANI (@ANI_news) December 24, 2016



#12:55pm: A lot of informal savings have become formal now, lot of money have come into the banking system post demonetisation: FM Arun Jaitley (Also present at Inauguration of new campus of National Institute of Securities Markets)

Maharashtra: PM Narendra Modi arrives in Raigad, to inaugurate new campus of National Institute of Securities Markets in Panvel, shortly pic.twitter.com/t0CUkpM1ac  ANI (@ANI_news) December 24, 2016

#11:45am: PM Narendra Modi arrives in Mumbai

Complete schedule of PM Modi:

1200 hrs: Inauguration of new campus of National Institute of Securities Markets at Patalganga, Panvel



1430 hrs: Kalash Arpan Ceremony at Girgaum Chowpatty



1500 hrs: Bhoomipujan of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Smarak



1550 hrs: Laying of Foundation Stone for two metro corridors and other projects, Bandra Kurla Complex



1835 hrs: Laying of Foundation Stone of Pune Metro Project (Phase 1)PM will return to Delhi thereafter.



The Prime Ministers visit assumes political significance as the high-stake elections to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) are just a few months away.



The main feature of the Shivaji memorial, slated to cost Rs 3,600 crore, will be a 192-metre-tall statue of the iconic Maratha king. The site is a rocky outcrop, roughly 1.5 km from the Raj Bhavan shore.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Boris Johnson has pleaded with parents to send their children back to the classroom as he takes charge of the drive to get all schools open next week.

The Prime Minister warned last night that pupils risk permanent damage to their future life chances if they continue to stay away.

Mr Johnson, who tomorrow morning will return to No10 following his summer break, is in a race against the clock to get schools ready and persuade parents they are safe in time for the start of the new term.

The Government faces a big test to deliver on its promise to get all children full-time back following its shambolic handling of A-level and GCSE results.

Many pupils in England have not been to class since March, when schools were closed except to vulnerable children and those of keyworkers.

Prime minister Boris Johnson poses during a visit to St Josephs Catholic School in Upminster to see how new Covid-19 preparedness plans had been put in place earlier this month

Pupils sit at separate desks at Hiltingbury Infant School in Chandler's Ford, Hampshire, this year

Mr Johnson is racing the clock to get schools ready and persuade parents they're safe

Seaside-trip Williamson: At least I didn't go abroad! Gavin Williamson yesterday defended taking a seaside holiday the week before A-level results  saying at least he did not go abroad. The Education Secretary visited family in Scarborough in the week beginning August 3 as the exams chaos began to unfold in Scotland. He posted a message on Twitter telling how he had foregone a summer holiday overseas this year. But last night Mr Williamson's comments re-ignited the row over his handling of the crisis. He wrote: 'I cancelled our family hol-iday abroad this year to focus on the challenges Covid-19 created for the education sector. 'Over the summer I went to see family in Scarborough for the first time since lockdown and while there I was in constant communication with the Department.' Mr Williamson, who is fighting to keep his job, faced an immediate backlash. Labour MP Karl Turner, who was one of those to reply, wrote: 'Our younger people would have been much better off if you'd gone on holiday, Gav.' Mr Williamson's trip ended days before thousands of teenagers missed out on university places because they were given the wrong A-level results on August 13. His absence may help to explain why he later claimed that he was unaware of flaws in the algorithm which had led to results being downgraded. One of the most senior Tory MPs yesterday suggested Mr Williamson had lost the trust of his officials to such an extent that he could no longer serve effectively in the Cabinet. Sir Bernard Jenkin, chairman of the Commons liaison committee, criticised the minister's attempts to point the finger at officials rather than taking the blame himself. Advertisement

Efforts to reopen classrooms were given a major boost last night as it emerged that there was an outbreak of coronavirus at only one in 10,000 schools when some reopened for select year groups in June, according to research by Public Health England.

Mr Johnson declared that there was a 'moral duty to reopen schools to all pupils safely' as he insisted that the return was guided by the Government's scientific and medical experts.

'We now know far more about coronavirus than we did earlier this year,' he said.

'As the chief medical officer has said, the risk of contracting Covid-19 in school is very small and it is far more damaging for a child's development and their health and wellbeing to be away from school any longer.

'This is why it's vitally important that we get our children back into the classroom to learn and to be with their friends.

'Nothing will have a greater effect on the life chances of our children than returning to school.'

His comments came after the UK's chief and deputy chief medical officers issued a joint statement seeking to reassure parents that it was safe to send their children back to school.

They said 'very few, if any' children and teenagers would come to long-term harm from the virus solely by attending school, while there was a 'certainty' of harm from not returning.

And teachers were not at any increased risk of dying compared to the general working-age population.

Professor Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, added: 'The chances of many children being damaged by not going to school are incredibly clear and therefore the balance of risk is very strongly in favour of children going to school because many more are likely to be harmed by not going than harmed by going, even during this pandemic.'

He said local lockdown measures would be used if school reopening leads to a rise in infections, with the possibility of national restrictions if necessary.

Every school will be provided with coronavirus testing kits so they can quickly check pupils.

Ministers have given the green light for the resumption of breakfast and after-school clubs to provide extra childcare so more parents can get back to work.

Teaching unions last night insisted that they supported the return to full time education, but still issued grim warnings about the Government's strategy.

Harris Academy Primary School in Croydon was one of the schools that reopened before the summer holidays

Professor Chris Whitty said the chances of many children being damaged by not going to school are clear and so the balance of risk is very strongly in favour of children going to school

Boris Johnson's schools statement in full The Prime Minister said: 'I have previously spoken about the moral duty to reopen schools to all pupils safely, and I would like to thank the school staff who have spent the summer months making classrooms Covid-secure in preparation for a full return in September. 'We have always been guided by our scientific and medical experts, and we now know far more about coronavirus than we did earlier this year. 'As the Chief Medical Officer has said, the risk of contracting Covid-19 in school is very small and it is far more damaging for a child's development and their health and well-being to be away from school any longer. 'This is why it's vitally important that we get our children back into the classroom to learn and to be with their friends. Nothing will have a greater effect on the life chances of our children than returning to school.' Advertisement

The National Education Union said it wanted ministers to spell out exactly what will happen if there is an outbreak.

Joint general secretary Kevin Courtney said: 'School staff, parents and pupils are being sorely let down by government because of a lack of a Plan B and of ensuring robust track trace and test is in place. We believe the Government is negligent in the extreme.'

A Daily Mail poll on Saturday revealed the strength of feeling among voters about the need to get pupils back into the classroom full-time.

Seventy-eight per cent said it should be the Government's top priority if it is safe to do so.

Given the choice of whether schools should reopen or pubs remain open if only one was allowed, 80 per cent said they would choose schools, while 13 per cent opted for pubs.

Professor Whitty also warned that it was unlikely that a vaccine would be available by the end of this year.

He said there was a 'reasonable chance' of one being ready for next winter, 2021/22.

'I would be delighted if it came earlier rather than later but I'd be quite surprised if we had a highly effective vaccine ready for mass use in a large percentage of the population before the end of winter, certainly before this side of Christmas,' he said.

'I think if we look forward a year I think the chances are much greater than if we look forward six months and we need to have that sort of timescale in mind.'

Teachers are far more likely to spread Covid than children says leading scientist as figures show just 1 in 10,000 schools have been hit by outbreaks

by Sophie Tanno for MailOnline and John Stevens, Political Editor for the Daily Mail

Teachers are far more likely to spread Covid-19 than children, according to a leading scientist.

Shamez Ladhani, a paediatric infectious diseases specialist at Public Health England (PHE), said that school staff will maintain social distancing rules during work but are more likely to break them outside the classroom.

It comes as figures show that just 1 in 10,000 schools have been hit by a virus outbreak when they reopened in June.

A PHE analysis, published on Sunday, found there were 67 single confirmed cases, four 'co-primary cases' (two or more linked cases diagnosed at the same time) and 30 outbreaks of Covid-19 in schools during June.

It said the majority of cases linked to outbreaks were in staff and warned that school staff needed to be 'more vigilant for exposure outside the school setting to protect themselves, their families and the educational setting'.

Teachers are far more likely to spread Covid-19 than children, according to a leading scientist (File image)

Dr Shamez Ladhani, paediatric infectious diseases specialist at PHE, who headed the monitoring of England's schools, told The Times: 'We need to educate the educators.

'There's a clear need for a duty of care outside the school setting so staff need to protect themselves, and in turn other staff and pupils.'

He added: 'Staff are very good at social distancing and infection control in the classroom, but upon leaving the school environment these measures are more likely to be broken, potentially putting themselves and their colleagues at risk.'

Boris Johnson has pleaded with parents to send their children back to the classroom as he takes charge of the drive to get all schools open next week.

Just 1 in 10,000 schools were hit by virus cases when their doors opened again Just one in 10,000 schools had a virus outbreak when they reopened in June, a major study has revealed. The research by Public Health England also found that out of one million children who attended pre-school and primary schools during this time, only 70 became infected with Covid-19. Youngsters were far more likely to catch the virus at home from their parents than in the classroom, the authors concluded, suggesting that schools were safer than their own homes. The authors, whose research analysed all outbreaks in educational settings in England in June, stressed that pupils were unlikely to pass the virus onto each other in classrooms and also that there were 'very few' cases of them catching it from or passing it on to teachers. There were a total of 30 outbreaks in schools reported during June  where two or more people were infected  which was just 0.01 per cent of the total number open, or one in 10,000. There are 24,323 schools in England. These outbreaks affected 70 children and 128 staff, showing teachers were at higher risk. The authors also found that 20 of the 30 outbreaks occurred through teachers passing it on to each other, or on to pupils. Only two outbreaks involved children passing it onto each other. The authors wrote: 'Students mostly acquired the [Covid-19] infection at home, usually from a keyworker or healthcare worker parent. Most children were asymptomatic and only identified as part of contact tracing after their parent developed Covid-19. 'Reassuringly, we found very little transmission between the students. Additionally, there were very few transmission events between staff and students.' Public Health England is due to publish a second study, which is expected to show that older pupils are much more likely to catch the virus than younger children. The findings are based on a very small number of schools which experienced outbreaks but they are nonetheless likely to raise concerns amongst teaching unions and the parents of secondary school pupils. The Government announced yesterday that there have been a further six deaths from coronavirus, taking the total to 41,429. There were 1,041 new cases. Advertisement

The Prime Minister warned last night that pupils risk permanent damage to their future life chances if they continue to stay away.

Mr Johnson, who tomorrow morning will return to No10 following his summer break, is in a race against the clock to get schools ready and persuade parents they are safe in time for the start of the new term.

The Government faces a big test to deliver on its promise to get all children full-time back following its shambolic handling of A-level and GCSE results.

Many pupils in England have not been to class since March, when schools were closed except to vulnerable children and those of keyworkers.

Efforts to reopen classrooms were given a major boost last night as it emerged that there was an outbreak of coronavirus at only one in 10,000 schools when some reopened for select year groups in June, according to research by Public Health England.

Mr Johnson declared that there was a 'moral duty to reopen schools to all pupils safely' as he insisted that the return was guided by the Government's scientific and medical experts.

'We now know far more about coronavirus than we did earlier this year,' he said.

'As the chief medical officer has said, the risk of contracting Covid-19 in school is very small and it is far more damaging for a child's development and their health and wellbeing to be away from school any longer.

'This is why it's vitally important that we get our children back into the classroom to learn and to be with their friends.

'Nothing will have a greater effect on the life chances of our children than returning to school.'

His comments came after the UK's chief and deputy chief medical officers issued a joint statement seeking to reassure parents that it was safe to send their children back to school.

They said 'very few, if any' children and teenagers would come to long-term harm from the virus solely by attending school, while there was a 'certainty' of harm from not returning.

And teachers were not at any increased risk of dying compared to the general working-age population.

Professor Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, added: 'The chances of many children being damaged by not going to school are incredibly clear and therefore the balance of risk is very strongly in favour of children going to school because many more are likely to be harmed by not going than harmed by going, even during this pandemic.'

He said local lockdown measures would be used if school reopening leads to a rise in infections, with the possibility of national restrictions if necessary.

Every school will be provided with coronavirus testing kits so they can quickly check pupils.

Ministers have given the green light for the resumption of breakfast and after-school clubs to provide extra childcare so more parents can get back to work.

Teaching unions last night insisted that they supported the return to full time education, but still issued grim warnings about the Government's strategy.

The National Education Union said it wanted ministers to spell out exactly what will happen if there is an outbreak.

Joint general secretary Kevin Courtney said: 'School staff, parents and pupils are being sorely let down by government because of a lack of a Plan B and of ensuring robust track trace and test is in place. We believe the Government is negligent in the extreme.'

Professor Chris Whitty said the chances of many children being damaged by not going to school are clear and so the balance of risk is very strongly in favour of children going to school

A Daily Mail poll on Saturday revealed the strength of feeling among voters about the need to get pupils back into the classroom full-time.

Seventy-eight per cent said it should be the Government's top priority if it is safe to do so.

Given the choice of whether schools should reopen or pubs remain open if only one was allowed, 80 per cent said they would choose schools, while 13 per cent opted for pubs.

Professor Whitty also warned that it was unlikely that a vaccine would be available by the end of this year.

He said there was a 'reasonable chance' of one being ready for next winter, 2021/22.

'I would be delighted if it came earlier rather than later but I'd be quite surprised if we had a highly effective vaccine ready for mass use in a large percentage of the population before the end of winter, certainly before this side of Christmas,' he said.

'I think if we look forward a year I think the chances are much greater than if we look forward six months and we need to have that sort of timescale in mind.'
Tangara School for Girls will reopen on Monday despite a coronavirus cluster linked to the school growing over the weekend.

The independent Catholic school in Cherrybrook has been closed for the past two weeks, with at least 12 senior school students and one teacher testing positive to the virus.

The COVID-19 cluster linked to Tangara School for Girls in Sydney's north-west has grown to 27, with three new related cases announced on Sunday. Credit:Kate Geraghty

It has since been confirmed that students diagnosed with COVID-19 attended a study-and-prayer retreat organised by Opus Dei's Eremeran Hills Study Centre at Bargo Convention Centre, south-west of Sydney.

The Tangara cluster now stands at 27 after the confirmation of a new case on Saturday.
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge has long been praised for her poise, grace, and overall fit into the royal family and her likely future role as the Queen. The Duchess of Cambridge and wife of Prince William, Kate Middleton lives her life under a very pronounced spotlight. The public is full of fans of the royal family who adore her and wait excitedly for glimpses into her daily personal life. At the same time, shes aware that every move she makes will be scrutinized against standards of royal protocol and expectation.

Even with all of this pressure, Middleton manages to stay above the fray and conduct herself in a way that is largely beyond reproach. The tiny details of her existence add up to a larger sense of her persona and responsibility, and even something as simple as making breakfast for her children is a topic of conversation.

Prince William, Kate Middleton, Prince Louis, Prince George, Princess Charlotte | BBC Children in Need/Getty Images

Kate Middleton faces a lot of pressure

No, she's not jealous of Meghan, and yes, she's dressing like the queen (consort) she will one day be. My most on-brand story maybe ever is up now @VanityFair: Welcome to the Golden Era of Kate Middleton! https://t.co/wF8i0qIg1T  Michelle Ruiz (@michelleruiz) October 26, 2018

Not every member of the British royal family is popular with the public. The most recent years, in particular, have brought renewed drama to the family. When Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex made the unprecedented decision to step back from their royal duties amid cruel treatment by the press, it was clear that the pressure of being in this particular spotlight was serious. Middleton faces that pressure as well, but she has the benefit of being nearly universally beloved.

Since her engagement to Prince William in 2010, Middleton has been charming the public at every turn. As theyve added three young children to their quickly growing family, fans of the royal family have grown even more attached. Now that Prince Harry and Meghans departure is official and no longer captivating headlines, Prince William and Middleton have even more work to do as the primary faces of the younger generation of the royal line.

Comparisons to Princess Diana abound

Kate Middleton channels Princess Diana's '80s look in Dublin https://t.co/TSQxmjstNX  Daily Mail Femail (@Femail) March 5, 2020

RELATED: Prince William and Kate Middleton Split Household Chores in an Equal Partnership, Experts Claim

One way that Middleton has to consider the pressures upon her is through the lens of her late mother-in-law, Prince Williams mother Princess Diana. Princess Diana was also a very beloved figure, and her tragic death that has been largely blamed on aggressive paparazzi puts the pressure from the press in even sharper focus. Middleton cannot escape comparisons to Princess Diana, and she has largely managed to use these comparisons to her advantage.

A royal insider even went so far as to call Middleton Princess Diana without the drama. Like Princess Diana, Middleton is well-known for letting her personality shine through in the work that she does. Fans feel that she is authentic and personable. Another way that she has drawn comparisons to the late Princess is through her humanitarian efforts. Both women have done a lot to use their platform and status to raise attention for causes that are close to their hearts.

Kate Middletons breakfast habits are simple

Kate Middleton Surprises Kindergarten Class with Breakfast  and Shares the Veggie Her Kids Love #PeopleNow pic.twitter.com/t9bmdWTH2S  People (@people) February 3, 2020

One way that Middleton is decidedly not like Princess Diana is in the kitchen. According to Us Weekly via MSN, Princess Diana was a terrible cook! The princess was an awful cook. She didnt like to cook at all in the kitchen, a royal expert spilled. An effort to make pasta once resulted in a kitchen catastrophe. I remember Monday morning she came into the kitchen and she said, Darren, you wont believe the weekend. I nearly set the whole palace on fire!' the source recalled.

Middleton, meanwhile, is a bit more adept in the kitchen. Still, she keeps things simple especially in the morning. With three young kids to feed, Middleton turns to a balanced breakfast of cereal and apples to keep the mornings running smoothly while still filling her kids up at the start of their busy days.
This is the Northern Ireland businesswoman jailed for a month on the Isle of Man after breaking strict quarantine rules.

Company director Fraser Nolan, who owns Fraser Nolan Shutters Ltd, a blinds company based on Belfast's Lisburn Road, was given special permission to visit the island to take care of her late mother's estate.

However, she ended up behind bars after going on a bus journey to visit a locksmith.

The 60-year-old, who is originally from Cookstown, Co Tyrone, but now lives on Belfast's Osbourne Drive, arrived on the Isle of Man by ferry last Sunday.

In line with strict Covid-19 rules for non-residents, she agreed to isolate for 14 days at the empty family home in Castletown on the south of the island.

Two days later she broke regulations by travelling around 10 miles to visit a locksmith in Douglas.

She was reported to police via an anonymous tip-off, with officers going to her house, which they found empty, before contacting her on her mobile and arresting her when she returned to the property.

A court heard Mrs Nolan, the wife of a solicitor, accepted she had "taken a chance" by making the journey, which was described as a "very silly mistake".

She had reportedly wanted advice on opening a safe containing documents relating to her mother's will.

During her sentencing on August 19, magistrates said her trip to the locksmith had "no real urgency" and had "put many people at risk".

Lawyers for Mrs Nolan pleaded for a suspended sentence, saying she had not read the details of coronavirus regulations and was unaware of the penalties that could be issued.

A spokesperson for the Isle of Man Courts Service listed her charges as including failure to comply with a direction under the Emergency Powers (Potentially Infectious Persons) Regulations 2020 between August 16 and August 31.

They added all rule breakers were taken immediately to a prison located in the northern parish of Jurby.

Nicknamed 'Jurby's Hilton', the mixed-use facility was featured in an ITV documentary last year called The Best Little Prison in Britain?

It houses around 120 prisoners and has nearly as many staff members.

All inmates are said to have their own cells and are reportedly allowed to leave them for seven hours a day.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, visitors to the Isle of Man have been given an exemption certificate.

Failure to comply with the island's strict rules can result in a fine of up to 10,000 or three months in prison.

Fraser Nolan Shutters, which Mrs Nolan owns a controlling stake in, was established in 2002.

It claims to offer the "best quality shutters" and "guarantees unparalleled experience in design and installation".
A day after admitting that it has sheltered India's most-wanted terrorist Dawood Ibrahim, Pakistan on Sunday backtracked from its stance and said that the media reports are 'baseless and misleading. Issuing a statement, Pakistan's foreign ministry rejected that Dawood is in their country, despite mentioning his three Karachi addresses in the UNSC's list released on August 18. In an attempt to escape from FATF blacklisting, Imran Khan's country admitted Dawood's presence; the underworld don was responsible for the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts in which 257 people were killed and 700 injured.

Contradicting its own admission, Pakistan's foreign ministry said that the information in the notifications of August 18 is "reproduced as per the details in the list entry of the individuals/entities designated under the two sanctions regime, which is publically available, and contains names of individuals, who despite their confirmed deceased status still continue to be on the sanctions list."

READ | Pakistan foreign minister meets Chinese counterpart; discusses Kashmir

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry statement blatantly stated: The reports in certain sections of the media about Pakistan imposing any new sanctions measures, through these notifications, are not factual. Similarly, the assertions made by some sections of the Indian media, as to Pakistan admitting to the presence of certain listed individuals on its territory, based on the information contained in the notifications, is baseless and misleading."

It added: "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued two consolidated notifications on August 18, reflecting the current status of the UN Taliban and ISIL(Da'esh) and AQ Sanctions list. These lists contain names of individuals and entities designated under the two sanction regimes established pursuant to the UN Security Council resolutions. The consolidated notifications are issued periodically as a routine matter. Similar notifications have been issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the past as per statutory requirements and to meet our international obligations. Last such notifications were issued in 2019."

READ | Pakistan sanctions Taliban to avoid global finance blacklist

Pakistan admits Dawood in Karachi

As Pakistan imposed sanctions on 88 terrorists complying to the new UNSC's list, in the order issued by Pakistan government - dated 18 August - finally admitted to sheltering gangster Dawood Ibrahim, revealing his Karachi address. The order revealed Dawood's three Karachi-based addresses including his residence named 'White House'. Apart from Dawood, Pakistan has listed Hafiz Saeed, Masood Azhar, ordering the seizure of all of their properties and freezing of bank accounts.

Previously in July, bank accounts of 26/11 mastermind - Hafeez Saeed who has been lodged in Kot Lakhpat jail for terror financing was restored. Ahead of the FATF plenary meet, on February 12, Saeed was convicted under ATA Section 11-F (2) and 11-N. On the other hand, Pakistan allegedly 'lost' Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar - the mastermind of the 2019 Pulwama terror attack - and his family.

Pakistan also issued sweeping financial sanctions against Afghanistans Taliban, just as the group is in the midst of the U.S.-led peace process. The orders, identified dozens of individuals, including the Talibans chief peace negotiator Abdul Ghani Baradar and several members of the Haqqani family, including Sirajuddin, the current head of the Haqqani network and deputy head of the Taliban. The list of sanctioned groups included others besides the Taliban and was in keeping with a five-year-old United Nations resolution sanctioning the Afghan group and freezing their assets.

READ | Pakistan reveals Dawood Ibrahim's Karachi home 'White House'; 88 terrorists sanctioned

Pakistan wants to avoid FATF blacklisting

The orders were issued as part of Pakistan's efforts to avoid being blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which monitors money laundering and tracks terrorist groups' activities. Last year the Paris-based group put Islamabad on a grey list. Until now only Iran and North Korea are blacklisted, which severely restricts a country's international borrowing capabilities. Pakistan is trying to get off the grey list.

READ | BJP demands Pakistan to 'hand over Dawood' after Imran govt reveals gangster's address
Millions of migrant workers made arduous journeys to their villages after India imposed the world's largest lockdown in March. Back in the rural hinterland, many say caste discrimination is reversing even the small economic and social gains they eked out in the cities.

In the village of Aston, in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, Raju Banskar, 33, says the double stigma of coming from a lower caste and having traveled from New Delhi where the coronavirus is spreading has made it impossible to find a job. In the city, construction work fueled by India's decades long economic boom brought him 250 rupees to 300 rupees ($3-$4) a day, and few paid attention to his caste.

But building sites shut down when Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed the nationwide lockdown to contain the virus. Back home, Banskar says work created through government jobs programs are mostly allocated by the village headman to upper caste workers.

Nine migrants interviewed by Bloomberg News in several Indian states had stories that were similar to Banskar's, showing how the pandemic is widening one of the nation's sharpest inequities, the social hierarchy determined by India's ancient caste system, which can often determine everything from social interactions to economic opportunities. The South Asian country marks the 30th anniversary of its economic liberalization next year, but the pandemic is now unraveling the tenuous benefits that globalization brought to workers like Banskar.

"I have no land, so had left my village some 12 years ago in search of work and to escape this system where I am considered untouchable," Banskar said by phone. "I have come back to the same situation that I left, in fact it has only become worse." People from lower castes were historically not allowed to touch those from higher castes, and Banskar says many of these practices remain in his village.

The headman of Banskar's village couldn't be reached for comment. Chandrasen Singh, additional chief executive officer of the Zila Panchayat, or the local government body, of Tikamgarh district which administers Banskar's village said the region's job program is very active and he hasn't received complaints about caste discrimination. "All these allegations have no substance," he said. Some people have refused work because wages under government's job program are lower than what they were earning outside, and the work in village may not require a lot of labor, Singh said.

As India's economy leapfrogged from just over 1% GDP growth in 1991 to the range of 10% in the fiscal year ending March 2007, millions like Banskar moved from villages to cities to work. Affirmative action policies such as the reservations of jobs, spots in schools and the legislature helped many overcome centuries of economic deprivation and social oppression.

Fallouts from the virus are now reversing some of those advances. While the pandemic has destroyed livelihoods worldwide, leaving people from New York to London to Mumbai without jobs, some of the biggest hits are likely to be taken by families in countries like India that have few social safety nets. The World Bank estimates India's lockdown will push 12 million people into abject poverty. Many may never recover.

"This will have an impact that you will see for many years. Whatever gains we made in last so many years, we might just lose it," said Niranjan Sahoo, a senior fellow at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation said, referring to social advances as well as income increases seen by many. "Millions will go back to below the poverty line especially from the lower caste segment."

In recent months, India's government has boosted spending to revive the economy, launched employment schemes for those returning to villages, and allocated more funds to rural jobs programs. The benefits aren't always percolating down to the lowest castes, villagers in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh said in interviews. A spokesperson for the ministry of rural development which administers the jobs program didn't respond to calls made to her mobile.

Despite reforms over the decades, those perceived as being on the lowest rungs of the caste ladder still regularly face discrimination and violence from upper castes. And groups like Dalits continue to be among India's poorest. Traditionally disadvantaged subgroups such as rural dwellers, lower castes and tribes, Muslims, and young children were still the poorest in fiscal year 2015-2016, according to a study by the University of Oxford and others.

Manish Kumar, 24, who returned to Tevar village, in the eastern district of Varanasi said caste-based discrimination restarted the moment he entered the quarantine center in his village, where upper castes separated themselves from Dalits, a group that's perceived to be at the bottom rung of the caste pyramid and includes more than 200 million people nationwide.

Kumar said he hasn't received any work under the government jobs scheme or received free food aid even though he has the required documents.

"When I go to shop, the shopkeeper asks people from my caste to wait, they first cater to the upper caste people," he said. The head of his village couldn't be reached.

The discrimination the migrants describe isn't new. According to a 2010 study on social discrimination by Oxfam India, a New Delhi-based NGO, Dalits, tribal groups, and Muslims are highly under- represented in better paid and higher status jobs, while they are disproportionately concentrated among those with lower wages in the informal sector. That's the area that's been hit the worst during the pandemic, making those from lower castes more likely to fall back into severe poverty.

Sunil Kumar Chaurasia, program officer, with Sahbhagi Shikshan Kendra, a non-profit organization headquartered in northern state of Uttar Pradesh said it is mostly Dalits who suffer as they do not have the connections upper caste people have. Dalits are mostly uneducated and unaware of their rights or government schemes and hence can't access facilities, he said.

Women are particularly sharply hit because they are often responsible for picking up food and water, and some migrant returnees said they wait for hours at the village tap because upper caste families get access first.

In Aston village, Krishna Ahirwar, 22, returned from New Delhi along with her husband and toddler and is staying in a separate locality where Dalits have historically lived.

Landless, with no ration card -- the government document required to get food aid - she's found it hard to arrange for food. "We are thinking about whether to go back to the city," Ahirwar said.

But returning to the city isn't easy. India has reported 2.8 million coronavirus cases, making the risk of contagion particularly high in crowded cities.

And jobs remain scarce even in cities. Though lockdown restrictions have eased, business sentiment in India turned negative in June for the first time in more than a decade, according to an IHS Markit survey. The Modi administration is banking on a recovery in rural demand to slow the economy's first contraction in four decades, but the migrant returnees show the difficulties of engineering such a revival.

Bablu Ahirwar, 32, from village Lakheri, in Madhya Pradesh state, worked as a laborer at construction sites in New Delhi. In March, he and his family - Dalits but not related to Krishna Ahirwar - came back to their ancestral mud house in the village. When he went to seek work from the village headman, he says he was told there were no ongoing projects. The headman of his village couldn't be reached.

"The village headman is giving jobs to people from his caste," he said. "Nobody has anything for people like me."
90 Day Fiance star Andrei Castravet is well-known among fans for his strained relationship with his in-laws. And when Andrei and his wife, Elizabeth Potthast Castravet, flew to his home country of Moldova for their second wedding, that relationship reached sky-high levels of tension.

After Elizabeths dad, Chuck Potthast, and brother, Charlie Potthast, arrived in Moldova, they began to question Andrei about his past, which they considered suspicious. They particularly wanted to know why Andrei left his job as a police detective in his home country to move to Ireland, where he worked as a bouncer.

Andrei was offended by his in-laws questions, and at a dinner with his friends and family, things turned dark. Elizabeths husband and brother nearly got into a physical fight. In a new 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After sneak peek, Andrei even eventually demanded that Elizabeth ask her brother and dad to head back to the U.S.

Andrei Castravet, baby Eleanor, and Elizabeth Potthast Castravet | Elizabeth Potthast Castravet via Instagram

Elizabeth said Andrei and Charlie fought because they were similar

After Charlie and Andrei got into an initial scufflewith Elizabeth, as well as Andreis brother and friends, pulling them apart and begging them to calm downthey sat back down.

Still, the two men continued to trade insults across the table. Andrei threatened to f*ck up his brother-in-law and asked him to take it outside, while Charlie issued some threats of his own and called his sisters husband an a**hole.

Elizabeths dad, Chuck, asked Andreis friend Marcel and his brother, Radu, if they thought his son-in-laws behavior was acceptable.

Are you okay with the way he got up and tried to beat my son up? Chuck challenged them. We just dont do that in America. We treat people with respect that are our guests in our country.

But Elizabeth didnt seem to agree, insisting that both Andrei and Charlie were at fault.

Whatever. Not true, she retorted. The 90 Day Fiance star told her brother, Youre a hothead just as he is. Thats why you guys are fighting. You guys are fighting because youre similar.

Im not a hothead! Charlie defended himself. Hes an intimidating guy. Hes 64. He knows how to fight.

But Andreis friend, Marcel, took his side to an extent. He said Charlie and Chucks questions about Andreis past had gone too far, and argued that they were picking a fight.

You should stop provoking this guy already, he told Andreis in-laws. Youre asking the same question ten times.

Chuck and Charlie were talking too much, asking the same question, like, ten times about his past, Marcel told 90 Day Fiance producers. I would be p*ssed off the same like Andrei.

RELATED: 90 Day Fiance: Some Fans Wonder Why Andrei Castravet Didnt Marry a Moldovan Woman

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RELATED: 90 Day Fiance: Andrei Castravet Claps Back at a Fan Who Calls Him a Poor Excuse of a Man

Chuck said he didnt recognize the person Andrei was being

Andreis brother tried to chalk up the fight to cultural differences and too much drinking on the two mens parts. But Charlie placed the blame squarely on Andreis shoulders.

This is bulls*it, Charlie said, heading outside to pace angrily and try to calm himself down.

I say what I want and do what I want, he declared to 90 Day Fiance producers, out of Andreis earshot.

If you want to fight me, Im not scared of this guy. He also called Andreis friends punks and suggested that they were protecting him from scrutiny.

Inside the restaurant, Chuck said it was probably best that Charlie take a moment to himself.

I think it was a good thing that he left, because if he gets amped up, he needs to go outside and calm down, Elizabeths dad explained, adding that his son did have a temper.

Radu continued to try to calm everyone down, insisting, We should stay friends. His wife, Ina, told Andrei that he should back off a bit, especially in front of his father-in-law.

In response, Chuck pointed out that he and Andrei would always have a relationship, no matter what. After all, they were familyand they had to learn how to get along.

You can pick your friends. You cant pick your family, he said. Were family.

Andrei wasnt having any of it, though, and told Chuck that the last thing he wanted to discuss at the moment was his relationship with his in-laws.

Dude, this is not a good night already to f*cking talk about the relationship, he snapped at his father-in-law.

Chuck seemed taken aback by Andreis anger.

I havent seen that in America, he said of the 90 Day Fiance stars hot temper. Now, he mused, maybe Andrei was finally being himself in his home countryand he didnt like what he saw.

Andrei demanded that Elizabeth send her family home

Elizabeths husband eventually turned to her and demanded that she defend him. In fact, he wanted her to send her brother and father homeeven though Chuck was paying for their wedding in Moldova.

Tell him to get the f*ck out now, Andrei exclaimed.

Baby, you need to calm down, Elizabeth warned her husband through gritted teeth.

But Andrei didnt back down. Tell him to get the f*ck out, he demanded again. Tell them to pack their bags.

You want me to pack my bags and go back to America? Chuck asked incredulously. Andrei replied simply with an emphatic yes.

Elizabeth pointed out that Chuck and Charlie had put in a lot of time, effort, and money to come to the wedding on Andreis last-minute schedule.

You gave them no time, and now theyre finally here, and you want them to gobecause youre misbehaving, and its their fault? the 90 Day Fiance star snapped.

Andrei doubled down. The fact is, Im not just gonna tolerate bulls*it here at the table, he told Charlie when he returned from his time alone outside. Youre not welcome at the table if youre gonna talk s*it.

Charlie, too, didnt seem to want to shy away from the fight anytime soon.

Ill sit here all day and talk s*it, Elizabeths brother taunted.

When Andrei demanded once again that Chuck and Charlie leave, Elizabeth suggested that they head back to their rental home instead.

Im not gonna sit here and listen to you fight with my family, the 90 Day Fiance star told Andrei, picking up her purse to go.

As Elizabeth and Andrei left the restaurantwith Elizabeth giving her husband quite an earful as they headed to the carChuck called their sudden exit classless.

But the fight, it seemed, might not be over after all. As the sneak peek ended, Andrei suddenly tried to run back inside, shouting Im gonna f*ck him up. Elizabeth frantically tried to stop him from fighting her brother, but it looked like it might be too late.
Bihar Congress president Madan Mohan Jha pays tribute to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on his 76th birth anniversary, in Patna on Aug. 20, 2020. (IANS photo)
A writer has told how she performed an Oedipal coup when she received a prestigious literary prize  almost four decades after her father received a similar honour.

American-born author Lucy Ellmann won the James Tait Black Prize for fiction for her novel Ducks, Newburyport, a story composed entirely via the internal monologue of an Ohio mother-of-four.

The James Tait Prize is the UKs longest-running literary awards, with prizes awarded annually by the University of Edinburgh.

Lucy Ellmann with the front cover of her book, Ducks, Newburyport (The Booker Prize/PA)

Ms Ellman, who is based in Edinburgh, said: Amid the daily assaults on our lives and intelligence, it is really cheering to receive this prize.

My father (Richard) won the James Tait Black in 1982 (for his biography of James Joyce), so it feels like quite an Oedipal coup for me to get one!

Ms Ellman won this years award for fiction, with George Szirtes winning the biography prize for his work The Photographer At Sixteen, about his mother Magda, a Holocaust survivor.

Many congratulations to George Szirtes the biography winner of the #JamesTaitBlack Prizes  the UKs longest-running literary awards, judged by @LLCatEdinburgh staff and students and announced @Edbookfest  https://t.co/tPbY4QoHlh @george_szirtes @maclehosepress pic.twitter.com/kMXubAdif2  The University of Edinburgh (@EdinburghUni) August 21, 2020

Mr Szirtes said: I am delighted, grateful and astonished to be awarded the James Tait Black Prize, especially given such a marvellous shortlist.

I am a poet and the book is written much as a poet would write it  not so much a straight story (but) as a set of mysteries in reverse time order, starting from my mothers suicide in 1975, through concentration camps and refugee status, ending with a set of studio photographs of her early childhood in Transylvania.

She died before she saw any of my books in print. The Photographer At Sixteen is an attempt to bring her to life.

The winners of the 10,000 prizes were announced by broadcaster Sally Magnusson at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, which is being held online due to the coronavirus pandemic.
A series of reports are looking into the impact of coronavirus on a number of sectors.

The Higher Education Minister and Business Minister, Simon Harris, said they want to help businesses through the pandemic.
Victoria has reported its lowest rise in COVID-19 infections in seven weeks with 116 new cases and 15 additional fatalities on Monday.

The number is the embattled state's lowest amount of new COVID-19 cases since July 5, when 67 people were diagnosed.

The latest fatalities bring the state's COVID-19 death toll to 430 and the national figure to 517.

The number of new cases is almost half Sunday's figure of 208.

Victoria has reported its lowest rise in COVID-19 infections in seven weeks with 116 new cases and 15 additional fatalities on Monday (Bourke St Mall in Melbourne pictured during Stage 4 lockdown)

Victoria has reported its lowest rise in COVID-19 infections in seven weeks with 116 new cases and 15 additional fatalities on Monday (Women wearing masks in Ballarat)

The once popular Royal Arcade mall in Melbourne CBD is quiet and deserted with Stage Four lockdown closing almost all non-food retail

But halfway through lockdown Victoria's chief health officer defiantly declared he won't let the state's hard-fought COVID-19 gains slip.

Brett Sutton had predicted on Sunday that numbers could dip below 150 this week.

He added although the daily case numbers had been 'jumping around', he expected a continued downward trajectory, and was still upbeat when new cases went back above 200 on Sunday.

'We're not going to see 300 and 400 (cases) again in Victoria under my watch, at least,' he said.

'We're applying a strategy that is driving cases down.'

With 3,920 so-called mystery cases, Prof Sutton warned restrictions would not be lifted in full until community transmission is eradicated.

It comes as halfway through lockdown, Victoria's chief health officer Brett Sutton has defiantly declared he won't let the state's hard-fought COVID-19 gains slip

With 3,920 so-called mystery cases, Prof Sutton warned restrictions would not be lifted in full until community transmission is eradicated (Man wearing a mask in Ballarat)

Healthcare workers continue to test for Coronavirus at the MyDoc Healthcare drive through testing station during COVID-19 in Bendigo

Premier Daniel Andrews said the weekend's bad weather was an 'absolute blessing' and hoped it meant more people stayed at home.

The premier also warned that Victoria will be smashed by a 'third wave' if lockdowns are lifted too early.

The crippling Stage Four lockdown is scheduled to end on September 13, but the government has refused to rule out extending it.

Melbourne residents still have at least another three weeks of stage four restrictions including an overnight curfew, while regional Victorians are living under slightly less onerous level three restrictions.

As new case numbers tumble while Victorians are confined to their homes, Mr Andrews is fending off calls to relax restrictions early.

The premier acknowledged everyone wanted to get back to 'something approaching normal' as fast as possible, but it couldn't be too soon.

'Whether we like it or not, we have to acknowledge this key point: if we start opening up before we have defeated this second wave, then we'll just be in the beginnings of a third wave,' he said.

Medical staff conduct a COVID-19 test on a patient at the drive through coronavirus testing facility in Ballarat on Friday

Premier Daniel Andrews said the weekend's bad weather was an 'absolute blessing' and hoped it meant more people stayed at home

'That is of no benefit to anybody. It will just mean that people  we might all feel a little bit better for a very short amount of time and then the numbers will grow and we'll be back to where we are now.'

CORONAVIRUS CASES IN AUSTRALIA: 27,244 Victoria: 20,269 New South Wales: 4,273 Queensland: 1,161 Western Australia: 692 South Australia: 473 Tasmania: 230 Australian Capital Territory: 113 Northern Territory: 33 TOTAL CASES: 27,244 ESTIMATED ACTIVE CASES: 269 DEATHS: 897 Updated: 5.31 PM, 11 October, 2020 Source: Australian Government Department of Health Advertisement

Mr Andrews again signalled restrictions will remain until there is a vaccine, and the goal was few cases not elimination.

'We have got to beat this thing and get these numbers down to such a low level that we can keep a lid on them,' he said.

'Not just for a week or two, but indeed have them suppressed, have it extinguished to the greatest extent possible, but have it suppressed with every likelihood that we can maintain those low numbers until of course the ultimate vaccine arrives.'

But his statement indicated that even if Melbourne got out of Stage Four on time, it would be stuck in Stage Three for weeks or months longer.

While Prof Sutton predicted numbers could dip below 150 this week, he said restrictions would not be lifted in full until community transmission was eradicated.

He also said Melburnians would be wearing face masks in public beyond the easing of Stage Four.

Mr Andrews said masks would remain part of life for a long time, along with careful hand-washing and physical distancing.

Hearings for the state's inquiry into the failed hotel quarantine program will resume on Monday with more testimony from hotel security staff.

The inquiry last week heard poor-performing security guards were moved between the quarantine hotels, while returned travellers feared catching COVID-19 during their stay.
As part of efforts in sustainably managing the forest, members of the Suehn/Mecca District Charcoal Producers Association in Suehn/Mecca District, Bomi County have taken the lead in the Liberias charcoal industry to begin planting trees.

Suehn/Mecca District Charcoal Producers Association is one of the 17 charcoal producer and seller networks under the National Charcoal Union of Liberia (NACUL).

The charcoal producers made the disclosure on Thursday, August 20, 2020, during a meeting with NACULs President, Mr. Richard T. A. Dorbor, in Borjeh Town, Suehn/Mecca District, Bomi County.

Outlining their plans of action, Suehn/Mecca District Charcoal Producers Association Chairman, Mr. Siaffa G. Gibson and Chairlady Madam Martha Taylor said there are ongoing discussions for land in the area to begin planting trees.

Gibson and Taylor appealed for relevant international partners to assist them through NACUL for such a legendary project in the charcoal industry, saying, We are getting positive responses from local leaders and residents because reforestation has become important when many of us depend on burning coal for livelihood.

According to them, the idea to plant trees was acquired by series of trainings conducted by the mother organization, NACUL, which has identified four pillars in promoting sustainable charcoal production and sustainability of the Liberian forest. The pillars include: (1) Tree Planting, (2) Improved Production Technology, (3) Alternative Sources of Production and (4) Efficient Use of Charcoal.

The charcoal producers spoke of the need for training on how to plant trees and what kind of trees to plant.

Thanks to Mr. Dorbor for coming to see and hear what we are doing and we are planning to do here. We are appealing to NACUL and partners to help us undertake this project by training us on how to plant trees and what kind of tree to plant, they indicated, saying that it is a new thing to the area.

After attending several training programs from NACUL, Gibson and Taylor revealed that they have organized themselves to carry out production in group. Under the theme: There is strength in unity, the charcoal group officials also said they continue to bring more members on board because there are many coal burners in the District.

While we take the waste woods from farmers to burn coal, we are aware of the result of cutting down tree which is contributing to climate change due to deforestation and land degradation, they pointed out.

In preparation for their group work, the Suehn/Mecca District Charcoal Producers Association has planted rice and cassava on a 6-hectare of land (15 acres) to alleviate the food difficulty they face during production and other works.

Mr. Dorbor, we have developed a farmland of six hectares with rice and cassava. We will use the rice and cassava during our work. This is also intended for us to produce our coal in peace and without the control of buyers because they provide us food before production. With this, we cannot rush to sell coal and it will avoid the devaluation of our coal, Suehn/Mecca District Charcoal Producers Association Chairman Mr. Siaffa G. Gibson maintained.

Also speaking, the Town Chief of Borjeh Town, Mr. George Bush Carter, expressed the communitys happiness over the charcoal burners plans to plant trees, and confirmed ongoing discussions about land for the project. He promised that they will do everything possible to secure the land.

While residents embrace the plan and are willing to work with the charcoal group, Town Chief Carter and elders of the area said they are carefully and properly negotiating with land owners to avoid future embarrassments, most especially land disputes. They, however, assured of acquiring the land because reforestation has become paramount due to benefits they get from the forest.

Interestingly, Suehn/Mecca Statutory District Superintendent, Rev. Marvin E. Moore, who is also a charcoal burner, attended the meeting and reaffirmed his support to the groups plan to plant trees.

Suehn/Mecca District Inspector, Mr. Sumorlu B. Dorley also graced the event.

For his part, NACUL President Richard T. A. Dorbor, lauded the efforts of the charcoal burners for inviting him to their area to see and hear what they are doing and about to do.

Dorbor could not hold back his impression for members of the Suehn/Mecca District Charcoal Producers Association to take the lead in tree planting which is a major pillar of NACUL as part of its efforts in sustainable charcoal production and forest management.

He urged the charcoal producers to do everything in unity if their dream of tree planting must become a reality, adding, There is strength in unity, so you people should come together as a group to carry out the project.

Dorbor joined the charcoal burners in appealing to the community the Superintendent for land that will void of conflict. He said, in sustainable charcoal production, land is the cardinal component which must be given keen attention.

He also informed the residents that there is a land committee which NACUL is part of, explaining that the committee is responsible to settle issues arising from land.

The availability of land is cardinal to sustainable charcoal production. When we talk about tree planting, you need land to plant the tree. The only thing that I want you people to do as a community, if you have any issue with anybody that comes to land issue that you are not satisfied with it, write, people sign, submit it to the office of the National Charcoal Union of Liberia, he said.

According to him, they will onward submit that document to the committee to tell them that there is a serious issue in the area where charcoal associations are. He continued: And we have strong people; we have Rice and Rights Foundation-the group that came here and conducted training on tree planting and livelihood. We have SDI-Sustainable Development Initiative, and so many and we also carry out advocacy on the land issue-land conflict, land resolution when there is land problem, so we are partnering with the Liberia Land Authority, through this committee.

To avoid conflicts, Dorbor told the charcoal burners to ensure that a memorandum of understanding be reached in acquiring the land. He further told them to inform NACUL in any given situation as they go about their plans to plant tree, reaffirming the Unions support to the project.

Following the meeting, the Suehn/Mecca District charcoal producers took President Dorbor on a tour of their rice farm near Borjeh Town.
Hi Neighbor,

Maybe it looks good on paper -- the blended learning plan the mayor and schools chancellor say will get kids back in school buildings next month. Safely.
<! Funke Akindele and JJC Skillz >

Its celebration time for Nollywood actress Funke Akindele and husband rapper Abdul Rasheed Bello, a.k.a JJC Skillz as they marked their 4th wedding anniversary with fresh vows of love.

The two love birds married in London on 23 August 2016 and are blessed with twins.

This was three years after Funkes first short-lived marriage to Adeola Kehinde Oloyede collapsed in just 14 months.

On Saturday, Funke and Bello, decked in traditional Aso Oke, appeared as if heading to the altar once again. The dresses were designed by Bimmms24.

Funke wrote on Instagram: All glory to God!!! 4 years and many more years to spend together in good health and wealth in Jesus name. I love you My King @jjcskillz. A Big THANK YOU to the wonderful Glam Squad.

Bello also responded on his Instagram page: To God be the glory. Its our anniversary. May God continue to strengthen and uplift our hearts. The love and peace of God will never depart from us. Our children will be a blessing to this generation. I pray our union will continue to bear fruits of favour. I love you @funkejenifaakindele.

It has been a blissful four years for the couple except for the clash with the law in April 2020.

Funke was arrested and charged to court after hosting a birthday party in honour of her husband during the lockdown for coronavirus.

The actress and her husband were sentenced to a 14-day community service after pleading guilty to violating the lockdown.

Related
Melbournes Trades Hall is to have yet another of its chambers transformed into a space dedicated to the arts: this time in memory of Paddy Garritty, who spent much of his life bringing art to working people.

Trades Hall Council secretary Luke Hilakari said discussions were under way to create an area within Carltons Trades Hall named Garrittys Gallery.

Paddy Garritty portrait by Alan Attwood Credit:Alan Attwood

We are considering a plan for artists to create works for the gallery, and to commission a major work of art every year, he said.

It would be something I think Paddy would have liked  he was dedicated to the idea of bringing workers and the arts together.
Hamiltons Hwy. 6 dinosaurs have survived fire, theft, hurricane Sandy, decapitation  even the extinction of Flamborough as a standalone municipality.

But the prehistoric landmark could be history if somebody buys Flamborough Patio Furniture, the Instagram-branded #homeofthedinosaurs and tourist photo magnet that is now up for sale.

Longtime owner and dinosaur daddy Gilles Fortin said he is eyeing a retirement property in Fergus and would like to sell the 10-acre-plus business and adjacent home on Hwy. 6 all at once. And if it happens  a previous effort to test sale interest was disappointing  Gilles said he will not take any oversized reptiles with him.

Or put another way: if you pay his hoped-for $2.7-million price, you get the drive-by dinosaurs for free.

Ill sell the whole shebang together in one shot or I wont bother, said Gilles, who started the patio business 40 years ago and adopted his first dinosaur as a birthday gift for a grandson, Brett, nearly two decades ago.

But you know, Im 70 years old now. Sooner or later I have to get out of here... My wife, she wanted me to retire long ago.

Gilles bought his first 12-metre-tall dinosaur from a Quebec manufacturer  a fiberglass-and-steel Tyrannosaurus Rex  as a joke birthday gift in 1993. It was just a fun, stupid thing that was in my mind, so I did it, he said. And then things just kept growing.

The T-Rex, one of only two prehistoric creatures left on the property. The Hamilton Spectator

By the mid-2000s, seven different dinosaurs loomed over Highway 6 north of Clappisons Corners, including a second T-Rex than doubled as a colossal piggy bank, a raptor purchased to cash in on the popularity of the first Jurassic Park movie and a monstrously popular four-storey tall Brontosaurus.

Gilles, his family and employees dressed up in Flinstone-esque costumes to celebrate the arrival of the long-necked thunder lizard  who lost his head on four separate occasions, once to the windy remnants of hurricane Sandy.

A $500,000 fire that destroyed Gilles production shop in 2017 spared his dinosaurs  although not his oversized Superman and Captain America statues.

But the prehistoric stable has over time shrunk to just a single store-branded T-Rex and a smiling pterodactyl (technically a flying reptile, not a dinosaur.)

A final weather-related decapitation recently prompted Gilles to sell the beloved Brontosaurus back to its creators after his insurance company declined to cover yet another surgical repair. (Its now retired in a small dinosaur display in rural Quebec.)

He has also sold a fair number of his life-sized lawn ornaments, too. That includes a T-Rex to a Gravenhurst resident, a moose to a Niagara Falls winery  and most recently, an infamous elephant with only one tusk to a longtime admirer from Mount Forest.

The four-storey tall Brontosaurus at Flamborough Patio Furniture in Dec. 2000. Hamilton Spectator file photo

A confused thief memorably stole the definitely-not-ivory tusk in 2016, prompting an irritated Gilles to offer a $200 reward no one ever claimed. Amazingly, that remains the only theft to trouble the unfenced monster menagerie in nearly two decades.

Sometimes I come out and find some family trying to ride the elephant or whatever, you know? Just for pictures. But people have been pretty good.

Gilles said hell hang on the business if no buyer is immediately interested in paying what he feels the land is worth. If it doesnt happen today, it will happen tomorrow, he said, pointing to the development frenzy in nearby Waterdown.

But FYI: T-Rex is still separately up for grabs for the prehistoric price of $22,000.
A pet food company backed by the billionaire boss of the Louis Vuitton empire could change hands later this year in a deal worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

City sources said Yorkshire-based Inspired Pet Nutrition (IPN), whose brands include upmarket label Harringtons, has appointed financiers from Harris Williams to work on a 'strategic review', which could lead to a sale of the business.

IPN investors include L Catterton  a private equity firm backed by Bernard Arnault, the French chief executive and chairman of LVMH  which bought into the family firm in 2015.

Spoils: Dog lovers are spending more on treats, making pet food firms more profitable

Arnault is said to be worth over 60billion, making him the third richest person in the world, according to Forbes.

Any sale would likely lead to a big payday for L Catterton, whose other investments include the Ole & Steen bakery chain and Cholula hot sauce.

IPN has been built up from a wheat trading business in the 1920s to a prestigious pet food company, whose brands include Wagg, making operating profits of 12million on sales approaching 100million.

With Britons spending more on better quality food for their pets, there has been a spate of dealmaking in the sector.

Earlier this year Swiss giant Nestle bought cat and dog foods firm Lily's Kitchen, which was also backed by L Catterton.

Devon-based Forthglade, which boasts '100 per cent natural' pet food, has appointed bankers from Houlihan Lokey to find a buyer.

IPN and Harris Williams declined to comment.
D onald Trump has declared the wildfires tearing through homes and forests in California a "major disaster" and has released federal aid to help put them out.

More than 14,000 firefighters are battling 585 fires that have ravaged about a million acres of land - an area roughly one-fifth the size of Wales.

California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement that the declaration will also help people in counties affected by the fires with crisis counselling, housing and other social services.

The fires continued to rage on Saturday. Good weather throughout the day helped firefighters but smoky skies grounded water-dropping aircraft for some of the day, setting back their efforts.

California Wildfires: August/September 2020 - In pictures 1 /90 California Wildfires: August/September 2020 - In pictures The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area Noah Berger/AP The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area Getty Images A man pulls out a garden hose as he helps Fire Fighters with Cal Fire protect the St. Helena Water Treatment Plant from the Glass Fire in Napa Valley, California AFP via Getty Images An air tanker drops retardant on the Glass Fire burning in Calistoga AP Firefighters knock down flames on a dog house while battling the Glass Fire burning in St. Helena AP Cal Fire Capt. Jesse Campbell works to save the Louis Stralla Water Treatment Plant as the Glass Fire burns in St. Helena, AP The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California Getty Images Embers fly from a tree as the Glass Fire burns in St. Helena AP Grape vines at Chateau Boswell Winery burn as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California Getty Images An air tanker drops retardant as the LNU Lightning Complex fires tear through the Spanish Flat community in unincorporated Napa County AP Chula Vista firefighter Rudy Diaz monitors the LNU Lightning Complex Fire REUTERS Following the LNU Lightning Complex fires, a scorched VW Microbus rests in a driveway of the Spanish Flat community in Napa County AP Fire consumes land recently deforested by cattle farmers near Novo Progresso AP Smoke rises from the LNU Lightning Complex wildfires as seen from an AlertWildfire camera looking east from Mount St. Helena, north of Calistoga, California via REUTERS Firefighters Cody Nordstrom, Kyle Harp and Robert Gonzalez, from left, of the North Central Fire station out of Kerman AP Fire consumes land recently deforested by cattle farmers near Novo Progresso AP Flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires leap above Butts Canyon Road AP A charred vehicle is parked in front of a home after the CZU Lightning Complex AP Resident Alyssa Medina reacts after finding an intact cup amidst the burned remains of her home AFP via Getty Images Flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires leap above Butts Canyon Road AP Howard Forest Helitack firefighters return to their helicopter after battling the LNU Lightning Complex AP Vehicles and homes have been burned by the CZU Lightning Complex Fir AP AP A vehicle drives along Knoxville Road, with flames from the LNU Lightning Complex in the background in Napa County AP Firefighters take refuge in their trucks in a cleared field as a wildfire also known as the Hennessey Fire jumped Knoxville Berryessa Road, west of Sacramento AP A resident hoses down a burning bicycle and tree as flames from the Hennessey approach a property in the Spanish Flat area of Napa, California AFP via Getty Images An outbuilding burns as the LNU Lightning Complex fires tear through the Spanish Flat area of unincorporated Napa County AP Bill Nichols, 84, works to save his home as the LNU Lightning Complex fires tear through Vacaville AP Residents extinguish spot fires while protecting their property as the LNU Lightning Complex fire burns through the area in Fairfield, California Getty Images A bicycle and palm tree burn at a residence during the LNU Lightning Complex fire in the Spanish Flat area of Napa, California AFP via Getty Images Mobile homes burn at the Spanish Flat Mobile Villa as the LNU Lightning Complex Fire burns through the area in Napa, California Getty Images Firefighters monitor flames as they approach a residence in the valley area of Vacaville, northern California during the LNU Lightning Complex fire AFP via Getty Images Horses stand in an enclosure as the LNU Lightning Complex fires tear through the Spanish Flats community in unincorporated Napa County AP A CalFire crew from Coulterville takes a break while fighting the River Fire near Salinas AP A massive column of smoke rises above Highway 1 just north of the Santa Cruz County line as a section of the CZU August Lightning Complex burns above Waddell Beac AP Debris piles burn as the LNU Lightning Complex fire burns through the area in Fairfield, California Getty Images Fire burns along the closed Interstate 80 Getty Images In this long exposure photograph, flames consumes both sides of a segment of Lake Berryessa during the Hennessey fire in the Spanish Flat area of Napa AFP via Getty Images In this long exposure photograph, embers fly off a burning tree during the Hennessey fire in the Spanish Flat area of Napa, California AFP via Getty Images Mobile homes burn at the Spanish Flat Mobile Villa as the LNU Lightning Complex Fire burns through the area in Napa, California Getty Images Fire crews maintain a backburn to control the River Fire near the Las Palmas neighborhood in Salinas AP Flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires burn in unincorporated Napa County AP A pickup truck drives on a freeway overpass as flames from the LNU Lighting Complex Fire approach Interstate 80 on the outskirts of Vacaville, California REUTERS Mobile homes burn at the Spanish Flat Mobile Villa as the LNU Lightning Complex Fire burns through the area in Napa, California Getty Images Firefighter David Widaman directs water onto a tree that had exploded in flame as a fire crew defends a house northwest of Santa Cruz AP A home burns as the LNU Lightning Complex fires tear through the Spanish Flats community in unincorporated Napa County AP Flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires lick above a fire truck in unincorporated Napa County AP A flag flies as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires crest a ridge in Napa County AP Flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires jump Interstate 80 in Vacaville AP Fire crews maintain a backburn to control the River Fire near the Las Palmas neighborhood in Salina AP Flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires jump Interstate 80 in Vacaville AP AP AP AP AP AP AP AP Douglas Forest Protective Association AFP via Getty Images AP AFP via Getty Images Getty Images AP Butte County Sheriff Butte County Sheriff Butte County Sheriff Butte County Sheriff

The storms predicted for Sunday were expected to aid those efforts by changing the direction of the wind.

Evacuation orders were lifted in some areas on Saturday but state and local officials warned residents in other threatened areas to prepare to flee at any moment.

"There's not a feeling of pure optimism, but a feeling of resolve, a feeling of we have resources backing us up," Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore said.

Smoke from the fire looming over the landscape / AP

The fire burning in California's wine country, north of the San Francisco Bay, had only 1,400 firefighters assigned to battle the blaze.

By comparison, the state had 5,000 firefighters assigned to the Mendocino Complex in 2018, the largest in the state's history.

"All of our resources remain stretched to capacity that we have not seen in recent history," said Shana Jones, the chief for CalFire's Sonoma-Lake-Napa unit.

A lone firefighter tackling the fire / AP

Underscoring the danger the fires pose for firefighters, the Sonoma County sheriff's office released dramatic video of the helicopter rescue Friday night of two firefighters trapped on a ridge line at Point Reyes National Seashore.

They were hoisted to safety as flames advanced.

The wildfires were first set off by more than 12,000 lightning strikes. About two dozen major fires are attracting most of the state's resources.

Some fires doubled in size within 24 hours, fire officials said.

Most of the damage was caused by three clusters of fire "complexes" that were ravaging forest and rural areas in and around the San Francisco Bay Area in northern California.

Among the casualties were ancient redwood trees at California's oldest state park, Big Basin Redwoods, plus the park's headquarters and campgrounds.

Smoke from the fires made the region's air quality dangerous, forcing people to stay inside.

Overall, the fires have killed six people, destroyed nearly 700 homes and other structures and forced tens of thousands from their houses.

"Tuesday night when I went to bed I had a beautiful home on a beautiful ranch," said 81-year-old Hank Hanson of Vacaville. "By Wednesday night, I have nothing but a bunch of ashes."

Tens of thousands of homes were threatened by flames which spread through dense and bone-dry trees and brush.

Five deaths involved fires burning in wine country north of San Francisco, while the other death was a helicopter pilot who crashed while dropping water on a blaze in Fresno County.

Firefighters taking on the blazes / AP

Henry Wofford, spokesman for the Napa County Sheriff's Office, said three of the bodies were found Thursday in a burnt home.

The area was under an evacuation order due to "very, very heavy" fire that he said burnt multiple homes.

In neighbouring Solano County, Sheriff Thomas Ferrara reported the death of a man, and the other victim was a Pacific Gas and Electric utility worker who was found dead on Wednesday in a vehicle in the Vacaville area.

At least 14,000 people in Solano County remained under mandatory evacuation on Friday, Solano County Undersheriff Brad DeWall said. He said 119 homes have been destroyed in his county.

At least two other people were missing and more than 30 residents and firefighters have been injured, authorities said.

The blazes continued to rage on Sunday / REUTERS

In Napa County, Crosswalk Community Church has transformed its sanctuary and gymnasium into an evacuation shelter, filling the floor with cots spaced at least six feet apart.

Pastor Peter Shaw said the church has seen a steady stream of people stopping for resources. Some were just looking for information, while others needed gift cards for food and basic needs.

"Covid-19 complicates everything," Mr Shaw said in an email. "Socially distanced cots drastically decreases our capacity."

A few people have stayed the night, he said, adding several people parked their RVs in the church parking lot.

"The longer the evacuations stay in place, I suspect the more people we will see," he said.
Cue smoke machine. Worship with me. Raise your hands, sway to the music as the Spirit leads you in contemporary dance. Shout a Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Pants off.

Wait. Pants off? David, the King of Israel, surely thought it was a good idea. Right?

Sir! Where are your pants?

The return of the ark of the covenant to Israel paints the scene (and no, this is not featuring Harrison Ford). David, the anointed King, having defeated the Philistines, gathered his men to return the ark to Jerusalem.

This is no simple matter in 2 Samuel chapter 6. The ark stumbles, a man is struck dead, and the ark is stranded for David was not willing to take the ark of the LORD into the city of David (verse 10).

Three months pass and a second attempt is made. To avoid repeating such a fatal mistake, the party takes only six steps at a time, interrupted by a sacrificial interlude each time.

And David, dancing before the LORD with all his might takes off his pants in worship.

As a justification, made in jest, of personal freedom to worship God as we please, this account has been twisted to a point where it is no longer taken seriously for fear of personal worship becoming too liberal, and, in turn, the significance of Davids actions is lost.

This is not about your pants

Believe it or not, the Bible doesnt say David took off his pants. It says he took off his linen ephod, a under garment used by the Israelites priests for glory and beauty (Exodus chapter 28, verse 2).

Yet, despite the intercessory priestly significance of Davids garment, he is scolded by his wife, Michal, who had absconded from their marriage and remarried only three chapters prior.

In verse 20, she exclaims, How the king of Israel honoured himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants female servants, as one of the vulgar fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!

Michal, acting the same manner any one of us would likely respond if someone took off their pants during church worship, scolds David for his indecency. 1 Chronicles chapter 16 says Michal despised him in her heart.

Yet David, the instigator in their marriage reconciliation, responds, I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes. But by the female servants of whom you have spoken, by them I shall be held in honour.

Reflecting his own humility in service and worship to God, David lays aside any consciousness of self so that God may be glorified in the sight of all.

You are not David

Often times, we are tempted to align our lives with David. We claim we are the ones walking through the valley of the shadow of death, confronting Goliath, or the ones after Gods own heart.

And like this account, we consider Davids actions as an example of our own freedom to worship.

Yes, we are free to worship, but we are not David. We are Michal.

David, scorned by his absconding wife, is a mirror of Jesus, crucified for our sins. Michal, the scorner, is a shadow of the mockery that our sins have made of Christ, nailing Him to the cross.

This is not an account of our freedom that we should lay claim to (though we are free in Christ). Rather, this is a lesson in humility and of our disposition toward God.

Weighing this, the 17th-century theologian, Matthew Henry, comments,

We should be afraid of censuring the devotion of others though it may not agree with our sentiments, because, for aught that we know, the heart may be upright in it, and who are we that we should despise those whom God has accepted?

Who are we to reject that which God, in His holy, good ,and gracious character, has accepted? This acceptance goes for those raising their hands, to those uncomfortable with doing so in worship.

Worship is not about the judgement we pass on one another in how we express it, nor is it about how we may push our expressions of worship as a point of personal defiance in the name of freedom.

Rather, this concerns the pertinent, ever-present challenge of personal humility and the disposition of our hearts towards God in worship. God is far more concerned about our hearts, than our opinions of how we should be worshipping in church.
The Judicial Commission of Inquiry led by Justice Ayo Salami (retd) set up by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), to inves...





The Judicial Commission of Inquiry led by Justice Ayo Salami (retd) set up by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), to investigate the suspended acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu, has submitted an interim report to the President.

The report was said to have recommended Magus sacking.

A report by TheCable, stated that the President was asked to appoint a new chairman for the anti-graft agency.

ThePunch also reports that a top source in the police disclosed that although the panel was still probing Magu, testimonies and documents from witnesses so far were enough to make it recommend the removal of the suspended EFCC boss.

A police source who is privy to the investigation but who pleaded anonymity because government has yet to take a decision on the matter said, The Salami panel has been sending interim reports to the President. Its latest report, however, recommends Magus sacking from the EFCC and possible prosecution.

When asked why the report was sent when Magu had not yet opened his defence, the police officer said, But Magu has been part of the process. He has been attending sittings and has even been given the opportunity of cross-examining some witnesses.

The interim report is for the President alone and is to keep him abreast of the activities of the panel.

However, Magus lawyer, Wahab Shittu, said Justice Salami had informed him that no such report had been submitted to the President.

Shittu said Magu had yet to open his defence and that it would be unjust for the panel to recommend his sacking.

He said, I dont understand why we should be talking about a reaction to something that is blatantly falsehood. First, the panel is still calling witnesses. Two witnesses appeared before the panel today. So, if there were ongoing proceedings on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and the panel has adjourned till Monday, if witnesses are still being taken and interrogated, and documents are still being submitted, what that should suggest to you is that proceedings are ongoing and have not been concluded. Does it (then) make sense for a report to be submitted?





The lawyer said even if the report was an interim one, it would be wrong to submit it without hearing from Magu.

Shittu added, Ibrahim Magu, my client, has not opened his defence and the panel has repeatedly indicated that he would be allowed to defend himself only after witnesses have been exhausted. So, somebody who has yet to defend allegations against him, can he be indicted?

Whether interim or final, you cannot issue the report without listening to all the witnesses and then take the defence. My reaction is that the story is planted by mischief makers. A similar falsehood was published by a newspaper and I confronted the panel yesterday (Thursday) and the chairman said how could they have issued such a report when they havent formally served him with the allegations and he told me to disregard the report.
The coronavirus pandemic is driving many Americans to consider voting by mail in this November's presidential election instead of casting their ballots in public polling places. Democrats say the Trump administration's recent changes at the U.S. Postal Service could lead to voter suppression.
EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell speaks during a press conference after a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council at the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on July 13, 2020. (European Union/Handout via Xinhua)

EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell reaffirmed his determination to continue to work with Russia, the other remaining participants of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) and the international community to preserve the agreement.

BRUSSELS, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Josep Borrell, the High Representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has affirmed that the bloc will work to preserve the Iran nuclear deal after the United States sought to reimpose sanctions on Iran.

He made the remarks in a telephone conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday, the EU's external action service (EEAS) said in a press release on Friday.

Talking to Lavrov, Borrell reaffirmed his determination to continue to work with Russia, the other remaining participants of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) and the international community to preserve the agreement.

The EU's external action service announced on Friday that a meeting of the Joint Commission of the JCPoA will take place in Vienna, Austria on Sept. 1, attended by delegates of China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and Iran.

Early on Thursday, the U.S. sent a letter to the UN Security Council requesting to initiate the "snapback" mechanism, which allows a participant to the JCPoA to seek the reimposition against Iran of the multilateral sanctions lifted in 2015 in accordance with resolution 2231, adopted by the UN Security Council.

Borrell claimed in a statement on Thursday night that the U.S. had lost ground to trigger the "snapback" mechanism as it withdrew from the agreement in 2018.

"As coordinator of the JCPOA Joint Commission I will continue to do everything possible to ensure the preservation and full implementation of the JCPoA by all," said Borrell, underlining that the JCPoA remains a key pillar of the global non-proliferation architecture, contributing to regional security.

File picture shows a meeting of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Joint Commission is held in Vienna, Austria, Dec. 6, 2019. (Xinhua/Guo Chen)

The JCPoA was inked by Iran in July 2015 with Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States, together with the EU.

The U.S., under President Donald Trump, withdrew from the JCPoA on May 8, 2018, and unilaterally reimposed sanctions on Tehran, despite objections from the international community.
Leader: McDonald's Ronald McDonald

Since the arrival of Covid-19 there has been little to smile about. But the Chancellor's Eat Out to Help Out scheme  otherwise known as 'Rishi's Dishes'  has been a rare source of pleasure.

Rishi Sunak's pledge that taxpayers will foot the bill for half the cost of all restaurant meals and nonalcoholic drinks on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays  up to 10 off per person during August  has not only been incredibly popular with customers. It has also boosted takings for the hard-hit hospitality sector, still reeling from months of lockdown.

More than 35 million half-price meals have already been consumed at 85,000 participating restaurants, leaving the Government with a bill estimated at 180million. But is the benefit of Rishi's Dishes limited only to hungry diners and restaurant owners  or can investors also enjoy the Chancellor's largesse?

While Eat Out to Help Out has been a lifeline for many smaller, independent eateries, larger chains are also reaping the benefit.

They include the likes of pub groups such as Marston's, Greene King, Young's and Wetherspoon  as well as more specialist chains such as Loungers, which operates 146 all-day cafes, bars and restaurants across England and Wales with its two brands, Lounge and Cosy Club.

One of the UK's largest pub chains, Mitchells & Butlers, owns bars and restaurant brands including the Slug & Lettuce, Miller & Carter Steakhouse, Harvester and Toby Carvery, while one of the best-known listed restaurant companies is The Restaurant Group. It owns brands including Wagamama, Frankie and Benny's and Chiquitos.

Ben Yearsley is a director of Shore Financial Planning. He says restaurants are being helped twice from the Chancellor's announcements. 'As well as benefiting from Rishi's discount, they are only being charged 5 per cent VAT on sales rather than the normal 20 per cent. From the restaurants I've eaten in this month, they haven't reduced their prices and are pocketing the difference. That's not a complaint by the way! If you want a vibrant dining sector, it needs all the help it can get at the moment.'

Finding investment funds with big holdings in the travel and leisure sector of the London Stock Exchange is not that easy. Investment fund Artemis UK Special Situations has recently bought Wetherspoons as has Threadneedle UK Equity Income. Five Guys Burger chain is the biggest holding in venture capital trust Pembroke. The trust also has a stake in Italianstyle chain Chucs Bar and Grill.

For those with a more adventurous investment tilt, Yearsley points to the US-listed fast food giant McDonald's which was recently bought by investment fund Artemis US Extended Alpha. As a lead player in the casual dining sector, McDonald's is well placed to recover from lockdown  with or without Rishi's discount.

But Yearsley says that overall it might be premature to be too positive about the hospitality sector. He adds: 'Anecdotally, the scheme is bringing forward bookings from later in the week, so are the companies any better off as a result?

'In the short term though, it is getting people into the habit of eating out again. If this carries on into next month. that could signal a better opportunity to invest in the sector with more certainty. Maybe, people should take advantage by enjoying Rishi's Dishes rather than investing in companies benefiting from the scheme.' Nick Hyett is equity analyst at wealth manager Hargreaves Lansdown. He says: 'It's important to take a long-term view. While a one-off boost provided by Eat Out to Help Out is certainly welcome, its impact on a company's long-term share price is minimal. However, in this case, the sudden inflow of cash, after a lockdown where many hospitality businesses saw sales fall to zero, could well be crucial to the survival of some of these companies.'

He adds: 'We suspect family oriented restaurants will be particular beneficiaries  the likes of Wagamama and Frankie & Benny's. The Restaurant Group, their owner, was already struggling before the current crisis, and has had to negotiate with landlords to reduce rents. So the boost provided by Eat Out to Help Out could be key to keeping the train on the tracks in the short term.'

Yet, he adds, Eat Out to Help Out does not solve the Restaurant Group's long-running business problems or the industry-wide issue of massive over supply in casual dining.

Hyett says: 'From a long-term perspective, we think pub groups such as Young's, Fuller's and Wetherspoon are more compelling investment propositions. These groups own, rather than lease, their pubs and their sites are often not easily replicated by rivals.'

That all helps cash flow  crucial during the current crisis  strengthens balance sheets and protects prices, Hyett says. 'Those business strengths are reflected in relatively demanding share valuations, but long term investors can afford to take a more relaxed attitude on that front.'

Tucking in: Eat Out to Help Out means people enjoying a Big Mac meal for 2.29

WHAT THE CHANCELLOR'S MEAL DEALS OFFER Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced his 'Eat Out to Help Out' scheme as a way to boost the struggling hospitality industry. Around 80 per cent of hospitality firms stopped trading in April, with 1.4 million workers furloughed, the highest of any industry sector. While venues were allowed to open from July 4, they have had to operate at a lower capacity to comply with social distancing rules. The offer, which applies on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays throughout this month, does not require vouchers. Instead, the restaurant automatically deducts 50 per cent from the food bill up to 10 per person and charges the discount to the Treasury. Diners can use the offer as many times as they like, but it does not apply to takeaways or drive-throughs. Venues of all types countrywide have been taking part, with people enjoying a Big Mac meal for 2.29 and two courses at Michelin-starred chef Jason Atherton for just 12.

Darius McDermott of fund scrutineer FundCalibre, strikes a note of caution, saying that most of the listed restaurant and pub brands have seen their share price fall heavily since the start of Covid.

He says: 'Despite the success of Eat Out to Help Out, the shares of these companies have generally not bounced back that much yet. The market is concerned about the potential for a second wave of Covid-19 as well as a permanent change in consumer behaviour.'

McDermott says that investors with faith in the long-term future of the sector might be interested in investment funds such as R&M Recovery which owns Wetherspoon and The Restaurant Group, Threadneedle UK Equity Income (also mentioned by Yearsley) and Gresham House UK Micro Cap  Loungers is a top 10 holding. Threadneedle UK Extended Alpha owns The Restaurant Group while Man GLG Undervalued Assets owns Wetherspoon.

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, says that his adopted home town of Brighton looked very busy early last week, with most restaurants packed to the rafters.

He adds: 'It is possible that Eat Out to Help Out boosts shortterm demand  although the danger is that is detracts from business at the weekend or sees diners turn up, drink tap water, eat up to their maximum discount and clog up a table.

'But I'm not sure that I'd personally go overboard on buying restaurant stocks on the back of a temporary Government support scheme. Although, of course, there's always a chance that Chancellor Sunak ends up subsidising people's dinners for longer than expected.

'The big danger is the scheme ends just as unemployment creeps higher and restaurateurs (and investors) find out that the benefits were fleeting at best.'
Students across the country have requested the government to postpone the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), scheduled to be held in September, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

The students even approached the Supreme Court, but it refused to interfere in the exam schedule. The National Testing Agency (NTA), which is conducting these exams, has refused to defer them further saying it will affect next years academic calendar.

Politicians are now joining the cause, urging the government to listen to students demands.

Here is everything you need to know about the JEE and NEET postponement issue:

What are JEE and NEET?

These are the two national-level entrance exams for professional courses. Around 16 lakh students have registered for NEET-UG this year, while close to 9.3 lakh students had registered for JEE-Mains (Paper I) that was conducted in January. An equal number of students were expected to appear for the second phase of the exam, which are scheduled for April-May each year.

This year however, owing to the Covid-19 outbreak, the National Testing Agency (NTA) kept postponing the exam dates.

When are these exams going to be held?

While the JEE is scheduled to be held from September 1 to 6, the NEET will be held on September 13.

Also Watch | JEE, NEET update: What students feel about exams not getting postponed

What are students contention?

Several students and parents around the country have shared their concerns over conducting exams as Covid-19 cases are on a rise. However, an equal number of parents of students are also hoping that the exams are held as per the schedule so that the delay in the postponement of exams comes to an end.

Medical admissions are time bound, and therefore, it makes no sense to further delay NEET, which will eventually delay the admissions process as well. Leaving an entire batch of medical seats vacant will be unfair because next year, the intake capacity of medical institutes will remain the same but the applicants will double in number, which will lead to more chaos, said activist Sudha Shenoy, who is the parent of an aspirant.

How are the students fighting for their cause?

Students from 11 states across the country filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking the postponement of these two exams.

The court, however, rejected the plea on Monday. A three-judge bench headed by justice Arun Mishra said life has to go on despite the outbreak of the viral disease and the court cannot put the career of students in jeopardy by interfering with the decision of the NTA to hold the examinations in September.

The political reactions

The Congress has jumped on this opportunity to attack on the government. Several party leaders, including former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, asked the government to listen to students demands.

Today lakhs of students are saying something. The GOI must listen to the Students Ke Mann Ki Baat about NEET, JEE exams and arrive at an acceptable solution, Gandhi said in a tweet.

Congress leader Kapil Sibal called it an injustice, and suggested that the only just, fair and sensible solution is to postpone JEE and NEET.
(Refiles to correct typo in headline)

BEIJING, Aug 22 (Reuters) - Argentina joined Peru, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates in approving Phase 3 clinical trials for a coronavirus vaccine developed by China National Biotec Group (CNBG), the company said late Friday.

As China forges ahead in the global race to develop a vaccine to curb the COVID-19 pandemic and as cases within China dwindle, CNBG needs research participants from other countries for testing.

Phase 3 trials, which usually involve several thousand participants, allow researchers to gather data on the efficacy of potential vaccines for final regulatory approvals.

CNBG will partner with Argentina's ELEA in the vaccine trial, the Chinese company said in a statement late Friday.

The experimental vaccine by CNBG, a unit of state-owned pharmaceutical giant China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm), received approval from the UAE in June for a Phase 3 trial and has since recruited 15,000 volunteers.

The company said on Thursday that Peru and Morocco also approved the trials.

CNBG has also obtained approval from Bahrain for a Phase 3 study designed to involve around 6,000 participants.

(Reporting by Roxanne Liu and Yew Lun Tian; Editing by William Mallard)
Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne in Matt Reeves 'The Batman'

Well, it was worth waiting for. DC FanDomes closing panel was for The Batman, and it turns out theyd saved the best for last. If this isnt the trailer of the year, well eat our cape and cowl.

The first thrilling footage from Matt Reeves movie looks absolutely astonishing. Over the sounds of a chilling version of Nirvanas sombre Something In The Way, we get a Gotham that looks like it combines Chris Nolans realism with Tim Burtons epic scale, creating a world that feels familiar and fresh at once.

You can watch the trailer below

Forget Im Batman, theres a new catchphrase in town: Im vengeance, when Robert Pattinson lays down a brutal beating to a face-painted thug, who looks like he could be inspired by Joaquin Phoenixs Joker.

Thats probably too much to hope for, but Matt Reeves take on the mythology showcased in this trailer doesnt feel a million miles away from Todd Phillips grim universe.

And Reeves revealed The Batman actually shares cinematic influence with Joker, when he discussed the films that had an impact on his take. A movie like Taxi Driver, a description of a place very much getting inside someones head. 70s, street-grounded stories.

Theres also a David Fincher feel to the footage, something Twitter cineastes have been quick to pick up on.

Read more: Snyder's 'Justice League' will be released in the UK as a mini-series and a movie

Story continues

Seven could actually be a great comparison for Reeves film, because this is a brutal Batman, and a scary one. Because its still early, and because he is a vigilante, which means he takes the law into his own hands, Reeves said.

Robert Pattinson as Batman in Matt Reeves 'The Batman'

If you were in a city and there was a guy who dressed up as a bat, and showed up out of the shadows, and sometimes confronted those people and beat them up because he felt what they were doing was wrong, so he could put the fear of god into them about the crimes that they were committing, I think we would think That guy sounds a little dangerous.

Hes not the version of the character he becomes, where hes this symbol of hope for the city. Hes early in the trajectory, so theyre afraid of him, frankly.

Anyone who doubted Robert Pattinsons casting as Bruce must be feeling like a bit of a clown right now, and Reeves launched into a passionate defence of his leading man.

The thing about Robert Pattinson is that hes an incredible actor. I feel like the work that hes done in the last six years has been incredible. A friend of mine made a movie called The Lost City Of Z and Rob appeared in that movie, and I was like Who is that guy? He had such charisma and Rob has this incredible beard, youre like Who is that? And its Rob. Rob in The Rover, Rob in Good Time - hes like a chameleon. Hes such a gifted actor.

2019 Governors Awards - Arrivals - Los Angeles, California, U.S., October 27, 2019 - Robert Pattinson. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

And he also happens to be a tremendous, passionate fan of Batman, the way I am. So it was an incredible thing to be able to connect with him, and share excitement about the character. He looks like Batman, but importantly he has the soul of someone who can play Batman like youve never seen before.

Read more: Who's playing who in James Gunn's 'The Suicide Squad'?

But you cant make a great Bat-movie without great villains, and there are plenty of those on display in the new trailer. Whether its The Riddlers scrawled clues (and teasing voiceover? Though that doesnt sound like Paul Dano...) or Zoe Kravitzs Catwoman (in cool cat burglar get-up) theres lots of ghouls to get giddy about in the new footage. And Matt Reeves was happy to discuss his new rogues gallery.

Matt Reeves at DC's FanDome event

Paul Dano plays a version of the Riddler that no-one has ever seen before. Its really exciting. Hes such an incredibly creative actor, so what hes doing is going to blow peoples minds. Then to have Zoe Kravitz Her iteration of Selina Kyle, thats incredibly exciting to me. You have an iteration youve never seen, but it touches on all these iconic things that people know from the comics. Its about trying to square what you know, with what is new, and that is part of the exciting process of making a Batman movie.

The thing about the rogues gallery is that, in a weird way, this is the origin of a lot of our rogues gallery characters. Selina isnt Catwoman yet, thats actually part of the journey. Os isnt the kingpin hes going to become, hes not the Penguin, in fact he doesnt like being called the Penguin. And the Riddler is just emerging for the first time, so thats all incredibly exciting.

Incredibly exciting is the way wed describe it too, Matt! The Batman will be in cinemas on 25 June 2021. Were already queuing.
New York:

A passenger was kicked off a US flight after he allegedly became aggressive and refused to sit next to US President-elect Donald Trump's eldest daughter Ivanka Trump, who was onboard the flight with her husband.

Jet Blue forced the man off a morning flight on Thursday at John F Kennedy airport after he allegedly told Ivanka,"You ruined our country. Now you're ruining our flight," according to a report in CNN.

Trump was onboard the flight with her husband Jared Kushner and they were travelling to Hawaii for a vacation. The persons husband Matthew Lasner tweeted about the incident and said his husband was kicked off the flight after a flight attendant overheard a man "expressing displeasure" about Trump's eldest daughter and her husband. "Ivanka and Jared at JFK TF, flying commercial. My husband chasing them down to harass them. #banalityofevil," a tweet by Lasner read. Marc Scheff, who was seated in front of Trump on the plane, confirmed the incident in an interview to CNN.

Scheff described the man as "shaking" and "visibly agitated." Asked about Trump's response to the incident, Scheff said Ivanka told a Jet Blue staff member, "I don't want to make this a thing."

The report added that a transition official said Trump and Kushner were headed to Hawaii for vacation. Jet Blue said in a statement to CNN that the "decision to remove a customer from a flight is not taken lightly. If the crew determines that a customer is causing conflict on the aircraft, the customer will be asked to deplane, especially if the crew feels the situation runs the risk of escalation during flight.

In this instance, our team worked to reaccommodate the party on the next available flight." A Trump Organisation spokesman told CNN, "The storey speaks for itself. It's an incredibly unfortunate situation."

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Passengers arriving into RomeFiumicino International Airport queued to receive tests for COVID-19 on Sunday as part of measures imposed by the Italian government.

Any travellers landing in Italy from Croatia, Greece, Malta or Spain must undergo a mandatory test, under government measures aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus.

The rules were announced two weeks ago after Italy saw a slight rise in case numbers.

In spite of long queues, passengers required to undergo tests in the airport didn't complain.

"If you come back from a country considered at risk, they test you and when you go away you feel safe and also the people near you feel safer," said Ettore Dionisi, a passenger from Rome.

Italys daily new coronavirus caseload soared past 1,000 on Saturday, reaching four figures for the first time since early May.

Confirmed cases increased from 947 on Friday to 1,071 on Saturday, with many infections confirmed in travelers who were tested as they disembarked from airplanes or ferries.

Italy has had more than 258,000 confirmed cases. With three more deaths, the known total has reached 35,400.
As they prepare for a rump party convention, the Republicans  the party of good manners and good breeding, small-town hardware store operators and hard-working farmers  are about to renominate Donald J. Trump for president amid one haunting but hard truth: They have seldom faced a passage quite like the one of this era.

For years, the party was like a fraternal lodge, passing its presidential nomination to the Next Guy, which is why Vice President Richard M. Nixon was the partys 1960 nominee, why former Gov. Ronald Reagan of California (the unsuccessful candidate in 1976) was its 1980 nominee, why Vice President George H.W. Bush was its 1988 nominee, and why Senate Majority Leader Robert J. Dole of Kansas (disappointed candidate in 1980 and runner-up in 1988) won the 1996 nomination  and why Bushs oldest son, Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, was nominated four years later.

On and on it went: The unsuccessful 2000 challenger Sen. John McCain of Arizona followed the younger Bush as the GOP nominee in 2008 and then former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts (the runner-up to McCain four years earlier) was nominated in 2012.

Then a reality TV star  a blustery figure more tycoon (see F. Scott Fitzgerald) than businessman (see Jos. A. Bank), an investor in real estate, resorts and casinos  knocked on the Republican door.

Actually, Trump kicked in that door, offered withering commentary on his more experienced 2016 competitors, and stormed to the Republican nomination in a raucous Cleveland convention where some of his rivals wondered out loud whether they could support him.

They all ended up doing so, with some of the targets of his most withering insults  Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas  eventually nestling close to him. He no longer was the Republican outsider. The old insiders were the outsiders now. Trump was  he is  todays Republican Party.

That is not in question at the upcoming Charlotte proceedings. But what will linger in the air is whether he is tomorrows Republican Party, and whether the 7-year-old self-assessment the Republicans undertook after Romneys defeat comes off the shelf.

That report, issued five months after Barack Obama was re-elected, described the Republicans as a narrow-minded, out-of-touch party of stuffy old men, stuck in an ideological cul-de-sac, and unappealing to minorities, females and the young.

Indeed, young adults have voted heavily Democratic in the last four elections. Before, that had happened only in the three Franklin Delano Roosevelt elections between 1936 and 1944. And as Nov. 3 approaches, according to a survey from Tufts Universitys Tisch College of Civic Life, young voters support former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. by 34 percentage points. Many of these young people will be around to vote through the final quarter of the 21st century.

It takes a lot for a party to take a group that they dominated 2-to-1  Asian Americans  and then to lose that group 2-to-1, said Harvard Kennedy School political scientist Thomas E. Patterson. And the Republicans once had the college-educated. No more.

Its not as if the Republicans havent had serious splits before. For all their open-the-door-for-others manners at the club and cotillion, they have fought viciously  and repeatedly  over the years.

In 1940, their split led to the nomination of the political novice Wendell Willkie, who finished his life as an ally of his election rival, FDR. In 1976, Reagan nearly wrested the partys nomination from a sitting president, Gerald Ford. In 1988, the commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, who had challenged another GOP incumbent, the elder Bush, spoke at the partys Houston convention of a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold War itself. He was talking not only about Democratic nominee Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas, but also about his own Republican Party.

And yet these wars for the soul of the Grand Old Party pale in comparison with the one underway today, but shielded from television view in the Republicans upcoming Charlotte conclave.

Listen to Victor Davis Hanson, the influential conservative thinker at Stanfords Hoover Institution, describe the GOP opponents of President Trump:

Whenever Trumps approval ratings go down to 41 and 42, they declare his doom. Part of it is cultural. They consider him uncouth and gross. They like the role of noble loser. They dont want to win. For the first time in their lives, these conservatives are out of power and cant figure out who the people are who are running things. Trump saw an existential threat and decided he had to destroy the left.

Now listen to Stuart Stevens, a top strategist for every GOP nominee between Dole and Romney, and now a top figure in the Lincoln Project, conservatives who oppose Trump:

Im very pessimistic about this party after Trump. When a national party legitimizes hate, it takes a long time for that to go away. And when you look at the demography of the country, with whites in decline, you see a Stage 4 cancer warning for the party, you see maybe the end of the Republicans as a governing party. It has collapsed morally.

The best analysis may come from Peter Wehner, a senior fellow at the conservative-oriented Washington Ethics and Public Policy Center who worked in the GOP administrations of Reagan and both Presidents Bush, and who sets out the Republican challenge after Charlotte:

Do Republicans repudiate Trump and Trumpism and say the Trump experiment was a disaster for the party? Do Trump supporters try to take his mantle? Theres a lot of fear, anger and recrimination in the party.

Very little of that will be visible from your living room, if you actually tune in; viewership for political conventions generally is down, and this convention wont possess the intoxicating bluster and colorful bunting of the traditional quadrennial assembly.

Even so, Trump drew more viewers for his 2016 convention acceptance speech than did Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton. And if nothing else, Trump  a former Democrat turned Republican, a supporter of abortion rights turned opponent  retains one governing principle: The show must go on.

David M. Shribman is the former executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Follow him on Twitter at ShribmanPG.

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FII rush into India despite premium valuations

FIIs' net portfolio buying in India reached a new high of Rs 31,400 crore for this month as on August 17, exceeding Rs 23,300 crore of investment made in June this year. Here's why they're bullish on India despite premium valuations.

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Trump says FDA involved in foul play, without proof

US President Donald Trump on August 22 accused members of the "deep state" at the Food and Drug Administration, without providing evidence, of working to slow testing of COVID-19 vaccines until after the November presidential election. Read here to know why.

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Managing finances in the festive season

With the festive season upon us, the next few months could give us all a reason to cheer despite the ongoing pandemic. Here's how to make space for the extra expenditure coming your way in the festive quarter especially under the current circumstances. Read here to know how you can do it.

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Concerts amid COVID-19

A German university launched on Saturday a series of pop concerts under coronavirus conditions, hoping the mass experiment with 4,000 people can determine whether large events can safely resume. Here's what they hope to find.

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FreeFortnite Tournament?

The maker of video game sensation Fortnite is taunting Apple amid its legal battle with the tech titan. Read here to know why Epic Games decided to launch FreeFornite.

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Food delivery, what should you expect?

India's food delivery industry has recovered 75-80 percent of pre-COVID levels. However, a Zomato study found that dine-in could not compare. In fact, it is yet to bounce back and is operating at 8-10 percent of pre-COVID levels. Here's what else it revealed.

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A grant to do nothing?

The University of Fine Arts in Hamburg plans to offer an idleness grant worth 1,600 euros (Rs 1.41 lakh approximately) to applicants who love sitting idle. Here's why they're looking for such applicants.
After a cloudy and rainy afternoon, the sun shined through the clouds in Carlisle Saturday at a candlelight vigil held in remembrance of Kaylee Lyons and Sydney Parmelee, who police say were killed by the same man earlier this summer.

A group of nearly 200 gathered in Carlisle Square on the evening of Aug. 22, to remember the two women. Everyone that attended was given a purple ribbon to wear, which represented domestic violence.

This was a really awful thing that happened to both women and a lot of people in our community ... everyones grieving and in shock and in pain, vigil co-organizer and childhood friend of Lyon, Kennedy Jirard, said.

Both women would have turned 24 this week  their birthdays were days apart.

The group listened to a set of speakers before taking a moment of silence as Jessica Long sang Amazing Grace. The group walked to Kaylees home, where both women were killed and left flowers and candles at the property.

Parmelee was taking classes at Harrisburg Area Community College with the goal of becoming a pediatric nurse, according to her obituary. According to her sister, Brittany, her mother was given Parmelees RN certificate and nurses pin. Friends described her as headstrong and free-spirited.

Lyons attended HACC as well and worked at North Dickinson Elementary School. She was remembered as an honest to a fault, spitfire and spirited woman who loved her son.

A GoFundMe for Lyons young son has raised $20,680 of its $25,000 goal as of Saturday evening, and a GoFundMe for Parmelees children has raised nearly $8,000.

The Domestic Violence Services of Cumberland and Perry Counties attended and helped organize the event.

The biggest thing here, again, is raising awareness about domestic violence, Nicole Lopez, childhood friend of Lyon and co-organizer of the vigil, said. People dont understand the severity of it and clearly two womens lives were taken, and now the community  friends, family, loved ones  need to grieve the loss of these two women.

Police said Parmelee and Lyons were each shot and killed last month by Davone Unique Anderson  with whom both shared children. They were both 23 years old and graduated from Carlisle High School in 2014.

Anderson said to police he shot and killed Parmelee because he thought she was cheating on him, according to an affidavit of probable cause charging him with first-degree murder.

Police say he killed Lyons, who was six weeks pregnant at the time, three weeks later because he was scared she would turn him in for killing Parmelee, the affidavit said.

Parmelee and Anderson were going through a separation and had two children together.
By Azernews

By Akbar Mammadov

The Armenian authorities hamper the dialogue between the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities of the Nagorno-Karabakh region they have been occupying.

Head of Nagorno-Karabakhs Azerbaijani community has said that Armenia has been rejecting the communitys proposal for the dialogue for many years now.

"The political leadership of Armenia, which has raised Azerbaijanophobia to the level of state policy, not only hinders this proposal for the dialogue but even shamelessly denies the existence of the Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh, Ganjaliyev said.

Ganjaliyevs made the remarks in response to Armenian Ambassador to Israel Armen Smbatyans statement that he supported establishing contacts between the Azerbaijani and Armenian peoples.

Ganjaliyev described Smbaytans statement as hypocrisy reminding that Armenia is the one refusing the dialogue.

If Smbatyan is really in favor of a dialogue between the two peoples, then let him support the proposal of the Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh, Ganjaliyev said.

Ganjaliyev added that the statement of the ambassador of aggressor Armenia, which occupied the territories of Azerbaijan and subjected more than a million of our compatriots to ethnic cleansing, that the settlement of the conflict depends not on us, but on the OSCE Minsk Group is another manifestation of his country's efforts to avoid responsibility."

Furthermore, Ganjaliyev reminded that the reason for the conflicts existence is the Armenian troops illegal presence in Azerbaijan.

"With the withdrawal of Armenia's army from our occupied territories, relations between the two peoples may be easily restored, the MP said.

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.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France has been mediating the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict since the signing of the volatile cease-fire agreement in 1994. The Minsk Groups efforts have resulted in no progress and to this date, Armenia has failed to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884) that demand the withdrawal of Armenian military forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

It should be noted that recently Armenia stepped up its military provocation not only on the line of contact along the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is the main source of tension but also on the state border with Azerbaijan. On July 12, Armenian forces shelled Azerbaijan's positions in Tovuz, Azerbaijan's strategically-important district on the border. The Armenian attack killed 12 Azerbaijani servicemen, including an army general, as well as a 76-year-old civilian. Armenian forces retreated after suffering losses in Azerbaijan's retaliation.
Chelsea owner, Roman Abramovich, has approved 150 million in transfer fees for the clubs director, Marina Granovskaia, to sign Leicester...

Chelsea owner, Roman Abramovich, has approved 150 million in transfer fees for the clubs director, Marina Granovskaia, to sign Leicester Citys Ben Chilwell, Bayer Leverkusens Kai Havertz and West Ham Uniteds Declan Rice this summer, according to the Express UK.

Chelsea has already spent 80 million to sign Timo Werner and Hakim Ziyech from RB Leipzig and Ajax respectively but the Blues manager, Frank Lampard, is desperate to continue spending after guiding the West London club to a fourth-place finish in the 2019/20 Premier League season.

Chilwell, Havertz and Rice have repeatedly been linked with a move to Stamford Bridge this summer transfer window.

Chelsea is already closing a deal for Chilwell worth a reported 50 million.

Chilwell has been Lampards top target this summer, and it appears Chelsea have managed to convince Leicester City to sell the full-back.

Havertz is another long-running transfer saga for Chelsea with Granovskaia struggling to come to terms with Bayer Leverkusen over a fee for the 21-year-old Germany international.

Rice has also drawn the interest of Lampard with the Blues boss keen to test him out at centre-back, but West Ham have put a 70m price tag on the England youngster.
The new pediatric intensive care unit in Dubai Hospital has begun receiving patients, the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) has announced.

The unit was launched by the DHA, to support and enhance the services it provides to children, especially those related to chronic disease.

The establishment of the unit is part of the DHAs, developmental and expansion work, which is taking place across medical facilities, especially those which are in demand by patients and medical tourists.

The new unit, which includes eight separate rooms, was established to meet the increasing demand of having a pediatric intensive care unit that is separate from the one designated for adult patients, as Dubai Hospital includes six different specialties for children, including pediatric tumors, kidney diseases, endocrine glands, diabetes, the digestive system and heart disease.

Humaid Al Qutami, Director General of the DHA inaugurated the unit earlier this month where he said that the new unit is an important addition to the integrated medical care system that the authority provides for patients, especially children.

At the units inauguration, Al Qutami commended the hospitals CEO Dr Maryam Al Rayes and all the departments and teams who are contributing to the developments that the DHA is witnessing, especially the Department of Engineering and Medical Equipment.

He said that the new unit took into account all the medical needs of children it also took into account their privacy, as each child is allocated an independent room equipped with the latest medical equipment and technologies, in addition to other elements that ensure the comfort of the child's parents, while they stay with them, according to the approved protocols in this regard.-- Tradearabia News Service
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) ) officials probing Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death recorded the statements of his friend Siddharth Pithani and his cook Neeraj Singh on Sunday.

Singh was questioned for the third time this morning.

The CBI will also question the key maker who opened Rajputs room on June 14 when he was found dead.

Pithani and Singhs questioning comes a day after a team of CBI officials and forensic experts visited Rajputs Bandra home and reconstructed the sequence of events before he was found dead.

Pithani and Singh, who were present at the flat when Rajput was found dead, had also accompanied the CBI team that spent over five hours at the actors residence, people familiar with the development said.

The officials first went to the buildings terrace and then to the flat. They shot pictures and videos of the bedroom. An official quoted above said that the CBI was investigating whether suicide was possible at the spot.

Also read: Sushant Singh Rajputs housekeeper reveals what happened on night Rhea Chakraborty left actors home

Earlier in the day, CBI officials also met doctors at the Cooper Hospital who conducted Rajputs autopsy.

Meanwhile, Neeraj Kumar Singh Bablu, a BJP legislator and Rajputs cousin, said Pithani and the actors colleague Sandeep should definitely be arrested and interrogated by the CBI.

CBI investigation is going in the right direction. We are hopeful that the guilty will be caught. Sidharth Pithani should be definitely arrested. When we went for the last rites of Sushant, we saw that there was no sadness apparent on Pithanis face. I am suspicious of his activities. He used to be a colleague of Sushant, Bablu said.

Another colleague of Sushant, Sandeep also started giving clean chits to people on the media just ten days after my cousins death. He was acting like a gangster. I have confidence that CBI will investigate and come to a result in this case. My belief is that third degree is important to get the truth out in this case, he added.

The central agency that took over the probe into the high-profile case on orders of the Supreme Court has so far recorded statements of Rajputs house manager Samuel Miranda apart from his roommate and cook.

They have also collected documents from Mumbai police including forensic report, post mortem report, statements of more than 60 people that Mumbai police has recorded in the case, and other material evidence, a police official said.

(With agency inputs)
Already among the most vulnerable in Lebanese society, refugees are struggling to cope in the blasts aftermath.

Beirut, Lebanon  More than two weeks after the Beirut blast that killed half of her family, Dima Steif, a 16-year-old Syrian refugee from Idlib, is still in shock.

Dimas face is gaunt and emotionless as she recalls August 4, the day she lost her mother Khaldi and two sisters, 22-year-old Latifa and 13-year-old Jude.

Her 18-year-old sister Diana was wounded while her father was not home at the time of the explosion.

We were at home, talking and laughing, when we heard the first explosion. We thought it was a fire, but then the next blow came and the whole earth shook underneath us, said Dima, as she hugged a shaggy red stuffed animal that belonged to Jude.

Along with a printed scarf that Latifa used to wear and her own journal, the stuffed toy was among a few things Dima managed to pull out from the rubble of her familys home days after the blast.

The roof had already collapsed before we could get out of the house, said Dima, who lived in Karantina, a poor Beirut neighbourhood near the port. They had come to Lebanon in 2014 after escaping the civil war in Syria.

Dima and her father have been temporarily staying at a hotel paid for by an aid organisation, while Diana is undergoing treatment in a Beirut hospital.

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Dimas family members were among many Syrian refugees who lost their lives on August 4.

A statement by the Syrian embassy on August 8 said 43 Syrians  almost a quarter of the approximately 180 victims  died when nearly 3,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate exploded at Beiruts port.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said it received reports of the deaths of 89 registered Syrian refugees.

Omer Elnaiem, head of communications at the UNHCR, said: The organisation has only confirmed 14 so far.

Lost everything

Basma Tabaja, deputy head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation in Lebanon, said Syrians were particularly affected by the incident.

A lot of Syrians worked at the port in offloading and loading cargo. Others lived in Karantina. Thats why many died or were injured, said Tabaja.

Fatima Abumaghara, 35, fled Aleppo with her family in 2013. Her husband, Abdel Qader Balusso, died in the Beirut blast, leaving behind four young children.

The 43-year-old labourer was working in Karantina at the time of the explosion. After his death, Fatima said life was no longer worth living.

We lost everything of meaning. Their father, the most valuable thing, is gone, Fatima said as her two daughters, Nurulhuda, 13, and Farah, 18 months, huddled around her.

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The blast was even worse than what we experienced in Syria. At least, back there, we knew we might not live to see another day. But we never expected this here.

In addition to the shock and a constant struggle to make ends meet before that, Fatima said her family has been the victim of discrimination since they moved to Lebanon.

Life in Lebanon has been difficult every day, said Fatima, explaining that, as Syrians, her children are regularly bullied at school and humiliated by their neighbours.

We put up with all that for the sake of the kids future, but weve now lost any sense of safety and security.

The exact number of Syrian refugees who died in the blast remains unclear [Arwa Ibrahim/Al Jazeera]

Already vulnerable

There are nearly one million registered Syrian refugees in Lebanon, having moved there since the start of the civil war in 2011, according to the UNHCR.

Thousands of them were affected by the blast, said Jihan Kaisi, executive director of Lebanese NGO the Union of Relief and Development Associations (URDA).

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And at least 100 Syrian families have been severely impacted. They now need everything from food and medicine to home rehabilitation, said Kaisi.

The UNHCR promised $35m to help 100,000 people affected by the blast, regardless of their nationality. But Syrian refugees and migrant workers remain more vulnerable than others, say aid organisations.

Syrian refugees were already part of the most vulnerable sector in the Lebanese society, said UNHCRs Elnaeim.

In recent months, the coronavirus pandemic and deepening financial crisis pushed the number of refugees living under extreme poverty in Lebanon from 50 to 75 percent, he added, referring to a prolonged economic crisis and lack of basic services that sparked mass anti-government protests that have continued since last October.

After the blast, theyve been pushed further down.

Tabaja agreed, saying that Syrian refugees have an added layer of vulnerability.

It is harder for them to find work or adequately paid jobs, she said, explaining that access to healthcare was another obstacle.

Although the Lebanese government promised to provide free hospital treatment to everyone affected by the explosion, media reports indicated that some hospitals have refused to treat Syrian refugees.

Wish I had died

Fatima has spent her days since the blast trying to reach relief organisations to help her family.

Meanwhile, Dima  who stopped attending school two years ago after her father could no longer afford the school bus fees  has divided her time between visiting her sister in hospital and taking part in aid distributions near the port.

Going to the hospital and volunteering keep me busy, but nothing can really take my mind off my sisters and mother, said Dima, as she looked away and clutched the red toy more tightly.

I just wish Id remained under the rubble and died with them.

Follow Arwa Ibrahim on Twitter @arwaib
Two first-grade teachers in Florida have sought to ease their students anxieties about returning to school this month amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic by transforming their school desks into little colorful Jeeps.

Patricia Dovi, 35, and Kim Martin, 51, of St. Barnabas Episcopal School in DeLand, spent a week redesigning their students desks, which feature construction paper tires, headlights and license plates.

The novel design also features three-sided plastic dividers that serve as windshields and side windows  as well as sneeze and droplet guards.

The two teachers said they wanted to prove that in-person lessons can be both safe and fun, with the Jeeps creating a place of the students to feel comfortable while still abiding by social distancing guidelines.

Scroll down for video

Two first-grade teachers in Florida have sought to ease their students anxieties about returning to school this month amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic by transforming their school desks into little colorful Jeeps

The novel design also features three-sided plastic dividers that serve as windshields and side windows  as well as sneeze and droplet guards

The desks, spaced several feel apart, are the only place where students are permitted to remove their face masks.

Our school gave us Plexiglas tri-folds, which we felt would overwhelm our little ones, Martin explained to CNN. So we took the design and turned them into little Jeeps.

The teachers says theyve already had a meet-the-teacher session with their incoming students, in which they gave them the keys to their car, and told them, just like in a motor vehicle, you have to stay in your car at all times and wear a mask when you get out in case you come across hazardous conditions.

Martin said she hoped the inclusion of a vehicle would help to transform social distancing into something that could be fun, engaging and more kid friendly.

They were inspired by a social media post from a kindergarten teacher in Texas, who posted an image to Instagram showing her students desks similarly transformed into small cars.

Dovi, who is a self-pro-claimed Jeep fanatic, said she immediately wanted to re-create the design. Both she and Martin paid for the additional materials out of their own pockets.

The two teachers say their collaboration came naturally, for their classrooms are connected by an adjoining door, and they often share lesson plans and supplies.

Enlisting the help of family and friends, the two teachers say the project took them about seven days to finish.

Now, Dovi and Martin say their students cant wait to take their desks for a test drive when they arrive in class on August 26.

It's colorful and it just shows the age of innocence, Martin told Business Insider. If we can get them to buy into the idea that sitting in a vehicle is really exciting, maybe it won't be so hard to keep them at their desks.

Patricia Dovi (left), 35, and Kim Martin (right), 51, of St. Barnabas Episcopal School in DeLand, spent a week redesigning their students desks, which feature construction paper tires, headlights and license plates

Enlisting the help of family and friends, the two teachers say the project took them about seven days to finish. They paid for the supplies out of their own pockets

On their first day back in class, their students will design their own license plates for their Jeeps, the teacher said.

Martin will be adopting a highway theme for her classroom, while Dovi will be implementing a camping theme with her decorations.

We were just trying our best to make the room look more kid-appropriate and not so scary, Dovi told Insider.

It's going to be more fun to say, Hey, purple Jeep, you're getting out of your lane, Martin added. I think it will be a smart way to keep the kids engaged.

Paul Garcia, the head of St. Barnabus, said the school is blessed to have such collaborative and forward thinking teachers.

I was truly pleased to hear when the idea to decorate the first graders' desks as Jeeps was presented to me. This is one example of many examples in which this team of teachers and all of our team search and find ways to make our students learning environment fun and engaging, especially, during this difficult time, Garcia said.

The headteacher added that Dovi and Martin will be both be reimbursed for the $200 they each spent on their materials.

Head of Jeep exterior design, Mark Allen, also credited the teachers for their imagination and ingenuity, saying the gesture made his heart truly smile.

More than 150,000 students in Florida have already returned to their desks, despite the ongoing pandemic.

Under an emergency order, Gov. Ron DeSantis has required public schools across the state to reopen their campuses for in-person learning by August 31, unless ordered otherwise by state or local health officials.

So far, Florida has suffered just shy of 600,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and 10,273 deaths.

At St. Barnabas (above), students and families at the school were given a choice between virtual and in-person learning

They were inspired by a social media post from a kindergarten teacher in Texas, who posted an image to Instagram showing her students desks similarly transformed into small cars

While the state continues to grapple to control the virus' spread, health officials have so far refused to weigh in as to whether or not children should return to campuses so soon.

The Florida Education Association, a labor union that represents teachers and other school staff, have challenged the emergency order, saying its still unsafe to return to the classroom.

While a decision on the appeal is made, schools across the state are preparing to return to business as usual  and Dovi and Martin say theyre ready for whatever comes their way.

All of us have some sort of anxiety about going back to school. It's going to look 100% different than it's looked in my 20 years of teaching, Martin said. But our goal is making our kids happy. The playfulness will help them cope.

At St. Barnabas, students and families at the school were given a choice between virtual and in-person learning.

Dovi will be teaching 17 kids in her class, with 13 opting for in-person lesson. Martin, meanwhile, has 18 in her class  17 in-person and one learning remotely.

I do feel a little better having those shields there, but it also makes me worried for little people to come in and see those there, you know, it's hard, Dovi told Insider.
Over the last two decades Nigeria has become the bloodiest battle zone in Africa. For a few years it was Islamic terrorism dominating the violence, but most of the time it was an even older battle between tribes that were herders versus the more numerous farming tribes. Because the Nigerian population is half Christian (mainly in the south) and half Moslem the battles between farmers and herders occurs often contain a religious element as well. Many of the victims are Christians and that is often deliberate. In 2018 about 2,400 Christians were killed in northern and central Nigeria. Since 2015 over 16,000 Christians have been killed, most of them deliberately sought out and murdered by Islamic terror group Boko Haram. There is growing pressure from the Christian half of the population as well as foreign nations with Christian majorities, for Nigeria to put an end to this religious persecution. It is definitely persecution when Boko Haram does it. Seeking out and killing non-Moslems is an acknowledged goal of Boko Haram.

The farmer versus herder violence in northern and central Nigeria is mainly about land and who controls it. While the herders are often militant Fulani Moslems, most of the farmers they battle in the north are also Moslem. Many Fulani agree with Boko Haram about how killing non-Moslems is what devout Moslems should do as often as possible. Most of the farmers killed by Fulani are Christians and in 2018 the Fulani herders killed more Christians in Nigeria than had Boko Haram. That trend has continued. In 2014 and 2015 Boko Haram was a major Islamic terrorist threat in terms of people killed and in those two years exceeded ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) in people killed. Most media coverage of Islamic terrorist violence concentrated on ISIL in Syria and Iraq, but most of the religion-based killing was taking place in Africa, mainly Nigeria. Since 2000 about 20,000 Nigerians died in the land wars between Fulani herders and Christian and Moslem farmers. In that same period more than twice as many Nigerians were killed by Boko Haram, a group that did not exist until 2002 and was largely non-violent until 2009, when violent army efforts to exterminate Boko Haram, including killing its founder, turned Boko Haram into a very violent organization. The government responded with a major military operation which, by 2015, had crippled but not destroyed Boko Haram. Boko Haram also split apart, with half of them joining ISIL. The military pressure continues and Boko Haram attacks on civilians have diminished while Fulani violence against civilians, especially Christians, increased. Those trends continue. While Islamic terrorism comes and goes, as it has done for over a thousand years, violence towards non-Moslems is a constant.

Christians in the Middle East and Africa are dismayed to discover that the increasing anti-Christian violence by local Islamic conservatives and terrorists is largely being ignored in the West. One of the worst examples is Nigeria where, since 2004 over a million Christians living in the Moslem majority north of the country have been chased from their homes and over 15,000 of them killed. Nearly all the Moslems killed in the north are victims of Boko Haram and most of the few Moslems killed by northern Christians are Boko Haram men killed by self-defense militias protecting their homes and families.

Boko Haram literally means Western education is forbidden and to many Islamic terrorists nothing is more Western and forbidden than Christianity. This despite the fact that Christianity has been around a lot longer than Islam. Often, as in Nigeria, the first invaders were Moslems not Christians. As a result, southern Nigeria is largely Christian while the north is largely Moslem. But for over a century Moslem tribes from the north have been moving south looking for more grazing lands and consider it an economic and religious duty to chase out any Christian tribes in the way.

The Fulani tribes and their fondness for violence and Islamic terrorism have caused a major problem for Mali, Niger, Burkino Faso and Nigeria. The Fulani are the largest single ethnic group in the Sahel (the semi-desert zone between the Sahara Desert and well-watered land to the south). There are about 40 million Fulani and more than half of them are in Mali, Niger, Burkino Faso and Nigeria. Only about a third of Fulani are nomadic herders and 90 percent are Moslem. The majority of Fulani, especially the non-nomadic tribes, are often prominent in business and politics where they have settled down. For example the current, and recently reelected president of Nigeria is a Fulani, and he has to deal with the largest Fulani population (about 37 percent of all Fulani) in Africa and the source of most current mayhem in Nigeria. While the Fulani are only about eight percent of the population in Nigeria, a smaller number (about three million) are about 16 percent of the Mali population and prominent in the growing tribal (nomad versus farmer) and Islamic terrorist violence, which has come to include a revival of slavery.

Boko Haram brought back slavery, mainly by enslaving, rather than killing Christians they captured. The Fulani did not practice slavery because it was less practical for nomads than for settled populations. Nigeria always had a large slave population, the result of constant tribal wars or civil wars in unstable kingdoms.

Britain spent most of the 19th century trying to suppress the practice of slavery in Africa. Colonial Nigeria, which supplied about 30 percent of the slaves sent to the United States, did not see slavery legally eliminated until about 1900 and, for decades after that, the practice quietly continued in rural areas. There was a similar problem throughout the region and in countries like Mauritania and Sudan, where slavery is technically illegal, but some groups get away with quietly trading and keeping slaves. Islamic fundamentalists are particularly enthusiastic about this because Islamic scripture does have a lot to say about enslaving non-Moslems, or Moslems you consider heretics.

Then there is the perception problem. While Moslems like to think of themselves as the victims of anti-Moslem Western aggression the reality is quite the opposite. Islam is, in reality, a region of intolerance and hypocrisy. In the West this is obvious, but in the Moslem world it is not. Consider the fact that Moslems demand that others be tolerant of their customs but refuse to respect the customs, or religions, of others. Moslems are free to practice their religion in the West while in many Moslem countries others are not. Saudi Arabia does not even allow any religious buildings that are not Moslem. There are no Christian churches, Hindu temples, Jewish synagogues or any non-Moslem house of worship in Saudi Arabia. It is against the law there. In many Moslem countries it is illegal to convert a Moslem to another religion. In some Moslem countries (like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) the penalty for any Moslem converting is death. There is a reason for all this.

The word Islam derives from the Arabic word istaslama which means, literally, submission. What is implied, for most Moslems, is that non-Moslems must submit as well, whether they want to or not. Refusal to submit is a sign of intolerance, religious bigotry, racism and blasphemy and most definitely against Islamic scripture and practice. For Islamic conservatives, clergy and scholars there can be no other interpretation. Westerners have had a hard time understanding this crucial cultural difference, but now it is becoming violently obvious to Moslems and non-Moslems alike, especially in countries where lots of Moslems live next to largely Christian populations.

Moslems in the West expect the locals to accommodate their religion and customs, even though some of those customs, like genital mutilation, honor killings, mandatory arranged marriages, and much more are illegal in the West. Yet Moslems have no intention of being accommodating to Westerners. Most Moslems dont care if Westerners see Islam as a religion of intolerance, of all take and no give. To Moslems it is natural to demand submission from those with other religious beliefs and not to reciprocate or show tolerance, unless forced to.

Moslems are now being forced to confront their long history of violent intolerance. This flawed view of Islamic terrorism has lots of nasty side effects. Take, for example, the growing anti-Christian violence by Moslems. Christians in countries with Moslem majorities, or large minorities, are having a difficult time getting the rest of the world to recognize that most, as in about 80 percent, of the religious violence (not counting Islamic terrorism) in the world is carried out against Christians and most of the violence is committed by Moslems. This is because the Islamic world, while unable to do much in terms of economic, scientific, or cultural progress, or even govern themselves effectively, have proven quite adept at convincing leaders and media organizations in the West that Islam is not the aggressor and is actually the victim. For those who have spent any time living among Moslems, this all seems absurd. But this delusion is real among many Moslems.

The effort to eliminate the religion angle when it comes to Islamic terrorism is also present in the United States. For example, for a long time it was official policy in the U.S. military to eliminate any mention of a war between Islam and the West. This policy is enforced despite the fact that Islam, at least according to many Moslems, is definitely at war with the West. The U.S. has officially maintained this illusion since shortly after September 11, 2001, despite the fact that many Islamic clerics and government officials in Moslem nations, openly and frequently agree with the "Islam is at war with the West" idea. But many Western leaders prefer to believe that by insisting that such hostile religious attitudes are not widespread in Moslem countries, the hostility will diminish. To that end the U.S. government has, for years, been removing any reference to "Islam" and "terrorism" in official documents. This comes as a shock to military or civilian personnel who have spent time in Moslem countries. The "Islam is at war with the West" angle is alive and well among Moslems and when you look at media in Moslem countries it is all pretty explicit.

There is plenty of other evidence. For example, twenty nations account for over 95 percent of terrorism activity in the world. Of these twenty (Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Yemen, Iran, Uganda, Libya, Egypt, Nigeria, Palestinian Territories, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Colombia, Algeria, Thailand, Philippines, Russia, Sudan, Iran, Burundi, India, Nigeria, and Israel) all but four of them (Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Colombia, and Burundi) involve Islamic terrorism. In terms of terrorism fatalities the top four nations (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia) accounted for 75 percent of the world total of terrorism related deaths. All of these were the result of Islamic radicalism, often directed at other Moslems and not just non-Moslems (infidels).
President Donald Trump speaks to the 2020 Council for National Policy Meeting, in Arlington, Va., on Aug. 21, 2020. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo)

Trump Campaign Releases List of Republican National Convention Speakers This Week

President Donald Trumps campaign released the list of Republican National Convention speakers for this week.

Over four nights, President Trumps 2020 Convention will honor the great American story, the American people that have written it, and how President Donald J. Trumps Make America Great Again agenda has empowered them to succeed, the campaign said.

It said the RNC will stream live on various platforms this week for four nights.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), former U.S. ambassador and Gov. Nikki Haley, RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Georgia state Rep. Vernon Jones, Turning Point USA chief Charlie Kirk, Donald Trump Jr., Republican congressional candidate Kim Klacik, Mark and Patricia McCloskey, and others are scheduled to speak on Monday. The McCloskeys were seen in viral footage armed with guns as Black Lives Matter protesters marched near their homes in St. Louis.

Some of the speakers on Tuesday include First Lady Melania Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, Eric Trump, Nicholas Sandmann, and more.

On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), South Dakota Kristi Noem, Kellyanne Conway, Lara Trump, are slated to speak.

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump host the 2020 Salute to America event in honor of Independence Day on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on July 4, 2020. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

And on Thursday, the RNC tapped President Trump, Housing Secretary Ben Carson, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Ivanka Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, UFC president Dana White, and several more to speak.

Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller on Sunday said on Meet the Press that President Trump is expected to speak on all four nights. However, its not clear if he will be delivering live remarks every night.

Miller said the GOP will present an optimistic and upbeat convention this week that is in contrast with the massive grievance fest during Democratic National Convention.

The Republican convention will focus on Trumps accomplishments over the past four years and will promise a complete change in the perception of what the mainstream medias descriptions of what a Trump supporter looks like, or who a Trump supporter is, Miller added.

McDaniel, the head of the RNC, fielded questions about Pompeo speaking during the event about whether it is appropriate for him to partake in an event focused on domestic politics and whether taxpayer resources are being used.

The programming, the staging, everything that were doing will be paid for by the Republican National Committee and the campaign, she told CBS News, adding that the campaign is not using taxpayer dollars to pay for our convention.

The Convention will stream live all week from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Twitch, and Amazon Prime.

The full list of speakers can be accessed here.
New Delhi, Aug 23 : Calling for a national movement for women's empowerment and to ensure that no girl child is left out of school, Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday urged all political parties to reach a consensus on providing reservation to women in Parliament and state legislatures.

Observing that the flagship scheme 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' has undoubtedly created a positive impact, Naidu said that much more needs to be done to change the societal mindset.

In a Facebook Post titled "End Discrimination, Empower Women", Naidu pointed out that women constituted about 50 per cent of India's population and thus progress cannot be achieved unless they are given equal opportunities in all spheres, including the political arena.

"We need to show in action and in deeds that gender discrimination no longer exists. That should be our goal," the Vice President stressed.

Urging all political parties to arrive at a consensus at the earliest on the long-pending proposal to provide adequate reservation to women in legislative bodies, Naidu also emphasised the need to give equal property rights to women for their economic emancipation.

The Vice-President recently released a report 'Status of Sex Ratio at Birth in India' which mentioned that there has not been any change in the sex ratio at birth in India from 2001-2017 -- the number of girls born is much less than what is the general or natural norm.

It was brought out by the Indian Association of Parliamentarians for Population and Development.

Referring to the report, Naidu said it is an alarming issue that needs to be addressed on a warfooting by all the stakeholders "from the society at large to parliamentarians, government, policy-makers, opinion leaders, media organisations and various bodies working to empower women.

Urging elected representatives at all levels to draw the attention of people in their respective areas to the alarming aspect of skewed sex ratio, Naidu called upon every citizen to act as a warrior in completely eradicating social evils like dowry system and in eliminating 'son preference' mindset.

Stressing the need for rigorous implementation of Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostics Techniques law to bring about a balance in the sex ratio, the Vice- President said there should be zero tolerance towards any kind of discrimination or violence against girls and women.
Here are todays top news, analysis and opinion. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times.

Reports of Sonia Gandhi resigning as Congress president false: Randeep Surjewala

Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala denied reports that Sonia Gandhi has resigned as party president. Reports of Sonia Gandhi resigning from the post of Congress interim president are false, news agency ANI quoted Surjewala as saying on Sunday. Read more

AG KK Venugopal declines permission to prosecute Swara Bhasker for contempt of court

Attorney General of India (AG), KK Venugopal, on Sunday, declined to grant permission for initiation of criminal contempt of court proceedings against actor Swara Bhasker for her statements criticising the Supreme Court and its judgment in the Ayodhya dispute. Read more

Karnataka phone tapping row: Cong MP vows to escalate fight to Centre, seeks probe

Two days after Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar accused the BS Yediyurappa led state government of tapping his phones, his brother and Congress MP from Bengaluru Rural, D K Suresh, on Sunday said that he would approach the Centre for an investigation into the matter if Karnataka government didnt take the complaint seriously. Read more

Madhya Pradesh witnesses reduction in rainfall activity

After receiving heavy rainfall over the past couple of days, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said that Madhya Pradesh saw a reduction in rainfall activity on Sunday as the low pressure area moved towards Rajasthan. Read more

Delhi govts welfare fund for construction workers: All you need to know

Delhis labour minister Gopal Rai on Sunday said the government will set up camps for construction workers who wish to register for Aam Aadmi Partys state-run welfare fund. These camps will be set up from August 24 to September 11 across 70 assembly constituencies and workers can get their registrations verified there also. Read more

IPL 2020 | It all boils down to jealousy: Sunil Gavaskar slams IPL critics

India batting legend Sunil Gavaskar slammed those who criticise the Indian Premier League and said that the negative remarks towards the tournament come out of jealousy. Gavaskars remarks came less than a month before the start of the 13th edition of IPL. Read more

Anand Mahindras latest post captures the power of unity in the most amazing way. Watch

Anand Mahindra, the chairman of Mahindra Group, along with his excellent business acumen and social work, is also known for his Twitter presence. Netizens often find Mahindras tweets hilarious, intriguing, motivating, and relatable. Read more

Shilpa Shetty, Shraddha Kapoor go for eco-friendly Ganpati visarjan at home, see pics

Shilpa Shetty and family took part in the Ganesh Visarjan celebration on Sunday. They immersed the idol of Lord Ganesha in a water-filled tub at home itself. The family had welcomed Lord Ganesha on Saturday. Shilpa, husband Raj Kundra, son Viaan and her mother-in-law were twinning in yellow on the occasion. Read more

Samsung finally brings last years iOS 13 feature to its Galaxy phones: Ability to find the handset even when offline

Samsung has finally added a feature for its Galaxy smartphone that Apple brought last year with iOS 13  finding your lost handset even when its offline. This feature not available on every Galaxy smartphone yet but is coming as an update according to XDAs Max Weinbach. Read more

Life Hacks by Charles Assisi: The sublime value of the daily ritual

The last two weeks felt like they would never end. And the week that preceded them passed by in a blur. Two things are common to both experiences. Read more

Watch| USA polls: PM Modi featured in Donald Trump ad to woo Indian-Americans
In what seems to be a major scam in Bihar, a 65-year-old woman has given birth to eight baby girls in the last 14 months! Another woman has become a mother to five baby girls in the past nine months.

The 'good news' which came multiple times for these women, sources said could be becaused some women have taken "encouragement amount" multiple times for giving birth to female babies.

Under the provision of national health mission, a woman is entitled to claim an "encouragement amount" from the state health department for giving birth to a girl child.

Leela Devi, 65, of Muzaffarpur's Mushari block has collected her share of encouragement amount for delivering 8 female babies in the last 14 months.

Another woman Sonia Devi has "given birth to five female children in the last 9 months".

Interestingly, these women have become a mother only "on paper". The encouragement amount of Rs 1,400 have been collected by them for each child.

Muzaffarpur District Magistrate Chandrashekhar Singh has set up a high-level inquiry committee headed by an additional district magistrate to investigate this matter.

"Prima facie, it looks like a scam... government officials and touts may be involved in it. We have constituted a team to probe this scam," Singh said.
Piers Morgan at the 2019 British Academy Britannia (BAFTA) awards at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills on October 25, 2019. (Photo by VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images)

Piers Morgan has called for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to have their titles taken off them after Meghan Markle commented on the 2020 US election.

Markle encouraged people to ensure they were registered to vote during an appearance at the online When All Women Vote event.

While the Duchess did not endorse a specific candidate, she claimed those who did not vote would be complicit, warning we all know whats at stake this year.

Read more: Meghan Markle says 'I know what it's like to feel voiceless' as she encourages women to vote in presidential election

Addressing viewers, the 39-year-old said: We vote to honour those who came before us and to protect those that come after us. That's what community is all about and that's specifically what this election is all about.

Youre just as mobilised and energised to see the change we all need and deserve. This fight is worth fighting and we all need to be out there mobilising to have our voices heard.

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex(R) and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex(L) arrive at the British High Commissioner residency in Johannesburg (Photo by MICHELE SPATARI/AFP via Getty Images)

She added: If you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem. If you are complacent, you are complicit.

We can make a difference in this election and we will make a difference in this election.

According to UK law, royalty are able to vote, though it would be considered unconstitutional if they did.

Following Markles comments, Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan took to Twitter to demand action, labelling her comments brazenly partisan.

The Queen must strip the Sussexes of their titles. They cant remain as royals & spout off about foreign elections in such a brazenly partisan way. https://t.co/6uZ3FTbjHW  Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) August 21, 2020

He tweeted: The Queen must strip the Sussexes of their titles.

They cant remain as royals and spout off about foreign elections in such a brazenly partisan way.

He later added: She can do what she likes, she just cant make politically partisan statements while remaining Duchess of Sussex.

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Read more: Piers Morgan and wife Celia Walden burgled at French holiday home

Former Big Brother winner Josie Gibson defended the Duchess, sarcastically commenting: Oh no she's passionate about her country and who gets elected...... How dare she...

To which Morgan responded: The royals are not allowed to do that. If Meghan and Harry truly want freedom from royal duty and rules, they should stop trading off their royal titles.

Markle and Prince Harry remain members of the royal family, but they quit their roles as senior working royals earlier this year, opting to live in the US with their son Archie.
Queensland Health has released a list of 29 at-risk locations throughout Brisbane which could have been exposed to coronavirus.

Gyms, nail salons, grocery stores and takeaway stores have been put on high alert as two new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed on Sunday morning.

Both cases, including a young boy, are household contacts of previously identified carriers linked to the Brisbane Youth Detention Centre in Wacol.

The facility is at the centre of Queensland's first community outbreak in more than a month, since two young women allegedly lied on their border declaration passes and snuck into the Sunshine State after visiting Victoria.

From August 9th to August 21st, infected Queenslanders visited 29 locations up to 43 times, potentially exposing thousands of people to the deadly respiratory virus.

Nine cases have now been linked to the Brisbane Youth Detention Centre at Wacol (pictured)

Woolworths in Browns Plains is among the grocery stores on high alert after infected customers visited the store on multiple days while carrying the virus

Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young warned on Sunday morning that the list would be expansive, but said the infected people had not done anything wrong given the lack of community transmission in the state prior to the outbreak.

While there are 29 locations on the list, some were visited multiple times over the course of 10 days.

In total, Ms Palaszczuk and the Queensland government are most concerned about 43 separate encounters infectious people had with the public.

Among the venues is Anytime Fitness in Browns Plains, where an infected gym-goer worked out on August 9, August 10, August 14, August 15 and August 16.

Similarly, Woolworths in the same suburb is among the grocery stores on high alert after infected customers visited on multiple days while carrying the virus.

Browns Plains appears to be the most visited area, but one infected Queenslander also attended several stores inside Westfield Carindale between 1pm and 3pm on August 19.

Bunnings, Kmart, Ikea, Mt Gravatt swimming pool, Australian Nails and Nandos have also been named in Ms Palaszczuk's list.

People who have been to the locations in the time frames listed have been urged to remain on high alert for COVID-19 symptoms and seek testing immediately if symptoms develop.

Among the venues is Anytime Fitness in Browns Plains, where an infected gym-goer worked out on August 9, August 10, August 14, August 15 and August 16

Venues on high alert following COVID-19 exposure August 9: 11:00am-12:10pm - Anytime Fitness, Village Square Browns Plains 11:00am-12:00pm  Woolworths, Browns Plains Grand Plaza August 10: 9:30am-9:45am  Spotlight, Browns Plains 10:15am-11:25am - Anytime Fitness, Village Square Browns Plains 11:00am-12:30pm - Woolworths, Browns Plains Grand Plaza 5:30pm-5:40pm - Greenbank Takeaway Unknown time - Woolworths, Forest Lake Shopping centre August 11: 6:00am-6:15am - BP Wacol (Cnr Boundary & Progress Rds) 10:30am-11:45am - Mt Gravatt Swimming Pool 12:00pm-unknown - Dami Japanese Restaurant, Mt Gravatt August 12: 4:30pm -5:00pm - Woolworths, Forest Lake Shopping centre 6:00pm-6:15pm - Thai Antique, Carina Heights 7:15pm-unknown - Coles, Browns Plains Grand Plaza August 13: 11:00am-12:00pm - Australian Nails, Forest lake Shopping Centre 11:00am-3:00pm - Forest lake Shopping Centre After 12:00pm - Nandos, Forest Lake Shopping Centre August 14: 10:00am-10:10am  OfficeWorks, Browns Plains After 10:00am-before 11:00am - Coles, Browns Plains Grand Plaza 11:00am-2:00pm  Ikea, Slacks Creek 11:15am-11:30am - Woolworths, Marsden on Fifth shopping centre 2:20pm-3:30pm - Anytime Fitness, Village Square Browns Plains 2:30pm-3:00pm  Bunnings, Browns Plains 4:00pm-4:30pm - Coles, Forest Lake Shopping Centre August 15: 9:30am-9:45am - K-Mart, Browns Plains Grand Plaza 10:25am-11:35am - Anytime Fitness, Village Square Browns Plains August 16: 10:00am-10:15am - Woolworths, Marsden on Fifth shopping centre 10:30am-11:00am - Coles, Browns Plains Grand Plaza 1:20pm-2:30pm - Anytime Fitness, Village Square Browns Plains August 17: 6:30pm-6:40pm - Greenbank Takeaway August 18: 12:30pm-1:00pm - BCF, Greenslopes Afternoon - Chemist Warehouse (Waratah Dr), Crestmead Evening - BP Wacol (Cnr Boundary & Progress Rds) August 19: 8:00am-9:30am - 12 RND Fitness, Birkdale 9:30am-unknown - Woolworths, Browns Plains Grand Plaza 10:30am-11:45am - The Jam Pantry, Greenslopes 1:00pm-3:00pm - Westfield Carindale Shopping Centre 1:00pm-3:00pm - Bras 'n' Things, Westfield Carindale Shopping Centre 1:00pm-3:00pm - Ghanda clothing, Westfield Carindale Shopping Centre 1:00pm-3:00pm - Myer, Westfield Carindale Shopping Centre 5:30pm-5:40pm - Baskin Robbins, Camp Hill Market Place 5:30pm-5:40pm - Pho Inn, Camp Hill Market Place August 20: 10:00am-10:15am - Woolworths, Marsden on Fifth shopping centre August 21: 10:30am-10:45am - Woolworths, Forest Lake Shopping centre Advertisement

One infected Queenslander also visited several stores inside Westfield Carindale (pictured) between 1pm and 3pm on August 19

Dr Young confirmed the latest two cases are household contacts of employees at the detention centre who were found to have the virus on Saturday, and were therefore already self isolating.

In response to the latest outbreak, Ms Palaszczuk swiftly reimposed strict measures to stop the virus in its tracks.

The following local government areas are subject to new gathering restrictions:

Brisbane City Local Government Area

Ipswich City Local Government Area

Logan City Local Government Area

Scenic Rim Regional Local Government Area

Somerset Region Local Government Area

Lockyer Valley Local Government Area

Moreton Bay Local Government Area

Redland City Local Government Area

Effective immediately, gatherings in private homes and public spaces were limited to just 10 people in the above localities.

The limits do not apply for businesses in the regions which operate using a COVID-safe plan.

Hospitals were asked to restrict visitor numbers and implement additional health and safety precautions for staff and patients.

Similarly, aged care facilities and disability housing have implemented restrictions on visitors and day trips for residents.

Gatherings have been restricted to 30 people throughout the rest of Queensland.

The Sunshine State had previously enjoyed an easing of all restrictions after appearing to entirely eradicate community transmission of the deadly respiratory infection.

Even after two women allegedly lied on their border declaration passes and spent more than a week in the community before testing positive for the virus, contact tracers appeared to successfully contain the outbreak.

This map shows the local government areas currently impacted by the latest restrictions following a COVID-19 outbreak in the community

Ms Palaszcuk has been slammed for her tight border restrictions, with critics arguing they are destroying the economy without providing any guaranteed safety (pictured, the border on August 7)

Ikea in Slacks Creek has also been named as an at-risk facility after a person visited while infectious

But on Thursday, a 77-year-old employee at Brisbane Youth Detention Centre in Wacol - near where the women lived and spent the week in the community - tested positive.

Two days later, that six other staff tested positive.

Dr Young announced a further two cases linked to the detention centre on Sunday and explained the primary concern is that employees often work at other facilities throughout south east Queensland.

'We don't have any expansion of that cluster which is good news, but it is far too early for us to relax,' she explained.

'The next week is critical for us... Police are hunting for any of the youth who have been released from the facility since the 20th of July.'

Contact tracers have been busy testing anybody linked to the facility - including some 500 staff and all of the detainees.

So far, all of the detainees have tested negative but results are still pending for a handful of the youths.

Queensland Health conducted 6,875 tests in the 24 hours to Sunday, but Deputy Premier Steven Miles said that number needed to grow substantially to accurately indicate the spread of the virus.

There are 16 active cases throughout the state on Sunday.

Ms Palaszczuk warned the detention centre cluster would likely grow.

Former Queensland Chief Health Officer Gerry FitzGerald warned that the detention centre cluster could worsen if it's not brought under control

'We're concerned about this (detention centre) cluster because people have been out and about in the community,' she said on Saturday.

'We do expect there could be even more cases linked to this cluster but we will not know those until further results come in.'

Former Queensland Chief Health Officer Gerry FitzGerald agreed the detention centre cluster could grow if it's not brought under control - and that it could rapidly deteriorate even beyond the outbreaks in New South Wales.

'Seven people have been in contact with X number who have been in contact with X number of people  a number of those are likely to have been infected as well,' he told the Sunday Mail.

'If you look at the cluster that arose out of the Crossroads Hotel in New South Wales it is now in the order of one hundred or so.'

Mr FitzGerald said it was worrying that the origin of the cluster remains unknown as contact tracers work to find a link.

One of the cases linked to the detention centre had also worked at a disability accommodation service.

Griffith University medical doctor Dinesh Palipana, who has quadriplegia, said there was a significant risk for people with a disability of contracting COVID-19.

Nurse Shirley Molloy tests a patient for COVID-19 at a drive-through Fever Clinic in Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast, Australia, on April 30

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced a limit on indoor and outdoor gatherings without a COVID-safe plan in Queensland's southeast

Infectious disease expert Nigel McMillan said it was particularly worrying how many people could be walking around asymptomatic.

'Up to 80 per cent of people don't even have symptoms so they wouldn't even think to go and get tested,' he said.

Contact tracers have been 'working through the night' to identify any close contacts or links related to the clusters.

The new cases on Saturday mark Queensland's first cases of locally-acquired transmission in more than a month.

The youth detention centre has cancelled new admissions, face-to-face visits and court appearances until the situation has been handled.

Dr Young said the detention centre-linked cases were residents of Bundamba, Marsden, Carindale, North Ipswich and Forest Lake.

'Because in Queensland we jump on things after seven cases, I sincerely believe we'll get on top of it,' she said.

There are fears the new cluster is genomically linked to the outbreak which was triggered by two woman who allegedly lied about visiting Melbourne when returning to Queensland.

People arrive at a COVID-19 screening clinic at the Parklands Christian College in Logan, Queensland, Australia, 29 July 2020
Ten new Sydney ferries will not be able to pass under two bridges on the Parramatta River if commuters are seated on the top deck, the government has confirmed.

The new River Class ferries, which have been built in Indonesia and shipped to Australia, are due to enter service on Sydney Harbour later this year.

Sydney's new ferries, which won't be able to accommodate passengers on the upper deck when they pass under two bridges. Credit:John Bennett

But passengers seated on the top deck will need to be called below before the new ferries can pass under the Camellia Railway Bridge and the Gasworks Bridge near Parramatta.

"While customers are able to enjoy the upper deck during their commute, they will need to move to the lower deck when passing the bridge," a Transport for NSW spokeswoman said.
Joe Biden made a promise to Wisconsin delegates at the Democratic National Convention on a phone call last week: After deciding not to travel to the state to accept the Democratic presidential nomination because of the coronavirus, he'd be back as soon as possible.

That left Erin Ford, a delegate from Viroqua, Wisconsin, scratching her head.

"If he could have made it, it would have made a difference," she said. "It matters to people that are on the ground."

Besides a trip to Houston to meet with George Floyd's family, Biden has not left the Mid-Atlantic region since the novel coronavirus began spreading in the United States. His few public appearances, including his DNC acceptance speech last week, have been small, socially distant affairs, as his campaign and the Democratic Party work to "follow the science" and campaign cautiously during the pandemic.

MORE: Joe Biden accepts nomination, calls for Americans to join 'battle for the soul of the nation'

While that strategy is giving Ford and other Wisconsin Democrats flashbacks to the 2016 campaign -- when Hillary Clinton did not travel to the state before Election Day -- many expressed confidence in the largely virtual campaign, according to interviews with more than a dozen party officials across the state.

Even as they lamented the loss of a full-scale convention in Milwaukee, Democrats said they were not worried about Biden skipping out on stumping on the ground while the pandemic remains a concern.

"I don't know anybody who is losing sleep about it," Lori Hawkins, the chair of the Kenosha Democratic Party, said of the lack of visits from the Democratic ticket. "We understand that he'll get here, and she'll get here if they can."

Why Democrats feel confident about Wisconsin

Like the Biden campaign, the Wisconsin Democratic Party has also transitioned to an entirely virtual operation, with volunteers using millions of phone calls, emails and text messages to reach voters rather than in-person events and knocking on doors.

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"When you ask people what they want, they want this pandemic to be over," Ben Wikler, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, told ABC News. "This is a way of campaigning that conveys a powerful winning message, and also a commitment to what he's going to do after he's elected."

MORE: 5 takeaways from final night of Democratic National Convention

Democrats point to strong numbers from the state's presidential primary in April, when absentee and in-person voting during the pandemic led to a surprising 163,000-vote victory for a liberal candidate in an important Wisconsin Supreme Court race that was also on the ballot.

"I have never seen the enthusiasm, not even with Hillary, that I'm seeing this year," Marcia Steele, the chair of the Winnebago County Democratic Party, told ABC News.

PHOTO: A sign in a storefront near the Wisconsin center welcomes visitors to the city on Aug. 17, 2020, the first day of the Democratic National Convention, in Milwaukee. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

But in a state where President Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by just 22,000 votes, and three of the last five presidential races have been decided by less than 1%, some Democrats think on-the-ground appearances from either Biden or Harris could make a difference in November.

"If you want to win Wisconsin, you have to earn Wisconsin," Ryan Sorensen, a member of the Sheboygan City Council and a Biden DNC delegate, told ABC News.

"Whether it's visiting an auto plant or coming in and speaking at a dairy farm, I think stuff like that is key," he said. "We've got to do everything we can to turn out support."

Republicans on the ground

Led by the president's campaign, Republicans have returned to in-person, on-the-ground campaigning in Wisconsin and other key states. Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Eric Trump and the Women For Trump coalition all appeared in Wisconsin last week, in an effort to counter-program the virtual DNC meeting anchored in Milwaukee.

"I heard on the way here that Joe Biden hasn't been to Wisconsin in 659 days," Pence said at an appearance in Darien, Wisconsin.

FULL TEXT: Joe Biden's 2020 Democratic National Convention Speech

The campaign also purchased digital billboard space in Milwaukee last week that flashed the message "Where's Joe?" during the convention.

"Their virtual events are really going to be speaking to the choir," Wisconsin Republican Party Chair Andrew Hitt told ABC News. "By not coming here, it is going to be very hard to reach the broader public."

Reid Ribble, a former GOP congressman who was critical of Trump and did not vote for him in 2016, said small, outdoor events in keeping with public heath guidelines could help Biden with independent voters who may still be undecided -- and that doing so would distinguish him from Trump's approach to the coronavirus.

"It wouldn't hurt him to once or twice go after states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania and actually be present," he said. "I think you can do it in a way that's safe."

PHOTO: Vice President Mike Pence speaks to workers at Tankcraft Corporation on Aug. 19, 2020, in Darien, Wis. The visit comes a day after President Donald Trump's son Eric visited the state and two days after the president visited the state. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Some Democrats believe voters appreciate their caution.

Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., who represents a district carried by Trump in 2016, and has a competitive reelection race this fall, said his constituents "don't want to see us running for office out there glad handing and kissing babies."

"It's completely tone deaf from the concern that I hear from people that it's real, and we have to be working together to keep people safe. And I think they're cutting Joe Biden some slack in this regard," he said.

Steele, who also works as a nurse at an urgent care facility in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, lamented Trump's visit to the area, and worried that a COVID-19 outbreak would follow.

"Judging by the videos that we saw, I will be swabbing noses in probably 10 to 14 days, which makes me very sad," she said.

Biden leads Trump in a close race

Biden's lack of campaign travel hasn't impacted his standing in the polls in Wisconsin.

He's has been ahead of Trump in Wisconsin throughout the summer, with an Aug. 11 Marquette Law School poll showing him leading the president among likely voters 49% to 44%. (Among registered voters, Biden led Trump 48% to 42%.)

In the same poll of Wisconsin voters, 69% agreed that masks should be worn in public places, while 29% disagreed. And approval of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' handling of the coronavirus is at 61%, with 35% of respondents disapproving.

MORE: Harris to ABCs David Muir: Trump insults are distractions from 'neglect, negligence and harm'

"There's a lot of evidence in the Wisconsin data that people here are pretty pro taking cautious action on COVID," said Charles Franklin, the director of the Marquette Law School poll.

"I don't think it's hurt Biden to this point, but I don't know whether it will hurt him later in the fall, whether that contrast becomes a clear example of prudence versus recklessness ... or does it become of timidity and fear versus bold leadership," he said.

Biden's campaign is also diverting more resources to Wisconsin than Clinton did, Democrats and Republicans agree.

Four years ago, Clinton skipped over Wisconsin in favor of travel to states like Pennsylvania and Florida. And her campaign did not run many ads on television in the state ahead of November.

PHOTO: The control room for the Democratic National Convention is seen before the start of the convention, Aug. 17, 2020, in Milwaukee. (Morry Gash/AP)

This year, Biden isn't overlooking Wisconsin. His campaign has spent millions on advertising in the state, blanketing all five major media markets with coronavirus spots all summer, and through the week of the DNC. The candidate has also repeatedly sat for interviews with local Wisconsin television stations from his home in Delaware, and local surrogates in Wisconsin have led virtual events in the state.

Earlier this month, more than 3,300 volunteers reached 370,000 voters through text messages and phone calls in a single weekend of action. In Milwaukee, the campaign is also conducting Spanish-language outreach, and organizing Divine Nine phone banks with members of the nine historically Black fraternities and sororities.

"I do think that there's something to be said about taking the time to physically be here, and being able to have socially distant conversations where possible," said Angela Lang, the executive director of the Milwaukee-based BLOC, a progressive group organizing Black voters in Wisconsin.

But compared to 2016, she added, "We're in completely different times."

Wisconsin Democrats weigh in on Joe Biden's decision to skip in-person visit originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
An Indian parliamentary panel on information technology will next month question Facebook executives on how the platform allowed ruling BJP leaders to get away with sharing hate speech.

Facebook, the worlds largest social network is battling a political storm in India after the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that it declined to remove hate speech posted by members of the ruling Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over fears it would damage its business in the country.

A WSJ article published last week said Facebooks head of public policy Ankhi Das had told staff that punishing such BJP leaders would damage Facebooks business prospects in India, where the platform has nearly 300 million users.

Hate-speech rules were not applied to at least four individuals and groups linked with the ruling BJP who were flagged internally for promoting or participating in violence.

The report said T Raja Singh, lone BJP legislator in southern state of Telangana, used his Facebook page to say the Rohingya refugees in India should be shot and that Muslims were traitors.

The report also mentioned at least two other BJP leaders, whose provocative posts were deleted from the platform after the paper approached them for a response.

30 member parliamentary panel

The controversy has forced a parliamentary panel on IT headed by senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor to summon Facebook representatives on September 2.

The 30-member IT panel has 15 MPs from BJP, four from Congress including Tharoor and members from other political parties.

Earlier this week, the opposition Congress party also wrote a letter addressed to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asking him to set up a time-bound high-level inquiry into its leadership in India and their operations and put in place a new team until completion of the internal probe.

In the letter to Zuckerberg, Congress general secretary in charge of organisation KC Venugopal asked Facebook to publish all instances of hate speech posts since 2014 that were allowed on the platform, in the name of transparency.

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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had also raised the issue on Twitter. We cannot allow any manipulation of our hard-earned democracy through bias, fake news & hate speech. As exposed by WSJ, Facebooks involvement in peddling fake and hate news needs to be questioned by all Indians, he had tweeted.

Huge Digital footprint

Facebook India's managing director Ajit Mohan said on Friday in a statement denying any bias.

"Over the last few days, we have been accused of bias in the way we enforce our policies. We take allegations of bias incredibly seriously, and want to make it clear that we denounce hate and bigotry in any form," said Mohan.

"We've made progress on tackling hate speech on our platform, but we need to do more," he said.

Facebook has worked increase its digital footprint in India, where its subsidiary WhatsApp has more than 400 million users.

Some cyber experts believe that Facebook uses its events and workshops for collecting data, which it then uses for business expansion, while others suspect it is just good business on Facebooks part to be closely integrated in Indias e-governance project.

Whether parliament was aware of such insinuations against the global social media giant or not is unclear.

This is not the first time that the social media company has found itself in hot water. Be it India, United States, Sri Lanka or the Philippines, Facebook's handling of controversial political posts and advertisements has left the social media company facing criticism and increased scrutiny from regulators.

In June, hundreds of advertisers in US pulled the plug on advertising on Facebook asking the platform to curb hate speech which appeared in the #BlackLivesMatter thread, after the killing of George Floyd by a policeman.
Mr Ivor Kobina Greenstreeet, newly elected Presidential Aspirant of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) on Sunday said: Ghana needs the CPP desperately.



Our country needs a progressive government to transform the nation.



He therefore called for party unity ahead of Election 2020 battle for dynamic change in the political landscape of the country, CPP must reach out to the people. Ghanaians are tired of duo-politics of the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress.



The two parties under the fourth republics only achievement is based on comparing who is more corrupt, who is competent and who is not, who copied a manifesto and who are the originators of the ideas. They are also proud acclaim who was more violent. Ghanaians are tired of looting of our national resources and needs a change.



We have demonstrated to other political parties that, Elections can be conducted in the spirit of comradeship, no personality attacks, and political election is not war. We must stop turning Ghana into an electoral war zone every four years, Mr Greenstreet told the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Accra after his victory.



In the spirit of the founder of the Party Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah and other founding leaders of our great party, let us all come together to revive and continue the mantle of leadership. In the spirit of Forward ever backwards never, I congratulate all and open up my arms to embrace all for the battle ahead.



August 22 was a decisive day for the CPP, there was no winners or losers. Winning and losing are two sides of the same coin, so let us all put our differences aside and work together for the forward march of the Party.



CPP emerged from an unprecedented peaceful National Delegates Congress as a collective winner, Mr Greenstreet, former General Secretary of the Party stated.



At the end of the CPP National Delegates Congress supervised by the Electoral Commission, Mr Greenstreet had 1,364 of the valid votes cast to beat Mr Bright O. Akwetey who had 597 votes; and Pastor Dr Divine Ayivor, who gathered 171 votes, to emerge as the Flag bearer for Election 2020.



Nana Akosua Frimpomaa Sarpong Kumankuma, CPP 2012 Vice Presidential Candidate also pulled 915 of the valid votes cast to defeat four other contestants for the Chairman and Leader of the Party slot which included Hajia Hamdatu Ibrahim Haruna the Acting Chairperson and Leader. Hajia Hamdatu had 682 votes; Nana Oduro Kwarteng had 352 votes; and Mr Kweku Ankrah Quansah, 154 votes.



Nana Yaa Jantuah, former Public Relations Manager of the Public Utility Regulation Commission (PURC) emerged on the political radar suddenly to beat Acting General Secretary, Mr James Kwanena Bomfeh Junior (Kabila).



Nana Yaa Jantuah pulled 1,389 of the valid votes cast whilst Mr Bomfeh Jnr had 752 votes.



For the Vice Chairman slot; Dr Onsy Kwame Nkrumah had 1,013 votes to emerge as the first Vice Chairman; Mr Emmanuel Ogbodjor was elected with 720 votes as the second Vice Chairman and Mr. John Benjamin Daniels had 377 votes as the third Vice Chairman.



The CPP also elected Mr. Moses Yirimambo Ambing with 1,485 votes as the National Organiser to beat Mr Rashid Alao who had 655. Mr Osei Kofi Acquah was elected as the National Youth Organiser with 1,394 votes to beat Mr Solomon Amponsah Duncan who managed with 731 votes.



The Incumbent National Women Organiser Hajia Ayesha Sulley Futa was re-elected with 1,286 of the valid votes cast to beat Madam Rose Austin Tenadu who had 854 votes.



Mr. Emmanuel Opare Addo was elected with 1,488 votes as the National Treasurer, whilst his main challenger Madam Edwina Okuadjo Ayorkor had 626 votes.



According to the EC statistics a total valid vote cast across the 16 Regions was 2,006; Rejected votes was 18; bringing the total vote cast 2,034.



Mr Greenstreet, a Lawyer by Profession, also commended the EC for the way that they have overseen this new way of conducting the elections.



He also thank the Police who played an instrumental part in ensuring the peaceful conduct of the election.



We also thank the Council of elders and their officiating committee for making this election possible. My thanks to the other candidates who took their forms and who campaigned vigorously in this keenly fought contest.



And my personal thanks to all of you members of the CPP who yet again have reposed their confidence in me as their flagbearer.



The CPP Election 2020 Presidential Aspirant noted: To the elected representatives of the Party, I hope that we will all see the urgency of the situation in Ghana and that we shall all unite for the sake of the Party and the wider course of our country.





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




Haiti - Security : Discovery of weapons and ammunition in a container





Saturday afternoon, at the MEAD CPS7 terminal of the National Port Authority (APN) located in Drouillard (Commune of Cite Soleil), customs officers with the support of officers from the Office for the Fight Against Drug Trafficking (BLTS) discovered during the verification of a container of weapons and ammunition : 4 pistols of caliber 9 mm 2 of Taurus brand and 2 of Ruger brand as well as 1,400 9mm cartridges which were seized.



The recipient of this container from Miami, a certain Cloiseau Nadege Toussaint, was arrested by agents of the National Police of Haiti (PNH) as well as two other people : Aggee Veillard and Jean Kenley Semerville.



Those arrested were taken into custody at the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police while awaiting referral to the Port-au-Prince prosecutor's office.



TB/ HaitiLibre


















In the 85 years since the big bronze statue of former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward Douglass White went up in front of the Louisiana Supreme Court building in New Orleans, it has traipsed twice across town, following the court from the French Quarter to Duncan Plaza and back.

Whites statue  along with a second larger-than-life sculpture of the long-dead jurist in the U.S. Capitol  may soon be on the move again.

+2 Norman Francis on renaming Jeff Davis Parkway in his honor: 'I am most grateful' A day after the New Orleans City Council agreed to rename a Mid-City roadway in his honor, former Xavier University President Norman C. Franci

A month ago, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to give the boot to statues honoring a number of prominent Confederates and proponents of slavery that dot the Capitol. The group includes household names like Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, along with more obscure figures like White.

If the proposal ever becomes law, White would be sent packing thanks to a provision banishing anyone whod served in the Confederacy. Twelve men honored with Capitol statues meet that requirement, though unlike White, most rose to fame  or infamy  primarily because of their leading roles in the rebellion.

The GOP-controlled Senate is unlikely to pass the measure. But the overwhelming support for it in the Democrat-run House  where it passed 305 to 113, meaning it had the support of scores of Republicans  may signal the Confederates days in the Capitol are numbered.

Each state is allowed to send two statues to the Capitol to honor persons notable in their history. A statue of Huey P. Long is Louisianas other submission to the collection..

Several states, including Virginia and Georgia, are already considering plans to swap their Confederate honorees out with more popular and unifying figures. No such effort has taken shape in Louisianas Legislature.

Its perhaps ironic that White could be done in by his Confederate service, given that the basic details of that service are very sketchy. Whites towering stature in Louisiana comes not from the war but from his perch on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1894 until his death in 1921. He remains the only Louisianan to serve on the high court.

Renaming of Orleans schools honoring slave owners, confederate figures approved; see next steps The Orleans Parish School Board paved the way to remove the names of slave owners, segregation supporters and Confederate figures from its pro

But his tenure there, too, is marked by several dark stains, most notably his vote in the majority in the notorious Plessy v. Ferguson case. The decision rejected a challenge to New Orleans racist new streetcar segregation law, setting the stage for decades of legalized discrimination under the separate but equal doctrine.

That ruling, along with Whites vote with the majority in several other pernicious decisions stripping Black Americans of their civil rights and his role in the bloody politics of post-Civil War Louisiana, now casts a long shadow over his legacy.

Activists have for years demanded that Whites prominent statue in front of the Louisiana Supreme Court building in the French Quarter be toppled, decrying it as a monument to White supremacy. The statue spent much of this summer surrounded by a cordon of fencing after protesters made noises about taking it down.

Most of the New Orleans City Council is also pressing the Louisiana Supreme Court for Whites removal, arguing that the statues placement is an affront to the promise of equality before the law.

(W)hile Mr. Whites service as the only Louisianan to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court might normally earn him a place of prestige, his legacy shows the lengths to which he was willing to go to perpetuate an unequal system, Councilmember Kristin Gisleson Palmer wrote in a July 9 letter, signed by all of her colleagues save Joe Giarrusso, that urges Whites removal.

There have been talks among state Supreme Court justices about relocating White, perhaps inside the building.

As with other discussions occurring across our nation involving statues and monuments, the justices of the Louisiana Supreme Court have held several preliminary discussions about the statue of Chief Justice White, which remain ongoing, said Robert Gunn, a court spokesman.

+2 Report on New Orleans street renaming lists 25 roads, three parks to be considered Researchers at the New Orleans Public Library have put together a list of 25 streets and three parks that could be renamed by a commission set

Malcolm Suber, an organizer with Take Em Down NOLA, has been demanding Whites removal for years. Thanks in part to the groups efforts, city officials removed four more prominent monuments to Confederates and White supremacists in 2017.

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It matters not to us that he was eventually head of the Supreme Court, said Suber of White. We talk about his whole totality  and he was a White supremacist from his early childhood until the end of his life.

Lets be honest, most people walk by it and are oblivious to the statue, dont care who it is, added Suber. But for those people who are keenly aware of what it represents ... Its insulting to people of conscience, Black and White.

White, whose father and namesake was an antebellum Louisiana governor, grew up the scion of a wealthy slaveholding family of Thibodaux sugar planters.

Still a young teen when the Civil War broke out, White may have lied about his age to enlist and possibly saw action during fighting around Port Gibson in 1863. Among the only things known for certain: White was captured by Union soldiers in 1865 while riding with an irregular band of cavalry in Pointe Coupee Parish.

His military service, such as we know it, was probably undistinguished and pretty minor, said Andrew Kent, a law professor at Fordham University whos done extensive research on White.

+8 After 3 statues were vandalized, some New Orleans officials say they're open to talking removal New Orleans monuments to John McDonogh, a slaveowner who donated to the citys schools he died, and to the first Confederate officer killed in

White rose to prominence in the decades after the Civil War as an active figure in efforts to end Reconstruction by driving Black Louisianans from political power and stripping them of key rights. That battle was marked at times by horrific racist violence and terrorism, including a string of outright massacres that made the state  even by the bloody standards of the South at the time  a gruesome outlier.

White, like most other Louisianans of his class, indisputably believed in White supremacy and at times supported using violence to achieve it. But, like his Civil War service, some details of his involvement remain disputed.

He fought alongside the Crescent City White League in the so-called Battle of Liberty Place in 1874, an armed insurrection that aimed to overthrow the state government and re-establish White rule. He was a close ally of Gov. Francis T. Nicholls, a fellow son of Thibodaux who took office in the violent and hotly contested 1876 election that also ended Reconstruction.

The efforts of so-called Redeemers set the stage for the disenfranchisement and oppression of most of the states Black residents for generations.

Several authors have claimed White was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and the city councilmembers repeated the charge in their letter to the court. But several historians cast doubt on that contention. Kent said he pored over records from the era and didnt find any evidence linking White to the KKK or other terrorist groups  such as the Knights of the White Camelia  while some circumstantial evidence argued against it.

Ive not seen any indication that White was in these groups, Kent said. I dont know that he wasnt. It is very difficult to research this topic, though, because of the secrecy of clandestine terror groups.

Walter Pratt Jr., a retired law school dean at the University of South Carolina and Notre Dame who wrote a book about the Supreme Court under White, spoke with more fondness for the late chief justice. White is far more complex to be merely seen as a former member of the Confederate military, Pratt said, and his racist views, though odious, were widely held at the time.

Gary Chambers expands fight to other Confederate symbols in Louisiana, including Nicholls State With Lee High School poised to get a new name, Baton Rouge activist Gary Chambers is focusing on removing other symbols of the Confederacy in 

Pratt also noted even the lone dissenter in the Plessy case, Justice John Marshall Harlan, harbored bigotries of his own. Though a Union veteran and staunch voice for Black civil rights, Harlan argued that Chinese immigrants should be barred from becoming citizens.

Pratt cast Whites evolution from slaveholding rebel to occasionally Progressive patriot  and his close friendships with former Union adversaries like fellow justice Oliver Wendell Holmes  as a parable of reunion.

White is close to an ideal example of how we should use names to learn from our past, and, with the effort to learn, just maybe, be a bit better as a nation, Pratt said.

But the broader historical context is precisely whats missing in grand public memorials to figures like White, said Charles Vincent, a professor of history at Southern University. The larger-than-life statue, perched on a literal pedestal, wraps White in a bronzed mantle of glory. Consigning White to museums and books, Vincent said, might offer a genuine chance to place him in context.

We are honoring people that we should not honor with buildings and statues, said Vincent. We should not be supporting, with public dollars and public spaces, items that glorify individuals that tried to destroy this country. We need to place history in context.
Two Ludlow School Committee members and town natives  one Republican, one Democrat -- pitching experience against youth are running for the 7th Hampden state representative seat left open when longtime Rep. Thomas Petrolati announced he would not run for another term.

Republican James Chip Harrington is waging his third bid for statewide office while Democrat Jake Oliveira is vying for a statewide seat for the first time. Both serve on the Ludlow School Committee, side-by-side for three terms and will appear on their respective party ballots on Sept. 1 and face off on the Nov. 3 election.

Oliveira, 34, has served on the local board for that many terms. Harrington, 52, has served for five and sat on the Ludlow Board of Selectmen before that. Harrington twice unsuccessfully challenged state Sen. Eric Lesser for that seat -- once as a Democrat and a second time as a Republican.

The 7th Hampden District encompasses Ludlow, Belchertown and slivers of Chicopee and Springfield.

Oliveira has been a stalwart Democrat and longtime advocate for education reform -- both in his elected and professional life as the assistant executive officer of the Massachusetts State Universities Council of Presidents, which represents nine Massachusetts public colleges and universities.

Education is the gateway and key to success, from preschool, to grade school through high school, college and lifelong learning, Oliveira said.

Harrington said public service ran in his blood as a teen growing up in Ludlow -- first as a lifeguard, second as a member of the Ludlow Recreation Department when he was just 22, then as a member of the Select Board from 1994 until 1997. He hit pause on elected life when he and his wife, Noelle, married and decided to start a family. He ran a convenience store on Fuller Road for 14 years and continued launching town coalitions and organizations on a volunteer basis. Harrington returned to elected life as his children grew older by running for School Committee.

While he and Oliveira both have experience on municipal boards, Harrington, also a part-time police officer in Ludlow, argues he has something his opponent does not.

Head and shoulders, what I have over my opponent is life experience. There is no book you can find that will teach you about life. Youve just got to live it. At 25, I bought my own house and was working the midnight shift at the jail, Harrington said. When I go and make decisions at the Statehouse, Ill bring that life experience.

On the other hand, Oliveira believes many voters are looking for a new generation to take the reigns in government after Petrolati, the dean of the Western Massachusetts delegation, retires after 34 years on Beacon Hill.

I was born the year Tom Petrolati was first elected to the Legislature. It was 1986. And, he was younger than I am now. So I respond that I actually have more experience than he did when he was elected, Oliveira said.

Oliveira said he will build on his longtime devotion to education reform -- dating as far back as when he was a student at Framingham State College -- if he is elected. He envisions the statewide education formula to fund schools as ripe for change.

Harrington points to his long-term familiarity with economic development projects that date back to when he was an aide for Petrolati during the late 1990s.

We are still talking about developing the old Belchertown State School property. We were working on that then. I am ready to hit the ground running on day one and ready to work.

Read more about the candidates views at masslive.com/politics/2020/08/massachusetts-primary-election-7th-hampden-district-candidates-chip-harrington-and-jake-oliveira-on-the-issues.html
Nursing homes were put under constant pressure to accept patients with coronavirus while being regularly refused treatment from hospitals and GPs for residents who became ill at the height of the Covid crisis, a landmark study has revealed.

The Queens Nursing Institute said homes were told hospitals had blanket no admissions policies during April and May while GPs and local managers imposed unlawful do not resuscitate orders on residents.

The findings have emerged in a survey by the QNI, the worlds oldest nursing charity, which surveyed 163 care home nurses and managers working across the country.

Carried out between May and June this year, the study establishes an evidence base of the impact on the sector from coronavirus, in addition to the official figures showing care home death rates.

It found that 70 nursing homes, 43 per cent, received patients discharged from hospitals whose Covid-19 status was unknown during March and April.

A fifth of care homes said they received a patient from hospital who was positive for coronavirus.

One nurse said they were under constant pressure to admit people who were Covid positive while another said: The acute sector pushed us to take untested admissions. The two weeks of daily deaths during an outbreak were possibly the two worst weeks of my 35-year nursing career.

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In one case a seriously ill patient with complex needs was discharged by a hospital despite the care home warning it was not capable of looking after the patient. The hospital sent the patient in an ambulance regardless.

One in four homes said it was difficult to get hospital treatment for patients while a third reported problems accessing GPs and district nurses.

Staff described the toll on their mental and physical health as a result of the workload with some feeling abandoned and ignored by the rest of the health system.

Although two-thirds of care home staff said they always had access to protective clothing such as masks and aprons, others were not given proper protection and some reported buying their own or making it themselves.

Staff responding to the survey revealed the use of blanket do not attempt resuscitation (DNAR) decisions by GPs, hospitals and NHS managers.

One nurse said: We were asked to change the status of all our residents to do not resuscitate and not for escalation to hospital. We refused.

Another added: All residents with suspected or confirmed Covid-19 were automatically made DNAR and given emergency health-care plans to stay in the home.

Another said they challenged an instruction by local NHS managers to impose a DNAR on all residents as unethical.

In total, 16 homes reported examples of poor end-of-life care and four-fifths of the nurses reported negative experiences of working in the pandemic with more than half, 56 per cent, saying their physical and mental health had suffered.

Professor Alison Leary, an author of the study, said: It is clear from this survey that the care home workforce has faced very challenging issues. Many have felt unsupported and their wellbeing has suffered. We need to support this workforce to face the challenges ahead.

Crystal Oldman, chief executive of the Queens Nursing Institute, said the findings of the survey and the lack of support and access to health services were symbolic of how the care home sector was viewed by those in the NHS and government.

The care being delivered in a home can at times be as intensive as in a hospital  in particular for end-of-life care  and it is hugely skilled work.

She said she was concerned to see homes had struggled to access district nursing, GP and hospital services.

We were really surprised to see this. These are universal health services. It is completely opposite to the protective ring around care homes that was being talked about at the time.

With winter approaching, she said it was now vital the sector was involved in planning ahead of any second wave of coronavirus.

These homes need to be equal partners, not abandoned and not have things done to them.

If anything positive comes from what we have been through its that care homes cannot be viewed in that way again. It is everyones problem.

Between 2 March and 12 June almost one in every three deaths among care home residents (29.3 per cent) involved Covid-19, with 19,394 people dying having tested positive for the virus, according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics.

Of those deaths, the majority occurred in a care home setting  with 74.9 per cent taking place in care homes compared to the 24.8 per cent of fatalities which were recorded in hospitals.

Across the period the virus became the leading cause of death in male care home residents, and the second among women after dementia and Alzheimers disease.

They were dying and there was nothing we could do

Anita Astle, managing director at the Wren Hall nursing home in Nottingham, told The Independent her staff were forced to work without any support from the wider health system and described feeling despair as almost two dozen of the residents in the home died from the virus.

The nurse with 30 years of experience said: There was a total lack of understanding about how intensive it was and how seriously ill people were as well as the emotional and physical strain on staff.

We were losing people we cared about, people who were part of our family. They were dying and there was nothing we could do about it.

In total, 23 residents died as a result of coronavirus, 13 longer-term residents and 10 who were admitted to the home with Covid-19.

It was the hardest period of my career, said Ms Astle, adding: I was broken at the lowest point.

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In one example of the pressure the home was put under, she described how a Covid-19 patient with a tracheostomy was discharged from hospital to the home at the beginning of May, despite the home lacking the protective equipment to look after him.

I told the hospital we didnt have the equipment to care for him appropriately in the morning and that they needed to hold off.

The next thing we knew he was on his way in an ambulance. Every care home came under pressure to take patients. That was what we were told.

She said it took seven weeks just to get staff masks properly tested to ensure they were safe.

We had no proper support until the end of May.

As the country prepares to head into winter and the threat of flu and Covid-19 grows, Ms Astle warned: We need to recognise nursing home nursing is a speciality. It is complex care. People tend to think it is wiping bums and little else but its so much more.

The lessons need to have been learned and I dont think they have been. Instead, there seems to be a lot of blame going on.
President Ilham Aliyev congratulated his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Turkey`s discovery of a major gas field in the Black Sea in a phone call on August 22.

The head of state described the discovery as an important event and expressed hope that it will contribute to the improvement of the friendly and brotherly Turkish people`s well-being and the strengthening of the country's economic power.

President Ilham Aliyev noted that Turkey had already become one of international gas centers, adding that Azerbaijan is happy for Turkey`s success as much as for its own success.

President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan thanked for attention and congratulations.

The heads of state stressed that the relations of friendship and brotherhood between the two countries would continue successfully developing in all areas, and discussed cooperation prospects.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz


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WASHINGTON, Aug 22 (Reuters) - The Trump administration plans to block a copper and gold mining project in Alaska that has been the focus of concerns about the environment, Bloomberg News reported Saturday, citing a person familiar with the matter.

The Trump administration seemed poised to allow development of Pebble Mine, lifting Obama-era restrictions last year. But environmentalists as well as some powerful Republicans argued that the mining project would pose too great a risk to the area's wild salmon population, Bloomberg reported.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will issue a letter to the mine declaring the project would endanger the fishing area, Bloomberg said.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. an avid sportsman voiced opposition to the project, saying "the surrounding fishery are too unique and fragile to take any chances with."

Spokespeople for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd, the company running the project, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd August, 2020) Russia has found a reliable partner in the Central African Republic and hopes to continue working together with it, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Sunday.

"Russia sees the Central African Republic as a reliable and promising partner on the African continent," he told his car counterpart, Marie-Noelle Koyara.

The ministers spoke on the sidelines of Army-2020, an annual defense industry show near Moscow. Shoigu said that ties between their ministries had become stronger in recent years.

"We plan to continue our active cooperation with your country with the view of bolstering stability and security in Africa," Shoigu said.

The Russian minister thanked Koyara for finding time to come to the military show despite the pandemic and emphasized similarities in the countries' approach to key regional and global issues.
'Supply chain management has changed dramatically over the last 40 years. Globalisation has enabled businesses to expand their reach when sourcing raw materials'

For most of us, a supply chain is very straightforward. It's about ensuring raw materials are sourced and travel through the various gate posts, on time and on budget.

However, for those that are directly involved in managing supply chains, it is a sophisticated business that requires great skills, knowledge and technology.

Supply chain management has changed dramatically over the last 40 years. Globalisation has enabled businesses to expand their reach when sourcing raw materials.

Lowering of trade barriers, internationalisation of global trade, transparency and currency fluctuations have all added to the race to source from far-flung regions like the Far East and India.

In their endless pursuit of lower cost, lower risk and consistency of supply, procurement executives have honed their skills and technology developers have made fortunes.

The biggest concerns they have had to deal with in recent years were interruptions such as the volcanic ash-cloud and severe weather conditions.

Because of the catastrophic events of the last five months their lives will now have to change forever. No longer can they rely on toilet rolls, PPE gear and other necessities arriving according to plan. No longer can they assume that their comprehensive planning will account for all possibilities.

Geopolitical frictions have come to the fore. For example, trade between the US and China is expected to shrink in 2023 by 15pc on 2019 figures.

Europe too is reconsidering its options and is set to increase the carbon tax for incoming goods. Germany is going through a refresh of its national supply chain and exploring local and near-sourcing. Home-working is slowing down decision-making for some and the enhanced focus on sustainability (carbon foot-print) are all adding to the mix.

I'm listing here only some of what is known to date.

We've seen how effective governments can be and how they can make very quick decisions when they really have to. So expect more, as governments continue to get involved in macro decisions.

And let's not forget about Brexit and all that entails. I have written about this many times before but it seems to have lost out on air-time to Covid-19. This significant crisis has not gone away and yet it will have a massive impact on our country and our supply chains in particular.

Tips for Building More Resilience in your Supply-chain

1. The first step has to involve a thorough risk-analysis. When Covid-19 became an issue in March, I was working with two different organisations that were dependent on sourcing ingredients from China.

Both have since explored their options and have thankfully found alternative supply routes.

You too might consult all relevant people in your organisation and your supplier base, to learn about current or pending supply chain risk points.

Don't forget to also check for what might be in your own pipeline, such as acquisitions, new products, mergers, etc.

2. If you don't have a risk register in your business, create one now. Many risk registers that I've seen tend to focus mainly on financial controls, people and technology. Your risk register needs to embrace supply-chain risks too.

3. If you need to make changes, consider all options. Dual-sourcing might be appropriate. Could you also near-source a part of your supply base? Even if it is at higher cost, the risk/benefit analysis may justify it.

4. If capital allows it, what about increasing inventory levels? The extra cost might outweigh the risk factor.

5. Could you shorten your planning cycles? If it's essential to continue to source from far-flung places, could you renegotiate your terms?

6. Crisis planning also has to escalate in your thinking. While it's a hundred years since our last global event, we can't assume that cycle will continue. Never again can we let ourselves be caught out like we were this time. Convene a cross-functional team to develop out the risk register and agree contingencies.

7. Do a skills gap analysis. This event may have exposed some skill shortages in your teams. Those skills might be in strategic planning, project management, crisis management, leadership, data analysis, machine learning or other technologies.

Summary

Some countries are likely to benefit from this global event, such as India and North Africa. Europe in particular will be keen to near-source as much as possible.

But what about Ireland? There has to be opportunity for us too in all of this.

We may not have the low cost-base of our competitors in the Far-east, India or North Africa, but we have other advantages. We have stable government and currency, we are English-speaking, we have a highly educated and skilled workforce. And we have relatively close links to those powerhouse countries that are reviewing their supply base right now. Let's get thinking!

Alan ONeill, author of Premium is the New Black is a Keynote Speaker and owner of Kara, specialists in strategy, culture and people development.

Go to www.kara.ie to access a free online course 'Supercharge your Sales'
Melburnians have flocked to shopping centres and markets across the city despite stage four lockdown restrictions.

Hundreds of shoppers ignored social distancing measures to cram into stores to buy groceries, with retailers unable to control customers.

Shopkeepers said they were becoming frustrated with shoppers who ignored health guidelines or don't understand the safety measures in place.

Eager shoppers ignore social distancing to cram into a grocery store in Lalor in Melbourne's north on Saturday

'It's dangerous,' fruit market owner Ahmed Alex from Lalor in the city's north told 9News. 'It's not easy.'

Poor weather did little to dampen the spirits of eager shoppers, with residents in coronavirus hotspot areas including Whittlesea crowding into stores.

Chief Medical Officer Professor Brett Sutton reiterated people must stay home amid stage four coronavirus lockdown measures in Melbourne.

'Food and drink is take away in Victoria, so people need to take it and they need to go home,' he said.

Markets were able to open in Melbourne on Saturday after the state government backflipped on a decision to ban them on Friday.

John Davidson from The Cripps Family Fish Farm said a ban would have left many traders out of pocket.

'We'd be looking at $20,000 to $25,000 worth of loss if these markets failed to go ahead,' he said.

Store owner Ahmed Alex said retailers were struggling with customers who ignored social distancing protocols

VICTORIA'S COVID-19 NUMBERS FOR AUGUST 23 * 208 new cases * 17 more deaths, taking the state toll to 415 and the national figure to 502 * Latest deaths include a woman and a man aged in their 60s, three men in their 70s, six men and four women in their 80s, and two men in their 90s * 11 of the deaths are linked to aged care * 4012 active cases in Victoria * 3920 'mystery' cases, including 82 new cases * 585 people are in hospital with 32 in intensive care, of whom 21 are on ventilators * 536 active cases among healthcare workers * 2,091,328 test results received - an increase of 20,747 since Saturday RESTRICTIONS UNTIL SEPTEMBER 13 * Stage four in metropolitan Melbourne, including an 8pm-5am curfew, 5km travel limit from home, one-hour outdoor exercise, widespread workforce shutdowns including child care * Stage three protocols for regional Victoria FINES * Police issued 199 fines in the past 24 hours, including 73 for curfew breaches and 20 for failing to wear a face mask Advertisement

Melbourne residents still have about another three weeks of stage four restrictions ahead of them before they are revised on September 13.

Melburnians can only leave their homes to exercise for one hour only, to shop for necessities like food, to give or receive medical care, or for study or work.

Those who break the rules face an on-the-spot fine of $1,652.

Regional Victorians are under slightly less onerous level three restrictions for the same period.

Professor Sutton said restrictions would not be lifted in full until community transmission was eradicated.

Melburnians have ignored social distancing and lockdown measures to go shopping

He said people must expect to continue to wear protective face masks in public after restrictions are eased.

Victoria recorded 208 new cases of coronavirus on Sunday and 17 deaths.

Meanwhile, hearings for state's inquiry into the failed hotel quarantine program resume on Monday with more testimony from hotel security staff.

The inquiry last week heard poor-performing security guards were moved between the quarantine hotels, while returned travellers feared catching the coronavirus during their stay.
Egypts House of Representatives has approved three decisions taken by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi related to international agreements signed by the Ministry of International Cooperation with development partners, which in total amount to $92.5 million, Minister of International Cooperation Rania Al-Mashat announced.

The approvals cover presidential decree No 409 of 2020, approving the agreement between Egypt and the French Development Agency to renew and develop Line 1 of the Cairo Metro, presidential decree No 455 of 2020 approving an aid grant agreement between the government of Egypt and the United States regarding the Egyptian-American Higher Education Initiative, as well as presidential decree No 362 of 2020 approving a Canadian grant to close gaps in sexual and reproductive health rights.

The first agreement comes within the framework of the Global Partnerships for Effective Development Cooperation multi-stakeholder platform launched in April 2020, which aims to strengthen partnerships to accelerate progress in development and create real impact on citizen's lives. The partnerships include the contribution of the French Development Agency, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) in the financing of the project implemented by the National Authority for Tunnels, according to Al-Mashat.

As the population is constantly increasing, and there is a greater need to create more job opportunities and bring prosperity through resilient and upgraded infrastructure, the project aims to rehabilitate and modernise Line 1 of the Cairo Metro, which extends from the new Al-Marg Station in the north to Helwan Station in the south, linking it to the second and third lines of the subway, Al-Mashat stated.

Al-Mashat noted that this agreement contributes to the achievement of four Sustainable Development Goals; namely, Goal 8 for dignified work; Goal 9 for industry, innovation and infrastructure; Goal 11 for sustainable cities and societies; and Goal 17 related to partnerships for the achievement of these goals.

Under the aid grant agreement between Egypt and the United States for the Egyptian-American Higher Education Initiative, Al-Mashat said that $30 million will be directed towards developing higher education to create an educated workforce that meets the needs of the labour market and to strengthen the capacity of Egyptian higher education institutions.

As for the Canadian grant, to close gaps in reproductive health and rights in Egypt, Al-Mashat said that the grant comes with support from the UN Population Fund under the name "Addressing gaps in reproductive health and rights in Egypt," aiming to support womens reproductive and health rights by increasing their awareness on family planning and increase their access to health services.

The agreement is worth 14 million Canadian dollars, and is implemented in partnership with the ministries of health and population and youth and sports.

Al-Mashat added that the Ministry of International Cooperation is working to enhance and advance economic diplomacy, which aims playing a proactive role in seeking out development opportunities and strengthening the means of implementation and partnership for sustainable development.

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A great-grandmother has been rescued and brought ashore at Dover after becoming the oldest migrant ever to attempt a dangerous Channel crossing.

The 94-year-old made the 21-mile journey from France in order to be reunited with her family who had already arrived in the UK.

She has sought asylum in the country but faces being deported along with the others who had made the crossing with her in a small boat.

A great-grandmother has been rescued and brought ashore at Dover after becoming the oldest migrant ever to attempt a dangerous Channel crossing. Pictured: Migrants arriving at Dover earlier this week

However it is thought she may be allowed to stay due to her age.

It is believed that the woman was taken into the care of social services after being brought to shore.

It is not yet clear how far away from the Kent coastline the vessel was when it was intercepted by authorities.

She has sought asylum in the country but faces being deported along with the others who had made the crossing with her in the groups' small boat. Pictured: Migrants arriving at Dover earlier this week

It comes as nearly 5,000 migrants are said to have now attempted the journey this year alone.

Most of the trips have been orchestrated by organised crime groups with many vessels being unfit for purpose.

Last week Sudanese migrant Abdulfatah Hamdallah, 28, died after trying to paddle from Calais to the UK in a 'toy dinghy'.
Former President John Agyekum Kufuor, has predicted victory for the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) ahead of the December 7 polls.



The former President said considering the government's remarkable economic performance, social interventions, agricultural revolution and infrastructural development, he was of a firm belief that the electorates will vote to retain NPP to sustain economic growth and stability.



"Like how the NPP sailed through successfully in the 2004 election, this time around, the Party will do better because across the entire spectrum, socially and politically, Ghana is quickly recovering from the near slumber that the President took over from three years ago," he said.



Addressing the rank and file of the Party in a broadcast message at the launch of the NPP Manifesto for election 2020 in Cape Coast on Saturday, former President Kufuor highly praised President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Vice President Dr Mohamudu Bawumia and their team for their resolve to tranform Ghana for the betterment of all.



According to him, it would be suicidal not to vote for the government to further build on the foundation it had created, as any alternative could threw the country's economy into abyss and thwart the better plans in the 2020 Manifesto.



The Former President said the impeccable plan and implementation of major policies and programmes were evident enough - free senior high school, "One district, One factory (1D1F)," "One Village, One Dam (1V1D," planting for food and jobs (PFJ), absorbing of utility bills amidst COVID-19 among others.



The Governments resolve to accelerate national development, he said was in sync with the theme for the manifesto, "Leadership of Service, Protecting our Progress, Transforming Ghana for All".



"The commitment from the historic times has always been to uphold people as the sovereign authority of the land. Any true NPP person must never forget that sovereignty resides in the people and that it is the people that give power.



The launch was held virtually and streamed live on major media outlets and social media platforms across the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic.



The 166-page Election 2020 Manifesto has been segmented into three parts-accounting for our leadership, consolidating our gain and plan for accelerating growth.

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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An explosion at a home in the Bronx triggered a large fire, leaving at least one person dead and eight others injured, including five police officers suffering smoke inhalation, according to local officials.A blast was reported before 11 am at 869 Fox Street in the Longview neighborhood of the Bronx. This footage, released by the NYPD, shows officers working to rescue a woman pinned under a couch in a house next door. The 68-year-old woman was in a serious condition, authorities reported after being rescued.New York City Council Member Rafael Salamanca, who was on the scene, said the fire was due to a gas explosion, though the cause has yet to be confirmed. Credit: NYPD via Storyful
Broadcast journalist with Power Fm, Daakyehene Ofosu Agyeman has earned nomination at the 2020 Radio and Television Personality (RTP) Awards.



He was nominated in the Radio Newscaster of the Year (Local Language) category, an award he was nominated a year ago.



Daakyehene, who is the head of news doubles up as newscaster and reporter especially during the disinfection and fumigation of market, bus terminals and schools across the country during the COVID-19 era.



The graduate from University of Ghana has previously worked with Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) as Akan newscaster, Nkunim Fm as morning show host, Rainbow Radio and Kasapa Fm as newscaster and court reporter.



RADIO NEWSCASTER OF THE YEAR (LOCAL LANGUAGE) 2019-2020



NANA YAW KESSE  PEACE FM

AFIA POKUAA ADOM FM TO OKAY FM

KWABENA MARFO  PEACE FM

DAAKYEHENE OFOSU AGYEMAN  POWER FM

AKOSUA AGO ABOAGYIE  PEACE FM

BONOHENE BAFFOUR AWUAH  KASAPA FM

MAAME BIAMAH KWAFO  PEACE FM



Big Events Ghana, organizers of the prestigious Radio and Television Personality Awards (RTP) have announced nominees for the 10th edition.



The list which was released on Friday, 14th August 2020 saw some of Ghanas biggest names in the media space compete for the award and year-long bragging rights in various categories.



The nominees announced for over 41 categories will kick-start the call for voting as it has been associated with the scheme since its inception in 2011.



The 2020 Adonko RTP Awards which is scheduled for October 2020 promises to be full of excitement and cheers.



The scheme is designed to celebrate radio and television personalities who have excelled in the field.









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Snow this morning will transition to snow showers this afternoon. Some sleet may mix in. High around -4C. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 100%. Snow accumulating 1 to 3 inches..

Tonight

Snow showers this evening. Breaks in the overcast later. Low -16C. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of snow 50%.
There is a very, very slim possibility of a lifeline for the Tourism Industry in the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands.

There was uproar when Majorca, Ibiza and Minorca were added to no-go area lists due to increasing infection rates in mainland Spain, particularly because there were a lot less cases in the Balearic Islands and infection rates here were nowhere near UK infection levels.

Now, the British Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps is suggesting that the UK Government consider regional lockdowns instead of lumping the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands in with the rest of Spain.

Thats sent hopes skyward that maybe, just maybe there could be some light at the end of the coronavirus tunnel.

"When Spain went into lockdown, we saw the numbers coming up in one area and coming down in others, so we do need to be absolutely sure that we're capturing the disease as it actually is and sometimes it's not quite as straightforward as it sounds, said Shapps. "Where there are Islands, I think it's something we will look at and we are looking at, it all depends on the data, but we are looking at how you can regionalise effectively.

The British Government has been heavily criticised for slapping quarantine rules on countries at the last minute and just this weekend some 20,000 holidaymakers were forced to make a mad dash to the airport to avoid a mandatory 2 week quarantine when they got home from Croatia, Austria and Trinidad & Tobago and some of them paid eye-watering sums of money to beat the deadline.

Shapps did warn travellers that ANY air bridge could be axed at short notice, but thousands took the risk and went on holiday anyway, clearly thinking that the worst possible scenario was unlikely to happen.

Mr Shapps has acknowledged that it is incredibly inconvenient for Brits to rush home from countries placed on the red list at the eleventh hour, but said that tourists who want to travel abroad should do so with their eyes wide open.

This is a very unpredictable virus which doesnt play ball in the way it can take off in a country, so anyone travelling this year knows there are risks involved, he said.

Amidst all the doom and gloom there is actually some good news, but not for Spain unfortunately.

Portugal has been taken off the UKs risk list, which means Brits can fly there without having to isolate when they return and it will come as no surprise to anyone that flights are selling like hot cakes.
Many people have died through accidents and carelessness by Okada riders in Ghana. According to the National Road Safety Authority 27.7% of road accidents linked to Okada. The question is has it been easy to stop Okada? No. Can we change our approach? Yes.

The truth is that Okada is the main means of transportation for many rural communities. Okada gives employment to many youths throughout the country.

However, compliance with road traffic regulations, respect for other road users and safety is a problem largely in southern Ghana. In the northern part of Ghana, there is high respect for traffic regulations, respect for other road users among others by Okada riders.

The Okada phenomenon is clearly a developmental challenge. Our policymakers should deal with it to make it better. It is possible to make it better to maintain jobs, incomes and help the riders to obey road traffic regulations and ensure safety.

To regulate means develop forward looking laws that make it compulsory to go through series of training before one qualifies to ride. It also gives opportunity to assess the individual to keep records of movement to improve security in communities.

Regulating Okada means maintaining jobs and stop the killings associated with Okada. Regulating Okada means accepting that Okada is proper job with respect for our young people in line with progressive rules.

Regulating Okada is NOT about promoting a bad thing. It is about ensuring the right thing is done. It is a bold step to face one of our developmental challenges to ensure protection for those who use Okada.

The willingness by a political party to address a developmental challenge such as Okada to help achieve some of the sustainable development goals is appropriate.

It is good, this policy is based on engagement with Okada riders, some civil society organizations, Chiefs and parliamentarians from areas where Okada use is high.

The regulation will help the National Road Safety Authority, DVLA and the Police to be guided to better handle Okada related matters to maintain order in our communities.
Police enforce rules obliging people to wear masks in crowded places.

Rome police have fined a man 400 for refusing to wear a mask among the crowd at the Trevi Fountain on Friday night, after he made fun of the officers by saying "covid-19 doesn't exist," reports Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

The 29-year-old Italian, whose friends also mocked the situation before eventually putting on their masks to avoid the penalty, became the first person in Rome to be fined under the new regulations obliging people to wear masks in crowded areas at night.

The move is part of a coordinated operation by police to monitor the capital's smaller squares and streets where social distancing is difficult to maintain, in addition to the usual nightlife hotspots of Ponte Milvio, Trastevere, S. Lorenzo, Campo de' Fiori, Pigneto and Piazza Bologna.

The news comes as Italy registered 1,071 new covid-19 cases on 22 August, the highest number since 12 May when the country was still in lockdown, with 215 new cases in the central Lazio region which includes Rome, according to data released by the Italian health ministry.

In Italy masks must be worn in public areas where social distancing is not possible between 18.00 and 06.00.
International spy agencies almost certainly know where Banbridge-born 'white widow' fugitive Samantha Lewthwaite is hiding out, according to the director of new Netflix documentary on the hunt of the mother-of-four.

Terror suspect Lewthwaite (36) - one of the world's most wanted - is likely protected not just by well-armed and funded militant Islamists, but also by her British citizenship, says Paris-based film maker Hugo Van Offel.

Lewthwaite, who was married to Germaine Lindsay - one of the 7/7 London bombers - is wanted in Kenya on explosives, weapons and money laundering charges.

She is alleged to have been involved in a bar bombing in Mombasa in 2012 and is also wanted for questioning over a 2013 mass shooting at a mall in the same city in 2013.

Both were carried out by militants linked to the al-Shabaab organisation, which controls large parts of rural Somalia along the border with Kenya, where Lewthwaite continues to hide out, says Van Offel, who directed The White Widow: Searching for Samantha, one of a five-part Netflix series, World's Most Wanted.



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A former intelligence chief in Somalia told the film maker that law enforcement did pin point her location a number of times, but it was too dangerous to move in to arrest her.

Van Offel believes she is being monitored both by international and domestic agencies, but that she will not be taken out by a drone strike, partly again because of the potential for civilian casualties, including her children, and partly due to diplomatic issues, including her UK citizenship.

"It is a very remote area and she cannot be touched, but she is also protected because she is British", the director says, adding her children have been with her from the very beginning.

Van Offel says al-Shabaab is re-organising and becoming increasingly stronger despite pressure from international and domestic agencies. But there is internal conflict in the organisation, mainly between foreigners and locals, in which Lewthwaite may be caught up.



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"But if she had been killed, we would have known about it. She is still out there but cannot move, probably has a way to remain low-profile, not a free life, and one day she will be caught."

If, or when, caught she is likely to be tried in Kenya, but there is some discussion about bringing her back to the UK, which may be the only way to find out just how deeply involved she is in international terrorism, Van Offel says.

Lewthwaite spent her early years in Banbridge. Her father, Andrew, was a British Army solider who married local woman Christine Allen, whose elderly mother still lives in the area.

The couple have two other children and the family moved to Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire when Lewthwaite was young.

Her businessman brother, Allan, told Sunday Life this weekend he did not want to have anything to do with any story about his sister.

Lewthwaite converted to Islam as a teenager, with the documentary speculating that the break-up of her parents' marriage may have been a factor that ultimately led to her embracing militant views.

She married Germaine Lindsay, one of the 7/7 suicide bombers, in 2002. She had one child with him and was pregnant when he and three others carried out the attack, detonating devices on three London Underground trains and a bus on July 7, 2005, killing 56 people and injuring 700.

Lewthwaite, who later gave birth to two more children, said in an interview at the time: "I totally condemn and am horrified by the atrocities.



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"I am the wife of Germaine Lindsay, and never predicted or imagined that he was involved in such horrific activities.

"He was a loving husband and father. I am trying to come to terms with the recent events.

"My whole world has fallen apart, and my thoughts are with the families of the victims of this incomprehensible devastation."

She disappeared but surfaced again in 2012 after Kenyan police began investigating the arrival in the country of a white woman travelling on a fake South African passport and who was allegedly in contact with local militants.

She was later linked to the 2012 bombing of the Jericho bar that killed three people.

"There were witnesses to the Jericho bar bombing, three or four who spoke to the local press, and we found one to talk", Van Offel explains. "We cannot be 100% positive, but they were very precise about identification."

The witnesses claim to have seen her at the bar just before the bombing.

She was also linked to the September 2013 Westgate Mall mass shooting where 71 people died and 200 were injured.

Van Offel says it is not known how deeply involved in the attack she was, if at all, but senior security sources in Kenya believe she played some role.

"This woman is a ghost, really clever to stay in the shadows. First a poor widow, then re-appears as head of a terrorist cell in Mombasa", the film maker adds.

Van Offel managed to persuade Ali Sanbalolshe, the former chief of Somalia's National Intelligence and Security Agency, to speak on camera.

It took a long time to persuade him to talk, and he was careful on the subject of surveillance, Van Offel explains, adding that the ex-security chief did not want to be precise about the extent to which she is being monitored.

"He did not want to talk at all about the fact that she is being monitored", Van Offel says.

But Mr Sanbalolshe revealed his spies found Lewthwaite in the Somali city of Jilib. He said: "We have been monitoring her movement and her presence sometimes at the border between Somalia and Kenya. Actually, there was a time we were almost closing down on her.

"She was in Jilib. But it's not easy to arrest her because she's in al-Shabaab controlled territory.

"We don't have those operational capabilities. She's out of reach basically.

"It is very important to arrest somebody like Samantha. To extract information from her is also important and she's also dangerous. We are removing a threat.

"We were not able to use drones against her because she is a British citizen and it is not legally allowed by UK law to do this kind of assassination.

"With British law the focus is to get the person, not to kill the person."

Unlike others who have linked up with foreign terrorist organisations, including in Syria, there are no reports of Lewthwaite being stripped of her citizenship.
New Delhi: The Serum Institute of India on Sunday dismissed current media suggesting Covishield`s availability in the next 73 days, the pharma company clarified that these reports are completely false.

Issuing a statement the SII said, "Presently, the government has granted us permission to only manufacture the vaccine and stockpile it for future use. Serum Institute of India, would like to clarify that the current claims surrounding Covishield`s availability in the media are completely false and conjectural", the statement read.

The SII claimed that it will be sold commercially after successful trails. "Covishield will be commercialised once the trials are proven successful and all the requisite regulatory approvals are in place. The phase-3 trials for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine are still underway. And only once the vaccine is proven immunogenic and efficacious, SII will confirm its availability, officially", the statement said.

The clarification came after reports that the vaccine would be sold commercially in 73 days.

The pharmaceutical giant had initiated the phase 2,3 clinical trials to evaluate the safety and immune response of coronavirus vaccine candidate on healthy Indian adults after it got approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) earlier this month.
Flavor 1st welcomes its most famous visitor

Kirby Johnson, right, hosted apple farmer Kenny Barnwell (left) and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on a July 27 visit that showcased the USDA's Farmers to Families Food Box Program. [LIGHTNING FILE PHOTO]

MILLS RIVER  Kirby Johnson was planting green beans on his 550-acre farm in May when he got a call from the state Agriculture Department about a new federal program to feed the needy. He plunged into the program immediately, earning a visit from the nation's top farm official last month.



On Aug. 14, he got a call from White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows with even bigger news: President Trump was coming to visit his Flavor 1st packing operation.

The name and face behind a family business that has spanned eight generations, Johnson orchestrates a huge growing, packing and delivery enterprise that supplies produce to a market that blankets the Eastern Seaboard and reaches the Mississippi River. You can't go to a chain supermarket without seeing the Flavor 1st Growers & Packers logo, a vine that pays homage to the farms crown jewel: tomatoes plucked from the vine in the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida and fill produce aisles, restaurant menus and cruise ship buffets far and wide.

Kirby began learning the family trade when he was seven years old, packing boxes for delivery to big-name grocery stores. The Johnson family farm had sold cattle and produce since its beginnings in 1798, and Johnson had his first taste of ownership at 12 when he took over the family pasture after his grandfather died. His grandfather, Pete Johnson, shared the tricks and tips of the cattle business, and the advice has guided Johnson ever since. In high school, the budding cattle man bought steers from local dairies, then raised and sold them each spring in local auctions. While Johnson is no longer in the cattle business himself, his grandfathers influence has a tight grip on the empire he has nurtured and expanded.

Flavor 1st packs its own crops and partners with nearly 50 farmers across North Carolina and from New York to Homestead, Florida. Vegetables and fruits from the farm fields stock local stores in Boston, Massachusetts, to chains such as Publix, Ingles Aldi and more.

But even an enterprise that helps feed a nation was not immune to the effects of the coronavirus. Flavor 1st lost a major source of revenue when the cruise ship industry foundered, then took another hit when restaurants closed. The two industries made up 35 percent of the produce companys income.

The company had lost $1.4 million when Johnson got the call from Bill Yarborough, the agricultural programs administrator for the North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services. Yarborough wanted to know if Johnson was interested in the Farmers to Families Food Box Program, a new initiative the Trump administration had launched to help families impacted by the pandemic.

When I hung up with him, I thought to myself this pandemic will be over by the time we get our first order," Johnson said, "and nine days later, I was packing boxes here at the packing house and helping the farmers here that needed it."

A frenzy of preparation



Since the beanfield call, Flavor 1st has regained its losses and then some, with more than $2 million going to the farmers that supply food that Johnsons packing house workers box up for needy families.

After Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue visited last month to highlight the food box program, he must have carried a positive review of the trip back to Washington.

Now, Johnson is just two days away from welcoming its most famous guest to his sprawling packing operation in Mills River.

On the eve of President Trumps visit, you can find Johnson preparing the Mills River packing house, where he will spend about two hours Monday as tour guide for President Trump, Trump's daughter and senior adviser Ivanka Trump, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, the former 11th Congressional District representative; Perdue and North Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler. During the tour, Trump will hear farmers stories about how the food box program benefited them, Johnson said.

Its been a whirlwind, and Im amazed at how the government is handling it, he said about the event.

He has been spending the past few days answering questions from the Secret Service, moving equipment for the 600-person event and helping with other preparations. The packing house will have stations on the day of the event, including one for greeting the president, one where Trump will meet the farmers and another where he will load food boxes onto a truck. For the event finale, Johnson, President Trump, and other guest speakers will talk to a crowd of about 400 guests that have received special invitations for the event. Johnson is expected to be alongside the president from start to finish. He will introduce the president to the guests and share how the Farmers to Families Food Box Program has touched his life and those of the farmers.

The closed events guest list includes Republican Party activists from throughout North Carolina, Baptists on a Mission leaders and Flavor 1st friends. Guests will get their temperature checked before they are shuttled to the facility. There, they will be screened outside and go through security. Once guests gain entrance, the building will be sealed. Henderson County will also send sheriffs deputies to guard the perimeter of the facility.

This is one of the highlights of my life, but I couldnt have done it by myself, Johnson says. I just happened to be the one to get the call. It helps my farmers, my farm and people in need.

'Taking care of America'

Johnson has been able to see the faces of some of the families in real-time as they receive their boxes, and their reactions bring chill bumps to the father of three, who also has nine grandchildren. Being a part of such a program reminds him of the America he was raised in, where he says people take care of each other regardless of political ideology.

You dont realize how much some people are hurting, he said. This has to do with taking care of America. Its what I grew up in and what I hope never changes.

Each week, Flavor 1st packers box up, label and load some 7,500 boxes of produce onto three trucks that make their way from the Mills River plant to local food pantries such as Manna Food Bank in Asheville and local churches, to Avery County, through Charlotte, and into the Raleigh-Durham area. Area businesses have rallied around the mission. With the help of Baptists on a Mission, boxes filled with tomatoes, apples, grapes, squash, zucchini and sweet potatoes are delivered to 30 locations weekly. The Mills River packing houses has shipped around 80,000 boxes so far. Carolina Farm Credit bought Flavor 1st a truck, already branded with the farm's trademark emblem, to haul food boxes.

Thats what excites me so much about people in America, theyre still people that are truly like me, Johnson said. At times of crisis you step up to a point you never thought you could step up to.

Flavor 1st, considered the cream of the crop in the farming industry, was picked by the USDA to participate in its program because of its safety protocols. The program has saved farmers in Georgia that work with Johnson and has kept many families from going hungry. It has also provided salaries for more than 150 Flavor 1st employees, a trickle-down boost for the packers and their families, Johnson said.

Im so proud. I thank the president, Sonny, the Senate and Congress for doing what they did, he said. Its just overwhelming to hear some of the stories on the receiving end of the produce boxes, and how much this is helping people. I want to make sure he knows that from my side.
Vailey Oehlke

Oehlke is director of libraries for Multnomah County.

Since our librarys founding in 1864, our community has loved it as an institution that helps shape and improve peoples lives. I certainly do. Ive been proud to be a part of it since 1997.

Over that time, the Multnomah County Library and the community it serves have had to weather many storms. Right now, we are in the middle of one of those storms: like every person, family and organization, COVID-19 has reshaped our reality. It has upended the way our library has traditionally served its patrons, with inviting (if small) spaces and friendly staff there to help explore reading, research, or troubleshoot problems from less than an arms length away.

Since we closed all our buildings March 14, all 580 staff members have received full pay and benefits, even as the new pandemic reality has meant that some have no job to go to. Were currently checking out only a fraction of the typical number of books, DVDs and other items.

To meet the communitys current needs, weve started curbside book pick-up in all 19 branches, launched new on-demand library cards, called seniors in retirement communities, delivered books by mail, created new online childrens storytimes, turned school IDs into library cards, begun online GED tutoring and tutoring for adult learners and much more. Even these new online and remote services  and we are actively expanding services  do not require the same peak staffing.

As the librarys leadership, we must balance our affection and loyalty to our library employees with our responsibility to match our workforce to the work and prepare for serving the community in an uncertain future. This is an agonizing balance to strike.

In an Aug. 16 opinion piece, (Library layoffs dont serve the community,) three library staff members assert that we are getting that balance wrong, and that no jobs should be cut. I understand their distress. But their critique left out a number of facts.

One is that we are already making efforts to preserve as many jobs as possible with new initiatives and deployments. Physical distancing requirements and limitations on in-person services (like youth storytimes) in the foreseeable future directly affect 128 positions. But since our original announcement in July, we have worked with represented staff and their union, AFSCME Local 88 to reduce the number of layoffs to about half that number so far. We will shift an undetermined number of people to support Multnomah County's pandemic response and are working with other departments to fill other critical vacant county jobs.

The authors also decried disproportionate impacts on library staff members who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color. I agree wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, their union contract, negotiated with the county, holds seniority as a fundamental value over other factors. While some positions have protections around language or culture, many BIPOC library staff are more recent hires in positions without those protections.

Finally, the authors of the opinion piece say that the current budget is projected to have enough money to keep all staff, and no layoffs should take place, regardless of whether the current reality supports that number of jobs. Budgets are best-made plans based on projections and we simply live in a different world than we did in February when that budget was formulated. If we are to serve the public, we must look at using those dollars differently, such as investing in new technology like wi-fi hotspots and computers to loan, more online services, or making changes to building configurations to accommodate more people. Sticking to our pre-pandemic budgets staffing denies us the flexibility to invest in the tools the public needs.

The library is not alone in this  institutions, businesses and families across our community are grappling with the same struggle. As much as we would like to be immune, we are not.

I should and will continue to hear and act on staff input, and the input from families who cherish youth librarians and care about our staff. Ive heard the anguish and I share it. But I must also do my job as the librarys director to responsibly lead the organization through this unprecedented moment, leave it in better shape for future generations, and be accountable for how this public library uses hard-earned tax dollars.

Our job is also to look ahead to when the library is able to re-open. During these unstable economic times, the public expects and will receive our support, services and programs to help put the pieces of our community back together. That is when our resources will be needed the most.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-24 01:46:59|Editor: huaxia

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GAZA, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- An Israeli cruiser on Sunday chased Palestinian fishermen's boats some one mile off Gaza's coast, said Palestinian security sources.

The security sources, as well as local eyewitnesses, told Xinhua that the Israeli naval forces prevented the fishermen from fishing even at the distance of one nautical mile.

Palestinian activists posted photos and videos of the Israeli cruiser on Facebook.

Zakaria Baker, a coordinator of fishermen's committees in the Gaza Strip, condemned the Israeli practices against the fishers, stressing that "Israel insists on imposing collective punishments on the Palestinian people in the coastal enclave."

He called on the international community to pressure Israel to stop "its violations against the Palestinian fishers."

Since Israel decided to close the fishing area, the naval forces carried out about 50 violations against the local fishers, according to Baker.

Meanwhile, Palestinian fishermen are complaining about being deprived of access to the sea amid the military tensions between the Israeli army and the Islamic Hamas movement. Enditem
Six years ago, a strapping 19-year-old man swam and rowed to rescue more than a dozen security personnel from a flooded facility near Samboora village in Pulwama. Locals and the government hailed his brave and selfless act. Now 25, Asif Muzaffar Mir has signed up for militancy however, there are no clear reasons what led him to go on this dangerous path.

Asifs family members said that on August 10 their son went missing as he did not return home from his shop in the evening. He used to sell stationary items, perfume bottles at the neighbouring Kakapora market.

''We waited for a few days thinking he might have gone with friends but when he did not turn up, we approached police and registered a missing report,'' a family member told News 18.

But a few days later, police sources came to know that Asifhad joined the terror outfit- Jaish-e-Mohammad and he had even forbidden his family to look for him. A police official confirmed that Asif has indeed joined the militancy.

Asif was picked up by police several times, once he was jailed for two months in Srinagar and later in Pampore district. Nearly a month back, he was called to Jammu for questioning by the National Investigation Agency in Pulwama blast case, family members added.

''I am not sure if that could have led him to run away from home,'' said a family member.

Asif completed his graduation in Arts while his father is a retired private school teacher. He now ekes out his livelihood by leading prayers in his locality mosque. Asif's has only one younger brother who is studying in Class 11.

Similarly, another youth named Aadil Rashid, a resident of Charsoo village, Pulwama has also joined militancy. A final year BUMS student, he informed his parents about militancy in an audio message, where he asked them not to get sad. ''I have joined the mujahideen and you should not search for me. And pray for my success,'' he said.
Anyone who has ever spent time with a child knows it's like being a contestant on a TV game show. The days are filled with questions from morning to night. Question after question after question.

Children are not just curious, they're relentless. Mini-geniuses chasing you down in pursuit of the answers. And if you're wrong you lose. Some of us aren't great at general knowledge, some of us get impatient. And sometimes, like now, we just don't have the answers.

For me it started a couple of weeks ago. "What day will I be going into third class?" my almost nine-year-old daughter asked. "The 31st of August - it's a Monday," I replied while turning my back and quickly crossing my fingers. And my toes.

A few days later she came for me again. "I need new school shoes and a pencil case," she informed me with a confidence I only wish I shared. My daughter, like so many children, cannot wait to go back to school. She adores it: the teachers, the pals, the yard games and even the actual schoolwork. She's counting down to the big return in a manner normally reserved for the arrival of Santa - and if it doesn't happen I'm relocating to the North Pole.

The last six months have been tough. For everyone. There was a lot of talk last week about who in society has been hardest hit by the pandemic. Obviously those who lost their lives because of Covid-19 and their families paid the highest price. But it's not a competition. There are simply no winners here.

Frontline workers went out to work every day when the rest of us complained about being asked to stay at home. People lost their jobs and their businesses. Elderly people and those vulnerable to the virus were asked to limit their social contacts while young people felt their lives were put on hold.

I worked and tried to homeschool my daughter from my kitchen table. I never quite managed to keep all the balls in the air but I knew how lucky I was. No one close to me got sick and myself and my husband still had our jobs - we were just paid less. Over the past few weeks I've started to feel more nervous than at any other point previously and I know I'm not alone. Hiding away from this deadly virus was easy compared to living alongside it.

Last Tuesday's update from the Government and Nphet left most people confused. We all want, need and deserve consistency. What we got was anything but. Work from home, they advised, and avoid public transport. Yet, as it stands, from Thursday children will arrive, some on buses, at schools around Ireland.

Children need their education - it's essential. The science tells us children and young people have a low risk of getting Covid and if they do, then in most cases the symptoms will be mild. But the Government tells us clusters in schools are guaranteed.

If you're a parent trying to manage your own fears while also preparing your child, I see you. If you're a principal, a teacher or a SNA scrambling to make sure everyone stays safe, I see you too. But do you know who I don't see? Education Minister Norma Foley. At a time when clarity and reassurance was never needed as much, most of us are asking: 'Where is she?'

Calculated risk was so easy to get behind when it didn't involve our children.

So today is the last Sunday of freedom. From next week on, no matter how you busy yourself, the Glenroe theme tune will be playing. Except this year it's at full volume. This is a return to school like no other. If you're lucky you'll be ironing uniforms and not fishing them from the bottom of the laundry basket. Lunchboxes will need to be filled and school bags packed.

Every year we lament the slower days of the holidays and the much-needed break from routine, but usually by the end of August we're ready to get back to 'normal'. But that was in the good old days when 'normal' was guaranteed and an outbreak of head lice was the worst of our problems.

Susan Keogh presents Newstalk Breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays from 8am to 9am
Mumbai, Aug 23 : Actress Yami Gautam has tried to give proper time to her fitness and well being during the lockdown.

On Sunday, Yami took to Instagram and shared how she dealt with the serious neck injury.

"This post is very personal... Having suffered a serious neck injury, I have always had to be extra cautious -- especially owing to the fact -- amount of physical exertion due to dance, workout, non stop travel, physical activity, action, painful footwear, etc., and this list is endless, resonates with being an actor... somehow it's always been about never expressing the pain beneath the surface and rather conditioning your ownself to bear it and like its said, the show must go on," she wrote.

Yami added: "But this lockdown, I got to explore something which I couldn't before! Everytime I would try practising Yoga, I would be left more in pain owing to my condition, hence my experience never encouraged me to continue.. but this time I self-tutored my way through and allowed my body to heal itself inside out and it has worked like never before! "This lockdown was not about 'looking fit' or a workout of the day' ... it was the time where I listened & just went with the flow! I am no expert (which you shall clearly see in the images) ! I took my first baby step towards this journey, which shall not stop." On the work front, Yami will be seen opposite Vikrant Massey in "Ginny weds Sunny".
Houston Police Department / Contributed photo

Houston police are asking for the publics help to find a missing 2-year-old girl who was last seen playing at her apartment complex Saturday morning.

Maliyah Bass was wearing a colorful tank top and shorts and carrying a white pillow case with letter blocks inside when she was last seen on a playground in the complex at 10600 Beechnut St.
Australians may be able to fly to Hawaii by October 1 if a proposed travel bubble goes ahead.

The Hawaiian government is hoping to create a trans-Pacific travel bubble with Australia and Japan - among other countries in the Pacific - before the year ends to help the struggling tourism industry.

David Ige, the island state's governor, has long been saying he wanted to reopen his borders after enjoying relatively low coronavirus case numbers.

So far, Hawaii has diagnosed 6,356 COVID-19 cases even without closing the borders to other American states experiencing devastating outbreaks.

Mr Ige said in an August 18 press conference he would ideally like to kickstart the tourism industry again by October 1.

Australians could be able to travel to Hawaii by October 1 if a scheduled travel bubble goes ahead

'I have been working with mayors of all the counties to identify ways we can bring travellers back more quickly,' he said.

One of the ideas floated among leaders is to 'geo-fence' at resorts, which would essentially quarantine people for 14 days in the luxury accommodation.

Properties would take responsibility for ensuring guests didn't leave the resort for at least 14 days in that scenario.

But Mr Ige acknowledged that mightn't be appealing to all tourists, and is considering all other avenues to fire up tourism.`

'We are looking at exploring all options to safely bring trans-Pacific travellers to the island,' he said.

Earlier in the year Mr Ige suggested allowing travellers in if they'd had a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours of flying, but the plan had to be postponed three times following a spike in case numbers.

It now may form part of the October 1 bubble.

David Ige, the island state's governor, has long been saying he wanted to reopen his borders after enjoying relatively low coronavirus case numbers

Passengers arrive from a Qantas flight that flew from Melbourne at Sydney Airport to be met by health officials taking their temperature

The potential new bubble between Hawaii and Australia comes after Qantas boss Alan Joyce on Thursday announced the airline's international flights will likely resume in July 2021, after the federal government ordered a travel ban in March.

The insight came as Mr Joyce reported the flying kangaroo had lost a whooping $2billion in the 2020 financial year, as the aviation industry reels in the economic fallout of the global pandemic.

But while Aussies can look forward to being back in the air, the list of permitted destinations is expected to remain restricted for some time.

Qantas boss Alan Joyce on Thursday announced the airline's international flights will likely resume in July 2021

Mr Joyce said Qantas' larger aircrafts - such as A380s - will be grounded for years to come, indicating trips on longer flights routes could be further away.

'Most airlines will come through this crisis a lot leaner, which means we have to reinvent how we run parts of our business to succeed in a changed market,' Mr Joyce said during Thursday's trading post.

'We have parked the A380 for at least three years  We have put the 787s in long-term storage which fly transcontinental and we believe the earliest we will see the international borders opening up is the middle of next year.'

Aside from logistical costs, reopening tourism will depend largely on nations' control of local outbreaks.

'The US, with the level of (coronavirus) prevalence there, it is probably going to take some time. There will probably need to be a vaccine before we could see (flights) happening,' Mr Joyce said.

Aviation expert Neil Hansford predicts the Pacific Islands (Palau tropical islands pictured) will be the second destination to open to Australians

Singapore will be the third country Australians will be able to visit when international travel resumes

'We potentially could see a vaccine by the middle or the end of next year, and countries like the US may be the first country to have widespread use of that vaccine. So that could mean that the US is seen as a market by the end of 2021, hopefully we could, dependent on a vaccine, start seeing flights again.'

Australia and New Zealand have been in negotiations to create a trans-Tasman travel bubble since border closures came into effect, a plan indefinitely cancelled earlier this month in light of Auckland's coronavirus outbreak.

But Aviation expert Neil Hansford predicts the neighbouring nation will be the first to open to Australians.

He said the Pacific Islands will be next, followed by Singapore, Japan, Vietnam and Cambodia.

European holidays will then be on the cards, with flights resuming to the UK, then Germany, Scandinavia (except Sweden), and Ireland.

'I think the world understands social distancing of 1.5-2 metres and the opening up won't be universal,' Mr Hansford told news.com.au.

'Africa and South America could be 24-36 months away. Even with a vaccine only wealthy nations populations will be able to afford it and even in Australia to vaccinate all of us within three months would be impossible.

'Once other countries can demonstrate NSW levels, the world will open up.'

New Zealand is tipped to be the first available overseas holiday destination for Australians. A Woman hiker is pictured on mountain cliff in New Zealand's Kepler Track

The UK is forecast to be the seventh place available to Australians. Pictured: Big Ben, Westminster Bridge and red double decker bus in London, England

Mr Hansford said Victoria's outbreak set back international travel by four or six months, and travel to the UK and Hawaii could have otherwise recommenced between April and June 2021.

While the forecast flight dates appear promising, overseas travel is hinging on the development of a coronavirus vaccine.

Last month, Scott Morrison said globetrotting would not be possible until a jab becomes available to Australians.

'Right now, the opportunity for large scale travel beyond our borders is not foreseeable,' he told A Current Affair.
Protesters in Louisiana have called for accountability following the fatal shooting of a black man by police, with footage showing nearly half a dozen cops following the man before firing at least 10 shots.

In a video taken by a bystander and shared widely on social media, Louisiana police officers were seen on Friday evening following a man, later identified as Trayford Pellerin, 31, who was walking away.

The man was reportedly armed with a knife.

Police officers attempted to apprehend Mr Pellerin, and the man left the scene on foot. Officers then used stun guns on the man before firing at least 10 shots at him in front of a convenience store.

Mr Pellerin was taken to a nearby hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

The incident has caused a public outcry in Lafayette, with protesters and community leaders asking what else could have been done by officers to diffuse the situation prior to fatally shooting Mr Pellerin.

Louisiana's ACLU condemned the shooting after viewing the footage of the incident, calling it a "horrific and deadly incident of police violence against a black person." The ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center are now calling for an investigation into the shooting.

The Lafayette Police Department has since passed on the investigation into Mr Pellerin's death to the Louisiana State Police Bureau of Investigation.

The Independent contacted the department for a comment.

"Today I'm only asking for accountability. You know why? Because it was transparent what happened yesterday. It was a murder that took place," said Ronald Haley, an attorney representing the family of Mr Pellerin.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump has also taken on the case. The Tallahassee, Florida-based lawyer has previously represented other families of black men shot by police, including Trayvon Martin. He also is currently representing the family of George Floyd, who was killed by Minnesota police in May.

"We stand with Trayford's family in demanding justice and transparency into the reckless shooting and tragic killing of this man," Mr Crump said in a statement Saturday. "We refuse to let this case resolve like so many others: quietly and without answers and justice."

Protesters gathered on Saturday afternoon after the news of Mr Pellerin's death spread in the news and on social media. People were carrying Black Lives Matter signs and chanting "hands up, don't shoot", a battle cry often used following the death of a black person at the hands of police.

The protests started out peaceful but turned violent in the evening during a time across America when tensions are already high about police brutality against black Americans.

Officials said at a news conference late Saturday that fireworks had been shot at buildings and fires set in the median of a road where demonstrations had taken place.

"Our intent is not going to be to just let people disrupt our town and put our citizens and our motorists and our neighbourhoods in danger," Interim Police Chief Scott Morgan said.

Arrests were made, but the police department was unable to provide exact numbers.

Protesters are calling for the firing and arrest of the police officers involved in the shooting of Mr Pellerin. The police officers involved in the shooting have been placed on administrative leave with pay until the investigation is finished.

The incident on Friday evening started after police were called to the scene for "disturbance involving a person armed with a knife," according to a statement from the Louisiana State Police.

"As LPD officers attempted to apprehend Pellerin, he fled the scene and a foot pursuit ensued. Officers deployed tasers as they pursued Pellerin, but they were ineffective," the statement read, adding the man was holding a knife during the entirety of the exchange.

At least one officer fired his weapon at Mr Pellerin, Chief Morgan said, when the man was attempting to enter a convenience store.

This incident is the third shooting by Lafayette police since mid-July. One man was critically wounded by police last month after being shot during an altercation. Another man was in stable condition after being shot during a burglary last month.

When speaking to The Advocate, Mr Haley and Mr Crump said they would be seeking policy changes within the police department as well as justice for Mr Pellerin's family following his death on Friday.

"We want policy changes as well, so that Ben and I are not in the living room with another family in Lafayette dealing with this," Mr Haley told the publication.

More protests are expected in Lafayette on Sunday.
BOGOTA - Colombias Supreme Court is calling on powerful former President Alvaro Uribe to testify in an investigation into three massacres that could once and for all establish whether he had any ties to violent paramilitary groups.

The new legal quandary for Uribe is potentially more damaging than a separate Supreme Court probe into possible witness tampering that sparked protests earlier this month after magistrates placed the ex-president on house arrest.

Details of the massacre inquiry are contained in a 71-page court document obtained by The Associated Press on Sunday and also published in local media in which magistrates examine whether Uribe had any connection to three mass killings in the Antioquia department as well as the death of a human rights activist during his time as governor.

Both cases strike at long-standing  but never legally proven  accusations that Uribe had a direct role in paramilitary groups, which were formed by landowners during Colombias long civil conflict to fight violent Marxist guerrillas.

Though the Supreme Court is still in an investigative stage, the inquiries have split open tensions in Colombia over the peace process that led to an accord with the countrys biggest rebel movement. Uribe has vehemently denied the accusations and his lawyer is calling into question the timing of the new court request. Human rights activists, meanwhile, have praised the court for advancing the probes in a country where the powerful routinely escape accountability.

For decades, there have been serious questions about Uribes possible role in atrocities, said Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director of Human Rights Watch. Colombias Supreme Court is bravely working to uncover the truth despite multiple attacks from the former president and his allies.

In his decision, Magistrate Cesar Reyes asks for Uribe and several ex-paramilitaries to appear before the court in September and requests a wide scope of documents containing previous court testimony, official records and personnel files aimed at clarifying the circumstances around three massacres.

The killings  in La Granja, El Aro, and San Roque  happened in the late 1990s at a time when leftist rebels were gaining a foothold in the Antioquia region, where Uribe launched his long political career. Paramilitary groups heightened their presence in response, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has previously found.

In the most notorious of the three massacres, dozens of armed men tortured and assassinated at least 15 people in El Aro, about 135 miles (222 kilometres) north of Medellin, when Uribe was serving as governor of Antioquia. A large number of homes were set on fire, displacing numerous people, and hundreds of cattle were stolen.

Several ex-paramilitaries have previously testified that Uribe was one of the founding members of what became known as the Metro Bloc. In 2011, an ex-paramilitary alleged that one of Uribes properties was used as an operations headquarters. Another former combatant tied Uribe to the massacre in El Aro in 2015.

The inquiry also examines the death of Jesus Maria Valle Jaramillo, who was shot twice in the head in his Medellin office in 1998. The 53-year-old human rights activist had accused the army and high-ranking politicians of sponsoring death squads.

Reyes writes that the new request for information is based on the necessity of pushing forward previous probes to confirm any involvement in criminal conspiracy, aggravated homicide, kidnapping, forced displacement.

He also requests that several media outlets provide interview transcripts with ex-paramilitaries and asks to be provided with physical geographical studies of several properties, including the hacienda where Uribe is staying while under house arrest.

The case has been in the works for years, transferred from one court to another, and was at one point thrown out by the chief prosecutors office.

Uribes lawyer, Jaime Granados, questioned the timing, stating that his client has wanted to voluntarily testify for many years.

This is unexplainable, Granados said in a statement. Since 2012 Uribe has been waiting to give his version and clarify these lies.

The lawyer also said he was not alerted to the new filing until Wednesday, a day after Uribe resigned from the Senate.

The ex-presidents standing as a legislator is key, as under Colombian law only the Supreme Court can handle cases involving elected officials like Uribe.

Granados argues that the Supreme Court no longer has jurisdiction over Uribes cases and that the probes should be handed to Colombias chief prosecutor. Though several analysts believe the Supreme Court is likely to maintain authority over the case because the allegations concern events that took place while Uribe was in office, others contend it could be more a question of whether he used his role as a public official in carrying out any crimes.

The new filing also touches on former Colombian paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso, who is seeking deportation to Italy after serving a long drug sentence in the U.S. Colombia bungled an extradition request that had to be withdrawn last month and has mounted a last-minute campaign to ensure he is brought back.

Uribe deported Mancuso and 13 other warlords to the U.S. in 2008 in what his critics say was an attempt to quiet the men just as they began to reveal secrets about their crimes and politician collaborators, including the ex-president.

The Supreme Court is asking Caracol Radio for the complete interview it conducted with Mancuso from his jail cell in 2012.

Several of the ex-paramilitaries called to testify in the massacre probe are also considered key witnesses in the concurrent witness tampering investigation. The Supreme Court is analyzing whether Uribe had a role in trying to sway ex-paramilitaries into retracting previous declarations stating he had ties to their groups.

The allegations have rocked Colombia just as the nation enters the expected peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Supporters have staged protests from their cars.

At the crux of the dispute are long simmering apprehensions about how to hold those responsible for human rights abuses during the long conflict accountable.

Uribes allies, including current President Ivan Duque, contend it is inherently unjust for ex-guerrillas to be largely allowed to be free while testifying about kidnappings, murders and child recruitment during Latin Americas longest-running conflict while the former chief of state has been put under house arrest even while not yet charged.

The case  even without any actual charges  has increasingly morphed into a political dispute, with even U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence weighing in. Civil rights groups worry the independence of the court could be jeopardized.

The international community should have the courts back and firmly protect its independence, Vivanco said.
The Dallas Mavericks had Luka Doncic for Game 4 against the Los Angeles Clippers, but took the floor without Kristaps Porzingis, who was a late scratch. The team announced Sunday that Doncic would play in the contest despite suffering an ankle sprain Friday.

Doncic was key in the Mavericks 135-133 OT win in Game 4 to even the series at 2-2, hitting the winning 3-pointer as time expired. He finished with 43 points, 17 rebounds and 13 assists.

Porzingis was ruled out just before tip-off with right knee soreness. Its the same knee that forced Porzingis to miss several regular-season games, but not the knee that caused him to miss more than a full season with a torn ACL.

Doncic, 21, injured his ankle in the third quarter of the teams 130-122 loss to the Clippers in Game 3. Doncic continued to play despite the injury, but only scored 13 points in the contest, shooting just 4-of-14 from the field.

The Mavs listed Doncic as questionable for Game 4 due to the injury. An MRI on Doncics left ankle revealed nothing alarming, according to Tim MacMahon of ESPN.

Luka Doncic has been a force in the series

Before the injury, Doncic was a force in Games 1 and 2. He went for 42 points in a 118-110 loss in Game 1 before dropping 28 points in the Mavericks 127-114 win in Game 2.

After a dominant Game 4, the Mavericks are relying on Doncic to get them past the Clippers and win the first-round series.

Luka Doncic started Sunday's Game 4 win for the Mavericks despite ankle injury. (Ashley Landis/AP)

More from Yahoo Sports:
WATERLOO  Waterloo police officers need your help now.

The pride you feel when seeing the American flag is the same pride Waterloo police officers have putting on their uniform and going to work. Current and retired Waterloo police officers are proud of their uniform with the griffin patch on each shoulder. The griffin is also on each side of their patrol cars.

This patch has been proudly worn by all Waterloo police officers, including several Black officers, since 1964 when then Chief Robert Wright and Waterloo Daily Courier artist Jack Bender designed it to symbolize vigilance, which means to act as a guardian to our priceless possessions  Waterloo citizens.

Waterloo police are and always have been well respected by other local, state, and federal agencies. Reason being, we are good at what we do and always have been. Waterloo police were investigating major crimes, on a more frequent basis, long before such crimes recently spread to other eastern Iowa cities.

We dont have much: Look at our facilities compared with other departments and youll understand. We have always done the most with the least. We are a proud department, and our current Waterloo police uniform reflects that!

Sadly, in todays world of social unrest, for those few who hate police, attacking, disgracing, and belittling officers across the country is a common occurrence, thus attacking the griffin has become a tool for such purposes here in Waterloo.

In past years, the issue of the griffin being offensive to a few has come up occasionally, with claims it is similar to a KKK emblem of the past. Research again and again has shown there is no connection. Retired Former Waterloo Chief Bernie Koehrsen gave an excellent explanation of this in The Courier on Monday. Also read the recent response by the Waterloo Police Protective Association in The Courier.

During these periods of social unrest, there tends to be a loud minority and a quiet majority. The loud minority is quite good at what they do, and its working! The morale of officers is the lowest ever. Officers are considering career changes, and the attitude of just do the minimum and get to retirement age is becoming more common.

Unfortunately, Waterloo city government, rather than supporting their police and taking into account what hundreds have stated on social media, are seriously considering tampering with what has reflected our pride for over half a century, the Waterloo police uniform with its griffin patch.

To the quiet majority, your help is needed now. These are uncharted times, and your Waterloo police officers need your support. Show them the quiet majority does care and can make a difference.

Contact the Waterloo mayor and City Council, and ask them to look at the whole picture realistically and open-mindedly. Read the comments of so many citizens on social media.

Leave the uniform as is!

Lynn Moller is a retired Waterloo police officer and represents the opinions of the retired members of the Waterloo Police Protective Association.

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Nearly a fifth of 11,000 people enrolled so far in a 30,000-volunteer U.S. trial testing a COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer and German partner BioNTech are Black or Latino, groups among the hardest hit by the coronavirus virus pandemic, a top Pfizer executive said.

Between Latinx and Black or African American populations, were running at about 19 percent or so," Dr. Bill Gruber, Pfizers senior vice president of vaccine clinical research and development, told Reuters in an interview.

Were trying to push even higher than that." Black and Latino Americans are infected with COVID-19 at more than twice the rate of white Americans, with Native Americans infected at even higher rates, research has shown. The groups are historically underrepresented in clinical trials.

The companies vaccine has quickly advanced into late-stage testing, with some participants already getting their second of two doses.

Physicians and scientists have been urging companies testing coronavirus vaccines to include Black, Latino and indigenous Americans in COVID-19 vaccine trials in hopes of building trust among at-risk populations.

We have a lot of campaigns to reach out to those communities because they are overrepresented in terms of COVID-19 illness, so we are very keen to have those individuals as part of our trial," Gruber said on Thursday. They have higher attack rates and they are most likely to benefit."

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll in May, only half of Black Americans said they were somewhat or very interested in taking a COVID-19 vaccine.

Gruber did not disclose the number of Native Americans enrolled in the trial, but said Pfizer plans to draw on ties from its Prevnar 7 pneumococcal vaccine tests in the southwestern United States.

Im hopeful well be able to make further inroads in that community as well," he said.

Pfizer and BioNTech expect to have data sufficient for an emergency use authorization (EUA) or to start a full submission in October, according to Gruber.

The company does not need to finish recruiting the full 30,000 patients planned for the trial in order to have enough data to support an EUA, he said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said COVID-19 vaccine trials need to have a safety database of at least 3,000 individuals for each of the younger and elderly populations in which it is tested.

Ultimately, the speed with which the vaccine can be approved depends on how quickly patients in the placebo arm become infected with the virus, starting about a week after the second dose is administered. That began this week.

We wont really know until we get a little farther," Gruber said.

Were following the rules that assure rigor," he added, saying the company was taking no short cuts.

I cant tell you what will happen politically," Gruber said, when asked about concerns the Trump administration might pressure companies and regulators to announce progress before the November election.

Gruber said the companies were now in talks with the FDA about how to begin testing the vaccine in children, a group the regulatory agency itself is eager to gather data on.

Vaccines work differently in children and adults. Gruber said vaccine tests often progress in stages, first in older adolescents, then younger adolescents, and finally in children. But younger adults have higher rates of reactions, such as fevers and sore arms, to Pfizers vaccine than older adults do, Gruber said.

Roughly 17% of adults between the ages of 18-55 in Pfizers most recent trial had fevers after being given the vaccine, most of them mild, compared with 8% among those aged 65-85.

There is a risk those reactions could be even more heightened in younger populations, he added. Younger children - maybe thats not going to be tolerated. Maybe were going to have severe fevers," he said. Thats why were adopting a very thoughtful, graduated approach. Children are not just small adults.

Gruber said the company is submitting safety data to the FDA and working out a testing plan for children, which he expects to start soon.
https://www.aish.com/jw/s/Jews-and-Belarus-7-Facts.html

Jews have long played a pivotal role in Belarus.

Belarus has been in the news in recent weeks as widespread protests call for President Alexander Lukashenko, Europes longest-serving ruler, to step down instead of serve a sixth term. Formerly known as Belarrusia, this eastern European country has a long and fascinating Jewish history. Yiddish is even an official language.

Here are seven little-known facts about Belarus and Jewish life there.

Converting to Christianity and Welcoming Jews

In the Middle Ages, the lands that today comprise Belarus were ruled by kings and princes from neighboring Lithuania and Poland. One of the very first rulers to welcome Jews into the region was Jogaila, a Grand Duke of Lithuania and later King of Poland as well. Born a Pagan  like many people in the region at the time  Jogaila fought off radical Christian soldiers from German lands who saw fighting non-Christians as a holy duty.

Presumed image of Jogaila, painted c. 14751480, Krakow, Poland

Seeking to ally himself with local Christian nobles, Jogaila converted to Christianity in 1386 in the town of Kreva, which is today in the Grodno region of Belarus. He arranged to marry an eleven-year-old Polish princess named Jadwiga and thus elicit Polish military support. Jadwiga was so alarmed at the prospect of marrying a former pagan, she sent a messenger to spy on Jogaila and make sure he wasnt a demon. After their marriage, Jogaila was known as King Wladyslaw II Jagiello  he and Queen Jadwiga ruled jointly, and decided to adopt a radical Polish notion: welcoming Jews into their territories, just as Polish nobles had done years earlier.

Together with a Grand Prince named Vytautas, these forward-thinking rulers formally welcomed Jews into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which today comprises Belarus. Jews settled in the Belarrusian towns of Brest and Grodno in the 1300s, where they soon built flourishing communities.

King for a Day

In the 1500s, the Jewish community in the town of Brest was led by a widely admired leader named Shaul Wahl. Stories abound about Shauls piety  he served as a religious scholar and also as a political leader. He was a legendary figure even during his lifetime, and tales abound about his greatness, including the story that he served as King of Poland for a day.

Its said that the Polish-Lithuanian nobleman Prince Nicholas Radziwill (1515-1565) was a notorious scoundrel as a young man. When he was older he decided to travel to Rome and consult the Pope about the best way to repent; the Pope told Prince Radziwill to dismiss all his servants and to spend some time wandering as a beggar alone.

Prince Radziwill wandered Italy as a beggar and wound up in the Italian city of Padua, which had a vibrant Jewish community. Nobody aided him there and Prince Radziwill, still living as a beggar, suffered terribly. Even when he told people he was actually a prince in disguise, they ridiculed him and refused to believe his tale.

In desperation, Prince Radziwill appealed to the leader of Paduas Jewish community, Rabbi Samuel Judah Katzenellenbogen. Far from spurning him, the rabbi treated him kindly, taking him in and making the prince his honored guest. Rabbi Katzenellenbogen supplied the prince with funds to return to the lands of Belarus, and made only one request: the rabbis son Shaul had travelled to Belarus years before to study in some of the famous yeshivas there. He gave Prince Radziwill a picture of Shaul and asked if the prince could find the boy and pass along his fathers good wishes.

Prince Radziwill was good to his word. Back in Belarus, he visited many of the Jewish schools in various towns looking for Shaul. He finally found Shaul in the town of Brest, and was entranced by the young mans brilliance. Prince Radziwill invited Shaul to live with him in his castle, and there Shaul continued to study Jewish texts. Soon, Shauls fame spread throughout the region. Shaul became a major spiritual leader and even served in the Vaad, the Jewish Council governing Jewish communities in the region.

When King Stephen Bathori, who ruled the area that is today Belarus, died in 1586, two main political factions fought over who to appoint as a successor. Unable to agree on a new king, they approached Prince Radziwill. He turned them down, saying that if they wanted a man who was truly wise to lead them they should ask the Jew, Shaul. It was an audacious move: Jews were reviled in Christian society and could never normally hold power over non-Jews. Blood libels were common in the area. Nonetheless, its said that the nobles did follow the princes suggestions, crowning Shaul king and giving him the surname Wahl (meaning election).

King Shaul Wahl served for at least a day; some historians posit that he reigned for several days. During his brief reign, he personally signed several laws improving the treatment of Jews in that lands of Poland and Lithuania that today encompass Belarus.

First Modern Yeshiva

Yeshivas  Jewish schools  have existed for millennia; famous yeshivas flourished in Israel, Babylonia, across the Middle East and in Europe. In Belarus, the towns of Brest (also known in Yiddish as Brisk), Grodno, Minsk and others contained many well-regarded yeshivas.

Volozhin Yeshiva

These tended to be smaller schools, with a limited number of scholars studying with a small number of teachers. In 1803, in the Belarusian town of Volozhin, a major new Jewish thinker, Rabbi Chaim, set out to found a radically different yeshiva: a major center of Jewish learning that would attract the best and brightest students from hundreds of miles around. Rabbi Chaim  who became known as Reb Chaim of Volozhin  succeeded, and his yeshiva became synonymous with the highest level of Jewish scholarship in the world.

Rabbi Chaim was one of the main disciples of Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna, in nearby Lithuania, who was known simply as the Vilna Gaon (the Vilna Genius). Together they revolutionized the way Talmud is studied and emphasized moral character and development. In 1802 Rabbi Chaim issued a public letter calling on all Jews in the region to support his new yeshiva. He appointed a team of fundraisers to travel throughout the Jewish world raising money to support his school and invited students to audition for a place in his new yeshiva. Within the Volozhin Yeshiva, students studied in shifts  there were always students in the Beit Midrash, or study hall, 24 hours a day. The Jewish learning never ceased.

In 1892, the Volozhin Yeshiva was shut down by local authorities who feared that it might be harboring revolutionary viewpoints. The yeshiva did reopen later on but never regained its prominence. The legacy of the Volozhin Yeshiva lives on, however, in countless Jewish schools today which continue to operate and teach according to the high intellectual standards and principles of moral development that Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin once championed.

Chassidic Rebbes

Many of the greatest leaders of the Chassidic movement  a spiritual Jewish movement that began in the 1700s  lived in the area that today is Belarus. Chassid is a term in the Talmud used to denote a pious person who goes beyond the letter of the law, modelling what it means to be a good person and Jew. The Chassidic movement  its adherents call themselves Chassidim (the plural of Chassid) and strive to live a fully observant Jewish life infused with joy.

The Great Synagogue in Grodno, Belarus

One of the earliest Chassidic leaders, or Rebbes, was Rabbi Aharon bn Yaakov (1736-1772), known to his Chassidic followers as Aharon ha-Gadol (Aaron the Great). He was a disciple of Dov Ber, the Magid of Mezeritch, one of the earliest founders of Chassidism. Aharon brought Chassidic thought to Belarus and neighboring Lithuania, and founded a synagogue in Karlin, a town outside of Pinsk, in Belarus.

Evading the Nazis

On the eve of the Holocaust, the western portion of Belarus was part of Poland (ceded to Poland in 1921 in the Treaty of Riga). When Nazi forces invaded Poland in 1939, they allowed the Soviet Union to annex the area, giving the tens of thousands of Jews living in the western region of Belarus a brief reprieve from the Nazi death machine. That changed in June of 1941, when Germany broke its non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union and invaded Soviet lands. In western Belarus, that meant murdering nearly all of the Jews who lived there.

Belarus is a heavily forested country, and this enabled some Jews to hide out in the woods and fight Nazi forces as part of a loosely organized Belarusian resistance made up of several distinct partisan fighting groups. One was a loose collection of Jewish fighters who escaped Nazi soldiers and fled to the woods and were organized into a potent fighting force by Moshe Gildenman and his son Simcha.

In 1942, Moshe and Simcha  along with their relatives and thousands of other Jews  were confined to a ghetto in the Ukrainian town of Korets, near the Belarusian border. After watching two thousand Jewish residents of the ghetto be murdered, Moshe, Simcha and fourteen other Jews managed to escape, armed only with two guns and a knife. They made their way to the woods of Belarus, where they took in other Jews whod fled the Nazi onslaught, and sabotaged Nazi outposts.

An even larger group of Jewish partisan fighters was led by a remarkable family named Bielski. Rounded up with other Jews and imprisoned in the Jewish ghetto of the Belarusian town of Nowogrodek, four brothers from the large family  Tuvia (1906-1987), Asael (1908-1945), Zus (1910-1995) and Aharon (1927-) managed to escape the ghetto and set up camp in the Zabiedovo and Perelaz woods. Their camp offered a safe haven, and soon about thirty Jews  mainly their friends and relatives  joined them hiding in Belarussias dense woods. Tuvia, whod served in the Polish Army and was an ardent Zionist, took control of the makeshift camp.

As news of Nazi massacres of Jews continued to pour in, the Bielski brothers knew they had to do more to help their fellow Jews. They encouraged Jews to escape from the ghettos the Nazis forced them to live in, sent spies to Jewish ghettos to help Jews to escape, and posted guides in the forest to identify any Jews who managed to escape and guide them back to Bielskis camp. In 1942, when they learned that Nazi forces were about to liquidate the Jewish ghetto in the town of Iwie, they sent partisans into the ghetto and managed to smuggle over a hundred Jews out to safety. By the end of 1942, over 300 Jews were living in the Bielskis secret forest camp.

The Bielski Brothers

The Nazis heard of the mysterious Jewish camp hiding in the forest and in August 1943 they decided to flush out the Bielskis and the Jews they were hiding. Over 20,000 Nazi soldiers were dedicated to the task; a bounty of 100,000 Reichmarks was offered to anyone who could help capture Tuvia Bielski. By then, the camp contained over 700 Jews. Fearing that local peasants would turn them over to the Nazis, the Bielskis moved the encampment to the forbidding Naliboki Forest, a swampy, dangerous area where few people ventured.

There, the Bielskis set up a shtetl, or Jewish town, complete with a Jewish school, a synagogue, an infirmary, bakery, mill, laundry, tailor shops, shoemakers, carpenters, leather workers, and blacksmiths. They managed to clear part of the forest and grow wheat and barley. Fighting age men continued to fight Nazis, blowing up train tracks and bridges and helping Jews escape from Nazi prisons.

Jewish partisans in Belarus at the end of WWII

By the time they were liberated by the Soviet Army in 1944, the Bielskis encampment contained 1,230 Jews  most were women, the old and children. Each would have faced certain death were it not for the secret camp they helped establish that miraculously managed to evade detection and survive for over two long years.

Repeating a Blood Libel

The Jews of Belarus have long been accused of the blood libel, the baseless charge that they kill Christian children. Many of Belarus nearly 10 million citizens are Orthodox Christians, and their youngest saint is one of the most revered: St. Gavril of Bialystok. He was found dead  supposedly murdered by Jews, the Orthodox Church said at the time  near his home in 1690. Ever since, his memory has been used as a pretext to carry out pogroms against Jews in Belarus and elsewhere.

This blood libel got renewed attention in the 1990s, when official Belarusian state television showed a documentary about the saint which baselessly accused Jews of killing the child long ago, and added that Jews were members of a secret fanatical sect.

Jewish Renewal and Fears of Anti-Semitism

Unlike many eastern European nations, a significant Jewish community survived both the Holocaust and Communism in Belarus. From a high in 1897 of nearly a million Jews  over 14% of the population  today Belarus is home to between 10,400 and 25,000 Jews  out of a population of a little under 9.5 million people.

A memorial in Mogilev, Belarus for victims of the Nazis. The monument has been vandalized.

The country boasts Jewish schools and kosher restaurants and a robust Jewish life. Despite being able to practice Jewish religious and cultural life freely, the World Jewish Congress has observed, manifestations of anti-Semitism have been a cause of concern for the Jews in Belarus in recent years.

Despite the fact that relatively few Jews remain in Belarus, anti-Semitic vandalism and graffiti are common. President Alexander Lukashenko has at times contributed to the anti-Jewish atmosphere in his country. In an interview with Russian television, Pres. Lukashenko was quoted saying that not everything that Adolf Hitler did was bad. He also accused Jews of turning the Belarusian city of Babruysk into a pigpen.

People visit a destroyed Jewish cemetery in March near a memorial to Jews killed in Minsk's Jewish ghetto during the Nazi occupation.

With their country rocked by political protests and also beset with the Coronavirus crisis, some Belarusian Jews are voting with their feet. Since the pandemic, Belarusian Jews have made up the largest group making aliyah and moving to Israel  several dozen have landed in the Jewish state in recent weeks.
Rosemary Dyer had Mayor London Breed and state Treasurer Fiona Ma over the other day to see how renovation work was going on her new Treasure Island home. And while theres still a lot of work to be done, it was a big improvement over the state prison cells where she spent the past 34 years.

If I wasnt here, Id be sleeping in a cardboard box somewhere, Dyer told the reporters gathered the other day in the yard outside the former Navy apartment building.

Dyer, 67, was one of about 100 abused women serving life or life without parole for killing their abusive husbands or partners.

In 1985, Dyer shot her husband to death with the same gun he had used to threaten her. When she testified about the abuse, prosecutors used her words as evidence that she had a motive for the killing.

Dyer might still be in prison, but as luck would have it, a few years back a filmmaker showed then-Assemblywoman Ma a documentary about the abused women serving life sentences in California.

These women were doubly abused, first by their husbands and then by the system, Ma said.

Ma was chair of the Assembly committee that dealt with domestic violence. She began working on bills that resulted in the passage of two pieces of legislation to allow abused women serving life without parole to have their cases reviewed by the state Board of Parole Hearings or a judge.

They were my last two bills in state Assembly, Ma said. Gov. Jerry Brown signed them into law in 2012.

Fast-forward to this year, when after a review by the parole board, Gov, Gavin Newsom commuted Dyers sentence. She was released in April.

Ma drove six hours to the California Womens Institution in Chino (San Bernardino County) to pick Dyer up herself.

She couldnt fly, Ma said. She uses a wheelchair and doesnt have any ID.

Plus, after more than three decades in prison, Dyers family and friends werent around, and she had no place to go.

The state never set up programs for what to do when women who had been serving life without parole got out, Ma said. Their only option for a place to stay was to enroll in a drug or alcohol program, and she doesnt have a drug or alcohol problem.

Enter Five Keys, a nonprofit that works in two of San Franciscos homeless Navigation Centers, and teaches classes in the county jail.

With the help of the city and state and private donors, Five Keys has set up a program called Home Free, with the goal of providing a home for up to 11 formerly incarcerated abused women in former Navy housing on Treasure Island.

Nothing fancy. Two women to an apartment, each with their own room.

Thats all they want, Ma said. They are happy to share a living room and kitchen, but after so many years in a cell, they dont want to have a bunkie, which is what they call a roommate in prison. All they really want is a room of their own.

Sunny Schwartz, who founded the first Five Keys Charter School in the county jail, said one of the most amazing aspects of the program is the women themselves.

These women survived horrific violence and were wrongly imprisoned for decades, Schwartz said. The amazing paradox is they are not embittered, as they only want to heal, work, rebuild their lives and bring voice to other women who have been painfully forgotten.

For now, Dyer is staying at a hotel leased by the city until her new home is ready.

People ask whats it like getting out of prison only to move into this health pandemic, Dyer said. Its wonderful. Thats what I say to myself every day. Its wonderful.

Jana Asenbrennerova / Special to The Chronicle 2019

Land ho: The man responsible for creating the San Francisco Port Commission 52 years ago is about to become its newest member.

John Burton, whose public career has included stints in the Assembly and state Senate, and the U.S. House of Representatives, has been tagged by Mayor London Breed to replace Commissioner Victor Makras.

Makras did not seek reappointment when his term expired in July.

I was on the wharf having the best sand dabs you can find, Burton said. I look around and I see all of these businesses are going down the drain because of the virus. I think about what Robert Kennedy said. It was something like, Some people ask why? I say why not?

So at 87, he volunteered and the mayor took him up on it.

John Burton knows the waterfront as well as anyone, and his long history of public service is unparalleled in San Francisco today, mayoral spokesman Jeff Cretan said. More importantly, he wrote the Burton Act, which gave the city local control over our waterfront. It would be hard to find someone more qualified to serve on the Port Commission.

It was back in 1968 when then-Assemblyman Burton overheard then-Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh mention something about just coming back from lunch with then-Mayor Joe Alioto, an old-guard rival of the Burton hometown progressive political machine.

Burton asked what Alioto wanted, and Unruh said something about transferring control of the port to the city.

I went right over and had a bill introduced to have the city take control of the port, Burton recalled. I just thought that since it was in my district that I should be the one to do it.

What emerged was a bill to transfer the port, which the state controlled at the time, to the city for the good of the residents.

These days, the port is primarily a giant real estate operation that controls the citys prime waterfront properties. Fights over how to develop the waterfront have led to some of the citys biggest political fights.

And you can thank the Burton Act for that.

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
Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussexs groundbreaking royal exit announcement has set the stage for a new phase of life within the royal family. The couple revealed back in January that they would be stepping back from their roles as senior royals.

Despite the initial shock, nobody was too surprised  and the couple had reportedly started planning the exit after an argument that took place in summer 2019.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle | Phil Noble/Pool/Getty Images

Prince Harry and Meghan Markles royal exit made waves within the family

When Harry and Meghan started dating, the couple did their best to keep the relationship private. However, the two quickly learned that no such thing was possible. Instead, Meghan became the center of attention  and not in a good way. The press was constantly looking for reasons to tear down the duchess, even after she and Harry wed in 2018.

Meghans relationship with Kate Middleton was reportedly on bad terms for a while, which only added to the tension within the family. And any time Harry spoke out in defense of his wife, he was dragged down, too. Finally, after less than two years as a working royal couple, Harry and Meghan officially left their roles and moved to North America.

RELATED: Fans Think Meghan Markle Could Have Been More Patient With the Royal Family

The two reportedly started planning their departure after Harry argued with aides last summer

Though the couples official announcement came in January, they reportedly started planning their royal exit after a heated discussion about the press back in 2019. Royal biographer Omid Scobie told The Cut that Harry and Meghans treatment in the press caused Harry to request a restructuring of the press system. Harry hoped the change would make him and Meghan more accessible to a wider, more diverse media landscape, Scobie said.

The request was not well-received within the palace walls. The answer was, Well, if you want to do that, you can pay for your own engagements. Scobie said it was at that point that Harry and Meghan started to discuss the idea of a royal exit.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle | Simon Dawson/WPA Pool/Getty Images

RELATED: Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Still Want Media Attention Despite Lawsuits

Meghan Markle recently revealed that she felt unprotected by the royal family

Meghan and Harrys ongoing lawsuits against British tabloids have led to revelations about what life was like for Meghan within the royal family. Recent court documents revealed that the duchess felt unprotected by the palace during her pregnancy with Archie.

The royal family has long held the belief of never complain, never explain, when it comes to rumors. And Meghans inability to defend herself only added more complexity to an already tense royal life.

The couples relationship with the other royals remains fragile

Today, Harry and Meghan are settling into their new home in Montecito, California, while they visualize the next chapter for the Sussex Family. Some suspect the two will have another baby, while others think theyre more focused on getting their new charity, Archewell, up and running.

Ultimately, the couples relationship with the rest of the family remains unknown. There have been rumors that Harry is leaning on Prince William now more than ever, and that Harry and Meghan remain close with Prince Charles and the queen. Still, in keeping with the family mantra, no family members have ever explained where relationships actually stand.
Om Raut said he selected Prabhas for the titular role of Adipurush because the actor has the depth required to essay the character.

Filmmaker Om Raut is gearing up for the screen adaptation of the epic Ramayana in his next, Adipurush, and says he chose superstar Prabhas for the titular role as the actor has the depth required to essay the character.

Backed by Bhushan Kumars T-Series, the multilingual project was announced last week, with Om tweeting the first look of the film.

Adipurush is touted as a film celebrating the victory of good over evil.

Asked what made him select the Baahubali star for the role, Om told Press Trust of India, I think Prabhas is just perfect. His entire persona, the calmness that he has. His eyes are so deep, his stance, the way he carries himself, his entire personality. I could see Adipurush in him and if it wasnt him, I wouldnt have made the film.

Though the director said it is too early to talk about the aspects of Lord Rams life the film would touch upon, the team is working hard towards making the story come alive on the big screen.

It is the story of Prabhu Ram. Its one aspect of the epic saga, its my screen adaptation of the epic. There are too many preparations underway. Fortunately, the research is already in place. From a historical point of view, the notes are already there.

But when you do a screen adaptation, theres a lot of research from authenticity, technological points of view. A lot of storyboards are happening, asset creation, designing the characters as we speak.

The film would be a follow-up to Oms 2020 blockbuster Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior, starring Ajay Devgn, Saif Ali Khan and Kajol.

The director said Adipurush was an idea he had in his mind even before Tanhaji went on floors but had put it on the backburner.

Back then, I had written a basic draft after a lot of research. I spoke to my team and they were all excited to explore this again. So the first two months were spent rewriting it, updating the screenplay I had written before and we realised it worked very well.

The events didnt change but the treatment obviously was made different, something which reflects todays time. Thats when I narrated it to Prabhas and met him when the lockdown was over.

Adipurush is scheduled to go on floors in January 2021 with an aim to release theatrically in 2022.

While there are reports that the filmmaker is in talks with several other actors for the ensemble, including Keerthi Suresh and Saif, Om said the team is in the midst of finalising the cast and an announcement will be made later.
Jozef was provided civilian clothing, a new identity (Jozef Skibinski) and a new passport. He was given a train ticket and a bit of money which would take him across the border into Croatia. His personal initiative drove him by foot and train from Croatia through Slovenia and Italy to France where in April 1940, he was again assisted by the Polish Embassy and was permitted to rest and regain his true identity and rank. In Coetquidan, France, Jozef joined a growing battalion of Polish volunteers to the French army and was issued a khaki-green French army uniform. In May 1940, Germany invaded Belgium and in June German troops conquered the invincible Maginot line in northern France and began moving toward Paris. Jozef was on the run again.

With their division in France disbanded, Jozef and a close friend, hearing report of Germany's advances, learned that Britain was sending two destroyers across the English Channel to help with the evacuation of soldiers. Jozef managed the 40 mile distance to the French coast and boarded one of those ships destined for the U.K. After arriving in Britain, Jozef joined the first Polish Army unit in Scotland, whose mission was to guard the Scottish coastline. He was issued his khaki English Army uniform and began intensive lessons to learn the English language. Jozef achieved the rank of Second Lieutenant.
Diesel consumption, a bellwether of economic health, saw a 12.7% decline in July this year compared to the preceding month mainly because of demand constraints, heavy rains in various parts of the country and weekend lockdowns still prevailing in several areas.

While the consumption of diesel in July this year dropped to 5.5 million metric tonne (MMT) compared to 6.3 MMT in June 2020, overall consumption of petroleum products also saw a 3.7% drop at 15.7 MMT in July 2020 compared to 16.3 MMT in the previous month, according to oil ministrys data keeper petroleum planning and analysis cell (PPAC).

Consumption of diesel has witnessed an encouraging year-on-year ease in contraction from -55.5% in April to -29.3% in May and -15.4% in June after the lockdown was gradually relaxed from June 1. The trend, however, saw a reversal in July with a 19.3% contraction.

Experts, however, said that the demand for diesel usually decreases in the monsoon months of July and August, hence the positive trend of economic recovery that continued after Unlock 1.0 will sustain in coming months with the resumption of more and more business activities . The country had been under a 68-day lockdown since March 25. It started opening up gradually from June 1, with Unlock 1.0. The Union government on June 29 issued guidelines for Unlock 2.0 to lift more restrictions, imposed to stop the spread of Covid-19 pandemic, effective for a month from July 1.

Ram Singh, professor at the Delhi School of Economics said a drop in diesel demand in July 2020 compared to June 2020 does not indicate any major blip in the ongoing economic recovery, which will continue to improve in the coming months. Diesel consumption saw a jump in June because of a pent-up demand after the lockdown... Besides, the onset of monsoon in July also reduced demand for diesel [for irrigation], he said.

SC Sharma, an energy expert and former officer on special duty at the erstwhile planning commission, said, High consumption of diesel in June occurs due to harvesting and to some extent due to DG [diesel generator] based electricity demand. However, as monsoon enters, the agriculture and power demand is largely met by monsoon water as also wind power and hydro power. Accordingly, diesel demand goes down by 15% to 20% during July, August every year.

According to the latest Industry consumption Report published by PPAC, certain restrictions at state and district levels coupled with a lower demand for products and services moderated the speed of recovery of diesel consumption to the pre-Covid level. Diesel consumption in July 2019 was 6.8 MMT.

The report pointed at key factors affecting diesel consumption in July. Unlock 2.0 has carried forward the economic recovery but at a moderate pace. Most of the industries across states are operating at 70 to 80% capacity due to a subdued demand, it said.

Also Read: Weekend lockdown, odd-even restrictions will kill businesses:Shopkeepers in Ludhiana

Weekend lockdowns and other restrictions imposed by state and district administrations to curtail the spread of Covid-19 have also affected the consumption of diesel, it said. While rural demand on account of agriculture related activities continues to drive consumption growth, floods in Bihar and certain north eastern states have also affected consumption, it added.

Also Read: China investors brace for record defaults in risky end to 2020

The report said diesel consumption in July 2020 was also affected by other factors such as slow growth in sales of commercial vehicles and a decline in port traffic. Commercial vehicle sales as reported by individual companies are showing a slow pace to recovery. Major automobile companies have reported a fall in sale of M&HCV [medium and heavy commercial vehicle] by about -70% and of LCV [light commercial vehicle] by about -30%, it said.

According to the report, the traffic handled at major ports in India fell by 13.2% and collectively they handled 51.5 MMT of cargo during July 2020 as against 59.3 MMT handled during the corresponding period of the previous year.
Several Canadian cabinet ministers tweeted their approval earlier this month when Kamala Harris was picked to be Joe Bidens running mate in the U.S. presidential election.

Nothing like that is going to happen again before November.

Justin Trudeaus government has adjusted its rules of engagement with the United States for two big reasons.

First is the reality that the American election is about to move into overdrive, with both the Democratic and Republican conventions out of the way by the end of August. Biden and Harris became the official nominees this week, at a convention much watched by political junkies north and south of the Canada-U.S. border.

Trudeau has reportedly warned his ministers to stay far away from commenting on U.S. politics, and that includes even relatively benign congratulations to the first Black woman nominated for vice-president. The last thing Trudeau needs is Trump accusing Canada of taking a side in the coming contest, sources say.

The second reason is more domestic and is another part of the fallout of the major shuffle that took place in Trudeaus cabinet this week.

With Chrystia Freeland moving to the finance ministers job, her responsibility for overseeing the Canada-U.S. relationship will now be diffused more widely between several ministers, as the CBCs Katie Simpson first reported this week.

While Freeland will keep her hand on finance-related matters with our neighbour, Canada-U.S. issues will also now be managed by Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, Trade Minister Mary Ng and Public Safety Minister Bill Blair.

This multi-minister approach, government sources explained, is more like the usual way of handling the relationship with the United States. Having one minister in charge  Freeland, in this case  was a product of the unusual chaos created by the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Strange times call for strange cabinet configurations and Freelands job spoke to just how weird the Liberal government feared things could get when Trump moved into the White House.

Even before Trump officially assumed office early in 2017, in fact, Canada was being served notice that big trade fights were looming and crucial parts of the Canadian economy, like the auto sector, were in the crosshairs.

So in January 2017, Freeland was plucked from her trade ministers portfolio and put into foreign affairs, with special responsibility for the Canada-U.S. relationship. For the next two years, that responsibility was as demanding as it threatened to be, with all the bluster, threats and tariffs that Trump was throwing at this country.

But a new NAFTA deal was reached in late 2018, and came into effect this summer. Its not exactly crisis over  aluminum tariffs are back, thanks to another salvo from Trump in the past couple of weeks  but its not an all-out trade war, as Canada feared back in 2017.

Besides, for the past few months, Freeland had already been disentangling from all Canada-U.S. relations, all the time. Named as deputy prime minister after last falls election, Freeland had turned her focus closer to home, to federal-provincial relations. Managing all those Conservative premiers was a full-time job, especially after the pandemic hit and the need was acute for Canada and the provinces to work together.

The old cabinet committee on Canada-U.S. relations was also dissolved  or, at least, renamed  after last years election. Most (but not all) matters related to Canadas relationship with the Americans are now handled by the committee on global affairs and public security.

Trudeau still has a unit dedicated to Canada-U.S. matters headed by adviser Brian Clow within the Prime Ministers Office, but the pandemic  not Trump, for a change  is what dominates the working day of most of Trudeaus advisers nowadays.

Its not really a secret that this government would welcome a Biden presidency. When Canada was mentioned at this weeks Democratic convention, for instance, it was cast as either a drive-by casualty of Trumps partisan excesses or a better-run country by comparison.

The tragedy of where we are today is it didn't have to be this bad, Biden said in his big speech Thursday night. "Just look around. It's not this bad in Canada. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, in her address to the convention, said of Trump, He blames the prime minister of Canada for cutting him out of the Canadian version of Home Alone 2. Who does that?

But none of Trudeaus cabinet ministers were putting anything on Twitter and it appears that some may have deleted earlier tweets related to U.S. politics, even the ones praising Harris.

As things heat up down south, Trudeaus government has clearly decided that the best way to handle the Trump-Biden showdown is at a safe distance.

Susan Delacourt is an Ottawa-based columnist covering national politics for the Star. Reach her via email: sdelacourt@thestar.ca or follow her on Twitter: @susandelacourt

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Washington, DC - The Department of Justice Wednesday filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit supporting a parochial high school student and her parents who claim that Vermont discriminated against them in violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the U.S. Constitution by excluding them from a state program paying tuition for high school students to take up to two college courses.

Ever since our patriotic ancestors declared our independence, rejected monarchy, and established the United States of America, our nation has supported and defended a very simple and important ideal, namely, that government may not discriminate against people of faith because of religion. Our Founding Fathers enshrined this principle in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, and the United States today remains dedicated to the right of all people to practice their faith without suffering injustice at the hands of governments, said Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband for the Civil Rights Division. The First Amendment, common decency, and our shared humanity demand no less. The Department of Justice will continue to defend the right of all people to exercise religion according to the dictates of their faith and conscience.

Religious liberty is a fundamental and foundational right in this country, said Christina E. Nolan, U.S. Attorney for Vermont. We support the rights of students to both exercise their religion and participate fully in Vermonts educational programs. Especially in light of the Supreme Courts recent ruling on religious liberty and educational benefits, we believe this case advances the twin paramount goals of maximizing educational opportunities for young Vermonters and vigilantly guarding religious freedom.

The appeal, A.M. v. French, involves a challenge to the exclusion of students attending religious high schools from Vermonts Dual Enrollment Program. This program provides high school students the opportunity to take up to two college courses while still in high school, with tuition paid by the State. It is open to public school students, home school students, and students attending nonreligious private schools who do not have a public high school in their school district. The program, however, excludes those students without public high school in their district who choose to attend private religious schools. The student, A.M., attends a parochial school and would like to participate in the program and take courses at the University of Vermont, which she would be able to do were her school a secular private school.

A federal trial court on May 29, 2020, denied a preliminary injunction to the student and her parents, holding that they had not shown that they were likely to succeed on their claim under the Free Exercise Clause. The United States brief, however, argues that the District Court erred in not holding that the exclusion of the student from the Dual Enrollment Program was a likely constitutional violation, particularly in light of the Supreme Courts decision on June 30, 2020, in Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue, barring discrimination based on religious status in a state scholarship program. The United States brief argues that [t]he Supreme Courts repeated holdings, including in Espinoza, that religious entities and their adherents cannot be excluded from or disadvantaged under public programs and benefits based on their religious character, make clear that [the student and her schools] disqualification from the Dual Enrollment Program is impermissible under the Free Exercise Clause.

In July 2018, the Department of Justice announced the formation of the Religious Liberty Task Force. The Task Force brings together department components to coordinate their work on religious liberty litigation and policy, and to implement the Attorney Generals 2017 Religious Liberty Guidance.
Not knowing how to code today is like living in another country (without Google Translate) and knowing not a word of the language. We learn a smattering of French before we head to Paris; we give German a shot before going to Berlin. How can you work with a machine all day and not speak its simple lingo? The earlier you start, the better; but it is also never too late  as anyone who has placed an order in a Paris cafe will attest to. As with any new skill, even a little knowhow means you can proceed with confidence, identify your focus or interest areas, and finally be able to see behind the screen.

So your web world isnt such a mystery to you

Not knowing how to code today is like living in another country (without Google Translate) and knowing not a word of the language. We learn a smattering of French before we head to Paris; we give German a shot before going to Berlin. How can you work with a machine all day and not speak its simple lingo? The earlier you start, the better; but it is also never too late  as anyone who has placed an order in a Paris cafe will attest to. As with any new skill, even a little know-how means you can proceed with confidence, identify your focus or interest areas, and finally be able to see behind the screen.

To improve problem- solving ability

When you start thinking like a programmer, it changes your perspective on the world. You start to see challenges in terms of a problem and a solution. In coding, your goal is to identify the problem, and come up with a possible solution. If that solution doesnt work, you think of another. If the second fails too, you try and find a workaround. Still nothing? Then you go back to the first and second tries and see if theres something you missed. Of course, this kind of approach has multiple applications  including people-management and how to deal with your annoying cousin who wont stop asking questions.

Sharpen logical thinking

Even if you dont plan to do any programming, the process of learning how to code will train your brain to think in a structured way and will sharpen your capacity for logical thinking, says Akhil Shahani, managing director of the Shahani group of institutes. When you learn to code, you learn to take a complex problem and break it down into smaller components. The analytical skills you acquire in the process will help you in the long term, whatever your field.

Add a technical skill to your primary bouquet of abilities

From agriculture to retail, medicine, commerce, finance and science, there is no field that tech doesnt touch. In fact, as software takes education silos and forces them to merge, learning to code could be the thing that helps you  whether youre 4 or 40  ready yourself for a future world. Automation has already taken over and artificial intelligence is the future. Everyone is going to be either a creator of software or a user, and its a good idea to be equipped to do the basics of both, says Ashish Chawla, a web developer at Reportcard Technologies, an online student management platform for teachers and educational institutions.

Its an exercise in persistence

Coding will make you more focussed on details because one wrong line will cause the entire programme to fail, says Dr Shahani. You need to start with a good plan, then look out for potential problem areas and finally work towards your goal step by step, trying to be as error-free as possible at each stage. Kids may get impatient, some adults may too. Which is why coding can act as an exercise in persistence and concentration, with highly satisfying results.

Nothing says team-work like building something virtual together

Coding is often a collaboration. Its a job that yields better outcomes if a gang of programmers are working on a problem or programme together. Working or building something new with a bunch of people you can bounce ideas off is a great way to achieve and improve on collaborative and team-building skills. Coding does not work in isolation. If Im developing a game for example, there are many perspectives you have to consider  you will need someone to design the graphics, an experience developer to build the user interface. Its invariably a team effort, says Chawla.

To secure your future

Technology has pervaded in every industry, not only the core ones but also retail, hospitality, everywhere. Knowing how to build a programme or at least how the programme works will be a necessity in no time, says Shahani. So anyone who knows at least the basics of coding will have an edge over anyone who doesnt.

So you can build your own online presence / enterprise from the ground up

A knowledge of coding can make you truly atmanirbhar! Want to start a blog? Build a website for yourself or launch a business that operates out of an app? Learning to code is a necessary first step.

Its an educational building block you can use to access entirely new and vital avenues of skill development

A mere 20 years ago, coding was considered a highly technical thing that was the domain of geeks, software engineers and computer scientists. Think about those words  engineers, scientists. The technology itself has evolved so seamlessly and so fast that coding involves less expertise and more experimentation; AI is working to help you at every step; collaboration is a click away. Even the smallest understanding of this world, then, can act as a gateway, a portal into a world of building blocks waiting to be tinkered with, shaped, moulded into architecture.

And its fun

You can create your own video game, make your own app. Channel your creativity to create something entirely unique  whether its a musical beat or a software solution. Once you start, it is irresistible and fun.

EXPERT VIEW-

Sandip Patel, MD, IBM India/South Asia: Coding is fast emerging as a critical next-generation skill. There is a significant gap between demand and availability of skilled talent in emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, machine learning and cybersecurity. In addition to demystifying these emerging technologies, introducing students to coding early on places a focus on innovation, agility and resilience  essential skills for managing change successfully.

Manan Khurma, CEO, Cuemath: We are at a stage when we must embrace an AI-driven future. With coding and mathematics already at the forefront in a data-driven world, these skills will be essential. Mathematics forms the base of both coding and artificial intelligence. We ensure that children learn mathematics and coding just like they would learn a language. Our vision is to build an intuitive problem- solving mindset among children.
Karli* was all set to enter a drug rehabilitation program, but before doing so she had one big concern.

There was nowhere for her two cats, Brittany and Don, to stay while she was away.

"I didnt want to lose them": Karli with her cats Brittany, in her arms, and Don. Credit:Penny Stephens

Giving them away was out of the question.

"They've been loyal through all the stuff that Ive been through," she said. "Theyre there when Im upset. Theyre steady and a comfort. They havent given up on me yet."
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As COVID-19 wreaks havoc across the world, many nations imposed strict lockdowns to contain the spread of the virus. Public places, restaurants, workplaces and hotels also faced the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic. However, Saudi Arabia is now relaxing restrictions on movement taken to contain the disease by announcing that government employees will return to work from August 30.

As per several reports, The Saudi Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development said that flexible working hours and work from home for up to 25 per cent of workers will continue. An official at the ministry reportedly said that the decision was taken after reviewing the health reports and data of the countrys cities and governorates.

Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, Eng. Ahmed bin Sulaiman Al Rajhi, took to Twitter to share the news.

To ensure the safety of all the employees returning to work soon, the ministry added that the people should follow measures and health guidelines during working hours. The decision excludes groups most at risk of infection. The employees at high-risk would be allowed to work remotely. Saudi Arabia closed work places and offices in most government and private sectors during the early spread of the virus.

Read: Saudi Arabia's King Salman Arrives At Red Sea Megacity Of Neom To Rest After Surgery

Read: Trump Holds Talk With Saudi Arabian Crown Prince About Economic Recovery Amid Coronavirus

The Saudi Ministry to resume camel racing amid COVID-19

As per reports, the ministry official also added that heads of entities or whoever they delegate have the right to apply remote work for a number of employees, provided that a number of conditions are complied with. The ministry official also said that biometric clocks which require employees to punch in and out using a fingerprint should remain suspended.

Reportedly, the official source also stressed upon the need to adhere to the preventive protocols and follow restrictions in workplaces published on the website of the National Center for Disease Prevention and Control. As per reports, the ministry will also allow camel racing to resume with proper precautions in place.

On August 23, Saudi Health Ministry announced 184 fresh coronavirus cases. Saudi Arabia has recorded a total number of 306,370 cases so far, with 3,619 fatalities. The nations recoveries rose to 78,441 with 1,374 new recovered cases.

(Image credit: AP)

Read: Saudi Arabia: Health Ministry Says No Coronavirus Cases Recorded Among Pilgrims

Read: Russia To Conduct Clinical Trials Of Its Controversial Coronavirus Vaccine In Saudi Arabia
Labelling herself as "the psychic", Vu Thi Hoa says she can locate the remains of unknown martyrs from war. With well-prepared fraudulent tricks, she plays on emotional triggers to get gullible victims to provide her big bucks.

Vu Thi Hoa at the investigation agency

From fake medical treatment, forging martyrs graves

From 2011 to 2014, Hoa together with her husband Chu Xuan Thu and others formed a group to locate the graves of martyrs with sophisticated tricks such as purchasing ancient military tools, or even burying buffalo bones and cow bones in the forest to fake the remains of martyrs, which helped them easily swindle martyrs relatives. This group has been ongoing with many typical cases done in the provinces of Ba Ria - Vung Tau, Tay Ninh, Dak Nong and elsewhere.

Hoa even returned home in Yen Bai to set up an altar for regular gatherings to chant prayers. She also did unreliable fortune-telling, and offered medical treatments to sick people by giving them coconut water and some types of tubers and leaves of unknown origin. In peak times, 40 to 60 people from other localities joined Hoa's spiritual medical examinations and treatments.

In 2015, Military District 7, after detecting signs of deception, banned all operations by the couple within the area. When requested by authorities to authenticate their suspicious activities, Vu Thi Hoa, in a twinkling, fled the locality.

Snake skin serves the psychics fraud

Hoa even returned home in Yen Bai to set up an altar for regular gatherings to chant prayers. She also did some unreliable fortune-telling, offered medical treatments to sick people by giving them coconut water and some types of tubers and leaves of unknown origin. In some peak times, there were 40 to 60 people from other localities joining Hoa's spiritual medical examination and treatment.

In 2015, Military District 7 after detecting signs of deception, banned all operations from the couple within the area. When requested by authorities to authenticate their suspicious activities, Vu Thi Hoa, in a twinkling, fled the locality.

Cunning scams

Gilded metal blocks seized by the police

In 2016, Vu Thi Hoa established a non-business Forestry and Medicinal Trading One Member Limited Liability Company (headquartered in Ngoc Thanh commune, Phuc Yen city) specializing in fortune telling and spiritual medical cures. Tens of billions can be a pretty penny for such a scammer.

The woman had someone dig a tunnel of about 30m deep in the courtyard of her house, then placed in 27 tons of gilded metal block, with 1kg of authentic gold mixed in to fool villagers eyes. Thu provided great help to his wife's cheating by purchasing many species of snakes with teeth and venom removed, then stuffed their mouths with fake colored stones, which supported his wifes tricks later.

The scammer contacted Mr. N.V.D for help and expressed her wish to hand over the gold blocks to the State with a multi-day ceremony as she explained this was spiritual gold. After the deal to transfer seven gilded metal blocks (251kg) to Mr. N.V.D, Hoa borrowed 4.5 billion Vietnamese dong from this man to hold the ceremony. During the process, two prepared snakes were released into the ceremony area. At the same time, Hoa caught them to free the fake pearls from their mouth as an act to gain trust from witnesses.

The cellar dug for gold store in Hoas house

Hoa asked Mr. N.V.D to place VND10 billion on gold-plated metal blocks for a live release, as a mandatory part of the ceremony. With no doubts, the victim did. For a few days, the fraudster continued to ask for an additional VND70 billion, yet Mr. N.V.D was not able to provide that amount of money for the offerings, so Hoa left, leaving seven fake gold blocks.

Mr. N.V.D then decided to have the gold examined and found out most of it was counterfeit. Shortly after, the "psychic" swiftly filed an application to the Criminal Police Department - Ministry of Public Security to denounce Mr. N.V.D of appropriating her 251kg of gold.

Police agency in investigation process

After an investigation and verification process, the Criminal Police Department of the Vinh Phuc Provincial Police Department did not prosecute the case according to Hoa's denunciation since they detected and clarified a series of her fraudulent acts to appropriate property. Expanding the case, the police determined that, with similar tricks, Hoa also cheated to usurp more than VND20 billion from Mr. N.H.S from the central province of Ha Tinh.

Nhi Tien

Seven Nigerians arrested for online scam Police from the central province of Thua Thien-Hue have arrested 11 suspects, including seven Nigerians for cheating and illegally appropriating property, worth over VND120 billion (US$5.1 million), from Vietnamese citizens online.
ANTLER -- Pumpjacks have bobbed up and down for decades in the old oil fields north of Minot, but many of the machines sit still today.

Some were idled this spring because the price of oil tanked when the coronavirus pandemic hit, and their owners concluded the wells are not profitable at the moment. Others haven't pumped oil in years, and their operators never got around to plugging them with cement and cleaning up sites.

The latter scenario occurred at a Bottineau County well known as E. Pearson 5-I22 near Antler. It last operated in February 2017 when it pumped a meager 41 barrels out of the ground that month, state records show.

The well sat idle until last week when Hams Well Service of Westhope brought in a workover rig to begin the job of plugging the hole, ensuring that it will never produce oil again.

Federal coronavirus relief dollars, funneled through the state, are providing paychecks for the four oil workers manning the small rig.

Its putting some people to work, Hams co-owner Daryl Anderson said. Its been pretty skinny for the last little while.

The company laid off three-quarters of its 60-member workforce earlier this spring when oil prices went south, drilling dried up across the state and thousands of wells were idled. Hams managed to secure a loan through the federal Paycheck Protection Program and brought many of its workers back on temporarily, but there wasnt a lot of work to go around.

So the company had its employees clean, paint and repair machinery.

Ham's then entered into a contract with Tioga-based Neset Consulting Service, which is overseeing work at the site after the company successfully bid on a package of wells under North Dakotas new abandoned well plugging and reclamation program. The state effort aims to keep roughly 1,000 oil workers employed through the rest of 2020 and return 2,000 acres of oil infrastructure, gravel well pads and roads to farmland.

The well near Antler is among the first in the state to get plugged under the program.

For Hams employees such as derrickhand Dahlton Poitra, the program meant he could put down the paintbrushes and cleaning supplies earlier this month to get back to his normal job on the rig.

It feels good to do what you love doing again, he said on a recent afternoon at the Antler well site.

Oil workers back on the job

Poitra spoke while on a break from inserting tubing down the 4,000-foot hole drilled in 1979, a necessary step in the effort to flush any residual oil out of the well before it can be sealed off.

Wells will be sealed with approximately 400 cubic yards of cement, but workers will need to address a number of particulars at each site such as the amount of oil left inside, the condition of the well and any contamination.

Every well is going to have a little different personality, State Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms said.

Between all the work required to plug the Antler well, clean up the site and reseed it, 80 workers from a number of contractors will filter in and out over the course of a few weeks, estimated Larry Dokken, an independent consultant helping the North Dakota Oil and Gas Division administer the program.

That scenario is set to play out 400 times this year at well sites throughout the western and north-central part of the state, where neglected wells sit in old oil fields. While most of the wells produced oil, some are disposal wells where salty brine -- a byproduct of oil production -- is injected back underground for permanent storage.

The plugging and reclamation effort is funded primarily through $66 million of the $1.25 billion the state received in federal CARES Act coronavirus relief aid, as authorized by the North Dakota Emergency Commission and the legislative Budget Section earlier this year.

Its a huge thing for the state of North Dakota keeping people employed, Dokken said.

State data shows that since the pandemic began, nearly 11,000 oil and gas workers have filed unemployment claims, about half the workers in the sector, which also includes mining and quarrying.

A problem decades in the making

North Dakota has hundreds of abandoned wells -- far fewer than in other states with an older oil industry, but a sizable problem nevertheless.

A well is considered abandoned once it has gone one year without producing any oil. At that point, state rules say a company must either restart it or plug it.

The regulations also spell out requirements for bonding if a well were to remain abandoned. Bonding is a form of financial assurance that the state can seize if a company shirks its cleanup responsibility.

State officials say some wells have sat inactive for as long as 22 years, although that's not the norm.

The bonding needs to be proper or some other program in place so that the burden does not end up on the landowner or the taxpayers, said Troy Coons, chairman of the Northwest Landowners Association, which has pushed for years for the state to take a tougher stance to address the issue.

Abandoned wells can be a nuisance. Some pose environmental problems -- they can leak underground, and emissions can escape. Farmers must maneuver their machinery around them. If a well is not producing any oil, mineral owners are not collecting royalties, either.

Helms, whose Oil and Gas Division pursued an effort last year to strengthen bonding requirements surrounding abandoned wells, said the problem developed over decades. Many of the wells being plugged under the new program were drilled in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, before the state had rules in place governing their eventual cleanup. Its not uncommon for them to have been transferred numerous times between companies over the years.

We have changed and tightened our rules considerably since that time to get a handle on it, Helms said.

State records show that the Antler well is owned by Zargon Oil, which received a letter from the Oil and Gas Division last year giving the company a deadline of January 2020 to take action at the site.

Helms said Zargon appears to have drug their feet, as companies often do handling abandoned wells.

And then COVID came, he said.

Many oil companies are strapped for cash right now amid low oil prices. Zargon did not respond to a request for comment.

The landowners association still wants the state to do more to ensure the abandoned well problem doesnt grow larger, as is a concern when oil downturns idle numerous wells and companies file for bankruptcy. Some members also have concerns about the large scope of the new program and whether the plugging job will be done right with adequate inspections, Coons said. The Oil and Gas Division is requiring its inspectors to monitor work at the sites.

The landowners group is researching the true cost of plugging and reclaiming a well, which the state estimates to be $150,000 on average. Some sites with a lot of contamination are much more costly to clean up, Coons said.

There needs to be a lot of change yet. This is just the tip of the iceberg, he said. We cant always count on all the taxpayer money.

Not every company with a well in the program is getting help from federal coronavirus dollars. Helms said the state is seizing bonds from five companies due to past complaints about abandoned wells, and that money will go toward the cleanup effort.

Restoring farmland

When the well near Antler is plugged and reclamation work finished, state officials estimate about 5 more acres will return to farmland at the site.

There shouldnt be any evidence at the surface here at all, Helms said.

All wells will be capped off 4 feet below ground so that farmers can work their fields without worrying about hitting a post where the well once stood.

Im glad its getting plugged, said Norman Buynak, who farms the land around the Antler well. We get no benefit out of it, period.

He harvests wheat, canola, corn and soybeans -- which he also could plant there in future years. Hes had trouble growing crops at other plugged sites, however, as soil is disturbed and salt contamination persists.

Everybodys concern is the salt, he said.

Next to a tank battery near the well is a patch of infertile soil where oil companies once dumped brine into a pond, a common practice in the region in the early days of the oil industry in North Dakota. Such a disposal method is not allowed today, as the salt can linger in the ground for decades and prevent even weeds from growing.

Salt also can get into the soil when a pipeline or some other piece of infrastructure leaks.

The states program requires that a worker survey each abandoned well site for salt and hydrocarbons. Officials dont anticipate that the Antler well will have much contamination, as state records do not indicate any leaks at the well site itself, although they do show that spills have occurred at facilities nearby.

Helms estimates that as many as 40% of the sites will require longer-term remediation because of extensive contamination. The CARES Act money will fund some of the work, but it must be spent by the end of 2020, he said. Officials are seeking clarity on whether they can prepay companies to continue reclamation work in 2021.

The state maintains a fund for cleaning up oil field sites when it cannot determine a responsible company. The fund has $27 million and is replenished each year with oil tax revenue, among other money sources. Some of those dollars could go toward an ongoing reclamation effort, Helms said.

A federal stimulus program?

Its possible that other states could pursue similar well-plugging programs using federal dollars.

This is a problem not just in North Dakota but really across the country, said Daniel Raimi, a senior research associate with the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Resources for the Future. In every major oil- and gas-producing state, there are a considerable number of orphaned and abandoned oil and gas wells that pose environmental and health risks to the local population, as well as to the global climate.

Abandoned wells are known to cause a significant source of emissions, including methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.

Several members of Congress are working on legislation to set aside additional stimulus money designated specifically for abandoned oil field wells. Helms said hes hopeful that the money, if it becomes available, could go toward North Dakotas ongoing reclamation efforts to clean up contamination at abandoned well sites.

Raimi and several other researchers published a report last month outlining the benefits of a national stimulus approach to well plugging.

One of the challenges of deploying a program like this is that you dont want the federal government bailing out states and companies who have failed to properly plan for the future, he said. One option would be for federal funds to incentivize states to enhance their requirements on bonding or other financial assurance to prevent this cycle from playing itself out again the next time theres an oil price crash.

Tougher bonding enforcement could come to fruition in North Dakota as state regulators intend to buckle down on operators whose wells have been plugged with CARES Act money.

Im pretty sure there will be changes for all these companies, Helms said.

Waiting for relief

The states announcement earlier this year that it planned to develop the well-plugging program prompted a few companies to act on their own to avoid any potential state sanctions.

One of the seven workover rigs Hams is operating now at another site, for example, is for a company thats plugging its own well outside the state program.

The pumpjacks that sit atop the wells in the program all will be taken to a central location when the holes are plugged. They could end up in use again, possibly in Ohio or Illinois where the oil industry has expressed interest in purchasing the small pumping units commonly used with older, shallower wells in North Dakota, Helms said.

While those pumpjacks find a new home, officials hope the workers who plug the wells wont. They view the program as a way to make sure a skilled workforce remains in the North Dakota oil fields when crude prices recover, to bring idled wells back online and start drilling new ones.

That's on Anderson's mind as well as he looks to the future for Ham's.

Weve got good hands, and we want to keep them, he said.

Reach Amy R. Sisk at 701-250-8252 or amy.sisk@bismarcktribune.com.

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Education Secretary said he was visiting relatives and had cancelled his holiday

Gavin Williamson has hit back at claims he was on holiday as the A-Level results fiasco unfolded in the UK, saying he was only in Scarborough to visit his relatives.

The under-fire Education Secretary added that he has also cancelled his family's holiday to remain in the country and deal with problems caused by algorithms downgrading student results.

Mr Williamson was in the northern seaside town for a week from August 2, and returned just days before the A-level results came out on August 13.

It is also understood that he cancelled a key meeting with the department while he was in North Yorkshire.

'I cancelled our family holiday abroad this year to focus on the challenges COVID-19 created for the education sector,' he said in a tweet.

'Over the summer, I went to see family in Scarborough for the first time since lockdown, and while there I was in constant communication with the Department.'

It comes as one of Mr Williamson's Education Ministers was heavily criticised for enjoying a holiday in the French Alps while teenagers in Britain went 'through hell' over their exam grades.

Gavin Williamson has hit back at claims he was on holiday as the A-Level results fiasco unfolded in the UK, saying he was visiting relatives in Scarborough instead

The Mail on Sunday revealed that as students worried over their futures, Gillian Keegan enjoyed hiking trips, mountain biking and dips in a mountain lake  and boasted about them on Instagram.

Astonishingly, beleaguered Mr Williamson found time to like several of her posts.

Mrs Keegan is Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills at the Department for Education and, crucially, is jointly responsible for post-16 education strategy.

But as the exam fiasco reached its climax, she decided to remain in France  even as quarantine restrictions came into effect that would require her to self-isolate for 14 days on her eventual return to the UK.

On August 15, two days after the A-level results in England were released, she wrote on social media: We will have to make the most of it [our holiday] as we will be #quarantined for 14 days when we get back. The post was accompanied by an emoji of a woman shrugging.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that as students worried over their futures, Gillian Keegan enjoyed hiking trips, mountain biking and dips in a mountain lake  and boasted about them on Instagram. This picture was posted on A-level results day

Despite posting a new message and picture yesterday announcing that she was back to Blighty, Mrs Keegan did not respond to this newspapers requests for comment about her getaway.

However, she now faces the prospect of being unable to attend the Commons in person when it resumes on September 1 because she may still be in quarantine.

Mr Williamson also declined to comment, with sources saying it was not policy to comment on Ministerial diaries.

Supporters sprang to Mrs Keegans defence, saying she had not hidden the fact she was away and that fellow Minister Michelle Donelan, who shares duties for post-16 education strategy, had been on duty. They stressed that Mrs Keegan, a self-professed proud Scouser who is MP for Chichester, had done some work while she was away.

She wasnt just sitting with her feet up all the time, one said.

But Labour last night described her conduct as beyond belief  even for this gaffe-prone Government.

Rural chalet in the French Alps where Mrs Keegan spent her holiday. Mrs Keegan is Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills at the Department for Education and, crucially, is jointly responsible for post-16 education strategy

Labour MP Neil Coyle said: Gavin Williamsons incompetence truly knows no bounds. Young people who have been put through hell over the last few weeks will be disgusted to learn that one of the Ministers involved in this mess has been living it up on holiday in France.

But instead of Mr Williamson recognising he needed all hands on deck as this exam disaster loomed, he not only let her swan off on holiday, he even liked her holiday snaps.

Mr Williamsons response to the exam crisis has been met with a mixture of ridicule and anger as thousands of teenagers were left devastated when their predicted grades were downgraded, jeopardising their university places, before Ministers were forced into a humiliating U-turn.

Boris Johnson is understood to have rejected Mr Williamsons offer to resign but the Education Secretarys decision to allow one of his junior Ministers to be on holiday as crisis deepened raised fresh questions over his judgment.

Mrs Keegan, 52, announced on Instagram on August 6 that she was staying in Courchevel, an Alpine resort popular with the rich and famous. Posting a series of photographs over the following days, she spoke of good vibes and even celebrated her rest and relaxation on the very day that A-level results were released.

Mr Williamsons response to the exam crisis has been met with a mixture of ridicule and anger as thousands of teenagers were left devastated when their predicted grades were downgraded, jeopardising their university places, before Ministers were forced into a humiliating U-turn. Students are pictured on a march to the Department of Education on Saturday

Mr Williamson liked several of her posts including one on August 6 captioned: Made it to our happy place for a few days #hiking #biking #wildswimming and whatever adventures we can find to clear the mind. But back home, the media was warning of an impending schools crisis following the earlier fiasco over exam grades in Scotland.

Mr Williamson also approved of Mrs Keegans post the following day from the 7,500 ft Col de la Loze mountain pass.

As the UK became awash with dire reports that schools were bringing in lawyers to stop results being dramatically reduced, Mrs Keegan posted a picture of a dip in a lake at Le Praz. It was captioned: Another wonderful day.

Two days later, beside a picture of sun-kissed mountain, she wrote: Wonderful view from our balcony... #goodvibes.

On August 11, just 48 hours before the A-level crisis peaked, she was enjoying another wonderful day #hiking in the mountains. Again, Mr Williamson found time to like the photograph.

Finally, as A-level results day arrived in England on August 13, Mrs Keegans horizon did darken but only because of news that British holidaymakers in France would shortly face two weeks of quarantine when they returned to the UK because of soaring French infection rates. Her post contained an eye-rolling emoji to indicate her frustration, but her photograph depicted smiles and sunglasses

Mrs Keegan decided not to try to get back before the quarantine deadline, apparently with Mr Williamsons blessing. On August 15, he liked her message from the Alps where, with glass in hand, she declared: We will have to make the most of it as we will be #quarantined for 14 days when we get back.

The Mail on Sunday reported the next day how one distraught A-level student told Schools Minister Nick Gibb: Youve ruined my life. But Mrs Keegan simply acknowledged that she would have to quarantine on her return with her husband, writing: Good job we like each other  another message liked by Mr Williamson

Finally, on Tuesday last week, amid mounting expectation that her boss would now lose his job, the Skills Minister posted about her pizza in Courchevel. Some may now be recommending humble pie.

Another wonderful day in the Alps, shame about the disaster at home

Gavin Williamson took a seaside break in Scarborough for a week - and arrived just DAYS before A-levels chaos as his handling of the exams fiasco comes under new pressure

By Glen Owen for the Mail on Sunday

Gavin Williamson last night faced fresh pressure over his handling of the A-levels crisis after it emerged he took a seaside holiday in the run-up to the fiasco.

The Mail on Sunday understands the Education Secretary took a break in Scarborough for a week from August 2, returning just days before the A-level results came out on August 13.

An algorithm used by the exams regulator Ofqual resulted in an astonishing 40 per cent of grades being downgraded from teachers predictions, meaning thousands of devastated students were turned down by their first-choice universities.

It is also understood that Mr Williamson cancelled a key meeting while he was in North Yorkshire.

Gavin Williamson last night faced fresh pressure over his handling of the A-levels crisis after it emerged he took a seaside holiday in the run-up to the fiasco

Mr Williamson is fighting to keep his place in the Cabinet after initially insisting the algorithm was robust, and there would be no U-turn, no changes  before performing a humiliating U-turn in the face of growing protests from students.

Sir Jon Coles, a former director-general for schools at the Department for Education, added to the pressure by saying he warned Mr Williamson directly in early July that the algorithm could give hundreds of thousands of students inaccurate results.

Last night, a spokesman for Mr Williamson said the trip to Scarborough did not count as a holiday because he was working every day.

The spokesman said: It was the only chance for him to go to see his mum and dad, who he had not been able to visit during lockdown. It wasnt a holiday as he was working every day and continuing to hold meetings remotely.

In addition, he cancelled a foreign holiday to ensure that he could be in the country when the results came out.

The revelation came as protesters gathered outside the Department For Education yesterday, chanting Get Gav Gone and We are the future.

Protest organiser Glen Morgan-Shaw said: We are going to call them out on the fact they are doing everything to protect themselves when they should be protecting the people.

Following the U-turn, the Government has asked universities to prioritise students from disadvantaged backgrounds for admission where possible.

Downing Street sources say they are not going to give into calls for Mr Williamsons sacking because they back their people. Mr Williamson played a key role in the campaign to elect Mr Johnson as Tory leader.
Amaravati, Aug 23 : The protest by people in Amaravati against the Andhra Pradesh government's move to trifurcate the state capital entered its 250th day on Sunday.

Protests were organised with the title 'Rajdhani Ranabheri' in Mandadam, Thulluru, Velagapudi, Dondapadu and other villages of Amaravati.

Farmers, women, leaders of political parties and people's organisations participated in the protests, with the women beating drums and utensils and farmers with ploughs, bulls, buffaloes and sheep.

The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) staged a protest at Guntur in solidarity with the people of Amaravati. Former minister Nakka Anandbabu and Member of Legislative Council Ramakrishna participated in the protest.

Anandbabu said the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) government was showing no concern for the people of Amaravati by going ahead with its three capital plans. He alleged that the government had thrown the Constitution to the winds.

Protests intensified in 29 villages of Amaravati on July 31 when Governor Biswabhusan Harichandan gave his assent to The Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority Repeal Bill, 2020 and The Andhra Pradesh Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Bill 2020.

The approval of the Bills paved the way for shifting key capital functions from Amaravati.

The government plans to develop Visakhapatnam as the executive capital. With the shifting of the offices of the Chief Minister, Governor, ministers and secretaries to the coastal city, it will become the seat of power. The government has decided to develop Kurnool as the judicial capital by shifting the High Court there.

Amaravati, which was originally planned as the only state capital and a world-class city, will serve as a mere legislative capital.

Dealing with the petitions filed by farmers of Amaravati and others challenging the two Bills, the Andhra Pradesh High Court has ordered the status quo till August 27.

The protests in Amaravati started in December last year when Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy announced in the Assembly that his government will develop three capitals to ensure decentralisation of power and equal development of all three regions of the state.

The move triggered distress among 24,000 farmer families who had given 33,000 acres of land under the land pooling scheme.

The then TDP government headed by Chandrababu Naidu had embarked on mega plans to build Amaravati on the banks of Krishna river as the dream capital and a world-class city.

For every acre of cultivable land pooled, the farmers were promised 1,000 square yards of residential plots and 250 square yards of commercial plots with all the infrastructure.

Almost all the farmers received the allotment papers. They were also promised Rs 50,000 annuity per acre with annual hike of 10 per cent.

However, all the construction activity, which was at its peak before elections last year, came to a grinding halt with the change of guard. The new government also terminated all agreements including those with the Singapore companies.
Anu Kuruvilla By

Express News Service

KOCHI: Amid the raft of opinions on conducting the IIT-JEE(Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination) in the first week of September, over 100 students in Qatar are in a bind with hardly any clarity on the examination centre.

Both students and their parents said the centre identified for hosting the examination remains virtually clueless on whether it has indeed been zeroed in for the purpose.

"The students living in Qatar are worried since the examination has been scheduled for September 2-3, but there is no information on the exam centre," said Anwar Sadath, whose child is among the candidates. Ever since the Supreme Court pronounced its ruling on holding the exam, Sadath's family has been awaiting further news on this from the authorities concerned.

"As soon as we came to know of the SC ruling, my son searched his mail and downloaded the hall ticket. However, the name of the centre was not the one where the January examination was held. It was some relatively unknown centre," he added.

READ| Chorus grows for postponing entrance exams amid COVID-19 pandemic

According to Sadath, they had tried to call up the centre seeking information on the examination, adding, "But there was more worrying news in store for us".

Jayaprakash, another parent, said, "I called up an official at the Family Computer Centre whom I know of. However, he said they had received no such intimation from anybody." Jayaprakash, who runs a computer store, said, I was taken aback on realising that a facility which can hardly cater to around 20 students has been chosen as a centre for such a prestigious examination and that too in these trying times."

"The January examination was held at the Birla Institute. It was a neat affair, with top-level security," he said.

The parents have been left wondering how this centre got the nod when there are umpteen Indian Schools around with excellent facilities. "We made representations to the Indian embassy and sought its help. The embassy officials told us that if they get a letter from the centre informing them of the latter's inability to hold the examination they will take up the matter," he said.

However, the parents alleged that the centre is unwilling to do so. "They might be feeling pretty apprehensive that if they plead their inability, their

reputation will go for a toss. The students have been diligently preparing for the exam for the past several years and when the time has come for them to show

their mettle, they have found that they might not be able to do so. This should not happen," Sadath said.

V C Mashood, general convener, Pravasi Coordination Committee, said the officials of the centre are providing conflicting information. "First they pleaded ignorance about the institution being selected as a centre. Later on, they said they are unable to conduct the examination since they are yet to receive approval from the Qatar government. Which of these are we supposed to believe?" he

said.

Meanwhile, Jyothi Balamurali, course coordinator of Family Computers, said, "On June 29, 2020, we had received an enquiry from Salsar Group on conducting the examination. The initial date for the first test was informed as July 17, 2020. We provided them with a quotation regarding this, with special remarks that the quotation is subject to Covid-19 situation."

"Later on, they informed us that the examination had been postponed and will be conducted between September 1 and 25 due to the Covid-19 situation prevailing globally. We also assumed that we will be able to deliver without hassles as September is expected to be Phase IV for lifting COVID restrictions (unlock4.0) in the emirate. However, by mid-August, we realised that in Phase IV, there will only be the partial lifting of curbs for academic activities. On August 18, we informed the Salsar Group that we will not be able to undertake the project. The latest information we received from them is that they are looking for other alternatives to conduct the examination. This is all the information on JEE we have with us right now," she said.
Giant panda Tian Tian is seen at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C., the United States, Aug. 22, 2020. Mei Xiang was artificially inseminated in March this year with frozen semen collected from Tian Tian. Mei Xiang, who's of an advanced maternal age, gave birth to a cub at Smithsonian's National Zoo here on Friday. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- It was a day of joy and excitement for giant panda lovers.

Mei Xiang, who's of an advanced maternal age, gave birth to a cub at Smithsonian's National Zoo here on Friday.

Animal care staff witnessed the birth at 6:35 p.m.(2235 GMT), according to the zoo. Immediately after that, Mei Xiang picked the cub up and "began cradling and caring for it."

"Giant pandas are an international symbol of endangered wildlife and hope, and with the birth of this precious cub we are thrilled to offer the world a much-needed moment of pure joy," said Steve Monfort, John and Adrienne Mars Director of the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute.

"Because Mei Xiang is of advanced maternal age, we knew the chances of her having a cub were slim," Monfort said. "However, we wanted to give her one more opportunity to contribute to her species' survival."

The announcement came just hours after the zoo tweeted that it believed Mei Xiang had gone into labor.

"Giant panda Mei Xiang has become increasingly restless and began body licking -- both signs that labor has probably started," the zoo wrote.

Mei Xiang, 22, was artificially inseminated in March this year with frozen semen collected from Tian Tian, the zoo's male giant panda. Female giant pandas are only in estrus, or able to become pregnant, for 24 to 72 hours each year.

In late July, the female exhibited behaviors consistent with pregnancy or pseudopregnancy. Zoo veterinarians confirmed evidence of a fetus on an ultrasound earlier this month. During the procedures, they saw clear images of a developing skeletal structure and strong blood flow within Mei Xiang's uterus.

The zoo announced last week that Mei Xiang could go into labor any day, prompting a surge in the number of viewers on its popular "panda cams." The website crashed shortly Friday afternoon possibly due to high interest.

The panda team heard the cub vocalize and glimpsed the cub for the first time briefly immediately after the birth on Friday. A neonatal exam will be performed when keepers are able to retrieve the cub, which may take a few days. The sex of the cub will not be determined until a later date.

Mei Xiang is the oldest giant panda in the United States and the second oldest documented in the world to give birth. This is also the first time a zoo in the United States has experienced a successful pregnancy and birth via artificial insemination using only frozen semen. Based on data from scientists in China and other zoos with giant pandas, females can breed into their early 20s.

Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai extended his congratulations to Mei Xiang and the National Zoo on the birth of the new giant panda cub, the third he has welcomed here.

"For 20 years, Mei Xiang and her kids have been adorable witnesses of China-U.S. cooperation and a constant source of joy for the Americans," Cui wrote. "A precious gift at this unusual time."

Mei Xiang has given birth to three surviving cubs: Tai Shan, Bao Bao, and Bei Bei. They returned to China when they were four years old as part of the zoo's cooperative agreement with the China Wildlife Conservation Association.

The National Zoo in northwest Washington, D.C. reopened to visitors last month after months of closure due to the coronavirus pandemic. The panda house at the David M. Rubenstein Family Giant Panda Habitat is still closed to provide quiet for Mei Xiang and her cub.

Giant pandas, dubbed China's national treasure, mainly live in Southwest China's Sichuan Province as well as the neighboring provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu.

The latest census in 2014 found there were 1,864 giant pandas living in the wild, up from 1,114 decades ago. The number of pandas bred in captivity has reached 600 globally, China's National Forestry and Grassland Administration said late last year.
Tennessee Protests

Protesters are seen marching upon the Tennessee State Capitol building on June 4, 2020 in Nashville, Tennessee. Credit - Jason Kempin/Getty Images

A new Tennessee law, signed by the governor this week, makes it a felony for protesters to camp out overnight on state property. If convicted, they could lose their voting rights and face up to six years in prison.

Although some states are moving towards restoring voting rights for felons, it remains illegal for felons to vote in Tennessee.

For more than two months, dozens of people had been sleeping outside the state capitol as they protested day and night against police brutality and pushed (unsuccessfully) to speak with Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee. We want to see Governor Lee. We dont wanna fight, we just wanna be free, they chanted. Jonelle Christopher, a member of the Peoples Plaza and organizer with the Equity Alliancea nonpartisan voter organization that builds Black and brown political powersays she has camped out overnight while protesting at least 30 times since June. Christopher says protesters would be ready to leave the space if the governor simply agreed to discuss issues, including defunding the police, with them.

After some protesters reportedly claimed the area outside the state capitol to be an autonomous zone on June 12, the governor swiftly responded on Twitter, saying that the right to protest would be protected but autonomous zones and violence will not be tolerated. He highlighted an existing law that banned camping on state property not intended to be a campground area.

Protesters have been largely peaceful in recent months, although one demonstration in late May resulted in protesters setting fires inside and outside a courthouse, the Associated Press reported. Protesters also toppled a statue of Edward Carmack, who has been widely criticized for his racist views, that was located outside the Capitol.

Story continues

Tennessees Republican-majority state legislature approved the new measure last week during a brief special session. The governor quietly signed the bill into law Thursday.

Lee did not respond to a request for comment from TIME and has not issued a public statement on the measure. Asked at a press conference why he didnt meet with protest leaders outside the Capitol, Lee said he has requests to meet a lot of individuals and that he chooses to meet with those groups that are willing to work together to move forward.

Lee has said the law is needed because of damage to property at some protests. I think what we saw was a courthouse on fire and businesses being broken into and vehicles being damaged. We saw lawlessness that needed to be addressed immediately. And that was done so, Lee told reporters Thursday, according to the Associated Press. Camping on state property was previously a misdemeanor; it is now a Class E Felony.

Activists and civil rights groups worry that the new law, which goes into effect immediately, not only criminalizes protests and restrains free speech but also that it punishes being homeless. The ACLU, which had called on Lee to veto the legislation, says the new measure would make it a felony for a homeless person to sleep on state property, forcing unhoused people onto private property. An individual could be charged with a felony and a minimum of 30 days in jail upon arrest simply for trying to intervene when they witness a a police officer using excessive force the ACLU adds.

In a critical moment of reckoning that has led to policing reforms nationwide, Tennessee has chosen to turn a blind eye to the reasons the protests are happening and is instead choosing to shut down the right of the people to protest, Hedy Weinberg, ACLU of Tennessee executive director, said.

Some civil rights group have spoken out about the laws effects on voting rights. Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law president Kristen Clarke told the Washington Post that to criminalize protest activity and disenfranchise voters on top of it defies principles that lie at the heart of our Constitution. Clarke told the Post her organization is considering suing over all the voter intimidation tactics by Republicans in Tennessee.

Although the ACLU has said they will be closely monitoring the laws enforcement, some protesters are demanding more aggressive legal action. Justin Jones, an organizer with Peoples Plaza, which was created out of recent protests, said Saturday on Twitter that ACLUs monitoring isnt enough and that they need action. He said they have met with the organizations attorneys for a month already and is continuing to speak with other civil rights lawyers about pursuing a lawsuit.

Jones says he has been arrested seven times in protests over the last few months. For him the new laws message is clear: the priority was stopping protesters, instead of looking at what caused the protests in the first place.

He says up to 100 people would be showing up daily from June 12 through to Aug. 12 and he has frequently posted videos of state troopers cracking down on peaceful protesters.

The Plaza STILL belongs to the people and were not going to stop until were equal!



Thanks @teens_4equality and everyone who came out today to protest the signing and passage of anti-protest bill SB8005!#BlackLivesMatter #FreeCapitolHillTN



Photos by @sullybarrett pic.twitter.com/NVJjjoPmKc  PeoplesPlazaTN (@plaza_tn) August 23, 2020

Jones says he and protesters want to speak with the governor about systemic racism, police brutality and defunding the police. He highlights a recent case in which a Black man was beaten by sheriffs deputies on May 23, just two days before George Floyd was killed by police in Minnesota.

Jones has been organizing around race and justice issues for seven years in Nashville and says he has never seen such an aggressive response by the state in terms of the number of troopers dealing with protesters, arrests and laws like the new measure.

The Tennessee governors actions have caught national attention. Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley called Tennessees new law unconstitutional and against the law, highlighting its impact on the ability of some protesters to vote. Ibram Kendi, National Book Award winner and author of How to Be an Antiracist, said the measure would not be equally applied to white people demonstrating for the freedom to infect us, to own assault rifles, to keep monuments to White supremacy.
Google might soon disrupt the conventional form of higher education. In a new initiative called Google Career Certificates, the tech giant is offering professional courses on job-ready skills to all.

These Google certificates also come with a promise of a connection to top national employers who are hiring for related roles.

(Representative Image: Reuters)

ALSO READ: Apple CEO Tim Cook Says You Don't Need Four-Year Degree To Get A Programming Job

Google mentions the Certificates in a blog post, stating the addition of three new courses in it, that of Data Analyst, Project Manager and UX Designer. These certificates will be added soon to the existing one - IT Support Specialist, though Google has not mentioned a specific date yet.

What are Google Certificates?

Career Certificates by Google can be considered as a concise and very specific course on a particular skill set, as the names mentioned above suggest. While a regular higher education degree can take years, these certificates tend to impart the skill in a course of around 6 months.

Google, however, allows the learners to choose their own pace and timeline. As for its IT support program, Google mentions that an average learner completes it in three-to-six months.

Another big plus offered by the certificates is that there is no pre-requisite for a four-year degree to opt for these certificates. Google mentions that 61% of learners enrolled do not have a four-year degree. Moreover, these certificates are completely online and there are no in-person requirements.

How do they help?

Google Career Certificates have been designed to bridge the gap between the knowledge gained from college degrees and the real-life skill sets required in a job. The certificates are thus well targeted towards building ones career with the top employers as per Google.



ALSO READ: Kormo App: Google Will Help You Get Jobs Easily With New App

(Representative Image: Reuters)

Once a program finishes, Google promises to support the applicants in their job search. It mentions that participants can "share information directly with top employers hiring for jobs in these fields." These employers in the US include Walmart, Best Buy, Intel, Bank of America and others.



Google, of course, does not leave itself out of it. In fact, Kent Walker, SVP of Global Affairs at Google, in a tweet claimed that Googles own hiring will now treat these new career certificates as the equivalent of a four-year degree for related roles.

Even if not for a job, Google will have Hundreds of apprenticeship opportunities at Google for people completing these career certificate programs, Walker states in a Google blog. These opportunities are currently restricted to the US though.
Microsoft stunned the gaming industry when it announced this week it would buy game publisher Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, a deal that would immediately make it a larger video-game company than Nintendo.
Editors note: Reyna Lopez, 52, died on Aug. 26, 2020, after spending 34 days in the hospital with COVID-19.

They were pursuing the American Dream.

Juan Segundo Sr. and the family he brought to the Bay Area from Mexico in 1990 were doing what many immigrants do to save up for a home: making sacrifices, working hard, sticking together.

Six relatives shared a two-bedroom apartment in El Cerrito. Segundo and his wife slept in one bedroom, his granddaughter in the other, his son and his brother-in-law in the living room, and another son in his car.

So on July 14, when the 56-year-old grill cook came home from work feeling ill, trying to isolate from others would have been difficult.

Initially, everyone thought it was just a common cold, even though they worried Segundo might be at higher risk of contracting COVID-19. He worked at a cafe inside Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

Now, looking back, Segundos 32-year-old son, Juan Segundo Jr., sees clearly what he and his family didnt see before: In a pandemic, there is no room for hesitation.

As he grew sicker, Segundo Sr. didnt complain. Only once did he say his chest hurt.

He said, Just a little bit, but Im good. He always said, Im OK, mijo, Segundo Jr., said. But I should have known better. At that time, we didnt want to believe how bad COVID could harm you, you know? We should have known. We should have taken him to the hospital.

His father never did seek medical help, even after he gave in to his wifes pleadings to be tested for the coronavirus. By the time the test came back positive on July 18, everyone in the family except the granddaughter felt sick.

Still, no one went to the hospital, not until July 22. That morning, Segundo Sr. died at home.

By the end of the next day, three other members of the household were hospitalized with COVID-19: his wife, Reyna Lopez, 52, their son Eduardo, and Segundos brother-in-law, Carlos Garduno. On Saturday, Lopez, Segundos wife of 35 years, was still in the hospital, fighting for her life.

The Segundo familys story reflects the concerns public health officials have raised about how the pandemic is devastating Latinos. While Latinos account for 38.9% of the state population, they account for 59.4% of the states coronavirus cases and 47.9% of deaths, according to California Department of Public Health data.

In Contra Costa County, where the Segundos have made their home, Latinos make up 26% of the population but 41% of all COVID-19 cases.

Many Latinos are in lower-paying but essential service industry jobs, continuing to do work that requires them to interact with the public. The issue of housing, particularly living in close quarters, has been cited as well as a factor in the higher vulnerability among the Latino community.

In the Bay Area and elsewhere, public health officials have said the virus disproportionate impact on the Latino community is representative of inequities in health care, employment and income levels that existed long before the coronavirus emerged.

He brought us to this country, as any other immigrant, for a better life, Segundo Jr. said of his father. You know the American Dream they talked about back in the day? My dad actually did come for the American Dream. He became a citizen of this country, and he never did nothing bad. He was a lovable father.

As the pandemic swept across the United States, Segundo Jr. said, his family watched news coverage and cringed at the images: morgues overloaded, patients intubated and dying alone, separated from family members who could not visit.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

The fear of losing their loved one in the hospital, unable to touch or even be close to him, was too great for the family to bear when Segundo got sick.

For us, that was scary, Segundo Jr. said. We were being ignorant in that area. We didnt react to COVID because my dad was a strong man. We thought my dad could take anything. But we waited too long on my dad in taking him to the hospital.

His father always took care of his health, and had faith that God would watch over him, his son said. Every morning, he would open his black, leather-bound King James Bible and read. He played worship music at home, listening to religious songs, musical numbers sung by choirs and sometimes full church services.

He would listen to worship music from the time he woke up to the time he went to sleep, Segundo Jr. said. Of course, when it came to work, he worked. But when he came home, he would read the word of God again.

Segundo Sr. spent days in bed and appeared to be improving when the coronavirus test results came in.

I believe thats when everyone was kind of scared ... we were like, Damn, if my dad got it, that means all of us got it, Segundo Jr. said. We knew it was contagious.

Still, Segundo Jr. said, the family did not want to isolate from one another. Since leaving their home region of El Estado de Mexico to come to the United States, they had overcome a lot together: sickness, substance abuse, the deaths of loved ones. This challenge was no different, they believed.

Courtesy of Juan Segundo Jr.

You gotta remember were family, Segundo Jr. said. When it comes down to my family, weve been through so many things in our lives. I wasnt following procedure because, to me, that goes out the window when that is my family.

But on the day his dad learned he had COVID-19, the atmosphere in the home shifted drastically. By then, everyone except for Segundo Jr.s 12-year-old daughter, Reyna, was ill. He sent her to stay at a friends house as a precaution.

My body was just weak, Segundo Jr. said. I didnt want to move. I told my youngest brother, Bro, I feel weak. I feel weird, And my brother was like, Go to sleep. An hour or two later, my brother woke me up saying he felt sick, too. Thats when it started going downhill. On that night.

That night, Segundo Jr. said, his bones ached, his body shook from chills, and he grew warm from fever. By the next day he felt better, but everyone else was still sick in bed.

Segundo Jr. said his father still managed to get out of bed to brew green tea and manzanilla tea, whip up home remedies that were passed down through the family, and, at times, offer a shot of alcohol to his sick loved ones  suggesting that maybe the alcohol could kill the virus.

Now that I see things clearly, my dad was already really sick at that time, Segundo Jr. said. But he would find the strength inside to get up ... and make sure that we were fine. He forgot his suffering to save his family, to make sure his family was doing better. Thats the thing that breaks me, because he shouldnt have to be doing that, you know?

He said he understands now that his father was preparing him to support the family.

Its like he already knew I was going to be fine. He told me, Take care of your family. ... And I was like, Yes, Dad, Im going to take care of everyone, he said, fighting back sobs. He just kept telling me, Take care of your brothers, take care of your brothers.

In the early morning hours of July 22, Eduardo Segundo asked his older brother to take him to the emergency room. The pain he was feeling was unlike anything he had ever experienced, Segundo Jr. said.

He dropped his brother off at the hospital, where he got tested for the coronavirus. Shortly after 5:30 a.m., Eduardo texted his brother: Im gonna get my results in an hour. Segundo Jr. was already back home and had fallen asleep.

But at around 6:30 a.m., he awoke abruptly to his mothers voice: Mijo, can you help me move your dad?

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.

At that moment, he said, Something just flashed over my body.

His mother was on the phone. A 911 dispatcher was giving her instructions while El Cerrito firefighters rushed to the apartment along with an ambulance crew. Segundo Jr. heard the sirens blaring as he dragged his unresponsive father into the living room. His fathers body was warm, though his cheeks were drained of color.

Just then, his brother called him from the hospital: Hed tested positive for the coronavirus and wanted to come home. As firefighters and paramedics arrived and began attending to his father, Segundo Jr. decided to go pick up his brother. He didnt want Eduardo to be alone at the hospital.

As soon as I seen my dads face, I knew he wasnt with us no more. ... He was gone at that moment, Segundo Jr. said.

It remains unclear whether Segundos death will be officially recorded as a COVID-19 death.

El Cerrito Fire Battalion Chief Kevin Janes told The Chronicle that fire personnel were advised by the 911 dispatch center that the person calling 911, Lopez, had reported that her husband had tested positive for the coronavirus a few days earlier.

Firefighters and paramedics told the family that he probably died of cardiac arrest, Segundo Jr. said.

The funeral home handling his body has yet to complete a death certificate. It requires review from a doctor, and Segundo Jr. said other paperwork needed to complete the certificate has been put on hold because of his mothers hospitalization.

Will Harper, a spokesman for Contra Costa Health Services, told The Chronicle that public health officials dont comment on specific cases because of medical privacy reasons.

Segundo was the second Alta Bates Summit employee thought to have died of COVID-19. Janine Paiste-Ponder, a nurse at Alta Bates caring for COVID-19 patients at the hospital, also died of the disease.

Sutter Health spokeswoman Monique Binkley Smith said the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center family is devastated by the loss of our colleague.

Juan was a dedicated and well-loved member of the Summit Campus cafe staff, where he was a cook since 2007. He will be missed not only for his cooking skills, but for his friendly personality, Binkley Smith said. Juan was known for his vibrant smile and the big welcome he gave everyone in Food and Nutrition Services when he entered the kitchen. Our thoughts are with Juans family at this difficult time.

Citing employee privacy concerns, she would not say whether the company was aware that Segundo tested positive for the coronavirus, but said it performed a deep cleaning of the cafe kitchen after we learned of Mr. Segundos illness.

Courtesy of Juan Segundo Jr.

Eduardo Segundo and his uncle are recuperating at home. Lopez, meanwhile, remained hospitalized as of Friday. She was in a medically induced coma and on a ventilator at Alta Bates in Berkeley, where she has been hospitalized since the day after her husband died.

She is fighting for her life  she is doing it for us, Segundo Jr. said.

The hospital does not allow visitors, he said. Even if he could visit, though, hes not sure he could handle seeing his mothers 4-foot-11-inch frame in a hospital bed. His mother taught him how to be humble and respectful, he said. She is a woman of faith who had prayed on the phone with her sons from the hospital. Now, Segundo Jr. said, he is praying for her.

As for the familys pursuit of the American Dream  it lives on, Segundo Jr. said.

We were working on getting a house. These were our plans, and they still are our plans, he said. My dad was the man of the house, but this is not going to slow us down. Were still going to do it.

The family has launched a GoFundMe fundraiser.

Lauren Hernandez and Mallory Moench are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: lauren.hernandez@sfchronicle.com, mallory.moench@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ByLHernandez, @mallorymoench
A year into office, BS Yediyurappa, the Bharatiya Janata Party's only chief minister who is above the 75-year threshold, finds himself at a crossroads.

In the past two months, the party high command has given scant regard to his choice of legislative council and Rajya Sabha candidates, when elections were notified for these.

And now, he has not been able to keep his promise of ministerial berths to leaders who defected from the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) to help him come to power last year. A cabinet reshuffle and expansion has been on the cards for a long time: defectors like MTB Nagaraj and R Shankar who have been made members of legislative council (MLCs) after nearly six months are waiting in the wings to be crowned ministers.

Yet, there have been inordinate delays, amid a buzz that refuses to go away that the 'high command' may not only go for a cabinet reshuffle but may also look at a new CM face who can front the party for the next elections.

Nobody knows whether this buzz is serious or just wishful thinking on the part of other aspirants. But the one thing everyone knows is that, in Karnataka politics, BSY is quite, quite irreplaceable.

"Actually, they have already started looking at it (a potential replacement) for almost six months," says political analyst Harish Ramaswamy. "They also realise they can't replace Yediyurappa unless they have a clear strategy on the ground, for the simple reason that he is a grassroots leader, and he has his roots clearly spread in the Lingayat region."

After all, who can forget the drubbing that the BJP suffered when BSY parted ways with it seven years ago and floated his own splinter party?

So the strategy is threefold right now, Ramaswamy says.

"They want an RSS person in the picture. They are also trying to find an alternate Lingayat candidate. Although you have Lingayats in the BJP, you don't have candidates who can replace Yediyurappa in the public space. The third thing they are working on is, if they have a new leader, will he be deep-rooted enough to garner votes for the BJP? There is one set of votes that will go to the BJP anyway. But there is political mobilisation capacity needed to garner more votes to defeat another party that is regionally strong like the JD(S) or has a national stature like the Congress with its formidable leaders like Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar," Ramaswamy says to News18.

There is still another two and a half years to go before Karnataka faces an assembly election, but the BJP has always been known to start and prepare early. So one set of voices within the party feels that it is better to face the next election under a different CM  one who can take charge perhaps by the end of 2020, and go on to demonstrate his or her leadership and governance skills in the remaining two years.

There is another set that believes it is better to face the next election under BSY at the helm. But if they win the next election, then it would be better to get in a new 'surprise' face installed as the CM, with Yediyurappa being given a graceful exit as, perhaps, a governor.

"They can continue with him till the next election, so that the party comes back (or stands a good chance of coming back) to power. Everything else is secondary. The party must come back," says a senior minister in the BSY cabinet, adding, "They can then decide the next CM after winning the election based on BSY's popularity." He is a CM aspirant himself.

The problem would, of course, be that BSY would be at the ripe age of 80 by then. The party has, hitherto, prided itself on asking its 75+ leaders to move to the so-called 'margdarshak mandal', which is supposed to be an apex advisory body.

But if they make an exception for a 77-year-old now, would it matter if the age were 78, 79 or 80?

"They are likely to let him complete his term (till 2023), extracting a promise perhaps that he will be at the forefront of the next election campaign and help win it. If they win the election, the possibility of another Lingayat leader close to BSY like Bommai becoming the CM is not ruled out. An alternative option might be to make a Dalit leader like the present deputy CM, Govind Karjol, the CM for half the term and then accommodate a powerful upper caste leader for the remainder of the term (assuming the party comes to power)," says Chandan Gowda, political observer and professor at the Azim Premji University.

These leaders, however, may not be close to the party's national general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh. Over the past year, Santhosh has been calling the shots over many issues, be it choice of candidates in various elections or taking on the Opposition on issues like the Bengaluru riots. He has kept a close watch over politics in Karnataka, and is said to be not averse to chief ministerial dreams himself.

But the camp that feels BSY could be replaced earlier, believes that the time may come as early as six months from now.

A Lingayat MLA from north Karnataka has been puzzled over why the cabinet expansion has been put off for over a month now.

The CM had given his word to defectors like MTB Nagaraj and R Shankar to reward them with cabinet berths. Not only this, there has also been considerable lobbying from the 'original' BJP MLAs to be accommodated in a cabinet expansion. Perhaps the expansion plans have been held up because of the high command's calculations on who should be included and who shouldn't and whether they need to have a new leader in, in six months, he feels.

"Maybe it will take another six months. What I feel is, naturally the party will look for a Lingayat face. There is a feeling in Karnataka that the votes are based on caste  the Gowda votes are with the JD(S), most of the Lingayat votes are with the BJP, so changing that to a non-Lingayat face will make us lose out our core vote bank. So the party won't take a chance on that," he says, on condition of anonymity.

He adds wryly, "Our high command can take any decision, they are known for it. Only they know what calculations run in their mind."

The party has, in the past, tried to taunt BSY in various ways  it installed three deputy CMs without consulting him, it went against his choice in MLC and Rajya Sabha elections, against his choice of state party president. But all this has not deterred Yediyurappa.

"If it had deterred him, he may have done other things (like going against the high command.) But it has not. However, they are pushing him into a situation where he may want out of the race by the next election," points out Ramaswamy. He says the party will probably take this up seriously only about six months before the election.

"Probably one idea that Yediyurappa had earlier was to find a place for his son and he could move away. But they did not agree. With many strategies combined, they have to carefully choose the successor, and give him a graceful exit," he says.

Another political analyst, Prof Sandeep Shastri, says the party has given BSY enough hints  even some not-so-subtle ones  about the need to change the CM.

The chief minister also realises where the shots are being called  whether in appointment of deputy CMs or MPs, the ground is being prepared for a handover.

But the party is also eager that the handover be smooth, Shastri says.

"Who is the ideal replacement, is the million-dollar question. There are a lot of people in the BJP who say, 'Don't put me in the list of contenders.' Because the minute a name is floated, that person would be out of the reckoning. Look at the choice of the President, of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana CMs, at the choice of Tejasvi Surya for Bangalore South Lok Sabha seat. Whenever there is a decision left to the Centre, they believe in an element of surprise," Shastri says.

While surprise is one element that is part of the style of this leadership, the other is that whoever the choice is, must be their choice. Not the media's choice, nor anyone who fancies himself as the next CM or anyone who tries to promote himself.

Again, the man to watch out for is BL Santhosh, Shastri believes.

"I don't think Lingayats have a mass leader of that stature. If you look at how Ramakrishna Hegde emerged as the leader who could bring the Gowdas and Lingayats together, here too, the party may find a Brahmin is the uniting factor whether Santhosh or Pralhad Joshi. Since Yediyurappa is dead against Santhosh, Joshi may emerge as the compromise candidate," he says.

Caste is not the only calculation. The loyalty test is the only test  loyalty to the party's core principles and to the Delhi bosses  similar to Indira Gandhi's way of functioning, he feels.
Officials say a firefighter battling the CZU Lightning Complex fire near Santa Cruz was targeted by an opportunistic thief over the weekend.

Cal Fire officials say a ground commander returned to his work truck, parked in the evacuation zone, to find it had been broken into. His wallet was stolen and officials say the man then discovered his bank account had been drained.

"Its absolutely disgusting behavior," Santa Cruz County Sheriffs Office Chief Deputy Chris Clark said. "Frankly I cant believe someone would have the nerve to break into a firefighters vehicle or enter their vehicle to steal something from them when theyre there to protect the community. It honestly blows me away."

A Cal Fire incident commander called the alleged crime "saddening" and "sickening" at a press briefing Sunday morning. The Santa Cruz Sheriff's Office is investigating; no arrests have been made in the case although on Monday the agency released surveillance images of a suspect. According to the sheriff's office, the man seen in the photos used the firefighter's credit card to make purchases at a Shell gas station and a Safeway in Capitola.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Santa Cruz Sheriff's Office.

Clark said dozens of officers continue to patrol evacuation zones to protect property and possessions left behind from residents fleeing the fire. Seventy-seven thousand people have been evacuated so far in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties.

"Being in the evacuation zone, technically its against the law. I can completely emphasize with protecting your house, I get that, but if youre riding around, its technically a violation of law," Clark said. "We have folks that are looking for people, trying to prey on people who have evacuated."

The CZU Lightning Complex has burned 71,000 acres and is 8% contained as of Sunday morning.

MORE WILDFIRE COVERAGE:

Map: See where wildfires are burning in Bay Area

Crews make gains on fire in Santa Cruz, San Mateo counties

'Significant growth' still expected for LNU Lightning Complex, now 2nd-largest California fire ever

What to do to keep wildfire smoke out of your house

Katie Dowd is the SFGATE managing editor. Contact: katie.dowd@sfgate.com | Twitter: @katiedowd
Since then, as more details of the plan  known as Lost Wages Assistance  have emerged, so have problems with finding the funding and getting it to the hands of those who need it. What is now clear is that the federal supplement is $300 a week, not $400. And by Thursday, only one state, Arizona, had started paying out.
Pope Francis can sometimes be magnificent. Last week he wrote to an Argentinian nun named Sister Monica Astorga, who has just opened up a housing complex for trans women in the city of Neuquen.

The Pontiff gave his blessing to the work and in a handwritten message said that, God, who did not go to seminary or study theology, will repay you abundantly. He continued that he would pray for you and your girls and asked Sister Monica to pray for him in return.

The new centre is primarily for trans women aged between 40 and 70, who have often been forced into the sex trade or drug addiction and face grimly high levels of violence, discrimination, and poverty. The World Health Organization has the life expectancy for trans people in Argentina at 35, less than half the national average.

The personal and highly supportive note is far more significant than it may seem because the Roman Catholic Church has often been loud and active in opposing the very notion of the trans reality. Last June, the Vatican published a text entitled Male and Female He Created Them: Towards a Path of Dialogue on the Question of Gender Theory in Education. While calling for respect, it insisted that transgender identity sought to annihilate the concept of nature.

It also pronounced that any identification outside of a gender binary is nothing more than a confused concept of freedom in the realm of feelings and wants and that trans people  and, according to official teaching, anybody else within the LGBTQ2 community  should be helped to overcome what are unwelcome and damaging temptations.

Pope Francis has in the past been harsh and even condemning. Four years ago in Poland when discussing these issues he spoke of ideological colonization and that, Today, in schools they are teaching this to children  to children!  that everyone can choose their gender.

But people, even Popes, change. Evolution, progress, and growth are crucial to the human character and this should apply at a fundamental level to Christians. The Gospel faith is one of permanent revolution, of developing new responses to new challenges based on experience and prayer. Francis has long spoken of the God of Surprises and that he wants to shake things up, and this latest gorgeous and Christ-filled statement will certainly do that.

The achingly conservative but nevertheless influential Life Site media platform immediately responded with an article. After a controversial nun opened in Argentina a residence for trans women  men who choose to identify as women  Pope Francis praised her work, and, it roared, he referred to the men as girls. I dont think it was their age that made the author so angry!

The article continued, Last year, Cardinal Raymond Burke and Bishop Athanasius Schneider, joined by other prelates, issued a public declaration of truths of the faith where they called it a rebellion and grave sin for a man to attempt to become a woman.

The two clerics are high-profile reactionaries and while darlings of the right have been marginalized in Vatican circles. Light, of course, can be terribly shocking and frightening to those so used to darkness, but how well we see when we allow ourselves to become accustomed to its graceful revelations.

The hope is that Rome will not issue one of its What the Pope meant to say clarifications, because they are no longer credible and in this, as in other cases, are damaging and unnecessary. In a world where traditional assumptions and unchallenged prejudices are finally being exposed and exploded, churches and church leaders should be leading the charge rather than hiding away in the corner.

This good and brave nun in Argentina is working to make the lives of trans women less dangerous and less hellish than they have been up to now. Pope Francis sees the beauty and justice of that vocation and so do countless other people throughout the world.

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another, said Jesus. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. Not some, not those who fit in easily, not those who are just like you, but everyone.
After the Trump administration ordered hospitals last month to start reporting their coronavirus statistics to the federal Department of Health and Human Services instead of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, publicly available statistics immediately fell into disarray. Perhaps the greatest indicator of that disarray is the fact that when visitors go to the Health and Human Services website for coronavirus statistics, theyre prompted to go to the CDCs website for coronavirus statistical updates.

In other words, the CDC remains the authority for reliable coronavirus information. Why the administration ordered the switch remains anyones guess, but theres little question President Donald Trumps fragile ego and business conflicts of interest are at the root of it. Trump is so desperate to see coronavirus case numbers drop, last month he suggested restricting the number of tests in order to reduce the number of positive cases.

Because of the data switch, Missouri and other states saw a major gap in statistical reporting as hospitals were ordered to stop sending information to the CDC. For nine straight days, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services was forced to impose an information blackout on new coronavirus hospitalizations because no information was coming from the federal government.

The departments COVID-19 Dashboard now displays a gap-toothed bar graph for daily hospitalizations, going from 875 on July 12 to zero for the next nine days, followed by 808 on July 25.

The federal data-reporting change came as Trump began freezing out his two top infectious disease experts after Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx began publicly disagreeing with his pandemic pronouncements. Trump has appointed a new adviser, a radiologist who happens to be a vociferous Trump supporter and skeptic of precautions like school closures. On July 13, the very day the CDC was stripped of its data-collection duties, Trump retweeted an assertion by game-show host Chuck Woolery that the CDC had been lying about statistics in order to damage Trumps reelection chances.

Meanwhile, Teletracking Technologies, the private contractor being paid $10.2 million to manage the new coronavirus database, has refused to answer questions from Congress about its no-bid contract, citing a nondisclosure agreement with Health and Human Services. Its chief executives prior experience was with a firm that financed billions of dollars in projects with the Trump Organization, National Public Radio reported.

Hospital officials say the amount of data they must now collect and send to Teletracking has nearly doubled from what the CDC previously needed, meaning a far heavier workload for an already overtaxed medical community. Crucial medical information that used to go to one of the nations most respected and non-partisan medical agencies is now going to a private company that wont explain its operations and created a nine-day information black hole in the middle of a pandemic.

And Trump wonders why his pandemic-management skills have come under such widespread criticism.
Valletta:

Hijackers claiming to have a grenade took over a Libyan plane on Friday and diverted it to Malta before releasing everyone on board and surrendering to authorities, officials said.

Final crew members leaving aircraft with hijackers, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said on Twitter. Minutes later, he added: Hijackers surrendered, searched and taken in custody.

Libyan Foreign Minister Taher Siala said the two hijackers were supporters of slain dictator Moamer Kadhafi and had requested political asylum in Malta.

ALSO READ: (Live updates | Afriqiyah Airways plane hijack: All passengers, crew members released; hijackers surrendered and taken into custody)

Siala, from Libyas internationally backed Government of National Accord, said the hijackers have also said they want to set up a pro-Kadhafi political party. The plane landed at 11:32 am (1032 GMT) in Malta.

After more than an hour on the tarmac, the door of the Airbus A320 opened and a first group of women and children was seen descending a mobile staircase.

Dozens more passengers were released minutes later following negotiations that Maltese government sources said were led by the head of Maltas military.

In all, there were 111 passengers, including 28 women and a baby, on board, as well as seven crew members.

Maltese government sources had earlier said only a single hijacker was believed to be on the plane.

The aircraft had been on a domestic Libyan route operated by Afriqiyah Airways from Sabha in southern Libya to the capital Tripoli but was re-routed.

The Afriqiyah flight from Sabha to Tripoli has been diverted and has landed in Malta. Security services coordinating operations, Muscat tweeted earlier.

Muscat later spoke to Libyas prime minister-designate Fayez al-Sarraj, the head of the north African countrys fledgling unity government, the Maltese prime ministers office said.

The plane could be seen on the tarmac of a secondary runway surrounded by military vehicles. All flights in and out of the airport were initially either delayed or diverted to destinations in Italy, though some later took off and landed.

Malta International Airport said there had been an unlawful interference but operations had now resumed.

An Afriqiyah Airways source said the two hijackers had threatened the pilots with an explosive device, probably a grenade, forcing them to continue to Malta instead of landing at Tripolis Mitiga airport.

Libya has been in a state of chaos since the 2011 overthrow of Moamer Kadhafi left warring militias battling for control of different parts of the country.

Forces loyal to a national unity government recently took control of the coastal city of Sirte, which had been a bastion of the Islamic State group since June 2015.

Western powers have pinned their hopes of containing jihadism in the energy-rich North African state on the government but it has failed to establish its authority over all of the country.

A rival authority rules the countrys far east, backed by the forces under military strongman Marshal Khalifa Haftar who have been battling jihadists in second city Benghazi. Only local airlinesbanned from European airspace operate in Libya, with flights to Tunis, Cairo, Amman, Istanbul and Khartoum.

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The historically Black district of Albina in Portland, Oregon, due to racist real estate practices, faced multiple displacement events between 1960 and 1990 with the construction of Interstate 5 through the heart of the neighborhood as well as wholesale destruction of hundreds of homes to make room for the Memorial Coliseum and various other urban renewal projects. Gentrification in Portland saw a mass displacement of Black households from Albina, largely to East Portland, a suburban area that was unincorporated county land prior to the 1990's. As Black people were priced out of the Albina neighborhood, businesses and churches have also closed as a result of losing community members.

Supported by a fellowship from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), Steven Howland of Portland State University focused his doctoral research on examining the impacts of gentrification on transportation and social support for black working-poor families in Portland, both those who were displaced to East Portland and those who were able to remain in Albina. Through 27 in-depth interviews with parents of young children (13 Albina residents and 14 residents of East Portland), he sought to understand how they used transportation to make ends meet and how those strategies differ between inner-city and suburban neighborhoods.

Download the final report: "'I Should Have Moved Somewhere Else': The Impacts of Gentrification on Transportation and Social Support for Black Working-Poor Families in Portland, Oregon" https://ppms.trec.pdx.edu/media/project_files/NITC-D-1079_I_Should_Have_Moved_Somewhere_Else.pdf

WHY DO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH?

Qualitative research plays an important role in equitable transportation policy. How does transportation directly affect people's daily lives and decision-making? Quantitative data are often used to make policy decisions, yet numbers only tell part of the story. Researchers can gain different knowledge from an in-depth interview than they might learn from a regional survey.

Jennifer Dill, professor in the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning and Howland's advisor, points out that qualitative research has the power to shine light on issues that transportation professionals may have not focused on enough.

"When you're trying to make change, it's always great to have a mix of the quantitative and qualitative. It's people's stories that help us understand and change minds," Dill said.

ALBINA: THE EROSION OF A PORTLAND COMMUNITY

"Ferrell's. Right here it was on Broadway. An ice cream shop. Pietro's was right next to that. There was like, you know, a couple black-owned businesses that's gone now. All of them basically are gone now."

"I would go see family more often if I had the gas money to get all the way over like that. But I don't be having the gas like that to get all the way over there."

"My son lives all the way out east Portland. So, I'm not going to drive out there. And I have two grandsons that live out that way too."

Overall, the cultural rootedness of Albina appeared to be eroding as more and more Black people and businesses left and were being replaced by high-end shops, restaurants, and white people.

Despite the significant cultural losses, the residents of Albina had easier transportation (including a higher rate of car ownership), better-resourced and easily accessed social support networks, and a higher density of nearby destinations to get around easier and accomplish more in a day. East Portlanders struggled far more.

"It really felt like the people in Albina, even for those that were still paying market rent, they still seemed on average to be doing slightly better than those living in East Portland. Even with the higher rents they still had a lot of resources nearby that they could tap into," Howland said.

EAST PORTLAND: A NEIGHBORHOOD OUT OF REACH

"It's either food or gas, a lot of the time."

"Trying to find shortcuts. Go straight there. I just do my triangle: work, home and school."

East Portland residents had to go the furthest for all their activities. Clustering of destinations around the western edge of East Portland put groceries, school and other activities out of reach for most residents. The longer distances between destinations meant more time traveling. That extra time meant they could not get as much done in a day as those living in Albina. Support networks for people in East Portland featured a lot of friends and family that had also been displaced, but everything was so spread out that they were more socially isolated. They often had to turn to their network living in Albina for their more critical needs like childcare, but it took a lot more effort to utilize.

GETTING AROUND: RELIABILITY OF DRIVING VS SAFETY CONCERNS ON TRANSIT

"The buses don't come when they say they're going to come. You have to wait for the bus, and they aren't going to stop. If you're having to be at a place at a certain time you can't depend on the bus to get you there on time."

"There was certain jobs that weren't along a transit line. Maybe a mile or two miles off the line. I didn't have a car to get there so I couldn't take the job."

Howland interviewed participants on how they made choices on getting around, the effects those choices had on their lives, and how they adapted to maintain their mobility. Data doesn't tell the whole story. The narrative behind the mobility experiences of low-income Black community members often gets washed out or misrepresented in the existing data. By understanding their lived experiences and challenges, policy makers and planners are better equipped to intervene.

Overall, the interviews revealed that Albina residents were more likely to drive than East Portlanders. Both populations shared a preference for driving over transit. East Portland in particular is transit-poor, so the lack of ability to get around without a car has upended many aspects of families' lives.

"Last time we rode public transportation there's this dude on there and he was just crazy. Tweaking out really bad. And he kept looking at my son and I'm like, you say something to him I'm going to jail today."

"My 18-year-old, he rode it all the time...But it's a point where I pulled up a time I was driving home and I seen this fight going on, on the platform of the TriMet [MAX stop]. This grown man fighting kids. I pulled up and it was my son [one of the kids]. Some Caucasian guy fighting some black kids and the black kids get in trouble."

Distance and time were factors, of course, that led participants to prefer getting around by driving rather than using transit. Another finding, which Howland had not anticipated, was that safety concerns were also a major deterrent to riding transit.

This was spurred in part by the 2017 racially-motivated murders on the MAX train, which happened the same summer that Howland was conducting interviews. More often however, the concerns had to do with participants' encounters with people experiencing houselessness as well as people with untreated mental illnesses and addictions, which often spilled over into racists outbursts or threats of violence against them or their children.

Highlights from the Findings:

Albina Residents (62%) were more likely to drive than East Portlanders (36%)

Nearly universal dislike of TriMet, and nearly everyone had safety concerns taking transit. No drivers expressed safety issues driving.

Drivers were more likely to use transit as an alternative, and transit riders were more likely to turn to getting rides as an alternative.

Albina residents struggled less in their daily life maintenance, giving them more means to own a car.

East Portland residents gained marginally more benefit from car ownership, but struggled more to own. East Portland residents also had more difficulty getting rides.

Albina residents had positive associations with walking, whereas East Portland residents would walk, but with higher cost due to distances and multiple safety issues.

Very few people rode a bike, but it was more common for their kids - mostly limited to Albina.

TAKEAWAYS FOR TRANSPORTATION PROFESSIONALS

Marginalized individuals have said that they feel more vulnerable to harassment when biking or riding transit, and research has shown there is racism even at the crosswalk - so it feels like the safest place is in a car. If encouraging car-free travel is a priority, planners, engineers and policymakers need to come up with solutions to make transit, biking, walking and rolling feel safer for the most marginalized.

While East Portland has had a lot of investments in road safety, it is the distance between destinations that has really hurt people's ability to survive. As East Portland continues to grow with more low-income people of color, more attention needs to go to the urban development of the area to make daily life easier.

"We have to recognize how our plans impact people. It's not just the space, not just the environment; it's the people themselves. They are impacted. We need to recognize that what we think should be done will have consequences, and we need to be able to plan for those consequences," Howland said.

Implementing anti-displacement housing policies to prevent the dissolution of a community is key, but with that is also being proactively aware of where people might end up if they do get displaced from a newly gentrified area. Community ties are vital for quality of life, particularly as people get older and the design concepts behind aging in place become more critical to apply to transportation projects.

"It's nuanced, but recognize that if you can start to identify an area where a lot of people are being displaced to, you need to start implementing plans there as soon as possible," Howland said.

Howland graduated from Portland State with his PhD in Spring 2020. This summer he received a job offer from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City to be an Assistant Economist. He will be working in their Community Development section doing research informed by community stakeholders.

This research was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities.

The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) is one of seven U.S. Department of Transportation national university transportation centers. NITC is a program of the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University. This PSU-led research partnership also includes the Oregon Institute of Technology, University of Arizona, University of Oregon, University of Texas at Arlington and University of Utah. We pursue our theme -- improving mobility of people and goods to build strong communities -- through research, education and technology transfer.

###
Grant, O merciful God, that your Church,

being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit,

may show forth your power among all peoples,

to the glory of your Name;

through Jesus Christ our Lord,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God,

for ever and ever.

Amen.
Fifty years after being part of the Canadian military forces that helped liberate the Netherlands, Leo Beaulac travelled back to the European country and had a first-hand experience of the deep gratitude felt by its people.

This spring, 25 years after her father's pilgrimage, Beaulac's daughter had planned to walk in his footsteps on a 60-kilometre hike over three days that would trace the route her father and other soldiers walked near the end of the Second World War.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic put the kibosh on the emotional and historic journey for Jocelyne April and her two brothers.

"I started thinking about (how) we're actually going to be walking the same trail that Dad walked," April told Edmonton AM earlier this week

"It became much more meaningful to be in that same space and ... to experience the thankfulness that Dad experienced, 25 years ago when he went, from the Dutch people. How thankful they still were all this time later."

Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and with it, the liberation of the Netherlands from Nazi control. Canadians played a major role in freeing the Netherlands from German occupiers, with Canada even sheltering members of the Dutch Royal Family during the war.

The Canadian Tulip Festival in Ottawa commemorates the friendship between the two countries, with the Netherlands sending thousands of tulips for the annual spring festival.

Beaulac was a member of the South Saskatchewan Regiment. He served on the front lines in the Netherlands from July 1944 to the end of the war, returning home in January 1946.

April, along with her brothers and other descendants of Canadian soldiers, planned to participate in the "In Our Fathers' Footsteps" journey, hiking the route their ancestors had walked decades ago.

It also would have put participants in the Netherlands for National Liberation Day on May 5. They would also explore the country and Dutch culture, learn about the country's military history and participate in tributes like candlelight vigils and flower ceremonies.

Story continues

Their trip was cancelled due to travel restrictions because of COVID-19, but the group is now looking ahead to making this walk happen next year.

Karen Hunter, the organizer of In Our Fathers' Footsteps said the plan is to push the event to next May.

"At this point, it's kind of anybody's guess how it's going to play out," Hunter said about the likelihood of the trip proceeding as planned. "I don't think you could ask anyone and get any kind of a definitive answer."

April, who lives in Darwell, about 75 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, is disappointed the event had to be cancelled, noting it is getting tougher to travel as she and her husband get older.

But she is still hopeful to be able to do the trip next year, to witness the warmth experienced by her father 25 years ago.

April said her father never talked much about the war when he was younger. But his visit on the 50th anniversary helped him see how thankful the people there were, and that made him open up about his experiences.

"He said when they were walking in parades, older women would fall on their knees and kiss them and hug them," April said. "They were so thankful even 50 years later for the liberation that the Canadian soldiers brought to them."
Minister of Education, Monica Anisie, sent on Sunday a message to pupils that will sustain the written examinations as part of the second session of the Baccalaureate this year.

"To the pupils that did not have success in the first session I want to say that there is always a second chance! Both to them, as well as to those who did not succeed in the maturity exam I want to convey the following message: always believe in yourselves, in your potential and you will succeed! I congratulate you for the ambition and desire to overcome this threshold. At the same time, I want to transmit thanks to my colleagues, teachers, because they are together with you this time already, because they said 'present' each time! I wish you all good luck and be confident in what you know and in what you are! I am together with you and your parents!," wrote Monica Anisie, on Facebook.

The second session of the Baccalaureate exam this year starts Monday, over 42,700 candidates being enrolled to take the exams, according to the Ministry of Education and Research.

Of the total number of those enrolled, over 24,900 candidates come from the 2019-2020 promotion, and approximately 17,800 candidates are from prior promotions.

The Baccalaureate debuts with the written examination in Romanian language and literature.

AGERPRES .
The legislation that includes the $25 billion US Postal Service emergency fund had just been passed today by the House of Representatives. The funding will also roll back some of the most controversial cost-cutting measures implemented by Louis DeJoy, Postmaster General.

The bill was passed with 257 to 150 along party lines with the support of the Democratic party members. According to Business Insider, twenty-six Republicans voted in favor of the bill. Republican lawmakers have been satisfied with the assertion of the postmaster general earlier this week that DeJoy would postpone changes to the postal service until after the 2020 election, as per The New York Times.

On Friday, the Trump administration threatened that the White House would veto the legislation if it reached President Trump's desk. However, according to CNN, it is unlikely that the legislation will be considered by the Republican-majority Senate, which is led by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

The Office of Management and Budget released a statement on Friday saying, "The Administration strongly opposes passage of H.R. 8015. Instead of reforming the United States Postal Service (USPS) to ensure its continued viability in the modern economy, H.R. 8015 would arbitrarily give USPS $25 billion in 'emergency' taxpayer funding, without linking that funding to either the COVID-19 pandemic or the upcoming election."

The "Delivering for America Act," legislation was introduced by the chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Rep.Carolyn Maloney. The act would prohibit changes to the US Postal Service (USPS) system until January 2021, will roll back existing modifications to the cash-strapped agency that included the reduction of overtime for employees, and the removal of mail sorting machines.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy instituted measures to hinder efforts to expand mail-in ballots due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Democrats abruptly expressed concerns about the changes which already led to delays in mail delivery to some states of the U.S., as per Business Insider. Maloney, a New York Democrat, reiterated that the legislation is not an issue between partisans before the unusual Saturday session. "It makes absolutely no sense to impose these kinds of dangerous cuts in the middle of a pandemic and just months before the elections in November," Maloney said.

On Saturday, the session indicates an early return to work for the members of Congress from their summer recess. DeJoy claimed in a Senate hearing with the president on Friday that USPS would handle the influx of mail-in-ballots in November. "We had some delays in the mail," DeJoy admitted.

According to DeJoy, the changes that he made was one to their schedule and one about the transportations schedule. DeJoy believes that the agency will get at least a billion dollars of savings out of moving forward, and will be the key to improving their service.

While DeJoy admitted delays, the House Oversight Committee released an internal document from USPS that Maloney revealed "alarming nationwide delays," which is not yet disclosed by the postmaster general.

On the other hand, President Donald Trump and his allies claimed that USPS is inefficient, and efforts to expand the vote-by-mail due would lead to widespread voter fraud.

Check these out:

Stimulus Checks, Second Round: Possible to Come After Voting for US Postal Service Funding

Stimulus Check: Kamala Harris Wants to Give $12,000 to Beneficiaries Right Away

Direct Stimulus Payments: Trump Wants to Send Within One Week of Deal, Officials Say
A China Southern Airlines Airbus A380 taxis at the new Beijing Daxing International Airport in Beijing on May 13, 2019. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

PNG Issues Warning to China Over COVID-19 Vaccine Trial

The small pacific nation of Papua New Guinea is demanding answers from Beijing after reports emerged that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was using PNG-posted workers as guinea pigs to test a Chinese-developed trial COVID-19 vaccine.

In a report on Aug. 20, The Australian newspaper revealed that Chinese state-owned Ramu Nickel Management Limited had informed the PNG government it had vaccinated its fly-in-fly-out (FIFO) workers with an experimental SARS-CoV-2 vaccine on Aug. 10.

In response, the PNG Facts reported on Aug. 21 that the countrys COVID-19 pandemic controller David Manning had blocked a flight carrying a further 180 Chinese workers bound for the PNG capital of Port Moresby.

Speaking at a briefing, Manning said: In light of the lack of information of what these trials are and what possible risks or threats that they may cause our people if they were to come into the country, I had to cancel that flight yesterday just to ensure that we continue to act in the best interest of our people and our country.

At present Papua New Guinea has reported 361 cases of COVID-19, with 196 people having recovered and three dying from the disease.

Manning went on to say that he had written to the PNG Chinese Ambassador Xue Bing asking him to provide information on the vaccination trials and enquiring if the Chinese nationals had only been approved to work in PNG after being subjected to these trials.

There is also concern that the CCP is doing this a requirement for their citizens travelling abroad.

The head of the pandemic response also noted that the Papuan government and its National Department of Health do not acknowledge this vaccination as a formal method of dealing with the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus.

Further reporting from The Australian on Aug. 21 revealed that the aborted flight was carrying FIFO workers from a number of Chinas largest state-owned companies, including China Railway International, the China Harbour Engineering Group, Shenzhen Energy, and the Dongfang Electric Group.

The move by the PNG government comes after Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison promised on Aug. 19 to help provide Australias Pacific family with access to any successful COVID-19 vaccine.

We have a regional role to play here, Morrison said, noting that the rest of the world looks to Australia to provide support to Pacific countries.

China has been engaging heavily with PNG, which is Australia closest neighbour, after the Pacific nation signed up to the Belt and Road Initiative in 2018.

However, University of Queensland researcher and former Australian High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea Ian Kemish said that the CCPs engagement with PNG has been hit and miss.

In an article in The Conversation, Kemish noted that PNG officials had become frustrated with a combination of Chinese bureaucratic stalling on development projects and their use of economic threats, which has pushed PNG to turn back to Australia for support.

In 2019, the PNG government had to ask China to refinance a $11.9 billion national debtmore than one-third of PNGs GDP. However, after getting no relief from the communist superpower, PNG turned to Australia, which is now providing the country with a $440 million loan.

The PNG government was also threatened in April by Chinese state-owned company Zijin Mining Group after the PNG government decided not to renew its gold mining license.

According to a report published by the ABC in April, the chairman of the group, Jinghe Chen, wrote to PNGs Prime Minister James Marape declaring that if Zijins investment was not protected by the PNG Government, I am afraid there will be a significant negative impact on the bilateral relations between China and PNG.
Daniel Andrews has been blasted over a 'condescending' and 'lame' ad campaign set to feature The Project host Waleed Aly lecturing Victorians about Melbourne's lockdown.

The campaign also includes Kath and Kim's Magda Szubanski, AFLW star Tayla Harris, and comedians Shane Jacobson and Nazeem Hussain, who encourage the public to wear masks and stay at home.

The 'Staying Safe is in Our Hands' Campaign has been widely panned by Victorians, accusing the premier of being 'tone deaf' and spreading 'propaganda'.

The first video stars Szubanski reprising her iconic role of Sharon Strzelecki from Kath and Kim.

The first video stars Magda Szubanski reprising her iconic role of Sharon Strzelecki from Kath and Kim

Jacobson, who starred in the 2006 comedy Kenny, used an analogy about condoms to encourage Victorians to wear masks

She is seen playing netball by herself while wearing a face mask.

'I tell you what, I am so over this lockdown. Playing netball by yourself isn't all it's cracked up to be, especially when you still can't even win,' Szubanski tells the camera.

'But you know what? It's not the lockdown that's the enemy, it's the virus.

'And the sooner we obey the rules, the sooner this will all be over.'

Jacobson, who starred in the 2006 comedy Kenny, used an analogy about condoms to encourage Victorians to wear masks.

The 'Staying Safe is in Our Hands' Campaign has been widely panned by Victorians, accusing Premier Daniel Andrews of being tone deaf and spreading propaganda.

A slew of Victorians took to social media to slam Waleed Aly (pictured with his wife Susan) for lecturing them

'When I was a little tacker, they used to have an ad campaign for condoms. And they had a slogan which was "if it's not on, it's not on",' he said.

'So I'm bringing the slogan back. If it's not on, it's not on. So whack one on your face. I'm talking about the mask of course, not the condoms.'

Szubanski and Jacobson's ads are the only two to have been released yet, but already viewers have already blasted the clips.

Others criticised Mr Andrews' choice of Australian media personalities.

'According to the media release starring some of our 'most beloved Victorians' Did I miss something. Since when did Waleed Aly fall into that category,' one tweeted.

'Who on earth could possibly believe Waleed Aly hectoring people via a TV ad is going to cheer anyone up?' said another.

'Ah...so Magda took it upon herself to patronise her audience. Good to know,' said another, in response to Szubanski's tweet that she in fact wrote her script.

Brighton MP James Newbury defended the actors and took a swipe at the premier.

'DAN, NOT MAGDA. How angry are Victorians? They have turned on much loved 'Sharon Strzelecki'. Magda read a script - with good intentions,' '@DanielAndrewsMP wrote the condescending script telling us we aren't 'obeying the rules'. I'm angry. Angry at Dan.'

Szubanski and Jacobson's ads are the only two to have been released yet, but already viewers have already blasted the clips

Another tweet read: 'Vic government rolling out propaganda ads to motivate people re doing the right thing.'

But some came to the defence of the Victorian Government's ad campaign.

'People trolling @MagdaSzubanski for reprising an iconic and beloved piece of Australian comedy to bring a tiny semblance of joy to this hellhole of a year is PEAK 2020,' former Bachelorette Georgia Love tweeted.

'The racist bigots are out in full force tonight having a go at #WaleedAly being part of the govt ad. How sad,' said another.

Mr Andrews released a statement saying the ads will be be rolled out on social media in the coming days.

But some came to the defence of the Victorian Government's ad campaign, including former Bachelorette Georgia Love

'As part of the latest in the Victorian Government's communications campaign, some of our most loved Victorians are here to remind us all  staying safe is in our hands,' the premier said in a statement.

'That includes small but simple things like wearing a mask, washing your hands, keeping your distance  and getting tested if you have symptoms.

'Using Victorian voices and a very Victorian sense of humour, this is the latest in our ongoing advertising and communications efforts and will be successively rolled out on social media channels in the coming days.'

Victoria on Sunday recorded 17 more COVID-19 deaths with 11 linked to aged care outbreaks and 208 new cases.

The national death toll is now 502 while state fatalities have reached 415.
During the organizing of the educational process, face masks arent the only problem, but everyone is focused on that. This is what doctor-epidemiologist Eduard Hovhannisyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am, touching upon the sensational decision on making children wear face masks in school.

In reality, its going to be technically very difficult to implement all the processes, and I get the impression that the government has drafted an artificial document so that schools can be inspected later, he said.

According to him, it was necessary to clarify whether children easily get infected and easily infect family members or not.

There is also a problem with face masks in the sense of what we want. Do we want to prevent something? Face masks need to be worn properly. If children are going to wear face masks on public transport and then in class, this will inevitably cause consequences such as lack of oxygen. There is no study on what impact this will have on childrens health and concentration, and there is no study on what is more dangerous  the coronavirus or wearing a face mask? The government needed to consider all the advantages and disadvantages and then make decisions, he said.

Hovhannisyan also questioned the term for opening schools. He believes schools need to be opened on September 1, that is, before the start of acute respiratory viruses in order to understand what the situation in schools will be like.
The claim of President Putin about the development of vaccine without scientifically sharing the data with the rest of the world is similar to the behavioural pattern of Xi Jinping and his government in China.





by N.S.Venkataraman





A few decades back, Russia and China claimed that they were the greatest  communist countries in the world, representing the interest of the proletariat and fighting against the evils of capitalism.









Later, Russia shed the communist philosophy and has started claiming that it is a democratic country and started conducting periodic elections. However, Chinese government continues to claim that it is a government of communist party, though every one including the Chinese people know that China is now no different from any other capitalist country in the world and there is no communism in any of its actions and policies today.





At the same time, similarities between Russia and China continue in several aspects till today.





The most glaring example is that both Xi Jinping, President of China and Vladimir Putin, President of Russia have declared themselves as life Presidents. In other words, both of them would continue to be President for many years, until the end of their life, though Putin has put some time limit for his life Presidentship , which is adequately long considering his probable life span.





It is very well known that dissenters and critics are mercilessly suppressed and in most cases eliminated by the dictatorial Chinese government. No Chinese citizen can criticise the Chinese government and hope to survive in China.





Now, similar situation seem to be happening in Russia too. Though, Putin claims that he is democratically elected President, the world view is developing that his mindset is still dictatorial , which is proved by his attitude towards the critics. It does not seem to be much different from that of Xi Jinping.





The critics of Putin in Russia seem to be now living in fear that they would not be spared if they would question any decision of President Putin. Several of such critics have suffered in recent past , just like the critics of Xi Jinping in China have suffered and lost their lives.





Alexi Navalny who is a severe critic of President Putin is fighting for his life in a Siberian hospital after drinking tea that his associates suspect was laced with poison. Navalny started feeling ill on a plane returning to Moscow from Tomsk in Siberia . He has to be carried off the plane on a stretcher after it made an emergency landing at Omsk.





There is a long history of critics of Putin suffering. Number of them are suspected to have been poisoned or falling ill after suspected poisoning. They include Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London in 2006 after drinking tea laced with polonium-210 and Sergei Skripal, a former double agent who was poisoned with a nerve agent in 2018 in Salisbury, England.





The recent claim of President Putin that Russian scientists have successfully developed vaccine to treat COVID 19 and the vaccine would be made available to other countries in the next few weeks have surprised and shocked scientists and researchers around the world. The surprised W H O has asked Russia to provide more details about the vaccine developed. Russia has not cared to reveal the extent of clinical trials carried out and the test results in a transparent manner. It is likely that governments in many countries would be hesitant to use the vaccine developed in Russia to treat the COVID 19 patients , considering it as a calculated risk.





When Putin made such claims about the development of vaccine in Russia , most people immediately recollected similar claims by China and China too has not cared to share any details with the world community.





When the carona virus developed in Wuhan , China concealed the information for several weeks and till now has not shared with the world any information that it has , as to how the virus happened , how it spread and how China tackled the COVID 19 crisis. The deafening silence of China on such crucial matter make everyone suspect whether Chinas versions and claims can be believed and accepted at its face value.





The suspicion that critics are being eliminated mercilessly in Russia is similar to what has been happening in China, is becoming stronger day by day.





The claim of President Putin about the development of vaccine without scientifically sharing the data with the rest of the world is similar to the behavioural pattern of Xi Jinping and his government in China.





There is no doubt that credibility of Russian government under the leadership of Putin in the eyes of the world community is dropping down and moving towards the low credibility level of China.





Of course, the level of transparency in Russia is a little better than the prevailing transparency level in China. Somewhat redeeming factor is that the dissatisfied people in Russia are expressing themselves to some extent and coming to the streets to protest which cannot happen in China.





Nevertheless, it is a matter of concern that such disturbing news of critics being eliminated and exaggerated claims on vaccine and other achievements are coming from Russia too often these days.




Authorities said six people were arrested during a protest Saturday night near Mayor Lori Lightfoots home, where protesting has been made virtually impossible through enforcement of a residential protesting ban.

Four women and two men were taken in custody and charged with misdemeanor counts of residential picketing in the 3400 block of West Wrightwood Avenue after officers were called about 10:30 p.m. to disperse the group, police said.

Those arrested live in New York, Washington, Arkansas and Pennsylvania and have since been released, authorities said Sunday morning. One of the women also was issued a citation for violating a city ordinance about loud music or amplified sound.

The arrests come days after the Tribune first reported that police no longer were allowing protests near Lightfoots Logan Square home. It wasnt immediately clear whether these were the first such arrests since the directive had been communicated to officers in a July email.
Is it back to the boos for Doug Ford? Aug. 20

Rick Salutins opinions rarely match mine and even when they differ widely, I am always in admiration of the arguments he espouses, but this opinion piece totally matches my views of the present premier.

It is easy to co-operate with people with whom you agree. The real trick in a person being fair is to collaborate with people with whom you do not share the same view.

There is no separation between unions and teachers. Both want to ensure the safety of the elementary schoolchildren by permitting social distancing in our schools. That means according to the Sick Kids report  no more than 15 in a class and all wearing masks if possible.

The one essential recommendation by Sick Kids was ignored and the unions and teachers felt it was essential to a safe school opening.

Premier Doug Ford forced some parents to make the decision to keep their kids out of school, robbing them of the opportunity to join their classmates in safe schools.

All because of an underlying animosity toward unions?
This is an opinion column.

Close the cavernous digital divide between our states poorest and richest school districtsa chasm that cheats our children solely based on the circumstances and geography of their birth?

Nah. Too much to tackle. Too expensive.

That was before COVID-19.

Ensure every student, no matter where they live, no matter their familys income, has a computer and Internet access at home? Every student.

Nah. Too too much

That was before COVID-19.

Tackle the so-called summer slide, the three months when much of what students learned during the year seems to seep from their brains, (be real and call it the summer stupids) by considering a year-round school model?

Nah. Too too something

That was before COVID-19.

It took a global pandemic for us to pay attention toand, in many instances, fixthe most egregious have-and-have-not fault-lines in our state education system: The Internet deserts that plague our poorest neighborhoods and a dearth of computers in households unable to afford them.

Manna from the Federal CARES Act enabled our largest and most diverse school districts to provide qualifying families with computer tablets and vouchers for regular and reliable Internet access.

Access to the lifeline of learning. Particularly now, when remote, digital education is the norm, not the extreme. When it is the safest (though not always the most popular) optioneven at the risk that some students in poor districts may fall further behind academically.

As we hold our breath while our teachers, administrators and our children head back to school, in some form, its time to ponder something few have wanted to discuss, let alone enact: Year-round school.

At its simplest, the thinking is children learning year-roundtypically, 45 days of school followed by 15 days (three weeks) of vacation, though there are other modelsare less apt to endure summer slide, no matter the economics or geography of their birth. Theres no national consensus on its efficacyyet studies have shown academic achievement among children in year-round learning is at least as good as, if not better than, students on the traditional calendar.

And this: Year-round learning is particularly good for children in low-income families.

Covid-19 has made us rethink almost every aspect of our lives. Why not how we teach our kids? Why arent more districts, especially those striving to educate children born into low-income conditions, at least considering year-round school?

Especially now.

About 4 percent of K-12 students in the U.S. are on a year-round schedule, says data from the National Association of Year-Round Education. Still, thats about 3 million kids in 46 states and the District of Columbia. (30 years ago, only 400,000 U.S. students went to school year-round.)

The idea isnt totally foreign to Alabamians. In 1993, the Vincent school in Shelby County went on a year-round schedule. Teachers and parents thought the model was working; standardized test scores and student morale improved, they said.

Nonetheless, in 2008, a stone-headed majority of the Shelby County Board of Education, at the behest of the stone-headed state Department of Education, voted to force all county schools to adhere to the same schedule. So, of course, they expelled year-round education.

For five years in the 1990s, Pike Road Schools in Tallapoosa county ran a modified year-round school calendar, Pike Road Superintendent Charles Ledbetter shared in an email. Every year surveys were done and positive feedback was 88% or above in every category: students, parents and teachers, he wrote.

Ledbetter says summer slide was reduced and academic progress improved, with no new funding needed. Moreover teacher absences went down significantly.

In 2001, alas, when No Child Left Behind was implemented, Ledbetter says the district was forced to move to a traditional schedule. The treat was that if we started school before our test scores came back can could not give students from failing schools the chance to change schools, we could lose all our federal funding.

That was before Covid-19. Way before.

Most of the states school districts with the highest percentage of Black students, and poor students, went all-in with remote learning at the start of the 2020-21 school year. Except where the lack of wi-fi access makes it impossible. Like the Jefferson County Districts Oak Grove Schools in a rural area along the Warrior River; those students will attend classes one or two days each week when school opens in September, says Superintendent Dr. Walter B. Gonsoulin, Jr.

They simply dont have [wi-fi], he told me, and were not able to get it to them in time.

Year-round learning is now worth discussingespecially so in districts where teachers, parents, and administrators worry students already behind may tumble into an abyss too vast to overcome while on a remote learning schedule that may last all this year.

For those districts, year-round may be imperative.

Prior to joining Jefferson County Schools, the states second-largest district, in 2017, Gonsoulin wanted to propose year-round learning while head of Fairfield City Schools. Folks didnt want to hear it, he says.

That was, of course, before Covid-19.

Im an advocate for it, he says. Some kids need it and it would make it easier to teach them all. Before Covid-19, those conversations were hard to have. Now we can have them.

No, we must.

A voice for whats right and wrong in Birmingham, Alabama (and beyond), Roys column appears in The Birmingham News and AL.com, as well as in the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register. Reach him at rjohnson@al.com and follow him at twitter.com/roysj
A 22-year-old Lebanon County man is facing one count of criminal homicide after police say he fatally assaulted his father Saturday night.

Noah C. Hodges was taken into custody after the incident in Bethel Township, according to the Pennsylvania State Police at Jonestown.

According to police, the state police Troop L Major Case Team went to the 100 block of North Pine Grove Street after Hodges called and asked for an ambulance, saying he had assaulted his father, Lewis W. Hodges Sr., 66.

His father was taken to the hospital, where he died from his injuries, police say.

Noah Hodges admitted to assaulting his father, causing the serious injuries, police say.

He is facing one count of criminal homicide.

Further details were not immediately available.

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.
The arrests come days after the Tribune first reported that police no longer were allowing protests near Lightfoots Logan Square home. It wasnt immediately clear whether these were the first such arrests since the directive had been communicated to officers in a July email but a spokesman said he was not aware of others. The protesters are believed to have been arrested by uniformed officers assigned to her home.
A recipe for pumpkin payasam and other sweet stories from Onam While the milk-based paal payasam and jaggery-infused pradhaman are well known, Kerala has a diverse variety of this sweet dish made with fresh harvests of fruits and vegetables too

College students perform a dance during celebrating the Onam festival at College campus in Chennai on Tuesday (Photo: ANI)

The 10-day countdown to Onam has begun and festivities are in full swing. A significant part of the preparations involves food and the preparation of the traditional Onam feast, the sadya. A variety of payasams round off this hearty mealsuch as the milk based Paal Payasam with rice and the jaggery-infused Kadala Parippu Pradhaman with split gram and coconut milk.

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The idea is to have a light and dark payasam in the Onam sadya, says Oneal Sabu, a Kochi-based food writer. He adds that payasam is not just a dessert, it has a significant role in the sadya, which is modelled on Ayurvedic principles. A traditional version will have a smidgen of salt and is not served in a bowl. A spoonful is plopped on the plantain leaf, a banana is mashed into in and a pappadum is crushed over it. All of this is mixed and then eaten. It is a complete dish in itself with varied textures and flavours, he explains.

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The sheer variety of payasams can be a bit mind-boggling for amateurs. For instance, while Paal Payasam uses whole rice, Palada Pradhaman needs ground rice steamed in plantain leaves. Sabu adds there are regional variations too. In Trivandrum, payasam is served atop a pancake-like item known as boli. There are temple versions as well. Pala payasam from Sree Parthasarathy temple at Aaranmula is quite popular. And now, chefs in Kerala are experimenting and creating payasams with non-traditional ingredients. Acting as a judge at cooking contests in the state, Sabu has tasted a macaroni payasam and one made with tomatoes. But now, he says, a fascinating payasam with bitter gourd introduced by Keralas most renowned caterer, Mohanan Namboodiri, has caught the fancy. Along with bitter gourd, it contains aloe vera and fragrant spices. Namboodiri has kept this recipe a secret.

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Traditionally, payasams are prepared with freshly harvested ingredientsfrom rice to fruits and vegetables like pumpkin, jackfruit and yam. Bengaluru-based home chef Rati Dhananjayan (instagram.com/Rati_Ratatouille_Homecooking), says most Kerala homes have a backyard where these vegetables are grown in abundance. In the monsoon and winter months, they are prepared with some extra ghee and jaggery because these ingredients are believed to have health benefits to stave off colds and infections.

Dhananjayan acquired two family recipes of payasams from her ancestral home in Kannur, Kerala, including an unsual pumpkin payasam, that she shares with Lounge.

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Kadala Parippu Pradhaman

Ingredients

One and half cups chana dal/ Bengal gram (kadala parippu)

500 -550 gms jaggery

4 cups thin coconut milk

3 cups medium thick coconut milk

One and half cups thick coconut milk

Half  three-fourth cup coconut bits (thengakothu)

3 crushed cardamom

Half cup cashew nuts

3-5 tbsp ghee

Method

1. Wash chana dal. Heat 2 tsp of ghee and roast the dal on low flame in a pressure cooker, till the nutty aroma is released. Usually it takes 4-5 minutes. Make sure you dont brown it. Add 3 cups of water and pressure cook, till it's done.

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2. Mash the cooked dal using a wooden spoon. If you prefer a chunky texture, dont mash it too much. However if you like a smooth texture, mash it well.

3. Melt the jaggery by adding half cup of water. Strain the melted jaggery and add it to the mashed dal.

4. Cook the melted jaggery and mashed dal in a wide and deep non stick pan, on low flame. Cook till the mixture becomes thick and the melted jaggery is almost dried. Stir it frequently to prevent it sticking to the bottom. Add 2 tbsp ghee and mix well.

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5. Gradually, add thin coconut milk to this and mix well. Bring it to a boil. Simmer it on low flame till the mixture reduces to almost half the quantity. Add medium thick coconut milk and stir well. When it boils, reduce the flame to the lowest and cook till the mixture thickens, 10-15 mins (it can take longer too).

6. Add thick coconut milk and stir well. Do not boil. Keep stirring and cooking on low flame for 5-7 mins. Add crushed cardamom powder.

7. In a small pan, heat the remaining ghee and brown the cashews. Place them on a paper towel. In the same pan, add more ghee, if required, add coconut bits and fry till they turn golden brown. Add this and the fried cashews to the payasam.

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Note: The payasam tends to thicken a lot while it rests, so adjust the consistency accordingly.

Mathanga Payasam (Pumpkin payasam)

Ingredients

550 gms pumpkin (measured with skin, grated)

250-300 gms jaggery

Two and a half cups medium thick coconut milk

One and one-fourth  One and half cups thick coconut milk

Half cup coconut bits (Thengakothu)

10-12 cashew nuts

3 cardamom (crushed)

3 +2 tbsp ghee

Method

1. Melt jaggery in half cup water. Strain and keep aside.

2. Heat ghee (3 tbsp) in a wide and deep pan. Add grated pumpkin. Cook on lowest flame for 12-15 mins till it becomes tender.

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3. Add melted jaggery to cooked pumpkin. Mix well. Continue to cook on low flame till the mixture is almost dry and starts leaving the side of the pan. It will take around 10-12 mins.

4. Add medium thick coconut milk and bring to boil. Simmer and cook till it's reduced in quantity and becomes thick in consistency.

5. Add thick coconut milk and mix well. Continue to cook on low flame for another 7-8 mins. Add crushed cardamom and remove from fire.

6. Heat ghee (2 tbsp) in a small frying pan and add the coconut bits and cashew separately and fry till they become golden.

7. Garnish the payasam with fried coconut bits and cashew nuts.

Note: If the pumpkin is sweet, adjust the quantity of jaggery accordingly.
Ross participates in a line of research that may help eliminate the dengue virus  which causes fever, vomiting and even death  in humans. He and other scientists have injected a bacteria called Wolbachia into the eggs of female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Wolbachia decreases this kind of mosquitos ability to transmit deadly viruses, since the viruses cannot reproduce as well inside the insects cells. The researchers then attempt to breed new colonies of mosquitoes that have the bacteria embedded in them. This method has been showing promising results in reducing the spread of dengue in several areas.
Canberra, Aug 23 : Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that his government will continue supporting citizens stranded overseas as a result of the coronavirus crisis.

Addressing the media, Morrison revealed that he has asked Foreign Minister Marise Payne, Defence Minister Linda Reynolds and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to come up with options to help Australians who can't get home, reports Xinhua news agency.

"We acknowledge that some of them are in some difficult circumstances," he said.

"Our consular teams are doing a great job to help them in those circumstances and we'll be doing more to help them in those circumstances and to assist them to get home within those caps." Morrison's comments came after he ruled out lifting Australia's cap on international arrivals, which is currently set at 4,000 per week.

Close to 19,000 Australian residents overseas have told embassies that they want to return to the country.

As of Saturday, Australia had confirmed 24,602 coronavirus cases.

The number of new cases in the last 24 hours increased by 200.

The death toll has risen from 472 to 485, with all 13 new deaths in Victoria, the worst-hit state.

Victoria confirmed 182 new cases of the virus on Saturday, while New South Wales reported another nine cases as did Queensland.
BEREA, Ohio -- After discussing her proposal with the Board of Education during an Aug. 17 work session, Berea City Schools Superintendent Tracy Wheeler announced to the community two days later the districts Responsible Reopening Plan, Remote Learning 2.0.

Remote learning for all students begins Sept. 9. Plans are to have remote instruction for the first nine-week period, with the situation reassessed on an ongoing basis.

Building principals will be providing detailed information directly to families prior to the start of school.

"Remote learning will be more robust than it was in March, when we were in emergency remote mode," Wheeler said. "If we are able, at any point, to safely bring back our students and staff (to in-person instruction), we will look to do that earlier."

At the Aug. 19 community presentation, district administrators emphasized that parents are not expected to be their childrens teachers. They instead should help their kids to get online, and also encourage them to ask their teachers for assistance.

Students will have more daily contact with teachers, said Academic Affairs Coordinator Steve Blatnica, noting that designated support time has been built into daily schedules.

Board member Steve Dockman asked about students who will be at home without adult assistance available because parents or guardians are at work. Administrators said lessons will be recorded so students can go back to watch them later with an adult.

Another concern board members expressed involved keeping students -- particularly the youngest learners -- with their teachers whenever the district moves back to in-person instruction. Board member Jeffrey Duke also urged administrators to be ready, with minimum delay, when the back-to-the-classroom transition occurs.

I guarantee you there are still a lot of people that want to go from remote to onsite as soon as possible, Duke said.

Wheeler estimated that it would take a couple of weeks to get that switch accomplished, but during those two to three weeks, our students will still be learning.

In regard to free or reduced-cost meals normally offered during the school year, building cafeterias will prepare grab-and-go breakfasts and lunches. There likely will be one day scheduled each week for picking up the five breakfasts and five lunches.

Applications for this service are available online in the Nutrition Services section of the district website.

"I know this is a really difficult time for a lot of people," Wheeler said. "I'm very confident in knowing that together we're going to get through this."

Read more stories from the News Sun.
After a week of broadly volatile movement, the British Pound to Canadian Dollar (GBP/CAD) exchange rate was tumbling again on Friday. Fridays slews of UK and Canadian data left currency markets jittery, and markets may continue to digest these stats next week amid a quieter economic calendar. The biggest focus of the week will be Canadian growth data, due for publication on Friday.

The Canadian Dollar has spent much of August rebounding from its lows, after months of losses on weaker oil prices. Last week saw yet more weak performance from GBP/CAD.

After opening last week at the level of 1.7362, GBP/CAD spent the week fluctuating.

GBP/CAD trended between lows of 1.7282 and highs of 1.7453. While GBP/CAD trended below the weeks opening levels on Friday, its losses were not that significant. Investors were hesitant to buy the Canadian Dollar too much, and the pair remained above the previous weeks August lows.

Friday rounded off the week with much of the weeks most influential UK and Canadian data.

However, despite Fridays better than expected UK ecostats, the Pound to Canadian Dollar exchange rate spent most of Fridays session falling back from its highest levels.

British retail sales from July, and PMI projections from August, all came in much better than expected.

Concerns about Britains job market weighed heavily on the Pound though, preventing it from gaining on the strong PMI data. According to Tim Moore, Economics Director at IHS Markit:

Private sector firms reported another sharp fall in employment numbers as scarring from the pandemic and lingering doubts about the sustainability of recovery resulted in a need to cut overheads. The rate of job shedding accelerated since July, with survey respondents frequently noting that redundancy programmes had been running in tandem with efforts to return some staff from furlough

Meanwhile, the Canadian Dollar continued its rebound attempts. While oil prices have been sliding in the past week, strong Canadian data has helped to keep the Canadian outlook buoyed.

Canadas June retail sales results werent as strong as forecast in some prints, but they still showed a return to pre-pandemic retail activity levels. According to Royce Mendes, Senior Economist at CIBC Capital Markets:

With the major advance in June, retail sales are now above their pre-pandemic level, but the pace of recovery is likely to slow ahead,

Pound (GBP) Exchange Rate Forecast: Coronavirus and Brexit Speculation Could Drive Sterling

Following last weeks slews of key UK data, the coming weeks British economic calendar will be fairly quiet.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) will publish its August distributive trades report on Tuesday, and car production data will come in on Thursday.

Asides from these stats however, there is little on Britains calendar until September. This will leave the Pound to be driven by potential developments in the coronavirus pandemic, as well as Brexit news.

If Britains coronavirus situation worsens and the UK government signals that lockdown could be extended or expanded, the Pounds appeal is likely to weaken.

On top of this, Pound movement may be hit by delayed reaction to a lack of developments in UK-EU Brexit negotiations.

Canadian Dollar (CAD) Exchange Rate Forecast: Canada Growth Rate Report in Focus

Much of next weeks economic calendar will be relatively quiet, but it could be a major week for Canadian Dollar investors.

On Thursday, Canadian current account and weekly earnings data will be published.

However Fridays data could be especially influential. Canadian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate data from Q2 will be published, giving investors the clearest idea yet of how Canadas economy has been performing amid the coronavirus pandemic.

If Canadas growth rate comes in better than expected, the Canadian Dollar could see more solid support towards the end of next week.

Of course, any surprising coronavirus developments in Canada could also influence the Pound to Canadian Dollar (GBP/CAD) exchange rate.
The University of Illinois Chicago has received $5 million in funding to support the UIC-Shawnee Health Service Black Lung Clinics Program for five more years.

The grant will go to the UIC Mining Education and Research, or MinER, Center, which is housed at the UIC School of Public Health. The renewed funding, which is from the Health Resources and Services Administration, will allow the organization to provide evaluations, education, treatment and other resources to coal miners living in Illinois and Indiana.

Black lung disease is caused by the long-term inhalation of coal and rock dusts, which settle in the lungs and can cause severe difficulty breathing.

While Chicago doesn't historically have many former coal miners, southern Illinois and Indiana are areas where there are still active mines and we do see miners and former miners with black lung who need specialized screening and treatment which may not be available where they live. We evaluate miners for black lung at our clinic at Northwestern University and refer them for treatment and services. Providing a diagnosis also serves the very important function of helping affected miners successfully apply for disability benefits." Dr. Leonard Go, project director and UIC research assistant professor of environmental and occupational health sciences

The UIC-Shawnee Health Service Black Lung Clinics Program is a consortium that includes UIC and Shawnee Health Service's Southern Illinois and the Southwestern Indiana Respiratory Disease Program. Its goal is to provide state-of-the-art diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and compensation counseling services to miners who lack these highly specialized resources. The consortium provides services at sites in Illinois and Indiana and serves as a national referral center for complicated and difficult cases of coal mine dust lung disease and other occupational lung diseases.

The MinER Center, in collaboration with National Jewish Health, also recently received a $625,000 five-year grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration, or HRSA, to support its Black Lung Data and Resource Center. The center serves as a national resource to other HRSA-funded black lung clinics to provide data analysis and educational services.

The MinER Center additionally has received a two-year grant from the Alpha Foundation. The $400,000 grant will allow the center to expand its research on health outcomes among former coal miners, including lung function decline and progression of coal mine dust-related lung disease.
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

It has been 17 years since massive amounts of the dangerous hexavalent chromium dumped by Los Alamos National Laboratory were discovered and still theres controversy regarding cleanup efforts by the lab and Los Alamos County.

Hexavalent chromium is an important ingredient in manufacturing stainless steel and is known to cause cancer in humans. Theres fear that the chromium plume could migrate and endanger the drinking water supply.

In June, the federal Department of Energy and Los Alamos County applied to the Office of the State Engineer for a transfer of water rights that would allow LANL to use a large amount of water  679 acre-feet per year  to help remediate the chromium contamination.

Philo Shelton, utilities director for Los Alamos County, said the water would be treated to create a clean water barrier in order to protect the countys wells from becoming contaminated.

Its migrating toward our drinking water well, Shelton said.

However, many have raised concerns about the application.

Joni Arends, executive director of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, said the application leaves out such important details as a pumping schedule and how much water would be returned after its been treated.

A copy of the application obtained by the Journal shows that multiple questions went unanswered and that someone had handwritten some answers, although its unclear who. Theres also no timeline as to how long the project will last or when it is expected to end.

Its just really sloppy work, Arends said.

Her organization then tipped off officials in Santa Fe County to the issue, many of whom shared Arends concerns.

Santa Fe County commissioners, in conjunction with the Buckman Direct Diversion, recently approved a formal protest against the application, stating that important information was absent and needed to be added.

Kyle Harwood, a water attorney representing Buckman, said its unusual for an application to have left out such important information.

The fact that their application essentially didnt describe half of their operation left us with a lot of concerns, Harwood said.

That half refers to how much of the 679 acre-feet of water diverted every year will be pumped back into the system. Buckman Facilities Manager Rick Carpenter said they need to know how much water will be returned since that could affect water flows in the Rio Grande.

A prolonged drought has already led to abnormally low flows in the Rio Grande, a fact Carpenter said contributed to the decision to file the protest.

If the system is already stressed on its own and theres a potential to stress it even further, then that plays into whether you want to file a protest or not, he said.

That amount of water  more than 221 million gallons per year  is equal to about 8% of all the water Santa Fe uses each year, Carpenter said.

He said errors in these types of applications do occur, especially when done in a hurry, but that the information still needs to be provided.

If I had submitted an application that was as incomplete as this, I think I would have anticipated that someone would have protested, he said.

Harwood said he met with representatives from LANL regarding the issue and that they did not deny the application was incomplete.

We agreed to agree that the permit did not describe their operations, he said.

The Department of Energy declined an interview for this article, issuing a written statement that it was reviewing the protest and reiterating the necessity of diverting the water.

DOE is concerned that failure to obtain modifications within the existing water right could threaten the successfully operating interim measure, a spokesperson wrote.

Shelton said the project has already started on a temporary basis and the application would make it permanent, if approved.

Santa Fe County Commissioner Anna Hansen believes the shortcomings of LANLs application are indicative of how the lab has behaved since the contamination was first discovered.

They do things up there without giving proper notification all the time, she said.

It was 2003 when LANL discovered thousands of pounds of hexavalent chromium buried in Sandia Canyon; it had been dumped in the location almost 20 years previously.

The chromium plume in Los Alamos County is estimated to be a mile long and thousands of feet deep, according to the New Mexico Environment Department.

The Department of Energys proposed budget for fiscal year 2021 includes a 45% cut in LANLs funding for the cleanup. The budget states cleanup of chromium will continue, although its unclear how the cuts might affect this effort.

Shelton said the countys main goal is to protect its water supply from any contamination by the plume. He added that remediation of the plume will still take years to complete.

I dont think they want us to have a contaminated drinking well, he said, referring to Santa Fe Countys protest.

Those with Santa Fe County and Buckman Direct Diversion said they do not oppose the remediation  they just want to know what effects it could have.

If the application was modified to show the timing and the volumes of water that are returned to the aquifer, I believe the boards concerns would be largely addressed, Harwood said.

Now its up to the Office of the State Engineer to determine whether LANLs application is adequate and if the protest has merit.
Delhis labour minister Gopal Rai on Sunday said the government will set up camps for construction workers who wish to register for Aam Aadmi Partys state-run welfare fund.

These camps will be set up from August 24 to September 11 across 70 assembly constituencies and workers can get their registrations verified there also.

Here is all you need to know about the scheme:

 AAP has set up a state state-run welfare fund for the construction workers of the national capital. Over 70,000 workers have registered for the funds.

 During Covid-19, the government had initiated the process of online registration of construction workers for this scheme. Verification of these forms is underway.

 To expedite the process, the government is going to organise a Nirmaan Mazdoor Registration campaign from August 24 to September 11.

 Camps will be set up in 70 government schools across 70 assembly constituencies of Delhi. Verification of forms will also be done on the same day. If a worker has registered online, he can visit these camps to get his forms verified.

 Construction workers, including plumbers and electricians employed in the construction sector, painters, tile workers and security guards at sites are eligible for this scheme.

 Only workers between the age group of 18 and 60 are eligible for this scheme.

 A certificate saying the applicant has worked for 90 or days or more out of 12 months, a photograph, photo identity card, Aadhaar card, and a bank account number are eligible for this scheme.

 All registered workers got 5,000 credited to their accounts for two months during Covid-19 lockdown.

 Registered workers also get financial help to assist with their old age or their childrens wedding and education.
One year ago, Brazilian officials discovered a fire burning in the forest around the town of Novo Progresso. It was the first big blaze in the Amazons dry season.

In the weeks that followed, more than 100,000 other fires were reported in the area. Those fires fueled anger about the governments inability or unwillingness to protect the Amazon rainforest.

This year, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro promised to control the burning. Usually, local farmers set fires to clear land. Bolsonaro banned fires for four months and deployed army troops to fight or prevent more blazes.

But this week the smoke is so thick around Novo Progresso that police have said people driving motor vehicles have crashed because they cannot see.

Bolsonaro has been an active supporter of bringing more farming to the Amazon. The latest burning season could show if he is willing or able to stop the fires.

Observers say the fires are pushing the worlds largest rainforest toward a major crisis. If there are many more fires, the Amazon will no longer be able to produce enough rainfall to sustain itself. That means about 65 percent of the forest will begin turning into tropical savanna or grassland.

But people in Novo Progresso, like businessman Claudio Herculano, believe the town has only grown because of increased farming in the area.

It pains anyone to breathe this air, Herculano said this week. But all the people here are looking for better days.

Bolsonaro has sent mixed messages: He approved an army-led operation to fight Amazon destruction in May. Yet this month he denied the trees can catch fire. Recently, at a meeting of South American leaders, he noted a decrease in July deforestation numbers. But he failed to say it was the third highest reading for any month since 2015.

[The] story that the Amazon is burning is a lie, he claimed.

This year, one could see more fires than last, said Paulo Barreto. He is a deforestation researcher at environmental group Imazon.

In July, as the Amazons dry season began, many trees had been cut down, increasing deforestation by 34 percent. That information comes from Brazils space agency.

Normally, after trees are cut, the next step is burning the land, which is usually done without the governments required approval.

August and September are when the burning usually increases. In the first half of August, satellites found 19,000 fires across Brazils Amazon. If this continues, the number of fires would be similar to those reported last August, when Brazil was criticized internationally.

In 2019, some European heads of state threatened Bolsonaro and said they would suspend financing for rainforest protection efforts. Some European Union lawmakers threatened to refuse to sign the free-trade deal Brazil spent nearly 20 years negotiating.

Bolsonaro sent the Army to help put out the fires  and the criticism -- in late August 2019.

There was also a federal police investigation into what became known as the Day of Fire, when several fires were set. Police are still trying to find out if a group of ranchers used the messaging app WhatsApp to set different fires at different times. The investigation has been extended.

Joaquim da Silva is a rancher in Novo Progresso. He says the problem is that many people do not really own the land they use. That makes it easier for them to avoid punishment.

The Amazon has lost about 17 percent of its original area. If nothing changes, it will reach a crisis in the next 15 to 30 years, says Carlos Nobre, a leading climatologist. As the forest breaks down, it will release hundreds of billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the air.

Nobre added signs of change are showing. It is hotter and the dry season is now four months long, not the traditional three months.

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

blaze n.a fire

sustain v.to help stay alive

rancher n.someone who owns or operates a ranch or farm

original adj. actual; real or true

climatologist  n.an expert on climate issues
 Flash

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi will travel to Tehran to meet with high-level Iranian authorities next Monday, IAEA said Saturday in a statement.

The visit will be the Director General's first to Iran since he took office last December, the statement said.

During his visit, Grossi will address the cooperation of Iran with the IAEA, and in particular Iran's provision of access to the agency's inspectors to requested locations, it said.

"I have decided to come personally to Tehran so that I can reinforce the importance of cooperation and the full implementation of all safeguards commitments and obligations with the IAEA," Grossi said in the statement.

"My objective is that my meetings in Tehran will lead to concrete progress in addressing the outstanding questions that the agency has related to safeguards in Iran and, in particular, to resolve the issue of access."

"I also hope to establish a fruitful and cooperative channel of direct dialogue with the Iranian Government which will be valuable now and in the future," he added.

Earlier in the day, Iran's ambassador and permanent representative to the Vienna-based IAEA Kazem Gharibabadi said Grossi will make an official visit to Iran.

"In line with the ongoing interactions and cooperation between Iran & IAEA and based on Iran's invitation, Rafael Grossi will visit Iran next week," Gharibabadi tweeted.

Iran is one of the main partners of the agency and Grossi's visit will hopefully lead to reinforced mutual cooperation, Gharibabadi said.
Police in Indonesia has announced that it will investigate into the massive fire that engulfed attorney generals office building in Jakarta on August 22, the capital city's police spokesman Yusri Yunus said in a statement. No casualties were reported in the incident. As flames ravaged the six-storey building in South Jakarta, at least 65 fire brigadiers and close to 200 first responders were deployed at the site, and traffic diverted on Jl. Bulungan road, as per reports. Authorities answered the distress call at 7:15 pm local time.

Indonesian police spokesperson, Yunus, said that the national police forensic laboratory will commence an official probe into the fire once the blazes had simmered down. Meanwhile, the spokesman for the attorney generals office (AGO), Hari Setiyono, declined to comment on the cause of the fire to the high-rise building structure. However, he indicated, that the AGO case files remained undamaged and were immediately shifted to a safety lock at a separate area in the building, local media reports confirmed. The important documents and files were not burnt in the fire and the authorities have secured the data backup, spokesperson for the office of the assistant attorney general for intelligence, and the human resources department was quoted saying in the local media reports.

Major fire breaks out at Attorney General's Office building in Jakarta, Indonesia pic.twitter.com/Z3DuVqXRjI  Bma Pachuau (@BmaPachuau2) August 23, 2020

Read: Indonesia's Sinabung Volcano Spews New Burst Of Hot Ash

Read: Huge Darth Vader Bug Species Found Near Indonesian Waters; Read Here

Office 'non-operative' at the time

The terrifying images and visuals from the fire in the office located on Jl. Sultan Hasanudin Dalam road has raised speculations about its high-profile links on social media. In the distressing visuals that emerged online, the fire response team could be seen dumping water from the cannons on the building, which was non-operative at the time of the incident, as per local media reports. More than 100 personnel were seen participating in bringing the raging flames under control in the images.

The fire in in South #Jakarta. (Attorney Generals office) still going strong, unfortunately. pic.twitter.com/6fgyBOAbsY  ystein Lund Andersen (@OysteinLAnderse) August 22, 2020

Big fire in a building in South #Jakarta. Firefighters at the scene. Some media reports its the Attorney Generals office that is on fire. Hope they manage to put it out quickly. pic.twitter.com/FoGQSrlnSF  ystein Lund Andersen (@OysteinLAnderse) August 22, 2020

Read: Pune Police Share A Clip From The Office To Spread Awareness On Cybersecurity

Read: 13 Die In Peru Disco Stampede After Police Lockdown Raid

(Image Credit: Twitter/ @OysteinLAnderse)
The Biden granddaughters were lovely. Shorter speeches were effective. The travelogue roll call made for strangely good TV.

Those were concessions that Trump advisers and former White House officials had to hand to the Democratic National Committee after it pulled off the first-ever virtual convention, even while they took issue with the overall message of the week.

The question is, how do they top that now? It may be difficult.

Republican officials wasted time that could have been used to plan a highly produced semi-virtual convention by trying  for much longer than the Democrats  to pull off a normal one. President Trump scrapped his plans for an in-person convention in Jacksonville, Fla., just a month before the event itself was scheduled to take place.

And instead of handing over the reins to an experienced television producer, Mr. Trump is trying to weigh in on much of the programming himself, mostly with the help of people from his own White House. Hes insistent on having it still look on television like a real convention, i.e., with an audience component, and on playing a major role himself every night.
China has authorised emergency usage of Covid-19 vaccines developed by some select domestic companies, a Chinese health official has said.

An emergency use authorisation, which is based on Chinese vaccine management law, allows unapproved vaccine candidates to be used among people who are at high risk of getting infected on a limited period.

Weve drawn up a series of plan packages, including medical consent forms, side-effects monitoring plans, rescuing plans, compensation plans, to make sure that the emergency use is well regulated and monitored, Zheng Zhongwei, head of Chinas coronavirus vaccine development task force, told state-run CCTV on Saturday.

One month has passed since China officially launched the urgent use of Covid-19 vaccines on July 22, while the vaccines were going through clinical trials, Zheng said.

Recipients who got their first dose since then revealed they had few adverse reactions and none reported a fever. According to Chinas Law on Vaccine Management, when a particularly severe public health emergency occurs, vaccines in clinical trials can be used in a limited scope to protect medical and epidemic prevention personnel, border officers and other people working in stable city operations, Zheng said.

State-run Global Times has previously reported that employees of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) preparing to go abroad and frontline medics have been offered two choices of domestic inactivated vaccine candidates developed by Sinopharm for urgent use.

On Thursday and Friday, Sinopharm signed cooperation agreements on phase III clinical trials of inactivated vaccines with Peru, Morocco and Argentina.

Zheng noted that for the next step of preventing a possible outbreak this autumn and winter, vaccines availability will be extended to people working in food markets, transport systems and services industries.

The number of people being vaccinated on an urgent basis may reach hundreds of thousands across China, considering that personnel in wider sectors are being offered free injections, said Tao Lina, a Shanghai-based immunology expert, on Sunday.

But its difficult to give an accurate figure since the Chinese military has begun mass vaccinations but has not released details, Tao said..

Wu, an employee of a state-owned company handling overseas construction projects along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Asian and African countries, told the Global Times on Sunday that all staff in her firm have been offered inactivated vaccine injections on a voluntary basis for free. Wu, who took the vaccine on August 7 along with many of her colleagues, said she did not experience any adverse reactions, similar to everyone else in her group.

My colleagues and I felt only a little dizzy on the afternoon of the vaccination, but we got over it pretty quickly. There was no local redness, swelling or pain, and we did not hear of anyone reporting a fever, said Wu, who will take her second dose on day 28 after the first shot. People seem to be relaxed over the vaccination as most of us feel confident in domestically developed vaccines, she said..

One of Sinopharms inactivated Covid-19 vaccines on August 13 was revealed to have had a low rate of adverse reactions for patients in phase I and II clinical trials, while also demonstrating immunogenicity results. The inactivated vaccine will be effective against all detected strains of the virus at least as of mid-July, with lower chances and degrees of adverse reactions than same-type vaccine candidates under research, Yang Xiaoming, head of Sinopharm, told the Global Times in an earlier interview.

Yang said on Saturday that more than 20,000 people in the United Arab Emirates had taken inactivated Covid-19 vaccines developed by Sinopharm in phase III clinical trials, which have shown a high level of safety. The efficacy of the vaccine is under observation.

The phase III trial in the UAE has had no reported cases of side effects so far, Yang said, adding that volunteers joined faster than expected and the vaccine was well worth the wait.
The search continues for a man who disappeared when a kayak overturned on the Logan River on Saturday, throwing two men into the water.

Police were called to the overturned kayak about 12.10pm in the Alberton stretch of the river, which is within the City of Gold Coast boundaries but is right next to Logan.

Officers found a 27-year-old Woodridge man, who was taken to hospital as a precaution, but the second man, a 26-year-old from Eagleby, has not been seen since.

The multi-agency air and water search continued until just after 6pm on Saturday, when it was suspended until Sunday morning.
Lucknow, Aug 23 : The BJP has suspended its leader Sanjeev Gupta, whose son Sachin Gupta is absconding after being named as an accused in the printing of duplicate NCERT books worth Rs 35 crore.

While 12 people have so far been arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police in connection with this case, Gupta remains at large. An FIR has been registered against Sachin Gupta.

Special Task Force Sub-Inspector Sanjay Solanki has also filed a case against Sachin Gupta and five others at the Partapur police station.

The scam was reportedly discovered in Meerut district by the Special Task Force (STF).

Brajesh Kumar Singh, the STF DSP said that Sachin Gupta is the owner of a warehouse at Acchonda in Partapur and a printing press at Mohkampur.

"He is absconding at the moment and efforts are being made to arrest him. Shortly after the raid, police officers spoke to Sachin over the phone and he said that he was coming with the papers of books, but did not come later and also switched off his mobile," he said.

The probe, so far, has unearthed that the duplicate books were printed and supplied in seven states, including Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, and Delhi.

The fake NCERT books were also of about 364 types, including Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics books for Classes 9 to 12.

Earlier too, Sachin Gupta was involved in printing fake Uttar Pradesh Board books. It remains unclear if any action was taken in the previous instance.

The genuine NCERT books are only printed in Delhi, and available to retailers at a commission of 15 per cent. Besides, in order to procure the genuine books, retailers have to pay the full amount in advance.

The duplicate books, on the other hand, are available at 30 per cent commission and no advance payment is needed to purchase them.

Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav, meanwhile, took to Twitter to ask the BJP to give its leaders a lesson in moral education.
To resolve the severe issue of parking in Manimajra and for generating additional revenue, the fund-starved municipal corporation has decided to construct a multilevel parking.

The parking is planned to come up on 2-acre land in Manimajra near Rana Ki Haveli. The space will be utilised for commercial parking in the day and for residents vehicles in the night. The project is expected to generate significant revenue for the MC.

The multilevel project will be developed on a public-private partnership (PPP) model and will be allotted for a period of 15 years with a clause for increasing revenue every five years.

The project plan will be considered at the meeting of Finance and Contract Committee (F&CC) to be held on Monday. Earlier, the MC had constructed a multilevel parking in Sector 17, from which it failed to generate any revenue.

Two-acre land in Manimajra near Rana Ki Haveli is being used as a paid parking area. Since the zila parishad was merged with the MC on January 18, 2019, all the assets stand transferred to the MC, said a senior MC official.

REQUEST SENT TO UT URBAN PLANNING DEPT

The civic body has sent a request to the UT urban planning department to earmark the land for the multilevel parking so that a request for proposal may be prepared.

A survey of the site was conducted and it has been examined by the UT chief architect, and The detailed proposal was forwarded to him along with relevant data/justification with respect to the demand of parking. It will be required for the optimum utilisation and the proposal shall be in consonance with the overall planned development of the area, the official added.

After getting the nod from the F&CC, an expression of interest will be invited from prospective architects for making a conceptual design, preparing technical data, technical and economic viability of the project so that it can generate maximum revenue for the MC.

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US President Donald Trump speaks to the press in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on August 10, 2020.

WASHINGTON  The Trump administration is considering fast tracking an experimental coronavirus vaccine developed in the U.K. for use in the United States ahead of the nation's upcoming presidential election, according to a Financial Times report, which cited three people briefed on the plan.

One option, according to the FT report, would involve the U.S. Food and Drug Administration awarding "emergency use authorization" for the vaccine, which was developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca.

AstraZeneca told the FT that it hasn't discussed an emergency use authorization for its potential vaccine with the U.S. government. A spokesperson for Health and Human Services, which includes the FDA, told FT that any claim of an emergency authorization for a vaccine before the election is "absolutely false."

The latest revelation comes amid reports that Trump on Sunday will announce the emergency authorization of convalescent plasma for Covid-19.

On Saturday, President Donald Trump made a baseless accusation that the FDA was standing in the way of drug companies' efforts to test potential coronavirus vaccines and treatments for political reasons.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi fired back saying on Twitter and called on the FDA to not succumb to political pressure from the White House.

She added that Trump's "dangerous attempt to inject himself into the scientific decisions of @US_FDA jeopardizes the health & well-being of all Americans."

The White House, FDA and Pelosi's office did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.

The availability of a vaccine before the U.S. presidential election could allow Trump to justify his administration's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has faced widespread criticism.

During his convention speech on Thursday, former Vice President Joe Biden bashed Trump's response to the public health crisis, calling it the "worst performance of any nation on Earth."

The coronavirus has infected more than 5.6 million people in the U.S. as of Saturday, roughly a quarter of the globe's reported cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data. On Friday, the U.S. recorded at least 1,100 deaths, bringing the nation's death toll above 175,000.
I think it is wrong to lower the flag to half-staff repeatedly day after day for months. We did not lower the flag for months on end during World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War or 9/11. It turns us in to a nation of perpetual mourners, and I dont think that is what this country is about or what the people who have died would want us to be about.
In the middle of Carrick-on-Shannon, opposite St Marys Catholic Church is a shop which has been a landmark there for 65 years.

The store is famous for having almost anything youd need from fishing tackle to bicycles, to musical instruments, and also having a bar for most of those years.

Its where Kathleen Geraghty has reared all of her nine children, and along with that she also ran the shop and pub for time immemorial. She was looking forward to ending her days there.

Kathleen is 85 years old.

Unbeknownst to Kathleen, Leitrim County Council drafted plans for what they call a concept proposal to install a destination centre encompassing three properties, one of which is Kathleen Geraghtys home.

She was shocked after learning from a person on the street that her home was going to be demolished.

Nobody had discussed or outlined the plan with Kathleen, although FG Councillor Finola Armstrong Maguire - who runs the Magnet drapery store as one of the three properties that form the parcel of properties - explained to the Irish Times that she herself had already agreed to the concept!

The Council Plan shows a glass structure spread over the three properties, opposite St Marys Catholic Church.

So its obvious that the council forged ahead without ever broaching the subject to the Geraghty family.

On the face of it, the council comes out of this very badly.

The Geraghtys who confess to being disgusted and devastated by how the local council has handled the project, say that a petition opposing the proposed concept already has almost 3,700 signatures online.

Meanwhile Cllr Armstrong Maguire said she did have concerns, but she believed there was room for compromise such as having parts of the existing buildings incorporated into the new structure.

She added, My bottom line is that health and education must be our priorities in the current circumstances.

Pity she didnt take time to inform the Geraghty family.

Mrs Geraghty, whose late husband Pat bought the building in 1953, said with emotion I am very, very traumatised by this.

Her daughter Ella, said that just last year Leitrim County Council had included Geraghtys in an exhibition celebrating the countys traditional shopfronts and now they want to demolish it.

Independent councillor Enda Stenson said he had never seen the council mishandle a project to such a degree since he became a councillor in 1999.

The Geraghtys have said they no longer have trust or faith in the council. We want it known that we did not and do not give our consent, said the family.

This is our home . . . Were devastated but there is a principle involved about knocking down buildings, said Ella Geraghty. Once they are knocked down they are gone.

She said the family supported the regeneration of Carrick but we are not convinced this plan is for the betterment of Carrick.

The council said it regretted any misunderstanding that had arisen in submitting the application as this was never the intention.

Strange times indeed.
Experts from Oxford University's Medical School and Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences recently made a discovery. Honey may be a better treatment for coughs and colds than over-the-counter medicines.

Experts from Oxford University's Medical School and Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences recently made a discovery. Honey may be a better treatment for coughs and colds than over-the-counter medicines.

This piece of news found its way through western publications like CNN, The Guardian and Live Science to Indians, most of whose jaws dropped in anti-climax.

You are telling us about honey being good for the cough and cold? Honey? Really?

Our parents and ancestors have wasted much breath over centuries to tell us precisely this, thanklessly. But along comes the West with this supposedly startling revelation, and suddenly we are discussing how bad over-the-counter antibiotics are.

Our often-invaded, colonised and wounded civilisation has developed such self-esteem issues that we let the West carry out a propaganda against ghee or coconut oil.

Even as recently as 2018, Harvard professor Karin Michels called coconut oil pure poison. Around the same time, Hachette India released The Cancer Revolution, in which the author, Dr Leigh Erin Connealy, calls coconut oil a vital component of any anticancer food plan. The founder and medical director of the Center for New Medicine and Cancer Center for Healing, California, also recommended the Indian practice of rinsing the mouth with coconut oil.

It is alarming how much we have allowed the Wests confusion or conceitedness to undermine our ancient wisdom, lost confidence to research and build on it, eventually allowing its vast appropriation.

What the British had done deliberately and brutally to Bengals weavers, we have unwittingly meted out to our own culture.

In The Guardians words: For at least two centuries the handloom weavers of Bengal produced some of the world's most desirable fabrics, especially the fine muslins, light as woven air, that were in such demand for dressmaking and so cheap that Britain's own cloth manufacturers conspired to cut off the fingers of Bengali weavers and break their looms. Their import was ended weavers became beggars.

Those who spoke about plastic surgery in ancient India were endlessly mocked by the Left and so-called liberal cabal. Then Columbia Universitys Inving Medical Centre came up with a study which said roots of cosmetic and reconstructive procedures go back 2,500 years in ancient India, when our doctors did skin grafts and nose jobs.

Suddenly, there was silence in the liberal universe. Everything that our ancestors knew for eons about turmeric, yoga, moringa etc has to be validated by the West for them to take it seriously.

The main reason for this is Independent Indias decision to continue with colonial education for so long. The British-era education, honed thereafter by Leftist academicians and historians, succeeded in deracinating Indians, weakening their roots and break their confidence in their own heritage.

The new National Education Policy seeks to correct that by instilling pride in Indias rich, diverse, ancient and modern culture and knowledge systems and traditions. It emphasis on teaching subjects like Vedic mathematics.

World-class institutions of ancient India such as Takshashila, Nalanda,Vikramshila, Vallabhi, set the highest standards of multidisciplinary teaching and research and hosted scholars and students from across backgrounds and countries, the NEP says.

The Indian education system produced great scholars such as Charaka, Susruta, Aryabhata, Varahamihira, Bhaskaracharya, Brahmagupta, Chanakya, Chakrapani Datta, Madhava, Panini, Patanjali, Nagarjuna, Gautama, Pingala, Sankardev, Maitreyi, Gargi and Thiruvalluvar, among numerous others, who made seminal contributions to world knowledge in diverse fields such as mathematics, astronomy, metallurgy, medical science and surgery, civil engineering, architecture, shipbuilding and navigation, yoga, fine arts, chess, and more.

One only hopes those words get translated into action. Otherwise, others will discredit our ancient wisdom, and then appropriate and sell our own legacy to us when it suits them.
The Earth has lost a staggering 28 trillion tonnes of ice due to global heating, scientists have revealed.

Researchers from Leeds and Edinburgh universities and University College London were able to observe satellite surveys of the planet's poles from 1994 to 2007 to identify the impact of rising greenhouse gases on the planet.

The results, which were published in the journal Cryosphere Discussions, also warn that rising sea levels could reach as much as metre by the end of the century.

The Earth has lost 28 trillion tonnes of ice due to rising greenhouse gasses, scientists have revealed

Researchers from Leeds and Edinburgh universities and University College London observed satellite surveys. Pictured: An Arctic glacier melts

Scientists examined the planets glaciers from 1994 to 2007 to identify the impact of rising greenhouse gases. Pictured: A polar bear in the Arctic

Professor Andy Shepherd, director of Leeds Universitys Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, told The Guardian: 'To put that in context, every centimetre of sea level rise means about a million people will be displaced from their low-lying homelands.'

Scientists described how more than half of the ice loss had come from the northern hemisphere while the rest had come from the southern hemisphere.

Overall they were able to find that the rate of ice loss had risen by 57 per cent since the 1990s - from 0.8 to 1.2 trillion tonnes per year- due to the loss of mountain glaciers in Antarctica, Greenland, and from Antarctic ice shelves.

Following their discovery scientists warned how the melting ice was increasingly reducing the planet's ability to reflect solar radiation back into space and causing major disruptions to the biological health of Arctic and Antarctic waters.

Mr Shepherd added: 'In the past researchers have studied individual areas  such as the Antarctic or  where ice is melting. But this is the first time anyone has looked at all the ice that is disappearing from the entire planet.

'What we have found has stunned us.'

The study revealed that more than half of the ice loss had come from the northern hemisphere. Pictured: The Boyabreen glacier in Norway

Pictured: Aerial view of the Boyabreen glacier above a rock near Fjaerland, Norway, in 2020

During their study, researchers examined the satellite surveys of glaciers in South America, Canada, the Arctic and Antarctic and Asia to measure the Earth's ice imbalance.

They concluded that the majority of the loss of grounded ice was driven by atmospheric melting and raised the global sea level.

Earlier this year, a study carried out by NASA revealed that the ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland have been shrinking and melting since 2003.

Researchers at the University of Washington examined data from two space lasers that were able to make the most precise measurements of the ice sheets and found the net loss of ice from Antarctica, along with Greenland's shrinking ice sheet, was responsible for 0.55 inches of sea level rise since 2003.

The study also found that Greenland's ice sheet lost an average of 200 gigatons of ice per year, and Antarctica's ice sheet lost an average of 118 gigatons of ice per year.

One gigaton of ice is enough to fill 400,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

The findings came from the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite 2 (ICESat-2), which was launched into orbit in the autumn of 2018.
The new trailer of Wonder Woman 1984 trailer also shows the superhero fight the half feline-half human Cheetah.

A new trailer of Wonder Woman: 1984 was debuted at the recent virtual DC Fandome convention by director Patty Jenkins and the cast.

This clip introduces the Wonder Woman's two nemeses, Cheetah (Kristen Wiig) and Maxwell Lord (Pablo Pascal). Maxwell has sinister plans of domination by promising to fulfil anyone's wish. He advertises his powers by taking over broadcasting networks: "Citizens of the world, I'm here to change your life." Knowing he is the villain, there has to be a catch to his promise.

Wiig is introduced first as Barbara Minerva, a bespectacled wallflower-of-sorts, who wants to be "an apex predator." Her wish is soon realised and later in the trailer we see her battle Wonder Woman, where she seems to be an equally powerful contender. There's another fight sequence with Wonder Woman in her golden Eagle armour vs Cheetah as her fully transformed half feline-half human self.

Watch the trailer here

The new era of Wonder Woman begins here. #WW84 only in theaters. pic.twitter.com/RhTcHSGDti  Wonder Woman 1984 (@WonderWomanFilm) August 22, 2020

It was previously reported that Wonder Woman 1984 will see Diana Prince come to conflict with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Chris Pine and Robin Wright will also reprise their roles as Steve Trevor and Antiope, respectively.

The first Wonder Woman film was a cultural and financial blockbuster, earning more than $800 million globally. It also became the most successful live-action film directed by a woman.

Wonder Woman 1984's theatrical release was stalled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Warner Bros still wants to premiere the film in theatres, and the current US release date is 2 October. "I really think the movie is so great on the big screen. Were going to stick it out, and we believe in putting it in the cinema," Jenkins said at the panel, according to Verge.
(Natural News) The final endgame to the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) plandemic is finally coming into view, with New Zealand serving as the blueprint for what will presumably and inevitably happen everywhere else, including in the United States, if We the People fail to stand up against it.

As part of Prime Minister Jacinda Arderns totalitarian plans for the total enslavement of New Zealand, mandatory quarantine camps are reportedly being set up all across the country to house people who supposedly test positive for the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19).

According to reports, New Zealanders admitted to these camps will be monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Their every move will be tracked, and health staff will reportedly be present at all times to look after people.

In an announcement, New Zealands Director-General of Health Dr. Ashley Bloomfield explained that these so-called quarantine facilities represent a major departure from what health officials were doing in the country at its last level-three reopening phase.

At that time, New Zealanders suspected or confirmed of having the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) were simply told to stay home and self-isolate. Now, they are being forcibly admitted to Arderns concentration camps, where they will have to stay until cleared for reentry back into society.

[It] shows how serious we are about limiting any risk of ongoing transmission  even in self-isolation and including to others in the household, Dr. Bloomfield explains.

A reminder, these facilities have been set up specifically and have excellent processes and resources in place to look after people with COVID-19, including health staff on site at all times, he added. It will help us avoid any further inadvertent spread into the community as part of our overall response.

Dont want to get tested? Then youll have to remain in the concentration camp even longer

By the sound of it, all New Zealanders can be put into one of Arderns concentration camps at will, even if they are merely suspected of having the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19). And those who refuse testing while inside a government facility will have to stay there longer than everybody else, according to Ardern.

We are quarantining everyone, Mrs. Ed, as many are now calling her, is quoted as saying in a video livestream. Now we are also mandating testing. That makes us the most stringent in the world. There are countries that are requiring self-isolation; were taking it a bit further, she added, quite proud of herself.

As disturbing as this is, it gets even worse. While inside an Ardern concentration camp, prisoners will only be allowed outside of their jail cells for a little bit of fresh air with permission and supervision. At no point will concentration camp prisoners be allowed to roam about on their own, Ardern says.

We have put in millions of dollars into supporting that to happen, she stated, using horrible grammar.

When asked about what will happen if people inside her concentration camps refuse testing, Ardern indicated that they will be punished by having to stay inside of them at least twice as long as those who agree to get tested.

I have a number of questions about people refusing  what do we do if someone refuses to be tested. Well they cant now, she chirped. If someone refuses in our facilities to be tested, they have to keep staying. So they wont be allowed to leave after 14 days. They have to stay on for another 14 days.

Meanwhile in Canada, Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Barbara Yaffe announced around the same time that mandatory mass testing for the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) is completely useless, and will not actually achieve anything.

For more related news about the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) plandemic, be sure to check out Pandemic.news.

Sources for this article include:

GreatGameIndia.com

NaturalNews.com
New Delhi, Aug 23 : In a major setback to dissenters seeking a leadership change in the Congress, all four party Chief Ministers and various state units have sided with the Gandhis and lashed out against those who had written the letter for change and leaked it to the media.

After the letter surfaced, it is now raining letters in favour of interim party chief Sonia Gandhi and former President Rahul Gandhi.

Leading from the front is Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, and his Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Puducherry counterparts, Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel and V. Narayansamy, respectively, with all terming it a move to weaken the party.

The party's Lok Sabha MPs and state Congress Committees have also sided with the Gandhis.

"This kind of statement will create confusion in the minds of millions of Congress men. This a ploy by the BJP to divert attention of people from Facebook controversy," said the Puducherry CM.

Gehlot said: "Where the fight is to save ethos of our democracy, she (Sonia Gandhi) has always taken challenges head on. But if she has made up her mind - I believe Rahul Gandhi should come ahead and be Congress President as the country faces biggest challenge to save our Constitution and democracy." Baghel also called on Rahul Gandhi to don the mantle of leadership again.

Delhi Congress has passed a resolution demanding Rahul Gandhi take over the party again and Congress Working Committee members Rajeev Satav, Ajay Maken and P.L. Punia has openly questioned the move to write a letter.

In a letter, lauding the role of Sonia Gandhi, Congress' Karnataka state chief, D.K. Shivakumar wrote: "We cannot forget the criticism and brickbats you and your family have been subjected to and constant humiliation and allegation heaped against you.

"I personally believe that it is only you and the Gandhi family that can lead the party," he said.

Congress Chief Whip in the Lok Sabha, K.Suresh said that at a time when the country is facing grave threat, the bogey of "leadership crisis" is being raised at behest of some interested parties".
Two European aid groups said Monday that seven of the eight people killed by gunmen in a Niger giraffe park were aid workers working for them in the West African country.

The six French citizens and one Nigerien killed on Sunday were working for Paris-based NGO ACTED and Geneva-based IMPACT Initiatives, they said in a joint statement on Monday. The other victim was their Nigerien guide,

They condemned in the strongest terms the senseless and barbaric killing of our colleagues and their guide.

Nigers interior ministry said Sunday the attack took place in Koure, where the aid workers were visiting a giraffe reserve. Hundreds of people visit each year the protected national park that contains dense vegetation and tall trees about 70 kilometers (45 miles) southeast of the capital.

Our colleagues have been working to support the people of Niger facing hardship, driven by values of humanity and solidarity, the NGOs said. They did not elaborate.

One of the biggest French NGOs, ACTED has been present in Niger since 2010 and provides aid to displaced people and local populations who are particularly vulnerable due to conflicts in the region, lack of food and droughts.

A partner to ACTED, IMPACT Initiatives was first deployed in Niger in 2012. It conducts mapping programs and other initiatives in camps hosting displaced populations.

In a phone call on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron and Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou on Sunday evening pledged to clarify the circumstances of the deadly attack by all means, the French presidency said.

The French government has warned citizens against traveling outside of the capital, Niamey, as militants linked to Boko Haram, Islamic State and al-Qaida still carry out attacks across the vast West African nation. Niger borders several countries including Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Nigeria and Libya.

Violence by groups linked to IS and al-Qaida is on the rise in the Sahel region. France has deployed 5,100 soldiers to help fight the growing insurgency there, and a local Sahel force made up of soldiers from Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania has also been fighting the extremists.
KYODO NEWS - Aug 23, 2020 - 21:15 | All, World, Coronavirus

Japan and Laos agreed Sunday to allow expatriates to resume traveling as early as September, provided they stay home for 14 days after entering their respective countries as part of measures to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The plan was agreed by Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and his Laotian counterpart Saleumxay Kommasith during their talks in Vientiane, according to the Japanese government.

In addition to the reopening of borders for long-term residents, they agreed to speed up coordination through diplomatic channels toward resuming business trips, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said.

Motegi also told him that entry to Japan by Laotian students with Japanese government scholarships will be realized at the earliest opportunity, according to the ministry.

Laos, with a relatively low number of confirmed coronavirus cases, is among the 16 countries and regions with which Japan is discussing ways to ease entry restrictions.

Japan currently bans entries by foreign nationals from 146 countries and regions in principle.

It is Motegi's third stop on a four-nation tour that also includes Papua New Guinea, Cambodia and Myanmar.

In the presence of the two foreign ministers, Japan also pledged to provide grant aid of nearly 2 billion yen ($18 million) to refurbish ageing schools in Laos and 500 million yen to supply buses, a major public transportation method in the country, it said.

Japan is stepping up its involvement in infrastructure development in the countries along the Mekong River as China expands its clout in the region.

Motegi also met with Laotian Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith and discussed issues including those related to North Korea and the South China Sea, where China has built military outposts to strengthen its sweeping territorial claims, according to the ministry.

Motegi will visit Myanmar on Monday for his final stop before returning to Japan the following day.
Whereas the Australian governments previous Cyber Security Strategy 2016 was primarily focused on crystallising the domestic industry, the newly released 2020 edition is pivoting towards some of the big existential threats to Australian society, a senior public servant has noted as updated figures confirm Australian businesses are continuing to suffer data breaches as regularly as always.

Released after months of consultation with industry and other stakeholders, the new Cyber Security Strategy 2020 draws on 215 submissions156 of which are publicly available onlineoutlining a broad range of perspectives around the issues raised in a previous discussion paper.

[ Keep up on the latest thought leadership, insights, how-to, and analysis on IT through CSO Onlines newsletters. ]

The ongoing cyber security threat to Australiaoutlined by Prime Minister Scott Morrison in an impromptu press conference in Juneis broad, ranging across multiple levels of the Australian economy, at the individual and up to the critical infrastructure level, Hamish Hansford, first assistant secretary within the Department of Home Affairs Cyber, Digital and Technology Policy division, told a recent webinar audience.

The new cyber security strategy in detail

The new strategy is a crisp articulation of the threat posed by cyber security, and of the challenges that governments and individuals face in looking at these challenges, Hansford said, noting that it will take all of us to have a focus on cyber security from different levels, to make this cyber security strategy actually make a difference.
Thousands of protesters took part in a march on Friday in the Hungarian capital of Budapest in solidarity with journalists and staff of the country's main news website, who resigned from their jobs after the editor-in-chief was fired earlier this week.

Over 80 Index staff members, the vast majority of the newsroom, said they were leaving the countrys most-read website because the dismissal of Szabolcs Dull endangered its professional independence and its future.

Index is Hungary's most-read website, and has been highly critical of the country's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and was branded by the prime minister as a "fake news factory".

At the night march called by opposition political parties, speakers reminded the crowd about the numerous media outlets the Orban government shut down or incorporated into its propaganda machine.

They also criticised the government for its efforts to bring as many previously independent institutions under its control as possible.

Balazs Gulyas, a columnist at the weekly Magyar Hang, provoked whistling and jeering when he read out a 2018 quote from Orban: "We would never have the audacity to silence those who dont agree with us.

Organisers estimated that 5,000-10,000 people participated in the protest.
Four Malian soldiers were killed and one seriously injured on Saturday when an explosive device detonated as their vehicle drove by in the...

Four Malian soldiers were killed and one seriously injured on Saturday when an explosive device detonated as their vehicle drove by in the centre of the country, a military source told AFP.

The explosion in the Koro region, near Malis border with Burkina Faso, comes just days after a military putsch against President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

In another development, West African envoys will meet ousted president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita on Saturday, a member of the delegation said.

The envoys are due to meet members of the junta at 1600 GMT and will then meet Keita, who was detained by the rebel soldiers in Tuesdays putsch along with a number of other Malian government and army officials, the source from the West African bloc ECOWAS said on condition of anonymity.

Details later
When Jaimee Perrett left New Zealand for Ghana, the term COVID-19 had not yet been coined.

The 29-year-old teacher flew to the West African nation in January to rebuild a school in Tetrem, a rural village in the centre of the country 284 kilometres from the capital Accra.

But her volunteer work veered off course when Ghana closed its borders 'without warning' on March 22, leaving Ms Perrett stranded 16,162 kilometres away from her home of Nelson on New Zealand's South Island.

Four of her flights have been cancelled due to reduced transit routes and caps on arrivals into New Zealand, leaving her no choice but to sleep in a family home beside the half-finished school she'd worked so hard to build - a structure that's still without a roof.

Ms Perrett, who hasn't been paid since December, told Daily Mail Australia her life savings have been completely wiped out from being trapped overseas for so long.

Scroll down for video

New Zealand primary school teacher Jaimee Perrett (right) travelled to Ghana to rebuild a rural school but didn't bank on being stranded in the West African nation by a viral pandemic

Trapped by border closures and caps on arrivals into New Zealand, Ms Perrett has been living beside the unfinished shell of the school she was building (pictured) that's still without a roof

'The days are passing so slowly, and there's really not a lot for us to do. Money is low and our savings are just about exhausted,' she said.

Also with Ms Perrett is Kiwi volunteer Sam Collins, from Whanganui on the country's North Island. Mr Collins arrived in Ghana in on March 14, a week before borders slammed shut.

'We still don't know when we can get home,' Ms Perrett said.

'Even when we leave Ghana, getting all the way to the other side of the world will take a long time and we're still risking cancellations and disruptions.'

They are staying in the school with a local family Ms Perrett met while volunteering six years ago, but conditions are far from ideal.

'It's a shared living space and there's a lot of us. I have been staying with this family since 2014, so it kind of felt like staying at home, except this time, without a choice,' she said.

With no sign of Ghana's borders reopening, Jaimee Perrett (centre), Sam Collins (right) and fellow volunteer Denitsa Todorova (left) have no idea how or when they will return home

Ms Perrett is aching to see her beloved dog Cindy (pictured), a 16-year-old Jack Russell who she'd had for half her life

Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo in May announced the indefinite extension of the border closure, save for a skeleton service of repatriation flights to bring stranded citizens home.

But the first flight Ms Perrett was booked on that month was cancelled hours before it was due to leave. She has yet to receive a refund.

Since then, one commercial and two officially sanctioned repatriation flights have also been cancelled due to temporary restrictions on entry into New Zealand.

On July 7, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's government ordered airlines to stop taking inbound international bookings for at least three weeks to avoid overwhelming quarantine facilities with a surge of returning Kiwis.

There are currently fewer than 50 passenger flights into New Zealand every week, with just five carriers operating inbound international services: Emirates, Singapore Airlines, China Southern, China Eastern and Air New Zealand.

This string of setbacks has taken an immense toll on Ms Perrett, who hasn't received a paycheck in over eight months.

'The first couple of months was okay, because we had the project to focus on. The last few months have been exceptionally difficult,' she said.

'I budgeted for four months here and I managed to stretch that to six. It's definitely time to come home and get a job.'

Friends and family have raised $7,120 (NZD) through crowdfunding website, Give A Little, to get her on a flight from Accra to London, then home to New Zealand.

But with the cost of airfares more than tripling since the crisis began and New Zealand's government grappling to stave off a second wave of infections, Ms Perrett still faces an anxious wait.

Villagers work to rebuild the school in Tetrem, 284 kilometres from the Ghanaian capital Accra, where Ms Perrett has been riding out the coronavirus crisis since it broke out

Rumours circulating on social media hinted the country's borders were set to reopen before the end of August, but the Ghanaian Ministry of Aviation has refuted the claims saying they will remain closed 'until further notice'.

A beacon of hope has been the remarkably 'helpful and compassionate' support Ms Perrett has received from staff at the Australian High Commission, who have been advising her of her right to emergency loans and charter flights.

'It's been a huge relief having this communication after so many months of no information or response at all. I'll never forget that kindness,' she said.

Ms Perrett said she has not received the same assistance from her own government, who only send automated messages reminding her to register with SafeTravel - an advisory service she subscribed to seven months ago.

Coronavirus in Ghana Coronavirus reached Ghana, western Africa, on March 12, 2020, when two infected travellers arrived in the country from Norway and Turkey. Ghana closed its borders on March 22 and made headlines as the first African nation to implement lockdown six days later on March 28. The country has recorded 43,260 infections and 261 deaths since the outbreak began. Of those infected, 41,276 have recovered  meaning there are currently 1,984 active cases in the West African nation. Source: Worldometers Advertisement

Once she gets home, Ms Perrett (bottom row, far right) says she won't leave New Zealand for a 'very, very long time'

Ms Perrett said she is aching to see her young niece and nephews who have reached many important milestones since she left, as well as her beloved dog Cindy, a 16-year-old Jack Russell who she's had for half her life.

'She's my best friend! I can't wait to see her wagging tail and hug her. I won't be leaving her again,' she said.

'I'm also missing my niece and nephews. They've taken their first steps, said their first words. I can't wait to dance around and chat with them.

'I won't be leaving my country for a very, very long time.'

Follow future progress on the rebuild of the Good School Foundation in Tetrem on Instagram.
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This CoolSocial report was updated on 2021-10-04, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want.
In yesterdays New York Times, Adam Nagourneya name from the past!sounds a warning to his fellow Democrats. The piece is titled, A Glimmer of Hope for Trump? How Bush Mounted a Comeback in 1988. But, of course, if the presidents chances were just a glimmer, Nagourney wouldnt sound so worried.

Nagourney compares the present election season to 1988, when Michael Dukakis held a 17-point lead over George H.W. Bush in July, and Bush went on to win in a landslide. His story of the 1988 election is the familiar Democrat narrative: it was all about Willie Horton, and Lee Atwater was a villain. Actually, what happened was that the more the American people saw of Dukakis, who was pretty much unknown when he got the Democrats nomination, the less they liked him.

This was mostly because they figured out he was a liberal, and his utterly irrational policy of furloughing prisoners sentenced to life without parole, while governor of Massachusetts, was one factor in that realization. Atwater himself has told the story, and the Democrats would do well to learn from it. Then, too, there was the sight of Dukakis riding in a tank that made it hard for many voters to take him seriously.

The Times clings to the idea that the Democrats are going to have a big year in 2020:

Republicans are looking back at the 1988 race as a beacon of hope in a bleak political landscape.

Is the political landscape really bleak for Republicans? I doubt it, but time will tell. The polls are already tightening, as they did in 2016, and I think it probable both that President Trump will be re-elected and that the GOP will hold the Senate. But Nagourney cant get past his own hatred of the president:

Mr. Biden is far better known than Mr. Dukakis was and he has shown a resilience to caricature that Mr. Dukakis did not have. Mr. Trump is viewed unfavorably by a big swath of voters, in no small part because of the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 175,000 people in the United States and devastated the economy on his watch.

The Times says on his watch because there is no sane argument that President Trump had anything to do with the virus, and the economic damage came not from the virus, but from the shutdowns that have been ordered by governorsmostly Democratsnot from anything done by the president.

The weirdest and most loyally Democratic aspect of Nagourneys analysis is his conviction that it is Republicans who are responsible for negative campaigning, which first occurred in 1988 and is being reborn this year. If you didnt know better, you would think he slept through the last four years and didnt know that the Democrats have falsely accused Donald Trump of being a traitor, a white supremacist, and everything else under the Sun, and will continue to do so until November. With, of course, the help of the New York Times.

The entire Times piece has a whistling-through-the-graveyard feel, especially this paragraph, which is the closest Nagourney comes to acknowledging the elephant in the room:

His opponents even raised questions about Mr. Dukakiss mental fitness, decades before Mr. Biden faced the same.

Whatever his faults as a candidate, Dukakis was not senile. But Nagourney fails to acknowledge the blindingly obvious fact that Joe Biden is in a state of serious mental decline. Call it dementia, senility, or what you will, it is unmistakable to any normal observer, and it explains why the Democratic Party has kept Biden hidden away in his basement for months, and continues to do so.

Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 largely because the Democrats nominated a terrible candidate in Hillary Clinton. To this day, most Democrats dont seem to understand that basic fact. But Joe Biden is an order of magnitude worse than Hillary. Never in American history has a major party nominated such an awful candidate. Happily, those who run the Democratic Party dont seem to understand this reality any more than they understood it in 2016.
Although wasps are often considered a nuisance, they are nevertheless an integral part our ecosystem.

Deputy Francois Benoy recently issued a parliamentary inquiry, addressed at ministers Dieschbourg and Bofferding, and concerned with the growing nuisance that wasps represent in the country.

It appears that this summer is particularly problematic, wasps seemingly only showing up around people when food is prepared or served. In Luxembourg, there are almost 300 different kinds of wasps, whereas only two of those are responsible for the majority of conflicts with humans.

The issue can be linked to the elevated and dry temperatures of the current summer and the previous winter, which was considered too mild. Even though the insects are without a doubt a nuisance, minister Dieschbourg emphasised that a peaceful coexistence should still be paramount. Nests should therefore only be removed if the animals represent an imminent threat to people.

Since the foundation of the CGDIS emergency service, firefighters are no longer tasked with the handling of nests. In 2017, around 3,750 such interventions were made. Current numbers could not be conveyed however.

In case a wasp nest is discovered, people are advised to contact the organisation "Natur an Emwelt". According to last year's wasp report, most situations were handled without any greater problem. Only in every fifth case, a nest needed to be removed or relocated.

Meanwhile, some traditional pieces of advice on how to fight off wasps are still valid: do not render them more aggressive by slapping around with your hands and try to use mint and lavender to keep the insects away.
Washington: The Democratic-led US House of Representatives voted on Saturday, local time, to provide the cash-strapped Postal Service with $US25 billion ($35 billion) and block policy changes that have stirred concerns about mail-in balloting ahead of the November 3 election.

The 257-150 vote sent the legislation dubbed the "Delivering for America Act" on to the Republican-controlled Senate. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement that the Senate would "absolutely not pass" the stand-alone bill. The White House also strongly opposes the legislation and has said it would recommend that President Donald Trump veto the measure.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the rare session. Credit:Bloomberg

But more than two-dozen House Republicans broke ranks to join Democrats in approving the bill, during a rare Saturday session called by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the middle of the congressional August recess.

With mail-in voting expected to surge during the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has alarmed Democrats by repeatedly denouncing mail-in ballots as a possible source of fraud. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy recently suspended cost-cutting measures that have slowed deliveries in recent weeks.
Some investors rely on dividends for growing their wealth, and if you're one of those dividend sleuths, you might be intrigued to know that IPH Limited (ASX:IPH) is about to go ex-dividend in just couple of days. You can purchase shares before the 25th of August in order to receive the dividend, which the company will pay on the 18th of September.

IPH's next dividend payment will be AU$0.15 per share, on the back of last year when the company paid a total of AU$0.30 to shareholders. Calculating the last year's worth of payments shows that IPH has a trailing yield of 4.0% on the current share price of A$7.44. We love seeing companies pay a dividend, but it's also important to be sure that laying the golden eggs isn't going to kill our golden goose! So we need to investigate whether IPH can afford its dividend, and if the dividend could grow.

View our latest analysis for IPH

If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. IPH distributed an unsustainably high 110% of its profit as dividends to shareholders last year. Without extenuating circumstances, we'd consider the dividend at risk of a cut. That said, even highly profitable companies sometimes might not generate enough cash to pay the dividend, which is why we should always check if the dividend is covered by cash flow. It paid out more than half (57%) of its free cash flow in the past year, which is within an average range for most companies.

It's good to see that while IPH's dividends were not covered by profits, at least they are affordable from a cash perspective. Still, if the company repeatedly paid a dividend greater than its profits, we'd be concerned. Very few companies are able to sustainably pay dividends larger than their reported earnings.

Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Story continues

Companies with consistently growing earnings per share generally make the best dividend stocks, as they usually find it easier to grow dividends per share. If business enters a downturn and the dividend is cut, the company could see its value fall precipitously. With that in mind, we're encouraged by the steady growth at IPH, with earnings per share up 5.8% on average over the last five years.

The main way most investors will assess a company's dividend prospects is by checking the historical rate of dividend growth. In the last five years, IPH has lifted its dividend by approximately 34% a year on average. We're glad to see dividends rising alongside earnings over a number of years, which may be a sign the company intends to share the growth with shareholders.

To Sum It Up

Should investors buy IPH for the upcoming dividend? While earnings per share have been growing slowly, IPH is paying out an uncomfortably high percentage of its earnings. However it did pay out a lower percentage of its cashflow. It's not that we think IPH is a bad company, but these characteristics don't generally lead to outstanding dividend performance.

With that in mind though, if the poor dividend characteristics of IPH don't faze you, it's worth being mindful of the risks involved with this business. In terms of investment risks, we've identified 1 warning sign with IPH and understanding them should be part of your investment process.

We wouldn't recommend just buying the first dividend stock you see, though. Here's a list of interesting dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend.

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.
Unless you grew up in the US at a particular point in time, youve probably never heard of the T-Mobile Sidekick, aka Danger Hiptop. It was designed by a little company called Danger, which was co-founded by Andy Rubin.

Rubin would go on to create another company, Android Inc, that started work on a new smartphone operating system before being acquired by Google. Some years after Rubin left Danger, the company was picked up by Microsoft, which was also looking for the next big smartphone OS since Windows Mobile was on its deathbed.

The result of was the Kin series, starting with the Kin One and Kin Two, both of which came out in 2010. Actually, Kin started before the acquisition as Project Pink, but Microsoft was in a hurry so it spent $500 million in 2008 to acquire Danger and speed things up.

The Kins were Windows phones, though this was before Windows Phone, the OS. Instead, they were based on Windows CE, which was also the core of Windows Mobile. However, the user interface would be completely rebuilt by borrowing heavily from Zune.



Microsoft Kin One

Microsoft was targeting the young crowd  the Kins were all about messaging and social networks. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, you name it. It was a much-needed fresh start as Windows Mobile always looked like mini Windows 95 and was associated with Pocket PCs used by serious business folk.

Kin OS shows similarities with what would become Windows Phone. The home screen was based on tiles and looks like a prototype of Metro UI. The Loop aggregated all contacts and messages from the various platforms, similar to the People Hub on WP7.

Another interesting feature was the Spot. You could drag just about anything onto that little green circle, photos, videos, web pages, etc., pick a contact and the phone would send out a message or email.

Coolest of all was Kin Studio, a site that was an online mirror of your phone. Your photos, videos and even messages would sync with the cloud service so you could access them through the browser on a computer. The site even had the Spot, so you could share things from there.

The Kin One and Two were powered by a dog-slow 600 MHz processor inside an early Nvidia Tegra chipset. Youd think that Windows CE would be happy with that given its long history of running on underpowered mobile hardware. The new interface, however, was more modern and had high graphical ambitions that the chipset simply couldnt live up to.



Microsoft Kin Two

Kin OS was deeply flawed. It lacked an app store or any other means of running third party apps. Which were sorely needed as the phones came without a calendar app, for example. There was no instant messaging or spelling correction either and that was ridiculous because...

The Kin targeted teenagers and young adults  you know, people who would much rather text than talk on the phone. So the Kins had slide-out QWERTY keyboards. The puck-shaped Kin One went with a vertical orientation (it kind of looked like the Palm Pre) while the Two turned to landscape.

You can see the similarities between the Danger Hiptop and the Kin Two. Not hugely surprising as Sharp built the hardware in both cases. But these two also share DNA with the T-Mobile G1, the first Android. Thats the Danger legacy.



Microsoft Kin Two  Danger Hiptop (aka T-Mobile Sidekick)  T-Mobile G1

To say that the Microsoft Kin launch went poorly would be an understatement. Disaster is more like it. The phones were discontinued after only 48 days. Thats right, they didnt last two full months before Microsoft and Verizon pulled the plug.

Verizon was selling the Kin One for $20 and the Two for $50. Cheap as chips, right? Theres a catch  the carrier required that buyers pay for a $30 a month unlimited plan and that was just too much for the target audience.

Microsoft wasnt happy with how all of this went down and some say this is why Verizon wasnt chosen as a launch partner for Windows Phone.

After pulling the plug on the Kins in June 2010, Verizon brought them back in November that same year. Technically, these were the Kin ONEm and TWOm (m for multimedia) and they werent smartphones. Verizon certainly didnt call them that.

And since the data plan was a major part of why the non-m Kins failed, the carrier decided to simply rip out the social networking integration and limited Zune Pass music streaming to Wi-Fi only. Basically, every feature that required a lot of mobile data was axed. At least the m phones got a calendar and a calculator app.

The m-phones never stood a chance. Even so, they lasted a bit longer than the first incarnation of Kin - the inevitable end came in late August 2011 when Verizon called it quits for a second time.
I'm completely in favor of  at least this temporary trial of the emergency waiver  and hopefully we can revisit it in the future [for] something more permanent.

I think instead of waiving the requirement altogether, we just simply allow people, if they're not able to get the test score, to sign a certificate that they have not been able to get a test score because of COVID-19. That would be much less drastic.

n July 23, the University of North Carolina Board of Governors voted to temporarily waive the SAT or ACT requirement for college applicants.The vote came after UNC administrators proposed that an "emergency temporary waiver" be approved so that students who are unable to take the test due to cancellations are not negatively impacted in the admissions process. They recommended the boardBefore the full board voted on the proposal, it first had to pass a vote in the Educational Planning, Policies, and Programs Committee meeting. During the meeting, UNC staff noted that the two standardized testing bodies, the College Board and the ACT, have continued to cancel test-taking dates due to COVID-19. At the moment, there are no available "at-home" testing options for students. UNC staff also noted that the College Board has requested that collegesThe lack of testing has had a direct impact on North Carolina students. Kimberly Van Noort, UNC system senior vice president for academic affairs and chief academic officer, explained to the committee that, although North Carolina state law requires all public high school juniors to take the ACT each year in February or March, 9,000 students were unable to take the test this year because of the coronavirus.During the meeting, two enrollment managers explained why they recommend temporarily waiving the testing requirement.Louis Hunt, senior vice provost for enrollment management and services at North Carolina State University, informed the committee that a lot of public school students were unable to take the SAT or ACT in the spring. He also noted that a lot of private school and homeschooled students don't have a test score at all. In addition, students who were planning on retaking the test to improve their score have been unable to do so.Hunt said, pointing to how other schools such as the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Duke University have opted to go test-optional.Stephen Farmer, vice provost for enrollment and undergraduate admissions at UNC-Chapel Hill, agreed that being at a competitive disadvantage is "a significant issue." However, he focused more on how students themselves are being impacted by the lack of testing availability.he said.Farmer said many studentsand thatHe said he's in favor of constructive stress where students have toBut he argued that requiring test scores in the current climate imposes unconstructive stress on students.Farmer concluded.Several board members offered their thoughts on the issue. Isaiah Green, president of the UNC Association of Student Governments, said he fully supports the waiver policy. He said thatHe also argued that UNC risksGreen said he hoped the temporary SAT waiver would eventually lead to a permanent policy change:But board member Steve Long argued that the proposed policy was too "drastic" and suggested that the system adopt a different strategy:Long said that 24 states require high school juniors to take the ACT or SAT, including the District of Columbia and South Carolina.he said. He also noted that ACT has added three new test dates for fall 2020, and the College Board has also added a September test date.Significantly, Long reminded the committee that it will be important for the UNC system to collect student testing data because of a three-year pilot program on changing admissions standards that the board adopted in March. The Martin Center wrote about the pilot program HERE Long said.Board member Anna Nelson, who supported the March proposal to change the system's minimum admission requirements, said in the July meeting that she supports temporarily waiving testing requirements. Nelson explained that she trusts the advice of Hunt and Farmer:she said,Nelson also pointed out that a similar waiver policy is being adopted by otheradding that she thinksshe concluded.By waiving the testing admissions requirement, UNC is indeed following a nationwide trend.Across the country, about 200 colleges are temporarily not requiring applicants to submit a standardized test score. UNC has also demonstrated the extent to which it "follows the crowd" when making key policy decisions. But, while following the crowd might be a "safer" option in terms of public opinion, the popularity of a policy doesn't mean it is a good policy.Boards and trustees are appointed not to simply fall in line with what everyone else is doing. They are appointed to make the best decisions possible by closely examining all the available evidence and ensuring that any decision aligns with the underlying academic goals of their institutions.Colleges and universities across the country are getting rid of testing requirements altogether. Will UNC follow that trend?
A key meeting on Saturday between Malis coup leaders and mediators from West Africas regional bloc seeking a return to civilian rule ended after just 20 minutes.

Tuesdays overthrow of Mali President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has been condemned abroad, but celebrated by many in a country battling an Islamist insurgency and months of political unrest.

A delegation from the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) earlier arrived in the capital, Bamako, for talks aimed at reversing the overthrow of Keita.

The bloc has taken a hard line on the coup, shutting borders and halting financial flows - a move diplomats said was as much about warning opponents at home as stabilising Mali.

Ahead of a series of meetings with the mutineers and other groups, the head of the delegation, Nigerias former President Goodluck Jonathan, sounded optimistic.

I believe at the end of the day we will come up with something that is best for the people and is good for ECOWAS and the international community, he told journalists.

The most-anticipated meeting was held in the defence ministry, where ECOWAS mediators in face masks sat at a long table opposite junta leader Assimi Goita, who wore a desert camouflage uniform and was flanked by other military officers in berets and fatigues, photos on Twitter showed.

The talks were set to last 90 minutes, according to a provisional ECOWAS schedule, seen by Reuters. But the meeting ended after just 20 minutes, a Reuters reporter said.

It was not clear if the schedule had been changed or talks were cut short. ECOWAS and the coup leaders, who call themselves the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), have yet to comment on the discussions.

The CNSP has controlled the country since Tuesday, when the mutineers detained Keita at gunpoint and forced him to resign. They have promised to oversee a transition to elections within a reasonable amount of time.

The ouster of Keita, known as IBK, has been welcomed by many in Mali, which was rocked by months of protests calling for his resignation over alleged corruption and worsening security in areas where affiliates of al Qaeda and Islamic State are active.

TEAR GAS

The presidents of Ivory Coast and Guinea are among those pushing for the tough ECOWAS response, one diplomat said, as both have faced violent public protests to their third-term bids and want the bloc to show it will not allow power grabs in its own backyard.

They cannot tolerate this taking place. They are taking it very personally. It is on their doorstep and they think they are next, a second regional diplomat said.

After three days of post-coup calm in the capital Bamako, police used tear gas earlier on Saturday when a scuffle broke out between a group of 50 pro-Keita protesters and local residents who threw stones, an eyewitness told Reuters.

Reinstating IBK is out of the question. The only thing they (the delegation) can achieve is the transition. Under the rules of ECOWAS, ECOWAS should midwife the transition, one of the diplomats said, referring to the outcome of the delegations visit.

On Friday, thousands of the coups supporters gathered in a central square in Bamako to celebrate the takeover. There is no outward sign ECOWASs suspension of financial relations is yet being felt.

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Sonia Gandhi will quit her post as the interim president of the Congress party, reported India Today. The report also claimed citing sources that the veteran leader sent a formal reply in which she has said that her stint as interim president for one year is complete and she would like to step down from the party president's post and that the party will have to choose a new president.

Also Read: Congress Working Committee to meet via video-conference on August 24 amid leadership debate

With the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting scheduled to be held on August 24, an internal dispute had emerged regarding "leadership" issues in the party. Gandhis decision comes as a response to the letter written by 23 senior leaders raising a 5-Point Agenda to revive the party, emphasising the need for active leadership.

However, party spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala refuted the claim that Sonia Gandhi is resigning from the post of Congress interim president.

"Reports of Sonia Gandhi resigning from the post of Congress interim president are false," Surjewala said while speaking to ANI.

Hours later, Assam Congress president Ripun Bora reiterated his demand to Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi to give the leadership of the party to Rahul Gandhi as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scared only of him.

"In an earlier video conference with Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Rajya Sabha MPs, I categorically appealed to Sonia Gandhi at this moment to give the leadership of Congress party to Rahul Gandhi as Narendra Modi is scared only of Rahul Gandhi," Assam Congress president Ripun Bora told ANI.

Karnataka unit chief DK Shivakumar also backed Gandhi and said that the entire party stood by her and the Gandhi family.

"The entire Congress party in Karnataka stands by the leadership of Smt Sonia Gandhi and the Gandhi family. Mrs Gandhi has led Congress during times of crisis and saved our party. Anything that has to be discussed must be done so in the party forum and not in the media," Shivakumar said on August 23.

He also urged party leaders to raise issues in the party forum rather than in the media.

With inputs from ANI
Volcanic eruptions millions of years ago shaped the Central Oregon landscape. Massive peaks on the horizon remind residents of the geological past, from Mount Hood, Newberry Volcano and the Three Sisters. But those large mountains only represent less than 1% of all the volcanoes in the Cascade mountain range that have erupted in the past, according to a recently published study from the University of Oregon Department of Earth Sciences.

The study found 2,835 volcanoes in the Cascades, including about 400 in Central Oregon. The Canadian portion of the mountain range was not included in the study.

Many of the identified volcanoes in Central Oregon are hills and buttes found in the Bend and Sisters area and in the Newberry National Volcanic Monument.

Two of the Three Sisters are visible along side Black Crater, seen from a hike to the top of Black Butte in central Oregon.Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Basically, every small hill surrounding Bend is a volcano, with very few exceptions, said Leif Karlstrom, a professor in the UO earth sciences department, who co-authored the study.

Karlstrom worked on the study with doctoral student Dan OHara and David W. Ramsey, of the U.S. Geological Surveys Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington.

Each of the nearly 3,000 volcanoes identified in the study have erupted at least once within the past 2.6 million years. Of those, 231 are active and have erupted within the last 10,000 years.

A few million years of volcanic activity is considered recent for Karlstrom, who said the entire landscape has been active for 40 million years.

It is a long time, but from the standpoint of a volcano or the Cascade range in general, its actually not a very long time, he said.

The full moon rising from Lava Butte in Newberry National Volcanic Monument in central Oregon's Deschutes National Forest.LC- Terry Richard/Staff

Karlstrom points to the lava fields near the Newberry Volcano south of Bend as experiencing relatively recent volcanic activity.

It looks like a moonscape, he said. It looks like fresh lava, but its not fresh at all. This erupted thousands of years ago.

The study does not predict future eruptions, but it will help scientists understand when and where the next Cascade eruption could take place.

The research team used satellite data to map the entire Cascade range throughout the United States. The information was then compiled in a database, which had never been done before.

Its very useful for understanding the Cascades as a whole, over a long time, and it gives us an expectation of what to expect in the future, Karlstrom said.

Oregons landscape has been the focus of several volcanic studies.

Crater Lake was formed by the eruption of Mount Mazama nearly 8,000 years ago. Jamie Hale/The OregonianJamie Hale/The Oregonian

The U.S. Geological Survey released a study in 2018 that listed four Oregon volcanoes  Mount Hood, the Three Sisters, Newberry Volcano and Crater Lake  among 18 that pose a very high threat of a dangerous eruption.

Karlstrom said people should not be surprised by the threat of volcanoes.

The reason the region has a mountain range and hills for recreation is because of past eruptions.

We view this as a very active landscape, he said. Its constantly being built, in fact, by magma coming up from the subsurface.

Rather than one of the large mountains erupting, Karlstrom believes it is more likely the next eruption will sprout from the ground and create a hill of ash and lava.

It will happen, he said. What our study basically says is the Cascades are dominated by these small eruptions.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-24 02:26:58|Editor: huaxia

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GAZA, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian committee on Sunday said that the closure of Kerem Shalom, the only commercial crossing on the borders between southern Gaza Strip and Israel, has incurred substantial losses on the the blockaded coastal enclave.

Jamal al-Khudari, chairman of the Popular Committee to Challenge the Israeli Siege, said in a press statement that "Israel is escalating its illegal measure against the strip and preventing the entry of goods, fuel and building materials."

"The further Israeli measures represent a grave danger to all commercial and industrial sectors in the impoverished coastal enclave," he added, stressing all Palestinians will be affected by the "collective punishments" imposed by Israel.

He pointed out that the humanitarian situation in Gaza has been deteriorating, noting that 80 percent of Gaza's people live under the poverty line, while the rate of unemployment reached 60 percent. Enditem
Forgive me, it was like the worlds most Canadian scandal.

Bill Morneau had just resigned as finance minister when I spoke to CNN legal analyst and New Yorker writer Jeffrey Toobin on the phone this week, but he was thinking back to an earlier Canadian scandal  the SNC-Lavalin affair  which came at the height of the Mueller investigation in the U.S.

Trump would do 10 things worse than Trudeau was even accused of doing before breakfast. Like, just in a mornings tweets, Toobin said.

Even as he spoke, the Trump perpetual-scandal machine churned out more: a Senate intelligence report was released that made plainer than ever the Trump 2016 campaigns web of links to Russian intelligence, which posed a grave counterintelligence threat, the bipartisan panel concluded, confirming and going beyond the evidence produced by special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into the subject.

The Mueller probe and the Ukraine impeachment scandal that followed it are the subject of Toobins new book, True Crimes and Misdemeanors, which seeks to explain exactly what happened in each of those affairs, how Donald Trump survived (and weaponized) them, and what they tell us about the stakes of the 2020 U.S. election.

It was obvious to any sentient observer that he did what he was accused of in the Mueller Report and in the articles of impeachment, Toobin writes in the book. He never pretended to be anything other than what he was  a narcissistic scoundrel. Yet he survived.

Toobin, a lawyer whose previous books include a comprehensive overview of the OJ Simpson case, approaches it (as the title suggests) as a true-crime legal thriller, offering an intensely detailed breakdown of how the events unfolded, and vivid behind-the-scenes looks at the people involved.

Ive written several books about events that people think they know the whole story, Toobin says, And my experience is that people dont know as much as they think they know. And I have the ability to tease out parts of the story that theyve never heard at all.

The nature of the daily news grind and the way investigations unfold also mean that in the intertwined stories of the Mueller investigation and the Ukraine impeachment affair, news came out in an almost random order. To put the story into one narrative, I think you learn a lot that you didnt realize at the time.

The book opens with a meeting at the White House between Mueller and Trump on the eve of the launch of the Russia probe, and a detailed contrast of the careers and character of the two men  a contrast that becomes a significant part of how the story unfolded.

I wanted to set out the contrast between Trump and Mueller personally They are archetypes in a way that their world views are so extraordinarily different, Toobin says. Mueller has devoted his entire life to the service of American institutions. And Trump has devoted his entire life to the service of himself. And the values they brought to the confrontation illustrated their characters brilliantly.

And dictated to some extent how the story evolved. Mueller, as with a lot of figures in history, his greatest strengths also turned out to be his greatest weakness, Toobin says. Muellers restraint and desire to observe norms, and his trust in the good-faith, public-serving nature of the process, crashed into Trumps brash, confrontational sloganeering and disregard for conventions of propriety. As Toobin writes in the book, simplicity rarely loses to complexity in battles in the public square.

At one point, Toobin writes of how the term fake news originally came to prominence in reference to how entirely fictional content farms  many of them in Russia  produced outrageous stories presented as true that warped perceptions during the 2016 election. In many cases, those warped perceptions helped Trumps campaign. But he embraced and redefined the term, using it to refer to real news he did not like.

Its an interesting bit of history, but also a telling example of how Trump takes revelations that are unfavourable to him and turns them around as weapons against his opponents, one seen again and again in matters small (No puppet, youre the puppet) and large (how hes presented the Russia investigations, despite their substantial revelations, as evidence of a witch hunt against himself).

A big part of what was revealed through both the Mueller and Ukraine scandals, Toobin says, is a pattern of Trumps behaviour that shows how he approaches everything, and indeed how he has approached the coronavirus pandemic  with belligerent dishonesty, and characteristic self-obsession, preferring to hound his enemies on Twitter rather than learn the facts, he writes in the book.

On the phone, he says this is a core question in the upcoming election. Trump has changed how presidents behave. And we will see if the country approves of that. If hes re-elected, he will not only continue this behaviour, but it will vindicate everything hes done. And he will correctly see that all the lying and all the violation of norms and all the unethical behaviour was sanctioned by the country. And hell do more.

Within the past week, former Trump Homeland Security official Miles Taylor has been making the media rounds saying that Trump tried to use the department for his political benefit and undermined national security, and warning that in a second term the guardrails will be gone.

In recent months, Americans have seen security troops deployed against protesters in an open political ploy, the ongoing politicization of the Justice Department, and concerns the post office is being used to try to influence the election results. Former president Barack Obama appeared at a national convention and warned gravely that under Trump, American democracy itself is endangered.

I ask Toobin if he thinks Canadians watching from next door should give credence to the idea that Trump threatens the very integrity of the democratic system of their neighbour.

It is a justified fear. This is a cliche of American politics, but this is the most consequential election of my lifetime. Because I do think if Trump is re-elected, there are ways in which the country could become unrecognizable.

He has no respect for the norms or the laws of how America has operated, Toobin says, whether its freedom of speech or racial discrimination. He just is not interested in honouring or even learning what the traditions are. If he loses, I think the Republican party, or at least part of the Republican party, will have a reckoning about whether this is the face they want to present to the world.

But if hes re-elected, I think, the countrys really going to change. And I do think there are genuine risks to it that get to the nature of our democracy. Thats why the outcome is so important.

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VACAVILLE, Calif.  They charge into fire zones with 60-pound packs and 3-foot chain saws, felling trees and hacking through brush to make wide paths of dirt around anything worth protecting. Bright orange uniforms set them apart from other firefighters  and identify them as inmates of Californias state prisons.

Its the hardest thing Ive ever done in my life, said Ricardo Martin, who became an inmate firefighter while serving a seven-year sentence for driving while intoxicated and injuring another motorist in a crash. But we took special pride in being able to actually save peoples homes, Martin said. Everybody talked about that and how good they felt about it.

Prisoners have helped California fight fires for decades, playing a crucial role in containing the blazes striking the state with more frequency and ferocity in recent years.

This past week, though, Martin and hundreds of other inmate firefighters were absent from the fire lines. They had already gone home, part of an early release program initiated by Gov. Gavin Newsom to protect them from the coronavirus.

That has highlighted the states dependence on prisoners in its firefighting force and complicated its battle against almost 600 fires, many which continued burning across Northern California on Saturday. Experts worry that dry thunderstorms forecast to begin Sunday could wreak more havoc, further stretching the resources needed to fight what are now the second- and third-largest fires in modern state history.

To critics the prison program is a cheap and exploitative salve, one that should be replaced with proper public investment in firefighting; to others it is an essential part of the states response to what has become an annual wildfire crisis. Some have complained that participants were released just when the state needed them most.

The inmates should have been put on the fire lines, fighting fires, said Mike Hampton, a former corrections officer who worked for decades at an inmate fire camp. How do you justify releasing all these inmates in prime fire season with all these fires going on?

Newsoms answer is that prisoners faced another threat. Across the United States there have been 112,436 infections of inmates and correctional officers and 825 have been killed by the virus, according to a New York Times database. In four of the six prisons that train incarcerated firefighters, there have been more than 200 infections each among inmates and staff members, according to the Times.

The virus has also affected noninmate firefighters. About 80 are currently in quarantine because of potential exposure to the coronavirus, according to the union representing firefighters.

At Delta Camp, an inmate firefighter facility outside Vacaville, an hours drive northeast of San Francisco, the number of incarcerated firefighters is down to 55, well below the camps capacity of 132. Overall, the state has the capacity to train and house about 3,400 inmate firefighters. Only 1,306 inmates are currently deployed.

Men like Martin, who was released Aug. 11, say they are grateful to be back home.

The states main firefighting agency, Cal Fire, says it is overwhelmed by the size and complexity of the fires in Northern California, which by Saturday afternoon had burned through nearly 1 million acres, forcing more than 119,000 people to evacuate and leaving at least five people dead.

Cal Fire, which has deployed 13,700 firefighters, is pleading for more personnel, especially the crews that create the so-called hand lines, the clearings crucial to stopping and slowing down wildfires. Newsom has requested more firefighters from as far away as the East Coast and Australia.

Inmate fire crews are absolutely imperative to our ability to create hand line and do arduous work on our fires, said Brice Bennett, a spokesman for Cal Fire. They are a tremendous resource.

The coronavirus has exposed countless examples of inequality across the nation, has devastated state budgets, and has left tens of thousands of families bereft. The debate over Californias inmate firefighters shows how the pandemics consequences have reached deep into unexpected corners of society. In California it has been the difference between having the manpower to save homes from wildfires  or not.

The California prisons department estimates that its Conservation Camp Program, which includes the inmate firefighters, saves California taxpayers tens of millions of dollars a year. Hiring firefighters to replace them, especially given the difficult work involved, would challenge a state already strapped for cash.

The larger debate in California is whether the state, which has the largest inmate firefighter program in the country, should be employing prisoners to fight fires in the first place. Incarcerated firefighters in California are paid $1 an hour when they are on the front lines, leading some to describe it as slave labor. They work in treacherous conditions, with six inmate firefighters dying over the past 3 1/2 decades, including one from the states female contingent of incarcerated firefighters.

Already there are plans to shrink the program. Newsoms budget, passed over the summer, calls for closing eight inmate fire camps, which the governors office estimates will save $7.4 million.

The union that represents Cal Fire employees has been urging the governor and the Legislature to cease relying on inmate firefighters. Tim Edwards, the president of the union, said the California prisons department had been lowering the bar for inmates who qualify for fire camp.

They are trying to add people who would have never made it into the camps before either because of multiple offenses or the types of offense, Edwards said.

The Department of Corrections says inmates must have less than five years left on their sentences and are disqualified if they have a history of escape with force or violence or if they have been convicted of sexual offenses or arson.

The system of inmate firefighters was born of necessity during World War II, when many of the states firefighters were shipped off as soldiers to Europe and the Pacific. Inmates were deployed to fill their places. Several states, including Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Wyoming, employ prisoners to fight fires, but none have as many as California.

Some Californians, including former inmate firefighters, say the program provides a sense of purpose, offering prisoners a chance to prove themselves and the satisfaction of helping others.

It gave me a sense of direction and a sense of worth, said Francis Lopez, who spent a year as an inmate firefighter. There are people high-fiving you, there are big signs saying, Thank you to the inmates for fighting our fires, for saving our homes. You see that and you think, Wow, I can do good. I can be a person who is being respected.

Lopez, who was released three years ago and now works as a bartender in Fresno, California, said the incarcerated fire crews were one of the few parts of the prison system where inmates of different racial backgrounds fraternized. The food, which is prepared by the inmates, was better than in prisons, and they could spend large amounts of time outside. In the winter they worked on flood control projects.

But it is the firefighting work that was most harrowing. The scene he witnessed stepping out of the truck at his first fire is indelibly marked into his memory.

That door pops, you get out, and there are hills all around you and everything is on fire, he said. Theres helicopters flying by, dropping pink retardant. There are firetrucks, hoses everywhere, and youre hearing radio communication. Its a very, very intense scene.

Like the noninmate firefighters, they work 24 hours straight, sometimes as long as 48 hours, hiking into remote, inaccessible canyons, charging up steep ridges, all the while carrying gallons of water, survival gear and their tools.

We are the guys they send for the most dangerous missions, Lopez said. We are given the jobs that the machines cant do.

His one complaint: Inmates should be given a direct path to a firefighting job once they are released. At least give him an interview, he said.

Martin, the inmate firefighter released this month, said that even before the coronavirus he chose the program as a way to get an earlier parole and be reunited with his teenage son.

Finding a job with a felony conviction on his record will be challenging, said Martin, who was a police officer in Sacramento, California, for 12 years before he was sent to prison. He is now looking into work with private fire contractors.

Martin said inmates would appreciate higher pay; when they are not fighting fires they earn between $2.90 and $5.12 per day, according to the prisons department. But what many inmates want most is freedom  an expedited release date.

Its dirty, hard work and after a 24-hour shift we sleep on the mountain with rattlesnakes and scorpions, Martin said. I dont think anyone is there for the pay.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Temporary plaques exposing the history of the families behind some of Toronto's street names have been spotted around the city.

But the person behind them has chosen to remain anonymous.

Essex County Black Historical Research Society president Irene Moore Davis was sent a photo of these plaques last week by an acquaintance who noticed Davis was quoted on them.

"They wanted me to be aware of it because my name was on it," she said.

The plaques give a brief history behind the name of the streets, emphasizing the relationship between the name and Black history.

In total, five temporary plaques were installed around the city, but it's unclear how many still remain.

Dale Molnar/CBC

One of the plaques, installed in the Baby Point area of Toronto, reads, "These roads are named after Jacques 'James' Baby. He was a member of the Baby family who enslaved at least 17 Black and Indigenous people in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Canada. Some of these enslaved people were 'passed down' through the generations of the Baby family."

Davis said while they were "fairly well-to-do" people, citing their involvement in the military and the Legislative Council of Upper Canada rarely recognized their slave-owning history.

"In all of that glorification of the Baby family, no one ever mentions they were slave owners," she said, adding that these slaves "were passed around like property."

She was quoted in the plaque saying, "What we accept, what we honour, who we choose to honour, says a lot about what we value as a society."

Irene Moore Davis/Twitter

Another plaque outlines the history of the Jarvis family, explaining, in part, that William Jarvis "vehemently opposed" making slavery illegal in Upper Canada in 1793, "which meant that enslavement was gradually phased out instead of being abolished."

When Davis saw the photos of the plaques, she said she was "just amazed" and keen to find out who was behind it. She reached out to all of her friends in the Black history community but came up short.

Story continues

"Nobody had any clue who was doing this," she said.

After posting the photos to her social media platforms, Davis said the person behind the plaques messaged her directly but asked to remain anonymous.

Renewed focus on systemic anti-Black racism

The plaque instalments follow a similar call for education on street names when thousands signed a petition to change the name of Dundas Street that was named after Henry Dundas, an 18th-century politician who delayed Britain's abolition of the slave trade by 15 years.

Both are part of a renewed focus on systemic anti-Black racism after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, putting the issue of street names and historical monuments back in the spotlight.

While there has been a lot of discussion on what to do with these street names and monuments, Davis said she thinks people will be better educated with more context and education.

"Unless it was something like a Confederate general statue, which nobody needs to see in a public place ... I'm [of] the mind that we educate people better by adding to what's already there."

From her interactions, she found people share a similar mindset.

"What I'm seeing across social media, and just in conversations with people, is that they want to see more of that," Davis said.

She suggested investing in more durable and permanent plaques to outline the historical context in different parts of the city.

At a city hall briefing in June, Mayor John Tory said he had asked city manager Chris Murray to form a working group of staff from relevant departments, including the Confronting Anti-Black Racism and the Indigenous Affairs office, to examine the issue of renaming streets in a broader sense.
Petitioners in Chinas Chongqing Claim Detentions, Beatings as Premier Visits Flooded Village

Local petitioners in Chinas megacity of Chongqing were arrested and assaulted by officials when Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited the city to survey the destruction from recent flooding, some petitioners said.

Petitioners in China turn to regional governments or authorities in Beijing to express their grievances, in hopes of being granted justice.

The flooding in Chongqing was sparked by heavy rain that swelled the Yangtze River and several of its tributaries. The megacity, which sits southeast of Chinas Sichuan Province, is located at the confluence of the Yangtze and its tributary, the Jialing River.

Li arrived in Chongqing on Aug. 20 to observe local relief efforts. According to Chinese state-run media Peoples Daily, Li visited Shuangba Village, which is located near the Fu River, another tributary of the Yangtze.

More than 8,000 residents in the village were affected by the floods, and much of the local farmland was inundated. Li also spoke with displaced villagers, according to media reports.

Two residents living in Chongqing, who became petitioners fighting for justice over the local governments forced demolition of their homes, spoke to The Epoch Times about mistreatment by local officials because Li visiting the area.

Tang Yunshu said she was taken away by about 10 local government officials at a train station in the Liangjiang New Area in Chongqing on Aug. 20. Tang, who is from the citys Fengdu County, said one of the officials was from a local security bureau and another was from a local police station.

Tang said she screamed for help while she was being dragged on the floor before a bystander called the police. She was taken to a nearby police station, where she was held for hours, until about a dozen officials from the Fengdu security bureau came to return her to the county.

They dragged me into a police car and they [officials from Fengdu County] punched and kicked me, Tang said.

Tang told The Epoch Times that she had been petitioning for more than 20 years because her three homes were forcibly demolished by the local government; she says her parents and husband died in connection with the demolition.

After her release, Tang realized that officials had taken her into custody because Li was visiting the area.

I saw on the internet many local petitioners were placed under house arrest because of Lis visit, Tang said.

Also on Aug. 20, petitioner Cai Bangying said local street officials took her to a villa, where she was held against her will and beaten. She recalled an official telling her that if he beat her to death, the local government would shield him from any punishment.

The next day, Cai said she called the police. Officers showed up at the villa but didnt release her.

Officials eventually released her late on Aug. 21, and dropped her off at a local bus stop. She said she then called an ambulance and was taken to a local hospital to be treated for a fractured leg.

Cai said she called the local police demanding that they pay her medical bill. Officers came to the hospital where she was treated, talked to the hospitals head, and then left without paying her bill, she said.

Also on Aug. 20, local activist Zhao Anxiu told The Epoch Times that 10 to 20 officers from her local police station and security bureau showed up at her home in Dadukou district in Chongqing, seeking to arrest four petitioners who were visiting her at the time.

Their cellphones could have been monitored, so the police officers knew to come to my home and arrest them, Zhao said, adding that one of the four petitioners was beaten.

Later, I knew that they were taken in because of Premier Li. It was absolutely terrifying. she said.

Municipal authorities in Chongqing raised the flood alert warning in the city of about 31 million people to the highest level on Aug. 18, leading to the evacuation of hundreds of thousands. At least 23,700 local shops were flooded, 4,095 houses damaged, and about 8,636 hectares (about 21,300 acres) of local farmland were affected by the floods, according to the Chongqing government website.

Chinese state-run media Xinhua reported late on Aug. 22 that floodwaters in Chongqing were receding, and the natural gas supply had resumed for some households.

Two local Chongqing residents shared with the Chinese-language Epoch Times what they saw.

Ms. Yang said the water level of the Jialing rose quickly, inundating many nearby houses, while many of the roads leading to Ciqikou town, on the west bank of the river, werent accessible.

Another resident, a 39-year-old man surnamed Huang, said hed never seen such widespread flooding in Chongqing. He pointed out that it was difficult to know the true scale of the destruction, even for him living in the city.

Huang said the local government tried to prevent any mass incidents, so street officials dealt directly with flood victims. Thus, only victims and their family members knew how people were being sheltered or financially compensated by the government for the flooding.

In China, mass incidents often refer to planned or impromptu gatherings of ordinary citizens expressing dissatisfaction with authorities. Local officials are typically tasked to squash such displays of dissent.

Huang added that several of his Chinese social media accounts were blocked after he sent out some information about the flooding.
The Gov. Kay Ivey administration has committed $1.5 billion of the $1.8 billion the state received under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES Act) passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump.

State Finance Director Kelly Butler said Friday that decisions on the remaining $300 million will come in the next month or so.

Funds have been allocated for education, hospitals and nursing homes, businesses, nonprofit and faith-based organizations, counties, municipalities, prisons, courts, agriculture, and other needs.

Although $1.5 billion has been committed, only about $168 million had been spent as of Friday. The CARES Act mandated that it must be spent by the end of the year, leaving a limited amount of time to make decisions about how best to use the funds.

Butler said the $300 million that is uncommitted could be used to replenish the trust fund that pays unemployment claims, which was depleted by the onslaught of job losses unleashed by the pandemic. The Department of Labor said the fund has dropped from $750 million to about $200 million. That could trigger an increase in the tax employers pay to support the fund.

Unemployment claims have slowed in recent weeks, so the balance is not declining as fast as it was, Butler said. No decision has been made about whether to commit the CARES Act funds to bolster the trust fund, he said.

Butler said the state is also receiving continuing requests from hospitals and nursing homes, as well as requests to support new methods of testing for the virus.

Decisions about how to use CARES Act money, within the guidelines set by Congress and the Treasury Department, rest with Ivey under a plan approved by the Legislature.

Iveys decisions come after evaluation and recommendations by Butler and his team at the Finance Department. Butler said the work has been among the most challenging of his 35-year career in state government.

The first analysis is usually whether its a qualifying expenditure under the federal law, Butler said. And if it passes that test then it goes through the process of -- is it something that not only is allowed but is it something that will generate benefit for the state as a whole? The governor has told us she wants to do things that benefit the state as a whole as much as possible. Thats her direction to us and we attempt to evaluate them on that basis.

Butler said his team at the Finance Department has reached out to experts in other areas, like at the Department of Public Health and Department of Commerce, to help make its recommendations to the governor.

Decisions about control of the money initially generated some controversy.

The Legislature was in session when the CARES Act passed. There was friction between Ivey and some legislative leaders over how to allocate the funds, with lawmakers pointing out it was their constitutional responsibility to approve uses of all taxpayer dollars, including federal funds.

Before lawmakers adjourned their annual session in May, they approved Iveys plan to allocate the $1.8 billion into categories, such as delivery of health care services, support for citizens, businesses and organizations directly affected by the pandemic, remote learning for schools, reimbursements of state agencies and local governments for COVID-19 expenses, the Department of Corrections, and courts.

In the months since, the governor has announced decisions about how it will be used within those approved categories.

The Ivey administration maintains a coronavirus relief fund website that includes a list of the programs and agencies receiving money, including a breakdown of how much they were allocated and how much has been spent so far.

The coronavirus relief fund programs include:

$70 million for the Alabama State Department of Educations Health and Wellness Grant Program. It will provide money to local school boards to pay health care professionals or aides for COVID-19 response and care; to contract for COVID-19 testing; for temporary facility improvements and supplies for school nurses; to create isolation areas for symptomatic students; for temperature screening equipment; and to modify school buses to help prevent infection.

$100 million for the Educational Remote Learning Devices Grant Program. Local school boards can apply for reimbursements for the cost of the tablets and other devices. Before doing so, they have to provide the Alabama State Department of Education with a remote learning plan compatible to the devices, assurances that teachers know how to teach with the devices, plans to ensure each student has internet access, and plans to maintain the devices.

$100 million for Alabama Broadband Connectivity for Students. It will provide vouchers for low-income families to help cover the cost of high-speed internet service through the rest of the year.

$50 million for nursing homes for COVID-19 related costs including PPE, cleaning, personnel costs, and others.

$50 million for hospitals to care for COVID-19 patients and maintain a safe environment to mitigate the spread of the virus. The funds are administered by the Alabama Hospital Association.

$18 million for nursing homes for COVID-19 testing for residents and staff and for surveillance to try to prevent spread of the virus.

$50 million to support nonprofit and faith-based organizations financially impacted by the pandemic. The Department of Finance will award the grants of up to $15,000 each to nonprofit and faith-based groups that are eligible on a first-come-first-served basis.

$26 million to help cattle and poultry producers, farmers, and other agricultural entities hurt by the pandemic. The Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries is administering the program, known as the Alabama Agriculture Stabilization Program.

$7 million to the Alabama Department of Mental Health. Of that, $1 million will be used to set up a web-based/toll-free crisis hotline to help people find services, especially those suffering because of COVID-19. The other $6 million goes to a Community Provider Reimbursement Program for almost 300 agencies that help people with mental illness, substance abuse disorders, and developmental disabilities.

$100 million to set up the Revive Alabama grant program to help small businesses hurt by COVID-19. Businesses that qualify can get up to $15,000 to reimburse them for expenses not covered by federal assistance received. Businesses could apply through the Alabama Department of Revenues Revive Alabama website.

$50 million for Alabama colleges and universities for reimbursements of costs incurred because of the pandemic.

$30 million to establish a free COVID-19 testing program for all college students returning to campus in Alabama. before they returned to campus.

A total of $650 million is set aside for state agencies, counties, and municipalities for costs incurred because of the pandemic. Again, much of the money has not been spent. For example, the Department of Corrections had spent $6.8 million as of Friday.

Butler said its been difficult to turn down requests from people and organizations with valid needs. Some dont qualify under the federal guidelines for using the relief funds.

For example, the CARES Act wont allow states to use the money to replace revenue lost because of the pandemic. So, cities and counties that depend heavily on tourism cannot receive CARES Act funds to offset a steep drop in lodging taxes.

I think (replacing) lost revenue would have been very helpful to the state but even more so to the counties and cities, Butler said. There are some towns and counties that rely a lot on lodgings, on some of the taxes that have been more directly impacted."

Alabamas state budgets have held up pretty well, Butler said. Through July, revenues that support the General Fund budget increased this fiscal year over last year. Thats partly because the fiscal year starts in October and was half over when the pandemic struck.

For the Education Trust Fund, tax revenues this fiscal year through July were almost exactly the same as last year. Butler said the numbers for August will show an upward trend that will put the totals above last year.

Overall, he believes the program has worked well so far.

We think weve done a lot of good things, Butler said. The small business grant program is an example. We gave grants out up to $15,000 to small businesses that have been impacted by COVID that had not already been reimbursed through the federal payroll protection program or any of the other federal programs. Nearly 10,000 small businesses ended up getting some level of grant funding. And the total is $96 million. I believe that has helped.

The nonprofit and faith-based grant program that we just closed applications for a week ago, were still evaluating those. The county and city governments are getting reimbursements. Universities. We think it all helps. We think thats what it was intended for.

This story was edited at 4:15 p.m. to make a correction. The Legislature ended its session in May, not April.
This article was written by Mitchell Terpstra, an Entrepreneur NEXT powered by Assemble expert. Do you want to future-proof your business with on-demand expertise? Entrepreneur NEXT has the expert solutions your business needs to succeed in an evolving market.

Even before the COVID-19 crisis hit, many in the American workforce were getting used to video conferencing software like Skype, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams. The workplace has been becoming more virtual for decades, and leaders in all manner of industries have had to adapt to the new quirks and dynamics of that virtual world.

One of the most prominent and powerful of these digital technologies is video conferencing, which has brought distant workers together to foster more creativity and teamwork. But headaches have come along with new functionality.

Here are some helpful reminders to get the most out of video conferencing.

1. Set permissions ahead of time.

Video-conferencing software has come a long way. There are a variety of new functions that most major video conferencing services can perform, such as screen-sharing or creating breakout rooms for small group discussions. These functions, along with more basic abilities like enabling the video or audio of a participant, are typically reserved for the host of the video conferencing session.

As with anything, preparation is key; its important to know which permissions you intend to extend to participants before the call begins. Services like Zoom now give organizers significant leeway to set these permissions when they first schedule the video conferencing event. Doing this work ahead of time helps to keep the video conference smooth and makes the organizer look prepared.

2. Keep the chaos to a minimum.

Anyone who has ever participated in a video conference has experienced the awkward problem of figuring out who should speak next. You go ahead  No, you   Its OK, you   are a constant chorus in many group calls. And as is true in in-person meetings, its easy for the loudest and most assertive to dominate discussion, while the quieter participants struggle to engage. (This can exacerbate traditional racial and gender inequalities as well.)

There are several ways to get around this particular time-waster. First, there can be one participant in the call (typically the senior staff member) who moderates, choosing who will speak next whenever one participant finishes. Or you could use a hands off model where the person who spoke last nominates the next person to speak.

Finally, all major video conferencing tools include a text chat function. Participants in calls can indicate their desire to speak within the text chat while others are speaking, sometimes referred to as keeping stack. The order in which those names appear in the chat can then be a guide to making sure everyone gets their chance to speak.

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3. Make the most of your background.

Id love to tell you that every boss out there will, knowing that were in an unprecedented crisis, choose to overlook your background as you participate in a video conference. But just as with how you dress, how your environment looks on a video conferencing call will inevitably influence how people see youand this will only become more prevalent the longer we are stuck broadcasting from home.

As unfair as it may be, a disorganized and messy background will prejudice some people against you, leading them to assume that you must be similarly disorganized in your work habits. Dont give them the opportunity.

Opt for simplicity in your background when you can. The most basic option here is simply to position yourself in a chair in front of a blank wall. That may not be possible if you are using a desktop instead of a laptop, or if you dont have an appropriate corner in which to sit.

In that case, you should do what you can to minimize clutter and remove any potentially distracting items. If a simple background just isnt possible, a bookshelf can be an attractive option. (And, bonus, might make people think youre smart.)

4. When in doubt, go virtual.

The lazy persons way out of delicately curating a background is to instead broadcast with a virtual background. Tools like Skype and Zoom enable users to select from preselected background images or to upload a background image of their own. (Look in the video options of both pieces of software for this functionality.)

It should go without saying that the image you choose should be appropriate for a workplace setting. Simple is best; a busy image, including the preexisting options that are animated, may distract other people on the call unnecessarily and call attention to your background in precisely the way you wish to avoid. Attractive landscape imagery is a commonly chosen option, as are simple patterns such as a checkerboard pattern or stripes.

5. Close the gap by looking into your webcam.

Its a huge temptation. When youre speaking during a video conference, theres a powerful urge to stare at your own face on the screen. We all wonder how we look when were speaking, and suffering from nerves or performance anxiety makes this impulse even harder to ignore.

The problem is that when were looking at our own image, were not looking into our webcam, and this can be a big mistake. Staring at your own image means your eyes appear downcast and unfocused, as if you arent focusing on the matter at hand. Since most other participants are looking at your video during a conference, this can be a big problem.

Instead, train yourself to keep your eyes on your actual webcam when youre speaking. Youll appear to be looking each other participant in your eye, making you appear confident and forceful. While this may initially seem unnatural, a little bit of practice will make looking in your webcam feel like second nature. The outcome will be making a more professional and direct impression on everyone else on the call.

Bonus: Wear pants!

As tempting as it may be to broadcast with a blazer and tie up top and boxer shorts below, even the small risk of standing up at just the wrong time means its just not a good idea.

Forget the large agency fees, complicated contracts, and other BS involved with hiring experts by yourself. Hire our on-demand expert solutions to advance your business and prepare for the future, today.

Related:

5 Helpful Reminders for Productive and Professional Video Conferences

Keep Your Video Calls Free of Background Noise With the 'Krisp' Noise-Cancelling App

How Eric Yuan 'Zoom'ed His Way To Build a $50-Billion Business



Copyright 2020 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
It may have taken place back in 2011, but that doesnt mean that the wedding of Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge still isnt talked about to this day. As one of the most-watched royal events of all time, just about everyone remembers seeing Kate enter Westminster Abbey, where she was escorted down the aisle by her father to her waiting prince.

Soon after, the couple officially became husband and wife, and fans around the world couldnt contain their excitement. Millions of people were glued to their television sets as Prince William and Kate took a carriage ride through the streets of London back to Buckingham Palace, where they walked onto the balcony to greet the sea of fans.

Weddings are typically happy affairs, and almost everyone can agree that they look back on the big day with nothing but joy for the newly married couple. However, Prince William and Kates wedding may have affected someone important in a very different way. Here is why Prince Williams wedding to Kate reportedly left Prince Harry with anger and resentment.

A royal wedding that was watched around the world

People all over the world were waiting with anticipation for the day to arrive when Prince William and Kate would finally get married. There was massive media coverage surrounding the event, and fans even camped out in the streets for days before the nuptials in the hopes of getting a glimpse of the bride and groom.

In fact, according to Marie Claire, everyone was so excited because Prince William and Prince Harry had taken the opportunity to step outside of Clarence House to greet the waiting crowds. This left people cheering all night long, and due to the noise, Prince William only got about 30 minutes of sleep.

Even so, the wedding itself was spectacular, with the ceremony attended by over 1900 guests, and countless royal fans sending their well-wishes to the happy couple.

The worlds most famous third wheel

Prince Harry | AP Photo/Matt Dunham, Pool

RELATED: Meghan Markles Biggest Royal Faux Pas Labeled Her Tactless  But She May Have Had No Choice

As the wife of the future king, it is only natural that Kate began carrying out royal duties immediately after becoming the Duchess of Cambridge.

Although Prince Harry had a few serious girlfriends over the years, they didnt attend official royal engagements alongside him, and as a result, he often tagged along with Prince William and Kate. According to Business Insider, there were many times when Prince Harry was left being the third wheel in his brother and sister-in-laws relationship.

Royal fans didnt seem to mind at all, we can only imagine that Prince Harry grew pretty tired of doing so.

Why Prince Williams wedding to Kate Middleton reportedly left Prince Harry with anger and resentment

It always seemed as if the royal trio were having so much fun together, so why did the wedding of Prince William and Kate leave Prince Harry with such anger and resentment? Us Weekly reports Prince Harry didnt like living in his brothers shadow  something that he did for so many years before meeting and marrying Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.

Prince Harry reportedly knew that as soon as Prince William and Kate got married, everyone would be focusing on his brother, and thats exactly what happened. Even Kate was being groomed as the future queen, leaving Prince Harry feeling left out.

According to a source, with Kate becoming a prominent figure in the royal family and successfully working her way up the royal ladder, Harry was overwhelmed with anger and resentment, like it was two against one.

For their entire lives, Prince William and Prince Harry had always been referred to as an heir and a spare, and Prince Harry felt this the most after the wedding when the dynamic shifted between him and his brother. We can only hope that things have gotten better and that Prince Harry finds the happiness he deserves.
The lawsuit would argue that President Trump's far-reaching action is unconstitutional because it failed to give the company a chance to respond, NPR reported two weeks ago quoting a source. (Photo | AFP)

New York: Video app TikTok said Saturday it will challenge in court a Trump administration crackdown on the popular Chinese-owned platform, which Washington accuses of being a national security threat.

As tensions soar between the worlds two biggest economies, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 6 giving Americans 45 days to stop doing business with TikToks Chinese parent company ByteDanceeffectively setting a deadline for a potential pressured sale of the app to a US company.

To ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and users are treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the executive order through the judicial system, TikTok said in a statement.

Even though we strongly disagree with the administrations concerns, for nearly a year we have sought to engage in good faith to provide a constructive solution, it said.

What we encountered instead was a lack of due process as the administration paid no attention to facts and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses.

ByteDance said in a separate statement that the suit would be filed on Monday.

An NPR report two weeks ago had said that the lawsuit would be filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of California, where TikTok's American operations are based

NPR said that it had learned that the lawsuit would argue that President Trump's far-reaching action is unconstitutional because it failed to give the company a chance to respond. It also alleges that the administration's national security justification for the order is baseless, according to the source.

It's based on pure speculation and conjecture, the source was quoted as saying. The order has no findings of fact, just reiterates rhetoric about China that has been kicking around.

The White House declined to comment on the expected litigation but defended the president's executive order. The Administration is committed to protecting the American people from all cyber related threats to critical infrastructure, public health and safety, and our economic and national security, White House spokesman Judd Deere was quoted as saying by the NPR report.

TikToks kaleidoscopic feeds of short clips feature everything from dance routines and hair-dye tutorials to jokes about daily life and politics. It has been downloaded 175 million times in the US and more than a billion times around the world.

Trump claims TikTok could be used by China to track the locations of federal employees, build dossiers on people for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.

The company has said it has never provided any US user data to the Chinese government, and Beijing has blasted Trumps crackdown as political.

The US measures come ahead of November 3 elections in which Trump, behind his rival Joe Biden in the polls, is campaigning hard on an increasingly strident anti-Beijing message.

Microsoft and Oracle are possible suitors for TikToks US operations.

Reports have said Oraclewhose chairman Larry Ellison has raised millions in campaign funds for Trumpwas weighing a bid for TikToks operations in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The Trump administration has also given ByteDance a 90-day deadline to divest in TikTok before the app is banned in the United States.

The measures move away from the long-promoted American ideal of a global, open internet and could invite other countries to follow suit, analysts told AFP previously.

Its really an attempt to fragment the internet and the global information society along US and Chinese lines, Milton Mueller, a Georgia Tech professor and founder of the Internet Governance Project said previously.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton has vowed Victoria will not return to daily cases over 300, as Victoria recorded more than 200 cases for the first time in three days.

Professor Sutton conceded the numbers were bouncing around but said the seven-day moving average was down.

"We're not going to see, you know, 300s and 400s again in Victoria, not under my watch at least," Professor Sutton said. "It would be great to see numbers going down even further, but I still do expect that we're on a trajectory, seven-day moving average that sees it continue to decrease."

Victoria has recorded 208 new cases of coronavirus and 17 additional deaths.

In the last four days, the state recorded caseloads of 216, 240, 179 and 182.
New Delhi: After the dissident letter seeking a leadership change in the Congress party surfaced, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has lend his support to the Gandhis. Gehlot expressed his displeasure over the letter written to Sonia Gandhi by 23 senior leaders regarding the national leadership of the Congress.

Taking to Twitter he said Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot wrote: News of 23 senior Congress leaders writing letter to Honourable CP is unbelievable and if it is true - its very unfortunate there was no need to go in media. I strongly believe that Honble CP Smt Sonia Gandhi ji should continue to lead the party at this crucial juncture where the fight is to save the ethos of our Democracy. She has always taken challenges head on. But if she has made up her mind. I believe Rahul Gandhi should come ahead and be the Congress President as country faces the biggest challenge to save our Constitution, Democracy."

News of 23 senior most Congress leaders writing letter to Honble CP is unbelievable and if it is true - its very unfortunate was no need to go in media I strongly believe that Honble CP Smt Sonia Gandhi ji should continue to lead the party at this crucial juncture

1/  Ashok Gehlot (@ashokgehlot51) August 23, 2020

Several leaders of the Congress have lend their support to interim party chief Sonia Gandhi and former party President Rahul Gandhi. Including Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, Chhattisgarh and Puducherry chief ministers Bhupesh Baghel and V Narayansamy, respectively.

Meanwhile, there have been reports that Sonia Gandhi wants to quit as the interim president. Now there is a challenge before the Congress to choose a new president because Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi have already said that the Congress should not be headed by the Gandhi family.

In such a situation, the question also arises that if either Rahul or Priyanka do not take responsibility for the post, then in who will take the command of the Congress.
Dear Liz: Many years ago, I read in a personal finance magazine about a mutual fund company that paid $1 million to a customer who had an IRA for 40 years. So I started an IRA at that company in December 1992 and paid $10,000. As of today, that account is worth only $80,000. What happened to the high payoff?

Answer: First things first. The maximum you were supposed to contribute to an IRA in 1992 was $2,000. If you were able to contribute more, you may have opened a different type of account, such as a regular taxable brokerage account. Either that or you have some explaining to do to the IRS.

Also, IRAs hadnt been around for 40 years in 1992. They were created in 1974 by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. So what you probably read in the magazine was a hypothetical example of what someone might accumulate over time in an IRA. Someone who contributed $2,000 a year to an IRA for 40 years could wind up with $1 million, but only with returns in excess of 10%.

Actual returns historically have been closer to 8%, but thats an average. Some years its less, some years its more. There are no guarantees. What you end up with depends on how you invested the money and what fees you paid, among other factors. If your investment had done as well as the broader stock market, as measured by the Standard & Poors 500, you would have over $100,000 by now.

If your money is in an IRA, you could move it to be a better investment, such as a low-cost, broad-market index fund, without tax consequences. If its not in an IRA, then selling the investment to buy another could generate a tax bill, so consult a tax pro before taking any action.

Liz Weston, Certified Financial Planner, is a personal finance columnist for NerdWallet. Questions may be sent to her at 3940 Laurel Canyon, No. 238, Studio City, CA 91604, or by using the Contact form at asklizweston.com.
Phuket is ready to open for travel bubbles, says poll

PHUKET: More than 80% of respondents to an online poll have voted that Phuket is ready to open to travel bubble tourists, with more than 60% voting that reopening to tourism must come sooner or later despite concerns of COVID-19 being brought into the country.

tourismCOVID-19healthopinion

By The Phuket News

Sunday 23 August 2020, 02:34PM

A woman approaches a desk for assistance as staff continue their heavy cleaning regimen at Phuket International Airport. Photo: AoT Phuket

More than 1,200 people voted in the poll, which ran online for a week and closed at midnight last night. A total of 63% of respondents voted Yes  Get started, we cant hide from COVID-19 forever. A further 19% voted Yes  But only if the checking procedures, hotels and tour venues are properly vetted and approved. Only 4% of respondents voted No  More needs to be done to ensure Phuket is safe from international visitors. A further 14% voted No  The risk for anywhere to reopen to tourists right now is too great. Of note, 38% of the people who voted in the poll were Thai nationals. Of those taking part in the poll, 34% identified themselves as a Local expatriate resident and 27% identified themselves as a Foreign visitor to Phuket. To see the poll results, click here. If your preferred response was not available, feel free to add it in the comments below.
It took up 30 seconds Saturday night on the nightly news in Scranton  footage of maybe 20-30 white women (the kind our president likes to call Suburban Housewives) and their kids marching through a park in the Wayne County, seat of Honesdale, carrying signs such as Keep Our Children Safe from Pedos! The WNEP-TV anchorwoman  speaking to a region of northeast Pennsylvania that was so critical for President Donald Trumps 2016 victory  reported in her tone of TV authority on their march to bring awareness around human trafficking.

There were more than 200 of these so-called Freedom for the Children rallies across America, and a Sunday morning tour of Google shows the events garnered favorable, unquestioning coverage in Maine, Oklahoma City, Illinois, and elsewhere  often with a link to the organizers websites so the public could learn more! What TV viewers and local news readers didnt learn is that the Freedom for the Children rallies were tightly interwoven with the bat-guano crazy conspiracy theory called QAnon, which posits (among other things) that top Democrats and government officials are part of a massive child sex ring that Trump is on a divine mission to destroy.

Small-city TV news producers werent the only ones arguably fooled by the Freedom for the Children crusade, part of a larger phenomenon of internet conspiracy theorists stealing the oxygen from established groups that have been doing the hard work of fighting actual sex trafficking for decades. In Utah, the states Republican attorney general had been promoting Salt Lake Citys rally for days, only pulling the plug when alerted by an NBC News report that the event planners were deeply involved in the QAnon theory.

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The truth was out there, and not difficult to find for enterprising journalists aware of the political fearmongering simmering below the surface of Freedom for the Children. In front of the In-N-Out Burger on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, 47-year-old rally goer Kristen Cummings told the Huffington Post that QAnon is about the restoration of America. ... I love the hope and the perspective it offers. A 15-year-old who only gave her name as Isis got even closer to the core of QAnon when she said the government keeps secrets from us, and that the source of her political beliefs is watching politicians on TV making weird moves on children.

The QAnon surge, coincidentally or not, came hours before a Republican National Convention that  avoided by most GOP stalwarts, including its surviving ex-president  is desperately seeking to make a public case for a Trump second term. But in the end, whatever electronic wizardry is generated at the mostly virtual confab by former producers of Trumps fake-reality show The Apprentice may not matter as much as the fever dreams of QAnon and their like-minded conspiracists. If Trump wins or, more likely, moves to claim victory in November  an outcome not to be dismissed, even after 175,000 COVID-19 deaths  these true believers in a uniquely American brand of baloney will be the difference makers.

It speaks to the American moment that you cant write about QAnon without trying  with great difficulty  to even explain what the theory is to the at least 65 million and hopefully more Americans who remain vaccinated against such viral nonsense. In November 2017, an anonymous post from Q  claiming to be a government insider but almost surely not  entitled The Calm Before the Storm appeared on the popular conspiracy website 4chan to reveal that Trump had been sent to break up a deep state cabal that includes rings of pedophiles at the highest levels of Hollywood and the Democratic Party.

Spread by the nonstop wildfires of the World Wide Web, and a sea of Q T-shirts and flags at Trump rallies before the coronavirus shut those things down, QAnon has B-list celebrity boosters like ex-Phillie (sigh) Curt Schilling and Roseanne Barr, bizarre offshoots like the nonexistent Pizzagate sex ring in the basement of a D.C. eatery, or the notion that John F. Kennedy Jr. faked his 1999 death to become Q, and a growing network of supportive sites on Facebook and elsewhere. The wacko theory has clearly become a security blanket allowing susceptible Americans to see Trump not as a corrupt, dishonest bumbler, but as a hero defending the threats to both their economic underpinnings and the white supremacy of the Caucasian working class.

This summer, the national risk from this insanity has escalated on two fronts. First, QAnon has moved with remarkable speed to integrate itself into the mainstream of the already Trump-weakened Republican Party. Its been revealed that the state Republican Party in our second-largest state of Texas has adopted a QAnon mantra  We Are the Storm  as its new motto. In deep-red states, QAnon adherents have won several House and Senate Republican primaries; in Georgia, conspiracy backer Marjorie Taylor Greene  whos called Trump a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out  is on a clear path to Congress in January. Trump, not surprisingly, wont denounce this base of supporters, and instead poured gasoline on the wildfire by telling a questioner that Ive heard these are people that love our country....

But the second front opened by QAnon is arguably more alarming  infiltrating or co-opting long-standing movements against the actual sex trafficking that regrettably exists in modern society. The New York Times recently reported that QAnon followers have hijacked the well-established #SaveTheChildren hashtag, jammed up child-abuse hotlines, and made any news article about real sex-trafficking cases  albeit not involving top Democrats or movie stars  go viral on Facebook. Saturdays Freedom for the Children rallies  covered so credulously by so many news outlets  marked a great leap forward in this crusade to make QAnon look respectable and gain thousands of new followers.

 READ MORE: Can we talk about the Trump-loving, QAnon-type who slaughtered 10 people in Germany? | Will Bunch

Why does this matter? For one thing, the more folks who believe that pedophiles are secretly running America and that no one is stopping them, the more likely that the most unhinged followers will resort to violence. Weve already seen that QAnon followers have committed a couple of murders (including, bizarrely, a New York mob boss) and blockaded roads around Hoover Dam while threatening to take out Joe Biden. The FBI has already called the groups adherents a potential terrorist threat  and that will only get worse, especially if Biden wins.

But even without bloodshed, QAnon is poised to wreak political havoc. With a life-or-death election little more than two months away, the dingbat theory will function as a political blindfold that will allow Trump voters across the Rust Belt to not see the rising coronavirus death toll, double-digit unemployment, and rising homelessness and food insecurity. You can surely see why Trump would give QAnon his blessing.

And what if Biden is able to circumnavigate the sabotage of the U.S. Postal Service, the Russian interference, and whatever Lukashenko-style moves Trump is plotting for Nov. 4 and beyond, and becomes the 46th president in January? QAnon is giving us a sneak peek into what the Biden resistance, or tea party 2.0, will look like if a Democratic government attempts the massive, New Deal-style reforms that will be called for in 2021.

The thousands of new members getting sucked into QAnon through Saturdays Freedom for the Children rallies or the hijacked #SaveTheChildren hashtag will be a ready-made army to march against what theyll brand as the tyranny of a national mask mandate or other public health measures, or  if a vaccine can even be safely rolled out  lead a new and even more dangerous anti-vax movement. Like the tea party before it, QAnon stands poised to march, overrun town meetings, and get out the 2022 vote to thwart any meaningful action on climate change, on structural racism and sexism, and economic inequality in America.

And one last thing about QAnon: Its also here to remind all the back-to-brunch voters that simply replacing the Trump narcissism with an empathetic Biden isnt the end of our long national nightmare, but merely the first step in a longer journey. The wars pitting reason against irrationality, science against ignorance, truth against dishonesty, and decency against fearmongering will take years to fight. And Americas survival depends on whether the truth can win this time.

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A police officer was stabbed whilst trying to detain a man and was 'lucky to walk away with minor injuries', the police said.

Metropolitan Police were called to an address on Dovedale close, Harefield, shortly before 3am on August 23 following reports of a disturbance.

Officers attended the scene and could hear a disturbance coming from inside the property.

The man who opened the door was armed with a knife and began threatening the officers.

A Metropolitan Police officer was stabbed in the arm at an address Dovedale close (above) in Harefield, Hillingdon, on August 23 and was 'lucky to walk away with minor injuries'

In a statement, Hillingdon Police said the 34-year-old man then stabbed a London police officer in the arm.

Taser was deployed on the man and he was detained by police officers.

The injured officer was taken to hospital, where he was accessed and his stab wound was treated.

It has been confirmed that his injuries were not life threatening.

The 34-year-old man was arrested for assault on an emergency service worker, causing Grievance Bodily Harm and affray.

Taser was deployed on the 34-year-old suspect, who was arrested and remains in custody. The injured officer was rushed to hospital with a non-life threatening stab wound (file photo)

T/DCI Thomas Bowen, of the Met's West Area Basic Command Unit, said: 'These officers were courageous and extremely lucky that they were able to walk away from this incident with minimal injuries.

'This is an example of the dangers that our officers face, whilst doing their role as police officers.

We wish the officer a speedy recovery.'

The suspect remains in police custody at this time.
The IAEA said on Saturday that Grossi will head to Tehran to press Iranian authorities for access to sites where the country is thought to have stored or used undeclared nuclear material. Gharibabadi said Grossi was due to meet with Iranian officials on both Tuesday and Wednesday.
One person is dead after a crash that involved several vehicles, including an ambulance with a patient inside, occurred on Interstate 93 in Dorchester on Saturday night, according to Massachusetts State police.

The woman who died, Ashley Rose Jimenez, lost control of her car, crashed into a highway barrier and into an ambulance, police said.

Jimenez, 39 from Dennis, was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash on I-93 north before Exit 14, police said.

The crash, which took place at about 7:40 p.m., injured four other people including two EMTs and a patient in the ambulance as well as a man in another car, police said. The crash involved five vehicles, police said.

After a preliminary investigation, police said Jimenezs Nissan Altima crashed into a barrier at Exit 14 on I-93 north, police said. Investigators found open and closed bottles of alcohol in Jimenezs car. Troopers had received reports that a car matching its description was driving erratically earlier in the night on Route 3, police said.

Police have yet to determine why Jimenez crashed. The investigation remains ongoing.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are 'trying to build bridges with the Queen' by gushing about the Commonwealth, a royal source told Sunday People.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are reportedly trying to make amends with the monarch after Harry, 35, appeared to take a swipe at the British Empire last month by saying the history of the Commonwealth 'must be acknowledged' even if it's 'uncomfortable'.

The claim comes after the pair heaped praise on Harry's grandmother this week, insisting it is an 'honour' to be continuing Her Majesty's legacy and that the Queen has succeeded in what she set out to do with the Commonwealth.

According to the insider, it's 'dawned' on Harry and Meghan, 39, that 'they need the Royal Family more than it needs them.

A source claimed that the monarch, pictured on Commonwealth Day in London this year, is 'fiercely protective' of the 54-nation organisation

'The Queen is fiercely protective of the Commonwealth,' the source told the publication.

'It feels like Harry and Meghan are finally trying to build bridges as I think despite their popularity in certain quarters... it has dawned on them they need the Royal Family more than it needs them.'

In July the Duke of Sussex faced criticism after he appeared to take a swipe at the British Empire by saying the Commonwealth needs to follow others who have 'acknowledged the past' and are 'trying to right their wrongs', and also admitted to having his own 'unconscious bias'.

He made the comment as he joined wife Meghan for a video call with young leaders from the Queen's Commonwealth Trust to discuss 'justice and equal rights'.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are reportedly trying to make amends with the Queen after Harry, 35, appeared to take a swipe at the British Empire during a video call with young leaders from the Queen's Commonwealth Trust last month

During that conversation Meghan said is a time of 'reckoning' when individuals should be putting their hands up to 'own' their past wrongdoings.

However, earlier this week Meghan gushed that it is an 'honour' to be continuing Her Majesty's legacy during a video call with young leaders from the Queen's Commonwealth Trust.

She also admitted she 'didn't know' about the Commonwealth until she joined the Royal Family.

The couple joined the discussion from their new $14 million mansion in Santa Barbara, with a recording of the video call shared on the QCT YouTube channel.

In July Harry said the Commonwealth needs to follow others who have 'acknowledged the past' and are 'trying to right their wrongs'. They are pictured attending the Commonwealth Day Service this year

Both Meghan and Prince Harry spoke adoringly of the Queen, 94, whom they referred to as 'grandmother' during the video call, weeks after their rift with the Royal Family was laid bare in their explosive biography Finding Freedom.

Meanwhile the couple also gushed over the Commonwealth with Meghan saying she felt 'incredible pride' at being able to work with the QCT, revealing: '[Young people from across the Commonwealth] come with a question, they always offered a solution, and that's what I think is so inspiring and why I'm incredibly proud to be able to work with the QCT, but why it's the continuation of the legacy of your grandmother.'

Prince Harry also heaped on praise, saying the Queen has achieved everything she wanted to when she took on the 'huge responsibility' of the Commonwealth.

Meghan, 39, spoke of her 'incredible pride' at being able to work with the organisation, which she described as a continuation of the legacy of the Queen

Royal commentators have previously said it's likely the Queen would have found Harry's comments about the Commonwealth in July 'insulting' as it was a criticism of something she 'cherishes above all things'.

Last month, London-based veteran royal photographer Arthur Edwards said the comment shows Harry has 'lost the plot' and 'should stop listening to his wife'.

Writing for the Sun, Arthur observed: 'Prince Harry is entitled to his views. But in criticising the Commonwealth  the organisation closest to his grandmothers heart  he has simply lost the plot.'
The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has sent an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari requesting him to urgently rescind your assent to the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020, [CAMA 2020], and to send the legislation back to the National Assembly to address its fundamental flaws, including by deleting the repressive provisions of the Act, particularly sections 839, 842, 843, 844 and 850 contained in Part F of the Act, and any other similar provisions.

The organisation is also urging him to instruct the Registrar-General of the Corporate Affairs Commission, Alhaji Garba Abubakar, and Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, not to implement or enforce the CAMA 2020 until the legislation is repealed by the National Assembly, and brought in line with the Constitution of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), and Nigerias international human rights obligations.

In the letter dated August 22, 2020 and signed by SERAP deputy director Kolawole Oluwadare, the organisation said: With these provisions, the government now has overly broad and discretionary powers to arbitrarily withdraw, cancel or revoke the certificate of any association, suspend and remove trustees, take control of finances of any association, and to merge two associations without their consent and approval of their members.

According to SERAP, Rather than taking concrete measures to improve the legal environment and civic space that would ensure respect for human rights and media freedom, your government has consistently pursued initiatives to restrict the enjoyment of citizens human rights. These rights are protected from impairment by government action.

SERAP said: These restrictions, coupled with repressive broadcasting codes and Nigerian security agencies relentless crackdown on peaceful protesters and civil society, demonstrate the governments intention to suppress and take over independent associations.

The letter, read in part: SERAP is concerned that the provisions would be used by the authorities to exert extensive scrutiny over the internal affairs of associations, as a way of intimidation and harassment, which would eventually unduly obstruct the legitimate work carried out by associations.

We would be grateful if the requested action and measures are taken within 14 days of the receipt and/or publication of this letter. If we have not heard from you by then, the Registered Trustees of SERAP shall take all appropriate legal actions to compel you and your government to take these measures in the public interest.

Please note that SERAP has instructed its Legal Counsel Femi Falana, SAN to take all appropriate legal actions on our behalf should your government fail and/or neglect to act as requested.

Femi Falana (SAN) writes about Buharis misleading reasons for rejecting electoral bill 2021.

Citizens decision to join with others in pursuit of a common goal is a fundamental aspect of their liberty. The right to freedom of association also plainly presupposes a freedom not to associate. This freedom is at risk if the government can compel a particular citizen, or a discrete group of citizens, to merge their associations.

Constitutional guarantees of freedom of association would be very limited if they are not accompanied by a guarantee of being able to share ones beliefs of ideas in community with others, particularly through associations of individuals having the same beliefs, ideas or interests.

Similarly, freedom of association creates a forum for citizens in which they may freely seek, without any unlawful interference by the state, to move public opinion and achieve their goals. That forum cannot exist if the government is at liberty to treat one association as forming part of another or coercing one association to merge with another association.

By seeking to suspend and remove trustees, and appoint interim managers for associations, the government seems to want to place itself in a position to politicise the mandates of such association, and to undermine the ideas that the right to freedom of association and related rights are supposed to protect in a democratic society.

SERAP believes that the government granting itself the powers to suspend and remove trustees of legally registered associations and to take control of their bank accounts constitute an effective restraint on human rights.

Allowing the government to take control of the bank accounts of association would impact on the rights of the associations, and also seriously undermine civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights as a whole.

These rights are in fact parts of the attributes of citizenship under a free government. Liberty includes the right to enjoy the rights to freedom of association, expression and peaceful assembly. Our constitutional jurisprudence and international standards allow only the narrowest range for their restriction.

Combatting fraud, mismanagement, corruption, money-laundering and other modes of trafficking by associations is legitimate. However, it is not sufficient to simply pursue a legitimate interest, limitations need also to be prescribed by law and be necessary in a democratic society.

Under the Nigerian Constitution and international human rights law, controls need to be fair, objective and non-discriminatory, and not be used as a pretext to silence critics. Your government has legal obligations to create an enabling environment in which associations can effectively carry out their legitimate activities.

These restrictions have no legal basis, as they fail to meet the requirements of legality, legitimacy, proportionality and necessity. The Human Rights Council has called on States to ensure that any regulations of associations do not inhibit the independence and functional autonomy [of associations]

We have also sent a Pre-Action Notice of a lawsuit pursuant to Section 17[2] of the Companies and Allied Matters Act 2020, to the Corporate Affairs Commission to urgently initiate, promote and support deletion of Sections 839, 842, 843, 844 and 850 and any other repressive provisions of the Companies and Allied Matters Act 2020.

In communication No. 1274/2004, the Human Rights Committee observed that the right to freedom of association relates not only to the right to form an association, but also guarantees the right of such an association freely to carry out its statutory activities. The protection afforded by article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights extends to all activities of an association.

According to the Committee, the existence and operation of a plurality of associations, including those which peacefully promote ideas not necessarily favourably received by the government or the majority of the population, is a cornerstone of a democratic society.

Under international law, the use of the term democratic society places the burden on States imposing restrictions on freedom of association to demonstrate that the limitations do not harm the principles of pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness.

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP). [PHOTO CREDIT: Official Twitter handle of SERAP]

The Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights has also called on states not to pass legislation that would give the Government control over the right of associations to manage their own activities.

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Associations, as organised, independent, not-for-profit bodies based on the voluntary grouping of persons who pursue activities on a wide range of issues, such as human rights, democratic reforms, and social and economic development, are an integral part of democratic institutions.

The right to freedom of association is to be enjoyed alone or in community with others. Without this collective dimension, the effective realisation of the right would often not be possible. SERAP believes that the rights to freedom of association, freedom of expression and peaceful assembly to advance beliefs and ideas are inseparable aspects of the liberty assured by due process of law.

The right to freedom of association is interrelated with other human rights and freedoms, including the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly, protection of property, the private life and correspondence, an effective remedy, fair trials; and right to be protected from discrimination.

A genuine and effective respect for freedom of association cannot be reduced to a mere duty on the part of the State not to interfere. Therefore, it is incumbent upon your government and all public authorities to respect and protect this right, and to guarantee the proper functioning of an association, even when they annoy or give offence to persons opposed to the lawful ideas or claims that they are seeking to promote.

Any limitations on human rights, including the right to freedom of association must be proportionate to the interest to be protected, and must be the least intrusive means to achieve the desired objective.

Implementing or enforcing these repressive provisions will have a significant chilling effect on legitimate activities of associations, and would seriously undermine their independence and operations.

SERAP considers the CAMA 2020 the most repressive legislation in Nigerias history, especially given the unlawful and impermissible restrictions contained in Part F of the Act. Sections 831, 839, 842, 843, 844 and 850 of the Act are manifestly inconsistent with sections 36, 39 and 40 of the Constitution of Nigeria 1999.

Under section 831[i][ii], the government through the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) is empowered to treat any unregistered association as part of an already registered association, and without any lawful justifications whatsoever. The government also has the power to treat two or more associations as a single association on the flimsy pretext that the associations have the same trustees.

Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC)

Section 839[1] and [7] of the Act also grants the government through the Corporate Affairs Commission the powers to arbitrarily and unilaterally suspend and remove the trustees of any legally registered association, and to appoint an interim manager or managers to run the affairs of any such association, if the Commission reasonably believes that there is misconduct, mismanagement, and fraud in the association, or on the basis of undefined public interest.

The government will determine and decide what constitutes public interest in all cases. The exercise of the powers under section 839[1][7] is subject only to the approval of the supervisory Minister, a political appointee.

Similarly, sections 842, 843 and 844 grants the government through the Corporate Affairs Commission overly broad powers and discretion to arbitrarily, unlawfully and unilaterally regulate the finances of any association, and to take control and take over bank accounts lawfully belonging to legally registered associations under Part F of the CAMA 2020.

Further, section 850[2][e] empowers the government through the Corporate Affairs Commission to arbitrarily and unilaterally withdraw, cancel or revoke the certificate of registration of any duly and legally registered association.

These repressive provisions clearly and directly threaten and violate the rights to freedom of association, freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, privacy, property, and other human rights guaranteed under the Nigerian Constitution and international human rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights to which Nigeria is a state party.

SERAP notes that legally registered associations have also deposited their constitutions and other documents with the Corporate Affairs Commission under the now repealed and replaced CAMA 2004.

The Commission also enjoyed wide ranging powers under CAMA 2004 to regulate these associations, as the associations are required to periodically report to the Commission. Registered associations are also regulated under other existing laws, including anti-corruption and money laundering laws, the Criminal Code and Penal Code.
Kylie Jenner has become such a superstar that she rarely needs to use more than her first name. Shes such a big deal that she even makes a splash in other peoples music videos, most recently making an appearance in a Cardi B video featuring Megan Thee Stallion and other celebs.

So when you are one of the biggest celebs in the entire world and a business mogul to boot, how do you make your birthday stand out? Some would do something lavish like get a giant yacht in the Bahamas or fly all their friends to Ibiza for the weekend, something extravagant that only the super-rich like Jenner can do. Thats why fans started speculating pretty early on about exactly how Jenner would end up celebrating her 23rd birthday this month. So what do they think she has in store for the next one?

Kylie Jenner | Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

Kylie Jenner is known for outrageous birthday parties

Considering that at the 2nd birthday party for her daughter, Stormi, Jenner went all the way out, she obviously is not afraid of a lavish and over-the-top affair when it comes to birthdays. After all, the entrance to that party was literally an oversized balloon version of Stormis head. The party also had rides, an entire room dedicated to Frozen, and so many side attractions that guests needed a guidebook to navigate it. Jenner puts this kind of planning, dedication, and coin behind every party she throws, so why would her own birthday be an exception?

Her 22nd birthday party last year was legendary in its own way

According to Vogue, in 2019, Jenner began her 22nd year aboard a super-yacht in Italy with some of her closest pals. Her boyfriend Travis Scott had her house filled with roses because he knows that his girl loves a super generous and romantic gift. But she also loves expensive gifts which is why he gave her a diamond necklace with her dripping lips logo on it. Love it!

RELATED: KUWTK Fans Cant Deal With Kylie Jenners Custom Uno Cards

She also had multiple wardrobe changes, giant floral arrangements that spelled out 22, a killer set of gorgeous friends to party with (like BFF Stassie) and she even got a personalized serenade from Stormi. Sounds like it was the perfect mix of a crazy party and a family affair, which if we know anything about Kylie, is exactly how her 23rd birthday will play out, too.

Fans have some interesting predictions about how Kylie Jenners next birthday party will go down

When it comes to her birthday, fans have been wondering what she would do this year, especially given the coronavirus (COVID-19) situation and the social distancing protocols in place. The reality star ended up taking a seemingly low-key tropical vacation for her birthday this year. What could her 24th birthday be like?

Given what we know about parties pasts, many of the predictions fans have been making are similar to her 22nd birthday, as social distancing requirements will hopefully be relaxed by August 2021. For instance, some thought she might have giant floral arrangements spelling out her name, life-size cutout versions of herself, or giant inflatable balloons of her own face. Fans also predict that everything will be pink and that there will be lots of spaces set up as perfect Instagram backdrops.

Whatever her plan turns out to be, were sure this makeup mogul will spend her birthday on top of the world like she always does.
TikTok plans to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration to challenge its executive order banning transactions with the video app in the US, the company said Saturday.

TikTok said it strongly disagreed with the concerns raised by President Donald Trump as he ordered on August 6 to ban the app from the US within 45 days. He subsequently gave it a 90-day deadline to divest its US operations.

What we encountered instead was a lack of due process as the Administration paid no attention to facts and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses, a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement. To ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and users are treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the Executive Order through the judicial system.

Also read: How to download your videos from TikTok before you lose access to the app

TikTok didnt say which court it plans to use. The company added that it tried to work out a solution to address the US concerns for almost a year.

Trump made the order under a 1977 law that lets the US president declare a national emergency in response to an unusual and extraordinary threat, allowing him to block transactions and seize assets.

TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance Ltd., has been fielding interest in its operations in the US and a handful of other countries. Microsoft Corp. has publicly confirmed its interest to buy TikToks business in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Other companies, including Oracle Corp. and Twitter Inc., have also emerged as potential bidders.

Also read: Massive breach exposes data of 235 mn Instagram, TikTok, YouTube users

Reuters previously reported on TikToks plan to file the lawsuit as soon as Monday.

Separately, an employee lawsuit against the proposed US ban, independent from the companys official legal response, is being funded under crowdfunding campaign.
This year, the Earth Overshoot Day 2020 was reached on August 22. Earth Overshoot Day marks the day for that particular year when the world has used up its resources the Earth has to offer for the year. From that day onwards the world starts consumption in excess of what the Earth has to offer, in turn growing the ecological deficit by drawing down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This means that humanity has consumed Earth's resources for the year in 234 days. At this rate, it would take 1.6 Earths to support humanity sustainably.

Stats of 2020 in comparison with last year

In simple terms, Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity exhausts the nature's budget for the year. This year the Earth Overshoot Day arrived nearly a month later than the previous year. Last year it fell on July 19. Experts say this late arrival is due to COVID-19 as the world was under lockdown due to the pandemic, halting commercial activities across the world.

The date, which is calculated by Global Footprint Network (GFN) says the coronavirus outbreak has caused humanitys ecological footprint to fall by 9.3% this year from 2019. The main drivers for the reduction were Carbon Footprints which reduced by 14.5% from 2019 and Forest Product Footprint reduced by 8.4% from 2019 while the Food Footprint remain unchanged.

However, according to International media, the GFN President Mathis Wackernagel said this was not something to celebrate as the achievement of pushing the Earth Overshoot Day to a later date in the year was not done by design but by a disaster.

Countries with Ecological Footprint exceeding Biocapacity

According to data shown on the Global Footprint Network, India's percentage of ecological footprint exceeding biocapacity stands as 173%, while that of the US is 122%, Pakistan 129%. Germany stands at 199% and Sri Lanka at 198%, while China stands at 278%. The UK stands at 301%. Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates have alarming levels overshooting above 1,400%. Singapore stands at the top with 9,950%.

Countries with Biocapacity exceeding Ecological Footprint

While countries that have biocapacity exceeding their footprints include Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and a few European nations such as Norway and Sweden and some of the African countries rich in natural resources and biodiversity.

Check the full list of countries here

One can even check his/her personal overshoot day on http://www.footprintcalculator.org/ to know what date they individually end up using the natural resources the Earth has to offer to them.

The Global Footprint Network also suggests measures to #MoveTheDate which can be checked on their website
E nglish schools suffered 30 outbreaks of coronavirus after reopening in June, an analysis of official figures has found.

A Public Health England (PHE) report released on Sunday said that there were 198 confirmed Covid-19 cases associated with schools reopening following the easing of national lockdown.

Some 128 of those were among staff and 70 were in children.

A total of 121 cases were linked to the outbreaks, 30 in children and 91 in staff, the analysis said.

There were 67 single confirmed cases, four co-primary cases and 30 outbreaks of Covid-19 in schools during June, the health agency added.

"Co-primary cases" are two or more confirmed cases with a common epidemiological link diagnosed at the same time.

Outbreaks in this case mean two or more epidemiologically linked cases where subsequent related cases were diagnosed within 14 days.

Children and parents walking to school / PA

Outbreaks were usually small in size and more than half (53 per cent) involved just one subsequent related case, PHE's analysis said.

There was a strong correlation between coronavirus incidence in local communities and risk of outbreaks in nearby schools, even during a period of low virus infection rates, the report warned.

The analysis added that more schools could have to be closed in regions where community infection rates are increasing - but this should only be considered in extreme circumstances.

It said: The potential for spread within educational settings, as observed from the wider swabbing of some schools in our surveillance and from recent reports from other countries, does suggest that school closures may be necessary as part of lockdown in regions with increasing community infection, although given what is known about the detrimental effects of lack of access to education on child development, these should probably be considered only in extremis by comparison with other lockdown measures.

Students going to school in Scotland / PA

Schools in England were asked to reopen to children in nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 at the start of June, extending to Year 10 and 12 students from June 15.

But reopening was not mandatory and the report said the request was met with mixed responses. Just 1.6 million of the 8.9 million pupils across the country attended any educational setting during the summer mini-term.

With the majority of cases linked to outbreaks affecting staff rather than pupils, the report warned school workers need to be more vigilant for exposure outside the school.

It found that in half of the 30 confirmed outbreaks, the probable transmission direction was staff-to-staff, with seven staff-to-student, six student-to-staff and two student-to-student.

Children at school with social distancing measures in place / PA

But it said early detection and isolation of staff and students can prevent the progression of an outbreak in most cases.

It added: Within the educational setting, the higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 among staff highlights a need to strengthen infection control measures at two levels

Staff members need to be more vigilant for exposure outside the school setting to protect themselves, their families and the educational setting.

Within the education premises, stringent infection control measures between staff need to be reinforced, including use of common staff rooms and cross-covering staff across bubbles.

Children queuing for school / PA

The analysis comes the day after England's chief medical officer warned the risk of children catching coronavirus at school is "incredibly small" compared to the "clear" chances of pupils being damaged by not going.

Professor Chris Whitty acknowledged that the risk to children was "not zero", but the evidence that not going to school damages children in the long run was "overwhelming".

Meanwhile Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said schools and colleges needed to know what should happen if an outbreak of the virus occurs in individual schools or through national, regional or local spikes.

A file photo of a pupil learning at a marked table during the coronavirus pandemic / PA

He said the Government needed to issue guidance on moving to teaching rotas or limited openings and to hire more teachers to allow education to continue if infection rates rise.

Mr Courtney added: Government advice needs to cover the possible self-isolation of bubbles and, in extremis, moving to rotas or to more limited opening.

It needs to cover advice to heads about the protections needed for staff in high-risk categories if infection rates rise.

Government should be employing more teachers and seeking extra teaching spaces to allow education to continue in a Covid-secure manner if infections rise.
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A once in 15 years snowstorm continues to blast parts of Australia already blanketed in white powder.

As ski resorts celebrated their biggest fall of snow so far this season, towns in southern and central west New South Wales have transformed into winter wonderlands as much of Australia's east coast shivers through icy temperatures.

Sydneysiders and tourists flocked to Katoomba and Blackheath in Blue Mountains and further west to Orange, Bathurst and Oberon to check out the spectacular white scenery seen just nine days out from spring.

Oberon saw 20 centimetres of snow, the most amount recorded outside an alpine region.

The icy conditions forced the closure of many major roads, including the Great Western and Mitchell highways.

Visiting Sydneysiders copped an online roasting from angry locals, amid a second wave of new coronavirus infections in NSW.

'Let's all go mingle with people from hot spots then risk taking something home. It will be so worth it,' one man commented.

One woman added: 'I wonder what part of STAY AT HOME do all those idiots not understand.'

Skiers flocked to Thredbo on Sunday to make the most of the snowy conditions

Whiteout! Families drove three hours inland from Sydney to towns like Oberon to make the most of the snow

Snow angels! Children were spotted making the most of the wintry conditions, building snowmen and having snowball fights

Parliament House was surrounded by a stunning white backdrop in Canberra on Sunday

A car crashed into a power pole due to the treacherous conditions near Old Adaminaby in the NSW Snowy Mountains

Further south from the Blue Mountains, Goulburn and Canberra also saw snow, which created a stunning white mountain backdrop for Parliament House in the nation's capital on Sunday morning.

A few rogue snowflakes even landed on Parliament House, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

The capital has managed to crawl to 7.5C, but with wind chill never felt warmer than zero,' BOM tweeted.

The ski resort of Perisher in the Snowy Mountains in southern NSW received the most amount of snow with 91 centimetres, followed closely by nearby Thredbo with 81cm.

More than half of the 91 cm drop of snow at Perisher since last Tuesday fell in the last two days.

Weatherzone meteorologist Joel Pippard said the ski resorts can look forward to more snow on Sunday.

'Most of the snow has already fallen but we still see a few light snow showers as the air warms up,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'There's less moisture but the ski resorts should get another 5cm before the skies clear up from Monday.'

While the snowfall figures are 'nowhere near' the record, it's the biggest drop so far this season.

The Victorian resort of Mount Hotham has also received 61 cm in recent days.

The flag on top of Parliament House in the nation's capital was surrounded by mountains blanketed in snow on Sunday

Vehicles in Smiggin Holes near Perisher have been covered in snow after a 91cm drop of snow in recent days

The icy conditions in Jindabyne in the NSW Snowy Mountains didn't bother this woman

A 20cm of snow in Oberon in central-west NSW caused chaos with a number of road closures

There was also impressive falls of snow in Victorian alpine regions, Pictured is Falls Creek

Tourists young and old flocked to the Snowy Mountains on Sunday after freak snowstorm blanketed the region

The driver of this car needed help from passing motorists after he lost control in the icy conditions near Adaminaby in the NSW Snowy Mountains on Sunday

'It's the biggest amount of snow in at least a year, which has created a good snow base,' Mr Pippard told Daily Mail Australia.

'It's hasn't been a great season so far, particularly for Mount Hotham so the recent snow has been welcomed.'

Canberra shivered through its coldest day in four years on Saturday with reports of snow in the middle of the day before the nation's capital a top of 7.5C on Saturday.

Sydneysiders continued to make their way out west on Sunday to check out the snow in the Blue Mountains and further west, adding to the traffic chaos caused by road closures.

'There is currently very heavy traffic along the Great Western Highway between Katoomba and Blackheath as well as Leona to Glenbrook. Allow extra travel time and take extreme care,' NSW Incident Alerts posted on Sunday.

Oberon recorded the biggest drop of snow outside the alpine regions on Saturday

Up to 5cm of snow was forecast for NSW alpine regions on Sunday as a snowboarder laps up the conditions near Adaminaby

The Bureau of Meteorology said the wind chill remained significant on Sunday but will slowly ease across NSW and the ACT in the next 24 hours.

The icy temperatures have also brought rain to part of central-west NSW with a moderate flood warning issued for the Belubula River in Canowindra in central-west NSW.

The intense pressure system brought snow, strong winds, rains and hail (pictured, a kangaroo in Old Adaminaby in the NSW Snowy Mountains on Saturday morning)

The Central and Southern Tablelands in NSW woke to find white scenery (pictured) and blizzards on Saturday morning

The freak weather event saw snow fall across some areas 300m above sea level for the first time in 15 years.

Weatherzone's Brett Dutschke told Daily Mail Australia on Saturday 'strong cold front' had brought snow to regions as low as 300m above sea level in NSW and Victoria.

'Snow was reported in the Blue Mountains but also in other parts of the Central and Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, as low as about 500m elevation,' he said.

Mr Dutschke explained the low pressure system had 'been sending cold fronts across southeastern states since Tuesday'.

'This latest front has been the most intense, not just in how cold the air is but also wind speed, particularly in NSW and also shower intensity and snowfalls,' he said.

A kangaroo and its joey are seen battling the snow in Beechworth, Victoria (pictured) as the state suffered frosty temperatures and heavy snowfall

Australia's southeastern states felt cold fronts all week and but the most intense blast over the weekend (pictured, Adaminaby on Saturday morning)

The freak weather event caused snow to fall in places just 500m above sea level for the first time in 15 years (pictured, Oberon on Saturday)

The SES warned livestock owners in NSW to protect their animals from the chilly weather (pictured, the Snowy Mountains on Saturday morning)

Snow fell at just 300m above sea level in some parts of southern NSW and Victoria (pictured, Orange in regional NSW)

Towns in NSW that saw the most snowfall included the Blue Mountains, Bathurst and Orange (pictured on Saturday)

Mr Dutschke said the intense weather would reduce over the coming days but temperatures would remain chilly.

'Sunday is still going to be quite cold, the wind is dying down as well and will be more confined to the ranges and coast of southern and central NSW.

'The wintry, cold, blowing days will be replaced by frosty nights and mornings,' he said.

The icy cold front has sent temperatures plummeting to 10C below average.

Canberra experienced its coldest day in four years on Saturday, with a predicted maximum temperature of 7.3 degrees.

Temperatures also plummeted to just 5C at Goulburn, Katoomba, Canberra and Orange, but the strong winds will made it feel more like -3C to -5C.

In Oberon, west of Sydney, thick snow blanketed footpaths and covered bushes as temperatures plummeted on Saturday

Brrr! Oberon was covered in a think layer of snow as some parts of the state shivered through the coldest day for four years

Temperatures plummeted below freezing in alpine regions across NSW (pictured, Old Adaminaby on Saturday during the snow storm)

The icy cold front sent temperatures plummeting 10C below average on Saturday (pictured, a kangaroo in Old Adaminaby on Saturday)

Snowfields (pictured,Old Adaminaby in the Snowy Mountains) saw warnings for blizzards over the weekend and freezing temperatures

Canberra recorded its coldest day in four years with the maximum temperature at a chilly 7.3 degrees (pictured, Adaminaby on Saturday)

Sydney's maximum temperature peaked at a mere 16C with a minimum of 8C and winds of up to 40km/h.

The State Emergency Service (SES) have also issued a weather warning for New South Wales and warned sheep graziers to protect their livestock.

A severe weather warning was issued across several regions in NSW (pictured, Lake Eucumbene on Saturday morning)

A snowplow is pictured tipped over in a ditch after heavy snowfalls across Adaminaby in the NSW Snowy Mountains (pictured)

The wintery weather is expected to continue across the weekend and see an additional 20cm of snow (pictured, Oberon on Saturday)

Further south in Melbourne, temperatures are expected to hover around a cool 11C over the weekend.

In Brisbane, the mercury will reach a maximum 23C, but there will be winds of up to 45km/h.

In Adelaide, there will be rain with minimum temperatures of just 6C over the weekend.

Perth will see some wet weather on Sunday.

Temperatures in Hobart will sit at a minimum of just 3C and a maximum of 12C, with rain expected up until Monday.

The widespread chilly weather was a stark contrast to the conditions in western and central Australia, where the maxiumum maximum temperature was up to 12C above average.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday said that his government would soon talk to scheduled banks in the city to ease the process of giving loans for traders, start working on a portal that would help connect traders in the city with those in other states and countries, and improve infrastructure of existing markets in the Capital.

In a web interaction with traders from across the city, the chief minister shared a broad road map for the revival of Delhis economy in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic. I want to assure you that in the days to come, we will have a number of announcements that would benefit industrialists and traders in the city. We are currently working on several schemes and policies that are aimed at improving business environment, trade and revive Delhis economy.

Several traders in the city have told us that they are facing difficulties in availing loans under the Central governments Atmanirbhar Bharat scheme. We shall soon talk to scheduled banks and ensure that the process of availing loans is eased, Kejriwal said in a speech at the end of the webinar.

In May, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced a Rs 20-lakh crore economic stimulus package  under the Atmanirbhar Bharat tag popularised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi  in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic, which included collateral-free loans for medium scale, small and micro enterprises.

On Sundays session, Kejriwal further said, Delhi has several industrial areas and wholesale markets which produce or trade in some specific products. For them, we shall work on starting a portal which could help connect them with other traders in other states and other countries.

We have also received a lot of suggestions on improving the infrastructure of existing markets in the city. Delhis markets should be of international standards and we are working towards that. We started with the Chandni Chowk project and in the coming days we will work towards improving the infrastructure of more such markets, said Kejriwal.

Leher Sethi, an entrepreneur from the event management industry who was present in the webinar, said: The hospitality and event industry has been greatly affected. Measures must be taken to revive this industry because events are mostly happening online and this is likely to continue till 2021. In the past one month, around 60,000 events from across 11 countries have been cancelled.

In a web interaction, Kejriwal pointed out how Delhi is one of the rare states in the country which did not have to impose a lockdown for the second time and discussed a series of measures, such as creating a job portal and setting up a committee to advise him on reviving Delhis economy in the light of the pandemic.

Sanjeev Mehra, president of the traders association in Khan Market, said: We are thankful to the government for providing us with all the support to ensure that physical distancing protocols and hygiene is maintained in the markets. There has been no Covid case in Khan Market, and business is slowly picking up pace.

Praveen Goyal, president of Delhi marble traders association, said, There are more than 1 lakh marble shops in Delhi and more than 1 lakh people are earning their livelihoods through marble business. But there is no organized parking in marble market areas in Delhi. If a marble facilitation zone is created on 100 hectares of land, it will be a huge relief.

Meenakshi Dutt, a salon owner who participated in the webinar, said: The government must establish a womens cell or a department in Delhi where women entrepreneurs can report their grievances and issues related to businesses. I want to thank the Delhi government for opening the salon industry in Delhi when the time was right.
For the first time in decades, preschool through 8th grade children at St. Elizabeth Parish in Kansas City can safely and happily attend school on the same side of the street together. The St. Elizabeth campus was recently transformed by the construction of a new Early Childhood Center on the west side of 75th Street, along with church and school renovations.
23.08.2020 LISTEN

You are rising again! You have been pushed down. You were defeated, dethroned and dejected. You were rejected, wounded and mocked. Your hopes, dreams and aspirations were dashed and trampled upon. And now you have totally given up. Listen, something is now being done about that situation. Yes, you are getting up again! God is bringing you back. He is totally restoring you in the name of Jesus! So many people are today wounded by the present economic and health crises. They have lost much if not all. Some do not even know where to start from again. They have lost their capital, lost their jobs, their loved ones and even their hope. But listen, you will recover. All hope is not lost. A sudden miracle of resurrection will touch you and everything around you after reading this message. Are you listening? God is saying that he is opening your grave to bring you out today! Now, people like Lazarus were there before you.

Lazarus was sick, he died, was buried and his body was already decaying and stinking. There was no hope, no life and no possibility that he would ever come back. And rightly too, when Jesus came around they gave him these facts, "Lazarus is already buried and must be stinking by now. Please, forget about him." My God! All hope was gone. But the LORD insisted that they show him where he was buried. I also ask you the same question today, where have you buried your hope? Where have you abandoned that your once fervent, dogged, cherished faith? Yes, the long time of trials, persecution and disappointments have systematically withered and extinguished them. I know. I understand that because I have also been there many times. Yes, there is nothing you go through that others have not experienced. That is the word of God. Even now, many people are going through worse situations than yours. True. So dont kill yourself, just stand still and you will see the salvation of God. I hear Jesus telling them, I dont care how long he had died or about the state of the composition of his body, just come and show me where you buried him. I am the LORD; the master of life and death. I can make things that are dead to come back to life. I can make things that are not to be. I can make things that are lost to be found Wow! God, the word of God and faith will always overrule the worst of situations. Faith is superior to fact. The fact is that you are down, but the word of God is saying that you are getting up now! The spiritual rules the physical. Yes, it was a fact that he was dead and stinking, but he that is greater than every fact, every grave will raise him by faith and power. So that negative fact in your situation is being overruled today!

You have totally lost hope that that business will bounce back. You have given up on that marriage, that relationship, that project, that ministry, your job, on your health. They will be restored again. You have lost hope that that child will ever come? Where have you buried that hope? I am asking you. Tell me. Where?? Please, come and show it to the Master. Look at what happened in John Chapter eleven, "When Jesus came to where the man [Lazarus] was buried, and when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth! And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave clothes. And his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said to them, 'loose him and let him go!" Praise God! Today, I command those things that have held you down to let you go in the mighty name of Jesus! I command those grave situations in your life to give way now! Come out of that grave! Come out of that bondage and hopelessness now in Jesus name!

Rev. Gabriel Agbo is of the Assemblies of God and the author of the books / audiobooks Power of Midnight Prayer, Power of Sacrifice, Breaking Generational Curses: Claiming Your Freedom, Never Again! Website www.authorsden.com/pastorgabrielnagbo e-mail: [email protected] Tel: 08037113283
With more than half a million Alabama students expected to be learning remotely once all schools start, technical difficulties are a given.

That's why one Alabama school district is digging deep, reaching out to help families and students who are struggling with technical problems with remote learning at the start of the new school year.

Macon County school district officials made the decision to start remotely in July, keeping school buildings closed except for teachers and staff. Students there already had devices, thanks to a grant from Apple, but officials knew there would be problems with internet connectivity.

You can have thousands of iPads and the inability to connect at home, Superintendent Jacqueline Brooks said, so you still couldnt do homework on the bus. You still couldnt connect when you got into a lot of our homes, on the rural roads.

With nearly all of the district's 1,900 students set to do live remote learning, where teachers interface with students in real time, bandwidth had to be stronger.

The district used federal coronavirus relief funds to purchase 1,100 wireless hot spots for students and outfit all 38 buses with Wi-Fi. Initially, that seemed like enough to get the school year started.

Students would use new tools to connect with their schools from home, and resources were shared to help with the learning curve.

We assumed if we put videos and directions out that would be enough, Brooks said. But they really needed hands-on help.

We have families who dont know a lot about technology, John Curry, the districts technology director, said. They have a fear of technology. Theyve got to help their kids, but weve got to help them help their kids. Younger students and their families must know how to access schoolwork and connect with teachers.

With that in mind, Curry and others in the school district set out to help parents in a very hands-on way. The district held four back-to-back, daylong, one-on-one, drive up technical help sessions where families could be face-to-face with someone who could help them.

Remote learning started in Macon County on Aug. 17, and the help sessions on the preceding Saturday and Sunday were packed. "The first day we had well over 300," Brooks said.

Sessions were added for Monday and Tuesday after seeing how many families needed help.

AL.com visited George Washington Carver Elementary School in Tuskegee on Tuesday, and a long line of cars was already in place before the session started at 2 p.m.

Curry and his team of technology specialists worked the line, finding out what parents and students needed help with. Most families there needed help getting Google classroom and Google meet onto their devices, Curry said, and ensuring they had access to a school-issued email address for their students.

"If we get those things done," Curry said, "then teachers can communicate with students and with parents all the time."

Other districts doing remote learning can learn from Macon County's experience, Curry said, and prepare to offer one-on-one help to families. "Without families having the knowledge and the skills to do what they need to do remotely, we're not going to accomplish anything," he said.

"All school systems need to provide assistance to parents in any way possible."

Curry said using staff in the technology department is the most efficient way, even if it takes a lot of time. "If you do it like this, the teacher won't get bogged down. The principal won't get bogged down."

Curry and his team of four, including the school's media specialist, the district's network technician and a volunteer from the community, held the help session outside of the school building for safety reasons, even as temperatures climbed into the mid-90s.

Related: Alabama school districts using buses to deliver meals to remote learning students

Superintendent Brooks helped with tech issues, too. Brooks, a Macon County native, directed a young mother of three to type her contact information in a note on Brooks phone, which she then forwarded to get the children set up to receive meals. She helped with registration issues, too.

Nestled in the eastern region of Alabamas rural Black Belt, Macon County is home to both the prestigious Tuskegee University and also holds one of the highest unemployment rates in Alabama. About 14% of the countys workforce was unemployed in July, compared to the statewide unemployment rate of 8.2%. That bring economic struggles and adds to the stress families are already feeling during the pandemic.

Tamara Walker, a senior at Booker T. Washington High School, was there in line with her younger sister who had been having some trouble with her iPad. Walker said she initially had trouble getting the best signal with the district-provided hot spot. They said it just needed to be facing a different way, Walker said. It really helped, and I was able to get all of my classwork done.

Walkers principal, Corey Porter, said high school students have a good grasp of how to use the devices. But some of the issues they have are out of their control, Porter said. If theres a technical issue on our end, theres nothing they can do until we fix it.

Curry said the district offers technical help to students and families throughout the week. The district website home page has posted a lot of links to resources, he said.

Deshaynique Woods waited in line to pick up a device for her son, Jeremiah, a kindergartner at Carver Elementary. While connectivity isnt a problem for her family, Woods said remote learning will be tricky.

"Us having to be teachers is difficult," she said.

Booker T. Washington High School Principal Porter said the experience of remote learning shows that school officials need to place a high priority on communication. Communicate via as many avenues as possible because many times parents are unaware of things, Porter said.

Related: How can Alabama communities help working parents find, afford childcare while schools are virtual?

"Let them know we're going to be patient with you. Let them know we are working in this together. And provide opportunities to accommodate them."

Making the time to help families has eased frustration levels, Porter said. The district is using social media along with other methods of communication to make sure parents know what's going on.

Thirty-three of Alabamas 138 school districts are starting with remote-only learning, including Mobile County, the states largest with nearly 53,000 students. Twenty of those virtual-only districts have started school, and nearly 80 districts have begun with in-person learning. The remainder of the school districts will start over the next couple of weeks, including eight that will open after Labor Day.

Some districts are still waiting on shipments of devices, bogged down in transit, and others have already experienced glitches with the states remote learning platform.

Related: Internet vouchers for low-income students going out next week

Brooks said theyll continue to offer families the help they need as teachers and staff work to perfect remote learning. This years remote learning is very different from what students did last spring when schools closed. Were actually in classrooms with teachers for the daily interaction, she said. Feedback, exchange, small groups, hand raising, chat boxes.

"We really want to mirror, as closely as possible, physical teaching and learning and engagement," Brooks said. Without going into physical classrooms, remote learning is the next best thing.

The lack of access to technology and internet connectivity frustrates Brooks. I wish people understood that technology is a necessary utility today. It should be provided everywhere in the United States of America without exception.

(Internet connectivity) is a basic necessity, she continued, and it almost goes on that list, that level of belonging in Maslows hierarchy of needs with food, water, shelter.

Even with all of the challenges remote learning presents, Brooks is hopeful.

"I do think there's a potential to really transform education if we can do it right," she said. "We've been talking about this outdated, antiquated model of learning forever. Forever. We do have an opportunity to make this something great. And we're just determined not to fail."

Im at George Washington Carver Elementary School in Macon County, attending a family technology help session where families can get one on one tech support. #aledchat pic.twitter.com/9cAZZcjFAS  Trisha Powell Crain (@Trish_Crain) August 18, 2020

For all of AL.coms back to school coverage, click here.

For live updates on how school reopenings are going, check out our live update page.
Patients face agonising waits for dental treatment after ten million appointments were delayed because of Covid.

The British Dental Association (BDA) warned that the waiting list backlog could take months to clear as campaigners said the crisis is disastrous for children's oral health.

While most surgeries reopened last month, strict infection control rules mean they are restricted to just a handful of patients a day.

Patients waiting for dentist appointments could face additional charges up to 40 for PPE. Paula Scurfield, 41, (above) says she was refused treatment unless she paid a 25 levy

The BDA now estimates more than ten million check-ups and treatments  such as fillings and root canal work  were put on hold during lockdown.

Even those patients lucky enough to get an appointment face charges of up to 40 for PPE on top of any treatment costs.

Health campaigners say the crisis could be particularly devastating for the oral health of children, with tooth extraction already the leading cause for hospital admissions in youngsters.

The lack of routine appointments could also see diseases like mouth cancer being missed.

Pay 50 for PPE... or go home A mother says she was refused treatment by her dentist unless she paid a 25 levy towards PPE. Paula Scurfield, 41, broke her tooth during lockdown and her 20-year-old son Dale had gum inflammation. She booked their appointments at Clifton Moor Dental Centre in York but was told to pay a 50 PPE fee for them both or they could not attend. She said: 'I paid it because I needed the appointment. It was taking advantage of a dire situation.' Samantha Atkins from the practice said it had been hit by 'significant costs' due to the virus. Advertisement

Experts warned the disruption could last months or years in the event of a second wave.

They said it was not as simple as 'flicking a switch' now surgeons had been given the go-ahead to practise again.

The BDA, which represents 22,000 dentists in the UK, said thousands of clinics were struggling to stay afloat, threatening to leave millions without a dentist.

Most had not been eligible for government support which has left them hanging in the balance.

Mick Armstrong, chairman of the BDA, said higher costs and fewer patients meant some private practices  which also operate under smaller NHS contracts  have started to go into liquidation.

He said: 'It's a struggle dealing with the backlog, let alone new cases. Ministers must ensure this does not become the new normal.

'We have thousands of practices struggling to stay afloat  if they go under their patients have nowhere to go.'

Before coronavirus struck, ten million treatments would have been performed by NHS and private dentists over a three-month period, the body said.

But treatment fell by 97 per cent after dentists were ordered to close their doors during lockdown, leaving a small number of 'hubs' to treat dental emergencies.

Since reopening, most practices are operating at a quarter of their normal capacity.

Coronavirus rules mean clinics must provide a 'fallow period' of 60 minutes following procedures involving sprays, including fillings and crowns, to allow any droplets containing virus particles to settle.

Ms Scurfield was told by Clifton Moor Dental Centre in York (above) to pay a PPE fee or her and her her son could not attend. Patients also face delays as 10million visits were delayed due to coronavirus lockdown

Staff are also having to screen all patients for coronavirus symptoms, put on PPE and disinfect equipment which potentially doubles the amount of time needed for simple treatments.

The difficulties have led many surgeries to stop accepting new NHS patients, forcing many to go private or rely on emergency hubs.

Clinic on edge The owner of a private dental practice is worried her business will close. Christina Chatfield, 56, is 100,000 in debt and cannot afford to pay rent and staffing costs. Although Dental Health Spa in Brighton reopened, the number of patients it can see each day has reduced by half. She said: 'I put everything into this so I won't go down without a fight.' Advertisement

In Norfolk, campaigners warned that patients can only see dentists if they are 'in agony' after all but two of the county's practices stopped taking new NHS patients.

Alex Stewart, from Healthwatch Norfolk, said the group has been contacted by dozens of patients who are unable to access dental care unless they called NHS 111.

He said: 'It's been difficult to sign up to an NHS dental practice for a few months and Covid compounded the effects.

'Things like mouth cancers could be being missed and I think there is a potential, especially for children, where we could be storing up big problems for the future in terms of oral healthcare.'

Matthew Garrett, of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said patients should expect delays for some time.

He said: 'We are not flicking a switch but entering a phased transition to the resumption of a full service and the pace of reopening remains dependent on a decline in infections.'
On Wednesday morning, a Zachary woman was discovered stabbed to death. Zachary Police arrested her boyfriend, who had a sprawling history of domestic violence arrests, and had recently been released from jail on bond.

He was one of six people arrested on domestic violence-related counts within 24 hours between Tuesday and Wednesday in East Baton Rouge Parish, according to booking documents from the local jail.

+2 Staying home to stop coronavirus is 'anything but safe' for victims of domestic abuse In the days following the statewide directive to shelter in place as the coronavirus spreads across Louisiana, local leaders and advocates say

Here's how authorities described the incidents:

Aug. 18, 12:57 p.m.  A man angrily accused his girlfriend, who was five months pregnant, of speaking to other men. When she tried to call 911, he took her cell phone, bit her arm and struck her stomach with a wooden board she had used to block a window he had previously broken.

Aug. 18, 2:20 p.m.  A man, reportedly intoxicated, grabbed his wife and hit her several times, ripping her T-shirt as he attacked her while her 5-year-old son was in the house.

Aug. 18, 9:40 p.m.  A man struck his longtime partner in the face and potentially fractured her wrist in front of their three children.

Aug. 19, 1 a.m.  A man was arrested on drug counts but was discovered to have also recently violated a protective order against him. He had allegedly sent text messages to a woman with whom he had a domestic abuse history, saying he would kill her.

Aug. 19, 1:40 a.m.  A man armed himself with a kitchen knife, dragged his girlfriend across the floor in front of her two children and tried to stab her in the face. He sliced her hand as she tried to block his blow.

The youngest alleged abuser was 22. The oldest was 49.

The arrest records over those 24 hours are a snapshot of an alarming increase in domestic violence. Baton Rouge police reported 206 more incidents from January through July of 2020 than during the same period last year  an increase of 14 percent.

And thats just the official figures. Suspects are often booked on counts of battery or aggravated assault with a firearm instead, not specifically domestic abuse.

And many other incidents  advocates and law enforcement have a difficult time estimating exactly how many  are never reported.

+4 Zachary man accused of stabbing girlfriend to death had long record of domestic violence charges There were numerous red flags, support services and court intervention. But all that wasn't enough to prevent the worst possible outcome: anot

Upticks amid lockdown

In March, local officials and advocates warned that domestic violence could get worse in the coming months, with the strain and fear surrounding the coronavirus pandemic exacerbating existing abuse. As a statewide lockdown went into effect, the concern that victims of abuse would be trapped at home with their abusers intensified.

Officials even identified an uptick in those first few uncertain weeks of the outbreak, but cautioned it was too early to draw conclusions without more data.

"We feel that due to COVID and people being inside homes, we were expecting a potential increase," said Sgt. L'Jean McKneely Jr., Baton Rouge Police spokesman. "We had conversations about it early."

They were right. It is a pattern seen not only in the United States, but also across the world.

In 2019, there were four deaths from two domestic violence incidents in East Baton Rouge Parish. In 2020, there have been 13 as of Wednesdays stabbing, according to District Attorney Hillar Moore III's office.

In addition to the 206 additional incidents, BRPD has arrested 5 percent more people for domestic abuse this year.

The East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office has seen fewer calls through all of 2020. However, spokesperson Casey Rayborn Hicks said that doesnt mean abuse itself had decreased.

"We may have victims out there who are afraid or unable to reach out for help while at home with an aggressor," she said.

Before Tigerland police shooting, BRPD internal memo said suspect might commit 'suicide by cop' The police shooting that left Vincent Harris dead inside a Tigerland apartment earlier this week wasn't his first confrontation with Baton Rou

A study in disasters

Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

Tracking domestic violence incidents is notoriously complex.

While arrests and calls are one measure to assess how frequently these events happen, there are always those victims who don't report. Even when an incident is reported, it may be only the most recent escalation of abuse that has continued for months or years.

"It's happening in the shadows," said Twahna Harris, a domestic violence advocate. "Just because you dont see it happening doesnt mean its not happening."

Another way to gauge the reach of domestic violence in an area is by looking at the homicide rate in these cases.

The parish saw a spike in domestic violence following the catastrophic flooding that deluged the capital region in 2016, Moore said. His office tracked an increase not only in domestic violence incidents around that time, but also in slayings in which domestic abuse was the motive, along with murder-suicides.

Despite 2019's encouraging numbers, Moore feared that, with the COVID-19 outbreak, the rest of 2020 would mirror the year after the 2016 flood, when the parish had 14 deaths. As of Wednesday morning, the 2020 domestic violence death count reached 13. Six of these homicides involved intimate partners.

There were two other homicides involving law enforcement responding to reports of domestic abuse this year. In one case, an officer was killed by the suspect. In the other, the suspect perpetrating the abuse was killed by an officer who arrived to investigate.

Reggie Ferreira, a Tulane University professor and disaster specialist, said similar patterns have unfolded in different disasters over the past two decades.

After Hurricane Katrina, for instance, police calls increased as a result of intimate partner violence. A climb in domestic abuse was also seen in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.

Ferreira and his colleague, intimate partner violence specialist and Tulane professor Frederick Buttell, recently launched a study to examine domestic abuse during the coronavirus. Their preliminary data, gathered through an online survey, has already shown a significant increase in New Orleans.

"COVID can be blamed for an increase of intimate partner violence," Ferreira said. "If you experience it before COVID, youre more likely to experience it again as well. Theres just a history that comes with it."

As the pandemic drags on, Ferreira noted, other disasters could further complicate domestic violence in the state.

"Can you imagine if we experience a hurricane now? Where would a survivor go?"

Domestic violence victims vulnerable as coronavirus causes isolation; help still available As self-isolation and quarantine measures go into effect across the state to halt the spread of the coronavirus, domestic violence advocates f

Finding safety in an unsafe space

Harris, founder and executive director of domestic violence advocacy group The Butterfly Society, said her organization has been inundated with calls from victims since the pandemic began.

"What were finding in the calls is that victims are not wanting to leave," she said. "Theyre fearful of leaving because were faced with this pandemic."

Afraid of risking either their own lives of those of their children, many victims  most of whom are women  are concerned about the safety of shelters.

Ferreira added that abusers thrive on control, and the pandemic affords them the opportunity to further isolate victims and continue their emotional or physical attacks.

"If youre with that abusive partner, theyll watch you like a hawk," he said.

Now, victims are tasked with "trying to remain safe in an unsafe space," Harris said. This means looking for an empty bedroom, closet or bathroom to spend some time alone, or going outside for a short walk around the block or parking lot.

She also encourages the public to check on neighbors and loved ones who they suspect may be suffering abuse, a call to action echoed by local law enforcement.

In the meantime, she said she is doing her best to uplift victims during a stretch of interminable stress and anxiety. But there is no perfect safety plan, no easy solutions, she added.

"You give them what works best for them and youre praying that it works and helps and that they get through and that theyre safe," she said. "Thats what you do  thats what you have to do."

Those experiencing domestic abuse can contact The Butterfly Society, Iris Domestic Violence Center, the statewide Louisiana Domestic Violence Hotline, and The National Domestic Violence Hotline.
RTHK: California fires destroy 1 million acres

Firefighters on Sunday battled some of California's largest-ever fires that have forced tens of thousands from their homes and burned one million acres, with further lightning strikes and gusty winds forecast.

Lightning strikes have ignited fires that left smoke blanketing the region, with the total area burned for all fires in California this week "close to one million acres (400,000 hectares)," according to CalFire public information officer Jeremy Rahn.

The National Weather Service said dry thunderstorms could spark additional wildfires, adding that "the western US and Great Plains are shrouded under a vast area of smoke due to ongoing wildfires."

About 2,600 firefighters are tackling the two largest blazes, out of 13,700 battling "nearly two dozen major fires," according to Rahn.

"If you don't believe in climate change, come to California," tweeted state Governor Gavin Newsom on Saturday alongside a dramatic photograph of clouds of smoke rising from fires.

"This is from today," he said, "and is just a small part of the nearly 600 fires we are battling this week."

He tweeted apocalyptic images of smoldering orange roadsides thick with smoke, with sparks flying as trees burned ferociously.

Wineries in the famed Napa and Sonoma regions, which are still reeling from blazes in recent years, are under threat.

"Many of these firefighters have been on the lines for 72 hours, and everybody is running on fumes," Assemblyman Jim Wood of the Healdsburg district in Sonoma told the Los Angeles Times.

"Our first responders are working to the ragged edge of everything they have."

The two largest blazes - dubbed the SCU Lightning Complex and the LNU Lightning Complex - have burned about 680,000 acres and destroyed more than 850 structures.

They are the second and third largest fires in California history, with the SCU fire only 10 percent contained and the LNU fire 17 percent contained.

Five deaths have been linked to the latest flare-ups, with four bodies recovered on Thursday, including three from a burned house in a rural area of Napa County.

But many residents have refused evacuation orders.

"At least if we're here, we know exactly what's going on," Napa resident John Newman, 68, told the San Francisco Chronicle as he sat in a lawn chair in his driveway. "Family is worried, but it's a little different if you're here firsthand."

Nature reserves were also ravaged. The Big Basin Redwoods State Park said that some of its historic buildings had been destroyed by flames.

The park, where giant redwood trees of well over 500 years old can be found, was "extensively damaged," it said.

About 119,000 people have been evacuated, with many struggling to find shelter and hesitating to go to centres set up by authorities because of coronavirus risks.

In some counties south of San Francisco, evacuees opted to sleep in trailers along the Pacific Ocean as they fled nearby fires, while tourists were urged to leave to free up accommodation.

Fire crews, surveillance equipment and other firefighting hardware was being sent from states including Oregon, New Mexico and Texas.

But faced with the sheer scope of the disaster, Newsom also asked for help from Canada and Australia. (AFP)

This story has been published on: 2020-08-23. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.


By Kim Ki-chan





Indonesia is a country in which the people can feel satiated just by laughing. It is said that there was a time in Indonesia's past, when a man able to make a gloomy princess laugh could become a king. There is an anecdote that Singapore's Prime Minister Li Kuan-Yu invited humorous Indonesians to the country to make strict Singaporeans laugh.



The most enviable thing for Koreans is Indonesian laughter. Among the countries I have been to, the people who laugh most are Indonesians.



If you asked about my goal, it is to unite Indonesia, the country that smiles best in the world, and Korea, the most innovative country in the world, so that Koreans could laugh, and Indonesians could innovate. Korea was ranked No. 1 in the Bloomberg Global Innovation Index in 2019. However, what Koreans lack most is laughter. My strategy in Indonesia is to laugh. Then everyone will become friends. My relationship with Indonesia began this way.



Indonesia is known as the jewel of the equator where various ethnic groups live. The land is fertile and there are many fish in the sea. Indonesia and Korea have more of an atmosphere of cooperation than ever before.



During the ASEAN-Korea summit, Indonesia's President Joko Widodo called President Moon Jae-in his brother. Indonesia is the key country in the New Southern Policy of People, Peace, and Prosperity, and is a country with plenty of room for cooperation politically, economically and socially with Korea.



First, Indonesia is, above all else, the best potential partner for peace. Indonesia is playing a central role in the ASEAN alliance, and maintains the middle line. So, unlike the United States, China, and Japan, it is a country that can provide advice in the position of the sincerest interest in inter-Korean issues. Indonesia is a country with strong reciprocity and inclusion.



Since its independence on Aug. 17, 1945, Indonesia has adopted the spirit of Pancasila as the five founding principles that can embrace a variety of ethnicities, regions and cultures. "Panca" means "five," and "sila" means "principle." The spirit represents faith in God, humanism, integration of diversity, realization of democracy through consensus and representative systems, and social justice for the people.



Based on this spirit, Indonesia held the Asian African Conference of the Alliance of Non-Allied States as a middle ground to maintain world peace in the post-World War II Cold War period between the U.S. and Russia.



Indonesia also announced the Bandung Ten Principles for maintaining world peace. In this role Indonesia has great potential to help maintain peace through an inclusive coalition through cooperation between Indonesia and South Korea at a time when the conflict between the U.S. and China intensifies.



Second, Indonesia is the world's fourth-largest country with 270 million people, consisting of 17,000 islands and 700 minorities, and is a very young country with an average age of 30. If Indonesia's resources and Korea's technology are combined, the synergies are expected to be great. This is because Korea's accumulated development experience is desperately needed in Indonesia, and for Korea, which was relatively lacking in cooperation with ASEAN, Indonesia could be a partner in the ASEAN economic bloc.



Until now, Indonesia has had many economic cooperation relations with Japan and China, but recent exchanges are in earnest with the advance of Hyundai Motor, LG Chem, and Lotte Chemical. The cooperation between the Economic, Humanities and Social Research Association and the Indonesian government, which agreed to support President Joko's visit to Korea in 2018 to provide advice on the establishment and implementation of the "Making Indonesia 4.0" policy, is also a great strength.



I describe it as the meeting of Korea, the country that wants to laugh, and Indonesia, the country that wants to innovate. Of course, it is unfortunate that mutual visits are difficult due to the coronavirus crisis, but even at this moment, Korean companies and Indonesian companies are communicating with each other and dreaming. The dream of designing the new capital in Kalimantan on Borneo as a new smart city is also growing.



Third, there is the possibility of social and cultural cooperation between Indonesia and Korea. In particular, the mutual understanding between the young people of the two countries is very high. Super Junior and iKON set the stage to a record level at the closing ceremony of the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang.



Taking advantage of this opportunity, I hope that not only K-pop, but also the expansion of study abroad opportunities, cultural exchanges, cooperation between universities, and mutual visits will be enabled. Humanity degenerates in conflict but it evolves in cooperation.



There is a saying that if you want to go fast you go alone but if you want to go far you go together. Indonesia and Korea shall go together in a long-term partnership for sustainable growth to prosper together. The bigger the dream, the better. Dream big! Start small! Move fast!





Kim Ki-chan is president of the Korean Indonesian Management Association (KIMA) and a professor of business at the Catholic University of Korea.


Varanasi : , Aug 23 (IANS) Banaras Hindu University (BHU) Vice Chancellor Prof Rakesh Bhatnagar has allowed free OPD registration for students at the university hospital for treatment, after aggressive protests by the students.

The vice chancellor also issued a statement saying that it was unfortunate and painful that his remarks were misconstrued.

Massive protests had erupted on the campus over the V-C's remarks after an audio clip of a telephonic conversation between him and a student went viral.

Students associated with Samajwadi Chhatra Sabha (SCS), Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and National Students Union of India (NSUI) staged demonstrations at different places on the campus demanding resignation of the vice chancellor.

In the audio clip, Bhatnagar was heard saying, "Mahamana Madan Mohan Malviya planted many mango trees on the campus. If he would have planted some tree of money, we would have given everything for free." The V-C had said that it was not possible to provide free treatment to students due to a funds crunch.

He further said that while the university's annual electricity bill is Rs 66 crore, the funds provided by UGC are only Rs 60 crore.
President Donald Trump has spent the past several months criticizing mail-in voting and claiming, without proof, that it could lead to voter fraud.

But the North Carolina Republican Party has apparently embraced the process of collecting votes by mail. So much so that, according to a Business Insider report, it is sending out absentee ballot request forms that feature Trumps face.

According to the report, the mailer requests immediate action, to ensure your right to securely vote absentee.

Business Insider said it features a picture of Trump smiling with the words, ARE YOU GOING TO LET THE DEMOCRATS SILENCE YOU? And, it also encourages potential voters to ACT NOW TO STAND WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP.

Got my mail in absentee ballot request form from @realDonaldTrump that will allow me to mail in my vote if I need to... but I cant remember if this is a good thing or bad thing. Mail in is bad but absentee is good???  pic.twitter.com/fbdgiq4hwc  Chandler Carranza (@ChandlerC226) August 13, 2020

Gaston County resident Chandler Carranza said his wife asked if the mailer was a joke.

The irony is very thick and definitely not lost on me, Carranza told CNN.

Trump has been saying mail-in ballots will bring fraud to the election but absentee ballots are legit. Which is it? It cant be both ways. I laughed because if the campaign actually took information from other times they have reached out theyd know I wont vote for Trump despite being a registered Republican., he added.

The report said other people in North Carolina have taken to social media claiming they have also received the mailer.

According to The Washington Post, it said, both mail-in voting and absentee-voting use the mail to deliver ballots to voters.

President Trump has consistently and rightly said that where a voter cannot make it to the polls, they should request and absentee ballot, Thea McDonald, the national press secretary for the Trump campaign, told CNN.

The president has also correctly distinguished between the chaos-ridden universal mail-in voting systems, like the one that led to Californias train wreck primary, and traditional absentee mail voting systems, like the tried and true system in North Carolina  a distinction Democrats and many in the mainstream media purposely ignore to sow confusion.
American political conventions are an odd tradition. In theory, they are about formulating policies and choosing candidates. But its been 68 years since a party risked not choosing a presidential candidate on the first ballot and probably longer than that since anyone really cared what a party had placed in its official platform.

Instead, political conventions are an opportunity for political parties to publicly work out a version of their ideal selves and display it to the nation. In one sense, all the speeches, including the nominees, are just so much hot air. But in another, who gets speaking time at these conventions and what the nominee has to say gives you real insight into how these candidates view themselves and the country, and how they hope to govern.

The Democratic convention was a cavalcade of inclusiveness featuring speakers ranging from democratic socialists to conservative Republicans. One of the highlights of the last night featured a speech from a young boy Joe Biden had met on the campaign trail and had coached with his stuttering. This was meant to illustrate Bidens belief in paying it forward.

It was quite an effective bit of oratory and one couldnt shake the feeling Brayden Harrington may well dust this clip off and play it at another political convention in 2060. We dont know the full lineup for the Republican convention, but the word is that it's going to feature those two gun-waving lawyers from St. Louis.

Joe Biden's bright vision for America

And then theres the acceptance speech. We dont know, exactly, what Trumps 2020 acceptance speech will be, but we know what he had to say in his only I can fix it 2016 speech and its unlikely to be much different, at least not in tone. Trump shared a dark, dystopian vision of an America motivated by fear and distrust. At over 90 minutes long, it was also interminable.

Jill Biden, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter highlighted the list of speakers during night two of the Democratic National Convention.

Bidens speech could not have been more different. First, he kept it under 30 minutes, which, I believe, is a modern record. Second, Biden didnt shy away from addressing the problems facing the country. And he acknowledged that this is a life-changing election that is an inflection point in American history.

Story continues

Our view: Dynamic Joe Biden takes command in making his case to an America in crisis

But his speech, while occasionally somber, was also hopeful, almost Reaganesque. Where Donald Trump sees American carnage, Joe Biden sees a shining city on a hill.

In Bidens view, America has a clear choice to make:

This ... (election) will determine Americas future for a very long time. Character is on the ballot. Compassion is on the ballot. Decency. Science. Democracy. Theyre all on the ballot. Who we are as a nation, what we stand for. And, most importantly, who we want to be. Thats all on the ballot. And the choice could not be clearer. No rhetoric is needed.

And despite all the difficulties we face, the outcome isnt in doubt: This is a great nation. And were a good and decent people. ... This the United States of America. And theres never been anything weve been unable to accomplish when weve done it together.

We can reject Trump's dark world

Of course, Biden wasnt all inspiration and exhortation. He took his shots at President Trump, too. But he took those shots almost respectfully and resisted the opportunity to put the boot in.

Scott Jennings: Biden wants a referendum on Trump the person. Trump must say how he'd Make America Normal Again.

For example, Biden rebuked Trump for his handling of the pandemic: Our current president has failed in his most basic duty to the nation. He failed to protect us. He failed to protect America. Someone with slightly sharper elbows would have directly quoted Trumps own acceptance speech from four years ago, The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead. Biden apparently really does believe that no rhetoric is necessary.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has increased his lead over President Donald Trump in a new poll.

And hes probably right. To quote Trump, It is what it is. Trump and Biden are both known quantities. No amount of sniping is going to redefine either of them. And Biden is also correct that the choice could not be clearer.

That choice isnt about policy differences. Biden almost lost the nomination because he refused to jump on the progressive bandwagon. Uniquely in our lifetimes and probably in American history, this election is about exactly what Biden claimed it was about when he declared his candidacy: a battle for Americas soul.

America is now faced with two competing visions, one built around fear and grievance and the other based on optimism and a shared future. This is our mission. May history be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here, tonight, as love and hope and light join in the battle for the soul of the nation."

If the purpose of a convention is to lay out a vision for America and define what the election is about, I dont think Biden and the Democrats could have done a better job. Theres no question that a lot of Americans believe in Donald Trumps world, but if they could, theyd like to live in Joe Bidens.

Republican Chris Truax, an appellate lawyer in San Diego, is CEO of CertifiedVoter.com and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: DNC: Joe Biden's vision builds America up; Donald Trump's destroys
He said 'polite drug users' were fuelling crime among the poorer communities

Test will see workers in the capital routinely checked for illegal substance use

Firms with more than 250 staff members should conduct random drug tests on their employees to help identify middle-class cocaine users who are fuelling crime among the poorer communities, the Conservative London mayoral candidate has said.

Shaun Bailey, 49, criticised 'polite drug users' using the illegal substance for their own recreational purposes and described how they were funding the criminals who traffic vulnerable children and unleash mayhem on our streets.

The Tory candidate is now calling on companies across the capital to sign up to a drug-testing charter which will see workers routinely checked for illegal substance use.

In an open letter addressed to London's business leaders, Mr Bailey, who grew up in a council house in Ladbroke Grove, west London, wrote: 'This is a huge problem.

'Drug use is not only a crime in itself; drug use is a direct cause of crime, from county lines gangs to stabbings on our streets.

London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey said firms with more than 250 staff members should conduct random drug tests on their employees

'When people buy drugs, they are funding the criminals who traffic vulnerable kids and unleash mayhem on our streets.

'So as mayor, I'll call for every business in London with over 250 employees to sign up to a drug testing charter.'

The mayoral candidate, who was a youth worker with gang members for 20 years, described how the purpose of the charter was not to get employees fired but to change our culture.

He explained that while individual results would remain anonymous, City Hall would publish an annual league table showing which companies had the highest rate of drug use.

He added: 'The purpose of this charter is not to get employees fired or shamed. Individual results will be anonymous.

'The purpose is to change our culture. City Hall will publish an annual league table showing which companies have the highest and lowest rates of drug use.'

Last year figures revealed that cocaine had exploded in popularity in London, with people in the capital getting through an average of 23kg a day.

Statistics from NHS Digital showed there were 268 admissions of over-50s using the drug last year.

There were also four times as many admissions involving people aged over 40 for the drug last year than there were ten years ago.

The Tory candidate is calling on companies across the capital to sign up to a drug-testing charter. (Stock image)

The figures also revealed there were 41 cases last year of cocaine-poisoning admissions for those aged over 60, including six patients aged 90 or more.

In total, there were 4,341 admissions linked to the class-A drug last year, with more than half of the cases involving patients above the age of 30.

In 2019, Metropolitan Police chief Cressida Dick said middle-class cocaine users had blood on their hands as the capital's knife crime epidemic continued to rise.

When asked by LBC's Nick Ferrari if 'middle-class dinner parties' who 'send out for cocaine in the weekend' had 'blood on their hands', Ms Dick replied: 'I think anybody who is not seriously mentally ill, seriously addicted, who is seeking 'recreational' drugs, particularly class A drugs, yes, I think that is a good way to put it, I do.'
India's COVID-19 tally sprinted past the 30-lakh mark, just 16 days after it crossed 20 lakh, while 22,80,566 people have recuperated in the country so far pushing the recovery rate to 74.90 per cent, according to the Union health ministry data.

IMAGE: Workers wearing personal protective equipment unload a body of a man who died due to the coronavirus before his cremation at a crematorium in New Delhi. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

COVID-19 cases in the country jumped from 10 lakh to 20 lakh in 21 days, while it had taken 59 days for the cases to cross the 10 lakh-mark.

It took 110 days for COVID-19 cases in the country to reach one lakh, while just 59 days more to go past the 10-lakh post.

IMAGE: A health worker collects swab sample from a woman for COVID-19 infection at Mobile Testing van at East zone, in Delhi. Photograph: ANI Photo

With a single-day spike of 69,239 infections, India's COVID-19 caseload mounted to 30,44,940, while the death toll climbed to 56,706 with 912 fatalities being reported in a span of 24-hours,the data updated at 8 am showed.

The COVID-19 case fatality rate has declined to 1.86 per cent.

There are 7,07,668 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which comprises 23.24 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7.

IMAGE: A police constable urges people to stay indoors after the authorities imposed weekend lockdown in the wake of coronavirus pandemic, in Jalandhar. Photograph: PTI Photo

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, a cumulative total of 3,52,92,220 samples have been tested up to August 22, with 8,01,147 samples being tested on Saturday.

Of the 912 fresh deaths, 297 are from Maharashtra, 97 from Andhra Pradesh, 93 from Karnataka, 80 from Tamil Nadu, 70 from Uttar Pradesh, 48 from West Bengal, 45 from Punjab, 21 from Madhya Pradesh, 15 each from Jammu and Kashmir and Kerala, 14 each from Gujarat and Delhi, 12 from Haryana, 11 each from Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Telangana.

Nine fatalities each have been reported from Chhattisgarh and Odisha, eight from Puducherry, seven from Assam, five each from Bihar and Goa, four from Himachal Pradesh, three from Uttarakhand, two each from Ladakh, Manipur and Tripura while Meghalaya, Nagaland have registered one fatality each.

Of the total 56,706 deaths, Maharashtra has reported the maximum at 21,995 followed by 6,420 in Tamil Nadu, 4,614 in Karnataka, 4,284 in Delhi, 3,189 in Andhra Pradesh, 2,881 in Gujarat, 2,867 in Uttar Pradesh, 2,737 in West Bengal and 1,206 in Madhya Pradesh.

IMAGE: A police constable issues a challan to a commuter for flouting lockdown norms in Guwahati. Photograph: PTI Photo

So far, 1,036 people have died of COVID-19 in Punjab, 944 in Rajasthan, 755 in Telangana, 608 in Jammu and Kashmir, 597 in Haryana, 503 in Bihar, 399 in Odisha, 308 in Jharkhand, 234 in Assam, 218 in Kerala and 195 in Uttarakhand.

Chhattisgarh has registered 189 deaths, Puducherry 151, Goa 140, Tripura 72, Chandigarh 33, Andaman and Nicobar Islands 32, Himachal Pradesh 29, Manipur 22, Ladakh 21, Nagaland nine, Meghalaya seven, Arunachal Pradesh five, Sikkim three and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu two.

The health ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to co-morbidities.

"Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research," the ministry said, adding that state-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.
Veteran federal prosecutor Kelly Zusman has heard the demands of many demonstrators to defund or abolish police.

She wondered instead what she could do to build better police forces, finding ways to have them mirror the communities they serve.

That led to a new scholarship created to encourage students of color to pursue criminal justice as a major at Portland Community College.

Watching all of the protests and listening to a lot of people talk about what they want to get rid of, she said, I thought there has to be some positive stuff we could do.

And when the college asked if Zusman wanted to name it after someone, she said she found the right person: Carmen Sylvester, the first Black woman hired by Portland police. It was 1973.

Carmen became the inspiration, Zusman said. Her courage to become a Portland Police Bureau officer when so few women or African Americans were doing so and the work that she did on patrol and with the schools underscored how important it is for law enforcement to be part of our own community.'

Sylvester, who is retired as an officer but still works full-time as court security, said policing needs good people with real life experiences. They should want to help others, be civil servants, she said.

They should also be aware of the states history, she said. The founders and framers of the Oregon Constitution excluded Black people and sought a white utopia.

The anger and protests are not just about recent events, but instead reflect 400 years of history and a lot of unresolved injustices, Sylvester said.

So far, Zusman and others have raised a little over $42,000 for the endowed Carmen M. Sylvester PCC Criminal Justice Scholarship. The first one will be awarded to a student in the 2021-2022 school year.

Zusman and her family contributed $5,000 toward the scholarship.

A committee overseen by U.S. Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta, which administers admission fees that attorneys pay to practice in federal court in the District of Oregon, kicked in $25,000, the amount required for an endowed scholarship.

The goal is to raise up to $100,000 to help support two or three scholarships a year. Each scholarship is intended to cover a years tuition.

**

Im glad to lend my name to that, said Carmen Sylvester, now 75, of the new criminal justice scholarship at Portland Community College. Here, Sylvester hugs former Portland Police Chief Danielle Outlaw after Sylvester swore her in as the city's first Black woman police chief.

Sylvester, now 75, said she hopes the scholarship opens choices for young people who might not have otherwise considered a career in law enforcement.

If I can be influential or be a source of encouragement for diversity within the bureau or any criminal justice career, Im glad to lend my name to that, she said.

When she joined the Police Bureau, she was a newly divorced 28-year-old mother of four daughters.

When I was hired, I had no clue what police work was about, none whatsoever, she said. My thought was, This was an opportunity. I will seize the moment.

A friend had suggested she apply to the Police Bureau. Women officers, until 1973, had been restricted from working the streets; only a handful of Black people carried a city police badge.

Sylvester wasnt deterred. She was looking for a better-paying job.

They were offering $4.50 an hour, she recalled. I was making $2.75 an hour checking baggage at the airport. That was quite attractive.

So she filled out an application in 1973 and became what was then called a potential police candidate trainee. As a trainee, she began in the identification unit, developing crime scene photos. Six months later, she completed the police academy and was sworn in as an officer in May 1974.

She said she reaped the benefits of a group of women who sued to reclassify the job of Portland patrolman to patrol officer. That allowed women officers to work patrol. She was one of the first five women to work on the Police Bureaus patrol detail.

Despite that, in her early years, she faced intense skepticism from fellow officers, she said. Some were reluctant to ride shoulder-to-shoulder in the same patrol car with her because she was a woman. Others, she said, complained that they wouldnt be able to use racist slurs about Black offenders if she was working beside them.

That was the welcoming I received, Sylvester said. I developed a defensive wall. If someone gave me heat, I gave them twice as much back, and they left me alone.

She worked patrol throughout the city as her parents cared for her young children during the week.

For about five years, Sylvester gave safety presentations to Portland grade school students. When she introduced herself, shed say, Im a mother who happens to work as a police officer and ask that they call her either Ms. Sylvester or Officer Friendly.

They needed to know I wasnt born with this badge on this chest and my mother didnt name me Officer, Sylvester told The Oregonian/OregonLive in an earlier interview. I always felt it was important to maintain who you are as a citizen.

She said she remembered being racially profiled at a local store by a clerk who thought she might shoplift because she was Black and being redlined for a home improvement loan.

When she was first hired as a Portland officer under the Bureaus Law Enforcement Action Partnership program, she was required to attend classes at Portland Community College to get an associates degree within five years.

Sylvester ended up taking one year of sabbatical to finish up the degree at the Cascade campus, she said.

Since her retirement in 1999 from the Police Bureau, shes provided security for the federal courthouse downtown, the Pioneer Courthouse and now works full time at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

In January 2018, Sylvester swore in Danielle Outlaw, the first Black woman to serve as Portlands police chief.

One of Sylvesters daughters, Erika Preuitt, is director of Multnomah Countys Department of Community Justice, overseeing county parole and probation services.

***

Since her retirement in 1999 from the Police Bureau, shes provided security for the federal courthouse downtown, the Pioneer Courthouse and now works full time at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

The scholarship will be available to all Portland Community College students who major in criminal justice and have completed the departments Cultural Diversity in Criminal Justice course.

Eligibility will depend on financial need, with preference for students who have completed at least 24 credits at the community college.

According to Jim Parks, a retired Portland police officer who chairs the criminal justice department at Portland Community College, 55% of the students in the program in the 2018-19 school year were white and the rest were people of color. More than half of the students were women.

Parks remembering working with Sylvester when they both were assigned to Central Precinct.

I think this is a great opportunity to help recruit more students of color,' he said. Our focus is getting students into the job market because the jobs are there right now.

When Zusman first came up with the idea, she connected with John Deits, a former federal drug prosecutor, who has been teaching criminal justice courses in Portland for nearly seven years after retiring from Oregons U.S. Attorneys Office.

Many minority students attend the community college while working full- or part-time jobs, Deits said. The coronavirus pandemic, though, has made it more difficult for the students as their jobs have dried up, he said.

Something like this will be enormously helpful for this demographic, Deits said.

The college will accept applications for the scholarship from Dec. 1 through March 1, said Crystal Froembling, the major gift officer for the Portland Community College Foundation. Most of the money raised was donated this summer.

This really did get off the ground quickly, Froembling said.

Additional gifts to the Carmen M. Sylvester Criminal Justice Scholarship can be made here.

-- 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 Government is being urged to change the rules on business support grants before the schemes are closed at the end of this week.

Influential business groups including the Local Government Association, the Institute of Directors, the Federation of Small Businesses and the British Independent Retailers Association are also calling on the Government to extend the schemes, as businesses still urgently need support.

Support: More than 11billion has been distributed to some 880,000 small businesses since March by local authorities

Under the Government's rules, the three funding schemes set up to support businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic  the Small Business Grants Fund, the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Business Grants Fund and the Discretionary Grants Fund  are to close on Friday with any unclaimed funds to be returned to central Government.

So far, more than 11billion has been distributed to some 880,000 small businesses since March by local authorities. However, about 1.5billion remains unallocated. Many small businesses claim that they have been unfairly excluded from accessing the grants due to eligibility requirements and say that they still need financial help.

Richard Watts, chairman of the Local Government Association's Resources Board, says: 'Councils need more time and flexibility to ensure as many businesses can benefit from this funding as possible.

'The Government also needs to commit to redistributing any unspent resources from the original schemes to councils so that it can be spent on supporting local businesses and rebooting local economies.'
After constant media scrutiny and royal drama, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex left the royal family and moved to America along with Prince Harry and their son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. Ever since she moved, the duchess has been opening up more and more, discussing her life, goals, causes that are dear to her heart, and more.

In one of her latest interviews, Meghan talked about her interest in politics and related issues and took a slight dig at the royal family while sharing her thoughts. Find out more on her move, what she said, and more, below.

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex at an event in November 2019 | Samir Hussein/WireImage

Meghan Markle recently did an interview where she took a dig at the royal family

She had been in an interview on Aug. 14 with Emily Ramshaw of The 19th when she shared her thoughts on politics and the Black Lives Matters movement. Its something that I look forward to being a part of, Meghan said of the two topics (via Us Weekly). And being a part of using my voice in a way that I havent been able to of late. So, yeah, its good to be home.

As a royal, Meghan was not allowed to do or say things that could be viewed as political. She could not vote in elections or publicly endorse political candidates. But now that she has stepped away from the royal family, she is no longer forced to abide by those customs. She has now started to align herself with more causes and initiatives that align with her true beliefs and interests, such as the Black Lives Matter movement.

Meghan previously spoke about the death of George Floyd and other police-related killings in a speech in June. The same month, a source told Harpers Bazaar that she and her husband had been trying to figure out how to help amid the protests that happened after Floyds death.

This is something that is incredibly personal to Meghan, especially given everything she has experienced, the source continued, seemingly referencing the racism Meghan faced during her time in the United Kingdom. However, the source did not share how they intended to help.

Meghan Markle left the United Kingdom to have a better life

After mounds of negative press and rumors of infighting within the royal family, she and Prince Harry announced in January that they were going to step back from their senior roles to spend more time abroad. They finished their duties in March and went to spend some time in Canada before moving to Meghans native Los Angeles.

The couple spent about four months in a mansion belonging to their friend Tyler Perry before buying a lavish pad in Santa Barbara, California.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex moved into their family home in July of this year, a spokesperson for the couple said in a statement shared with CNN in August. They have settled into the quiet privacy of their community since their arrival and hope that this will be respected for their neighbors, as well as for them as a family.

Fingers crossed that their new life gives them the peace, privacy, and comfort that they have seemingly always desired.

RELATED: Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Are Transforming Their Guesthouse for Doria Ragland, Report Says
Press Release

August 23, 2020 IMEE: ABOLISH 3% OFW PREMIUM TO PHILHEALTH, DARES DUQUE TO KEEP HIS WORD Senator Imee Marcos has filed for the permanent abolition of the 3% premium that overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) pay Philhealth, challenging Health secretary Francisco Duque to make good on his word in support of the measure during last week's Senate inquiry into the state health care insurer's fund anomalies. "May kasabihan, 'Kung gusto, maraming paraan; kung ayaw, maraming dahilan' (It's been said that if you want something done, you'll find many ways to get to it; if you don't, you'll find many excuses). Let's stand by our OFWs and finally get this done!" Marcos said. Marcos has asserted that Philhealth can unburden OFWs of the 3% premium deducted from their salaries, by recovering billions lost to leakages in its funds. Among the fund leakages that may amount to more than what Philhealth would collect from the OFW premium, Marcos cited overpayments of hospital reimbursements for exaggerated illnesses - known as "upcasing," ghost patients, and board and room charges padded on outpatient cases. "With thousands upon thousands of OFWs losing their jobs and facing repatriation due to the Covid-19 pandemic, plus the charges of corruption hounding Philhealth, the 3% premium should no longer be reimposed," Marcos said. President Duterte suspended the collection of the 3% premium last May and made it voluntary, after OFWs expressed surprise over the increase from the previous 2.75% rate. Collection of the OFW premium is provided for in the implementing rules and regulations of the Universal Health Care Act. "It's practically extortion. All OFWs are held hostage from taking up their jobs abroad because they cannot get an overseas employment certificate unless they make an advance payment to Philhealth," Marcos explained. "Nor do succeeding contributions to Philhealth offer OFWs any benefit, since hospitals in their host countries follow a different health care program and do not count on reimbursements from Philhealth," Marcos added. Marcos also said that Philhealth has a history of treating OFWs as its "milking cows." Some Php530 million in funds from OWWA (Overseas Workers Welfare Administration) were used by then Philhealth president Francisco Duque to print the image of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on five million Philhealth cards, aiming to match the popularity of the late actor Fernando Poe Jr. during the 2004 presidential election, Marcos explained.
A landslide occurred on Rishikesh-Badrinath Highway near Bayasi in Uttarakhands Tehri Garhwal district earlier on Sunday.

In the video shared by ANI, a crowd is seen rushing towards safety as a patch of the mountain on a stretchy, narrow road comes crashing down. No casualties have been reported so far.

#WATCH Uttarakhand: A landslide occurred on Rishikesh-Badrinath Highway near Bayasi in Tehri Garhwal district earlier today. No casualties reported. pic.twitter.com/goplofzfIn  ANI (@ANI) August 23, 2020

Normal life in Uttarakhand has been affected due to heavy rainfall in different parts of the state. Several rescue operations are being carried out in rain-hit villages situated in remote areas. As per reports, the continuous rainfall has hit Uttarakhands highway connectivity.

The road from Dehradun to Badrinath, Kedarnath and Yamunotri are blocked at several points with rocks and boulders tumbling down the hill slope following heavy rain.

The Rishikesh-Badrinath highway was blocked in Totaghati in Chamoli, the road to Kedarnath at Jaleshwar Mahadev and the one to Yamunotri at Silai bend in Uttarkashi.

Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Saturday asked the district magistrates to make a long-term plan to help disaster affected people be placed if required. The chief minister was on a video conference, reviewing the disaster managements works with the district magistrates at the secretariat when he directed the officials to make a plan for the land bank.

CM Rawat said that a proposal will be sent to the Central Government for approval of forest land for displacing people of sensitive villages, according to a report in ANI.

Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) jawans on Saturday rescued an injured woman from a remote village in Uttarakhand.

The jawans carried the woman on a stretcher for 15 hours through landslide prone zones, flooded areas, slippery slopes and covered a distance of 40 kilometres. The woman was then evacuated to a hospital.

(with agency inputs)

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New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday urged the government to consider the concerns of students on the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) and Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and arrive at an acceptable solution.

There have been demands from several students and parents to postpone the entrance exams in view of increasing coronavirus cases.

"GOI must listen to the #StudentsKeMannKiBaat about NEET, JEE exams and arrive at an acceptable solution," Rahul Gandhi tweeted.

The Supreme Court on Monday had dismissed a plea seeking postponement of JEE (Main) April 2020 and NEET-Undergraduate examinations, which are scheduled to be conducted in September, amid spurt in number of COVID-19 cases, saying precious year of students "cannot be wasted" and life has to go on.

The JEE (Main) is scheduled to be held between September 1 and 6 while the JEE (Advanced) on September 27. The NEET will be held on September 13.

On Friday, Education Ministry officials had said the JEE (Main) and the NEET-UG will be conducted in September as scheduled.

"The COVID-19 situation in the country is yet to normalise. In such a situation, if students who are taking NEET and JEE, and their parents have raised concerns, then these should be taken into consideration by the government and those conducting these exams," Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra tweeted in Hindi.
SYDNEY (AP) 

The Australian cricket team departed Sunday for a tour to England like no other in the long history between the two nations.

The teams will meet in three one-day and three Twenty20 internationals in stadiums without fans, played under strict biosecurity protocols. Between matches the Australians will be locked in a hermetic bubble to ward off the threat of the coronavirus.

They are the first Australian national sports team to leave the country since the global pandemic began.

Australia hasnt played a match since March 13, when a scheduled one-day series against New Zealand was abandoned. As captain Steve Smith left Sydney on Sunday for Perth, from which the Australian teams chartered flight was to leave for London, he said he is eager to play again, whatever the surrounding circumstances.

I'm sure there'll be tough moments for the guys being away from their families for long periods of time ... and being stuck in the same place for an extended period, Smith said. But we'll all work together and help ourselves and each other out.

Smith was also sad that stadiums wont be full of the England fans who have always jeered him in the past, moreso since his suspension for ball tampering.

I do like batting there, Smith said at Sydney Airport. But unfortunately theres no crowd there to egg me on and give me a bit more motivation.

Still, there is going to be plenty of eyes on the TV and it is going to be great to be back out there playing.

England fans taunted Smith relentlessly when he made his test return there last year after his 12 months suspension over the ball tampering scandal in South Africa. He drew on those reactions to post 774 runs in that years Ashes series at an average of 110.

Smith said he isnt concerned by Australias three months absence from international cricket and Englands advantage in having played recent test series against the West Indies and Pakistan.

We have to start at some point and this is our starting point, he said.

Story continues

Australia will take a 21-man squad and will play at least five inter-squad matches during its two weeks in quarantine. The team will be headquartered at Southampton where it will be surrounded by a tight biosecurity bubble.

Players will be able to play golf but will not be able to leave their hotel for drinks or meals. They will have to make their own beds to avoid interaction with hotel staff.

Any biosecurity breach could jeopardize the series.

The first of three T20s will be played at The Rose Bowl in Southampton on Sept. 4 and the one-day series will be played at Old Trafford, Manchester, starting Sept. 10.

___

More AP sports: https://apnews.com/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
Bloomsbury India on Saturday said that it will not publish an upcoming book on the February Delhi riots after there was outrage over a virtual pre-publication launch, which it said was being organised without its knowledge.

The authors -- advocate Monika Arora and Delhi University teachers Sonali Chitalkar and Prerna Malhotra -- were however, undeterred, saying one publisher may have declined but there many others to publish the book.

The publishing house faced massive backlash online on Friday after an advertisement of the book launch on Saturday with Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kapil Mishra as a guest of honour did the rounds on social media.

There have been allegations that several leaders including Mishra made inflammatory speeches targeting anti-citizenship law protesters before the violence broke out in Northeast Delhi on February 23.

Bloomsbury India issued a statement saying it strongly supports freedom of speech but also has a deep sense of responsibility towards society.

"Bloomsbury India had planned to release Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story in September, a book purportedly giving a factual report on the riots in Delhi in February 2020, based on investigations and interviews conducted by the authors.

"However, in view of very recent events including a virtual pre-publication launch organised without our knowledge by the authors, with participation by parties of whom the publishers would not have approved, we have decided to withdraw publication of the book. Bloomsbury India strongly supports freedom of speech but also has a deep sense of responsibility towards society," the statement said.

The authors slammed "left liberals and intellectuals" for launching a social media campaign against the book, its writers and guests of the launch including senior BJP leader Bhupender Yadav, Mishra and Bollywood filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri.

"The book very well reveals how the urban Naxals and jihadists are weakening the theory of Indianness that is based on democracy, the Constitution and elections in the country," Yadav said.

Reacting to Bloomsbury India's decision to withdraw itself from publishing the book, Arora said, "If one publisher withdraws, ten will rise. The messiahs of freedom of speech are scared of this book. They mounted a frontal attack on its writers, publisher and guests of the launch even before the book was released and one could go through it."

Mishra asserted "no power in the world can stop this book from coming out and people want to read it" and the "contractors of freedom of speech are scared that the book will expose how training was given for the riots and the propaganda machinery was involved in it".

Yadav said those behind Shaheen Bagh protest against the citizenship law earlier this year did not raise the issues of rights of women but spread "poison" in the society.

Arora said that the Delhi riots need to be probed by the National Investigation Agency, claiming it was "pre-planned".

She said the book has been divided into eight chapters and five annexures, all based on ground research in the riot-affected areas. The chapters of the book were about urban-Naxalism and jihadist theory in India, CAA, Shaheen Bagh Model, among others, she said.

Malhotra said that the book was opposed by the "so-called leftist thinkers and intellectuals" who earlier "spread lies" that the citizenship law was against the Muslims.

"The Delhi riots were an outcome of the urban Naxal and Islamic fanatics and the book exposes it," she said.

Chitalkar said the book was a result of "thorough ground research".

"We talked to everyone, including Muslims. We were not biased. This books takes stand against urban Naxals and Islamic jihadists, it is not an anti-Muslim book," she claimed.

Communal violence broke out in northeast Delhi on February 24 after citizenship law supporters and protesters clashed with each other in the area, leaving 53 people dead and nearly 200 injured.

A number of people took to Twitter to react to Bloomsbury's decision with many decrying it.

"I have not read the book in question & have no idea if it is good or bad. However, this is obviously not a quality control problem but about censorship. I commit to never publish a book with @BloomsburyIndia," tweeted author, economist and Principal Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Finance Sanjeev Sanyal.

"Bloomsbury is doing a Facebook and feels that their giving platform for hate will pass in India. Oh well appeasement of Sanghi falsehoods will not work. Will it adopt similar standards to legitimise and glorify and racists and fascists in America and Europe?," tweeted All India Student Association.

Author Ashwin Sanghi said, "What utter hypocrisy @BloomsburyIndia ... why did you agree to publish it if you had problems with the book?"

Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi said, "After facing massive outrage, publishing house #Bloomsbury India has decided to withdraw the book titled 'Delhi Riots 2020 - The Untold Story', which was slated to be launched on 22 August by #BJP leader #KapilMishra. Sense prevails & so does spine."

Novelist Nilanjana Roy tagged a news report on the Delhi riots and tweeted, "Hi, @BloomsburyIndia. Some reasons why you should never have published a book that pushes the rightwing's rotten conspiracy theory about the Delhi riots: Safoora, Meeran, Ishrat, Khalid, Devangana, Natasha, scores of local residents who are jailed."

The authors also put out tweets saying how their book exposes several wrong theories about the Delhi riots.
My goal is to keep Opelika the greatest city in Alabama, said Canon at the forum.

Chuck Adams

Chuck Adams, a candidate for the Ward 5 council seat, has spent most of his life in Opelika, including working at the now shuttered Michelin plant and his years of ministry work. He said more jobs, better infrastructure and improved public safety are all within Opelikas reach.

I believe this city can accomplish great thingsunited together, Adams told voters at the recent Chamber candidates forum.

His wife Karesa and both of their daughters graduated from Opelika High School. Their children live and work in Opelika and their grandchildren will attend the Opelika school system. Karesa has been in business as a cosmetologist in Opelika for almost 30 years and has owned Amity Salona and Boutique on Frederick Road for two years.

Safety and prosperity are on the minds of the people of Opelika, Adams said.
New Delhi, Aug 23 : Serum Institute of India, has clarified that the current claims surrounding Covishield's availability in the media are completely false and conjectural.

"Presently, the government has granted us permission to only manufacture the vaccine and stockpile it for future use", SII said in a statement.

"Covishield will be commercialised once the trials are proven successful and all the requisite regulatory approvals are in place", it added.

"The phase-3 trials for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine are still underway. And only once the vaccine is proven immunogenic and efficacious, SII will confirm its availability, officially", the statement said.

"Serum Institute of India, would like to clarify that the current claims surrounding Covishield's availability in the media are completely false and conjectural", it said.

The clarification came after reports that the vaccine would get commercialized in 73 days.
Bharatiya Janata Party, which strongly resisted Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy governments decision to form three capitals in the initial days, has now been keeping silent, even as all the other opposition parties have stepped up the agitation demanding that Amaravati be retained as the only capital city.

On Sunday, farmers of Amaravati took up Rana Bheri programme against the state governments move to shift the executive capital to Visakhapatnam to mark the completion of 250 days of their agitation. Thousands of farmers, including men, women and children beat drums, blew trumpets and played cymbals and plates to register their protest.

All the opposition parties including the Telugu Desam Party, the Congress, CPI and CPI (M) extended their solidarity with the farmers with protest demonstrations in various villages. But the BJP leaders have stayed away from the agitation.

In fact, when the Jagan government announced the formation of three capitals in December, the BJP leaders toured Amaravati villages and took part in the agitations. Then BJP president Kanna Lakshminarayana even staged a day-long hunger strike at Uddandarayunipalem village, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi had laid the foundation stone for the capital city of Amaravati on October 22, 2015.

The BJP, in coordination with Jana Sena Party headed by popular hero Pawan Kalyan, even planned to take out a massive rally from Guntur to Vijayawada in support of Amaravati farmers on February 2. But the plan was abruptly dropped.

Apparently, the Central government led by the BJP, has taken a clear stand not to interfere in the three capitals issue. During the ongoing legal battle between the Amaravati farmers Joint Action Committee and the Jagan Mohan Reddy government in the state high court, too, the Centre maintained a neutral stand.

On August 6, additional solicitor general submitted an affidavit in the court stating that the Centre had no role in selecting the location of capital as it was the prerogative of the state government. In the past, the TDP notified Amaravati as the capital city. Now, the present government has chosen three capitals. The Centre has no role in it, he said.

A similar affidavit was filed by a Union home ministry official in the high court last Wednesday. BJP national spokesman G V L Narasimha Rao, too, endorsed the same view saying the Centre had nothing to do with the capital controversy.

Newly-appointed state BJP president Somu Veerraju said as a political party, the BJP wished that Amaravati continued as the state capital. But the Centre has already made it clear it has nothing do with the capital location, he told Hindustan Times.

We are sympathetic towards the agitating farmers of Amaravati and are demanding that the present YSR Congress government fulfill all promises made to them, like development of the plots allotted to them, Veerraju said.

Also Read: Andhra Pradesh irrigation minister reviews flood situation in state,directs officials to be alert

Asked why the BJP was not actively participating in the agitations in support of farmers as it had done in the past, the state BJP chief said his party workers were asked to extend their support to the agitation.

Senior TDP leader and former minister Nakka Anand Babu accused the BJP of adopting double standards. It has not been consistent in its stand on Amaravati, he alleged.

TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu has accused the Jagan government of going ahead with the three capitals plan without approval from the people of the state. The chief minister has not accepted our challenge to dissolve the assembly and seek re-election on the plank of three capitals formation, Naidu said, and called upon the people of all the 13 districts in the state to show total solidarity with the continuing agitation of Amaravati farmers.

Also Read: After abandoning Amaravati for 14 months, Jagan decides to develop it again

Pradesh congress committee working president N Tulasi Reddy described the 250-day long agitation by Amaravati farmers as one of the longest and peaceful agitations, taken up purely on Gandhian lines.

When he was in opposition, Jagan had extended his support to Amaravati as the capital city. Now, he cannot go back on his stand, Reddy said.

The CPI activists staged a novel protest in Chittoor against the shifting of capital from Amaravati. The party workers blindfolded themselves and raised slogans at the Ambedkar statue.

Ends//
Ross Ward was a storyteller in art.

Eighteen years after his death, his widow Carla Ward decided to tell the tale of the founder of the Sandia Park Tinkertown Museum in The Tinker of Tinkertown: The Life and Art of Ross Ward (Tinkertown Museum Press, $19.95).

Open for 38 years, Tinkertown is an assemblage of paintings, carvings, bottle-tiled walls and sculptures in themes ranging from an Old West town to a circus to a vignette of Georgia OKeeffe. Ross Ward died at 62 of Alzheimers disease.

The jumbled reflections of a wildly creative mind, Tinkertown has long drawn visitors hungry for more information than can be found in a brochure. Carla Ward conceived of the book to answer their questions four years ago. Last year, the museum hosted, and paperback, and something that could be sold for under $20.

Ross Wards parents took him to Californias KnottCarla Ward said.

e self-taught artist was traipsing across the country painting circus signs and fun house murals.

Ward said. He just wanted to create and make things.

Ross Wards adventures painting an Arizona fun house, New Mexico restaurant signs and merry-go-rounds. It also includes his fine art paintings, prints and drawings and family snapshots.

Ross Ward moved to New Mexico with his first wife in 1968. By 1981 he was constructing the bottle walls where Tinkertown now stands to house the circus carvings he had been hauling to the New Mexico State Fair in a trailer. The walls soon devoured 50,000 bottles.

He was diagnosed with Alzheimers disease at 57. But the illness could not extinguish the compulsion to create.

Carla Ward said. Hed come into the Western town and say, Who did this? He would take things apart and get really stressed.

Ward coped by re-directing her husband to make more bottle walls. He created patterns of bottle caps around the house. He spent the final 14 months of his life in an Albuquerque nursing home.

Ward said.

It all started when At 12, he began painting Christmas windows in Aberdeen, South Dakota. After graduating from high school, he worked as a sign and mural painter at the Horseless Carriage Museum in the Black Hills. Soon thHe was a genius, he really was, Carla The amply illustrated book captures It was very frustrating to him, Carla Tinkertown is his legacy, Carla The museum has attracted more than 700,000 visitors since it opened in 1983. Although it is now closed due to the pandemic, the book is available at tinkertown.com.
23.08.2020 LISTEN

If Africans cannot help one another as their brothers' keepers, who is going to help them for free? Heaven only helps those that help themselves. Prayers, incarnations, and beliefs empower and strengthen your nerves to be strong and durable to lift yourself up. There are different ways of pulling yourself out of poverty, stretching out your hands for handouts when you waste ten times as much energy throwing good money after bad money is nothing but just folly.

Africans are still laundering trillions of foreign currencies out of the Continent. Even when getting billions back from past looted funds, they still beg for millions in charities. There is no free lunch anywhere, you must be willing to give something in return. Preferably what they dictated, not what you want. It is a Disadvantageous Relationship because of imbalance exercise of negotiating powers between masters and serfs or servants.

African mentality of a white knight coming to their rescue must change in order to gain Economic Independence. The world pursues its self interest in exchange for Charity that makes some, certainly not most feel good. They see slave labor as necessary evil that can be mitigated by charity or aid. This is why Foreign countries always threaten to cut Foreign Aids off if we do not bend to their wishes or follow the direction of their fingers.

We have to ask ourselves at what point are Africans going to understand that Charity only comes after Profit, not before Profit. Some people do not realize that even free samples are teasers to get you addicted. Once your taste buds are hooked, you patronize more forever as Africans. Every Foreign Investor works in his own interest just as any African seeking fortune. What we see as a big deal or fortune is crumbs to them compared to the Fortune Bounty they seek in Africa. The same businesses that employed you knew full well that you do not have legal papers, do so to pay you less and call authorities to deport you when they do not want to pay after working your hearts out!

When you are willing to sell your country out of self-interest you are

blinded into cognitive dissonance by Self-hate indifferent to realities and the welfare of your fellow citizens. Some Africans have decided it is better to borrow their Countries out of existence on everything Foreign, than to depend on their local talents and resources. After all, if they import contracts, they will be reallocated to the countries they sold their souls to.

There is no way a man who borrows to feed and shelter himself would not beg forever. Some Nigerian businessmen staff their factories, schools and other companies with foreigners that work Africans like slaves in their own countries. They pay less educated and skilled foreigners more than they pay Africans. Since these African owners are treating local workers as cheap labor, foreign companies get the green light to do the same or worse.

It is very disturbing that in this day and age after political Independence in African countries, we still cannot differentiate between legal and illegal mining because the same leaders are behind both without accurate accountability of what is leaving our Continent. Yet, we expect Foreign Investments in our favor. The new generation have never learned the courage of our liberation fighters as young activists against colonial powers.

Those that come to Africa are fortune hunters looking for trillions in profits while those Africans that seek fortunes outside hardly make a million or may break even after expenses with credit cards debts. The difference is clear to blind men except when intoxicated by Branding and Window shopping for goods that can be made and perfected with practice at home since Independence. Everything that glitters is not gold.

P&ID and Enron are only two of the prominent International duper companies that have shady business influence in Africa and have sued in overseas courts asking for billions of dollars for projects they did not perform. While Enron defraud other developing countries, P&ID specialize in Nigeria. P&ID's $9 Billion scheme was masterminded by a late Michael Mick Quinn (p&id) Process and Industrial Developments Ltd Chairman. Indeed, operations these shell companies do not have the technical capacity to accomplish in Nigeria, Ghana, Colombia, Bolivia, Panama, and the Dominican Republic. https://www.irishtimes.com/business/enron-faces-bribery-charges-1.10909 81. It usually takes a developing country's insiders like the Attorney General, Finance Minister and/or the Central Bank Governor to defraud their own country from their Foreign Reserves.

No matter how much income we have, no rich African country can ever import itself out of Poverty. It is illogical to cry or beg for Foreign Everything asking for jobs, loans, goods and services from used to discarded materials instead of borrowing sense from your heads. Banks make their money, pay their staff and others expenses from loans, and borrowers. Even those targeted African countries with attractive Reserves are asking for Loan Forgiveness. Some lenders laugh in Chinese at the jokers. All the pleading to forgive Paris Loans, nko. For whia?

You may not like some ideology or differ in respect of a few positions Imperials take. But you cannot deny that they depend on the poor for surplus, disposable labor and low wages. It creates millionaires and billionaires faster. Indeed many poor people accept it as the risk of feeding their families. If you think it is only poor folks that accept it, wonder about highly trained and talented Africans fleeing and those willing to risk jails overseas for money laundering, cut off from seized money to avoid going there to defend themselves or doing hard labor for prison wages when the money they are caught with could be judiciously put to good projects at home.

On the other hand, we must also understand that Africa is making some progress and our younger generations are creating sources of income. The problem is that the wheels of progress are not turning as fast as the wheels of regression. As soon as people of goodwill create and make conscientious efforts leaping two or three steps forward, forces of evil drive us back and export many of our gains.
#PrimeroMiSalud El presidente Martin Vizcarra, acompanado de la ministra Kirla Echegaray y la presidenta ejecutiva de EsSalud, Fiorella Molinelli, supervisan el funcionamiento del hospital temporal Villa Essalud Madre de Dios. En vivo: https://t.co/c7qwLlAcsj pic.twitter.com/xSs1yTqnan
Tropical Storm Marco is expected to become a hurricane later today as hurricane and storm surge warnings have been issued for parts of the Gulf Coast.

Marco is currently 325 miles south-southeast of southern Louisiana and the storm has winds of 70 mph while moving north-northwest at 14 mph.

PHOTO: Marco is currently 395 Miles south-southeast of southern Louisiana and the storm has winds of 70 mph while moving north-northwest at 13 mph. (ABC News)

Tropical Storm Laura has strengthened Sunday morning and now has winds of 50 mph. The storm is located 70 miles northwest of Port Au Prince, Haiti, and is bringing life-threatening flash flooding over portions of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

The track of the storm has moved slightly westward from earlier in the morning. The National Hurricane Center is still forecasting that Laura will come ashore along the Gulf Coast as a Category 2 hurricane by later Wednesday and into Thursday.

There are tropical storm watches and warnings for parts of Hispaniola, Cuba, the Bahamas, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

PHOTO: Laura currently is bringing torrential rain to parts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic as the storm is about 95 miles east of Port Au Prince, Haiti. (ABC News)

There is also a tropical storm watch for the Florida Keys and the waters off southern mainland Florida.

Marco is expected to gain some strength today and then quickly move into the Gulf Coast.

PHOTO: Right now, the center of Marco looks to be coming ashore somewhere on the Gulf Coast from southern Louisiana to southern Mississippi, with the likely region being very close to New Orleans. (ABC News)

As with all tropical systems, the area to the right of the center is where the greatest impacts will occur. Right now, the center of Marco looks to be coming ashore somewhere on the Gulf Coast from southern Louisiana to southern Mississippi, with the likely region being very close to New Orleans.

Marco is expected to make landfall as a Category 1 hurricane during the day on Monday and when Marco comes ashore it will have a storm surge of 2 to 6 feet, rainfall of up to 6 inches, possible tornadoes, and strong winds.

Laura will make its way into Cuba by tonight and move across Cuba overnight into Monday.

Locally, over 8 inches of rain, strong winds and dangerous surf is expected from Hispaniola to Cuba over the next 36 hours and this will likely cause flash flooding and mudslides.

The official forecast track shows Laura possibly reaching the southern Gulf of Mexico as Marco is making landfall on Monday.

Story continues

The forecast after this point remains somewhat uncertain. However, in the overnight forecast models, there is increasing agreement in a strengthening hurricane Laura moving towards the U.S. Gulf Coast later this week and this has at least some potential to be a more impactful weather event later this week on the Gulf Coast.

It remains to be seen what the intensity of both storms will be, as well as their exact location as to whether this situation would break any tropical records.

PHOTO: The last time there were two Tropical Cyclones in the Gulf of Mexico was in 2002, where Tropical Storm Fay was off the Texas coast and Tropical Depression Eduoard was off the Florida West Coast. (ABC News)

The last time there were two tropical cyclones in the Gulf of Mexico was in 2002, where Tropical Storm Fay was off the Texas coast and Tropical Depression Eduoard was off the Florida West Coast.

The shortest time between two named storms making landfall in Louisiana was five days and that was back in 1885.

Marco and Laura both forecast to hit US as hurricanes originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Mathura, Aug 23 : More than 500 prisoners in Uttar Pradesh's Mathura district jail have been quarantined after 24 inmates tested positive for coronavirus.

The infected persons include the deputy jailor.

The jail is being sanitized by the district administration.

Mathura district jail Senior Superintendent, Shailendra Maitreya, said, "Even though we are taking care of everyone at the jail, the fact that some staff members are coming from outside and the food products being delivered in the jail could be the source of infection. Two separate barracks have been formed to put Covid positive patients who are asymptomatic." The district prison, which is already overcrowded, has 1,516 prisoners, including 96 women inmates, against the capacity of 554.

Till now, 1,831 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the district and of these, 43 have succumbed to the disease.

According to the district health officials, only 564 cases are active as of now.

Meanwhile, Dr. Kafeel Khan, whose detention under the stringent National Security Act was extended by the Uttar Pradesh administration for another three months recently, is also lodged in the Mathura jail. He will also be tested for Covid, a senior jail official said.
Protesters engaged in violent clashes in Portland, Oregon, on August 22, with a number of those involved using shields and batons to attack rival groups.

The opposing groups, which were identified by local news sources as pro-Trump activists, Proud Boys, and Black Lives Matter demonstrators, clashed outside the Justice Center in Downtown Portland.

The violence preceded the 87th night of protests in the city, culminating in local police declaring a riot.

In a statement on Twitter, Portland Police said, Federal officials have declared an unlawful assembly in Terri Schrunk Plaza. The crowd is being ordered to disperse to the North or be subject to force, arrest, or crowd control munitions.

Videographer Brendan Gutenschwager captured footage of the scene from the thick of the clashes on Saturday. Credit: Brendan Gutenschwager via Storyful
Officials in the U.S. Virgin Islands want the billionaire investor Leon Black, one of the most powerful men on Wall Street, to hand over information about his decades-long business ties to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The territorys attorney general, Denise N. George, informed a local court on Thursday that she would issue civil subpoenas to Mr. Black, a founder of the private equity firm Apollo Global Management, and several entities connected to him, the chief clerk of the court said.

The subpoenas, copies of which were filed with the court, seek financial statements and tax returns for a number of entities, including Black Family Partners and Elysium Management, which oversee some of Mr. Blacks $9 billion fortune. Subpoenas will also go to Apollo and entities that help manage Mr. Blacks extensive art collection.
Philadelphia police investigate a shooting inside Malcolm X Park at 52nd Street and Larchwood Avenue in West Philadelphia Saturday night. Police said two people were shot there. Read more

Philadelphias violent streak continued this weekend as six teenagers were shot, one fatally, in the city from Saturday night into Sunday morning, with gunfire resuming late Sunday afternoon and ending the life of a 29-year-old man, police said.

In all, at least 11 people were shot in the city from late Saturday night to late Sunday night, according to police.

In the fatal shooting Sunday morning, police said, a 16-year-old boy was shot outside on the 2200 block of West Diamond Street in North Philadelphia shortly after 1 a.m. Sunday and ran to the southwest corner of Van Pelt and Diamond Streets, where he collapsed. Witnesses in a nearby car started to drive him to the hospital, but flagged down a police officer while en route, police said. The officer took the victim, who was shot multiple times in the torso, to Temple University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1:32 a.m., police said.

Police asked anyone with information to contact the homicide unit at 215-686-3334, call 911, or leave an anonymous tip at 215-686-8477.

Shortly before 5 p.m. Sunday, a 29-year-old man was shot multiple times in the chest and a 26-year-old man was shot one time each in the jaw, left arm, and abdomen on the 3000 block of North Water Street in Kensington. Both men were taken to Episcopal Hospital, where the older victim was pronounced dead at 4:44 p.m., police said, and the younger man was listed in critical condition.

Just after 6:30 p.m., a 16-year-old male was shot twice in the left leg at North 19th and West York Streets in North Philadelphia. He was taken to Temple in stable condition.

At 7:06 p.m., police said a 40-year-old woman was shot once in the left leg on the 500 block of West York Street, also in North Philadelphia. She was also in stable condition at Temple.

At 8:20 p.m., a 32-year-old man was shot multiple times on the 100 block of South Redfield Street in West Philadelphia, police said. He was in critical condition at Penn Presbyterian

Once again, the citys parks and playgrounds served as shooting grounds.

Two shootings Saturday evening appeared to be connected to gunfire at Malcolm X Park in West Philadelphia, according to police reports.

Shortly after 9 p.m. Saturday, police said they found a 19-year-old gunshot victim in a corner store in the 500 block of South 52nd Street after responding to a call about someone with a gun at 52nd Street and Larchwood Avenue at Malcolm X park. The victim had two gunshot wounds to his left leg. Later, a 29-year-old man went to Mercy Catholic Medical Center-Mercy Fitzgerald Campus by private vehicle with a gunshot wound to the right elbow.

Police said both victims reported they were near Malcolm X Park when they heard gunshots.

Later Saturday night, police said a 15-year-old girl flagged down a 12th District officer parked at 58th Street and Chester Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia and told him she had been shot in the arm. He drove her and a witness to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where she was listed in stable condition. Earlier, police had received a report of gunshots near 5800 Trinity Street, near the Francis Myers Park, but could not locate a victim, they said.

Police said the girl who was shot told them she was in Francis Myers Park with a large group around 11 p.m. when a fight started and someone fired one shot into the air. The 15-year-old and her friend ran and, while on Trinity Street, they heard another gunshot and the teenager realized she had been shot, police said.

At 3:39 a.m. Sunday, two teens were shot outside on the 5100 block of Lancaster Avenue in Parkside, police said. A 16-year-old male was shot once in the back, and a 17-year-old was shot once in the right leg, police said. Both were taken by private vehicle to Penn Presbyterian where they were in critical and stable condition, respectively, police said.

No arrests were reported in any of the shootings.

 READ MORE: 30 people were shot this weekend in Philadelphia, including 5 attending a party to honor a gun violence victim

They follow back-to-back weekends in Philadelphia when shooting victims totaled 25 in one weekend, and 30 in the other.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's son Archie may still be bound by a restrictive royal rule when he becomes an adult - meaning he'll have to ask permission from the monarch to marry.

While the Duke, 35, and Duchess of Sussex, 39, are raising their fourteen-month-old son in Santa Barbara, California, without a royal title, Archie remains seventh-in-line to the throne and will move up the line of succession as Prince Charles becomes King.

Under the 2013 Succession of the Crown Act rule, royals who are sixth-in-line to the throne and above must ask the presiding monarch for permission to marry, according to Iain MacMarthanne.

The royal expert told The Express that this means Archie may have to ask for his grandfather's consent when he decides to wed - even if he doesn't accept his HRH title at the age of 18.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's son Archie Harrison , pictured with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in South Africa, may still be bound by a restrictive royal rule as he becomes an adult

However if one of his three cousins, Prince George, seven, Princess Charlotte, five, and Prince Louis, two, marry and have children first, then Archie will not have to seek sovereign permission, as he will no longer be sixth in line to the throne.

Alternatively, Archie won't have to gain anyone's approval if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have a fourth child.

'Should [Archie} marry, he will have to seek the sovereigns permission unless one of his three cousins marry and have children first, as he will be sixth in line when his grandfather is king,' explained the royal expert.

Meghan and Harry have recently been settling into their new 11million Santa Barbara mansion and are keen to raise their son away from the spotlight.

Archie remains seventh in line to the throne and will move up the line of succession as Charles becomes king and could still be bound by royal laws. Pictured, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex leaving Canada House in London in January

It was revealed in the explosive new biography Finding Freedom that during her time as a senior royal, the Duchess felt she was expected to 'serve Archie on a silver platter'.

According to authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, Meghan 'didn't care' about the criticism she received over keeping their son out of the spotlight, as she felt her role as a protective mother should come first.

Speaking in the book an insider claimed the Duchess said: 'The same people who have been abusing me want to see me serve my child on a silver platter.

'A child who is not going to be protected and doesn't have a title. How does that make sense? Tell that to any mother in the world.'

It was revealed in the explosive new biography Finding Freedom that during her time as a senior royal, the Duchess, pictured posing with her newborn son, felt she was expected to 'serve Archie on a silver platter'

Harry and Meghan released two pictures of Archie's christening to the public, while Prince William, who is second-in-line to the throne, and wife Kate Middleton, had members of the press at the christening of their children.

Some critics claimed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex should've allowed the public access to the christening, since the monarchy is part-funded by taxpayers.

Senior royals including Prince Charles, Camilla, Prince William and Kate Middleton were among the 25 guests at the intimate ceremony.

The Sussexes released two pictures - one in Windsor Castle's Green Drawing Room, and a black and white snap of the occasion.
Kanstantsin Shyshmakou, the 29-year-old director of a military history museum in Vawkavysk, refused to sign anything certifying the re-election of Lukashenko  and was found dead in a river after disappearing. Authorities claim theres nothing criminal about his death.  KHPG (Ukraine)
Maura Higgins revealed the secret heartbreak she suffered after losing her dear friend Andrew Rowan following a motorcycle accident in her home country of Ireland in 2017.

The Love Island beauty, 29, revealed that the tragic loss was the worst moment of her life and she blamed herself for it.

Her best friend Andrew died at the age of 26 when his motorcycle was involved in a collision with three cars in Co Athlone, Ireland almost four years ago.

Tragedy: Maura Higgins revealed on Sunday that she lost her friend Andrew Rowan in 2017 to a motorcycle crash and finding out the news was the worst moment of her life

Maura revealed her biggest emotional challenge as she said to The Sun on Sundays Fabulous Magazine: 'Losing my best friend Andrew.

'He was killed in a motorbike accident four years ago. That was definitely the worst time of my life.'

After making the bold move to appear on the 2019 series of Love Island, Maura discovered that his death inspired her to live every day like it's her last and she doesn't plan ahead due to the uncertainty of life.

Friends forever: The Love Island beauty, 29, lost her friend when he was just 26-years old as he collided with three vehicles in Co-Athlone in Ireland in 2017

She added: 'I get the question so many times: "Where do you see yourself in five years?" And I cant answer it because after that happened.

'I vowed to just enjoy every day and now I will not look to the future too much. Youre just not ready for something like that. It was awful.'

According to the brunette bombshell, she blames herself for the death of her friend as the disclosed to The Mirror in 2019 that she was too tired to join him for dinner on the night of his crash.

She felt it was her fault for turning him down and changing the course of events for that evening, despite the fact that nobody could have predicted the tragic accident.

Twist of fate: Maura continued to blame herself for what happened to her friend as she turned him down for dinner as she was too tired to join him on the night that he crashed

New perspective: For the brunette bombshell, she feels the tragic loss has completely transformed her outlook on life and forced her to appreciate every day as it comes

Maura said: 'For so long, I used to think that if I had gone for dinner with him that day, when he had asked, he wouldn't have been on that motorbike.

'My family kept saying to me, "Maura, you can't think like this, it was going to happen", but I just kicked myself for so long and got worked up about it for so long.'

She also suffered another heartbreak this year after she split from her Love Island beau Curtis Pritchard in March, just eight months after leaving the Love Island villa together.

Her ex has recently moved on with dancer, Amber Pierson, which Maura described as a 'kick in the teeth' following speculation that the pair were becoming overly friendly during their relationship.

Breakup: Maura separated from her Love Island boyfriend, 24, Curtis Pritchard in March which was eight months after they left the Love Island villa together

While Curtis has denied all cheating allegations, his friendship turned romance with the blonde dancer, 21, is undeniable as the pair were spotted canoodling in a park at the beginning of August.

Maura revealed that it hurt her to find out that her two previous boyfriends have allegedly cheated on her, but she promises to bounce back stronger than ever.

A source close to Curtis and Maura told MailOnline the cheating claims are a 'smear campaign' by Maura to serve as a 'diversion' from rumours that circulated about her relationship with her Dancing On Ice partner Alexander Demetriou.

Cover up? A source told MailOnline that Maura's cheating accusations are a 'smear campaign' to divert attention away from her relationship with her Dancing On Ice partner Alexander

New lady: The dancer and reality star, 24, is now dating fellow dancer Amber Pierson after the pair were spotted kissing and holding hands in a park at the beginning of August

At the time, the insider said: 'The claims earlier this year that Curtis was with Amber whilst still with Maura were simply a tactical diversion by her to take the heat off the rumours circulating about the close relationship she had with her dance partner Alex'.

Alexander and his wife Carlotta Edwards split earlier this year, with Alex admitting she grew 'jealous' of his close bond with Maura, saying he 'didn't want to lead her on' anymore.

A friend of Curtis and Maura insisted that there was 'no overlap' between him seeing Amber and the reports that Maura and Alex had grown close during their time on the show.
ARLEE  Several dozen people lined the sidewalks along the stretch of Highway 93 that cuts through the Alree business loop on Saturday protesting the dismantling of post offices around the country.

Whoops and hollers mingled with the sounds of speeding cars, drum beats and horn blares of passersby. Support for the cause seemed evident to the roughly 35 participants.

This is an American issue, protester Ariana Boussard-Reifel said. Its not a partisan issue.

Boussard-Reifel stood on the street throughout the protest with one hand protectively over her baby bump and the other holding her handmade sign high, with the words: Deliver our future! emblazoned across a post office box.

Boussard-Reifel and others at the protest were calling for action to prevent the privatization and dismantling of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) leading up to an election. Now more than ever they believe the postal service is essential to having a fair election without compromising peoples health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Boussard-Reifel attended the protest with her mom, Dana Boussard, who was one of the organizers. She said her mother taught her to be an activist growing up and now its part of who she is.

Boussard-Reifel came home to Montana from New York several months ago so she could be close to family in the midst of the pandemic and her pregnancy. She makes and sells jewelry and says if the post office closes she wont be able to run her business anymore. She relies on being able to mail her jewelry to clients, and has already dealt with orders being delivered late.

The organizers, Danna Boussard and Leslie V.S. Millar, created a list of demands for Congress. First, they are calling for emergency COVID-19 funding to be allocated to USPS. Second, they want Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to repair and replace mailboxes and sorting machines that were removed, hire more people, as well as bring back some who were laid off, to make sure the election will go smoothly. Third, they want DeJoy investigated for conflicts of interest.

Boussard said shes been doing everything she can as a single citizen to be active. She has made calls to every person of prominence she can think of, sent letters to Congress and the governor, created art and helped Leslie V. S. Millar organize Saturdays protest.

Boussard was disappointed to learn about the mail sorting machines and blue mailboxes being removed and felt DeJoy's motivation to be corrupt. She believes the moves were made in an attempt to scare people out of mail voting and sway the election in favor of President Trump.

You read about that in other countries and you cant believe that its happening in this country, Boussard said.

Boussard and Millar are both activists and artists. Boussard's work has been displayed around the country and is often used to convey a strong political message, and Millar uses painting and performance art as Science Woman to spur change. Boussard assisted Millar in setting up the protest in Arlee at the last minute. Shes known Millar, also an artist, for a while and the two women were elated to see the turnout and said its indicative of the importance of the issue to those in small communities especially.

Im passionate about the post office, Millar said. Im the granddaughter of a postmaster and a postmistress and two uncles who were in the Postal Service, so its a family tradition and it was honorable.

She uses the mail delivery system all the time. She uses it to send postcards of her paintings she sells on Etsy, to send letters to her daughters overseas and to receive important prescriptions and checks. She is outraged at the prospect that such an important service could be lost.

Whether youre a Democrat or a Republican or an independent, (USPS is) something that 91% of the population supports, Millar said, citing a Pew Research Center study released in April 2020.

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Walter Price is confident that he can keep delivering stellar returns for those invested in the investment trust he runs  the 981million Allianz Technology, listed on London's stock market.

Price, who runs the fund out of San Francisco with three colleagues, believes there is no reason why the trust cannot continue 'shooting' for compound annual returns in the region of 20 per cent  despite uncertainties caused by Covid-19 and the forthcoming US presidential election.

Confident that Democrat Joe Biden will win in the November vote, Price argues that 'political change will be good for the market and for the economy'  despite the threat at some stage of higher corporate taxes and raised personal taxes on the wealthy.

He adds: 'I am hopeful that we can get into a less contentious political situation in the US.

'If Biden gets in, I can see a focus on stimulating the economy  more so than today. When Barack Obama won the presidency in 2009, the market responded favourably in that year and 2010. I can see the same happening with Biden.'

Although Allianz Technology is a global fund, 90 per of its assets are invested in companies listed in the US.

Like all funds of its ilk, it has big holdings in giant American tech companies such as Apple and Microsoft that have performed strongly throughout the pandemic.

Yet Price has not been content to merely ride the technology wave. He has been constantly adjusting the 70-strong company portfolio to ensure it has the best chance to generate attractive returns.

This resulted in some holdings  semiconductor stocks especially  being jettisoned as soon as Covid-19 became an issue.

More recently, he's been content to take profits on some of the trust's strongest performing shares such as electric car manufacturer Tesla and video conferencing business Zoom  that is, 'trimming' holdings rather than selling them altogether.

Some of these profits have been invested in Expedia and Booking. com that Price describes as 'economic recovery plays'.

While Price believes leisure travel will recover in the United States, he does not think the same about business trips. 'Work is going to change next year,' he says. 'There will be a permanent shift towards remote working. More meetings will be conducted via video.'

This view is shown by the trust's key holdings in both Zoom and Microsoft. It also has stakes in RingCentral and Twilio that both offer cloud computing services which enable businesses to be more efficient.

The trust's performance is striking. Over the past year, it has delivered a return of 43 per cent while over three and five years it has generated profits (137 per cent and 307 per cent respectively) that are unsurpassed by any other investment trust monitored by Trustnet.

The fund's charges are reasonable at 0.92 per cent and will come down in percentage terms if the trust continues to grow.

James Carthew, head of investment trust research at fund analyst QuotedData, says Allianz Technology has delivered 'excellent returns' under Price's leadership.

But he believes investors interested in technology should look for a fund that is more globally invested.

He adds: 'The trust's portfolio is overwhelmingly focused on North American stocks. Trump's anti-China policy notwithstanding, it is possible that many future technology giants will be Asian.'

Carthew's preferred technology fund is Polar Capital Technology which has nearly a fifth of its portfolio invested in Japan and wider Asia.

Stock market identification codes: Allianz Technology: 0339072 ; Polar Capital Technology: 0422002.
Consequently, Joseph Kennedy recommended that the CIAs power to engage in covert activities be terminated and that the CIA be strictly limited to collecting intelligence and empowered to do nothing else.

According to Kennedy Jr.,

Allen Dulles never forgave him  never forgave my family  for that.

I wasnt aware of that fact.

I assumed that the war between President Kennedy and the CIA had begun with the CIAs invasion at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. The additional information added by Kennedy Jr. places things in a much more fascinating and revealing context.

Upon doing a bit of research on the Internet, I found that the commission that Kennedy Jr. must have been referring to was the Presidents Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities, which President Eisenhower had established in 1956 through Executive Order 10656. Eisenhower appointed Joseph Kennedy to serve on that commission.

That year was three years after the CIAs 1953 regime change operation in Iran which destroyed that countrys democratic system. It was two years after the CIAs regime-change operation in Guatemala that destroyed that countrys democratic system.

Keep in mind that the ostensible reason that the CIA engaged in these regime-change operations was to protect national security, which over time has become the most important term in the American political lexicon. Although no one has ever come up with an objective definition for the term, the CIAs power to address threats to national security, including through coups and assassinations, became omnipotent.

Yet, here was Joseph P. Kennedy declaring that the CIAs power to exercise such powers should be terminated and recommending that the CIAs power be strictly limited to intelligence gathering.

It is not difficult to imagine how livid CIA Director Dulles and his cohorts must have been at Kennedy. No bureaucrat likes to have his power limited. More important, for Dulles and his cohorts, it would have been clear that if Kennedy got his way, national security would be gravely threatened given the Cold War that the United States was engaged in with the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, and other communist nations.

Now consider what happened with the Bay of Pigs. The CIAs plan for a regime-change invasion of Cuba, was conceived under President Eisenhower. Believing that Vice President Nixon would be elected president in 1960, the CIA was quite surprised that Kennedy was elected instead. To ensure that the invasion would go forth anyway, the CIA assured Kennedy that the invasion would succeed without U.S. air support. It was a lie. The CIA assumed that once the invasion was going to go down in defeat at the hands of the communists, Kennedy would have to provide the air support in order to save face.

But Kennedy refused to be played by the CIA. When the CIAs army of Cuban exiles was going down in defeat, the CIA requested the air support, convinced that their plan to manipulate the new president would work. It didnt. Kennedy refused to provide the air support and the CIAs invasion went down in defeat.
Traveling to Baltimore in the fall of 1864, Orville Wood had no way of knowing he would soon uncover the most elaborate election conspiracy in America's brief history.

Wood was a merchant from Clinton County in the most northeastern corner of New York. As a supporter of President Abraham Lincoln, he was tasked with visiting troops from his hometown to "look after the local ticket."

New York legislators had only established the state's mail-in voting system in April with the intent of ensuring the suffrage of White troops battling the Confederate Army.

The results of the 1864 elections would heavily affect the outcome of the war. Lincoln and his supporters in the National Union Party sought to continue the war and defeat the Confederacy outright. Meanwhile antiwar Democrats, also referred to as Copperheads, looked for an immediate compromise with the Confederate leaders and the end of the abolition movement.

Troops from New York were allowed to authorize individuals back home to cast a vote on their behalf. Along with their mail-in ballots, troops would assign their power of attorney on slips that required four signatures: the voter's, the person authorized as a recipient, a witness to the signed affidavit and a fellow officer. These documents would be sealed in an envelope and shipped back home to be counted in the final vote. This was the process that Orville Wood intended to uphold, he would testify in court later. He quickly found out what a challenge that would be.

Wood arrived at Fort McHenry in Baltimore to visit with the 91st New York Regiment. There, an Army captain suggested that there had been some "checker playing" when it came to the gathering of soldiers' mail-in ballots. These suspicions of fraud were echoed when Wood visited wounded men at the Newton University Hospital. The rumors of wrongdoing led Wood to the office of Moses Ferry in Baltimore.

Ferry had been selected by New York Gov. Horatio Seymour to help oversee the voting process for New York's enlisted men. Seymour had vetoed the initial bill to establish mail-in voting and would go on to run against Ulysses S. Grant in the 1868 presidential election.

Wood masked his suspicions as he entered Ferry's office, portraying himself as a strong supporter of Lincoln's opponent, George McClellan. This was enough to gain Ferry's trust, he testified later.

Ferry told Wood that the votes from New York's 91st Regiment had already been tallied: 400 for McClellan and 11 for Lincoln.

Wood returned to the office later and, following Ferry's instructions, began forging signatures of the 16th New York Cavalry. Meanwhile, a clerk sat across the room signing ballots from the roster of names Wood had brought with him from home. Wood asked to personally deliver these fraudulent ballots, but Ferry said they would have to receive final approval from his colleague in Washington - Edward Donahue Jr.

Donahue soon arrived in Baltimore and met with Wood. It was revealed during this conversation that around 20 co-conspirators were already at work in D.C. to aid in the plot to deliver votes to McClellan. The following day Wood watched as Donahue and his crew formed a sort of assembly line, passing blank papers along to one another to be signed with the names of active enlisted men, wounded and dead soldiers, and officers who never existed.

In addition to operations in D.C. and Baltimore, the scheme extended back to New York. Donahue had received rosters of soldiers from military officials and members of law enforcement. A letter from Gen. J.A. Ferrell read, "Inclosed in this package you will find tickets, also a list of names of the actual residents of Columbia County, now members of the 128th Regiment. With my best wishes for your success."

A letter from Albany Sheriff H. Cromdell offered to send additional men to assist in Baltimore. The letter read, "All is well here, and we are confident of complete success. It is unnecessary to say that all here have entire confidence in your skill and abetting, and hope you like your help."

Also discovered in Ferry's office was a list of around 400 names belonging to sick and wounded soldiers under treatment at a nearby hospital. In reference to the roster, Ferry joked, "Dead or alive, they all had cast a good vote."

Ferry, Donahue, and their fellow conspirators found humor in their work. One accomplice mocked the outcry he expected from abolitionist newspapers following the corruption of the election. The men bragged about their past successes in fixing local elections back home.

Together, the men had shipped crates of fraudulent votes back to New York. But their scheme was over. Wood reported the operation to authorities. Ferry's office was searched, and on the morning of Oct. 27, 1864 - less than two weeks before the election - he and Donahue stood trial before a military commission.

Ferry offered a full confession that same day, even offering up the names of others involved in the scheme. Donahue proved more of a challenge.

Following the first day of the trial, a reporter for the New York Times wrote, "The honest electors of the state of New York have escaped an extensive and fearful fraud, a fraud in keeping with the proclivities of the party in whose behalf it was initiated, but one that, if unexposed might have subverted the honest will of the people and left the state and the nation at the mercy of those who would make peace with rebellion and fellowship with traitors."

Arrests in New York and Washington continued to mount as Donahue returned to trial. Following Wood's damning testimony and supporting evidence, Donahue begged for mercy from the court. He was a young man, newly married, with no previous record. He visibly wilted as he realized the weight of his current situation, no longer expressing the defiance with which he had entered the proceedings.

The judge advocate addressed the tribunal, saying that Donahue had engaged in one of the most gigantic frauds ever attempted in America - "a fraud which, if it shall be successful, will, in my opinion, have produced a disruption of our entire country, and our war for the preservation of the Union will be practically at an end and futile."

In the months following Lincoln's victory - he won 221 electoral votes to McClellan's 21 - anti-abolitionist newspapers attacked his legitimacy, calling the trial another aspect of a conspiracy conducted by the president to ensure his reelection.

The commission that oversaw Ferry and Donahue's trial recommended life in prison for the two men who sought to corrupt the election by mail. The president, who would soon be slain, approved.
File image of Donald Trump and his sister Maryanne Trump Barry (AFP)

Maryanne Trump Barry, President Donald Trumps older sister and a former federal judge, described him as a liar who has no principles in a series of audio recordings made by her niece, Mary Trump, in 2018 and 2019.

The recordings were provided to The Washington Post, which published them online Saturday night. In the recording, Barry can be heard disparaging her brothers performance as president.

His goddamned tweet and the lying, oh, my God, she says in one of the recordings posted by the newspaper. Im talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying.

Mary Trump is the author of the recently published book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the Worlds Most Dangerous Man. In it, she recounted how the presidents upbringing turned him into what she called a reckless leader.

According to The Post, Mary Trump secretly recorded 15 hours of face-to-face conversations with Barry about the president and his upbringing. The paper said she provided transcripts and audio excerpts.

In a statement provided by a White House spokesman, Donald Trump dismissed the accusations and referred to the recent death of his younger brother, Robert Trump. Every day its something else, who cares, the president said. I miss my brother, and Ill continue to work hard for the American people. Not everyone agrees, but the results are obvious. Our country will soon be stronger than ever before.

Barry, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan, says in one conversation that Donald Trump helped her get that appointment by asking his lawyer, Roy Cohn, to urge Reagan to appoint more female judges. Barry says the president once said to her, Where would you be without me?

You say that one more time and I will level you. Barry said she told her younger brother at the time. She said she was angry that he was trying to take credit for her accomplishments as a judge.

The Post says that in one conversation, Barry criticized the Trump administrations policy of separating migrant children from their parents when they tried to cross the border from Mexico.

All he wants to do is appeal to his base, Barry told Mary Trump, according to the paper. He has no principles. None. None. And his base, I mean my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this.

c.2020 The New York Times Company
Mr Navalny has long said his moves are tracked by the security service - SHUTTERSTOCK

Russian security agents were tracking every move of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in the days before he fell suddenly ill and claim they did not see any attempt to poison him, according to local media.

Mr Navalny, Russias most outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, was transferred to a German hospital on Saturday and remains unconscious after what supporters say was an attempt on his life in Siberia.

Doctors who treated him in a Siberian hospital before he was allowed to travel abroad have rejected claims of poisoning, saying he was suffering from a metabolic disorder.

Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny arrives in Germany after alleged poisoning - SHUTTERSTOCK

Sources in the security services told popular Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets that plain-clothes officers had followed Mr Navalny and his team in unmarked cars throughout his travels in Siberia, where he was meeting supporters ahead of regional elections next month.

The newspaper published details of Mr Navalnys travel plans and accommodation arrangements. Agents said they had traced transactions made by his team to work out what food and drink they might have bought.

The sources said they had seen no suspicious activity and suggested that if he were poisoned, it must have been on the plane as he was flying back to Moscow, or at the airport shortly before.

Mr Navalny has long said his moves are tracked by the security service.

I am not at all surprised by the level of surveillance, we knew about that perfectly well before. But it is astounding (the security service) has no reservations about discussing it so openly, Mr Navalnys spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said.

Mr Navalny began crying out in pain on Thursday on a Moscow-bound flight from Tomsk, and the plane was forced to make an emergency landing in the Siberian city of Omsk.

Screen grab shows Alexei Navalny before becoming ill on a flight to Moscow

His spokeswoman said she believed he had been poisoned with a cup of tea in the Tomsk airport.

He was initially treated by Russian doctors, who denied his familys requests that he be allowed to travel to Germany for treatment, before relenting.

Story continues

Doctors at the Charite University Medical Centre in Berlin have taken tests to establish the cause of his illness.

The Omsk Ministry of Health put out a statement on Saturday saying no toxins were found in Mr Navalny's system, besides alcohol and caffeine.

Mr Navalny's allies have said they feared authorities in Russia might try to cover up clues as to how he fell ill.

The Russian government denies any involvement.
OTTAWAThe Conservatives will choose their next leader on Sunday and nobody really knows who it will be.

The leadership race appears to be heading for a tight finish despite the early assumptions that it would be a coronation for Peter MacKay, the Harper-era cabinet minister and co-founder of the modern Conservative Party.

But the Conservatives ranked ballot leadership election system could lead to some surprising results. Down-ballot support may flow unpredictably because when a voters first choice is knocked out of the contest, their second choice gets their support in the subsequent round.

The MacKay campaigns strategy from the beginning has been to juggernaut its way to a first-ballot victory, or at least a strong enough showing on the first ballot that nobody can catch up.

MacKays presumed closest competitor, former cabinet minister and Durham MP Erin OToole, has run a campaign that focused on picking up those second and third choices, which could propel him to victory in a second or third round.

But a strong campaign from Leslyn Lewis, the socially conservative Toronto lawyer who came from nowhere to mount a serious bid for the partys top job, has introduced a further element of unpredictability heading into Sundays vote. Derek Sloan, a rookie Ontario MP who has appealed to hardline elements within the movement, is expected to finish in last place.

Conservative Party officials and volunteers will begin counting members mail-in ballots on Sunday morning, with results expected to be released sometime after 6 p.m.

The party announced earlier this week that 269,469 members were eligible to vote  slightly more than the partys membership levels before the 2017 vote that saw Andrew Scheer win the leadership on the 13th ballot.

The membership levels  and the candidates fundraising totals  belie the common complaint from Conservative insiders that the race has been lacklustre, said Conservative activist and commentator Ginny Roth.

I think its a bit of a disconnect with the base and a bit of a disconnect with retail politics, Roth said in an interview with the Star.

It will be up to the leader to chart a narrative and a policy course and all of that, but theyll do that as it relates to the government, as it relates to our COVID-19 circumstances, she said.

But thats not the job of the leadership candidates. The job of the leadership candidates is to get people excited about the party, and to sell a ton of memberships. And by all accounts, every leadership candidate who made it through to the final round did that.

Despite the Conservatives tumultuous experience since the 2019 election, fundraising also seems to be healthy. According to the latest data from Elections Canada, the four leadership candidates collectively raised $8.23 million between January and mid-August, compared to approximately $5.5 million raised by the governing Liberal Party over the same time period.

MacKay has led the pack in fundraising, with $3.1 million, followed by OToole with $2.5 million and Lewis with $1.8 million. According to the latest available figures, Sloan has raised $852,000.

In terms of a partys health, membership numbers and fundraising are a pretty good indicator. But the next leader of the Conservative Party will also inherit some challenges.

The number-one thing that is politically smart is unity, which some (candidates) have struggled with more than others, said Alyssa Golob, one of the leaders of the anti-abortion lobby group Right Now.

As someone who belongs to come to one core part of the party, I certainly understand unity and dont think that anyone should be pushed out if they are a different type of conservative. So I think that should be priority number one, to get everybody on the same (side) or not disregard anybody.

In the larger electorate, social conservatives might be considered a minor demographic. In the Conservative leadership, theyre a force that cant be ignored  which is why OTooles campaign has been courting their down-ballot support ever since MacKay colourfully described social issues a stinking albatross that hung around Scheers neck in the 2019 election campaign.

But theres also another serious fault line within the party: Around 45 per cent of the Conservatives 121 MPs represent ridings in the partys heartland of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba  and this race has had no Western standard-bearer.

Party insiders acknowledge that the nascent Wexit movement  currently led by Jay Hill, a prominent politician in the early years of the Harper governments  is a threat, particularly if the next leader cant convince the West that he or she can represent the regions concerns in Ottawa.

Job number one of anyone who leads any party is to make sure their party unity is intact, said Melissa Lantsman, who has worked for both federal and Ontario conservative parties.

Lantsman said the new leader will need to heal any rifts very quickly and move forward to the task at hand, which is getting ready for the next election.

The Conservative Party is expected to release riding-by-riding data that will show exactly where the next leaders support resided. It will be up to that next leader  whoever that is, come Sunday night  to figure out how to keep the rest of the party behind them.
Hyderabad, Aug 23 : The Apex Council meeting scheduled on August 25 to sort out the differences between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh over the sharing of Krishna and Godavari river waters has been postponed again.

The Union Water Resources Ministry on Sunday informed the governments of both the Telugu states about the postponement.

The meeting was postponed as Union Minister for Jal Shakti, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, tested positive for Covid-19. The Minister had tweeted on August 20 that he had tested positive and was admitted to a hospital.

The Minister is the Chairman of Apex Council formed under Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014. The Chief Ministers of the Telugu states are members of the Council.

As per the information earlier received by both the states, Shekhawat was scheduled to conduct the meeting through videoconference on August 25.

It had assumed significance in view of the objections raised by Telangana over Andhra Pradesh going ahead with the Rayalaseema Lift Irrigation Scheme (RLIS) across Krishna river. Telangana has been stating that the project would adversely affect its interests.

Andhra Pradesh, on the other hand, had raised objections to six irrigation projects or schemes, including the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme, taken up by Telangana on the Godavari river.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao stated last week that the state will be taking a tough stand over Andhra Pradesh's objections to the projects across Krishna and Godavari rivers while seeking a halt to the RLIS.

Welcoming the Centre's decision to hold Apex Council meeting on August 25, Rao had said all the disputes and doubts expressed by the Andhra government and the Centre on sharing of river waters will be clarified and cleared.

He asked the officials to take Andhra government to task for illegally utilising water from Godavari and Krishna rivers in contravention of the Bachawat Tribunal Award.

In separate letters to the two Chief Ministers earlier this month, Shekhawat had urged them not to proceed with the projects being objected to by each other.

Jagan Mohan Reddy in his response to Shekhawat had said that RLIS is "not a new project" and it will not affect the water needs of Telangana.

He said Andhra Pradesh was drawing only the share allocated to the state by the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal (KWDT).

The Apex Council meeting was earlier scheduled on August 5 but was postponed on the request of Telangana government.

Telangana had also dubbed as 'funny' the working of the Water Resources Ministry in finding a solution to the water disputes between the two states.

A meeting chaired by Rao decided not to lose even a single drop of water and resolved that the state government was ready to fight for its rights to any extent.

The meeting condemned the way the Central Water Resources Ministry was turning a "deaf ear" to the Telangana government's requests.
No fewer than 415 Nigerians were killed in various violent attacks across Nigeria in July, according to a report by a non-governmental organisation, Nigeria Mourn.

In its recent report, titled Violence Incidents Report: July 2020, Nigeria Mourn, which tracks incidents of violent killings across the country, said the cases were recorded in 21 states.

The group uses newspaper reports and family sources to gather its findings.

The latest report shows that Kaduna, Borno and Katsina had the highest number of killings in July.

The report listed the casualty figure for each of the 21 states as follows:

Kaduna  139, Borno  113, Katsina  80, Kogi  17, Nasarawa  13, Taraba  10, Benue  9, Ebonyi  8, Zamfara  7, Plateau  5, Edo  2, Akwa Ibom  2, Lagos  2, Oyo  1, Imo  1, Rivers  1, Cross River  1, Ogun  1, Bayelsa  1, Delta  1 and Kebbi -1.

In terms of perpetrators of the violence, the report states that 185 people were killed by suspected armed bandits, 123 were killed by Boko Haram/ISWAP, 67 were killed by armed herdsmen, 26 died in communal conflicts, six persons died in isolated attacks, six deaths were caused by extrajudicial killings and two linked to cult clashes.

The report also shows that 283 of the victims were civilians while 132 were security personnel.

Earlier reports by the organisation showed that 731 persons were killed in June while 356 people died in various violent attacks in May.

READ ALSO:

As the insecurity across the country continues, Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State, on Saturday, asked the federal government to allow citizens to carry guns to protect themselves against.

A similar call was made in 2018 by a former Zamfara senator, Kabir Marafa, that gun use should be liberalised for self-defence.

However, that view appears a minority view as it was rejected by the Senate when Mr Marafa raised it, while it has also not been considered by the federal government.
A VOLUNTARY group which provides life-saving patrols along the River Shannon is seeking to find a new base in the city centre.

Limerick Treaty Suicide Prevention operates along the banks of the river Shannon to provide to support for people who might be in distress.

Up to now, the group  which relies entirely on donations  was based at the Cathal May Roberts building in Bank Place.

But they have been forced to move due to the work on Project Opera, which is set to commence in earnest in the coming weeks.

Treaty Suicide Prevention chairman Matt Collins said Limerick City Build, which gave the group the space, had afforded use of its new facilities in Grove Island.

But this is not feasible, as its volunteers need to be closer to the centre.

For it to be feasible, for it to work, we'd need somewhere close. The problem we have is, as we do not have charity status, we cannot afford a building, we cannot afford to lease anywhere. We rely on what people give us. They cannot give us money so they have to give us equipment. We don't handle cash because of the situation we are in with the charitable status. So our hands are tied, he explained.

He thanked City Build  headed by Corbally businessman Ray OHalloran  for offering the facility.

But it's a fair bit out, and a lot of our members come from the countryside from Tipperary, and Nenagh, and it would be very unfair to ask them to walk all that way into town, Matt added.

In the short term, the group has been offered a spot in the Kings Island Community Centre.

But Matt is hoping for somewhere more central so they are on-the-spot.

We do need a place near the river. This is a hike from town to St Mary's Park. We were thinking last night to approach a city centre hotel. If they left us in there, if we could get a container near the river, that would be ideal, he suggested.

In a worst case scenario, the group would work from the boot of their cars.

But one thing Matt said they will not even think about doing, is disbanding.

That will never happen, so long as I'm alive and I'm breathing, he pledged.

If you can help Limerick Treaty Suicide Prevention with a venue, please telephone Matt at 085-2216938.

For more Limerick news click here
The Pacific Northwest's oldest apple tree has died at the age of 194 after being brought over to the US in the pocket of a British Navy lieutenant.

The Old Apple Tree in Vancouver, Washington, lived within the Vancouver National Historic Reserve after being planted in 1826.

The state of Washington is famous for its apple orchards and the Old Apple Tree was considered the matriarch of the region's apple industry.

Charles Ray, the urban forester for the City of Vancouver, told CNN: 'While we knew this day would come, we hoped it was still years away.'

According to Ray, experts caring for the tree in 2015 noticed that a part of the tree responsible for carrying water and nutrients to the top of the tree was beginning to die.

That dying portion of the tree then caused a spiral crack in the trunk, which continued to hollow out until the tree died in June.

The Old Apple Tree in Vancouver, Washington, lived within the Vancouver National Historic Reserve after being planted in 1826

The state of Washington is famous for its apple orchards and the Old Apple Tree (pictured) was considered the matriarch of the region's apple industry

Ray said the tree produced apples known as the 'English Greenings,' a classification used to describe old-world apples.

Cameron Peace, a professor of tree fruit genetics, told CNN, that the tree 'is not identical to any other named variety in a worldwide collaborative data set of several thousand apple variety DNA profiles'.

'The Old Apple Tree is therefore unique, one-of-a-kind. It will carry genetic factors not present in other heirloom or modern cultivars,' he said.

Experts have been able to determine that the Old Apple Tree is almost certainly a grandchild of the French Reinette, a 500-year-old variety, according to Peace.

Many years after the tree was planted a public park was built around it in 1984 and every year after that it became a tourist attraction for the city.

Each October, the city held a festival to celebrate the Old Apple Tree and just last week, community members gathered to hold a remembrance ceremony for the tree.

Since the 1984 festivals began, visitors would receive cuttings from the tree that they could use to plant in their backyards.

Those who received the cuttings are being encouraged to share their stories or any memories about visiting the Old Apple Tree with the City of Vancouver's 'Letters to Trees' program.

Charles Ray, the urban forester for the City of Vancouver, said : 'While we knew this day would come, we hoped it was still years away'

Ray said the tree produced apples known as the 'English Greenings,' a classification used to describe old-world apples

The Clark County Historical Museum held a virtual funeral for the tree last Sunday to allow mourners to share their stories and encounters with the tree.

Brad Richardson, executive director of the Clark County Historical Museum, said in a press release: 'It may be gone, but the history it both created and witnessed will live on.'

The nature of the fur trade forced a long and arduous trade route between England and North America, but during that time, the Old Apple Tree arrived in the US as a seed that was transported by Royal Navy Lieutenant Aemilius Simpson.

Simpson was heading to the Hudson Bay Companys fur trading outpost in Vancouver from London and had kept some seeds of apples and grapes that he had eaten as a dessert, by placing them in a vest pocket, according to the City of Vancouver.

When he arrived to Fort Vancouver, those seeds were given to Chief Factor John McLoughlin, who at the time was overseeing the establishment of local orchards.

The seeds were then planted by the gardener, William Bruce, or by Pierre Pambrun, and the seedlings became the basis for the first fruit trees at the fort.

First mentions of the apple orchards occurred in 1834 and in 1841, William D. Brackenridge, with the US Navy Wilkes Expedition, stated: 'Dr McLoughlin, who in the most friendly manner showed me round his gardens, under the keeping of Mr Bruce, a Scotch Highlander by birth.'

Many years after the tree (pictured) was planted a public park was built around it in 1984 and every year after that it became a tourist attraction for the city

Each October, the city held a festival to celebrate the Old Apple Tree and just last week, community members gathered to hold a remembrance ceremony for the tree

According to the City of Vancouver, this reference indicates that there was a formal orchard with upwards of 400-500 apple trees, occupying an area of between 5-10 acres.

The actual location of the Old Apple Tree was some distance from the known locations of the gardens and orchard.

Historical records state that the Old Apple Tree apparently gained national attention after a photograph of the tree was used in a horticultural encyclopedia dating to 1914.

The fort eventually became an Army base and among those who served there was Ulysses S. Grant who became the 18th US president.

And that wasn't the only time the tree had a brush with a president.

In 1934, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was presented with a pie baked with apples from the tree while he was visiting the area.

The Old Apple Tree will live on through several root suckers, which are now small trees growing around it.

Research team, Bartlett Tree Experts, will donate its services for a new tree that will be structured similarly to the Old Apple Tree, in recognition of the historic site.

The remaining shell of the tree, which is about 4 feet to 5 feet tall, will remain for visual interpretation of the trees life cycle, according to Clark County Today.

The team of experts said any other portions of the tree that are removed will be put in the National Park Service Museum collection to be preserved.

The remaining saplings will be transplanted to the National Park Service historic orchard, during the fall or winter of 2020-2021.
I want to thank our leftist Democrats. Complete, viral homeschooling is a godsend.

We can now reverse the political correctness sweeping our high schools and universities.

I will be teaching my grandchildren the greatness of Christopher Columbus, why the Civil War was also a states rights battle, and how communism has existed in America for 100 years. I will tell them about the medias role in the destruction of America and the falsehoods of a socialist society.

I think we can reverse the past brainwashing in time for schools to reopen, just after the election.

Peter Leone, Bloomfield

Pandemic justifies more for mental health, addiction

Demand for mental health care and substance use disorder treatment has skyrocketed because uncertainty, isolation, unemployment and loss stemming from the pandemic exacerbated existing illnesses and led to new cases.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that one in four young adults considered suicide in the past month and more than 40% of those surveyed experienced mental health conditions during the crisis.

In addition, according to a study cited in the Healio online psychiatry magazine, 27% of parents experienced mental health declines and 14% reported childrens worsened behavioral health since March. Meanwhile, parents who work outside their homes are debating sending their children to school and facing the possibility of not being able to work or incurring childcare costs. Parents who work at home are also anxious due to health, work and school issues.

These are some reasons why New Jerseys budget must maintain funding for behavioral health services for all children and adults with disabilities, increase funding to cover additional safety-related costs that providers have incurred, and expand capacity to meet the growing need. Otherwise, tens of thousands of New Jerseyans will go untreated or seek treatment in emergency rooms, a costly alternative.

Adequate funding for mental health and treatment services and substance use disorder is critical not only for healthy residents, but also New Jerseys fiscal health.

Debra L. Wentz, president and CEO, New Jersey Association of Mental Health and Addiction Agencies

If N.J. borrows, it must downsize benefits

Now is the time for all New Jersey taxpayers and workers to pull together.

If we agree to authorize increased spending due to the pandemic, and to push the cost of this extra spending (borrowing) onto taxpayers in the future, our teachers and other public-sector workers should agree to modify to a meaningful extent their pension and health care programs. There should be a quid pro quo on this issue.

Remove from office those legislators who vote to spend up to $9.9 billion from an upcoming bond issue without obtaining financial relief from these two powerful public employee interest groups that lead Gov. Phil Murphy around by the nose.

The governor has shown no integrity on this issue as of this date, so it is up to the Legislature. After the state Supreme Courts recent decision upholding the emergency borrowing without voter approval, we no longer have the state constitution to protect taxpayers  only the Legislature.

Richard Russo, Morristown

In-person only way to make your vote count

In a recent Star-Ledger article, New Jersey officials indicated that vote-by-mail fraud is not rampant. (Trumps vote-by-mail fraud tale not true, critics say.) The article cited the May 12 municipal election in Paterson whose irregularities have been noted by President Donald Trump.

The article noted that 24% of the votes in the Paterson election were thrown out for irregularities.

Are you kidding me? Does anyone not think that this is an immense concern?

When so many of the votes received are discarded, this is clearly a problem. Who were the people making the decision to discard the votes? Were the people whose votes were discarded even notified?

Were those people given a chance to clarify their signature or other problem, and get their vote to count?

This article is a clear reason why in-person voting is the best and only way to ensure that each vote counts.

Steven Pauls, Old Bridge

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Delhi on Sunday recorded 1,450 new cases of Covid-19, the highest single-day jump in over a month, amid concerns that infections could be on the rise in the Capital, which became the first major hot spot in the country to largely control the outbreak last month.

With the new-case trajectory at a months high, clinicians and public health experts said violations of recommended protection protocols such as social distancing and wearing masks in public places, and further relaxation of movement could be reasons behind the rise in cases.

On Thursday, the results of Delhis second serological survey found that 29.1% of the citys population may have developed antibodies against Covid-19. Epidemiologists say that this means over 70% of Delhis population remains susceptible to infections and the Capital cannot afford to lower its guard.

Sundays new cases took the total positive cases recorded till date to 161,466. With 16 fresh deaths, the death toll climbed to 4,300. More than 145,000 people have recovered from the disease, the Delhi government said in its health bulletin.

Delhi has done quite well in terms of testing, surveillance, containment measures, contact tracing, and scaling up health infrastructure that led to the drop in overall numbers, but peoples lack of caution is preventing a further drop in cases. Theres laxity in peoples behaviour as far as adopting preventive measures is concerned, which is extremely important along with surveillance and other epidemiological measures, to bring down the rate of infection, said Dr VK Paul, member (health), Niti Aayog.

In the last week, 1,269 new cases have been reported every day on an average. This is the highest this number has touched since July 22, when it was 1,333  when cases were dropping from the peak so far (see chart).

There is still at least 1.38 crore population thats susceptible going by Delhis sero survey results, and there is direct correlation between vulnerable population and rate of infection. The disease transmission is still there, so cases will not stop being reported completely. No matter how much you increase testing, it is just a supportive measures, what will work eventually is non-pharmacological measures such as physical distancing, cough etiquette, wearing mask/face covers, etc. There is a need to be careful for at least four-five months, said Dr Sujeet K Singh, director, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). NCDC had supported the Delhi government in conducting the first sero-survey around late June and early July.

Delhis health minister Satyendar Jain told HT: The numbers have witnessed fluctuations but it is not sufficient to conclude that there is a change in trend. As of now, the situation of Covid-19 in Delhi is under control. The number of cases recorded every day should not be seen in isolation. One should also consider the increasing recovery rate, reducing positivity rate and decreasing rate of deaths.

Testing, meanwhile, appears to have dropped from its peak levels. Delhi conducted 21,660 daily tests on average for the week ending July 10, the citys highest recorded rate of testing till date. Since then, this number has dropped to 17,494 in the past week  down by about 15%.

Experts have also raised questions about Delhis heavy reliance on antigen tests, which they say are not as reliable as gold-standard RT-PCR tests. Over the past month, around seven of every 10 tests conducted in Delhi have been an antigen test (on Sunday, 66% of the total tests were antigen). A high dependence on antigen tests, which throw up more false negatives, can lead to under-detection of cases and tilting crucial data metrics such as positivity rate and case distribution, experts said.

With daily tests hitting a plateau, the average positivity rate  the fraction of tests that return positive  has started inching up as well. The number, which had dropped from a peak of 31.4% in mid-June to 5.7% at the end of July, was at 6.8% in the past week.

Unlike how it was in the beginning of the pandemic, our health care infrastructure is comfortably placed to handle the current patient load. We have enough ICU beds, and ventilators, as the number of critically ill patients is low. As I see it, the rate of rise has decreased and the recoveries have gone up, said Dr Yatin Mehta, chairman, critical care department, Medanta Hospital, Gurugram.

Dr Sandeep Budhiraja, clinical director, Max Healthcare, said: The numbers arent as bad as they were a couple of months ago. A total of about 1,000-1,200 new cases that we see these days will keep hovering around that number because the disease obviously is not going to go away overnight.
Saudi Arabias King Abdulaziz University (KAU) has signed a cooperation agreement with the University of Oxford, a media report said.



The tie-up aims to establish a partnership with leading scientists, specialists in medicinal and organic chemistry, genomics, pharmaceuticals, biology, medicine and viruses, in addition to specialists in anatomy, physiology and genetics, reported Saudi Press Agency (SPA).



This agreement comes in the context of expanding the field of innovative research and clinical studies in the University.



The President of King Abdulaziz University, Dr Abdulrahman Obaid Al-Youbi, pointed out that cooperation with Oxford University aims to enhance research in reorienting medicines, discovering new medicines, and exchanging training students between the two universities.
While most Boston Catholic schools are preparing to start in-person learning as early as Monday, East Boston Central Catholic School has decided to start fully remote.

East Boston, where the school is located, has the highest COVID-19 infection rate in Boston at almost 8% - four times the state average and almost 50% higher than the second-highest neighborhood, according to East Boston Rep. Adrian Madaro.

We decided just given that were not going to open for live instruction, said Thomas Carroll, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Boston. Because basically the pandemic is kind of back full force in East Boston.

Carroll said the district will be paying attention to the color-coded map released by the state, which indicates average daily cases per 100,000 residents over a two-week period and designates communities as higher risk, moderate risk and lower risk.

The map will simply be one part of the process on how the Archdiocese will monitor if they should close the school to in-person learning.

Having a school simply in a red zone or higher risk zone doesnt mean the school will automatically close, Carroll said. A bigger factor is where students are coming from.

That means that if a school is located in a yellow zone but a significant number of students are coming from red zone, the archdiocese might decide to move to remote learning.

We could have cases where some schools stay open within a red zone, which seems odd, because whats the point of the red zone, he said. But it could be the fact of the nature where the kids come from and what neighborhoods are drawn from could lead to that conclusion.

Carroll said this process might seem confusing at first but its a highly rational approach to it. The schools will also be working with the local boards of health to help determine these changes, he said, which the school has already begun setting up systems of communication.

Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone, however, criticized Massachusetts strategy for reopening schools using the map.

A map is not a plan, he wrote in an opinion piece published in Commonwealth Magazine Thursday. The map is a snapshot of what happened weeks ago.

However, for the most part, Catholic schools across the state will be in-person, with many offering other options to families who dont feel comfortable returning.

The Archdiocese of Boston, which services more than 30,000 students in nearly 100 schools, is reopening 54 elementary schools and 8 high schools to in-person learning in August and September.

The archdiocese recently saw the largest single year drop in our number of school closures in almost 50 years, when it closed 11 schools this year. But there has been a spike in interest at Boston Catholic schools, Carroll said due to their in-person learning.

If your school is hesitating about opening in the fall, seriously consider a Catholic school that offers live in-person instruction, a sense of community, and teachers who will love your children like their own  all in a safe, healthy environment with faith and respect, he wrote on the schools website.

Carroll said he feels Bostons Catholic schools can provide something parents are looking for that the public schools cant offer right now.

Were bending over backwards to give people what they think is right for their children, he said. And I think thats going to be remembered for a long time.

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Throughout history, God has sought to build strong relationships with His people. Long before He sent His Son to earth, God began revealing Himself to mankind in other ways. One of the first was sharing His personal name.

YHWH was the original form of God's name. It was remembered and revered to the point of not even being pronounced. During the Hellenistic period (approximately 323 BC to 31 AD), the Jews observed the tradition of not pronouncing YHWH, referred to as the Tetragrammaton, because it was considered too holy a word.

This led them to begin substituting other names in written Scripture and in spoken prayer. Adonai, sometimes pronounced "adhonay," was one of those names, as was Jehovah. This article will explore the meaning, use, and significance of Adonai throughout the Bible, history, and today.

What Does Adonai Mean?

The definition of Adonai is "Lord, LORD, or master."

The word is what is called an emphatic plural or plural of majesty. There is only one God, but the plural is used as a Hebrew literary tool for emphasisin this case, pointing to the sovereignty of God. Many Scripture authors used it as an expression of humble awe, as in "O Lord, Our Lord," or, "O God, my God."

Adonai also hints at the notion of ownership, and being the steward of what is owned. This is borne out in so many Bible passages that show God as not only our Master, but protector and provider as well.

"But be sure to fear the LORD and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you." (1 Samuel 12:24)

Photo Credit: GettyImages/doidam10
Scott Morrison has again sparked controversy with an innocent photo of his Saturday night kitchen creations.

The Prime Minister shared a series of snaps of a Sri Lankan lamb baduma with godamba rotis he cooked up at The Lodge in Canberra.

'Girls and Jen loved it,' he wrote of his wife Jennifer and daughters Abbey, 12, and Lily, 10, whom he cooks curries for every weekend.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison shared a series of snaps of a Sri Lankan lamb baduma with godamba rotis he cooked up at The Lodge in Canberra

Mr Morrison's choice of a Sri Lankan dish quickly drew comparisons to a Tamil family who have spent the past two years in immigration detention

'Still thinking of everyone in Melbourne. Hope youre finding ways to make the best of it in lockdown. Youve turned the corner.'

The weekly insight into his family life is a benign attempt to humanise the national leader, but is frequently hijacked by politics.

Mr Morrison's choice of a Sri Lankan dish quickly drew comparisons to a Tamil family who have spent the past two years in immigration detention.

Priya and Nades Murugappan and their two young daughters lived in the small Queensland town of Biloela where they were beloved by locals.

Priya and Nades Murugappan and their Australian-born daughters Kopika and Tharunicaa are fighting deportation

Left-wing activist and Change.org director Sally Ruggs pointed out that the same curry Mr Morrison made for his family was a staple of the Murugappan household.

'Before the Morrison Government raided her house before sunrise, bundled her husband and babies in separate vans and detained them for the last 2.5 years, Priya would make Sri Lankan curries - the homeland she was forced to flee from - for the local hospital staff,' she wrote on Twitter.

Instead of feeding beleaguered health workers during the pandemic, they are the only people detained on Christmas Island at a cost of $20,000 a day.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton wants them to go back to Sri Lanka - where they fear persecution - and claims the parents are being 'unfair on their children' for fighting deportation.

Scott Morrison's cooking backlash Prime Minister Scott Morrison previously faced backlash when he shared a different culinary creation a few weeks ago. He cooked up a 'lamb rhapsody from Rajasthan' but it was the comments attached to the photos that sparked controversy. 'Its been another very busy day as we work to help Victoria get on top of the outbreak as well as working through some issues in WA,' he wrote. 'And while we dont always get there, whenever Im home on a Saturday night, I try to make it a family curry night.' Western Australians appeared to take offence to the prime minister's suggestion there were 'issues' with their state. Prime Minister Scott Morrison previously faced backlash when he shared a different culinary creation a few weeks ago The state's hard border closures have been a contentious topic, with Queensland billionaire Clive Palmer launching a challenge in the High Court, claiming the move is unconstitutional. WA Premier Mark McGowan stubbornly refuses to lower the border wall, even to states that haven't had a coronavirus case in months. Many were seen in the comment's section box of the prime minister's post, as they demanded Mr Morrison 'leave the state alone'. Mr Morrison the next day addressed the concerns with his own comment: 'Last night I said I had been working on some WA issues. 'For those who commented, you can see from my attached letter to the WA Premier what we were working on. 'We will not be continuing our participation in the High Court case. A lot has changed and we have found a better way to deal with this.' Advertisement

He also accuses them of 'wasting' $10 million of public money in court costs and detention fees.

'This case has gone on since 2012 I think, and it must have cost now probably over $10 million,' he told 2GB radio last month.

'That's money that should be going into... communities and helping Australian citizens.

'They are not refugees and they have used every trick in the book to make sure they can stay.

'This is a situation of their own making, it is ridiculous, it's unfair on their children, and it sends a very bad message to other people who think that they can rort the system as well.'

Nades (left with his family) has claimed he will be persecuted in Sri Lanka because he was forced to join the militant group Tamil Tigers in 2001

Their lawyer Carina Ford said it was actually Mr Dutton who was costing the taxpayer by refusing to let the family come back to the mainland while their case is pending.

'Can you justify spending this amount of money on keeping a detention centre open that no-one else is using?' she told Daily Mail Australia last month.

'I don't think you can. Maybe that's something the government can re-consider.'

Mr Murugappan was gainfully employed at the local abattoir and the family was not receiving any significant welfare benefits while living in Biloela.

Priya was last month flow to hospital in Perth to be treated for severe abdominal pain, as she needed a CT scan which doctors could not carry out on Christmas Island.

Refugee advocates claimed she was told she would be returned to the detention centre after being monitored for two additional days in a hotel.

However, Tamil Refugee Council spokesman Aran Mylvaganam said she wasinstead forcibly removed from the hospital two days earlier by as many as 15 Border Force personnel, and flown back to Christmas Island.

The couple's two children are pictured - Kopika and Tharunicaa (in grey)

Priya was last month flow to hospital in Perth to be treated for severe abdominal pain, as she needed a CT scan which doctors could not carry out on Christmas Island - but she was dragged out of hospital two days early by Border Force

Priya and Nades came to Australia by boat separately in 2012 and 2013, alleging they were escaping the Sri Lankan civil war.

Priya claimed she watched her former fiance get burned alive and was raped during the Sri Lankan civil war which lasted from 1983 to 2009.

They met in Sydney before getting married and settling in Biloela, Queensland where they had two children, Kopika, four, and Tharunicaa, two.

While her husband put food on the table, Priya looked after the children and attended Biloela Baptist Church craft group where she made dozens of friends.

But they were kicked out in March 2018 when their home was raided by police at 5am, the day after Priya's bridging visa expired.

Locals started a petition for the family to be allowed to stay and it has been signed by 350,000 people across the country.

The United Nations has also requested the family be let off Christmas Island but the government has ignored those calls.

Minister Dutton does not believe the family are legitimate refugees and wants to deport them - but the courts have ruled they cannot be sent home until their legal proceedings are over.

The family lived in the small Queensland town of Biloela where they were beloved by locals - until they were detained on Christmas Island

Priya and Nades Murugappan and their two young daughters are the only people being detained on Christmas Island at an estimated cost of $20,000 a day

A Federal Court judge in April ruled their deportation must remain on hold after determining the youngest daughter had been denied procedural fairness in her bid to apply for a protection visa.

The government was also ordered to pay the family more than $200,000 in legal fees.

The family now faces a long wait for their next hearing, which could be late this year or early next year.

Ms Ford says she believes there is a 'good prospect' of her winning the case, which centres on two-year-old Tharunicaa, whose visa claim was never assessed.

She will also be arguing that Nades should have his application re-assessed because new evidence has emerged proving he will be in danger if he is sent home.

Nades has claimed he will be persecuted in Sri Lanka because he was forced to join the militant group Tamil Tigers in 2001 and was harassed by the Sri Lankan military.

The Immigration Assessment Authority rejected the claims on the basis he frequently travelled between Sri Lanka, Kuwait and Qatar for work between 2004 and 2010 during the civil war, something that a Tamil Tigers member would not be allowed to do.
New Delhi: The Indian Army Saturday (August 22, 2020) honoured Santoshi Babu, the wife of Colonel Santosh Babu, who was martyred on June 15, 2020, during the violent clashes with the Chinese troops at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh.

Santoshi Babu was honoured by Smriti Joshi, Chairperson of local Army Wives Welfare Association, for her contribution to the Nation.

The event was part of a week-long annual programme where Army commemorates the contribution of families of serving and fallen soldiers.

This celebration of "Shakti" commemorating the bravery and sacrifice of the soldiers families kick starts immediately after Independence Day and continues its spirits.

Earlier on July 22, Santoshi was appointed as the Deputy Collector in Telangana by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao.

KCR had also announced an ex-gratia of Rs five crore to the family of Colonel Babu on June 19.

Colonel Babu was one of the 20 soldiers who made the supreme sacrifice while defending Indian borders against Chinese aggression on the night of June 15.

He was the Commanding Officer of 16 Bihar Regiment and was posted on borders for over a year and a half.
Correction: All students in Lawrence Township will start remote. The information was incorrect in an earlier version of this story. We apologize for the error.

Visit NJ.com/education for the latest list of schools that have announced plans to start the year with all-remote instruction.

More public school districts across New Jersey have announced plans to start the new school year with all-remote instruction instead of allowing students and teachers to return to the classroom for in-person lessons, because of coronavirus concerns and state policy changes.

As of early Sunday morning, more than 120 districts have confirmed they have submitted plans for all-remote learning to the state Department of Education. The department has to approve those plans  as well as any other reopening proposals  before they can be implemented.

The state education department has already signed off on reopening plans for 196 school districts. However, the names of those districts have not been released.

The move to all-remote instruction plans for many public school districts was triggered by lingering concerns over the coronavirus outbreak and questions over whether schools can guarantee a safe environment for students and teachers.

Find all of the most important pandemic education news on Educating N.J., a special resource guide created for parents, students and educators.

Even though the number of confirmed coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths across the state are far lower now than they were a few months ago, many teachers and school officials have opted to play it safe and start the new school year with virtual instruction.

Many districts initially planned to start the 2020-2021 school year with in-person classroom learning. But they revised their plans and held emergency meetings after an abrupt policy change by Gov. Phil Murphy last week.

The governor said districts that can provide a justifiable reason they cant reopen safely  such as an inability to socially distance or having building ventilation issues  may reopen with all-remote instruction, but they must provide a plan to fix those issues and an expected date for a return to in-person classes.

Keep up with the latest in N.J. schools coverage. Sign up with your email here:



The following districts have announced theyre seeking state approval to start with all-remote classes for the 2020-2021 school year. NJ Advance Media will add to the list as more districts announce their plans. (For the very latest reopening plans, and additional details about your school, please contact your school district.)

ATLANTIC COUNTY

Atlantic City

Brigantine (remote with reentry on, or before, Nov. 11, the end of the first marking period)

Egg Harbor Township (virtual starting Sept. 8; plan to start hybrid schedule Oct. 26)

Pleasantville

Somers Point (Jordan Road School to go all-remote at start of the year; New York Avenue and Dawes Avenue schools reopening on hybrid schedule to start).

BERGEN COUNTY

Bergen County Technical Schools and Special Services (through Oct. 19)

Edgewater (For the month of September; district expects to reevaluate in the middle of September).

Fair Lawn (through Oct. 19)

Garfield (plan submitted to state Department of Education to start all-remote and transition to hybrid)

Hackensack (schools plan to reopen Nov. 2)

Lyndhurst (remote learning until Oct. 16; in-person instruction scheduled to begin Oct. 19)

North Arlington (through Oct. 16)

Palisades Park (through at least Oct. 13)

Ridgefield (through first marking period)

Teaneck (through first marking period)

Wallington (through Oct. 13)

BURLINGTON COUNTY

Bordentown (Sept. 3 through at least Oct. 9)

Burlington City (through at least Oct. 13)

Burlington Township (through first marking period)

Chesterfield (schools plan to reopen Oct. 19)

Eastampton (through first marking period)

Lumberton (remote learning Sept. 8 to Sept. 18, hybrid learning starting Sept. 21)

Palmyra

Pemberton Township (through at least Oct. 13)

Rancocas Valley (Sept. 8 through Sept. 25)

Westampton

Willingboro (through Nov. 18)

CAMDEN COUNTY

Audubon (through Nov. 4)

Barrington (remote through at least Nov. 9)

Camden (through Jan. 31)

Collingswood/Oaklyn (through mid-October)

Eastern Regional (return to school Oct. 5 )

Gloucester City (through Oct. 16)

Haddon Heights (through Oct. 30)

Lindenwold

Winslow Township (through Jan. 1)

CUMBERLAND COUNTY

Bridgeton (through Oct. 13)

Commercial Township (through Oct. 13)

Cumberland County Technical Education Center (plans to move to hybrid model Oct. 13)

Cumberland Regional

Downe Township (through Oct. 13)

Fairfield (through Nov. 2)

Greenwich/Stow Creek (through Oct. 13)

Millville (through Oct. 13)

Upper Deerfield (fully remote through at least Oct. 12)

Vineland (through Oct. 13)

ESSEX COUNTY

Bloomfield (through September)

East Orange (through September)

Irvington

Livingston (school year to start all remote)

Millburn (first quarter of school year)

Montclair

Newark (through first marking period)

Nutley (through first marking period)

Orange (remote learning through Nov. 25; hybrid begins Nov. 29)

South Orange-Maplewood (through first marking period)

West Orange

GLOUCESTER COUNTY

Delsea Regional

Deptford (through Sept. 30)

Monroe Township (through at least Nov. 16)

National Park Schools (remote through at least Oct. 13)

Woodbury

HUDSON COUNTY

Bayonne

Guttenberg

Harrison (through Nov. 13)

Hoboken (all virtual Sept. 14 to Sept. 19, optional in-person after that)

Hudson County Schools of Technology (through Sept. 28)

Jersey City

Kearny

North Bergen (through the end of September)

Union City (for at least the month of September)

West New York

HUNTERDON COUNTY

Flemington-Raritan (through Oct. 30)

Readington (remote to at least Oct. 19)

MERCER COUNTY

Hamilton (through first marking period)

Lawrence Township (all students will start remote)

Mercer County Special Services

Princeton Charter School

Princeton Township public schools

Trenton

MIDDLESEX COUNTY

Carteret (remote until Oct. 9; plans to begin hybrid learning on Oct. 13)

Cranbury (remote through Oct. 16)

Dunellen (through the Thanksgiving holiday)

Edison (at least until Oct. 16)

Highland Park (until Oct. 5 for some students)

Jamesburg (remote until Nov. 1)

Metuchen (at least until Oct. 1)

Middlesex Borough

Milltown (remote in September; district to reassess for October)

Monroe Township (remote learning until Nov. 13 and reassess for hybrid learning to start on Nov. 16)

New Brunswick (first two marking periods)

North Brunswick (first marking period)

Old Bridge (until Oct. 12)

Perth Amboy (until at least Nov. 18, the end of first marking period)

Piscataway (until at least Nov. 13)

Sayreville (until at least Nov. 12)

South Brunswick

South Plainfield

South River (plans for in-person instruction on Oct. 1)

Woodbridge (until at least Oct. 12)

MONMOUTH COUNTY

Asbury Park (first 30 instructional days; return to school Oct. 21)

Freehold Borough (will reevaluate by Nov. 13)

Freehold Township (Students in self-contained classes attend school in person beginning Sept. 8; first 2 weeks of school remain virtual for all other students, who return to school Sept. 21)

Long Branch

Manalapan-Englishtown (at least the first two weeks of school for some schools)

Neptune Township (will re-evaluate by the end of October)

MORRIS COUNTY

Boonton (remote at the start of the school year)

Butler (remote for most students; in person instruction for specific students

Dover (through first marking period)

Montville (middle and high school students to start remote)

OCEAN COUNTY

Lacey Township (remote to start, on Sept. 8, and then a hybrid model from Sept. 21)

Toms River (through first marking period)

PASSAIC COUNTY

Clifton (remote to start year; district to reevaluate conditions on Oct. 1, with possible reopening for in-person instruction on Oct. 12.

Passaic (through September)

Paterson (through at least Nov. 1)

SALEM COUNTY

Woodstown-Pilesgrove Regional School District (remote to start; may go hybrid on Oct. 19)

SOMERSET COUNTY

Bridgewater-Raritan (remote through Oct. 12)

Franklin Township

Hillsborough (virtual until Sept. 28, with plans to start hybrid option later)

Montgomery (virtual for September, then re-evaluating plans for in-person on Oct. 12)

North Plainfield (virtual at least through the first marking period)

SUSSEX COUNTY

Sparta (remote through Oct. 30; in person instruction for students with IEPs in specialized programs)

UNION COUNTY

Elizabeth

Hillside (will reassess three weeks before the end of the first marking period)

Linden (will reassess the end of each month)

Plainfield (through at least Nov. 1)

Rahway

Roselle (through first marking period)

Roselle Park

Scotch Plains-Fanwood

Springfield (through Nov. 2)

Union Township (will reassess on Oct. 15 for targeted return date of Nov. 1)

WARREN COUNTY

Phillipsburg (through Oct. 5)

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NJ Advance Media staff writer Len Melisurgo contributed to this report. Nestor Sebastian may be reached at nsebastian@njadvancemedia.com. Evan Slavit may be reached at eslavit@njadvancemedia.com.

Have a news tip or a story idea about New Jersey schools? Send it here.
Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel has written a letter to Rahul Gandhi, on Sunday, urging him to return as the president of the Congress party.

Posting a copy of his letter on his Twitter account, Baghel said, Sonia ji and Rahul ji are a ray of hope for us in every challenge. We are all with you. Millions of party workers and people of Chhattisgarh and the entire nation is with you....

Baghel in his letter said that the Nehru-Gandhi family has significant contribution in transforming India and their sacrifices for the country are unforgettable.

Despite facing several crises in the past, millions of workers of the 135-year-old Congress party has always shown faith in the Nehru-Gandhi family, Baghel stated in his letter.

The Chhattisgarh chief minister further said that at present, some leaders within the party have started discussing ideological differences publicly.

I request all party members to maintain unity within the party during this challenging time. It has been the tradition of Congress that all issues are discussed in detail at various levels and decisions are then taken in a democratic manner. We remember that the Congress party under the leadership of Rahul ji put up a good show in the Gujarat assembly elections and paved the way for the formation of the government in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Only Sonia ji and Rahul ji seem to be a ray of hope for bringing the country out of the crises, Baghel said in his letter.

He also requested, Amid voices of dissent, you should stand firm and show a new direction to the country and take charge of the party leadership. We are hopeful that under your strong leadership, Congress will again touch new heights.
New Yorks carbon-slashing ambitions are skyscraper tall, and the forested park that covers one-fifth of the state is set to help achieve them.

The Adirondack Parks trees, solar installations, dams and wind turbines all have roles in meeting the demands of a climate protection law that the state touts as the nations most aggressive. But the environmental ideals of carbon-free energy and wildland preservation sometimes compete, and that tension will shape the parks contributions over time.

Renewable energy is a growing force in the Adirondacks. Developers and locals are finding ways to go green despite the extra layer of zoning protections on public and private lands in the park.

We have the right needle in the haystack, said Mike Roach, energy developer for RER Energy Group at a Saranac Lake solar project. Everything came together.

In 2019, New York passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. The law requires carbon-free electricity production in the state by 2040. It also requires an 85 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

In 2018, just 29 percent of the states electricity generation came from renewable energy sources, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

About one-third of the states power comes from nuclear power plants, 2018 data show. Indian Point, one of four nuclear power plants in the state, is slated to close in 2021. It meets about 12 percent of the states energy needs, power that New York will have to replace with clean sources to meet its climate mandates.

Upstate New York has a cleaner electric grid than the state overall. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the regions fuel mixtwo-thirds from hydro and nuclear sourcesproduces less than a third of the national average of carbon emissions per megawatt-hour.

The Adirondack Park is a unique corner of the state. About 2.6 million acres are in the states forest preserve, protected from development under the state constitutions forever wild clause. The public-private park is also protected by the Adirondack Park Agency, which reviews development projects and upholds rules and regulations around wetlands and rivers.

Finding an open spot for a large solar array is a challenge, but Roach and his team were successful. The panels are going up in a 22- acre open field across Route 86 from Lake Colby. The site is owned by Lee Keet, a philanthropist. The 2-megawatt project plans to serve 250 residents in the North Country, said Conrad Karsten, project developer for Sunvestment Energy Group.

Through the website saranaclakesolar.com, the companies have collected subscribers since May, with plans for the system to go live by October or November. The solar arrays will produce about 2.4 million kilowatt-hours of clean energy a year, according to the projects website. The project is also receiving assistance from NY-Sun, part of the states Energy Research and Development Authority.

The project was a few years in the making, with plenty of hoops to jump through. It took a willing property owner with land under the proper classification for development to get the job done, and it also took the right infrastructure to connect to National Grid.

Keith McKeever, APA spokesman, said the agency created a new commercial solar permit to streamline review of new commercial solar projects, and documents show that a few others could be coming down the pike.

Two projects are proposed in Ticonderoga and one in Moriah. One, led by a company called SolarPark Energy, involves a 36-acre site in Ticonderoga that would need a new access road, fencing and utility connections. The APAs records show the project was issued a notice of incomplete permit application in April. The other two are in preliminary application phases, records show.

Roach said he also hopes to build more solar capacity in the Adirondack Park and just outside of it.

Smaller-scale solar projects on private homes and farms are found throughout the park, too.

Asgaard Farm and Dairy in Au Sable Forks has two solar installations that provide about 8 percent of its electricity. Its the farms mission, owner David Brunner said, to be carbon-neutral by 2025.

To do that, hes also looking at harnessing the wind.

The APA has a policy for cell towers and other tall structures, which means anything over 40 feet. The policy hasnt been updated since 2002, but its something the APA board planned to tackle this year.

Considering many of the mountaintops in the Adirondacks are owned by the state and cant be developed, and considering the APA regulations, something like a 300-foot windmill is a tough sell.

Wind farm proposals on the outskirts of the Adirondacks have met with plenty of community pushback, too. The company Avangrid had plans around 2018 to build a 100-megawatt wind farm in Hopkinton and Parishville in St. Lawrence County.

Residents formed a group called Concerned Citizens for Rural Preservation. Its website focuses on wildlife impacts of wind power, safety concerns and property devaluation. Avangrid pulled its proposal. The company did not respond to a request for comment about whether it would try again in light of the new climate legislation.

Brunner is partnering with Clarkson University on a new kind of wind turbine designed specifically for the parks guidelines. Professor Ken Visser and his students have created a ducted wind turbine, which looks a bit like a windmill inside a tube. A prototype is up and running on campus in Potsdam.

The turbine produces enough electricity to power about half the energy needs of a typical home in the United States, Visser said. The problem: Its expensive. The initial capital costs for a turbine that powers an average home would be around $80,000. Hes hoping to get that under $20,000.

This year, Visser has plans to put up 10 turbines in the North Country, including one at Asgaard Farm. Brunner is excited to see how it does. If it works as expected, it would be a game changer, Brunner said.

Subsidies are rolling in for solar and wind projects across the state, but water has long produced big power supplies in the region. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said New York produced more hydroelectric power than any other state east of the Rocky Mountains and was the third-largest producer of hydroelectricity in the nation as of 2018.

There are dozens of hydropower dams in the Adirondacks, some now out of commission because of dropping energy prices. Local operators are hoping for more state support to survive. While the creation of dams and hydropower stations around the Adirondacks may not have had the most environmentally friendly origins, operators have turned them into electricity producers.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Emmett Smith, founder of the company Northern Power and Light, is involved in operation of hydropower plants, as well as energy policy and power distribution. His family owns two hydropower plants, including one in the Adirondack Park at St. Regis Falls.

That dam, perched on the St. Regis River, measures 110 feet across, 24 feet wide and 18 feet tall. Many dams are built of concrete, but this one is built from 600 logs of local tamarack and hemlock trees, in a kind of intricate latticework securing 800 tons of local stone.

Smith is a staunch advocate for hydropower production and wants the state to do more to support it.

Its an enormous existing contribution, Smith said. So far, we dont receive any kind of compensation for the renewable attribute of that.

A spokesperson for the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority did not answer requests for comment about what the state might be doing to support hydropower projects. A spokesperson did tout the states aggressive climate and clean energy goals in a statement to the Adirondack Explorer, adding that it was working with local communities and industry stakeholders in the Adirondacks.

Lack of state support is causing larger hydropower operators, like Brookfield Renewable Partners, to sell power to other states that pay more. But those energy credits dont count then toward the states emissions goals. Selling power out of state is also not feasible for smaller hydro operators. It requires major infrastructure that mom-and-pop dams dont have.

Thats partially why Smith created Northern Power and Light, to allow community members to purchase power directly from small hydro dams. He compares it to a community-supported agriculture model.

Our pitch to customers is the idea that youre keeping your dollar local, Smith said. Not only are you choosing an energy source that is green and sustainable, youre investing in your own community and the infrastructure that you rely on.

Rob Davies is the state forester and DECs director of lands and forests.

From his perch, trees are important, and so is keeping forests as forests. That makes the Adirondack Park a special place in the states climate change work. The DEC said keeping forests intact in the Adirondacks is an important mitigation strategy for New York to meet the net emission goals for 2050.

Its not clear exactly how much carbon the Adirondacks forestlands store, but across the state, forests trap about 25.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. Thats helpful, considering New York produces around 160 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually. There are about 19 million acres of forest in the state, but a whopping 14 million acres are privately owned. Like hydropower plant operators in New York, private forestland owners dont get a lot of incentives from the state.

Charlie Canham, senior scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, said many landowners dont own enough property to be eligible for the forest tax credits that the state does offer. New Yorks forest tax law requires property owners to have 50 acres or more, and tax exemptions vary based on a foresters assessment of how the land can be managed.

I think the small family forest owners are the heroes in all of this, Canham said. There has been a lot of talk, and there have been attempts to revise the forest tax law in New York to both reward family forest owners for the public good theyre providing by protecting their forests and managing them, and to help them cover the costs of protecting the land.

Davies agreed that more needs to be done with private landowners. Only about 1 million acres of privately owned land is part of the states forest tax law program, he said.

Thats not enough, Davies said. Weve got to reach many more landowners if were going to move the dial.

Its something the state and legislators havent quite figured out yet. Still, the approximately 3 million acres of forest preserve in the Adirondacks and Catskills are guaranteed protected from development, and that gives Davies some hope.

You cant look into a crystal ball and see into the future, but when it comes to the Adirondacks and Catskill forest preserves, we kind of can, he said.

For more on this story, see the Adirondack Explorer, here
THE COUNCIL must put in place a suite of offerings for any retailer interested in taking over the former Debenhams store in Limerick.

Thats according to Labour councillor Joe Leddin, who was reacting to news from the liquidator of the firms Irish operation KPMG, that a new business might take over some of the Debenhams sites, saving hundreds of jobs.

Here in Limerick, more than 110 positions were lost after the British retailer pulled support for its Irish operation at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since then, workers have held an around-the-clock picket in a bid to secure what they feel is a fair redundancy settlement. Theyve vowed to continue these demonstrations.

Although KPMG did not identify the name of the retailer, or the locations it is interested in, Cllr Leddin has been in contact with the local authority boss Dr Pat Daly and its economic director Vincent Murray in order to give Limerick the best chance.

He said: We need a cross-agency collaborative approach, to make it as easy as possible for any such retailer to come to Limerick. In effect, we need to roll out the red carpet for them.

The City West member pointed out that there are many offerings available across the different agencies, and while it can be difficult for a company to navigate through these, the authority can step in to make things as easy as possible.

I dont want to be looking at an empty store, not just as a public representative, but also as a citizen of Limerick. I dont want to see an empty iconic building for the next five to 10 years. And if theres an opportunity to put our best foot forward, we must take it, he said.

Limerick Chamber chief executive Dee Ryan is also hopeful of a new retailer at the former Debenhams unit.

She said: It would be fantastic. It would see jobs retained and critically that iconic building in the centre of town able to re-open and contribute to the animation of the city. Retaining occupation and sustaining a business in that building would be great.

Despite the potential interest, workers in Limerick say they will remain on site.

The Limerick store is continuing to picket 24/7. The ex-staff are in good spirits and hoping for some news soon after spending 129 days fighting for justice, a statement released to the Limerick Leader said.

For more Limerick news click here
The COVID-19 pandemic has spread with alarming speed, infecting over 22.4 million and bringing the death toll to over 788,000. The U.S. is the hardest-hit country in the global pandemeic, both in caseload and deaths, recorded more than 5.5million infections and over 173,204 deaths since the pandemic began. As the U.S., Brazil and India become the top three countries worst hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / August 23, 2020 / As the number grows, the pandemic and related containment measures have also deeply affected the world economy. Governments across the world are spending unprecedented amounts in response to the coronavirus crisis - but in doing so, they're only making up a fraction of the damage the novel coronavirus is doing to the world economy. Needless to say, there is a tremendous interest in the development of a vaccine.

For Vaccine, medical researchers are working around the clock.

Normally vaccine development takes years, even decades. But medical teams around the world are working furiously to shrink it in 12 to 18 months. As soon as Chinese scientists published genetic details of the novel coronavirus in early Jan this year - providing a target for finding a cure, the world is racing.

With zero new case reported, people in Wuhan are still wearing mask and keeping social distance in their daily life.

At Oxford University, Sarah Gilbert, vaccinology professor and her lab had huge progress on developing vaccines against Covid-19 virus. Their ChAdOx1 vaccine generated antibodies for Covid-19.

Canada's National Research Council (NRC) has partnered with Chinese company CanSino Biologics to develop and test a promising Covid-19 vaccine. This vaccine candidate, Ad5-nCov, was developed using technology from both China and Canada.

Germany's BioNTech has announced a partnership with Pfizer, and another $135m partnership with Fosun Pharma of China to develop a Covid-19 vaccine. CureVac, a German-based vaccine developer also working on an mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccine.

Story continues

Moderna, the Boston-based biotech released a potential coronavirus vaccine after a trial showed antibody response in 45 participants.

Researchers worldwide are working aggressively to find a cure for COVID. Some are falling at it, but a few may have succeeded in stimulating the immune system to produce effective antibodies against the virus.

The WHO urged countries now that are striking bilateral deals for vaccines not to abandon multilateral efforts, since vaccinating pockets will still leave the world vulnerable.

When will we have a Covid-19 vaccine?

Since the first vaccine safety trials in humans started in March, there are more than 165 vaccines in development. More than 140 vaccine candidates are under investigation. Six are already in the final stage phase III trials, which is remarkably rapid.

Below is a figure of updated numbers of vaccine development.

So far, China is well ahead. Among the 6 vaccines entering the phase III clinical trials, 3 are from the Chinese team. China is also behind eight of the 19 vaccine candidates in human trials, including Sinovac's experimental shot and two vaccines from China National Biotec Group (CNBG), a unit of state-owned China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm).

These developments have focused on inactivated vaccine technology, a well-known technology that has been used to produce vaccines against diseases such as influenza and measles - which may increase the probability of success.

In contrast, Moderna, CureVac and BioNTech are using a new technology called messenger RNA, which has never produced a product approved by regulators.

Now at a centre in Abu Dhabi, 15,000 volunteers from different nationalities are taking vaccine developed in China. If the vaccine works on them, then it passes phase three. Which means it's ready for the public. These people are doing a selfless act.

China plays a key role in both ingredients and finished drugs. To be ready to handle this unprecedented challenge, vaccine workshops with an annual output of 200million doses have been established in Beijing and Wuhan. This means that once the vaccine is available, there will be a continuous supply. As an important part of the global vaccine supply chain, China is gearing up to supply the world with affordable vaccines that fulfill all efficacy, safety and quality.

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U.S. Border Patrol expels five Canadians from U.S. waters near Grand Island, screamed the headline. The story reproduced a photo from a Border Patrol tweet of Aug. 3, displaying the dastardly, disease carrying Canadian jet skiers at the edge of the Niagara River, along with a triumphant officer, hands on hips, overseeing the lawbreakers. #SlowTheSpread, the tweet concluded.

This sorry state of affairs certainly cannot be blamed on one officer, as it did not originate with him. No, it is an unfortunate tit-for-tat that emanates from a border closure concocted by Justin Trudeau in March, nearly two months after the first COVID cases jetted in from China and landed at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto. Initially, the closure didnt include Americans, but the public squawked, and, like all good career politicians, Trudeau recognized the opportunity to stoke up pre-existing anti-foreigner prejudice to bolster his popularity.

Canadians? Prejudiced? Sadly, yes. There is definite anti-American bias among Canadians as well, although up until now, silly comments like, The Americans are stealing our water! have had no consequence other than being good for a chuckle.

The COVID crisis has, however, converted this previously endearing Canadian quirk into something more sinister and damaging. Its not merely the tourism dollars, and livelihoods, lost. Families are separated, so far for months. People with jobs or elderly parents on one side of the border, and kids on the other, obviously cannot spend two weeks in quarantine away from home. A required quarantine could, of course, be carried out on ones own side of the border  and most of us have been doing just that since early spring  in advance of a one or two day visit to, say, give a hug to a lonely seven-year-old who misses his dad. But no; that would not be sufficiently punishing for the crime of being a foreign devil.

But isnt this a health issue? Isnt it true that Canadians have a lower COVID death rate (infection rates being unreliable) than Americans? That depends where you look, and how you frame the question. New York states COVID death rate is running, at this moment, in single digits, in a jurisdiction with a third more people and 11 times the population density of Ontario. Of the 328 million Americans, 326 million, and perhaps more, do not presently have an active coronavirus infection. But none of that is the point anyway. The virus doesnt know anything about imaginary lines men call borders.

Eighty per cent of Canadians, say the polls, favour keeping the border closed to Americans through at least the end of the year, because, they claim, theyre worried about their health.

The majority of those same Canadians dont trouble themselves to get a flu shot each fall, despite the fact that the flu slaughters victims of all ages every winter. That juxtaposition speaks for itself.

It is sure that Canadians are not conscious of their prejudices; most people are not. It is equally certain that Canadians do not want to be thought of as baselessly biased.

One might hope that the fundamentally good and decent people of Canada, and the U.S. for that matter, will give this further thought, and prevail upon their respective politicians to open the border to those who can present a negative test result.
ROME: Sicilys governor has ordered all migrant residences on the Italian island to be shut down by Monday, part of a push-back by Italian regions alarmed by a surge in COVID-19 cases a few weeks before schools are to reopen.

But while some new migrants have tested positive, vacationers returning from Mediterranean Sea resorts abroad as well from the Italian island of Sardinia lately have accounted for far more of Italys new coronavirus infections.

On Saturday, Italy registered 1,071 new cases, the highest daily number since mid-May and only weeks after the nation had seen the number of day-to-day new infections plunge to about 200.

The Lazio region, which includes Rome, surpassed hard-hit Lombardy on Saturday for the highest daily new caseload, as returning travelers got tested at Rome-area airports and a port north of the Italian capital.

On the mainland, most of the latest cases were linked to travelers coming from abroad. Those arriving from Spain, Malta, Greece and Croatia must be tested within 48 hours of entering Italy, after those places started experiencing worrisome upticks in coronavirus infections.

And many recent coronavirus clusters have been traced to people who vacationed on Sardinia. With many people taking ferries from Sardinia to the Italian mainland, Lazio set up a testing facility at Civitavecchias dock, so those driving vehicles off the boats could line up for immediate testing.

Lazio Gov. Nicola Zingaretti appealed to the governor of Sardinia to test vacationers before they sail or fly from the island to the mainland, saying his region would do the same for travelers leaving for Sardinia.

In Sicily, Gov. Nello Musumecis ordinance took effect on Sunday, requiring all migrants who reach the island by sea be transferred off as part of measures to combat the spread of COVID-19.

It stipulates that all centers housing migrants awaiting processing of asylum applications be shut down by the end of Monday. His order, effective through Sept. 10, also forbids any boat, including charity vessels, to bring migrants to the island.

But the national government, not regional governors, are in charge of migrant policies and Musumeci acknowledged that his directive might be challenged in court.

On Saturday, migrants accounted for 16 of Sicilys 48 confirmed infections.

Although in past years, nearly all migrants reaching Italy by sea were rescued by humanitarian groups, cargo ships or military vessels, this year, nearly 80% of arrivals reached Italian shores on their own, most setting sail from Tunisia.

Many come ashore on tiny Lampedusa island, whose migrant residence is dangerously overcrowded. Italy has taken to quarantining the latest arrivals aboard chartered ferries offshore Sicily.

I cant ask our people to keep a (safe) distance, wear masks and do other measures while the state amasses people in two rooms," Musumeci said, referring to the migrant centers.

Gov. Vincenzo De Luca, who leads the Campania region including Naples, raised the possibility that if the daily infections numbers become alarming, well ask the government to bring back the limits on traveling between regions that were in force through much of Italys lockdown.

Some wrote off De Lucas warning as posturing before gubernatorial elections in several regions, including his own, in September.

What is he going to do, send in the Carabinieri (to block those outside his region from entering)?" Tuscany Gov. Enrico Rossi told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

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The administration of Princeton University recently published a Statement on Principles of Inclusivity and Free Speech. The Statement affirmed that the school cherishes both inclusivity and free speech, which can be protected even when the speech in question is unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive. It also noted that Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber is on record as saying the free expression policy rests upon the idea that the pursuit of understanding, discovery, and truth benefits from the open and vigorous contestation of ideas.

That belief was the very foundation of colleges and universities for well over two centuries. Eisgruber correctly added, We are in an era when many people mistakenly treat free speech and inclusivity as competing values. We need the benefit of multiple voices and perspectives, and we need real engagement among them.

Not any longer. The president and two vice-presidents of the Princeton Graduate Student Government replied to their schools shocking affirmation of free speech and the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, calling it tone-deaf and unacceptable.

In a letter written in response to Eisgruber and the administration, the three opined that the free speech policy protects hate at the university. They stated, We as a student body are not looking for dialogue on how to cope with institutional racism, and averred that an emphasis on the importance of free expression reads as a typical dog-whistle often used to excuse racist speech and hateful actions.

Their admission that they are not looking for dialogue is a refreshing bit of candor, as leftists/progressives never seek dialogue, only victory and submission. Especially submission.

The First Amendment was/is designed specifically to protect speech that some might find problematic or even hateful. There would be no reason to have an amendment to protect speech that was universally agreed upon or beloved. Who gets to decide what is hate speech? Nazis? Kim Jong Un? Progressives? The NAACP? The John Birch Society? Mike Pence? Nancy Pelosi? Taylor Swift?

Maybe I should decide. Maybe I would have prohibited the heads of the Princeton graduate Student Government from saying what they did. After all, I found it tone-deaf and unacceptable. Hate speech, really.

Free speech is a dog-whistle used to excuse racism and hateful actions? (And civility and decorum are dog-whistles for white supremacy?) If so, then tolerance is just a dog-whistle for perversion, death and anarchy.

Little kids used to frequently say, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. It would be nice if todays progressives were as mature and resilient.

Image credit: Pixabay public domain
In a groundbreaking feat, three animals that were mummified thousands of years ago have been digitally unwrapped by researchers using high-resolution 3D scans.

A snake, bird, and cat from Egypts Centres collection at Swansea University are at least 2,000 years old and the ancient texts on them suggest they were offered to the souls of the departed. However, since there was limited known of what lay inside of the mummies, the researchers said that the details uncovered in the latest study were extraordinary.

Read - German Researchers Organise Three Back-to-back Crowded Concerts To Study COVID-19 Risk

As per the study, the scientists used X-ray micro CT scanning technique that generates 3D images with a resolution that is 100 times greater than that of a medical CT scan. This enabled the team to have a detailed inspection of the animals reaching even their smallest bones and teeth.

The ancient Egyptians mummified animals in a similar manner as humans. Sometimes, as per the study, the animals were buried along with their owner or even as a food supply for the afterlife. It is also believed that as many as 70 million animal mummies were created in a specific way involving priests.

Read - NASA Establishes Return Program Review Board To Study Mars Samples

What did researchers find?

With the detailed images, the researchers were able to find that the cat was, in fact, a nearly five-month-old kitten. Scientists cited unerupted teeth hidden within the jaw bone as the evidence for the younger age of the animal along with the separation of vertebrae indicated that it had been strangled.

The mummified bird assembled Eurasian kestrel and the micro ST scanning enabled virtual bone measurement that gave an accurate representation of the species. The third animal, the snake was identified as a mummified juvenile Egyptian Cobra or Naje haje who was deprived of water during its life and was ultimately killed in a whipping act.

Read - COVID-19 Tracing Apps Ineffective In Curbing Virus Transmission? Read What Study Says

The study noted about the same: Analysis of bone fractures shows it was ultimately killed by a whipping action, prior to possibly undergoing an opening of the mouth procedure during mummification; if true this demonstrates the first evidence for complex ritualistic behaviour applied to a snake.

Moreover, Dr. Carolyn Graves-Brown from the Egypt Centre at Swansea University said, Our findings have uncovered new insights into animal mummification, religion and human-animal relationships in ancient Egypt.

(Image credit: Swansea University)

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Scientists say they have rediscovered in Africa a small creature related to the elephant that disappeared about 50 years ago.

The mouse-sized animal, called the Somali sengi, is also known as an elephant-shrew. It is distantly related to elephants, aardvarks and manatees.

Researchers say sightings of the Somali sengi species had not been reported for at least 50 years.

But a search team led last year by international wildlife experts found that the animals were alive and well in the small East African country of Djibouti. The team recently reported its results in the publication PeerJ.

Although the species was only known to live in Somalia, the researchers had received information that it might also be in Djibouti.

Scientists thought the Somali sengi had disappeared in the 1970s. There are only 39 individual specimens held in natural history museums around the world. Those individuals were the only physical evidence that the animal had ever existed.

The Global Wildlife Conservation group had included the Somali sengi on its "25 most wanted lost species" list.

Houssein Rayaleh is with the Association Djibouti Nature. He helped lead the search operation. In Djibouti, he said they met local people who were able to identify the animal from pictures.

Rayaleh said he too had seen sengis during his 21 years of doing fieldwork in the country. But he and other researchers could never make an official identification. "Without formal documentation, the species of the sengis in Djibouti was unknown," he told the French news agency AFP.

The team set up more than 1,250 traps filled with peanut butter, oatmeal and yeast in 12 places. The researchers reported they caught a Somali sengi in the first trap they set.

It was amazing, said Steven Heritage, a researcher with Duke Universitys Lemur Center in Durham, North Carolina. When we opened the first trap and saw the little tuft of hair on the tip of its tail, we just looked at one another and couldnt believe it.

Heritage noted that a number of small mammal searches since the 1970s had failed to find the Somali sengi in Djibouti. It was serendipitous that it happened so quickly for us, he said.

For Rayaleh, the find was not all that surprising. For us living in Djibouti, and by extension the Horn of Africa, we never considered the sengis to be lost, he said. But this new research does bring the Somali sengi back into the scientific community, which we value.

The team also included global elephant shrew expert Galen Rathburn, who had studied the creatures for many years. But Heritage said Rathburn had never before seen a live Somali sengi.

"So when he opened the first trap and looked over at me, and he had seen the cute tufted furry tail of the animal, he looked at me and said 'I can't believe it, I've never seen one before, Heritage told AFP. Rathburn died of cancer shortly after the trip.

The researchers collected 12 specimens of the animal. They said their study proves that the Somali sengi "is currently extant" and lives far beyond the boundaries of Somalia.

The team is planning a new search to learn more about the species, which it believes could be living across Somalia, Djibouti and Ethiopia.

The researchers are not able to estimate the size of the population, but they believe the animals are doing well. "All the local people knew about this, so it could not be rare in any way," Heritage said.

Finding a large, living population differs greatly from most organized rescue attempts involving endangered species, said Robin Moore of Global Wildlife Conservation. "Usually when we rediscover lost species, we find just one or two individuals," she said.

Im Bryan Lynn.

Agence France-Presse and Global Wildlife Conservation reported on this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the reports for Learning English. Mario Ritter, Jr. was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

Quiz - Mouse-sized Elephant Shrew Rediscovered in Africa Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz

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Words in This Story

species  n. a group of animals or plants that are similar and can reproduce

specimen  n. an animal or plant that is collected as an example of its kind

museum  n. a building in which interesting and valuable things (such as paintings and sculptures or scientific or historical objects) are collected and shown to the public

formal  adj. done officially in keeping with rules

amazing  adj. causing great surprise or wonder

tuft  n. a small group of hair or similar thing that grows closely together

mammal  n. an animal with fur that feeds its young milk

serendipitous  n. the luck that happens when a useful or good thing is found without looking for it

global  adj. of, relating to, or involving the entire world

extant  adj. in existence, still alive
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 10:40:04|Editor: huaxia

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SANTIAGO, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- The economic crisis caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic is the "most synchronized" in history and its prospects of recovery is quite uncertain, Colombian economist Jose Antonio Ocampo said on Saturday during a virtual conference.

"It is much faster than the Great Depression of the 1930s, but we hope it will not be as long as the Great Depression," said Ocampo, a former executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

Experts from Latin America gathered Saturday to participate in the virtual conference themed "Latin America: The challenges of the pandemic and post-pandemic," organized by the Chilean Forum for Fair and Sustainable Development.

Ocampo also compared the current situation with the economic crisis of 2008, and warned that the current prospects of recovery are "more uncertain."

He said the situation in Latin America is "particularly bad" as the region has become the "center of the pandemic" in recent months. The effects of the pandemic will result in a regional contraction of 9.1 percent this year, according to ECLAC.

Ocampo said that regional economic deterioration due to the crisis has been "brutal," with plummeting employment and an increase in inequality.

A basic income should be "on the agenda of the countries of the region," he added, explaining that informal workers have been one of the hardest hit groups during this crisis.

The former ECLAC head said that the region needs productive policies that are "much more ambitiously oriented, or intimately articulated."

On Friday, the forum released a statement in which it stressed the importance of examining how to implement individual economic reactivation plans, as the same model will not work in every situation.

"It must be one that arises from social dialogue, that favors governability, that stimulates public-private dialogue, and shapes social rights to prevent new crises from bringing so much pain to millions of Chilean families," the statement said. Enditem
Egypt and Sudan discussed on Saturday cooperation and coordination to treat 250,000 Sudanese citizens for Hepatitis C under an Egyptian presidential initiative to eliminate the disease among 1 million Africans.

Egyptian health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said that Health Minister Hala Zayed held a virtual meeting with her Sudanese counterpart Sara Abdel-Azeem as part of efforts to promote cooperation in the health sector in accordance with directives from President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi.

The minister stressed Egypts readiness to send 200,000 drug doses to treat Hepatitis C patients in Sudan along with PCR testing for the disease, as well as training for health staff on diagnosis protocols.

Egypt announced in July that it had succeeded in becoming the first country to be free of Hepatitis C.

Around 60 million Egyptians were tested for Hepatitis C in only seven months as part of the 100 Million Health initiative, which was carried out from October 2018 until April 2019 to screen and treat hepatitis and non-communicable diseases.

The initiative included mass screenings for citizens over the age of 18 for the early detection of Hepatitis C infection, alongside evaluation and treatment at health units deployed nationwide.

Zayed has invited her Sudanese counterpart to a meeting in Cairo in the coming days to put in place an executive plan to implement a joint project aimed at combating the malaria-bearing Gambia mosquito.

Zayed also asked the Sudanese side to send medical reports on those injured in the countrys revolution so Egyptian hospitals can start receiving them for free medical treatment.
The audio recordings contain observations from Ms. Barry that do not appear in Ms. Trumps book. According to The Post, Ms. Trump secretly recorded 15 hours of face-to-face conversations with Ms. Barry about the president and his upbringing. The paper said Ms. Trump provided transcripts and audio excerpts.

In a statement provided by a White House spokesman, Mr. Trump dismissed the accusations and referred to the recent death of his younger brother, Robert S. Trump. Every day its something else, who cares, the president said. I miss my brother, and Ill continue to work hard for the American people. Not everyone agrees, but the results are obvious. Our country will soon be stronger than ever before.

In one conversation published by The Post, Ms. Barry tells Ms. Trump what ended up being one of the most explosive allegations in the book by the presidents niece: that Mr. Trump cheated to get into college by having someone else take the SAT for him.

He went to Fordham for one year and then he got into University of Pennsylvania because he had somebody take the exams, Ms. Barry told Ms. Trump. SATs or whatever. Thats what I believe, she said.

Ms. Barry, who was appointed to the federal bench by Ronald W. Reagan, says in one conversation that the president helped her get that appointment by asking his lawyer, Roy Cohn, to urge Mr. Reagan to appoint more female judges. Ms. Barry says the president once said to her, Where would you be without me?
SECAUCUS  High school student Logan Miller has been part of the Hudson School Environmental Club since freshman year. Now, hes joining in the rally against the proposed natural gas power plant in the Kearny Meadowlands. He said younger people should care because it affects our future.

Miller, 16, will be one of the residents and local environmental activists who will march and protest in kayaks Monday morning at Laurel Hill Park, calling for an end to the NJ Transit fracked gas plant. The 140-megawatt generator is planned for Koppers Koke Peninsula, which is on the opposite side of the Hackensack River that borders the park.

(The kayaks) really reflects how everything is going to be affected by (the gas power plant), Miller said.

The $546 million project aims to be a backup power source to avoid major shutdowns like Superstorm Sandy in 2012, which froze transportation in New York and New Jersey. It will include the power plant, office space, four-acres of solar panels and new substations in Kearny and Hoboken. A two-megawatt gas-powered generator in Jersey City and electrical connections to the plant are also planned.

The project passed an environmental review back in April.

But local activists continue to protest against it.

Michael Watson, a Hoboken resident, is the chapter president of The Climate Mobilization Hudson County, a local organization that seeks to fight for environmental justice.

Watson said he believes these rallies are very effective because it brings awareness to a concerned community. Their last rally was in July, which got rained out, but pivoted to a virtual demonstration.

The river is a huge part of our lives and its one of the concerns for the plant, Watson said. We dont want to be throwing toxic chemicals into this river.

NJ Transit is planning to build a natural gas-fired power plant on the former Koppers Koke peninsula on the Hackensack River.Courtesy of NJ Transit

Jim Smith, a spokesperson for NJ Transit, previously told The Jersey Journal that this will allow NJ Transit, in the months ahead, to further enhance design in a manner that supports Gov. Murphys clean energy goals.

But Jeff Tittel, the director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, said Sunday the natural gas plant makes no sense.

New Jersey  which is supposed to be moving towards renewable energy  said the state itself is proposing to build a power plant, and that power plant itself will be one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases and air pollution, Tittel said.

The area of Jersey City, Hoboken and the area in Kearny has some of the worst air pollution in the country.

The 10:30 a.m. rally will start at the boat launch in Laurel Hill Park and will be followed by a student-led march to the Secaucus Junction Train station.

A kayaction will then take place where attendees will paddle from the parks boat launch, down the Hackensack River, to Channel Marker No. 13, just off the proposed South Kearny build site.
OTTAWAThe delicate politics of drug policy were on full display this week, as Canadas chief health officer suggested decriminalizing hard drugs should be discussed to address a spike in opioid overdose deaths, while Health Minister Patty Hajdu insisted decriminalization was not a silver bullet solution.

Several provinces  including British Columbia, Ontario and Alberta  have been seeing concerning increases in overdose fatalities since the COVID-19 pandemic began, which Dr. Theresa Tam says is a crisis that is escalating as we speak.

Canadians should be seized with this particular crisis, which can actually happen to anyone and could also have increased risks right now for people who may be isolating at home, Tam said during a news conference when asked about the issue on Friday.

Increasing access to a safer supply of drugs and building more supervised consumption sites are among the critical steps needed to reduce opioid deaths, she said.

But she added that all approaches must be considered, including moving toward a societal discussion on decriminalization.

A number of officials and groups have called on the federal government to decriminalize hard drugs to address this opioid crisis, including the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, B.C. Premier John Horgan, as well as medical health officers in British Columbia, Toronto and Montreal.

And with recent data showing a major spike in the number of people dying from toxic illicit drugs due to the pandemic  including a 130 per cent increase in June overdose deaths in B.C. compared to June of last year  the calls for urgent action are getting louder.

B.C.s Coroner Service has also reported an increase this year in the number of overdose victims with extreme fentanyl concentrations present in their bodies.

Donald MacPherson, director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, said when the border closed, the drug supply in Canada became more dangerous as more drugs were made or altered in Canada.

Pandemic restrictions also saw safe injection sites and methadone clinics offering more limited services or closing altogether to prevent the spread of COVID-19, leaving drug users isolated with more toxic drugs, which is a deadly combination, MacPherson said.

Earlier this week, the federal Liberal government announced steps toward promised changes to federal drug policy, including a 60-day national consultation on supervised-consumption sites with a view to making them better and $582,000 in funding for a new Toronto project to offer a safe supply of opioids to reduce overdose deaths.

Separately, federal prosecutors are now also being instructed to criminally prosecute only the most serious drug possession offences that raise public safety concerns and to find alternatives outside the criminal justice system for the rest, including simple possession cases.

That directive is contained in a new guideline issued by the director of public prosecutions, Kathleen Roussel, who is independent from the federal Justice Department.

You cannot arrest your way out of an opioid crisis, Tam said Friday, applauding the directive as a step in the right direction.

But MacPherson says these measures are too little, too late.

COVID has just made everything so much worse and we still seem to be stuck in a position of pilot projects, interim funding, incremental steps toward something that should have happened long ago, he said.

The Canadian Drug Policy Coalition has long been pushing for decriminalization as a public health response that would to stop stigmatizing people with addictions.

Drug prohibition doesnt work. Alcohol prohibition didnt work. You cannot keep pretending that prohibition will work if we try it just a little bit harder, its fundamentally flawed, he said.

We need to change it, and thats why youre hearing calls from medical health officers for decriminalization, for safe supply programs, for legal regulated drugs on the market. We just have to get there sooner, rather than later, otherwise many more people are going to die.

The Liberal governments approach to illegal drugs has been shifting toward viewing it more as a public health issue than a criminal one.

In their first mandate, the Liberals legalized the recreational use of cannabis. However, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rejected calls to decriminalize possession of other harder drugs, despite a resolution passed at the last Liberal convention calling for such an approach.

When he appointed Hajdu as health minister last November, many advocates of progressive drug policies were encouraged, given Hajdus past advocacy and work experience in harm-reduction strategies.

She worked for nine years on the substance abuse and injury prevention program for the Thunder Bay District Public Health Unit, including spearheading the northern Ontario citys drug strategy.

Asked about decriminalization Friday, Health Minister Patty Hajdu said she doesnt believe that there is any silver bullet to ending problematic substance use or addressing the opioid overdose crisis.

It is really a suite of tools thats needed, she said, pointing to a number of actions taken by the federal government to address substance use, including supporting supervised consumption sites and access to pharmaceutical-grade medications, also known as safer supply.

Ensuring diversity of treatment is part of the strategy, she said.

Government has heard the calls from across the country for decriminalization and its something officials are deliberating, she said, but added that she believes its not the only answer.

It is really making sure that communities have the tools they need and they feel are appropriate to support people who use substances to have healthier lives.
Chennai:

Taking a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for ridiculing Rahul Gandhis remarks, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Friday said though he too could ridicule him, he will not do that and said Modi should rather answer the questions posed.

He (Rahul) says mock me but answer the questions of the people, the duty to respond to the question... lies with the Prime Minister... however he is ridiculing and acting (mocking Rahul), Chidambaram said.

Stating that he too knows how to mock and poke fun, the former finance minister said, I can also talk like Prime Minister... and ridicule..., however, I will not do that because he is Indias Prime Minister.

ALSO READ: (Chidambaram slams Centre for going ahead with demonetisation without prior homework)

Chidambaram said though Modi belonged to another party and propagated several policies that we cannot accept, I respect him as he is Indias Prime Minister. I will not ridicule him or poke fun at him, I only ask questions, he should answer the questions.

Why are you (the Centre and Modi) punishing people like this (by demonetising) and what sin have they committed? Why are you harassing people and the farmers... what is the reason...I would like to ask, he said.

He said Rahul Gandhi is addressing people in several states, including Gujarat, on demonetisation and related issues.

The Prime Minister addresses meetings, Rahul Gandhi is also doing it and the media is giving equal importance to his speeches like they do for the PM and I welcome it. However that is not enough, he said and described the claims of BJP government regarding demonetisation as falsehood.

Corruption is happening black money is being hoarded by using Rs 2,000 notes, he claimed and said party workers should apprise people on such false claims.

ALSO READ: (Mock me if you want, but you are answerable to youths of the country: Rahul Gandhi to PM Modi)

I bow my head before the people for their patience, Chidambaram said, adding people are perhaps waiting for the Prime Ministers December 30 deadline for things to get normal.

No government or Prime Minister has the authority to inflict so much pain and harassment on the people. They did not vote for them (BJP) for this, he said.

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If youre a billionaire looking to pass on your fortune tax-free to your kids, Canada is a great place to do it.

For example, consider Tobias Lutke, the founder of Shopify, which recently surpassed Royal Bank of Canada as the TSXs largest listed corporation measured by market capitalization. According to Forbes, Lutke is now one of the richest billionaires in Canada, with an estimated net worth of $8.4 billion (U.S.). While he is of course free to give away all his money to charity, under Canadas supposedly progressive tax system, his estate wouldnt have to pay a cent in tax.

Lutke wouldnt be so lucky if he resided in any other Group of Seven country. Even in Donald Trumps billionaire-friendly U.S.A., his heirs would have to fork over 40 per cent to the Internal Revenue Service. His estate would have to pay the same rate in the United Kingdom. In Japan the estate tax hit would be 55 per cent; in France it would be 45 per cent; and in Lutkes native Germany, his heirs would pay 50 per cent. But fortunately for Lutke, Canada is the only G7 country that doesnt have an estate tax.

Were not talking about fiscally insignificant sums here. At the U.S. tax rate, Lutkes estate would be sending the Canada Revenue Agency a cheque for $4.5 billion (Canadian).

According to the Fraser Institute, an average Canadian family pays $35,000 a year in taxes. So what Lutkes estate would pay in taxes in virtually any other G7 country would be the equivalent to what slightly more than 125,000 ordinary Canadian households pay every year in income tax.

If handing wealthy heirs the equivalent of 125,000 tax returns sounds unfair, you may be wondering how that can happen under a Liberal government that claims it wants to close the wealth gap in the Canadian economy. Perhaps because both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Bill Morneau, his finance minister until this week, inherited fortunes tax-free and Im sure they intend for their children to do the same.

Of course, the absence of an inheritance tax is only one of several avenues that the elite have at their disposal to lighten their tax burden. The capital gains tax is another. And its distributional impact is huge.

Two and a half years ago I wrote a paper for the Centre for International Governance Innovation (Has Globalization Left Canadian Workers Behind?) analyzing, among other things, the distribution of Canadian household income both on a pre-tax and after-tax basis.

It will probably come as no surprise to anyone that I found that the top quintile of Canadian households recorded far and away the largest income gains, and that within that group the top one per cent cent recorded the greatest increase.

What startled me was the finding that the after-tax incomes of Canadas richest households had grown even faster than their pre-tax incomes. Everyone knows the rich are getting richer. What is not as well known is that since 1990 the tax burden on Canadas richest households had been steadily falling.

You might wonder how that could happen in a country with a progressive income tax system, where the proportion of income that you pay in taxes rises steadily as your income increases. In most provinces the combined federal-provincial marginal tax rate is at least 50 per cent for top income taxpayers.

The answer is, the wealthy dont earn their money from wages. Particularly during the longest-running bull market in history.

Tobias Lutke didnt make his billions at Shopify from what he earned on his monthly paycheque. Instead, he made it through his ownership of just under 6.9 million Class B shares (each with a voting power equal to 10 times that of Class A shares), as well as 125,000 Class A shares.

From a taxation perspective, that is capital gains, not wage income, and he must pay tax on those gains only when the shares are sold. Even then, those capital gains are taxed very differently from wage income. Only half of capital gains are taxable. In Lutkes case, that means billions of dollars of capital gains will go untaxed when he sells his shares.

In other words, if you are wealthy enough to make millions or billions on your investments, the government is willing to give you a huge tax break in the name of promoting risk-taking. But if you are a middle-class Canadian struggling to pay the mortgage and put away a little for the kids education, every cent of wage income that you earn is taxed. Thats how progressive Canadas tax system really is.

Maybe its time to level the field and consider taxing capital gains in the same way wages are taxed.

Thats how the rich get richer. So what do they do with all that money? The ultimate tax play for Canadas elite is to stash their billions away in tax havens like Panama.

Globally a staggering $8.7 trillion (U.S.) was stashed away in offshore accounts in 2015, equal to more than 10 per cent of all household wealth in the world. Some of that money was parked offshore by wealthy Canadians.

According to the Canada Revenue Agency, some $3 billion (Canadian) of annual tax revenue is lost from the untaxed investment income that is generated from the $240.5 billion that wealthy Canadians have squirrelled away in offshore tax shelters.

It would be interesting to see who they are. When the confidential files of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca were hacked and subsequently released, the client list contained some eye-popping names. None more so than Deng Jiagui, brother-in-law of Chinese President Xi Jinping, which just goes to show that the elite in communist countries rely on the same tax evasions as the elite in capitalist countries.

When the wealthiest households in our economy avoid paying taxes, guess who makes up for the revenue shortfall. You do. That is why there is a growing backlash across OECD countries against how little tax the wealthy actually pay.

In the U.S., several candidates who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination proposed huge tax hikes on the rich. For example, Bernie Sanders, in addition to calling for a hike in the top marginal tax rate from todays 37 per cent level to as high as 52 per cent, proposed a near doubling of the inheritance tax rate to 77 per cent on estates worth over $1 billion.

Elizabeth Warren went one step further, arguing that Washington shouldnt have to wait for billionaires to die before taxing them. Her proposed wealth tax on households owning more than $50 million (U.S.) in assets would cost Americas billionaires an estimated $85 billion a year. Of course, the party elite made damned sure neither of these candidates got on the ticket.

But change is in the air, and we can thank the COVID-19 pandemic and the record deficits that it is leaving in its wake. The federal deficit in Canada is already estimated at a horrendous $343 billion (Canadian), and that sum goes up with every new bailout that Ottawa announces. As a percentage of GDP it will rival the deficits incurred during the Second World War. What direction do you think taxes will be heading in the near future?

The question is, who is going to pay them?

When it comes to designing trade deals like the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the middle class is deemed to be expendable fodder. But when it comes to financing Ottawas deficits, the middle class is always uppermost on the governments mind.

Maybe this time around it shouldnt be left entirely to middle-class expendables to pick up the tab. Maybe instead its time for the rich to start to bear some of that burden.
Prime Minister Hamdok says Khartoum is ready to cooperate with the International Criminal Court over Darfur deaths.

Sudans Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has announced that the country is ready to cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) so those accused of war crimes in Darfur appear before the tribunal, a list that includes deposed President Omar al-Bashir.

Al-Bashir, who has been in jail in Khartoum since he was toppled after mass protests last year, is wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity in Darfur in a conflict that killed an estimated 300,000 people beginning in 2003.

The government reached a deal with rebel groups in February that all five Sudanese ICC suspects should appear before the court, but Hamdok had not previously publicly affirmed Sudans position.

I reiterate that the government is fully prepared to cooperate with the ICC to facilitate access to those accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, Hamdok said in a televised address on the anniversary of his ascent to office on Saturday.

Al-Bashir has denied the allegations against him, and had escaped previous attempts to send him to The Hague tribunal.





Sudans transitional government, a three-year joint civilian-military arrangement led by Hamdok, said it is close to a peace deal with some rebel groups active in Darfur, a vast region roughly the size of France

The government and some of the rebels are expected to initial an agreement on August 28.

Hamdok also said during his TV address that Sudan had come a long way towards being removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.

There are intense communications with the American administration about removing Sudan from the list and significant progress is expected in the coming weeks, a senior government source told Reuters on Sunday.

Washington added Sudan to the list in 1993 over allegations that al-Bashirs government was supporting terrorist groups at the time.

The designation makes Sudan technically ineligible for debt relief and financing from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. The US Congress would need to approve Sudans removal from the list.
TDT | Agencies

The US Coast Guards 52-yearold cutter Mellon is set to join Bahrains Royal Naval Force to continue its legacy of good maritime governance, said a report by the Maritime Executive. Mellon was one of the Coast Guards two remaining Hamilton-class high endurance cutters, which are being replaced by the new Legend-class national security cutters as the services main long-range asset.

It was decommissioned from US service during a ceremony Thursday at Coast Guard Base Seattle. The decommissioning does not mean that Mellon will retire. While Mellons service to the US Coast Guard now ends, the ship will continue its legacy of good maritime governance after transfer to the Kingdom of Bahrains Royal Naval Force, said Rear Adm. Peter Gautier, deputy commander of Coast Guard Pacific Area.

Mellons keel was laid on July 25, 1966, at Avondale Shipyards in New Orleans. She was launched the following year and commissioned on January 9, 1968. The cutter was named after Andrew W. Mellon, who served as treasury secretary from 1921-1932.

Over the past 52 years, Mellons crews conducted operations all over the world. From 1969 through 1972, Mellons crews served in the Vietnam War, performing naval gunfire support missions and patrolling Southeast Asian waters t o prevent the smuggling of weapons into Vietnam. Mellons war service earned the ship the Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation.

It has truly been an honour to serve as the final commanding officer for Coast Guard Cutter Mellon, said Capt. Jonathan Musman. The officers, chiefs and crew for this final year have been truly remarkable and can hold their heads high as they operated Mellon with distinction across the North Pacific on three deployments serving our nation. The reliability of the cutter is a product of years and years of properly taking care of this beloved [ship].
The Ministry of Home Affairs has issued standard operation protocol (SOP) for international travel on non-scheduled flights under Vande Bharat mission and air transport bubble arrangement.

As per the SOPs, anyone who is willing to travel to India on Vande Bharat flights will have to register themselves with the Indian missions in the country where they are stranded or residing, along with necessary details as prescribed by Ministry of External Affairs.

However, such registration will not require on flights operating under air transport bubbles arrangements, the SOP said.

Further, crew and staff, who have tested COVID-19 negative, will be allowed to operate non-scheduled flights.

As per the guidelines, priority will be given to those in distress, for example, workers or labourers who have been laid off, short term visa holders faced with an expiry of visas, persons with medical emergency/ pregnant women and elderly persons or those required to return to India due to death of a family member, and students.

The cost of travel, as specified by the carrier, will be borne by such travellers.

Based on the registrations received for Vande Bharat flights, the External Affairs Ministry will prepare flight database of all such travellers, including details such as name, age, gender, mobile phone number, place of residence, place of final destination; and information on RT-PCR test taken and its result.

It will then share the database with respective state and union territory in advance.

For outbound flights, the category of persons, who will be eligible to travel on non-scheduled flights, will be permitted by the home ministry. In this case, a passenger will have to apply to civil aviation ministry or to an agency designated under this ministry, along with necessary details, including the places of departure and arrival. Later, the Ministry of Civil Aviation will display on its website the category of persons eligible to travel out of India.

Before the tickets of such persons are confirmed, the airline concerned will ensure that the destination country allows entry of such persons with a valid visa in that country.

The conditions, if any, imposed by the destination country, will have to be fulfilled by the person intending to travel.

Also read: Sonia Gandhi responds to Congress leaders' letter; says ready to step down as party president

Also read: Coronavirus impact: Gold ETFs now hold more precious metal than any central bank
Compelling cases of distress, including migrant workers and labourers who have been laid off, short term visa holders faced with expiry of visas, persons with medical emergency/ pregnant women and elderly persons or those required to return to India due to death of family member, and students will be given priority for international travel on non-scheduled commercial flights under Vande Bharat scheme and air transport bubble arrangement.

Twitter

This is according to the Standard Operating Protocol (SOP) issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs on Saturday for international travel.

Accordingly, persons desirous to travel to India on Vande Bharat flights, will register themselves with the Indian missions in the country where they are stranded or residing, along with necessary details as prescribed by Ministry of External Affairs.

However, such a registration may not be required on flights operating under air transport bubbles arrangements, the SOP said.

BCCL

People who will travel to India by non-scheduled commercial flights as allowed by Ministry of Civil Aviation (MOCA) and ships as allowed by Department of Military Affairs (DMA) and Ministry of Shipping (MOS).

The cost of travel, as specified by the carrier, will be borne by such travellers.

Based on the registrations received for Vande Bharat flights, MEA will prepare flight or ship wise database of all such travellers, including details such as name, age, gender, mobile phone number, place of residence, place of final destination; and information on RT-PCR test taken and its result.

This data base will be shared by MEA with the respective State and UT in advance.

BCCL

In case of flights operating under air transport bubbles, passenger manifest containing the same details as given above for Vande Bharat flights or in a revised format as may be finalised by MEA with the country concerned, will be submitted by the airlines to the Indian mission in the country concerned.

India so far has bilateral air travel arrangements or air bubbles with the US, the UK, Germany, France, Qatar, Maldives and the UAE while negotiations are going on with 13 more countries.

For out-bound flights, the category of person who will be eligible to travel on these flights, will be as permitted by MHA from time to time.

The MOCA will display on its website the category of persons eligible to travel out of India.

Such persons will apply to MoCA or to an agency or agencies designated by MoCA for this purpose, along with necessary details, including the places of departure and arrival.

BCCL/ FILE

The travel from India shall be on the non-scheduled commercial flights, as are allowed by MoCA.

Indian seafarers and crew seeking to accept contracts to serve on vessels abroad, can travel on the non-scheduled commercial flights as allowed by MOCA or the flights arranged by their employers subject to clearance given by the Ministry of Shipping.

Before the tickets of such persons are confirmed, the airline concerned will ensure that the destination country allows entry of such persons with valid visa in that country.

The conditions, if any, imposed by the destination country, will have to be fulfilled by the person intending to travel.

The Vande Bharat flights have been operating since May 6 and currently the Scheme is in Phase-5.

Only those crew and staff, who are tested COVID-19 negative, will be allowed to operate these flights and ships.




West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Sunday said that he has urged Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to unshackle political caging/chaining of police and administration.

Urge Chief Minister to unshackle political caging/chaining of POLICE and ADMINISTRATION. Law and order alarming-with reports of the free run to illegal bomb making. UNFORTUNATE- Police and administration ever at door of ruling party-in readiness to knock the door of opposition, Dhanakar tweeted.

He further said that public servants are not political workers, and if they behave like one, then it is against the democratic value of the Indian constitution.

This is a staggering blow to rule of law and democracy. This menacing stance of police and administration would generate consequences. Politically committed police and administration-death knell of democracy. Public servants are not political workers, Dhankhar said.

The governor added that in West Bengal the unlawful conduct of bureaucracy is an open secret, and the essence of democracy is being shredded in the state.Never thought IAS /IPS could so capitulate and be in crawl unlawful mode-blatantly unmindful of conduct rules. Their actions are OPEN SECRET. Democratic essence shredded. Why be a party to this and crucify democratic values!

Earlier on August 22, Dhankar raised questions on the team that was investigating the pandemic purchase scam and accused them of covering up the massive irregularities in the matter.

He said, PANDEMIC PURCHASE SCAM COVER-UP- GETTING MURKIER What kind of probe it is! Post facto ratification of massive irregularities by subordinates would be SHAM. IRONICAL-Those who need to b investigated are probing to report to those who need to be accountable!
Due to consistent growth, Jeremiah Gardner is always blown away by participants and attendees to the High Plains Riot. This year, amid a pandemic, was no exception.

I obviously didnt know what to expect, he said. This is overwhelmingly awesome. The parking lot is full.

People approached Gardner letting him know theyd driven from states away to attend, including Texas and Idaho.

The couple from Idaho saw us on Facebook, he said. They were like, Weve been waiting all summer for this, and thats just so neat.

The event started in a park in 2012 with 15 cars and has continued to expand annually. The event included a swap meet, vendors, a car show and, of course, the burn out competition. The tire shredding sessions have become a highlight of the event.

Looking across the concrete pad at the faces of the crowd before they disappeared behind a cloud of smoke is one of the reasons Gardner puts on the riot. He wants an event families can attend that supports a good cause and highlights what can be created by hand.
When Aya Al-Umari faces her brothers killer in the dock, she intends to tell him that his hatred stole away her best friend, her guardian, her hero. That she still wants to pick up the phone and tell her brother all about her day, because hes the only one who would understand.

Al-Umari is one of more than 60 survivors and family members who this week in court will confront the white supremacist who committed the worst atrocity in New Zealands modern history, when he slaughtered 51 worshippers at two Christchurch mosques in March 2019.

The gunman, 29-year-old Australian Brenton Harrison Tarrant, pleaded guilty in March to 51 counts of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and one count of terrorism the first terrorism conviction in the nations history.

Tarrant has dismissed his lawyers and intends to represent himself during the four-day sentencing starting Monday, raising fears he could try to use the occasion as a platform to promote his racist views. He can choose to speak once the victims have spoken, although the judge will likely shut down any attempts he makes to grandstand.

Tarrant could become the first person in New Zealand to be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. New Zealand abolished the death penalty for murder in 1961, and the longest sentence imposed since then has been life imprisonment with a minimum 30-year non-parole period.

The attacks targeting people praying at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques shocked the nation and prompted new laws banning the deadliest types of semi-automatic weapons. They also prompted global changes to social media protocols after the gunman livestreamed his attack on Facebook, where it was viewed by hundreds of thousands of people.

Some victims have traveled from abroad to attend the court hearing and have completed a mandatory 14-day quarantine imposed because of the coronavirus.

Virus distancing requirements mean the number of survivors in the main courtroom will be limited to 35 at any one time. But the hearing will also be streamed to seven adjacent courtrooms, which can hold another 200 or so people.

Judge Cameron Mander said he realized the court process had been exhausting and frustrating for many of the victims. Finality and closure is considered by some as the best means of bringing relief to the Muslim community, he wrote in a court memo.

Mander is not allowing live reporting from the sentencing and has reserved the right to ban some things that are said in court from being broadcast or published. The victims also can choose to remain anonymous.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who was praised around the world for her empathy and leadership after the attacks, said she would be monitoring the hearing closely. She said the sentencing would be hard for the victims.

I dont think there is much that I can say that is going to ease just how traumatic that periods going to be, she said.

Andrew Geddis, a law professor at the University of Otago, said the case was unprecedented in New Zealand, both in the magnitude of the crime and the number of victims involved in the sentencing.

He said it was likely the judge would impose the first all-of-life sentence, with two possible mitigating factors being Tarrants guilty plea and his young age. Geddis said if Tarrant shows any remorse during the hearing, it may factor in his favor, while any attempt he makes to promote his racist agenda will likely count against him.

Tarrant moved to New Zealand in 2017 and kept a low profile in the university city of Dunedin. He frequented a gym, practiced shooting at a rifle club range and built up an arsenal of weapons. He didnt appear to be employed, and said in some online posts that hed inherited a significant amount of money when his father died.

Tarrant appeared to have a fascination with religious conflicts in Europe and the Balkans, and visited a number of sites in Eastern Europe in the years before he committed the massacre. After his attack at the second mosque, Tarrant was driving, possibly to carry out a shooting at a third mosque, when two police officers rammed his car off the road, dragged him out and arrested him.

Al-Umaris 35-year-old brother Hussein was among those killed at the Al Noor mosque. In her victim impact statement, which she shared with The Associated Press ahead of the sentencing, she says that she mourns not only the loss of her brother, but also the loss of his hopes and goals, and that she will never have any nieces or nephews.

There are no words that do justice to explain what it is like to go from having lunch with your brother on one day to burying him on another, she writes.
With sweltering temperatures once again on the horizon, Environment Canada has issued a heat warning for Toronto as a warm air mass moves through southern Ontario.

The mercury on Sunday is expected to reach 32 C, which could feel like 40 C with the humidity, while the low on Sunday night is expected to be 21 C. Theres also a 30 per cent chance of showers and a risk of thunderstorms in the afternoon.

Environment Canada says the heat will be mainly confined to urban areas where minimum temperatures will be highest.

The hot weather is expected to continue into Monday, with a high of 30 C and a 60 per cent chance of showers.

Environment Canada expects the heat warning to end Monday night, when some relief will be in store as a cooler air mass moves in. A 40 per cent chance of showers is also in the forecast.

Niagara Region, Hamilton, Halton Region, Peel Region, Windsor, Essex County and Chatham-Kent are also under heat warnings.

TY Tom Yun is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star's radio room in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @thetomyun
Any future Republican who seeks or occupies the presidency will have learned something from the years of Donald Trump

It must pain Donald Trump, deep down in his showmans soul, to have had his convention taken away from him. The arguable peak of his presidency, the hubristic State of the Union that preceded the coronavirus, raised the reality-television elements of the address to new heights  reuniting a military family!

Bestowing a Presidential Medal of Freedom! You can only imagine what brazen gimmicks, what WWE stagecraft, Trump would have rolled out for a convention taking place in normal times.

Alas he has only four days of speeches via streaming video, the absence of cheering crowds itself an exhibit of his administrations coronavirus failure.

And for members of his party privately pining for his evaporation or feeling their way back toward pre-Trump positioning, the diminished convention cant help but feel like a hopeful thing  instead of a showcase for Trumpian power, a weeklong indicator of its ebb.

That hopefulness is misplaced. Trump could still win reelection, and his convention is irrelevant to a comeback that mostly hinges on what happens with the pandemic between now and Election Day.

But even if he loses, his power over the Republican Party will probably ebb only slowly, if at all.

His allies and sycophants will have every reason to maintain a court in exile. His enemies and frenemies in the mainstream media will continue to elevate him for the sake of ratings and attention. And the man himself will seek the spotlight as assiduously as ever.

The knowledge that Trumpism has delivered  about what is possible in American politics, what Republicans will vote for and accept, what conservatism can accommodate  will not simply disappear. It may go underground for a time, if there is a temporary restoration of Republican politics as usual under a Joe Biden presidency.

But the lessons will still be there to be picked up, the truths exposed hard to suppress. Any future Republican who seeks or occupies the presidency will have learned something from the years of Donald Trump.

But what they learn will make all the difference. Here are three different ways that the GOP could remain the party of Trump long after he is gone.

Trumpism as a governing agenda

First, Trumpism could come into its own as an ideological agenda, a genuine policy alternative to both left-liberalism and the zombie Reaganism that the Republicans offered before Trumps advent.

In this scenario, Trumps successors would learn two lessons from his rise. First, that Republican voters arent necessarily wedded to ideological nostrums about limited government, and so a politician can succeed in a Republican primary by running, as Trump did, against elements of movement-conservative orthodoxy.

Second, that the sustained failures of the establishment center create a practical need for a policy agenda that is populist in the best sense  it would defend and rebuild the decaying America that exists outside the coastal metropoles, tech hubs and university towns.

This agenda would start with ideas that Trump campaigned on in 2016 and then abandoned or only half-pursued: not just infrastructure spending, but a self-conscious industrial policy to bring back the capacities and jobs that America has lost to Asia. It would follow his rhetoric rather than his administrations lawyering and make peace with universal health insurance.

It would pick up the most populist pieces from his tax bill and build on them, finding ways to transfer tax advantages to working-class families and away from blue-state rentiers. Its watchwords would be work and family instead of you built that, with real support for wage-earners and child-rearers instead of hazy sentiment about entrepreneurs.

On foreign policy it would follow Trumps public posture toward confrontation with China rather than imitating his trade-negotiation gestures of appeasement. It would follow his instincts and withdraw (assuming Biden hasnt already) from Afghanistan and jettison the fixation on regime change in Iran. There would be no grand crusade for democracy: Instead there would be alliances of interest (including, yes, with Russia) aimed at the containment of Beijing.

Finally, this kind of future-Trumpism would shift the grounds of the culture war  with stronger overtures to conservative-leaning minority voters (a strategy Trump has pursued when he isnt race-baiting) and an aggressive agenda to reshape universities, using the power of the purse and the rhetoric of ideological diversity.

If successful, this strategy could help the Republican Party escape its current demographic trap and win majorities again  as a party of the pan-ethnic middle class, not just a shrinking, aging white base.

Trumpism as permanent minority rule

But just because something makes political sense doesnt mean that it will happen. And if there is anything weve learned over the nearly 20 years since Ruy Teixeira and John Judis prophesied an emerging Democratic majority founded on demographic change, it is that the combination of a Democratic Party that keeps being pulled leftward and a Republican Party with strength in rural states  and thus the Electoral College and the Senate  can keep the GOP competitive even if it doesnt win actual majorities.

Unite this electoral reality with Trumps anti-democratic tendencies  his obsession with voter fraud at the expense of voting rights, his Twitter authoritarianism  and you can imagine another way that the GOP remains Trumps party after he has gone.

Instead of developing his populism to build a new majority, it could develop his anti-majoritarianism to sustain its own power even under demographic eclipse.

This kind of evolution would start with opposition to Democratic attempts to admit new states (and new senators), add extra justices to the Supreme Court or expand automatic voter registration and early voting. But Republicans could also mount a counteroffensive to lock in their current advantages  expanding voter-ID laws and making them stricter, pushing for House apportionment to exclude non-citizens, even trying to set up Electoral College-like systems for statehouse elections in states that might trend left.

You can see a dangerous cycle here, where the resilience of a counter-majoritarian Republican Party further delegitimises the system in the eyes of Democrats, who become more radical in response, pushing us toward some stress point that is far more serious than this months war over the post office.

I have spent much of the Trump era arguing that he is too feckless and incompetent, too much of a buck-passer and coward, to represent an authoritarian menace in his own right. But even if there are limits to how far the party will go with him  witness the swift disavowal of his election-postponement speculation  he has clearly habituated many of his supporters to a caudillo style, a politics of enmity, a sense that transferring power to Democrats is like letting suicide bombers seize the plane.

So it is hardly fanciful to imagine a Republican successor who maintains the authoritarian style but drops the fecklessness. Put that kind of figure in charge of a party organised around holding power without majority support, pit it against a Democratic Party nurturing fantasies of an American colour revolution  in which mass protests and even military intervention force out a right-wing government  and you could have a constitutional crisis sooner rather than later, and a Trumpian legacy that is very dark indeed.

Trumpism as virtual reality

But there is a final potential afterlife for the Trump era, in which it turns out the essential substance of the Trump phenomenon isnt populism or authoritarianism, but a kind of playacting  all performative nonsense, cable-news illusions, online smoke and mirrors  that might itself be permanently appealing as a style of right-wing government.

Presidential gestures have always mattered, but Trump has demonstrated that you can hold together a political coalition even when those gestures are essentially illusory. You can issue seemingly sweeping executive orders that dont do what you claim; take credit for real policies that predate your administration and pretend ones that never happen; and fight culture wars that are about symbolic issues rather than anything as real as marriage or abortion.

This style may be especially appealing to conservatives, who have reached a point of cultural marginalisation where the kind of victory they seek is much easier to conjure in virtual reality.

This is the point of certain kinds of right-wing infotainment, and certainly the point of QAnon, which as Matthew Walther of The Week has pointed out, exists precisely to invent nonexistent victories for the right:

Trump has not replaced the Affordable Care Act or saved millions of good manufacturing jobs or remade our trade relationship with China, it is true. But no one expects miracles, after all. Besides, has he not worked tirelessly, if invisibly, to root out corruption, to expose the sinister plots of the cabal behind the Democratic Party, to remove anthropophagic pedophiles from the upper reaches of the federal bureaucracy? Has he not, in accomplishing all these things thanklessly, amid the persecution of his enemies in the liberal media establishment, shown us he cares? Whatever individual Trump supporters might believe about the actual facts of the alleged conspiracy, the bare outline of QAnon  Trump winning for them simply by existing and holding the office of the presidency  is in fact an accurate representation of their feelings about him.

QAnon is thus a perfervid version of a future in which the GOP neither embraces a policy-rich populism nor lapses into constitution-threatening authoritarianism. Instead, the lesson that Republicans might take from the Trump era is that so long as much of the country fears a liberalism that is increasingly beholden to the Left, Republicans can win their share of elections just on the promise to not be Democrats, to hold off liberal hegemony simply by existing.

And for Republican voters who want more  well, for them you can just make up some triumphs, whether banal (a new social-media executive order!) or exotic (a secret purge of pedophiles!), and trumpet them as victories worthy of Reagan, Lincoln or FDR.

In which case Trump could be a special kind of pioneer, and the party he shaped a digital-age novelty: the first political party to exist entirely as a simulation.

Ross Douthat c.2020 The New York Times Company
The Union rural development ministry has raised concerns over the drastic slowdown of Prime Minister Narendra Modis flagship housing scheme for the rural poor and has recommended that an intense follow-up is required by states/Union Territories (UTs). The ministry has pointed out several factors behind the delay in meeting targets.

An agenda paper of the ministry for an annual review of its schemes has cited that the gap between number of houses sanctioned and those that have been completed stands at 3.12 million in the second phase of the rural housing programme in 2019-20.

Under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), which is an upgraded version of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)-era Indira Awas Yojna, 17.2 million houses have been completed since 2014, after Modi came to power at the Centre.

The scheme not only helps the rural homeless population get pucca houses, it also generates work, as up to 90 days of work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005, is required to build one house.

Also read: Javadekar announces SOPs for resuming film, TV shooting

However, this year, the programme got off to a tepid start. The governments agenda paper attributed the delay to factors such as inactivity during the Covid-19-induced lockdown restrictions, saturation of eligible beneficiaries from the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) category, tardy pace of work and lack of timely allocation of targets to districts.

Bihar tops the list of states lagging behind, as it has 988,000 incomplete houses. Other states that have failed to implement the scheme on time include West Bengal, which has 573,000 incomplete dwelling units, Madhya Pradesh (300,000), Odisha (240,000 ) and Rajasthan (223,000).

Rahul Ranjan Mahiwal, special secretary in Bihars rural development department, said the shortfall in meeting the target was because of several factors, including last years floods and the Covid-19 lockdown that led to shortage of labourers. He said authorities will expedite work and set a target of completing 300,000 units in the next three months from October to December.

Last year, the floods in north Bihar disrupted work...Besides, the lockdown (that began in March-end) also disrupted construction activity for several months, he said.

West Bengals panchayat and rural development minister, Subrata Mukherjee, said, This calculation should be done at the end of the year. West Bengal has not lagged behind in social welfare schemes ever since the Trinamool Congress came to power (in 2011). Our state was awarded by the Centre last year for completing projects under PMAY on time. The certificate is displayed in my office.

The Union rural development ministry has a target to construct 6.1 million houses in this financial year. It has also asked states that are facing shortage of land to consider building multi-storeyed structures.

Considerable progress in terms of allocation of land and further completion of their house is required, the agenda note stated.

The note prepared for a review meeting, to be held in August-end, stated: Some states such as Maharashtra and Bihar have their own schemes for allotment of land and the same may be replicated by the other states. The states that cannot proceed with allotment of land from their schemes must actively explore the option of construction of multi-storey houses on government land.

Land acquisition for the scheme is a state subject.

The Centre has pointed out that Aadhaar seeding of beneficiaries is a pending issue and 63% of the unique identification number has been updated in the schemes central database to date. The ministry has directed states that seeding should be done on utmost priority.

The note pointed out in respect of some states, saturation of eligible beneficiaries from the SC/ST category is one of the reasons behind the slow allocation of houses and their completion. State governments are expected to start the process of allocation of houses to the newly added eligible beneficiaries after their Aadhaar seeding is done.

The ministry has also warned that no deletion of (Aadhaar) entries can be done by the states/UTs.

(With inputs from HTC in Patna and Kolkata)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Saubhadra Chatterji Saubhadra Chatterji is Deputy Political Editor at the Hindustan Times. He writes on both politics and policies. ...view detail
New coronavirus case numbers are unlikely to reach single digits by the end of Melbourne's tough stage four restrictions, but the Chief Health Officer is confident the trend is continuing downwards.

As the city hit the halfway mark on its six-week lockdown on Sunday and the state's death toll passed 400, Brett Sutton said daily case numbers were on track with modelling but he had no "concrete expectations" on what they would look like on September 13.

Premier Daniel Andrews has urged Victorians to "stay the course". Credit:Wayne Taylor

The government is in negotiations over extending the state of emergency and what restrictions  if any  could be lifted when stage four ends.

"We would all love that clarity [about what comes after stage four], but we can't second guess what the transmission will be, what ... circumstances we will need to look at until we're closer to the date ... we'll hopefully have a clearer picture at least a week out," Professor Sutton said.
BGR

Our Sun isnt quite as old as other stars out there. However, scientists are already trying to pinpoint exactly when the Sun will die. Of course, it isnt as simple as throwing out a date. After all, were working with a massive ball of energy that weve still barely managed to scratch the surface of  The post Scientists think they figured out when the Sun will explode and kill us all appeared first on BGR.
As the Democratic national convention played out over four days last week, it seemed as though Joe Bidens face was everywhere Democrats congregated.

Except in Montana, where trying to find mention of the presidential nominee is akin to the 1980s childrens geography game show, "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?"

While the states GOP candidates proudly tout their lockstep positions with those of President Donald Trump  check out the homepage on U.S. Sen. Steve Daines campaign website  the Democratic presidential nominee is conspicuously absent from the messaging by his partys candidates.

The website for Gov. Steve Bullock, the Democrat running against Daines in a U.S. Senate race deemed one of the hardest-fought in the nation, features, well, Bullock.

Biden is likewise nonexistent on the campaign site for Mike Cooney, the lieutenant governor seeking to ascend to the states top spot and continue 16 years of Democratic occupation of the big corner office in the Capitol.

Meanwhile, the site for Cooneys Republican opponent in the gubernatorial race, U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte, invites people to click on Standing With Trump.

Republican state Auditor Matt Rosendale, who seeks the congressional seat Gianforte is vacating, displays both photo and video images of himself with Trump on his site, as well as the president's endorsement.

Democratic congressional candidate Kathleen Williams? No Joe.

Democrats are focused on lifting up Montana families, addressing the challenges we all face, and bringing more opportunity and prosperity to all who strive for it, said Sandi Luckey, Montana Democratic Party executive director. That starts with electing Montana-focused candidates from the bottom of the ticket to the top.

Thats one explanation.

Heres another:

Trump crushed Hillary Clinton by 20 percentage points in Montana in 2016. Bullock, seeking his second term as governor that year, defeated Gianforte by 4 percentage points to continue Montanas ticket-splitting reputation.

Generally, statewide Democratic candidates need to run ahead of presidential candidates to win in Montana, said Jeremy Johnson, associate professor of political science at Carroll College. Montana Democrats have tried to emphasize local issues for years now and dont really focus on presidential candidates.

A Democratic presidential candidate hasn't won in Montana since Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush in 1992, and then only because Independent candidate Ross Perot split the ticket.

Thats why Montanas GOP candidates welcomed Trumps four visits here to campaign on their behalf in 2016 (Gianforte won his congressional race, but incumbent Sen. Tester defeated Rosendale), while Hillary Clinton made herself scarce, although her husband, former President Bill Clinton, campaigned for her.

Montana Democrats 2016 ghosting of Clinton is similar todays silence on Biden, Johnson said, and the opposite of the Trump love-fest.

Julia Doyle, Daines campaign director, said the senator is proud to stand with Trump and his agenda of creating jobs, protecting our Second Amendment and securing our borders."

The love goes both ways, with Trump frequently tweeting out praise for the senator. Daines, he tweeted last week, is doing a tremendous job for the people of Montana!

Trump said Daines protects the Montana way of life  feel-good territory Democrats also claim as their purview  and took a shot at Bullock, saying hed be an absolute horror for Montana.

As a Republican incumbent in a year with a Republican president running for re-election, Daines should be a shoo-in. But the nonpartisan Cook Political Report switched its prognostication on Montanas Senate race from "leans Republican" to a toss-up in June.

A similar dynamic in other tight races around the country has led some Republicans to cautiously distance themselves from Trump.

The Republican Party has tethered itself to Trump, which given the president's tumbling poll numbers "may not be as helpful as it was several years ago, Johnson said.

So other incumbent Republican senators deemed embattled by the Cook report, such as Iowas Joni Ernst, Colorados Cory Gardner and Maines Susan Collins, have largely Trump-free sites. Georgias David Perdue has a small photo of himself with Trump and several others, but nobody outdoes Daines, whose entire campaign homepage features an exuberant image of himself and Trump at one of the Montana rallies.

Which probably wont hurt Daines the way it might in states with large suburban areas, like Pennsylvania, Johnson said. U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, a Pennsylvania Democrat elected in 2018 to represent a Pittsburgh-area district that voted for Trump, endorsed Biden back in January.

So expect to see plenty of references to Trump, and maybe even the president himself, in Montana. Just don't go looking for Joe.

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FILE PHOTO: Life-size wooden sculpture of U.S. first lady Melania Trump is officially unveiled in Rozno, near her hometown of Sevnica

By Marja Novak

ROZNO, Slovenia (Reuters) - A wooden sculpture of U.S. first lady Melania Trump was torched near her hometown of Sevnica, Slovenia, on the night of July Fourth, as Americans celebrated U.S. Independence Day, said the artist who commissioned the sculpture.

Brad Downey, a Berlin-based American artist, told Reuters he had the life-sized blackened, disfigured sculpture removed as soon as police informed him on July 5th of the incident.

"I want to know why they did it," said Downey, who had hoped the statue would foster a dialogue about the political situation in the United States, highlighting Melania Trump's status as an immigrant married to a president sworn to reduce immigration.

In Washington, the office of Melania Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In recent weeks, President Donald Trump has pledged to take a hard line on anyone destroying or vandalizing U.S. historical monuments, as political activism against racial injustice has swept across the country.

Downey, 39, said he had filed a police report and would like to interview the culprits, if found, for a film he is preparing ahead of his exhibition due to open in Slovenia in September.

"The investigation in this case has not been completed yet so we cannot reveal details due to the interest of further procedures," police spokeswoman Alenka Drenik told Reuters.

Although the statues face was rough-hewn and unrecognizable prior to the fire, the figure was painted with a pale blue wraparound coat resembling the one Melania Trump wore at the swearing in of her husband U.S. President Donald Trump.

The figure was carved with a chainsaw by local folk artist Ales Zupevc from the trunk of a living linden tree.

In January, a large wooden statue resembling Donald Trump, designed by a local artist last year, was burnt in Slovenia's city of Moravce, east of the capital Ljubljana.

(Reporting by Marja Novak and Borut Zivulovic; Editing by Diane Craft)
Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, presides over a meeting held by the Chairperson's Council of the CPPCC National Committee, in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 21, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhai Jianlan)

BEIJING, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- China's top political advisory body, the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), on Friday held a Chairperson's Council meeting in Beijing to adopt two sets of guidelines on the work of the CPPCC.

The meeting adopted the guidelines on improving the CPPCC's work on building consensus and the guidelines on organizing research into major strategic issues by the CPPCC National Committee.

The meeting also heard an evaluation report about the CPPCC National Committee's work concerning consultation and deliberation in 2019.

Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the CPPCC National Committee, presided over the meeting.

Calling strengthening theoretical and political guidance and building broad consensus the major tasks of the CPPCC in the new era, Wang called for efforts to improve the working mechanisms in this regard to better communicate the Party's propositions.

He stressed making good use of the CPPCC talent pool to conduct research on major strategic issues, so as to better serve the modernization of the country's system and capacity for governance.

Wang also demanded effective evaluation of consultation and deliberation to improve the CPPCC's work.
Chandigarh, Aug 23 : As the two floodgates of the rain-fed Sukhna Lake were opened here on Sunday for this first time this monsoon season, several low-lying villages downstream were inundated.

Officials told IANS that two of the three floodgates of the lake were opened after the water level rose alarmingly owing to overnight downpour in the catchment area.

The water level reached close to the danger mark of 1,163 feet.

A police post at Baltana town in Punjab, some 10 km from here, was inundated. Several villages like Kishangarh and slums located along the Patiala Ki Rao choe, where the outflow of the lake was released, were affected.

"We had alerted residents of villages located in the lake periphery ahead of the water release," an official of the Engineering Wing of the Chandigarh administration told IANS.

On September 24, 2018, two floodgates of the lake were opened owing to heavy rainfall after a gap of 10 years.

The area of Sukhna Lake, which has Kasauli hills and lower Shivaliks in its backdrop, has shrunk by nearly 57 per cent owing to high siltation.

In the past four decades, construction of over 200 check dams in the Sukhna choe and other rivulets, which feed the lake from the catchment areas of neighbouring Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, has decreased the amount of water flowing into the water body.

The man-made lake now has a capacity of around 500 hectare metres of water against its original capacity of over 1,074 hectare metres in the late 1950s when it was built.
Skyla Marroquin, 12, created a gift bag program in honor of area nurses. (Photo: April Guajardo)

Skyla Marroquin has kept busy this summer vacation.

A rising 7th grader from McAllen, Texas, 12-year-old Marroquin wanted to do something nice for the health care workers who cared for her beloved great-grandmother, whom she calls GG, when she was hospitalized with COVID-19 in July. When she and her mother went to hold up homemade signs outside GGs hospital windows, it was the nurses who got the ailing woman up from her hospital bed to see Skyla and the family outside.

The main inspiration was basically from my great-grandma, who was sick with COVID for 20 days, Marroquin told Yahoo Life. So we went to go visit her with our signs, and hoped she would see us because she was on the fourth floor. I was really grateful because her nurses helped her get up to see us. I wanted to thank the nurses. And thats how the idea began.

Wanting to do something special for the health care workers, Marroquin created the McAllen Nurse Care Kit Project, filling gallon-sized bags with treats ranging from granola bars and chips to pens and notepads. Each bag, which comes with a handwritten card thanking them for their hard work and dedication, was delivered to McAllen Medical Center, the Doctors Hospital at Renaissance in Edinburg, Rio Grande Regional Hospital in McAllen and Edinburg Regional Hospital, where GG was treated.

So they have something to munch on during their lunch break if they dont have anything with them, or they need something to snack on, and they also contain a handwritten card to show that we appreciate them, Marroquin told Yahoo.

Skyla Marroquin picks up supplies. (Photo: April Guajardo)

Skyla Marroquin delivers a pack of gift bags to hospital workers. (Photo: April Guajardo)

As her efforts gained momentum, Marroquin recruited 65 of her fellow troop members from the McAllen Girl Scouts Service Unit to help. After creating 213 kits with friends and family, the Girl Scouts packed an additional 200  bringing the total to 413 kits for the hospitals.

Ive learned that even if its just a little tiny thing  for example, if I were to give a nurse a granola bar  theyre still going to appreciate it, and still know that someone is there thinking of them, says Marroquin, who will receive a Girl Scout patch for her hard work. And thanking them for their service, no matter how small it is, from a small cookie to a whole bouquet of flowers, theyre still going to know that someones there and that someone is thinking of them.

Story continues

Skyla Marroquin and her mother, April Guajardo, drop off supplies to an area hospital. (Photo: April Guajardo)

Marroquins mother April Guajardo is extremely proud of her daughters hard work.

Im just proud that she took the time, because it was hours, from the packing of the kits, organizing and writing those handmade cards, said Guajardo. Im really glad she was able to do this experience because this summer wasnt the same as it is usually, but its good we made it a little bit more impactful to the community.

Luckily, GG has since been released from the hospital and is back home recovering. Skyla was even able to visit her great-grandmother recently and tell her about all her hard work.

She loves it, said Guajardo. Shes glad that Skyla was able to help.

Skyla Marroquin visits with her great-grandmother, GG, after she was released from the hospital. (Photo: April Guajardo)

Marroquin isnt stopping just quite yet. Though shes gearing up to head back to school, shes hoping to expand the McAllen Nurse Care Kit Project to another hospital.

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.

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Tropical Storm Laura causes destruction in Haiti and the Dominican Republic as it trails Hurricane Marco.

Marco, a storm travelling over the Gulf of Mexico has become a hurricane, while Tropical Storm Laura, which is on course to cross over the same body of water, has been deemed a potential hurricane threat.

On Sunday, Marco was upgraded as it cut a path towards the coast of Louisiana, which is was expected to hit on Monday. Laura, meanwhile, killed seven people at it passed over the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Laura was on course to pass over Cuba before also hitting the Gulf Coast of the United States on Thursday.

In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, videos on social media showed people wading waist-deep in muddy water in some of the worst flooding the capital has seen in years. Haiti is especially vulnerable to intense rains due to weak infrastructure and deforestation which increases the likelihood of landslides.

Authorities called on residents along the Artibonite River to evacuate due to risks the Peligre Hydroelectric Dam might burst.

Tropical Storm #Laura has formed and may threaten Florida, Gulf Coast next week: https://t.co/8rO3zVRX3i pic.twitter.com/7Std3QMW60  The Weather Channel (@weatherchannel) August 21, 2020

Haiti was also the first country to report a death  a 10-year-old girl who was killed when a tree fell on her home in the southern town of Anse-a-Pitres  from Tropical Storm Laura.

Meanwhile, in the Dominican Republic, at least three of the reported deaths were the result of walls collapsing, authorities said.

The storm left more than a million people in the Dominican Republic without electricity, forced more than a thousand to evacuate and caused several homes along the Isabela River to collapse, authorities said.

If Laura becomes a hurricane, it will be the first time recorded since at least 1900 that two hurricanes have formed in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time, according to Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.

US prepares

Officials in the Florida Keys, which Laura might pass over on its route into the Gulf, declared a local state of emergency on Sunday and issued a mandatory evacuation order for anyone living on boats, in mobile homes and in campers. Tourists staying in hotels were warned to be aware of hazardous weather conditions and consider changing their plans starting from Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Federal Emergency Management Agency sent teams to emergency operations centres in state capitals in Louisiana and Texas, according to spokesman Earl Armstrong. The agency is prepared to handle back-to-back storms, he said, pointing to 2004 when four hurricanes took aim at Florida in six weeks.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, who declared a state of emergency on Friday, also asked President Donald Trump for a federal emergency declaration as people in the state headed to stores to stock up on food, water and other supplies.

Storm surge warnings stretched from Morgan City, Louisiana to Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and hurricane warnings were issued from Morgan City to the mouth of the Pearl River

On Sunday, officials in Louisianas coastal Lafourche Parish ordered a mandatory evacuation for residents of low-lying areas. The US Coast Guard also raised its warning for the Port of New Orleans, calling for ships to make plans to evacuate some areas.

The potential for flooding and evacuations has further added to worries about the spread of COVID-19.

Tulane University, the largest private employer in New Orleans, said it will close its testing centre on Monday due to potential flooding and power outages, and called on students to maintain social distancing guidelines.
MONROE COUNTY, MI  Four people were arrested over the weekend after a chase by Michigan State Police in Southeast Michigan.

Michigan State Police 911 received information around 3:45 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 22, that deputies with the Monroe County Sheriffs Office were in pursuit of a red sedan with a Tennessee license plate.

The vehicle was wanted in Tennessee in connection with an armed carjacking incident.

Additional information revealed the suspects had been in Ohio and pursued by Wood County, Ohio, Sheriffs Office deputies with assistance by the Ohio Highway Patrol up to the Michigan state line.

The pursuit was taken over by the Monroe County Sheriffs Office once the vehicle crossed over into Michigan.

The vehicle was pursued along northbound Interstate 75 into Brownstown Township, south of Taylor, where police lost the vehicle.

Brownstown Township police were able to locate the vehicle and attempted a stop, but the vehicle did not stop. Michigan State Police were then contacted for assistance in the chase.

Troopers were able to locate the vehicle near Sibley Road and northbound I-75 where the vehicles passenger rear tire blew out.

Video posted by state police on Twitter shows the vehicle crash into a shoulder concrete wall and spinning multiple times before it came to a stop.

A trooper could be heard saying the vehicle was traveling at 90 miles per hour just before the crash.

Here is some dash cam footage of the pursuit. None of the occupants of the vehicle can be shown as they have not been charged with a crime. And yes that car is only driving on three tires and a rim. pic.twitter.com/xxkHB8sByw  MSP Metro Detroit (@mspmetrodet) August 22, 2020

Four people inside the vehicle were taken into custody. No injuries were reported.

Troopers later began to search the shoulder of I-75 and located a backpack near Mile Marker 2 in Monroe County with a handgun inside that Nashville, Tennessee, police confirmed was stolen.

The incident remains under investigation.

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Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters packed Minsk`s streets on Sunday as the army waded into the Belarus political crisis, warning that the military rather than police would respond to opposition unrest near the city`s national memorials.

Huge nationwide demonstrations that erupted after the country`s disputed election on August 9 have provided the biggest challenge yet to veteran leader Alexander Lukashenko`s 26-year-old rule and tested the loyalty of his security forces.

The streets of Minsk turned red and white as a flood of demonstrators carried flags symbolising their opposition to Lukashenko and chanted for him to leave power and for new elections to be held.

They marched towards a monument that was surrounded by a chain of security service members clad in military uniform, a Reuters witness said.

Until now, the police have handled crowd control on their own, but the defence ministry said it would take on security around national memorials and issued a direct warning to protesters.

The ministry said that memorials, specifically ones to those killed in World War Two, were holy sites that must not be desecrated.

"We categorically warn any violation of peace and order in such places - you will have the army to deal with now, not the police," it said in a statement. "We, soldiers, will not allow these places to be desecrated, there can be no fascism there!"

The interior ministry issued its own statement warning that any unsanctioned protests would be considered illegal. It said 22 people had been arrested on Saturday when smaller-scale protests took place across 55 towns and cities.

Protests triggered by Lukashenko`s claims of a landslide election victory on August 9 found a leader in opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a former teacher who took her jailed husband`s place on the ballot.

Following threats to her safety, Tsikhanouskaya fled to neighbouring Lithuania.

Powerful neighbour and traditional ally Russia issued some of its strongest comments yet criticising Tsikhanouskaya on Sunday.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described her role as intentionally destabilising and said her statements were directed at a Western audience.

"It seems she wasn`t allowed to calm down and she has started to make political statements, harsh ones, demanding walk-outs, strikes, protests," Lavrov was cited by the RIA news agency as saying.

"It is also significant that she is making her statements ever more frequently in English," Lavrov was cited as saying.

He described her political agenda as the opposite of constructive, focused instead on creating disunity by generating anti-Russian sentiment and squeezing out Russian language and culture, as well as by aiming to join the European Union and NATO.

Lavrov said there was no way to prove that Lukashenko did not win the August 9 election, since international observers were not present. Lavrov said such observers had declined an invitation to monitor the vote.

By calling for Lukashenko to quit, protesters were pushing for a Venezuela-style crisis, Lavrov said.

"Some Belarusian opposition members, who live in the West... really want for things to be different: for there to be bloodshed, to provoke a reaction by Belarusian security services, who are not touching anyone right now and are not getting involved in the holding of peaceful demonstrations," Lavrov was cited as saying.
The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has promised to construct a harbour and an airport in the Central Regional capital of Cape Coast should Ghanaians renew their mandate to run the affairs of the country for the second term.



Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia who disclosed this at the launch of the Partys 2020 manifesto in Cape Coast on Saturday, underscored the importance of an airport and said it was critical in boosting tourism and development in the Region.



For the people of Cape Coast, I have good news for you, we are building a new harbour in Cape Coast and a new airport in Cape Coast. It is very critical that we do that, he announced.



An airport makes a lot of sense in Cape Coast. It is a real tourist hub and between Greater Accra and Kumasi, you have a triangle that really is a hub for economic activities, you can build railway lines between them and its a major growth pole if we put an airport here to drive infrastructural growth, he added.



It would be recalled that in March this year, some residents of Cape Coast hit the streets with a No Airport No Vote protest to push for the construction of an international airport to create more job opportunities.



However, commenting on the issue, the President in a media interview during his recent visit to the Region mentioned that such a request would have to be thoroughly thought through since there were airports in Accra and Takoradi.



It therefore came as a surprise to many residents and as such were sceptical about the announcement.



Sone resident at the launch, in an interview with the GNA said the government should come clear of the promise because they were looking forward to it.



But Dr Bawumia was emphatic that the Partys Second term in office will bring that promise to fruition.



He also hinted that the Eastern Rail line and the Ghana-Burkina line, the Boankora inland port, the Bupei Port and the Atuabo Port would also be duly constructed in the next term of the NPP government.



According to the Vice President, the NPP government had achieved 80 percent of its 2016 manifesto promises, saying their massive achievement was unparalleled in the history of Ghana.



We have over 300 achievements in the first three years. If you look at the manifesto, you will see that we have achieved 80 percent of our promises.



That is massive for any government in its first term. When you look at these achievements, you realise that sector by sector we have really performed much better than the previous NDC government, he said.

Source: GNA









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"So why wouldn't we just change the [party] constitution, which is our plan, and open up preselections for 2020 when we've got the numbers all eligible," he asked of his allies in a call recorded in 2018, "[when] we're locked in, we're institutionalised, we've got our members in the upper house, we've got a state director around our finger."

Mr Sukkar denies any involvement in branch stacking and Mr Bastiaan insists he never breached the Liberal Party constitution. But in private, Mr Bastiaan was candid about his ambitions.

The most serious allegations facing Mr Sukkar, the federal Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Housing, and Mr Andrews involves their dealings with Liberal backroom powerbroker Marcus Bastiaan . Taped phone calls capture Mr Sukkar plotting to remove four sitting Victorian Liberal state MPs while Mr Bastiaan is recorded targeting up to six federal Liberal MPs by 2020.

This time, though, the branch-stacking operation was on the Liberal side of the aisle. And the plan, revealed in secret recordings, colourful social media communications as well as a tranche of leaked files and planning documents, implicates one of Prime Minister Scott Morrison's own frontbenchers, Michael Sukkar, along with Kevin Andrews, a former cabinet minister and the longest-serving member in the House of Representatives.

But in 2018, it was part of a scheme similar to the Adem Somyurek school of factional hardball . It involved installing enough members into party branches to control the preselection of favoured political candidates and win key internal party positions. And as with Mr Somyurek, the disgraced state Labor MP forced out of cabinet in June, the scheme used fake members and taxpayer-funded staffers to amass significant political power.

Mr Bastiaan's political operation recruited dozens of Liberal members and added them to seats that were often nowhere near their real addresses. In one case, a new member lived 50km from the electorate. Others have said their party memberships were paid by ethnic recruiters in breach of party rules.

"Who gives a shit," he responded to one electorate officer in a call to discuss allegations taxpayer funds were being misused. "We are trying to win a f---ing seat mate."

Records show Mr Sukkar's younger brother, Paul, was employed as an electorate officer in 2017. It is a breach of federal and state laws for an electorate officer to work for the benefit of other MPs or engage in party political activity. But in secretly taped conversations, Mr Bastiaan was scathing of that restraint.

Among the leaked material provided to The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes by half-a-dozen Liberal insiders is a memo created by Mr Bastiaan and seemingly endorsed by Mr Sukkar, who responded, "good summary". It sets out a scheme to build the Bastiaan-Sukkar faction's power by giving taxpayer-funded jobs in Kevin Andrews' office to Mr Bastiaan's operatives. Employed as electorate officers, who usually carry out mundane constituent work for their MP, these staffers were instead directed to recruit members for the faction.

In April 2018, Mr Bastiaan's years of amassing numbers across the state culminated in an extraordinary scene: members loyal to him bearing proxy voting forms arrived en masse on chartered buses to the party's state council and delivered a thumping win to the party's right-wing hardliners. They re-elected Mr Kroger as state president, voted Mr Bastiaan to be one of the party's vice-presidents and gained control of the powerful administrative committee. Party elders had seen nothing like it. At the heart of Mr Bastiaan's success was his ability to target certain conservative religions and ethnic groups. At least 10 of the 78 people elected to the Liberals' administrative bodies at the state council were Mormons.

The 28-year-old quickly made his presence felt on Spring Street and in Canberra, partly via an alliance with Liberal powerbroker Michael Kroger. Mr Kroger was never totally comfortable with Mr Bastiaan, sources said, but he ultimately embraced the young firebrand, given his control of the votes of dozens if not hundreds of new party members.

Before he set his sights on the broader state party, Mr Bastiaan cut his teeth building a formidable power base in the well-heeled Melbourne bayside area. The Brighton Grammar alumni recruited voraciously  among friends, family and Rotary club members  and was the president of the local branch in his early 20s. But it was in 2016 that Mr Bastiaan burst to prominence, fashioning himself as the Liberals' new great hope. With a state election looming and then opposition leader Matthew Guy struggling against Premier Daniel Andrews, Mr Bastiaan claimed he was capable of re-energising disenchanted members by thrusting the party to the right.

When leaked recordings revealed Mr Somyurek had stacked branches and misused taxpayer-funded staff to win power, Prime Minister Morrison did not hesitate in demanding Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese take action over the "very concerning" reports.

After the election loss, recriminations were swift. Former premier Jeff Kennett called for Mr Kroger to resign live on television on election night, which he did within a week along with Mr Guy. The same month, The Age reported leaked text exchanges involving Mr Bastiaan in which he referred to "fag Catholics" who were "so far in the closet, if they end up coming out they will blow up big time with lots of secrets" while an associate referred to Indian members as "curries".

Marcus Bastiaan and wife Stephanie at their wedding. James Newbury, state MP for Brighton, is second to the left of Mr Bastiaan.

Despite concerns from party moderates, Mr Guy ran a hardline campaign focused largely on crime rates among South Sudanese youth. The party suffered a 7 per cent statewide swing, defeated in safe Liberal seats such as Hawthorn and coming within hundreds of votes of losing Brighton where the divisive Liberal candidate, James Newbury, was almost defeated by a teenage Labor candidate. Mr Newbury had been a groomsman at Mr Bastiaan's wedding.

The influx of social conservatives had an immediate impact on Liberal Party policy. The Bastiaan-Sukkar faction opposed policies such as Safe Schools and euthanasia, leading some senior figures such as former state director John Ridley to complain they were no longer "listening to, or interested in, the community mainstream".

The recordings reveal a close factional bond with Mr Sukkar, one of the most powerful conservative Liberals in federal politics. So close that in 2018, Mr Sukkar described Mr Bastiaan in one taped conversation as "a very important piece of the team".

That Mr Bastiaan wielded real political power within the party was an open secret among MPs. Even today, Liberal sources say he and his allies are not afraid to use it.

In another private message, Mr Bastiaan derided senior Victorian Liberal official Sean Armistead, who is Indigenous, as a "fake Aboriginal". When another Liberal operative joked that Mr Armistead was involved in "pagan abo rubbish" such as "praying to the rainbow serpent", Mr Bastiaan responded: "Ha ha."

It can be hard to separate hubris from reality with Mr Bastiaan, but new leaked communications obtained by The Age, the Herald and 60 Minutes do reveal ugly and immature posturing. In private conversations in 2017 between Mr Bastiaan and the vice-president of the Young Liberals, Alex Lisov, Mr Bastiaan describes Senator James Paterson's wife  who was at the time childless  as having a "barren womb". Mr Lisov responded by mocking the Patersons for having "no family values".

Mr Bastiaan denied sending the messages, with his lawyers suggesting they could be faked. Regardless, he had resigned from his leadership role weeks before the election, citing family reasons, though he remained a party member.

Michael Sukkar:

Evidence from memos, documents and recordings suggests that while Mr Sukkar was not actively involved in stacking Liberal branches, he benefited from it. In one private conversation, Mr Sukkar described the pair's tense but mutually beneficial relationship.

"Marcus has got to realise he is not the dictator," Mr Sukkar says. "None of us have individual numbers, we carry little groups of support and I think he has finally realised that he is not indispensable and I think that's a very, very healthy thing for him to now understand."

But one taped conversation exposes Mr Sukkar's own political plotting. He talks about their faction using its numbers to remove or shift a group of state upper house members in Victoria after they angered conservatives by voting in support of a euthanasia bill.

"My view is there is four people in the upper house on our side who have broken faith: Simon Ramsay, Bruce Atkinson, Mary Wooldridge, Ed O'Donohue. I think we can get rid of Simon Ramsay. We can potentially get rid of Bruce Atkinson, that's harder, but we can, it is still in the mix. So that is two out of the four gone."

Mr Sukkar's plan for Mr O'Donohue, an opposition frontbencher, was to shift him into the less-influential Mornington Peninsula lower house seat of Nepean. The plan never eventuated.

"In isolation, someone would look, for example, at the decision we've taken to support Ed O'Donohue," Mr Sukkar said. "That decision is not really consistent with our values. Because, in isolation, you look at that and you say: 'Well hold on, why are we facilitating a creep like O'Donohue into the lower house?' And then you go, 'let's look at the bigger picture here'."

Marcus Bastiaan: Eyes on a Senate seat. Credit:The Age

Mr Bastiaan also set his sights on sitting federal MPs. In one recording, he discussed his desire to remove the federal member for Goldstein, Tim Wilson, and former minister Kelly O'Dwyer, who has since resigned.

"We're going to have to fight very hard to beat Wilson and we can't get rid of O'Dwyer because if we do we'll be blamed for losing the election," Mr Bastiaan said in 2018. The idea was to wait for 2020, when he controlled more numbers and then "get rid of six of these guys rather than get rid of two and wake all of them up".

In their places, the faction hoped to install its own loyalists  including Mr Bastiaan himself  in Parliament. His preference was for the Senate "where I don't have to deal with constituent problems but I could continue to run the faction, so I could then fill Parliament both state and federal with good people."

Marcus Bastiaan:

Former Victorian Liberal premier Ted Ballieu has once again called for his party to take decisive action.

"We are talking about a few people seeking to rig elections, internal elections, in the Liberal Party, and I think that it's just staggering," said Mr Baillieu who would not speak about Mr Bastiaan directly. "And I can only presume that there are people who think that's more important than the great challenges Victorians are facing, and that's to their shame."

Under pressure: Tim Wilson and Kelly O'Dwyer. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Last week, Liberal state director Sam McQuestin launched an inquiry into branch stacking. A review of party membership for the 2019-2020 financial year had "found a small number of possible breaches of the party's rules around payment of other members' fees", he said in a statement. It's unclear what exactly his investigation is targeting. In the days leading up to the publication of this investigation, News Corporation mastheads have run stories attacking factional opponents of Mr Bastiaan and Mr Sukkar.

'FINE-TUNING THE MACHINE'

It is a critical 2018 memo written by Mr Bastiaan that best describes his faction's modus operandi. Recruiting members is a labour-intensive operation. The manpower required to fuel what Mr Bastiaan describes as an organisational "machine" is obtained by fake political jobs paid for by taxpayers.

The operation was conducted from Kevin Andrews' office. Credit:The Age

The document was viewed and endorsed by Mr Sukkar. It appears to outline breaches of the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act by showing staffers in Kevin Andrews' office were directed to conduct party political work while paid by the taxpayer. There is no suggestion Mr Andrews knew of the memo, but other correspondence suggests that Mr Andrews was directed to hire the factional staff and had at least a general awareness they may be engaged in factional work.

One factional operative, Thilaga Jayakumaran, who came from the Mormon church, was listed as working five days a week as an electorate officer for Mr Andrews in early 2018. It is a job that the Department of Finance paid her $1000 a week to perform.

But Ms Jayakumaran's actual tasks, according to the memo, were to "take a leading role in turning out numbers and facilitating proxies for state council" as well as "databasing of new members, facilitating factional operations". Ms Jayakumaran was directed by Mr Bastiaan. "Marcus told her to provide Ivan more support," the memo says, a reference to former state administrative committee member and Mormon elder Ivan Stratov.

While the law requires electorate officers to "work under the sole direction of the employing senator or member", the memo suggests Mr Andrews' electorate officers reported at least partly to Mr Bastiaan. "I feel I have the capacity to manage them," Mr Bastiaan wrote.

Despite her job, according to the memo, Ms Jayakumaran lacked the skills to perform electorate officer work. "Marcus told her to learn office skills at Kevin's so she can take up and [sic] EO role if required," the memo said. When called for a response, Ms Jayakumaran hung up the phone.

Another identified in the memo as being a factional operative, Cameron Manassa, is listed as working three days as an electorate officer each week for Mr Andrews, of which "three hours per day" was to be spent on "membership resources on eligible pre-selectors". Another operative working one day a week as an electorate officer was, according to the Bastiaan memo, "recruiting, however focus needs to be on numbers".

Labor's Adem Somyurek was accused of using taxpayer-funded staff for his factional work while the "red shirts" affair exposed the Victorian Labor government over a similar misuse of money. But Mr Sukkar's response to Mr Bastiaan's memo is to describe it as a "good summary". And in a secret recording, when questioned on using electorate officers in the manner exposed during the "red shirts" affair, Mr Bastiaan was scathing of the rules.

"Who gives a shit  we are trying to win a f---ing seat mate ... The reality is, this is the hardest f---ing business now to get a job while you're a candidate. It's impossible because you can't work and also campaign so the party has to provide some sort of cover ... That's a political, that's a reality. You can't change it. That's politics."

Corruption expert Geoffrey Watson, SC, who analysed the secret recordings of Mr Somyurek, described the Bastiaan memo endorsed by Mr Sukkar as "prima facie evidence of the misuse of taxpayers' money".

"I very much doubt that Sukkar can or should remain a minister of the Crown. A minister is a position of real power and thus real trust and you cannot have it in the hands of people who abuse it," Mr Watson said.

Asked last week if he had ever stacked branches or paid for others' membership, Mr Bastiaan said he had not "willingly or knowingly breached the [Liberal Party] constitution". Quizzed about whether he had ever installed electorate office staff to do factional work, he said: "That's not the role of the electorate officer. What they choose to [do] outside of office hours is their business."

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Mr Bastiaan said his role in the Liberal Party in the past 2 years had been "zero". "I work Saturday and Sunday trying to keep a business going," he said.

Mr Sukkar denied he had been involved in branch stacking either on his own account or in support of Mr Bastiaan and was "positive" he had never endorsed the scheme allegedly run through Kevin Andrews' office.

He said "it can be hard" to control the work that party people do in your electorate office but added: "If recruitment was going on, you're going to have to show that that recruitment was going on during those hours, and if it was, that's wrong. Absolutely wrong."

Kevin Andrews said in a statement: "Electorate staff employed in my office are expected to abide by relevant workplace laws and standards."

Michael Sukkar:

FRIENDS AND FAMILY

Mr Sukkar's younger brother, Paul, was one of the factional operatives employed five days a week for stints in 2017 and 2018 in Kevin Andrews' office. His duties, according to the memo, included "recruitment for Menzies" (Mr Andrews' east-suburban seat) and "recruitment outside Menzies".

While Paul Sukkar might have been qualified for the job, the Department of Finance prohibits MPs from hiring their relatives as electorate officers to prevent the perception of nepotism. Mr Sukkar did not employ Paul but Mr Andrews did.

An August 2017 message to Paul Sukkar from Mr Bastiaan directs him to "Please help  on your relevant Liberal days to  initiate and follow through transfers of existing members into their home electorate. Update the entire Party database. This is expected to take at least six weeks."

Employment records show that by 2018, Paul Sukkar was shifted by the Bastiaan faction from his job in Mr Andrews' office to a role paid for out of the Liberal Party's budget, funded via political donations. Michael Sukkar said in a statement he was aware that his brother, Paul, had "worked with the Member of Menzies" Kevin Andrews in 2017 and 2018 but "my understanding was that Paul was employed by the Liberal Party".

"He was there to support Kevin. He was there to help Kevin," Michael Sukkar said.

It seems the faction liked to keep things in the family. Mr Bastiaan's wife, Stephanie, also did a stint as an electorate officer in Mr Sukkar's office. In various messages, the Bastiaans query if an Andrews' electorate officer, Nick Lamanna, was doing enough factional work. Mr Bastiaan complained Mr Lamanna was only engaged in "general office activity", was "underworked" and doing "nothing of note".

Stephanie Bastiaan. Credit:The Age

Stephanie Bastiaan was scathing. "Lamanna is a waste at Kevin's office  he [is] only doing EO [Electorate Officer] stuff," she complained. "We've got enough freeloaders in our faction  don't need non-factional people too! Kev needs to wake up. Lol!"

DOSA HUT AND DUTTON

Mr Bastiaan's biggest recruiting grounds have been Mormon churches, through Mr Stratov, and the Indian community where he has had the help of Rampal Muthyala, the owner of Indian restaurant chain Dosa Hut. Mr Bastiaan has always claimed these members are legitimate, have paid for their own memberships and are committed to the party. But evidence collected by The Age, the Herald and 60 Minutes suggests otherwise.

Confidential communications between Mr Bastiaan and Mr Lisov show the pair discussing giving cash to a Liberal operative in 2017 so he can pay for six new members.

"He had $150," Mr Lisov complained. "He has not produced me six names." Mr Bastiaan told Mr Lisov to find out what happened but to "be careful leaving anything written to him" because "he's possible to blow up". Mr Lisov responded that he was "very careful" and did not "discuss anything with money in writing".

"I'm amazed he's taken your money and is relaxed about it. C---," Mr Bastiaan texted. Mr Lisov responded wryly that the money was "technically yours".

A key indicator of whether members of political parties are genuine is that they pay their own membership fees and fill out their own forms. In a leaked 2016 email, Mr Bastiaan instructed Mr Muthyala to fill in forms in bulk.

Stephanie and Marcus Bastiaan with Dosa Hut owner and factional operative Rampal Muthyala.

"Tick the box saying they are happy to help at elections," Mr Bastiaan instructed him, and "tick the box saying automatic renewal, this saves time next year".

The Age, the Herald and 60 Minutes have spoken to about 30 people who said they were recruited to the Liberal Party by Mr Muthyala, including four young Liberals who joined in 2018. Of the 30, four admitted on the record that Mr Muthyala had paid for their memberships. Two outlined a scam by which they paid for their membership with their own credit cards but were then reimbursed by Mr Muthyala, an apparent attempt to avoid raising alarm bells at Liberal headquarters.

Liberal member Sisindra Gandavarapu said he had temporarily paid $50 to Mr Muthyala to fund a membership application and that about 15 family and friends had done the same. Then they got their money back.

"We just pay him $50 then he does the membership  and he pays you back the money to your account," Mr Gandavarapu said.

Kishore Yannam said Mr Muthyala had recruited him and asked him to vote in internal party elections. "One year he paid for me. The closing date was approaching, so he paid," Mr Yannam said.

Marcus Bastiaan:

Mr Bastiaan and Mr Muthyala are close. Mr Bastiaan invited the restaurant chain owner to his wedding and helped bring former prime minister Tony Abbott to the opening of one of Mr Muthyala's suburban Dosa Huts. Mr Bastiaan also supported Mr Muthyala's ultimately unsuccessful push to win Liberal preselection for an upper house seat in 2018, according to confidential party files.

Michael Sukkar and Rampal Muthyala.

The year before, in 2017, Mr Bastiaan asked a federal minister if he could do a "favour" for Mr Muthyala by getting Immigration Minister Peter Dutton to assist with a visa request. An email from Mr Bastiaan asked the minister to see "if there is anything he can do with this re PD's office".

"If to [sic] hard don't worry  would be a favour to Rampal."

There is no evidence the request was either made to Mr Dutton or agreed to. Mr Muthyala denied all wrongdoing.

MARCUS AND THE MORMONS

Steve Holland, who chairs the local Liberal branch in the seat of Dunkley on the Mornington Peninsula, has had enough.

Earlier this year, he rejected two "fake" members recruited by Mr Stratov, saying they "openly state that not only are they unwilling to help the Liberal Party in winning elections through volunteering, but some of them have told me that they may not even vote Liberal at the ballot box".

Mr Holland said the focus on whether non-genuine members were from conservative church groups had obscured a bigger issue: that stacking was sometimes occurring with impunity and driving away real party members.

"I have no doubt that branch stacking occurs," Mr Holland said. "I think it's more discreet in the Liberal Party but the damage that it can do is the same regardless  I would describe it as a wet blanket on genuine membership engagement."

Mr Stratov recently quit the Liberal Party's administrative committee, saying he had moved to Ukraine.

Marcus Bastiaan:

A major stacking operation appears to have been organised by the Bastiaan faction in 2017. It involved putting dozens of members into the party's Ringwood branch even though most of the new members did not live in the electorate.

But some Liberal members signed up to the Ringwood state electoral conference by the Bastiaan faction in 2017 said they did not know why they were signed up there because they had never lived in the locality. Maddie, who did not want to use her full name, said she paid for her membership initially but did not pay in subsequent years. The membership was continually renewed anyway.

"I ended up texting someone saying, 'What's going on? Do I have to do anything? Am I a member?' Then I get another membership card in the mail and I was like, 'Oh, OK'. [The recruiter] said you don't need to worry about doing forms or anything," she said. "I had to vote [in internal Liberal Party elections] twice. I had no idea  I just did it."

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Another member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he was recruited by Mr Bastiaan at a religious gathering in a private home where they spoke about the same-sex marriage plebiscite.

The member paid for his own membership but said he did not know why he was placed in the Ringwood branch when he lived more than 50km away. "I never went there and had no idea why I was put in Ringwood," he said.

The Ringwood campaign appears to be the equivalent to the Labor practice of "warehousing", used by Adem Somyurek, in which people were recruited to branches using false addresses to achieve an internal party outcome. Two other members, both of whom did not want to be identified, said they joined the party because a friend asked them to. Both lived in Mount Waverley and did not know why they were placed in the Ringwood branch 15km away.

It was 2016 when whispers first began that the Bastiaan-Sukkar faction was involved in branch stacking. A covert recording of a factional meeting attended by Michael Sukkar and Mr Bastiaan in November that year captured Mr Sukkar deriding those who complained.

"The same people that talk about branch stacking bitch and moan to me that they couldn't get people onto their booths during the campaign," Mr Sukkar said.

"They're a disgrace," Mr Bastiaan said as an aside.

Michael Sukkar:
NEW YORK, Aug. 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against FirstEnergy Corporation ("FirstEnergy" or the "Company") (NYSE: FE) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court for the S, and indexed under 20-cv-06896, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons and entities other than Defendants who purchased or otherwise acquired FirstEnergy securities between February 21, 2017, and July 21, 2020, inclusive (the "Class Period"). Plaintiff seeks to pursue remedies against FirstEnergy and certain of the Company's current and former most senior executives under Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the "Exchange Act"), and Rule l0b-5 promulgated thereunder.

If you are a shareholder who purchased FirstEnergy securities during the class period, you have until September 25, 2020, to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at [email protected] or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 7980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased.

[Click here for information about joining the class action]

Defendant FirstEnergy is headquartered in Akron, Ohio. The Company is an electric utility company with subsidiaries and affiliates involved in the distribution, transmission, and generation of electricity, as well as energy management and other energy-related services. FirstEnergy's ten electric utility operating companies comprise one of the U.S.'s largest investor-owned utilities, serving more than six million customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York. The Company also owned and operated two nuclear power plants in Ohiothe Perry Nuclear Generating Station and the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station.

The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Company's business, operational, and compliance policies. Specifically, Defendants failed to disclose to investors that: defendants touted FirstEnergy's legislative "solutions" to problems with its nuclear facilities, but failed to disclose that these "solutions" centered on an illicit campaign to corrupt high-profile state legislators to secure legislation favoring the Company. Over a nearly three-year period, FirstEnergy and its affiliates funneled more than $60 million to prominent state politicians and lobbyists, including Ohio Speaker Larry Householder ("Householder"), to secure the passage of Ohio House Bill 6 ("HB6"), which provided a $1.3 billion ratepayer-funded bailout to keep the Company's failing nuclear facilities in operation. In addition, defendants falsely represented that they were complying with state and federal laws and regulations regarding regulatory matters throughout the Class Period, exposing the Company and its investors to undisclosed risks of reputational, legal, and financial harm.

The truth began to be revealed on July 21, 2020. That day, federal agents announced the arrest of Householder and four other persons, including a prominent FirstEnergy lobbyist, in connection with a $60 million racketeering and bribery scheme. The 82-page criminal complaint and affidavit detailed a pay-to-play scheme in which FirstEnergy corrupted the legislative process to ensure the passage of HB6. Prosecutors described the case as involving the "largest bribery, money-laundering scheme" in Ohio history.

On this news, FirstEnergy's stock price fell, trading as low as $22.85 per share on July 22, 2020, down nearly 45% from its closing price of $41.26 per share on July 20, 2020, damaging FirstEnergy shareholders.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Paris, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com

CONTACT:

Robert S. Willoughby

Pomerantz LLP

[email protected]

SOURCE Pomerantz LLP

Related Links

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The annual Ganpati festival is here with the entire state geared up to celebrate it. However, for the first time, the century-old festival starting Saturday till September 1, will be celebrated differently in view of Covid-19 pandemic. Here are various ways the festival is different this year:

No processions: The public processions organised on the first and last day of the 10-day festival will be missed on the streets in cities like Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur and other parts in Maharashtra. The police have prohibited any processions, which is one of highlights of the festival.

No dhol tasha performances: The processions are accompanies by dhol-tasha troupes which have been an integral part of the celebrations. The harmonised sound of hundreds of humungous dhols mark the beginning and end of festivities in Maharashtra. However, this year, the music is missing. Every year, my family and I come to witness grand celebrations through processions by various mandals. We are missing it this year, said Sai Ambekar, a banker.

Idols smaller in height: After government capped the Ganpati idol height at 4-feet, most mandals in Mumbai and Pune have decided to install smaller idols. In Mumbai, tall idols have been a major attraction of the festival.

Online darshan: To catch a glimpse of the well-known Ganpati idols like Lalbaugcha Raja, Dagdusheth Ganpati and other, the devotees will have to log in online instead of in-person darshan. Families and friends throng the mandaps of various Ganpati installations in various parts of Maharashtra to witness skits, social activities, games, innovative installations and decorations.

Home delivery: The idols for home installation were home delivered by the sellers to avoid crowding at stalls. The goods required for puja were also delivered directly to residents doorsteps. The priests, who perform aartis and pujas during these installations, have also chosen the online way of reaching out to their customers.
Sadie Robertsons husband comes to her defense after she's mocked at speaking engagement

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"Duck Dynasty" star Sadie Robertson publicly praised her husband, Christian Huff, who came to her defense after she was mocked at a speaking engagement.



The Christian author and speaker took to Instagram on Monday to share the detail of what her husband did after two men mocked her for crying during a speech in which she shared a hurtful incident that happened in her life.

"HUGE LOVE," she began in the post that includes a photo of her and her husband standing in a field. "Let me tell you girls. Wait for the guy that you dont have to stand up to, but that stands up for you."

The former reality TV star explained that she was speaking to a group of people about a time when she was really hurt by a man she was in a relationship with. As she shared the story, she began to cry.

It was the first time I had ever shared this detail of what happened publicly, Robertson explained.

Then all of a sudden, two guys in the room started to laugh as I was sharing the story.

I called them out by saying, 'you laugh, but its these kinds of things that ruin a girl,'" The Live author revealed, adding, "I quickly realized I wasnt the only one who stood up for myself. This husband of mine took them outside, and no, did not hit them, but called them to be better men. He called them to maturity and to greatness."

The young speaker advised her millions of followers not to cancel people or bash them when they act immaturely, but instead enlighten them.

There are both types of guys and girls out there, and every guy and girl has the opportunity to mature and be better, the New York Times bestselling author maintained.

Robertson ended her post by honoring her husbands Christian values.

This man is a good one. He will be the first to tell you he used to be like those two guys, but Jesus called him to greater and He rose to the call. You can too, she concluded.

Robertson and Huff got married last November at the Robertson's family home in Louisiana. The ceremony was officiated by the founding pastor of Passion City Church, Louie Giglio, who described the event as a God-breathed moment.

Over 600 guests attended the ceremony. Among those present were celebrities Candace Cameron Bure, star of Fuller House, and former Fresh Prince of Bel-Air actor Alfonso Ribeiro.
100 Year Old Right

Online historical exhibit commemorates the ratification of the 19th Amendment

by Ella Bourland

Published in August, 2020

On August 18, 1920, the decades-long nationwide struggle to expand access to the ballot box celebrated a significant victory: women secured the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Michigan's state constitution enfranchised women two years prior, in November 1918. The recovered histories of Washtenaw County residents and groups who raised their varying views on women's right to vote are published nearly 100 years later in the online exhibit, Liberty Awakens.



As part of an effort by Washtenaw County historical organizations and the League of Women Voters of the Ann Arbor Area, Liberty Awakens artfully details women's suffrage as a story of social and political change. It documents the men and women who worked tirelessly against anti-suffrage sentiments, such as the one expressed by two anonymous Ann Arbor businessmen: "...women's place [is] in the kitchen or in the home where she can take care of the kitchen and babies. [Suffrage] is laziness upon the part of women, a desire to get away from home life, to spend money upon dress, to indulge their vanity, and to avoid their proper functions in the home." Suffragists pushed back that women's morals would uplift public policy and that their influence should not be limited to the domestic sphere, among other reasons.



Suffragists were not the only local politically active women at this time. Though it was well-educated, middle class white women who most often used their platforms to champion the right to vote, women with fewer social advantages also did, in addition to tackling other everyday concerns such as domestic violence, alcoholism, racism, the opportunity for work, decent housing, property ownership, and farming. Ann Arbor resident Jennie Buell (1853-1935) advocated for women's suffrage and rights through her life's work with the Grange movement-a fraternal organization aimed at advancing the social and economic needs of farmers. Using her capacity as the Grange's statewide lecturer, Buell traveled the area delivering pro-suffrage talks.



Other local women

...continued below...

established clubs that engaged in public life, demonstrating the idea that women had a moral sensibility and civic duty to influence policy in fields intersecting with suffrage. According to the Liberty Awakens exhibit, "In 1900, a small group of black women in Ann Arbor formed the Women's Federation of Clubs with the motto, Uplift Our Race, morally, physically and spiritually."After winning the right to vote, Ann Arbor suffragists and local groups reoriented their mission towards educating new voters. Local historian Matt Siegfried recounts educational classes offered to encourage newly enfranchised women voters in Ypsilanti: "The 1st Ward school...was used to give civic classes to...African American women voters. There were various meetings held in the city of Ypsilanti including in the Adams School building, where a mock election took place in early 1918 for both men and women of the 1st Ward."Today, local people and organizations are still working to empower and inform voters, as well as recognize and curb voter suppression. Ypsi Can I Share?, founded by community activist Gail Summerhill, aims to "bring information to audiences typically excluded by our government, media, and other mainstream sources," and "educate and engage people of color and others by providing basic political information so they become informed citizens."For the curious interested in the story of women's suffrage and the subsequent rise in women's political influence, see Carolyn Jefferson-Jenkins's 2020 book[Originally published in August, 2020.]
A California man, 81, has revealed how he spent 30 years building his 'dream house' before it was burned to ashes this week in one of the state's biggest wildfires on record.

Hank Hanson is just one of hundreds of homeowners and residents who have lost everything in the devastating blazes that continue to rip through the Golden State.

He told how he and his wife fled for their lives from their home in Vacaville Wednesday morning, just moments before the LNU Lightning Complex fires destroyed it, leaving his tomato plants the only thing unscathed.

'I worked on it for 30 years. It was pretty nice,' the 81-year-old said of his home.

California man Hank Hanson, 81, has revealed how he spent 30 years building his 'dream house' before it was burned to ashes this week in one of the state's biggest wildfires on record. Pictured he stands by his destroyed home

Hanson revealed how he was awake at around 1 a.m. Wednesday because his electricity was out and the stifling 95-degree (35C) temperature prevented him from sleeping.

He said he looked outside and saw the ridge line of the hills by his home lit up by the raging fire.

'It started pouring toward us like a waterfall,' he said.

Hanson said the couple often hear sirens after living nearly 30 years in the wildfire-prone wilderness of Northern California between San Francisco and Sacramento, but he realized the scale of this week's blazes was different.

There was no evacuation warning for the couple and their neighbors, due to firefighting crews being stretched thin.

Hanson said he quickly woke up his wife and they fled the roaring fire in their diesel truck, as they and other neighbors rang their car horns to alert other residents.

The couple made it to a hotel room in the nearby community of Fairfield and found out later their home, that they spent decades renovating, had been completely destroyed.

Hanson is just one of hundreds of homeowners and residents who have lost everything in the devastating blazes that continue to rip through the Golden State. He gestures to the kitchen of his home

He looks at artificial flowers that remained standing as the LNU Lightning Complex fires destroyed his Vacaville, California

Hanson, who owned a business that made patio enclosures, bought the property in 1974.

At the time it was a small redwood home originally built in Vacaville in the 1930s.

He spent weekends there for the next 17 years, planting walnut, peach, fig and eucalyptus trees.

In 1991, Hanson completed a 3,000 square-foot addition to that house complete with a wine cellar, indoor and outdoor pools plus three fireplaces.

The only thing that survived was his tomatoes which somehow did not burn.

'They escaped the whole deal,' he said. 'About the only thing I have left in the world is tomatoes.'

Hanson told how he and his wife fled for their lives from their home in Vacaville Wednesday morning, just moments before the LNU Lightning Complex fires destroyed it

A relative goes through the remains of the home. More than 13,700 firefighters are battling the blazes, the most severe of which are focused in Northern California west of the state capital in Sacramento and east of the San Francisco Bay

Hanson said they won't rebuild their home because 'I wouldn't want to do it on a lesser scale, and I don't got time to top the old one.'

Instead, he said he plans to turn the lot into a park and a campground for himself and his friends for the next few years.

Hanson said he and his wife are grateful to be alive and are treating the fire and their terrifying escape as 'an adventure'.

The fire that ripped through Hanson's home was one of more than 500 wildfires ignited across California this week from what state firefighting officials are calling a 'lightning siege' - summer thunderstorms that produce little or no rain but have prompted nearly 12,000 lightening strikes across sun-scorched terrain.

More than 13,700 firefighters are battling the blazes, the most severe of which are focused in Northern California west of the state capital in Sacramento and east of the San Francisco Bay.

The extraordinary reach of the flames has pushed firefighting resources to the point 'we have not seen in recent history,' said Shana Jones, chief of the Sonoma-Lake-Napa unit of the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Donald Trump issued a Presidential Major Disaster Declaration Saturday to boost the state's emergency response to the wildfires, after Governor Gavin Newsom pleaded with the president to grant the declarations Friday.

The National Guard has also been activated and is ready to send in helicopters and 240 crew members to help the embattled fire crews that have got the blaze only 15 percent contained.

Firefighters watch flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in the Berryessa Estates neighborhood of unincorporated Napa County on Friday. The huge wildfire has grown to become the second largest in the state's history
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 11:47:57|Editor: huaxia

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A Long March-2D carrier rocket, carrying the Gaofen-9 05 satellite, is launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, Aug. 23, 2020. China successfully launched a new optical remote-sensing satellite from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 10:27 a.m. Sunday (Beijing Time). A multifunctional test satellite and another satellite named Tiantuo-5 were also launched via the rocket. (Photo by Wang Jiangbo/Xinhua)

JIUQUAN, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- China successfully launched a new optical remote-sensing satellite from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 10:27 a.m. Sunday (Beijing Time).

The satellite, Gaofen-9 05, was sent into orbit by a Long March-2D carrier rocket.

A multifunctional test satellite and another satellite named Tiantuo-5 were also launched via the rocket.

Sunday's launch was the 343rd mission of the Long March rocket series.
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Linkedin Issam Ahmed (Agence France-Presse) Washington, United States  Sun, August 23, 2020 09:02 515 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066fc5dfe 2 Environment prehistoric-era,animals,paleontology,Science,reptiles Free

More than 230 million years ago, a giant, dolphin-like marine reptile known as an ichthyosaur devoured its final meal -- a creature almost its own size -- then died a short time later.

Inside its belly was the body of a lizard-like aquatic reptile called a thalattosaur, shorn of its head and long tail but undigested.

Paleontologists digging in a quarry in southwestern China were surprised to discover the remains in 2010: it's almost unheard of to find the stomach contents of marine fossils.

A decade on, in a paper published in iScience Thursday, researchers concluded that rather than feeding on much smaller cephalopods like squid, the five-meter long ichthyosaur was probably a megapredator.

What's more, this particular specimen might have died while ingesting its prey, literally biting off more than it could chew.

"The most likely cause of death is the neck breakage, which likely prevented the predator from breathing," co-author Ryosuke Motani, a paleobiologist at the University of California, Davis told AFP.

The ichthyosaur may have sustained injuries while fighting the thalattosaur, he added, or while trying to swallow it -- or both.

But, Motani cautioned: "The interpretation of the death process involves speculation, because nobody was there filming it for us."

Read also: Fossil of one of the last megaraptors on the planet found in Argentina

Crocodile-like teeth

The team are a bit more confident that the thalattosaur, which was slightly smaller than its foe at four meters in length, met a violent end, rather than being scavenged after dying of natural causes.

"There are no signs of rotting of the prey -- if it was a rotten carcass, you would not expect to see the fingers still attached to the body," said Motani.

The thalattosaur's disconnected tail was found 20 meters away, leading the team to believe it was ripped off and left behind by the ichthyosaur.

The ichthyosaur's stomach contents didn't show signs of advanced digestion by acid, meaning it likely perished soon after its final meal.

"At first, we just didn't believe it, but after spending several years visiting the dig site and looking at the same specimens, we finally were able to swallow what we were seeing," added Motani.

Because the discovery of stomach contents in marine fossils is so rare, scientists generally rely on tooth and jaw shapes to discern what they may have eaten.

Ancient apex predators are typically thought to have had large, very sharp teeth -- even though some modern predators like crocodiles use blunt teeth to consume large prey using grasping force instead of cutting.

Ichthyosaurs have blunt teeth, but because there was no direct evidence of large prey consumption, researchers previously thought they must feed on small prey.

"Now, we can seriously consider that (Ichthyosaurs) were eating big animals, even when they had grasping teeth," added Motani.

These events took place after the end of the Permian period, some 250 million years ago, when land vertebrates started moving back to the sea following a mass extinction event.

The fact that predators arose shortly afterwards in the Middle Triassic was a sign that ecosystems were bouncing back, said Motani.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y -- At a time when a class action lawsuit on behalf of Staten Island and South Brooklyn restaurant owners is in the works, theres a push from a local activist for the city and state to provide grants for restaurant owners who lost significant revenue due to coronavirus (COVID-19).

We have well past the point of ridiculousness with the ever changing plan to open up restaurants for indoor dining, said Leticia Remauro, a former restaurant owner and candidate for Staten Island borough president, who is calling on Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio to provide help for restaurants.
Not only Hanoi, the northern region of Vietnam also has many impressive destinations for foreign visitors such as terraced fields or beautiful bays.

Mai Chau

Located in the center of the northern province of Hoa Binh is Mai Chau, a district with green trees, beautiful mountains and a diverse and vibrant culture.

Mai Chau is home to seven ethnic groups: Mong, Dao, Muong, Hoa, Viet, Thai, and Tay. In addition to green valleys, Mai Chau also stands out with stilt houses built 3m above the ground.

Cat Ba island

Cat Ba archipelago has more than 360 islands, the largest island named Cat Ba. There are many beautiful places on the island for your exploration. Up to over 50% of the island's area belongs to the Cat Ba national park, which is created to protect the rare Cat Ba langur.

Cat Ba Island is also home to the Cannon Fort, built in 1942. You can visit the fortress and take advantage of the altitude to take some great photos of the scenery below.

Bai Tu Long Bay

Without a doubt, Ha Long Bay is one of the most popular destinations in the North of Vietnam. However, it is not the only beautiful bay worth exploring in the area.

Bai Tu Long Bay, which is very near to Ha Long Bay, also boasts with a submerged karst plateau, crystal blue waters and a group of small islands.

In fact, many people prefer Bai Tu Long Bay because it is less crowded. The best way to visit Bai Tu Long Bay is by boat as the boat will take you to the highlights across the bay.

Bac Ha

Bac Ha is small and the best way to explore it is to go to the town square. There are a number of local eateries that serve delicious, inexpensive food and there are many beautiful handicraft shops.

However, what really makes Bac Ha worth a visit is the Sunday market. Every Sunday morning, residents from all over the region gather in Bac Ha, which becomes a concert of vivid colors and sounds.

People of different ethnic minority groups come to the tow to buy and sell goods. This is a great opportunity to see many ethnic groups in a beautiful setting.

Tam Coc

In fact, Tam Coc is one of the most spectacular destinations in the entire region.

The best way to explore Tam Coc is to take a boat ride along lush green fields and between striking limestone cliffs. You will go through three "tunnels" through the mountains, and be "floated" on the river gently.

On the boat, vendors can tempt you with beautiful local souvenirs and handicrafts.

Ha Giang

One of the most remote provinces in the country is Ha Giang. Located close to the border with China, Ha Giang province is known for its lush green forests and granite mountains.

It is a great destination to explore the diversity of ethnic groups in northern Vietnam and participate in outdoor activities such as camping or hiking. Ha Giang owns hundreds of spectacular landscapes.

However, the most prominent is the Ma Pi Leng Pass. The open-air market is a regular activity in Ha Giang, where local people come to attend weekly or monthly events. One of the most vibrant markets is Dong Van Market, held every Sunday.

Sapa

The mountainous town of Sapa is known for its rich cultural diversity as well as stunning scenery.

Sapa is inhabited by ethnic minorities including the Mong, Dao, Muong and Tay. The town overlooks the vibrant Muong Hoa Valley and stunning terraced rice fields.

If you want to learn more about the local residents and their culture, go to Sapa for a night market or live a few days in a homestay facility. You can walk to remote villages and then spend the night eating and experiencing with the hill tribe inhabitants.

Hanoi

If you can visit only one place in the North of Vietnam, let's stay in the capital Hanoi. Hanoi is an interesting mix of Eastern and Western culture.

French imprints are evident through cuisine as well as architecture, especially the Old Quarter in Hoan Kiem district. Hanoi has many beautiful temples, and a visit to the 11th-century Temple of Literature is an exciting activity.

The Ho Chi Minh Museum and the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, which are located next to each other, are also the main attractions in the capital city, and both are outstanding architectural works.

Ha Long Bay

One of the most popular destinations in the country is Ha Long Bay. Its reputation is well deserved, because it's really beautiful. Ha Long means the descending dragon, representing the silhouette of limestone outcrops rising above the water.

A day trip or overnight boat trip are a great way to experience the beauty of Ha Long Bay and see as many islands as possible.

You can go swimming, find caves to explore or find some more remote islands that are uninhabited when traveling through Ha Long Bay.

Mai Lan
Acceptance of the dictatorial rule of Chinas Communist Party and its leader Xi Jinping depends on the partys ability to keep delivering improving material prosperity. But suddenly, there are signs that an adequate food supply is in question, raising the specter of mass hunger or even worse. Bella Huang and Amy Qin report in the New York Times:

Chinese regulators are calling out livestreamers who binge-eat for promoting excessive consumption. A school said it would bar students from applying for scholarships if their daily leftovers exceeded a set amount. A restaurant placed electronic scales at its entrance for customers to weigh themselves to avoid ordering too much. Chinas top leader, Xi Jinping, has declared a war on the shocking and distressing squandering of food, and the nation is racing to respond, with some going to greater extremes than others. (snip)

Chinese Banquet Food (Public Domain Photo)

Cultivate thrifty habits and foster a social environment where waste is shameful and thriftiness is applaudable, Mr. Xi said in a directive carried by the official Peoples Daily newspaper last week. Mr. Xis edict is part of a broader message from the leadership in recent weeks about the importance of self-reliance in a time of tensions with the United States and other economic partners. The concern is that import disruptions caused by the global geopolitical turmoil, the pandemic and trade tensions with the Trump administration, as well as some of Chinas worst floods this year, could cut into food supplies.

Of course, China is trying to blame Trump and the US, even though the U.S. has placed no limitation on food sales to China. Last year, during an outbreak of African Swine flu, China was forced to slaughter and bury 350 million pigs, severely impacting the supply of Chinas favorite meat. That was just the warm up for this year's shortages.

Bloomberg reports:

Bloomberg spoke with almost a dozen agricultural traders, food company officials and industry researchers this week about the initiative, the majority of whom said they believed the push was targeted at reducing dependence on food imports in preparation for possible supply disruptions. Chinas Ministry of Agriculture did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Fears of supply disruptions due to Covid-19 have caused Chinas leaders to re-emphasize food security and self-sufficiency, said Darin Friedrichs, a senior analyst at StoneX Group Inc. in Shanghai. This includes diversifying where grain is sourced from abroad, but also making efforts to reduce food waste domestically, he said. Political tensions have threatened trade flows in some commodities, and earlier this year governments started reducing exports and safeguarding local supplies because of worries over the coronavirus  limiting the availability of food shipments to other countries. Heavily reliant on protein imports to feed its citizens, concerns about breaks in the global food supply chain are particularly salient for China, whose Communist Party leaders have long made economic development and personal enrichment a centerpiece of their rule.

Mao Zedong was able to win his communist revolution because conditions in China had been worsening for the 3 previous centuries, and life for the vast majority of people was insecure at best. Recurrent famines were a feature of life in the first half of the twentieth century. Mao delivered a mix of disaster with his Great leap Forward and Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution that killed scores of millions, and success with the building of prestige projects and solidifying the regimes controls on the populace.

With Chinas re-entry into the world economy and GATT membership, the standard of living of people, especially those in the cities, has soared. And with prosperity, the Chinee people have ratcheted up their expectations of their rulers, in part because they have far more exposure than ever before to life overseas through tourism and greater exposure to foreign media.

Ongoing heavy rains and flooding have not only threatened the Three Gorges Dam, they have devastated cropland to an unknown extent.

I doubt that actual famine is in prospect, for China now has the financial ability to purchase food overseas and the logistical capability to distribute it domestically. But food prices are rising and worse may be ahead:

According to Chinas National Bureau of Statistics, food prices in the country are 10% higher this July compared to last year. The disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic in international trade has had a severe impact on Chinas economy and cut off many of the supply chains through which it procured various kinds of food items. Chinas worsening relations with countries in its own neighbourhood, and also with the US and Australia  two major sources of food imports  have added to food security concerns. To make matters worse, the recent floods across large swathes of southern China have laid to waste farms and destroyed tonnes of produce. Parts of the country have also had to deal with locust swarms destroying crops.

My guess is that Xi Jinping wants to be free to pressure Trump on multiple fronts, from trade talks to his aggressive claims of sovereignty over key world trade routes in the South China Sea and his strident rhetoric over Taiwan. That could result in actual limits on US food exports to China, which could cause noticeable pressure on food availability. The clean plate campaign and anti-Trump rhetoric are in preparation for further confrontation.
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Overview

Cloud ERP uses cloud technology and platforms for providing ERP software. The use of cloud offers greater flexibility and transforms business processes. The Indian cloud ERP market is comparatively less mature than other markets in the world but expected to grow in the future due to increasing demand from SMEs. The intense competition and globalisation are key motivators for SMEs to deploy ERP on the cloud to minimise their infrastructural cost. Factors such as low IT manpower, low operational costs, data backup and recovery and ubiquitous access are encouraging SMEs to migrate ERP to the cloud.

Market Analysis

The overall ERP market in India is expected to grow at a CAGR of 25.4% during the forecast period 20152020. The market in the future will be driven by cloud ERP adoption among enterprises of all sizes. Cost advantages and flexibility that it offers, fosters the Cloud ERP market growth.

Request For Report sample @ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/9712

The SME segment is expected to drive cloud ERP market more than the large enterprises. The cloud ERP adoption in SME segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of 23.9% during the forecast period 20152020. However, security issues related to cloud technology and rising regulatory compliances will restrain the market.

Government and the larger enterprises are investing heavily in cloud technology which creates business opportunities for vendors in the market. For instance, the Indian government has initiated Make in India project to assist companies in adopting new technologies and upgrading their existing technologies.

Segmentation by Deployment Modes

The Cloud ERP Market in India is segmented and analyzed by the following deployment modes  Public, Private and Hybrid.

Segmentation by Implementation Modes

The Cloud ERP Market in India is segmented by two implementation modes- Direct Implementation and Implementation through Partners.

Segmentation by Enterprise Type

The Cloud ERP Market in India is segmented by SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) and Larger Enterprises.

Segmentation by Application Verticals

The market is segmented by the following key verticals- Aviation, Aerospace & Defense, Manufacturing (Discrete & Process), Facility Management, Public Sector & Government, Infrastructure & Real Estate, Engineering Procurement & Construction, Retail, Transportation and Logistics, Healthcare, Banking, Financial Services & Insurance (BFSI), Energy & Utilities and Others.

Key Vendors

Some of the major players in the market are Oracle, Ramco, SAP, and Wipro. The report also considers some of the watch list companies such as IFS, MYOB and Workday.

Competitive Analysis

Competitive benchmarking is done for the leading vendors based on key metrics- financial health, business units, business priorities, business strategy, strategic alliances and SWOT analysis etc.

Benefits

The report gives information related to the latest industry and market trends, market landscape, growth drivers, Porters Five Forces analysis, key stakeholders and competitive analysis of the key vendors.

More Info of Impact Covid19 @ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/covid-19-analysis/9712
The Charite hospital treating gravely ill Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny since he was medically airlifted to Germany two days earlier says that its tests indicate he was "poisoned."

Navalny "is in an intensive-care unit and is still in an induced coma," it said on August 24, adding that his health "is serious but there is currently no acute danger to his life."

The staunch anti-corruption campaigner and critic of President Vladimir Putin fell ill on August 20 during a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow.

The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk, where doctors put him into an induced coma.

"The clinical findings indicate intoxication by a substance from the group of active substances called cholinesterase inhibitors," a statement by the Charite hospital said.

Cholinesterase inhibitors, also known as anti-cholinesterase, are a broad range of chemicals that are found in several drugs but also in some pesticides and nerve agents.

Russian doctors who treated Navalny contradicted the German colleagues' statement, saying on August 24 that they did not detect the toxin cited in the Charite hospital tests.

The Omsk regional Health Ministry said on August 22 that caffeine and alcohol were found in Navalny's urine, but "no convulsive or synthetic poisons were detected."

Interfax quoted Aleksandr Sabayev, the chief of toxicology at the Omsk hospital where Navany was treated, as saying after news of the German findings that "when Navalny was admitted for treatment, tests for an extensive range of narcotic and synthetic substances, psychedelics, and medicinal substances, including cholinesterase inhibitors, were conducted and the result was negative."

Sabayev said the Kremlin foe did not display "a clinical pattern characteristic of a poisoning by cholinesterase inhibitors."

The management of the Omsk hospital said it will look into why the results of their tests differed from the German test results.

Anatoly Kalinichenko, the hospital's deputy head, told Russian news agency TASS on August 24: "Of course, we will look into this. At the moment, I am not ready to answer this question [about the difference in the test results]. I am at a loss myself."

Colleagues and supporters of Navalny have said he might have been poisoned when he drank tea purchased at the Tomsk airport.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on August 24 called on Moscow to fully investigate the suspected poisoning and hold those responsible accountable.

"In view of the prominent role of Mr. Navalny in the political opposition in Russia, the authorities there are now urgently called upon to investigate this act down to the last detail -- and in full transparency," she said in a joint statement with Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.

Those responsible "must be identified and held accountable," the statement added.

EU foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell issued a similar statement, saying: "It is imperative that the Russian authorities initiate an independent and transparent investigation on the poisoning of Mr Navalny without delay."

"The European Union strongly condemns what seems to be an attempt on Mr Navalnys life," he said, adding that "those responsible must be held to account."

Earlier, Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters in Berlin that "protection is necessary" for Navalny because poisoning was suspected as "extensive" testing continued.

"The suspicion is...that somebody poisoned Mr. Navalny -- that somebody seriously poisoned Mr. Navalny -- which, unfortunately, there are some examples of in recent Russian history. So the world takes this suspicion very seriously," Seibert said.

Dirk Wiese, the German government's coordinator for Eastern European affairs, told public broadcaster ZDF that German police had been posted as guards outside of Navalny's hospital room as a precaution.

"The circumstances of what led to Aleksei Navalny's critical condition haven't yet been clarified," Wiese said.

Social-media posts on August 24 also showed police increasing their presence around the hospital.

Doctors at the hospital in Omsk initially refused to allow Navalny to be transferred to Germany, saying he was not in a fit state to be transported for treatment.

Navalny was flown via commercial air ambulance from Omsk to Berlin on August 22 after a day of insistence by Russian doctors that he was too ill to fly.

Navalny's wife had suggested medical treatment in Germany for her husband -- who had previously been attacked with a chemical that left permanent eye damage and had a bout of suspected poisoning in Russian custody in the past -- would be more reliable, effective, and transparent.

Earlier on August 24, the head doctor of the Omsk hospital denied that medical personnel there had come under outside pressure from authorities.

"We treated the patient and we saved him. There was no interference in the treatment of the patient and there could not be any," Aleksandr Murakhovsky, the head doctor at Omsk Emergency Hospital No. 1, said on August 24.

"The patient had a personal doctor, all decisions were made in a collegial manner, and every consultation involved up to 10 doctors from various institutions," Murakhovsky said.

When questioned about why law enforcement officers were present at the Omsk hospital, Murakhovsky said he could not say who it was and could not "say they were doing something."

Navalny's allies had accused doctors of holding up his medical evacuation to Germany.

Infographic: A Timeline Of Russian Poisoning Cases

According to a Russian newspaper report, Navalny had been under surveillance by Russian federal security agents during his recent trip to Siberia.

Officers with Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) monitored Navalny's movements, the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets reported, citing information from sources in Russian security agencies. The surveillance involved plainclothes officers and CCTV cameras, the newspaper said.

The European Union has demanded "a swift, independent, and transparent investigation" and justice in the suspected poisoning.

Navalny, who has exposed rampant corruption at the highest levels in Russia, has suffered physical attacks in the past.

He endured chemical burns to one of his eyes in 2017 after he was assaulted with antiseptic dye.

In July 2019, Navalny was given a 30-day jail term after calling for unauthorized protests. During that jail sentence, he was taken to a hospital with severe swelling of the face and a rash, and later alleged he was poisoned.

He has been jailed several times in recent years, barred from running for president, and had a bid to run for Moscow mayor blocked.

With reporting by Current Time, Moskovsky Komsomolets, Reuters, dpa, and The Washington Post
Rahul Gandhi claimed 'money was stolen from the Indian exchequer in Rafale' and also quoted Mahatma Gandhi

New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday made a fresh attack on the government over the Rafale fighter aircraft deal, prompting Union Minister Piyush Goyal to hit back saying he is welcome to fight the 2024 general elections on the issue.

In a tweet, Gandhi quoted a source-based news report which claimed that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has submitted its performance audit on defence offset contracts to the government with no mention of any offset deals related to the purchase of Rafale aircraft.

"Money was stolen from the Indian exchequer in Rafale," Gandhi alleged in his tweet without elaborating.

In his Twitter post, the former Congress president also quoted Mahatma Gandhi's words: "Truth is one, paths are many".

Money was stolen from the Indian exchequer in Rafale. Truth is one, paths are many.

Mahatma Gandhihttps://t.co/giInNz3nx7  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) August 22, 2020

In a sharp retort, Goyal, who is Railway Minister and a senior BJP leader, claimed that many in the Congress have confided that Gandhi's obsession with Rafale is damaging the party.

"Many of Rahul Gandhi's Congress colleagues confide in private that Rahul's obsession with Rafale to wash off his father's sins is damaging the party. But if someone is wanting to self-destruct, who are we to complain? We invite him to fight the 2024 elections on Rafale," Goyal tweeted.

Many of @RahulGandhis Congress colleagues confide in private that Rahuls obsession with Rafale to wash off his fathers sins is damaging the party. But if someone is wanting to self-destruct, who are we to complain? We invite him to fight 2024 elections on Rafale https://t.co/5eAmuvGQHf  Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) August 22, 2020

Gandhi had launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2019 general elections, which the Congress lost.

The Rafale aircraft deal was part of the central plan of the Congress' poll campaign.
A man in his 30s is in a critical condition in hospital after a two-car collision in Co. Cork last night.

The accident happened on the R610 at Raffeen, Carrigaline, at around 9.15pm last night.
Australians living abroad appear to be unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic as they jet set off to holidays in Greece and Italy - while many back home can only travel as far as their local supermarket.

The UK has had more than 321,000 cases of the deadly virus while Australia has had just 24,000, enforcing strict lockdowns to reduce the spread.

But Aussie expats living in England have now returned to what seems to be a pre-coronavirus life, travelling to other countries and partying through a European summer.

Liz Little, an Australian living in London has taken advantage of her newfound freedom, already holidaying in Greece and Spain.

'We went to Majorca for about four days and after that we went to Greece and fingers crossed I'm going to Italy next week,' Ms Little told A Current Affair.

'I realise it's a very first world problem to have, the fact that I'm about to jet off to the Amalfi Coast but not wanting to go into quarantine when I get back.'

The UK has recently announced a list of 'travel corridor' countries where travellers may not have to isolate upon their return to England.

These include places like Iceland, Jamaica, Greece, Italy, Japan and even Australia.

The UK entered into lockdown in March but in July a flurry of restrictions were eased and residents were permitted to travel.

Ms Little said she's travelling as much as she can as England is expected to be locked down once again as they head into the colder months.

'There have been whispers of a 50 plus lockdown which would mean anyone above 50 who is a little bit more vulnerable will potentially have to shield,' she said.

'We've basically been told expect to be back in lockdown by Autumn.'

The UK suffered an explosion of cases during the outbreak of the virus and 41,000 lives were lost.

Liz Little (pictured in Spain) is an Australian living in London who has taken advantage of the easing of restrictions

Ms Little has so far travelled to Greece and Spain and plans to venture to Italy next week

Benn Harradine, an Australian living in Sweden said people are taking it upon themselves to do the right thing.

Sweden sparked controversy after taking the herd immunity approach and refusing a lockdown.

Businesses and schools remained open as the country recorded more than 85,000 cases and 5,800 deaths.

Mr Harradine, a former Commonwealth Games discus champion, said he knew about a dozen people who had become infected.

'They haven't been terribly ill I would say, most of them fall between 30 and 40 years old and they're fairly healthy,' he said.

'Life is manageable, we as individuals are taking our responsibilities for society.'

Benn Harradine (pictured) an Australian living in Sweden said people are taking it upon themselves to do the right thing

The UK has announced a list of countries that do not require self-isolation after returning to England (pictured Australians in Gozo in the Mediterranean)

Meanwhile Victoria is battling through a strict lockdown after experiencing a second wave of coronavirus cases (pictured Melbourne residents wearing mandatory face masks)

Mr Harradine hasn't worked in his office since March and said although there are no fines issued by police, people are wearing masks and socially distancing.

Meanwhile back in Australia, cases are still continuing to surge in Victoria as the state battles through its second wave.

Melbourne is in the midst of a draconian stage four lockdown with residents under a strict 8pm-5am curfew.

Melburnians can only leave their homes to exercise for one hour only, to shop for necessities like food, to give or receive medical care, or for study or work.

Those who break the rules face an on the spot fine of $1,652

State borders are also shut across the country with many unable to see their families.

Australia has had 463 deaths from coronavirus.
Larry King has broken his silence after losing two of his adult children who died within three weeks apart.

'It is with sadness and a father's broken heart that I confirm the recent loss of two of my children, Andy King, and Chaia King. Both of them were good and kind souls and they will be greatly missed,' the legendary chat show host said in a heartbreaking Facebook post on Saturday.

'Losing them feels so out of order. No parent should have to bury a child. My family and I thank you for your outpouring of kind sentiments and well wishes. In this moment, we need a little time and privacy to heal. I thank you for respecting that,' he added.

Larry suffered the terrible double tragedy just months after barely surviving a stroke and weeks-long coma himself last year.

His son Andy, 65, died suddenly on July 28 from what his family believes to be a heart attack.

He was followed by his sister, Kings daughter Chaia, 52, who died on Wednesday following a battle with lung cancer.

Everyones feeling pretty bad and broken. Larry is really hurt and upset, Jillian told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview. Pictured: Larry in one of his rare public appearances in November of 2019

Larry King has broken his silence after losing two of his adult children who died within three weeks apart. Kings son Andy, 65, died suddenly on July 28. He was followed by his sister, Kings daughter Chaia, 52, who died on Wednesday. Pictured l-r: King on Father's Day in June with his son Larry Jr, Cannon, Chance, Andy and daughter Chaia

'Losing them feels so out of order. No parent should have to bury a child. My family and I thank you for your outpouring of kind sentiments and well wishes. In this moment, we need a little time and privacy to heal. I thank you for respecting that,' Larry wrote

Larry's granddaughter Jillian, 31, said the host was still recovering from his stroke and unable to travel from Los Angeles due to coronavirus, and so he had to watch his Florida-based son be buried on video.

'Everyones feeling pretty bad and broken. Larry is really hurt and upset, Jillian told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview.

'He was very sick last year. His kids were all taking very close care of him. Hes upset that hes lost them now.'

Larry has three other children; Larry Jr, 58, from his brief marriage to Annette Kaye, and sons Chance, 21, and Cannon, 20, from his marriage to Shawn King.

Bereaved Jillian described her shock when she heard the news of her father Andy's sudden passing  even while she was dealing with yet another death, of her father-in-law in Kentucky earlier in July.

'I was out of town because my husbands father had passed away so we were up in Kentucky taking care of his funeral when I heard the news,' she said.

'My dad passed away July 28. Were assuming it was a heart attack but there wasnt ever an autopsy.

'I was in disbelief when I heard. Chaia, with everything she was going through, was more expected. At least we had time to prepare. But there was no warning with him. It was a shock.'

Larry adopted Andy, whose full name was Louis Andrew King, in 1962 after marrying his mother Alene Akins.

The couple wed in 1961, divorced in 1967, and remarried again from 1967 to 1972. They had daughter Chaia together in 1969.

The TV hosts youngest son, 20-year-old Cannon (second from left), posted a picture of Larry with his kids on Instagram in June. 'Dads side of the family came out for Fathers Day weekend, Chance wrote. 'We love this man!'

Alene died in 2017 while in remission from her second bout of lung cancer, Jillian said.

The bereaved daughter told DailyMail.com her father was a wonderful person and 'always optimistic'.

'We were all at his sisters house the Wednesday before he passed. It was just a happy family gathering, she said. When I left, he told me he loved me and hed talk to me soon.

'They were both such wonderful people. They were lucky to be together in the end.

'He was always optimistic, always wanting to take an adventure. Larry was his father, he saw him quite often.

'He did a little bit of everything. He got a pilots license for fun and used it for drone footage. He was a chef, a videographer, an agriculture specialist, everything.'

Jillian said that her father was buried without embalming in a Buddhist-style funeral.

He had a Buddhist natural ceremony in Gainesville, Florida, she said. He was buried in a shroud without being embalmed, a natural burial. Family spoke at the funeral. Larry couldnt travel but he had video footage.

Jillian said Larrys daughter Chaia died on Wednesday after a long battle with lung cancer.

'She loved animals, she loved to travel, she loved people. She had a very strong faith belief. She was close to Larry, Jillian said.

Larry King adopted Andy, whose full name was Louis Andrew King, in 1962 after marrying his mother Alene Akins (pictured together). The couple wed in 1961, divorced in 1967, and remarried again from 1967 to 1972

Larry King with his children (l-r) Andy, Larry Jr, Chaia, Chance and Cannon in 2005

Chaia had been battling cancer for a while. It was just her time I guess.

She picked to be buried how her mother was buried, in the same cemetery next to her with a natural burial as well.

Chaia co-wrote a childrens book with her famous father titled Daddy Day, Daughter Day.

The blurb says that in the illustrated story, the host of Larry King Live and his daughter recount the true story of his divorce and show how quality moments together can help heal the pain of divorce for children.

A source close to Larry told DailyMail.com he was truly devastated by the deaths of two of his children.

He barely survived last year through his own ill health; now he's lost two kids just weeks apart.

'They came to visit for Father's Day. It was the last time they were all together and Larry will always cherish it.'

The TV hosts youngest son, 20-year-old Cannon, posted a picture of Larry with his visiting kids on Instagram in June.

'Dads side of the family came out for Fathers Day weekend, he wrote. We love this man!

In November King told news site Extra he was recovering and spending two weeks in a coma after suffering a stroke last March.

'I had a stroke. Everything got better except [for] my left foot, and I have been rehabbing that every day, and they tell me I'll be walking by Christmas, he said.

'I've been walking with a walker. It's been a rough year, I don't remember anything since March.

Jillian said that Larrys daughter Chaia died on Wednesday after a long battle with lung cancer. She loved animals, she loved to travel, she loved people. She had a very strong faith belief. She was close to Larry, Jillian said. Pictured: Chaia with her half-brother Cannon

Shawn, who mothered Larrys two youngest sons, Chance, 20, and Cannon, 19, has previously joked she is the only [wife] to have lasted into the two digits. The couple filed for divorce in 2010 but later tore up the papers  only to file again for divorce last August

I haven't driven a car, but I'm back at work and that makes me feel great.

In the interview Larry reassured fans that his doctors were impressed with his positive attitude: 'My head doctor said I have an incomparable spirit.'

The Larry King Show star has had a complex and storied love life, with eight marriages to seven women and has fathered five children.

He married Alene Akins twice, adopting her late son Andy during their first marriage and fathering his late daughter Chaia in their second.

After divorcing Alene in 1972, he went on to marry Freda Miller, Annette Kaye, Mickey Sutphin, Sharon Lepore, Julie Alexander and most recently Shawn Southwick in 1997.

Shawn, who mothered Larrys two youngest sons, Chance, 20, and Cannon, 19, has previously joked she is the only [wife] to have lasted into the two digits.

The couple filed for divorce in 2010 but later tore up the papers  only to file again for divorce last August after 22 years of marriage.

In 2009 Larry revealed he had another son named after him, who he had not acknowledged for 33 years.

Larry King Jr, born from his brief marriage with Annette Kaye, appeared for the first time in public with his father on Larry King Live 11 years ago.

The TV host said at the time he first met his estranged son, 58, in 1994.

Larry Jr is reportedly married with three children of his own and has worked as the head of Kings heart disease foundation in California.
Over the years he had many health challenges, but he always was a good and faithful priest, Boland said, according to the release. Fr. Joe was very compassionate to the sick that he served in his parishes. I believe because he knew what it was like to have been sick, he was very sensitive to them and always had time for them.
Author Chetan Bhagat, who worked with Sushant Singh Rajput on the film Kai Po Che!, has said that the negative media coverage around him affected the actor, and he confided in director Abhishek Kapoor about it. Abhishek worked with Sushant on Kai Po Che! and Kedarnath.

In an interview to Times Now, Chetan said that even though Chhichhore was a hit, Sushant wasnt given credit for it. And poor Sushant couldnt do anything, he said. Asked if the actor had discussed the topic with him, Chetan said, Yes, he told Abhishek that it used to bother him.

Chetan alleged that certain journalists have a WhatsApp group where they form a consensus about matters jointly. They all have benefactors, they all have a person who they know will give them access to the stars... Out of the six journalists, four might write an anti-Sushant article, Chetan continued, and thats the narrative.

Also read: The Sushant Singh Rajput that I knew was quiet, had adorable gullibility: Chetan Bhagat says blind items broke SSR

Chetan said that the blind items written about Sushant were being read by everyone in the film industry. He questioned why the person behind the blind items was still being allowed to write, and why several actors continue to appear in interviews with them. The same stars who talk about mental health all day are giving interviews to this filmy journalist, he said.

Chetan also said that he is finding it difficult to believe that Sushant died by suicide, as the Mumbai Police concluded in its investigation. I think, from what I see in the Sushant case, something is amiss. That is what I can say now, after two months.

Abhishek Kapoor in an interview to Enquiry, on YouTube, had said, Artistes are fragile, they need to be taken care of. I can make a film and make sure the audience likes it and likes you, but I cannot guarantee validation.

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And in many ways it unfolds still. The defiance of federal will from Reconstruction to our own day, the insistence on states rights in the face of the quest for racial justice and the revanchist reverence for Confederate emblems and figures are illuminated by engaging with the ethos of which Pollard so effectively wrote. He enlarged on his thesis in The Lost Cause Regained, published in 1868. Pollard wrote that he was profoundly convinced that the true cause fought for in the late war has not been lost immeasurably or irrevocably, but is yet in a condition to be regained by the South on ultimate issues of the political contest. The issue was no longer slavery, but white supremacy, which Pollard described as the true cause of the war and the true hope of the South.

The Civil War, then, was to be fought perennially. Defeats on the battlefield as well as the trials of the early Reconstruction period were cast as Christlike tribulations that would lead to a resurrection of the old order. The South, Pollard wrote, must wear the crown of thorns before she can assume that of victory.

As the decades after the war went by, that post-bellum victory seemed assured. In his essential book RACE AND REUNION: THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICAN MEMORY, David W. Blight detailed how a white narrative of the war took hold, North and South, after Appomattox. As early as 1874 the historian William Wells Brown had said, There is a feeling all over this country that the Negro has got about as much as he ought to have. Slavery and race were thus pushed to the side in favor of a more comforting story of how valiant brother had taken up arms against valiant brother.

In this recasting of reality, the Civil War was a family quarrel in which both sides were doing the best they could according to their lights. Right and wrong did not enter into it. White Americans chose to celebrate one another without reference to the actual causes and implications of the war. The memory of slavery, emancipation and the 14th and 15th Amendments never fit well into a developing narrative in which the Old and New South were romanticized and welcomed back to a new nationalism, Blight wrote, and in which devotion alone made everyone right, and no one truly wrong, in the remembered Civil War. To recall that the war had been about what Lincoln had called a new birth of freedom meant acknowledging the nations failings on race. So white Americans decided to recall something else.

Blight quoted a 1912 novel, Cease Firing, by the Southern author Mary Johnston. In the books closing pages, a Confederate soldier observes, I think that we were both right and both wrong. In such a view, it had all been a struggle between two reasonable parties over the nature of the Constitution; slavery was incidental. By minimizing race in the story of the war, white Americans felt free to minimize race not only in the past but in the present  leading, as Blight wrote, to the denigration of Black dignity and the attempted erasure of emancipation from the national narrative of what the war had been about.
The District Chief Executive (DCE) for Ellembelle District in the Western Region, Mr. Kwasi Bonzoh has started accounting to his residents about what the Assembly under his leadership has done since 2017.

The ''Accounting To The People Tour'' which was supposed to start early this year, was postponed due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic, but commenced over the weekend and it is expected to continue in the coming weeks.

The first phase of the tour which gave the DCE the opportunity to explain to the residents about what the Central Government and the Assembly have done, also gave the residents the opportunity to put their concerns and requests before the DCE and his entourage.

The DCE and his entourage in their first phase of the "Accounting To The People Tour" visited; Aluku, Salman, Bomoakpole, Asasetre, Nvuma, Tandan, Awiebo and Basake.

Addressing the chiefs and people of the aforementioned Communities, the DCE, Mr. Kwasi Bonzoh thanked them for welcoming him and his team in their numbers.

The DCE appealed to the chiefs and people to nurture peace and at all circumstances create a peaceful atmosphere towards the December 7 polls.

He also called on them to be law-abiding and respect the by-laws in the Assembly to accelerate development.

The DCE took the opportunity to highlight some of the developmental projects the Assembly under his stewardship had done since 2017.

He mentioned the construction of ongoing ultra-modern Community Center at Asasetre, the construction of ongoing ultra-modern market complex at Adubrim, construction of ongoing fishing and meat market at Aiyinasi, construction of Esiama market complex.

The rest of the projects he mentioned are; construction of ongoing toilet facility at Nvuma, construction of ongoing three-unit classroom block at Bomoakpole, construction of ongoing three-unit classroom block at Nvenlesolo, construction of three-unit classroom block at Basake, construction of ongoing three-unit classroom block at Salman, construction of ongoing three-unit classroom block Asanda, construction of six-unit classroom block at Awiebo, construction of ongoing six-unit classroom block at Awiaso, construction of ongoing toilet facility at Awiebo, construction of ongoing three-unit classroom block for Nzema Akropong JHS, construction of ongoing Community Center at Akoto among others.

He also took the opportunity to pledge build an ultra-modern market complex to replace the existing market at Asasetre next year.

He disclosed that each Community within the Ellembelle District can boast of the Assembly's project.

He also said coming Friday, the Minister for Mines would inaugurate a Community Mining at Awiebo in the Ellembelle District to create jobs for the unemployed youth.

Mr. Kwasi Bonzoh who is also the Parliamentary candidate for the governing New Patriotic Party in the area pledged that the Ghana National Petroleum Corperation (GNPC) was going to construct all the township roads in the district.

He revealed that the township roads had been given to contract and work would start this year.

Breaking down the 71-kilometer township roads, the DCE charged the residents to collaborate with the contractor when works begin.

He mentioned the following communities as beneficial to the aforementioned 71-km township roads; Asasetre = 2.8km, Nvuma = 4km, Akpandue, A.B. Bokazo and Alla Bokazo = 4.3km, Kikam Technical Institute Junction to campus = 1.3km, Awiebo = 7km.

The rest are; Teleku-Bokazo new site = 6.9km, Asanda = 4.3km, Eikwe = 4km, Esiama = 6.5km, Anwia = 4.1km, Bomoakpole = 1.95km, Togbe Community = 1.1km, Nvenlesolo = 2.8km, Bobrama = 1.7km, Asemko = 1.8km, Bakanta and Sanzule = 4.6km, Tandan = 0.7km, Ebi = 1.7km, Anokyi = 2.8km, Baku = 1.85km, Krisan = 0.9km, Nrenlekpole = 2.0km and Nrenlekyi = 2.1km.

He said when he promised to fix all township roads in Ellembelle before his tenure, the NDC members doubted him but adding that all was set for GNPC to construct all the township roads in the Ellembelle District.

According to him, no District in Ghana is benefiting from such a huge kilometer of the township roads within President Akufo-Addo-led government.

"When I promised to construct all township roads in Ellembelle but the NDC not believe in me but we are on course, we have awarded all the township roads in Ellembelle and GNPC is going to finance it", he stated.

The DCE also seized the opportunity to claim that the NDC government and the MP for Ellembelle did not construct a single kilometer trunk road before leaving power.

He chastised the Ellembelle MP Emmanuel Armah Kofi-Buah and the NDC government for failing to construct the Dr. Kwame Nkrumah's hometown deplorable road, adding "Emmanuel Armah Kofi-Buah told us in 2008 that Dr. Kwame Nkrumah appeared in his dream to come and rescue Ellembelle but since 2008, Armah Kofi-Buah had failed to construct the Nkroful road to honour Dr. Kwame Nkrumah".

He said that under Akufo-Addo-led government, Nkroful deplorable road is being asphalted to honour Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

He said current the Akufo-Addo-led government was constructing the following trunk roads in the Ellembelle District; Esiama to Teleku-Bokazo = 6.5km, Teleku-Bokazo to Aiyinasi = 20km, Teleku-Bokazo to Anibil = 30.2km, Asasetre to Akropong= 21km, Adubrim to Ayawora = 15km, Aiyinasi Nyamebekyere to Aiyinasi north = 75km.

"..and if you add the township roads and the trunk roads I have mentioned, we are constructing 245 kilometers of roads in Ellembelle District within three years", he boasted.

He said the Ellembelle MP was taking pictures about the ongoing roads in the area and took the opportunity to warn him to stop doing that else he would arrest him for trying to take credit about the roads construction.

The DCE, Kwasi Bonzoh pleaded with the residents to rally behind President Akufo-Addo by voting massively for him and also elect him for the first as their MP come December 7.

The Chief of Asasetre, Nana Gyan Kpanyinli II, thanked the DCE and his entourage for visiting them to explain government's programmes to them.

He commended the DCE for performing creditably and promised to rally behind him to become their MP come December 7.

The Chief, took the opportunity, to plead with the DCE as soon as possible to expand the Asasetre Health Center to meet its standard.

He also called on the DCE to build a toilet facility for them to ease open defecation.

However, the DCE seized the opportunity to donate 200 pieces of face masks to Asasetre Health Center.

Opportunities were given to some residents to ask questions and their questions were addressed by the DCE and his entourage.

The DCE was accompanied by some staff of the Assembly and the media.

Source: Ama Mary
HALIFAXNova Scotias Liberal party says it will host a leadership convention in February 2021 to announce the next head of the party  and crown a new premier.

The new leader will replace Premier Stephen McNeil, who unexpectedly announced his resignation earlier this month.

The party says a preferential ballot will be used to elect its next leader, with each member getting one vote and 100 points allocated to each electoral district association.

The vote will take place electronically and by phone due to COVID-19 restrictions, and the party says the full list of election rules will be released on Sept. 14.

Candidates will have until Oct. 9 to register, while the membership registration cut-off date will be Jan. 7, 2021.

Candidates must also pay a $60,000 registration fee, of which $10,000 is potentially refundable.

Read more about:
(Natural News) Scores of Americans have been angered and sickened by the non-stop violence and thuggery in our nations biggest cities that have been occurring all summer long, and their patience is running out.

After the George Floyd incident in May, most of us were rightly indignant over the behavior of a handful of police officers in Minneapolis. And we could also understand the massive protests that took place for weeks immediately following that incident.

But those protests were summarily hijacked by Left-wing Marxist anarchists who couldnt care less about George Floyd. Its become obvious by now that two groups are primarily responsible for the violence, looting, theft and destruction  as well as the hare-brained defund the police movement  that is roiling through our biggest cities: Antifa and Black Lives Matter.

Well, it turns out that this mayhem not only isnt random, but it was planned in advance, and the Obama-Biden administration had a huge hand in it. And wouldnt you know it  Ukraine plays a big role in all of this.

Investigative journalist George Eliason, an American who is currently living in Ukraine, has connected a lot of dots implicating the previous administration in a sinister plot to disrupt the civil society in America and not only drive President Donald Trump from office, but also usher in a form of government that, were they alive today, our founders would once again rebel against.

Big League Politics notes:

A stunning report is indicating that the Obama administration imported foreign terrorists to the U.S. in preparation for the ANTIFA/Black Lives Matter uprising that is currently laying waste to Americas cities.

Ukraine-based independent journalist George Eliason published the bombshell report on Tuesday alleging that the foreign terrorists were brought overseas due to the scheming of former President Barack H. Obama and CIA Director John Brennan.

It is an American problem caused by the former Obama-Biden administrations continuing coup against the Presidency of Donald Trump, Elliason writes of the ANTIFA/BLM terror uprising.

Eliason says that Antifa terrorists were trained by real terrorists in Syria  part of a Kurd-led Neo-Marxist force. He went on to say that because Antifa is part of an insurgency ground force with provable foreign government representation and foreign insurgents from terrorist groups, they cant be covered under the Geneva Conventions. (Related: United Nations sides with Antifa terrorists, setting stage for UN invasion of America when Antifa backlash begins.)

After a thorough analysis of Antifas official website, Eliason identified Ben Utzer, who Eliason describes as Antifas German Pirate Party chubby, never miss a meal, pasty white leader of the boots on the ground Obama-Biden Antifa-BLM insurrection.

Utzer is the German directing the traffic for American Antifa seditionists willing to murder and destroying their own cities for a foreign hacker-politico who owns a little security company and loves dogs, he wrote.

Antifa, BLM, and other groups were brought in to create a funnel catching disenfranchised people from across the spectrum bringing them under one umbrella for the IO coup project. This is how the manpower problem for sedition was tackled, he added.

President Trump and U.S. Attorney General William Barr may also be on to the Antifa/BLM connection. Earlier this summer, both of them called out Antifa, at least, as a terrorist organization, with Trump saying that he was considering designating the group as such. If he does, that opens up a lot more legal possibilities for his administration to explore; charging a rioter for violating state anti-rioting laws is one thing, but charging a rioter attacking federal agents with domestic terrorism is something else entirely, the latter resulting is a lot more hard time in prison.

The violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly, Barr said in late May.

Hopefully, the reported connection to the Obama-Biden regime will be addressed as well.

Sources include:

Justice.gov

BigLeaguePolitics.com

NaturalNews.com
Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela have always owed their transformation, that in turn changed the world, to the learning they received inside the prison. It is not surprising then that a new university in Rajasthan founded only two years ago draws its inspiration from great social leaders like Gandhi, Mandela and Malcolm X. For the Swaraj Jail University inside Udaipur Central Jail, incarceration means an opportunity to transform convicts into community leaders.

While campuses across the country remain closed due to the coronavirus crisis, Swaraj Jail University is continuing the learning process of its inmate-students, in stark contrast to the way the society outside is dealing with the present and the future. If paralysis and uncertainty represent the free society today, the locked-up students of Jail University are working everyday confident of a better tomorrow.

Launched two years ago by a consortium of civil society groups like education and development NGO Shikshantar, the Vinoba Bhave-inspired Moved By Love project at the Gandhi Ashram, Ahmedabad, Art of Living and Edible Routes Foundation in collaboration with Udaipur Central Jail, this unconventional university lays its foundation on healing and possibilities of a new life. By confronting the flawed norm of banishing criminals from the society forever, the Jail University aims at compassion and rehabilitation.

Reshaping learning

"The system has to take more responsibility instead of blaming convicts as 'failures'," says Manish Jain, co-founder of Swaraj Jail University. "We dont believe the inmates are failures. Rather it is the larger system that has failed them," adds Jain, a Master's in education from Harvard University. "How we see crime and punishment have to be relooked at. This is a small step in that direction."

The small step has seen more than 100 convicts of Udaipur Central Jail signing up for the new possibilities offered by a university that seeks no eligibility and grants no degrees. There are no classrooms either. The student is both learner and teacher, relying on a self-designed learning programme built on talent and experience.

"The education system in our country makes big mistakes. It not only looks at learners as empty vessels, but also looks at learning as a linear process. The learners have tremendous talent and experiences that they could bring into the process," explains Jain, a former consultant to Unicef, World Bank and USAID whose education and development NGO Shikshantar led the initiative to create an alternative university inside the Udaipur Central Jail.

New Possibilities

A small prison with about 1,000 inmates -- 600 convicts and the rest undertrials -- the two-storeyed Udaipur Central Jail is a former haveli taken over by the British in 1888 to house soldiers. When the lockdown began, 250 inmates were transferred to different jails in Rajasthan. A marble statue of Mahatma Gandhi faces the jail's tall gate that is flanked by large murals on the prison walls.

"The murals are painted by inmates," says S S Shekhawat, the central jail superintendent. Nearly 100 murals have come up on the prison walls during the lockdown, all painted by students of the Jail University. The murals explain the university's philosophy of education: design creative spaces for allowing talent to flourish.

Painting is joined by music, organic farming, web designing, hair styling, photography, yoga and meditation, and catering as creative processes of learning in the Jail university. While there are several big prisons like Delhi's Tihar Jail famous for skill development of inmates, Swaraj Jail University focuses on change. "It is not basic skill training," says Jain. "It is about understanding yourself, your leadership capacities and your purpose."

It is not an easy job to bring inmates out of their "guilty zones" to connect with something they like. "An inmate is burdened with the guilt and blame of being a culprit," says Indira Talera, an Art of Living teacher in Udaipur who has been teaching yoga and meditation to the central jail inmates for over a decade. "They need love, compassion and sharing."

Talera, who worked with Jain to lay the foundation of the university two years ago, credits the support of jail superintendent Shekhawat as one of the major factors for the change inside Udaipur Central Jail. "Initiatives like a university require the whole-hearted support of jail leadership. The jail superintendent has been a leader throughout with his encouragement and belief in the correctional process," she adds.

Initiating change

Several leading organisations across the country have extended their expertise in helping inmates with the self-learning programmes of the university. The Edible Routes Foundation, a leader in sustainable farming, conducts regular workshops for inmates while Art of Living teachers train them in yoga and meditation. Bangalore-based social innovation startup Navgurukul provides web design training.

"We have nearly 30 students learning organic farming techniques," says Sakib Khan, who works with Edible Routes Foundation. The inmates are taught permaculture, Japanese Miyawaki method for building native forests and waste water utilization with the help of film screenings, workshops and on-ground training. "Our agriculture is heavily dependent on chemical fertilizers. Imagine the change they will bring to farming, health and environment when they go back to their villages and lead organic farming once they are released," says Khan.

The change ignited by Swaraj Jail University is visible inside the central jail and outside. In February this year, Out of Box-Jail University Band, a sufi music band inside the jail, was a crowd favourite at the Udaipur World Music Festival. At the festival, the band members did their first-ever sound check with engineers. The opening song was Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, composed by an inmate and musician Parameshwar Bhai. The popularity of the sufi band has made them an entrepreneurial service available for events outside the jail.

The university is also making entrepreneurial services available with its photographers, mural artists, organic farmers, catering teams, hair stylists and web designers. A jail guard accompanies them when the inmates go outside for their work. "There is only one guard who goes with them. We trust our inmates," says superintendent Shekhawat. "We are creating a space for the inmates to build upon it. They will be able to present themselves to the society and reignite the spirit of humanity," says Diken Patel, the Jail University co-founder and member of Moved By Love social project at the Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad.

Rajesh Singh, an inmate of the central jail, attended every Art of Living programme by the Jail University to learn yoga and meditation. Released in December last year after serving a 14-year term, Singh has been busy teaching yoga and meditation in his village near Bhiwani, Haryana, when the pandemic struck. "We had 60 students in the village school and 25 more for the classes at my home," he says. "We will resume the classes once the lockdown ends."
Republicans will open their national convention Monday with an urgent mission: To convince voters pessimistic about the state of a country battered by the novel coronavirus, economic recession and racial upheaval that President Donald Trump deserves four more years at the helm.

Convention organizers say the president and his surrogate speakers will showcase optimism and inspire hope in a time of worldwide despair, with programming planned around themes of "promise," "opportunity" and "greatness" for the United States in a second Trump term.

"The big contrast you'll see between the Democrats' doom and gloom, Donald Trump-obsessed convention will be a convention focused on real people, their stories, how the policies of the Trump administration has lifted their lives, and then an aspirational vision toward the next four years," Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in an interview Saturday.

Yet the inclusion of some speakers who gained notoriety by inflaming culture wars - coupled with Trump's preoccupation with personal grievances, escalating warnings of a "rigged election," demonization of Democratic nominee Joe Biden and predilection for dark imagery - threatens to inspire a jarringly contrary message.

"A convention is a bit of a Rorschach test of where the party is at any given moment. America will see, this is how the Republican Party wants to present itself," said Russ Schriefer, a Republican strategist who orchestrated the party's 2012 convention nominating Mitt Romney for president.

The party intends to present itself entirely in Trump's own image, and the stakes for him could hardly be higher.

"I think we're going to see something that is going to be very uplifting and positive, that's what I'd like it to be, Trump said Saturday on the Fox News channel program, The Next Revolution. "I think you have to defend yourself

Trump is not the first recent incumbent president to start his convention facing a difficult reelection. In 2004, President George W. Bush was dealing with mounting opposition to the war in Iraq that threatened to take him down. In 2012, President Barack Obama was in trouble because of a sluggish economic recovery and tepid approval ratings.

But neither Bush nor Obama faced the kind of obstacles that exist for Trump. He is facing multiple crises at home and has been running a deficit in state and national polls throughout the spring and summer. If the election were held today, Trump probably would become the first one-term president since George H.W. Bush was defeated in 1992.

Trump will open his convention just days after the Democrats completed what was widely seen as a successful four nights of virtual programming that concluded with an acceptance speech by Biden that drew high marks for both style and substance.

While the Democrats reimagined their convention for the pandemic as a completely virtual affair, the Republicans are devising a hybrid model. The GOP event will not take place in a cavernous arena as planned, but some of the marquee speeches - including Trump's on Thursday night on the South Lawn of the White House - still are set live before hundreds of people, even at the risk of flouting public health guidelines.

Republican strategist Mike DuHaime said Trump's top priority should be to deal with negative judgments about his handling of the pandemic.

"If you're an incumbent, you get reelected if you do a good job and thrown out if you don't," DuHaime said. "So challenge one for the president is to communicate what he's doing on coronavirus and what he's going to do to get the country back on a normal track."

Trump has lost credibility on the issue of the pandemic. A Washington Post-ABC News poll taken in July found 64 percent of Americans saying they do not trust what Trump says about the coronavirus, with 46 percent saying they trust him "not at all."

When speaking about the pandemic, Trump often has projected the image of a flamboyant salesman, offering claims that are exaggerated or wrong. On recent occasions when he has spoken more seriously about wearing masks and practicing social distancing, he has read from a script and, in the words of GOP strategist Michael Steel, delivers the message "with the energy of a limp windsock."

McDaniel said the convention will present an affirmative case for Trump's management of the pandemic and argue - in part by having live audiences for some speeches, a visual contrast with the Democrats' attention to social distancing - that Americans can simultaneously tackle the virus and resume some aspects of their regular lives.

"They did a convention that didn't balance health and safety with what most Americans are dealing with," McDaniel said, pointing out that many people are back at work. "The president is going to give a different and more optimistic message, which is, we can fight this pandemic and get back to our lives - and if Joe Biden had his way, he'd keep us locked in our basements."

Trump is expected to appear on each of the convention's four nights. Other officials planning to speak include Sen. Joni Ernst (Iowa), who is in a tough reelection campaign; Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.); House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.); South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem; and Nikki Haley, a former governor and U.N. ambassador.

Some everyday Americans also are expected to deliver remarks, including Tanya Weinreis, a Montana coffee shop owner who used a federal loan this spring to maintain her business; Carl and Marsha Mueller, the parents of a humanitarian aid worker who was killed by Islamic State terrorists; and Mark and Patricia McCloskey, a St. Louis couple who stood outside their home pointing guns during a Black Lives Matter demonstration.

The list of big-name Republicans not speaking underscores the degree to which the GOP is now the party of Trump. Whereas the Democratic convention featured all of its party's living past presidents and some of its unsuccessful past nominees, Bush is not expected to participate, nor is Romney, now a senator from Utah and a Trump critic. And Cindy McCain, the widow of the party's 2008 nominee, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), spoke in a video that played at the Democratic convention.

Haley Barbour, a former Mississippi governor and former Republican National Committee chairman, said it is imperative that Trump use the convention not to rile up his core supporters but to strive to expand his coalition to include more Blacks, Hispanics, union workers and other voters whom polls show are cool to him.

"I don't think he needs to focus on making his base harder. He needs to make it larger," Barbour said. "If he focuses on his record and the results of his policies, that's exactly what you do. So many of the people who benefited, and benefited the most, aren't in Trump's base."

Trump's political advisers have signaled that the president and others will focus on his accomplishments, hoping to persuade people not to base their votes entirely on the pandemic and the economic crisis. GOP strategists note that a majority of Americans agree with at least some of the president's initiatives. Although he has negative marks on his handling of the coronavirus, for instance, he still enjoys a slight, if narrowing, advantage over Biden on the economy.

To that end, Republicans plan to feature on each night a speaker who was born in countries such as Cuba and Venezuela to deliver testimonials on what Republicans see as the dangers of socialism and suggest that's what America could become with Democrats in charge.

Trump and the other speakers will probably spend considerable time attacking Biden as a captive of a "radical left" wing of the Democratic Party and warning that a Biden presidency would result in widespread violent protests and chaos in the streets of major cities. The president hit that theme in a tweet on Saturday morning. "Why would suburban women vote for Biden and the Democrats when Democrat run cities are now rampant with crime . . . which could easily spread to the suburbs?" he wrote.

Democrats are planning an aggressive countereffort during the week, with daily videos and speeches from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other prominent members of the party.

"We see an opportunity to take advantage of their chaos and disorganization to talk about what this chaotic presidency has yielded for folks," said DNC senior spokeswoman Lily Adams, who laid out a thematic focus on Trump's mismanagement of various crises.

Republicans have released relatively little information about their convention programming, and officials have sought to preserve the element of surprise. Trump has been so visible lately that there seems little he might say there that he hasn't already said in some public forum. Republican strategists see him as overexposed and therefore in danger of being tuned out by all but the most ardent supporters.

"Law and order" has been the overriding theme of Trump's campaign advertising, but the ads have not had the intended impact on Biden's image.

"The Republican convention has an opportunity to repaint Biden in negative light," said Matt Grossmann, a political science professor at Michigan State University.

If convention speakers can do that, then the November election becomes a choice between the two candidates rather than a referendum on the president, as it is now.

The GOP convention offers Trump the chance for a reset of his campaign. At present his prospects for reelection look more than challenging. Some GOP operatives think the race has tightened a bit in recent weeks and that a more disciplined candidate and campaign, amplified by conservative media on the outside, could give Trump an additional boost.

For encouragement, the president can look back to 1988, when George H.W. Bush entered his convention trailing Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis. He used his convention to begin a comeback that led to victory in the fall.

Ron Kaufman, a veteran Republican National Committee member who was part of that 1988 campaign, said of Trump on the eve of this year's GOP convention: "He's a vaccine and three good debates away, and I believe he will prevail," explaining that he does not mean mass distribution of a vaccine before the election, but only that Americans believe an effective one is coming.

- - -

The Washington Post's Matt Viser contributed to this report.
Hisbah, the Sharia law enforcement agency in Jigawa, said it has destroyed no fewer than 588 confiscated bottles of beer in Ringim Local Government Area of the state.

Ibrahim Dahiru, the State Commandant of Hisbah, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Dutse on Sunday that the bottles of beer were destroyed on August 20.

Mr Dahiru said that the beer was confiscated in Tudun Babaye village, Ringim LGA, during a raid in Gujungu, Kijawal and Wadugur villages in Ringim and Taura Local Government Areas.

He emphasized that consumption of beer was prohibited in all parts of the state, including villages.

The commandant assured that the Hisbah would not relent in its fight against immoral acts, including consumption of alcohol in the state.

Mr Dahiru further advised residents to desist from engaging in vices capable of destroying the society.

(NAN)
The de facto US ambassador in Taipei joined for the first time on Sunday a Taiwanese leader, amid rising tensions with Beijing, to commemorate a key military clash and the last time Taiwanese forces joined battle with China on a large scale.

China, which claims Taiwan as its own, has stepped up military activity around the democratic island, moves denounced by Taiwans government as an attempt at intimidation to force them to accept Chinese rule.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen laid a wreath and bowed her head in respect at a memorial park on Kinmen island, which sits a few kilometres (miles) off the Chinese metropolis of Xiamen, to mark the 62nd anniversary of the start of the second Taiwan Straits crisis.

In August 1958, Chinese forces began more than a month of bombarding Kinmen, along with the Taiwan-controlled Matsu archipelago further up the coast, including naval and air battles, seeking to force them into submission.

Brent Christensen, head of the American Institute in Taiwan and Washingtons de facto representative, offered his respects too, standing behind Tsai, in a symbolic show of US support for the island.

Washington has no formal ties with Taipei but is its largest arms supplier. The administration of President Donald Trump has made bolstering relations a priority, to Beijings anger.

Like Tsai, Christensen did not make public comments.

Taiwan fought back at the time with support from the United States, which sent military equipment like advanced Sidewinder anti-aircraft missiles, giving Taiwan a technological edge. The crisis ended in a stalemate.

Major General Liu Qiang-hua, spokesman for the Kinmen garrison, said it was important to remember an event that was so crucial to ensuring Taiwans security.

Of course we hope there is no war, but it is dangerous to forget about war. This is the spirit we need to safeguard, he told Reuters.

Formerly called Quemoy in English, Kinmen today is a popular tourist destination, though remnants of past fighting like underground bunkers are scattered across the island, and Taiwan maintains a significant military presence.
A combination of recent items in Column 8 took Mike Parton of Tamworth back to his schooldays in England. "There was a road sign (C8) on the approach to my school saying 'Slow  don't kill a child'. I was seen adding 'Wait for a teacher' in crayon. It cost me six of the very best."

Inspired by the police-talk of Vera (C8), Deb Stokes of Drummoyne wrote in with a tale about her friend Heather Scott. "Heather back-packed around Australia in her youth and, after a short stint in admin at Maroubra Police Station, was inspired to join the Met back in London. She was proud to be 'Constable Plod' and insists she always said 'You're nicked Sunshine' when making an arrest, called all the crooks 'villains' and called her boss 'Guv'nor'. She said it was just like in The Bill. She ended her career recently, 30 odd years later, as D.I. Scott, of Scotland Yard. And yes, she was called 'M'arm'."

More English-language idiosyncrasies (C8) from Patty Dyson of Lane Cove. "At Marks and Spencer in London in the 60s, my request for a black and a white skivvy was met with horror. Skivvies were low-class servants, when what I wanted was long-sleeved, polo-necked, cotton underwear."

To while away the time, Chris Patten of Roseville is planning his next overseas trip, with a departure date in early September 2021. Yes, he knows he's dreaming. To be extra helpful, he has found his International Certificates of Vaccination booklet, issued in December 1970 by Qantas on behalf of the World Health Organisation. "It contains records for my yellow fever, cholera, smallpox, and tetanus vaccinations. There's even space for new vaccinations such as COVID-19. If only it was that simple!"

Nick Hendel of Roseville offers this considered response to Friday's log-in question (C8). "I think that you would log in and out of a computer, and on and off a program."
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) told "Fox News Sunday" that the U.S. "can't simply blame China as a way to get our country out of this pandemic and the recession and the chaos that's resulted from President Trump's failed response."

Why it matters: Coons was defending Joe Biden for not focusing on the rise of China and its abuses this past week during the Democratic National Convention, claiming that Biden has frequently addressed China on the campaign trail.

The Trump administration in recent months has taken a very hawkish stance toward Beijing, which officials blame for covering up the coronavirus in the early days of the Wuhan outbreak.

With the GOP convention kicking off on Monday, Republicans and the president will likely hammer Democrats over claims that Biden is not tough enough on China.

What he's saying: "I'll remind you, back in January and February as the pandemic was spreading around the world, it was Donald Trump who was saying positive things, cozying up to Xi Jinping, and it was Joe Biden who was sounding the alarm bells about this pandemic," Coons argued.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 10:09:06|Editor: huaxia

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LAGOS, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Umaru Zulum, governor of Nigeria's restive northeastern state of Borno, on Saturday warned that the Boko Haram insurgents are negotiating with fighters from the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps to recruit them.

"This is frightening. If the IDPs living in camps could not get what they are looking for, especially the opportunity to go back to their respective towns and return to the farm, they may be forced to join Boko Haram," the governor said.

Addressing reporters in Maiduguri, the state's capital, the governor said if care is not given, the IDPs might be forced to join.

Though the security situation is improving in the state, there are still dangers as the insurgents are still in their hiding places, warned the governor.

One way to end the war with terrorism, especially Boko Haram, is to build a good relationship between the military and civilians, said the governor, adding that he hopes the military will intensify efforts so as to make it possible for these people to return to towns.

Since 2009, Boko Haram has been trying to establish an Islamist state in northeastern Nigeria, expanding its attacks to countries in the Lake Chad Basin. Enditem
Rajesh Kumar Thakur By

Express News Service

PATNA: It is now a forgone conclusion that works done by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to check the spread of COVID-19, the benefits of New Education Policy (NEP), the measures being taken to promote self reliant, works of development done by Nitish Kumar and packages given to development in the state, would be the prime points of focus for the BJP along with two other allies of NDA-the JD-U and LJP in the coming Bihar assembly elections.

Speaking on the last day of the party's two-day virtual conference of workers and leaders on Sunday, JP Nadda tried his best to downplay the bitter war of words going on between LJP and JD-U these days stating that the NDA including LJP will fight the forthcoming assembly elections in Bihar under the leadership of Nitish Kumar.

Repeatedly reiterating the commitment to fight elections in Bihar under leadership of Nitish Kumar, Nadda said: "Take all works of development done here and the centre to the people and I'm confident that the NDA will again emerge victorious under Nitish Kumar leadership".

He said that whenever the BJP, LJP and the JD-U have come together in alliance for developmental politics with principle, the results have been a wonder. Nadda called upon the workers to intensify the door to door campaign in addition to being always with the people through virtual means of communication amid the Corona crisis.

"It was the bold decision for lockdown taken on time by our prime minister Narendra Modi that saved and secured the 'jaan' (lives) of 130 corores of people amid the outbreak of Covid 19 pandemic",he said, asking the BJP workers to disseminate this fact among the people through door to door campaign.

ALSO READ | BJP sets target of winning three-fourth seats for NDA in Bihar assembly polls

Nadda claimed that the PM took this bold decision for lockdown at that time when world's most of the powerful and affluent countries including US and others were confused whether to save the lives or economy of their countries amid the Corona crisis.

"But our PM said -jaan hai to Jahan hai(If there is a life there's a world) and later after saving the lives throughout the lockdown, PM said that now 'jan bhi hai aur jahan bhi'(now there is a life and there is a world)",he told the workers to take this to be known to the people.

Quoting details of India's works done to battle the COVID-19 crisis, he said that they country is now manufacturing 4.5 lakhs of PPE kits converting the time of crisis into an opportunity for creativity.

"When the corona had struck in our country, there was no dedicated hospital for the COVID-19 and now, thanks to PM Narendra Modi, there are more than 1500 dedicated hospitals for COVID-19 in the country",he said, adding that more than 2000 testing centres have started functioning taking the testing capacity of 10 lakhs per day.

He said that India has now more than 12.50 lakhs dedicated beds with 50000 ICU beds.

Besides all this, he also called upon the party workers to work for associating farmers of the state in forming the "Farmers Producers Organisation" to promote self reliant works through agriculture development.

Spelling out the features of new education policy,he said that the implementation of NEP is a revolutionary step aimed at exploring the analytical ability of students on the concepts of education instead of promoting "cramming methods of education".

Making a scathing attack on the opposition in Bihar, Nadda termed the opposition as nothing but a "spent -force".

He said that opposition has lost its vision, valour and spirits and doing politics for the sake of politics without having a vision to do the best for the people of the state.

"Bihar has always been giving a direction to a vibrant leadership to the country and again will set a new benchmark of political excellence by virtue of performance based politics", he assured.
She's no stranger to showing off almost all of her body in revealing bikini photos.

But Emily Ratajkowski went a step further on Sunday when she shared a photo of herself sporting a new lower back tattoo.

The 29-year-old model clarified in the comments that it was just a temporary tattoo.

Here today, gone tomorrow: Emily Ratajkowski, 29, show off a new lower back tattoo on Sunday, before revealing it was just a temporary tat

Emily's photo was taken by someone else and showed her backside from just below her tanned shoulders to the the top of her derriere as she appeared to lie on a bed.

She had 'emrata,' a nickname combining the beginnings of her first and last name, written in cursive across her lower back at the top of a faint bikini bottoms tan line.

The new design and rubbed off in a few spots, and the Gone Girl star confirmed in the caption that she hadn't gotten new ink.

'Wish I could tell you this was permanent,' she wrote.

Self-promotion: The tattoo was placed at the top of her bikini bottoms tan line and featured cursive text with her nickname 'emrata,' which combines the beginnings of her first and last names

Short-lived: She showed off another design in December reading, 'f**k harvey,' in response to convicted sexual predator Harvey Weinstein, though it was only a temporary design

Although tattoos, especially tiny ones, are increasingly popular with celebrities, Emily has resisted the urge to get significantly inked up.

She does have a few designs though, including a tiny window on the back of one of her ankles.

'Its a window, got it when I was 18. I always forget its there!' she explained in a tweet.

Back in December, the occasional actress sported text on the inside of her left arm reading, 'f**k harvey,' a reference to disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein, who was convicted of sexual assault and rape in February and was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

Emily's protest came the same day that Weinstein was revealed to have reached a $25 million settlement with more than 30 actresses and former employees.

Home at last: Emily and her husband, film producer Sebastian Bear McClard, have been back in New York recently after traveling to LA when New York City was being overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases

Emily and her husband, film producer Sebastian Bear McClard, have been back in New York recently after traveling to LA when New York City was being overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases.

The Centers For Disease Control And Prevention had issued an advisory on March 28 asking 'residents of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut to refrain from non-essential domestic travel for 14 days effective immediately.'

Despite the public health warning, the two fled the Big Apple when it was still the American epicenter of coronavirus cases in April, but returned once cases began to spike in California.

Lately, the two have been spending time enjoying the beach and scenic bike rides in the Hamptons on Long Island, but they seem to have returned to New York City now.

Quick exit: Despite warnings for New York residents not to travel domestically due to the pandemic, the couple fled the Big Apple for a home in Los Angeles earlier in the spring; shown with their dog Columbo on July 29




Haiti - FLASH : Laura, 2 million people could be affected





This Saturday morning at 5:00 a.m., the center of Tropical Storm Laura was located near latitude 18.8 north and longitude 70.9 west. Laura is moving west-northwest at nearly 30 km/h (18 mph), and this general movement is expected over the next few days. The center of Laura is forecast to cross Hispaniola today, is currently 122km southeast of Hinche, will be near or over Cuba tonight and Monday, and over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico on Monday evening. and Tuesday.



Maximum sustained winds are close to 75 km/h with higher gusts. No significant change in force is expected over the next 36-48 hours as Laura moves over or near Hispaniola and Cuba. Reinforcement is expected once Laura travels to the Gulf of Mexico on Monday evening and Tuesday.



Tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 220 km from the center.



Heavy rains and strong winds began on the night of August 22 and will continue throughout the day on Sunday, with a high probability of flash floods, floods and landslides including in urban areas. It is estimated that 2 million people could be affected by the heavy rains, reaching 200mm in some parts of the country.



According to the Hydrometeorological Unit (UHM), the departments most exposed to heavy rainfall would be the South-East and the North-West. According to OCHA's analysis, the departments of the West and the South as well as certain communes of the Department of Artibonite could also be at risk.



The General Directorate of Civil Protection (DGPC) has activated the National Risk and Disaster Management Plan with an "orange" alert level.



Humanitarian partners are preparing to respond to potential impacts, under the leadership of Haitian authorities.



The storm should pass fairly quickly over Haitian territory.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior, directed by Om Raut, is so far the highest-grossing Hindi film of 2020 fetching almost 300 crores. Set in the 17th century, its based on the life of Tanhaji Malusare, a valiant military leader in Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharajs (Sharad Kelkar) army. The film depicts Tanhajis (Ajay Devgn) attempts to recapture the Kondhana fort from Aurangzeb (Luke Kenny). The Mughal emperor had transferred its control to his trusted guard Udaybhan Singh Rathore (Saif Ali Khan). Om says it was always a dream to bring Tanhaji, the unsung hero to life. Our history is full of dedicated people, who fought for the country. I want the masses to be proud of such heroes and through them, of our own history and heritage, he declares.It wasnt difficult for Om to get Ajay Devgn on board for Tanhaji. He had approached Ajay in 2017. The actor got so excited by the idea that he offered to produce the film as well. Om is impressed with the superstars work ethics. Ajay is like an octopus. He has so many things going on. At the same time, hes extremely focussed about what hes asked to do. Hes a directors actor. The simplicity with which he portrays a character is remarkable, gushes the director. The film is also Ajays 100th and a milestone in his career.He also has nice things to say about Saif, who played antagonist Udaybhan Singh. Hes impressed by Saifs perfectionist streak. Saif always says I can do better than this. He just goes on and on. Every take is an improvement over the last. Om mentions that this hunger to excel is the reason why actors like Ajay and Saif have had such long careers. The same is true of Kajol (plays Tanhajis wife, Savitribai) as well. The type of passion she brings to the table is fantastic, he maintains.Oms mother, Neena Raut, is a National Film Award winning producer. His father, Bharatkumar Raut, is a well-known author and a Member of Parliament. After attaining a Bachelors degree in engineering, Om studied filmmaking at the Syracuse University in New York. He worked for some time with the MTV network there. I lived a great life there. A comfortable apartment, a fancy car, a lovely job But I wanted to make my own kind of films, he shares. He moved to India and directed his first film in Marathi, Lokmanya:Ek Yug Purush (2015), based on the life of the great freedom fighter starring Subodh Bhave. He won the Filmfare Best Debut Director Award in Marathi for it.Om has acted in Karamati Coat (1993). He has also produced films like City Of Gold (2010) and Haunted 3D (2011). I acted in films because I wanted to know what happens behind the scenes. I produced films to understand the business side of it. But actually, Ive always wanted to be the guy, who stands next to the camera and tells everyone what to do, he smiles. Om believes hes made his Hindi debut at a time when things are changing for the better. He cites films like Article 15, Shuddh Desi Romance, Badhaai Ho and Baahubali as examples of a widening spectrum. He believes the lines between art and mainstream have blurred. Hindi cinema is on the right track and evolving fast. Im extremely happy to be part of the film industry, he smiles. The film buff confesses to be a hugefan of V Shantaram.He likes Martin Scorsese and Christopher Nolan among Hollywood filmmakers and Gauri Shinde and Nitesh Tiwari among contemporary Hindi directors. Hes signed Kartik Aaryan for a hush-hush actioner. On the personal side, Om loves cars and motorcycles. Im a petrolhead and like to take off on impromptu vacations. The open road holds an allure for me, smiles the adventure enthusiast.
(CNN)  At least 13 people have been killed and three others injured in a stampede at a nightclub in Lima, Peru, as partygoers attempted to escape a police raid on the venue, according to Orlando Velasco Mujica, general of the Peruvian National Police.

Police were called to the Thomas Restobar in the Los Olivos district of Peru's capital city on Saturday evening to shut down an illegal party that more than 120 people were attending.

Social distancing measures are mandated in Peru, large social gatherings are banned and there is a nationwide 10 p.m. curfew in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Peru was one of the first nations in the Americas to take strict preventative coronavirus measures, but is now one of the worst affected countries in Latin America, with more than 576,000 cases, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. More than 27,000 have died of the virus so far, JHU reports.

In an official statement, the Ministry of the Interior reported that the police did not use "any type of weapon or tear gas to clear the premises." When people began to flee the 2nd floor venue trying to get away from the police they were crushed on the stairs.

Police said in a statement they have started an investigation to identify the owners of the nightclub and those responsible for the event. Police said 23 people were arrested.

"The Ministry of the Interior profoundly regrets the deaths of 13 people as a consequence of the criminal irresponsibility of an unscrupulous business owner," the statement said.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "At least 13 people die in stampede, as police raid nightclub breaking coronavirus restrictions."
The coronavirus pandemic has infected over 23 million people around the world and caused at least 808,976 deaths.

The disease has infected over 51,000 people in Nigeria and caused the death of 997 of them.

Meanwhile, Nigeria is still battling other diseases such as Lassa fever, which has caused the death over 200 people this year.

Here is a round-up of some of the health stories which made headlines last week.

Coronavirus: Nigeria records highest daily tally in two month

Nigeria on Saturday recorded its highest daily figure of confirmed COVID-19 cases in nearly two months, as 601 new infections were announced by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

With the latest update, the number of infected people in the country rose to 51,905 from 51,304 as of Friday evening.

Previously, the highest number of daily COVID-19 infections was 745, which was recorded on June 19.

Lassa fever: More deaths in Ondo than COVID-19, as confirmed cases climb

Despite the panic over the COVID-19 pandemic, fatalities from Lassa fever had silently climbed to 63 in Ondo as of Week 32, dated August 8, 2020.

The last death case recorded in the state was in week 31, which brought the tally to 63. There was no death case in week 32 in the state.

Ondo State has witnessed 30 deaths so far from COVID-19, far less when compared to the fatalities from the Lassa fever disease.

Nutrition experts call for Nutrition budget return

Nutrition experts have appealed to the federal government to immediately reinsert the N800 million removed from budgetary allocation for Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) in the 2020 budget.

They also said malnutrition in Nigeria is basically caused by the federal governments lack of specific budget for nutrition and strategic plan of action.

The nutrition experts stated this in a virtual conference Tuesday convened by Aisha Buhari, through her project, Aisha Buhari Foundation, in collaboration with the International Society of Media in Public Health (ISMPH).

UN-led COVID-19 vaccine research drive lacks billions of dollars  WHO

A UN-led initiative to speed up the development of COVID-19 vaccines and medications is facing a massive funding gap, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The project, known as the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT), has received $2.5 billion in pledges, a WHO spokesperson in Geneva told dpa.

The UN health agency estimates that 31.3 billion dollars is needed to fund ACT over an initial period of 12 months.

The initiative, which was launched at a Brussels donor conference in May, advocates for the fair distribution of future vaccines and medications to developing as well as developed countries.

FG earmarks N126bn for health infrastructure upgrade

The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba, has said that the Nigerian government has provided N126 billion in the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP) to upgrade health infrastructure across the country.

The upgrade, he said, will include federal medical centres and teaching hospitals with intensive care units, laboratories and isolation centres in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

WHO stresses need for quick action amid reports of fresh COVID-19 outbreaks

With several countries experiencing fresh COVID-19 outbreaks after periods of little or no transmission, the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday highlighted the need for authorities to be able to move quickly to prevent further spread of the disease.

These nations provide a cautionary tale because they show how progress does not mean victory, said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in his latest update on the crisis.

Nigeria to begin COVID-19 drug trial in 13 states  PTF

The federal government has said that Nigeria will soon commence COVID-19 drug trials in 13 states in the country.

The National Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Sani Aliyu, made this known at a press briefing on Thursday.

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Mr Aliyu said the drug trials would start in 22 sites scattered across 13 states of the federation.

WHO chief warns against COVID-19 vaccine nationalism, urges support for fair access

Warning against vaccine nationalism in the COVID-19 pandemic, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has again underlined the importance of global solidarity in addressing the crisis.

Tedros Ghebreyesus on Tuesday said he has written to WHO Member States, urging them to join the COVAX Global Vaccines Facility, a mechanism aimed at guaranteeing fair access for all countries, rich or poor, to effective immunization.

COVID-19 stimulus: 16 states receive N1.6bn World Bank grant

The National Economic Council (NEC) says 16 states have so far received N100 million grant each from the World Bank to ease the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown.

Abdullahi Sule, Nasarawa State governor, virtually briefed State House correspondents after the virtual NEC meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday.

The World Bank recently made a proposal of $1.5 billion to states as part of economic stimulus to cushion the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pakistan health worker commits to polio fight, despite COVID fears

Despite suffering the after-effects of the COVID-19 virus, Husna Gul, a staff member with the UN Childrens Fund (UNICEF) in Pakistan, is committed to ensuring that as many children as possible are vaccinated against the devastating consequences of polio, which can cause muscle-wasting, paralysis and death.

Polio vaccination campaigns have resumed in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the last two countries in the world where polio is endemic, following a hiatus imposed by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The restart has been accompanied by new guidelines, to help ensure the safety of patients, and health workers.

WHO recommends masks for children older than 11-years

The UN Childrens Fund (UNICEF) says children above 11-years should wear face masks wherever adults wear them, such as in crowded settings, as a tool against COVID-19.

The UN health and childrens agencies said this in a guidance document for decision makers that was published Friday evening.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF did not generally recommend children between ages six and 11 wear masks, but that they should be considered in areas with intense virus transmission or in special settings such as schools.
Detectives are searching for a pair of cufflinks which could help them solve the murder of 88-year-old Dennis Kellond in his own home. (SWNS)

A missing pair of cufflinks could be the key to finding out more details about the death of a pensioner believed to have been murdered in his own home.

Dennis Kellond, 88, was found dead at his home in Godstone, Surrey, on 27 April after suffering a head injury.

Darren McClean, 41, was arrested on 30 April and has been charged with Mr Kellonds murder, but police are still investigating the pensioners death.

Detectives are hunting for a pair of the victims cufflinks  which were an engagement present from the widowers late wife and may have been stolen from the pensioners home  in the hope they will reveal more details about the circumstances of his death.

The cufflinks are thought to have been an engagement gift from Mr Kellond's late wife. (SWNS)

Surrey Police has issued a picture of the treasured octagonal accessories, in a purple jewellery box from Jays diamond merchants of Oxford Street, London, in the hope someone may recognise them.

Detective Sergeant Daniel Chant said: Its important for us to discover what has happened to these cufflinks, which we believe were stolen from Mr Kellonds home.

Following conversations with the family it is believed that these cufflinks were an engagement present from Dennis late wife so hold extreme sentimental value.

Read more: Police hunt cyclist who leaned into ambulance and spat in paramedic's face

He added: It is possible that they have been sold on since, and finding out what has happened to them could assist our investigation into his murder.

If you have any information about where these cufflinks might be, please get in touch with us straightaway.

McClean, of Bletchingley, Surrey, pleaded not guilty to his murder and was remanded in custody before his trial which is due for October 12.
The legislation would reverse budget cuts, increase funding to the Postal Service to deal with a mail-in ballot surge.

The Democratic-led US House of Representatives voted on Saturday to provide the cash-strapped Postal Service with $25bn and to block policy changes that have stirred concerns about mail-in voting in advance of the November 3 election.

The chamber passed the emergency bill, dubbed the Delivering for America Act, on Saturday during a rare Saturday session called by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the congressional August recess. The bill passed 257 to 150.

Twenty-six Republicans broke party ranks and voted for the bill.





The legislation would undo any recent changes to operations that may slow the Postal Services mail delivery, provide an infusion of cash for the agency to deal with the extra workload during the election and the continuing coronavirus outbreak, and require all ballots be treated as first-class mail.

It would also prevent Postmaster General Louis DeJoy from making any operational changes to the agency until after next January or the end of the coronavirus health emergency, whichever comes later.

The bill is unlikely to be taken up in the Republican-controlled Senate and the White House Office of Management and Budget said it strongly opposes the measure and would recommend President Donald Trump veto it.

Trump has repeatedly denounced mail-in voting, which is expected to surge due to the coronavirus pandemic, as a possible source of fraud, despite a dearth of evidence supporting that claim.

Democrats, meanwhile, have accused Trump of trying to undermine the Postal Service for political gain and DeJoy, a Trump donor who was selected to the position by a board of governors appointed by Trump, of making financial cuts and policy changes that will slow the delivery of mail-in ballots.

Last week, the Postal Service reportedly warned 46 of the 50 US states, as well as the District of Columbia, that mail-in ballots may not arrive in time under the states current deadlines for sending the ballots.

DeJoy has since suspended the financial cuts and assured a Senate committee on Friday that the Postal Service would deliver ballots securely and on time, however, he said he would not restore the already-made cuts to mailboxes and sorting equipment.

Day-long debate

Democrats cast themselves in Saturdays debate as defenders of a public that relies on the Postal Service for vital deliveries including prescription drugs.

The American people do not want anyone messing with the Post Office. They certainly do not want it to be politicised. They just want their mail, they want their medicines and they want their mail-in ballots delivered in a timely way. And that is exactly what our bill does, said Democratic Representative Carolyn Maloney, who authored the legislation.

Maloney also released internal Postal Service documents that showed more dramatic declines in deliveries arriving on time than legislators had previously been told.

Republicans, meanwhile, countered that complaints about mail delivery disruptions were overblown, and no emergency funding is currently needed.





Do we need that money? Absolutely, no, said Representative Tom Cole. Its a silly, silly bill.

In a memo to House Republicans, party leaders derided the legislation as a postal conspiracy theory act.

While the bill is expected to languish in the Senate, Republican leader Mitch McConnell is eyeing a $10bn postal rescue as part of the next COVID-19 relief package. While Trump has said he wants to block emergency funding for the agency, the White House has said it would be open to more postal funding as part of a broader bill.

The Postal Service has been struggling financially under a decline in mail volume, COVID-19-related costs and a rare and cumbersome congressional requirement to fund in advance its retiree healthcare benefits.

Some have called for the agency to be run more like a private company, while defenders say the agency is a public service that should not be run as a money-making endeavour.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 23)  The Philippine Red Cross (PRC) has been authorized by the Department of Health (DOH) to release positive results directly to people tested for COVID-19.

In a statement on Sunday, the PRC said it previously notified those who tested negative for the virus, but sent out to the DOH the positive results because the agency is in a better position to enforce government-mandated health and safety protocols.

PRC chairman and CEO Senator Richard Gordon welcomed the DOH's approval, given the number of positive COVID-19 cases in the country.

"They may have been dangerously increasing community transmission of the disease. We have devised a mechanism for releasing positive results to the individuals concerned without compromising the necessary protocols, he said.

Gordon said those who tested positive will also be given instructions and advice on how to keep themselves safe, adding that the PRC will consult with those concerned and give them psychosocial support.

In its latest update, the DOH said COVID-19 cases in the country climbed closer to 190,000 on Sunday, with 2,378 new cases confirmed.
Gandhis vs collective leadership: Cracks wide open in Congress ahead of crucial CWC meet

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Aug 23: Will Sonia Gandhi step down as Congress chief tomorrow? Party Spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala has rubbished reports of the Congress leader resigning from the post of Congress interim president as false.

A host of other leaders released statements and letters, supporting Sonia Gandhi and her leadership.

While Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and former ministers Ashwani Kumar, Salman Khurshid and KK Tewary backed the Gandhis, the dissenting group included former ministers Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Kapil Sibal, Mukul Wasnik, Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor and former Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

Former union minister and Congress veteran K K Tewary said on Sunday that a letter written by some party leaders calling for a change in leadership and an organisational overhaul is an "organised coup" by the BJP and promotes its agenda of 'Congress-mukt Bharat'.

He said the issues raised by the leaders deserved serious scrutiny by the leadership and in the same breath added that the Gandhi family should keep the reins of the party or else it would disintegrate.

Maharashtra Congress chief and Revenue Minister Balasaheb Thorat on Sunday said former party president Rahul Gandhi should lead the grand old party.

Thorat also described Rahul Gandhi as a "courageous, sensitive and intellectually-committed leader". He said Sonia Gandhi should continue to lead the Congress as its interim president until Rahul Gandhi takes over as the full-time president.

"With due respect to Rahulji's sentiments, we would like to say, 'Come Back, Rahulji'. Under your leadership, we will be the voice of millions of Indians, we are determined to make history. This is not only the need of the Congress party but the need of the entire country as well," Thorat, who is a CWC member, said in a statement.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Sunday said the Gandhi family has kept the party united and the letter written by senior Congress leaders over party leadership is an unfortunate move.

He said the leaders who are said to have written the letter have worked with the party for long and this was not expected of them.

"I am not aware of any such letter but if this is true, then it is unfortunate. They all have worked with the party for so long and the move of the letter is uncalled for," Gehlot told PTI.

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has opposed the bid by some Congress leaders to challenge the Gandhi family leadership in the party, saying this is not the time to raise such an issue.

In a statement, Singh said the need today is for a strong opposition against the BJP-led NDA which is out to destroy the country's constitutional ethos and democratic principles.

'What the Congress needs is a leadership that is acceptable not just to a few but to the entire party, through its rank and file, and the nation at large,' he said, adding that the Gandhis were the right fit for this role.

'Sonia Gandhi should continue to helm the Congress as long as she wants,' he said, adding that Rahul Gandhi should thereafter take over as he is fully competent to lead the party.

Congress president post, who will lead if not the Gandhis? Big developments | Oneindia News

"If someone is asking him (Rahul Gandhi) to come back as the party president, it is for him to decide. Whoever is wanting him to be the party president, I will join my voice. I hope that he will decide that he will be the party president again," Salman Khurshid, Congress.

Congress MP B Manickam Tagore has written to Congress president Sonia Gandhi requesting her to continue as the party chief. "We would like to reiterate our complete & unwavering faith in your leadership. Congress party is only safe in your hands or in those of Rahul ji's," he wrote.

"Entire Congress in Karnataka stands by leadership of Sonia Gandhi and the Gandhi family. She has led Congress during times of crisis & saved our party. Anything that has to be discussed must be done so in the party forum & not in the media," Karnataka Congress chief DK Shivakumar.

Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury came down heavily on a section of his party colleagues who have questioned the leadership, by saying it is a "deliberate attempt" to weaken the Congress while asserting that the party is in safe hands of the Gandhi family.

Accusing the said section of Congress leaders of raising the bogey of "leadership crisis" at the behest of "interested parties" as a "manufactured truth", Chowdhury, the Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, said lakhs of party workers and supporters have unquestionable faith on Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi's leadership and "no one else can do justice to the post" of party president.

Different voices have emerged within the party with one section comprising sitting MPs and former ministers demanding a collective leadership, while another group has sought the return of Rahul Gandhi to the helm.

Some Congress leaders, including ex-ministers, have written to party president Sonia Gandhi for the overhaul of the organisational structure and changes to the leadership.
The United States is not only one of the first and foremost nuclear powers of the world, it has also long been the nuclear powerhouse of the planet, being responsible for a whopping two thirds of global nuclear energy production. Domestically, the United States nuclear power plants account for approximately 20 percent of the nations total electricity and produce over 50 percent of the entire countrys carbon-free energy generation. But these superlatives, both global and domestic, wont last. As nuclear energy grows around the world, the industry is in deep trouble in the U.S., where the aging nuclear fleet has been battered by a flood of cheap shale oil and natural gas, and is now barely clinging to life thanks to hefty government subsidies and leaving the shockingly high cost of radioactive waste maintenance to the taxpayers.

Meanwhile, the global nuclear industry is charging full force ahead, with China and Russia leading the charge. GlobalData Plc predicts that China will pass France as the worlds No. 2 nuclear generator in 2022 and claim the top spot from the U.S. four years after that, Bloomberg Green reported in June. the United Arab Emirates just achieved a major milestone for the Middle East when their new nuclear plant connected to the grid earlier this week, a first in the Arab world. At the same time Russia and China are embroiled in a competition to establish dominance in the burgeoning nuclear energy industry in Africa.

Earlier this summer, Oilprice questioned whether the U.S. oil industry would be able to survive COVID-19, as it threatens to be left behind in economic recovery plans. But now, this may be the least of the United States nuclear woes.

Climate changeparticularly intense heatis advancing so rapidly that it poses physical as well as credit risks to Americas aging nuclear fleet, Bloomberg Green reported this week, based on a new report released by Moodys Investors Service. Our plants are fairly hardened to severe weather, Moodys analyst David Kamran and the lead author of the report told Bloomberg Green. But climate change is moving quickly.

Related: OPEC+ Complied 95% With Oil Production Cuts In July

Back in 2011, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission asked domestic plants to conduct their own assessments of risks from climate change and other natural hazards. This request was spurred by the devastating nuclear disaster at Japans Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant when the infrastructure was damaged by a 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami. The meltdown was the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl and reminded the world to be appropriately afraid of nuclear mishaps.

Last year, Bloomberg conducted a review of correspondence between the commission and owners of 60 plants and made some terrifying discoveries. According to their own risk assessments,  54 of their [60] facilities werent designed to handle the flood risk they now face.

Four Twenty Seven Inc., a climate risk data company acquired by Moodys in 2019, evaluated the potential effects of heat stress, water stress, hurricanes, flooding, and rising sea levels on 57 U.S. nuclear power plants over the next 20 years. It found that while a handful of plantsincluding Cooper Nuclear Station in Nemaha, Neb. and Prairie Island in Goodhue, Minn.face severe risk from floods, far more either will face or already face red flag conditions from heat.

Nuclear plants depend on water to keep from overheating. (In Japan, the volume of tainted, radioactive water--1.3 million tons of it-- that has been used to keep the damaged Fukushima plant from melting down will soon outgrow the nations storage capacity and the country has suggested dumping it into the Pacific Ocean.) But in a world faced with climate change and extreme water stress, this could pose a serious challenge. In times of intense heat and drought, water resources can become either too warm or too scarce, forcing shutdowns, writes Bloomberg Green. This has already happened, and not just in the South: in 2012, Dominion Energy Inc.s Millstone nuclear plant in Waterford, Conn. The U.S. nuclear plants at the highest risk for extreme water stress in the future are those in the Rocky Mountain region, the Colorado River region, and California.

This does not mean that these plants will melt down. What it means is that these plants need to start innovating and adapting now to what will be a much harsher environment coming down the pike. But in an industry that is already struggling to break even, expensive climate-proofing is easier said than done.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Several governors will be speaking, including female Republican Govs. Kristi L. Noem of South Dakota and Kim Reynolds of Iowa, but a handful of other GOP governors who have been the strongest defenders of Trump as they are dealing with the coronavirus pandemic in their states  Brian Kemp of Georgia, Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas  are not scheduled to appear, according to Sundays list.
Victoria Police say they issued a $2,300 fine to a party host who allegedly failed to follow COVID-19 provincial health guidelines.

Police say they twice visited a suite in a multi-unit residential building on Friday to respond to reports of a noisy party attended by a large number of people.

After a warning from police, the host said they would co-operate.

Officers say when they next visited, they noticed roughly 30 people inside the one-bedroom suite, not practicing social distancing, and an estimated roughly 40 to 60 people attended the party.

The host was fined $2,300 for allegedly violating B.C.s COVID Related Measures Act.

Police say the host also failed to record the contact details of all the guests to help with contact tracing in the event someone contracted COVID-19.
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Linkedin (Reuters) Torvaianica, Italy  Sun, August 23, 2020 08:07 515 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066fc56e0 2 Environment rome,Italy,turtle,animals,conservation Free

A loggerhead sea turtle has buried its eggs in the sands of a popular beach near Rome, the first time one has traveled this far north up the Italian peninsula to hatch its offspring.

Beach-goers have been gathering around the fence of a marked-off area waiting for the baby turtles to emerge.

The loggerhead sea turtles are endangered species that live in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea.

They usually nest in southern Italy but since 2016 they have gradually made their way up through the peninsula.

"We learned that no turtles have ever laid eggs here, so this is a new nesting site," TartaLazio environmental expert Elena Santini told Reuters on the beach of Torvaianica.

Read also: Cambodian conservationists hopeful for revival of rare royal turtle

Santini said the turtles' choice to move north was mainly due to rising sea temperatures. There was no direct evidence of a relationship between their presence on the beach, south of Rome, and the quietness during the COVID-19 lockdown, she said.

Over the night of June 22 and morning of June 23, Daniele Masano, a member of the Italian coast guard, filmed the moment when the turtle came to the beach to lay and bury its eggs.

The eggs could number up 100 and are expected to hatch after about 50 days and beach-goers are eager to see the baby turtles.

"We come here every day, we hope it's the right day and that the eggs hatch, at least we can see the baby turtles," Rome resident Elena Bondi said.

Topics : rome Italy turtle animals conservation
Press Release

August 22, 2020 Dispatch from Crame No. 888:

Sen. Leila M. de Lima on PNP's Proferred Justification for the Jolo Rubout 8/22/20 We have to hand it to the PNP to offer the most absurd but, at the same time, the most convenient excuse for the killing of the four AFP intelligence troopers in Jolo, Sulu. Like a most repeated but overused refrain, the PNP points to Corporal Abdal Asula, one of the slain AFP operatives, as being involved in a so-called "drug matrix", as if this in itself justifies the massacre of the AFP operatives and exculpate the PNP from liability for the cold-blooded murders. First off, is the PNP saying that once someone is tagged in a "drug matrix", the person is fair game for execution together with whoever happens to be with him at any given moment? Second, what is even the value of the PNP's so-called drug matrix? Does this constitute evidence of committing a crime under the Dangerous Drugs Act, or does it have the same value as the drug matrix presented by Duterte in the past against me and other public officials, which he then retracted (except the one concerning me) for being inaccurate, and after all law enforcement agencies denied any involvement in its preparation? The PNP, for all intents and purposes, is convinced that the drug war is a justification for all their crimes, including extra-judicial killings, harassment, extortion, shakedowns, rape, etc. The drug war has been their tool for abuse, profusely used by the PNP to cover up their own criminal activities, illegal opportunities that opened up when they were basically given a license to commit almost any kind of atrocity in the guise of prosecuting Duterte's war on drugs. And now they dare use the same excuse on the AFP, that just because one of the soldiers is allegedly part of a "drug matrix", they can massacre half a squad of AFP officers and enlisted men on the suspicion that one of them was involved in drugs. The fact is, we don't even know how true are the allegations against Corporal Asula, because he was immediately shot and murdered and, like the thousands of EJK victims of the drug war, not given a chance to prove his innocence before a court of law. Which therefore brings us full circle to everything that is wrong with the drug war: the summary execution of suspects even before they have been given a day in court. Inevitably, the AFP itself was given a taste of the arbitrariness and inhumanity of this method of the PNP in the drug war. And now that it is soldiers with guns who are also complaining, can we expect a change of heart in the PNP in its application of these murderous methods, methods that were honed in terrible efficiency the past four years of this Administration? I do not think so. As long as it is the President himself who coddles these PNP executioners, rewarding them with bonuses, salary increases, housing projects, and what have you, for doing exactly what he wants them to do, there will never be an end to the PNP's murderous and blatant abuse of its power. The AFP might as well wait until the next time a whole squad of its troopers is massacred by the PNP's rampant killers. Or, as was a possible scenario before Duterte went to Jolo to pacify them, they could always turn the country into its own version of the wild, wild west, where lawmen engaged in shootouts against each other, because they no longer have anything to do with being law enforcers, all of them having already being turned into outlaws in the absence of the rule of law. ### (Access the handwritten copy of Dispatch from Crame No. 888, here: https://issuu.com/senatorleilam.delima/docs/dispatch_888)
Dueling demonstrators faced off in downtown Portland Saturday for the second time in as many weeks, this time drawing larger crowds and intermittently breaking into violent scuffles for more than two hours.

Portland police issued warnings that went largely ignored by the two factions: One aligned with a so-called Back the Blue rally and the other a Black Lives Matter counter-demonstration, which together drew hundreds to the few blocks surrounding the Multnomah County Justice Center at noon.

As opposing protesters exchanged a volley of fire from paintball guns in front of the Justice Center, an officer inside a Portland police vehicle stationed in front of a nearby Starbucks offered a declaration.

Officers have observed projectiles being thrown and people possession of firearms, shields and other weapons. Anyone who is involved in criminal behavior is subject to arrest and/or a citation, the officer said.

Portland police never moved in on the crowd, despite those repeated warnings. The bureau in a press release said it only had 30 officers on hand for the afternoons demonstrations, a fraction of the number typically deployed during downtown protests.

Yet city leaders expected the clashes between opposing factions. Mayor Ted Wheeler and City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty both issued statements asking demonstrators to remain peaceful, as did the police bureau hours ahead of the Back the Blue rally.

Wheeler is the citys police commissioner.

After the event unfolded, the police bureau said its commanders were reluctant to order officers to engage with the rowdy crowd after more than 80 days of protests against police, particularly when people were willingly engaging in physical confrontations for short durations. The bureau noted many officers on the ground had worked the previous nights demonstration, which was declared a riot shortly after 1 a.m.

The bureau said one person pulled a pistol on Black Lives Matter demonstrators at one point. He did not fire.

Various reporters on the ground identified the man as Alan Swinney, a member of the Proud Boys, an organization thats been a years-long fixture at Portland protests and recognized as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Although Portland police did not move in on the crowd, federal officers positioned at Terry Schrunk Plaza dispersed protesters close to 3 p.m., and only after demonstrators gathered in the amphitheater when the Back the Blue group retreated.

The demonstrations marked the start of the 87th consecutive day of protests in Portland, hours ahead of a rally planned later in the evening across the Willamette River.

The confrontations downtown began at noon with the Mother of all Back the Blue Rallies, so named for its support of police and other law enforcement agencies. The event, as well as similar protests planned for the same time, drew a few hundred supporters downtown.

The crowd was sprinkled with attendees wearing attire signifying their affiliation with the Proud Boys. Other attendees carried shields or signs with slogans employed by those who believe in conspiracy theories alleging President Trump is leading a fight against a cabal of child sex traffickers.

The right-wing demonstration was met with a Black Lives Matter counter-protest, a dynamic that evoked pre-pandemic summer afternoons when hundreds turn out every year in the six-block area of the city thats home to most local law enforcement agencies.

An earlier rally in support of the U.S. Postal Service, which included at least nine other similar rallies across the city, according to that events leader, also fed into the Black Lives Matter counter-protest.

Tensions arose almost immediately after the Back the Blue rally began as demonstrators chanted back and forth at each other across Southwest Third Avenue.

All cops are brave, shouted protesters from the steps and sidewalk in front of the Justice Center.

All cops are bastards, counter-demonstrators shouted back, a common chant among the Black Lives Matter protests that began in late May. The Justice Center, which houses the police headquarters and a county jail, has long been at the center of the demonstrations.

Meanwhile, Demetria Hester, organizer for Moms United for Black Lives Matter, circled the crowd chanting Black lives matter! through a megaphone as she carried a periwinkle Krusty Krab backpack.

As crowds filled either side of Third Avenue, Portland police made announcements urging peace among the opposing groups.

Portland police support free speech and assembly. Our primary focus is life and safety. Please demonstrate lawfully and help us keep events safe, the speaker said.

The warnings went unheeded.

Scuffles repeatedly broke out among the crowd. Demonstrators exchanged volleys of rocks, half-full water bottles and smoke canisters. People on both sides sprayed the crowd with paint balls throughout the afternoon.

Right-wing demonstrators formed a shield line at times, pushing counter-demonstrators off the street and into Chapman Square. One man indiscriminately sprayed the crowd with orange pepper spray, sending protesters from both sides fleeing for relief.

Some in the Back the Blue group also adopted tactics law enforcement agencies and conservative media have scrutinized Portlands Black Lives Matter protesters for employing  left-wing demonstrators had green laser lights beamed into their eyes and fireworks erupted among the crowd in Chapman Square.

At one point, right-wing demonstrators targeted the graffiti-laden Snac Van, which offers food, water and other supplies at nightly protests across the city. Someone shattered the vehicles driver side window as others began pushing the van, swaying it from side to side.

Protesters from either side would peel off after each skirmish, some running back to their respective allies to ask for a dousing of water to relieve their eyes or skin from the burn brought on by a blast of pepper spray.

Portland police continued to issue their warnings as those scuffles broke out, never moving in on the crowd.

Police confiscated shields near the park before the Back the Blue rally, as well as condoms filled with indistinguishable liquids and water bottles officers believed by officers to be full of urine.

There were no arrests announced, even as known right-wing brawler Tusitala Tiny Toese walked among the crowd.

Court records show an active warrant out for his arrest, the result of a probation violation. Toese, a fixture of right-wing protests that tend to turn violent and a former member of Vancouver, Washington-based Patriot Prayer, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge in January that stemmed from a 2018 slugfest in Northeast Portland.

The right-wing group began to retreat from the Justice Center shortly after 2:30 p.m.

Black Lives Matter protesters followed as some of the Back the Blue demonstrators marched west on Columbia Street. Still others retrieved their vehicles from the parking garage on Third Avenue across the street from KOIN Tower.

As black-clad counter-demonstrators pulled ladders out of utility closets to form a makeshift barricade on the ramp leading up to the garages upper floors, one man sped his pickup truck through the gate that prevents people from leaving without paying.

Counter-demonstrators soon made their way back to Terry Schrunk Federal Plaza, where Department of Homeland Security officers had been stationed since the days events began. The federal park sits one block from the Justice Center.

Protesters filled the amphitheater inside the park, chanting feds go home.

After about 30 minutes, federal police called the gathering an unlawful assembly and pressed protesters out of the plaza  officers shouted orders to move back as they held shields and batons in front of them. It was unclear what prompted the declaration.

The push bifurcated the crowd as some people landed on Madison Street and in nearby Chapman Square, while others were pressed onto the sidewalk along Fourth Avenue in front of City Hall.

Demonstrators chanted for another 20 minutes or so as the police force slowly retreated toward the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Building, which houses the Portland offices for the IRS, Bureau of Land Management and other federal agencies.

Federal officers have repeatedly staged there since July.

The crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters that remained burst into cheers and chants of We beat back the fasc(ists), we beat back the feds.

K. Rambo and Brooke Herbert of The Oregonian/OregonLive staff contributed to this report.

--Eder Campuzano | 503-221-4344 | @edercampuzano | Eder on Facebook

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
- By Alberto Abaterusso





Investors who are looking for bargains may be interested in the following stocks, as their share prices are standing below the intrinsic value calculated by GuruFocus' free cash flow-based Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) calculator.

These stocks have also received optimistic recommendation ratings from sell-side analysts on Wall Street.





Veritiv Corp

The first stock value investors may be interested in is Veritiv Corp (NYSE:VRTV), an Atlanta, Georgia-based supplier of facility solutions, packaging, print and publishing products and other related services.

Veritiv Corp was trading at a price of $17.22 per share at close on Friday, which is lower than the value of $194.13 from the DCF model, for a margin of safety of 91.13%.

The share price went up by 5.51% over the past year for a market capitalization of $273.69 million and a 52-week range of $5.70 to $24.66.

A Trio of Stocks Trading Below the Intrinsic Value

GuruFocus has assigned a positive score of 5 out of 10 to the company's financial strength and a moderate score of 4 out of 10 to its profitability.

One sell-side analyst on Wall Street issued a buy recommendation rating for this stock and has produced a target price of $26 per share.

The company's top fund holder is Seth Klarman (Trades, Portfolio) with 22.43% of shares outstanding, followed by BAIN CAPITAL INVESTORS LLC with 17.52% and BlackRock Inc. with 12.20%.

IRSA Inversiones y Representaciones SA

The second stock to be under consideration is IRSA Inversiones y Representaciones SA (NYSE:IRS), an Argentinian real estate company focusing on shopping malls and office buildings for rental purposes and the acquisition and management of hotels. The company also engages in the development of residential properties and land reserves.

IRSA Inversiones y Representaciones SA's share price traded at $3.43 at close on Friday, which is standing below the DCF valuation of $135.55, for a 97.79% margin of safety.

Story continues

The share price didn't perform well over the past year as it fell by 42.43%, determining a market capitalization of $198.49 million and a 52-week range of $2.77 to $7.86.

A Trio of Stocks Trading Below the Intrinsic Value

GuruFocus has assigned a low score of 3 out of 10 to the company's financial strength and a very good score of 7 out of 10 to its profitability.

Two sell-side analysts on Wall Street issued recommendation ratings on this stock with an average rating of overweight and an average target price of $5.53 per share.

With 4.61% of shares outstanding, Autonomy Capital (Jersey) L.P. is the company's top fund holder, followed by Macquarie Group Ltd with 3.25% and VR Advisory Services Ltd with 3.22%.

American Axle & Mfg Holdings Inc

The third stock investors may want to have a look at is American Axle & Mfg Holdings Inc (NYSE:AXL), a Detroit, Michigan-based manufacturer of driveline and other metal forming products for automotive markets in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

American Axle & Mfg Holdings Inc's share price closed at $6.91 on Friday, which is substantially below the DCF valuation of $11.23, yielding a 38.47% margin of safety.

The share price has increased by 8.65% over the past year for a market capitalization of $782.72 million and a 52-week range of $2.50 to $11.26.

A Trio of Stocks Trading Below the Intrinsic Value

GuruFocus has assigned a low score of 3 out of 10 to the company's financial strength and a positive score of 6 out of 10 to its profitability.

Wall Street sell-side analysts recommend an overweight rating with an average target price of $8.89 per share for this stock.

BlackRock Inc. and VANGUARD GROUP INC lead the group of the top fund holders of the company, owning 15.07% and 10.87%, respectively.

Disclosure: I have no position in any security mentioned.

Read more here:







Not a Premium Member of GuruFocus? Sign up for a free 7-day trial here.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.


A private tourist company based in Gurugram has announced a bus service from Delhi to London where the travellers will cover 18 countries and 20,000 km in 70 days.

Adventures Overland on August 15 announced the "first-ever hop-on/hop-off bus service between Delhi and London", named "Bus to London". People taking this tour will travel through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and France.

A special 20-seater bus, equipped with business class seats, is being built for this trip. Apart from the 20 passengers, there will be a driver, an assistant driver, a guide and a helper. The guide will change at regular intervals during the trip.

The company will also take care of the visa arrangements of the passengers.

The trip will be divided into four categories and passengers can choose different destinations according to their liking and convenience while they will have to pay as per the particular package. However, if they avail of the whole trip from Delhi to London it will cost them Rs 15 lakh per person.

The idea materialised after two travel enthusiasts, Tushar Agarwal and Sanjay Madan, took a road trip to London in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Adventures Overland co-founder Tushar Agarwal told IANS, "We planned this trip after a lot of people passionate about travelling expressed their wish for a road trip to London. This was announced on August 15 and we hope that the first bus to London will be flagged off in May 2021. We have not started the registrations due to the coronavirus spread. The registrations will start after taking stock of the coronavirus situation in all the countries."

"All the facilities will be provided during the 70-day trip. Arrangements for stay will be made in 4-star or 5-star hotels and passengers will also be provided Indian food in all the countries," he added.
Gandhi vs non-Gandhi: Congress leaders call for changes in party, another group bats for Rahul

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Aug 23: Ahead of the Congress Working Committee meeting on Monday, different voices have emerged within the party with one section comprising sitting MPs and former ministers demanding collective leadership, while another group has sought the return of Rahul Gandhi to the helm.

While two dozen Congress leaders including some ex ministers have written to party president Sonia Gandhi for overhaul of the organisational structure and changes to the leadership, some leaders close to Rahul have also written to the CWC pressing for the Gandhi scion's return as chief.

The letter by former ministers and some MPs was believed to have been written a few weeks ago and sets the stage for a stormy CWC meeting where issues flagged by dissenters are expected to be discussed and debated.

These leaders have called for bringing changes in the organization by effecting reforms through decentralisation of power and empowerment of state units besides setting up of the central Parliamentary Board, a body that existed in the party in the 1970s but was later wound up.

The letter in question has also stressed collective decision-making with Gandhi family as its "integral part."

Amid leadership debate, Congress Working Committee to meet on August 24

They have also called for the appointment of a full-time leadership which is active and which can be easily contacted by workers and leaders. The pro reform leaders are further learnt to have called for free and fair organizational polls from the block up to the working committee level.

A counter to the pro reform lobby arguing for collective leadership in the Congress has also begun with sitting MP Manickam Tagore calling for Rahul Gandhi's return as party president.

"Gandhis are the symbol of sacrifice. Decision by Congress CWC was a majority decision reflecting the will of 1100 AICC, 8800 PCC members, five crore workers and 12 crore supporters who want Rahul Gandhi as their leader," Tagore said, referring to the 2019 decision of the CWC to name Sonia Gandhi as party president after Rahul declined to accept a unanimous CWC appeal to stay in the post.

Apart from Tagore, Challa Vamshi Chand Reddy, ex Telangana lawmaker and AICC secretary in charge of Maharashtra has also asked for the promotion of Rahul Gandhi as Congress President "without any further delay."

In a letter to the CWC on Sunday, Challa Reddy said any delay in Rahul's reinstatement would be at the cost of the Congress.

"In view of existing conditions any further delay in promoting Rahul Gandhi as AICC president can cause incalculable harm to the progress of Congress Party and can be dispiriting to the Congress family," Reddy said in the letter.

He said, "On behalf of millions of Congress workers and sympathizers I would like to take this opportunity to refer to an important pressing matter to the committee. We have been eagerly waiting for this CWC meeting to happen and for a positive decision to be taken to promote Rahul Gandhi as AICC president".

"This major decision, taken at the earliest possible, can create a launching pad for further creative action and get us all prepared for any eventuality. Rahul Gandhi is the only leader who can animate both seniors and youngsters, unite their energies, direct their vigour and inventiveness to bring the past glory to Congress," he said.

While the younger leaders in the Congress are expected to chalk out a strategy to push for Rahul's return to the helm, the leaders who earlier petitioned to Sonia Gandhi have called for contacting and winning back all those Congressmen who have quit the party and joined the BJP and expressed concerns over rank and file getting demoralised due to the "drift in the party."

They are also learnt to have pointed out that the CWC is not "guiding" the party effectively in mobilizing public opinion against the BJP.

Among leaders learnt to have signed the letter are Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, deputy leader of Congress in Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma, former chief ministers Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Prithviraj Chavan and Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, besides ex ministers Mukul Wasnik, Kapil Sibal, M Veerappa Moily, Shashi Tharoor, MP Manish Tewari, and former MPs Milind Deora, Jitin Prasada and Sandeep Dixit.

They signatories are also said to include former party unit chiefs including Raj Babbar, Arvinder Singh Lovely, Kaul Singh Thakur besides leaders Akhilesh Prasad Singh and Kuldeep Sharma.

These leaders argued that in the absence of a direct dialogue with the Congress chief over strengthening of the party, revival of the party has become imperative in the interest of democracy in the country.

While most of the leaders who have written the letter did not answer calls on Sunday, some who answered remained tight-lipped on the issue having set the stage for a CWC debate on the need for a Gandhi vis-a-vis a non Gandhi Congress President.
Lucknow:

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Friday sought to know from first-time SP MLAs about the peoples aspirations and expectations.



During the meeting at his official residence, Akhilesh directed over 100 first-time party MLAs to propagate developmental schemes launched by the government.



The Chief Minister sought a feedback from us about the ground situation and asked us to propagate good works done by the government and various developmental schemes launched for the common man, party MLA Ruchiveera said after the meeting.



Akhilesh also sought to know aspirations and expectations of the people from the government as the same will be utilised in preparing partys manifesto for 2017 Assembly polls, he said.

Also read | Akhilesh govt clears proposal to include 17 extremely backward castes in SC list



The meeting was strictly held for the first time legislators.



Though the MLAs said the meeting was not a political one and the Chief Minister Akhilesh just wanted a feedback, the meeting was seen as an attempt by the CM to gauge mood of MLAs as the ticket distribution in the party is on.



Being state chief Akhileshs uncle Shivpal Yadav is releasing the list of candidates and there are some seats like Ayodhya on which confrontation might once again take place.



Tej Narain alias Pawan Pandey is MLA from Ayodhya, who was sacked from the party by Shivpal but as he is close to Akhilesh he is continuing as minister (of state for Forest) in his Cabinet.

Also read | Akhilesh Yadav feels two Ds, development and demonetisation, will help SP retain power

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Calling yourself a 'workaholic' who is 'motivated by change' and 'obviously' eager to take on a 'challenge' in an interview could cost hopeful candidates the job, recruitment experts have warned.

Competition for jobs is fiercer than ever, with close to a million Australians now unemployed and the labour market expected to remain weak for years, particularly across the worst-affected hospitality, retail and travel sectors.

Treasury now expects the national jobless rate to hit 9.25 per cent by the end of December - a level unseen since September 1994 during the long aftermath of Australia's last recession.

To help job seekers, directors of the country's top recruitment agencies shared tips in a blog post for Seek, advising Australians of the throwaway phrases that could jeopardise their credibility with prospective employers and chances of advancing to the next round.



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Competition for jobs is fiercer than ever, with close to a million Australians now unemployed and the labour market expected to remain weak for years (stock image)

Sydney managing director Jason Walker, who heads up top agency Hays, said calling yourself a 'workaholic' is too vague and doesn't showcase your skills.

Mr Walker said 'I' is always better than 'we', because the hiring manager is considering you - not a team - for the position.

Auckland manager Ian Scott, from New Zealand firm Randstad, said candidates should avoid generic corporate phrases and offer a concise response structured around the STAR method - the acronym for Situation, Task, Action, Results.

A STAR answer begins by outlining the 'Situation', identifying the 'Task' that you set out to achieve, describing your own personal 'Actions' and ends by 'Recounting' the results - and it's the best way to set yourself apart from the rest, Mr Scott said.

1. Obviously

Starting sentences with 'obviously' assumes the interviewer knows something about your professional history - but they usually don't, Mr Walker noted.

He said: 'We are trying to get an understanding of experience and how good a fit you would be for an organisation, so steer clear of implying we already know the answer.'

Other 'filler' words to steer clear of include basically, pro-active and synergy.

2. We

Interviewers are not concerned with what your former team or department was responsible for, Mr Walker said, they only care about what part you played.

Other words to avoid * Dedicated * Motivated * Team player * Synergy * Leverage * Ownership * Pro-active * Reach out Source: Hays recruitment director Jason Walker via Seek Advertisement

He advised having two or three examples ready to rattle off to prove how you personally contributed to the success of the business or took ownership of a difficult situation.

Mr Walker also urged job-seekers to highlight their leadership skills, even if they have never worked in management.

It could be as simple as overseeing a team project, he said.

3. Workaholic

Many people cite being a 'workaholic' as one of their weaknesses, but Mr Walker warned this is a red flag to hiring managers who see it as a catch-all term that doesn't really mean anything.

Instead, he recommends listing a skill that could be developed with training or workshops like public speaking or presenting.

Randstad manager Ian Scott agrees and encouraged people to leave corporate jargon from their vocabulary at the door.

'Trained interviewers see right through the phrases that lack substance, and are left frustrated when having to draw out the real anecdotes that bring those statements to life,' he said.

4. Motivated by change

One of the worst examples of a generic phrase that means little to nothing is 'motivated by change,' according to Mr Scott.

He said change is an inevitable part of life that we all face on a regular basis, but it's not something that many people actually thrive on.

'In my experience, many people become active job-seekers because they have experienced change,' Mr Scott said.

'As human beings, many of us struggle with change, and prefer the comfort of normality, systems, routine.'

If you are someone who actually enjoys the cut and thrust of constant change, be sure to show that consistently in other answers throughout the interview.

How to write the perfect resume - Do not include a photo or date of birth. - Keep it short. It should only be one page in length, or a maximum of two if you are in a senior position. - To impress 'D' personalities (typically MDs and CEOs), and 'Cs', such as CFOs, use clear headings and bulleted sections, written in a simple, consistent font such as Arial or Times New Roman, size 11 or 12. This makes it easy to comprehend for 'Ds', who tend to skim read, while also including the structure and consistency that 'Cs' look for. - Keep sentences short and concise, and give proof supporting your career achievements. This appeals to 'D' and 'I' types who want facts and statistics, and 'S' and 'Cs' who are put off by excessive self-promotion. - List your work history in chronological order. - Impress recruiters by referring to their company's values in at least one of your career achievements. - Ditch stock phrases like 'I'm a good team player' and 'I enjoy spending time with my family and friends' - Give at least one example of how you are motivated, and how you have and will motivate others. - Mention two activities that demonstrate your personal values. This could be charity work (fundraising by running a marathon, for instance). - Use positive language throughout that indicates a 'can-do' attitude. Source: London recruitment coach Rita Chowdhry Advertisement

5. Challenge

Candidates should never tell an interviewer they 'love a challenge', Mr Scott warned, because it's usually difficult to prove that this is true.

'Rarely do people follow this up with a good explanation of what challenges them or even examples of challenges they have met, their reaction to the challenge at hand and the result of their response,' he said.

Instead, Mr Scott recommends giving exact examples of what you've loved about previously roles and how you'd like to improve on those areas.
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This was the first time that I was unsure of how to respond when a patient cried. Usually, as a medical student, compassion and understanding helped make up for obvious gaps in our knowledge. It just comes with the territory. But this time was different: I could not understand why the patient was crying, because it was a reason I had yet to consider in my short medical journey.

The patient I was sent to round on pre-op, my patient, was a 22-year-old male, and when he first entered our hospital for his cholecystectomy, he was cheerful and very talkative, which helped ease my nerves as a student. The moment I asked, How are you feeling? He became momentarily guarded before having an angry outburst and shouting, Whats that supposed to mean? He must have noticed my genuine confusion because he immediately teared up and began profusely apologizing, explaining that he had never felt comfortable in the operative setting.

Maybe he understood my pure desire to help comfort him, or maybe he just needed someone to talk to, but bit by bit, his story began to unravel. He told me that he identified as a woman inside a mans body, but based on his experiences, he was too afraid to ever bring it up.

He told me that during the previous hospital stays for surgery; he had been treated differently, on both extremes: some providers ignored his struggles as a transgender individual, while others made it painfully obvious that they were doing their best not to walk on eggshells, which only increased the patients discomfort.

What was most disconcerting of all was the fact that he told me he felt the most out of place in the realm of surgery and anesthesia, two fields which I had never considered discrimination to take place due to less emphasis on patient interaction. He disclosed that he was on the verge of not even going through with his cholecystectomy, just to avoid judgment from the very people trained to treat him. This was eye-opening.

He told me that he overheard doctors and nurses alike discussing the nuances of his cases in the past, as they pertained to his transgender identity, within earshot of other patients and families. Aside from the confusion that he claimed he felt he caused by being who he truly was, he said that he was, in fact, outed to his family accidentally by health care providers, who inadvertently let this information slip without explicit permission.

He even told me that he was offered a pregnancy test, albeit by another medical student who was probably unsure of how to navigate this interaction; this completely shattered his trust in the medical system. And who could blame him? Here he was, feeling out place in a field that was supposed to be non-judgmental, yet was apologizing to me. Our system had failed him, but had we as providers?

I think the answer is a bit more complex than a simple yes or no; its just not that black and white. Ive had some terrific physician preceptors and mentors since I started my medical journey, and I can confidently say that the majority of providers want to provide the best care for their patients. It is easy to paint physicians as villains because of the stigma surrounding medical malpractice, but I think the answer lies in the curriculum itself.

In medical school, our preclinical years are designed to train us in our ability to understand pathophysiology, pharmacology, anatomy, among other things. Our hospital-based rotations help us place this newfound knowledge into practice on real patients, weaving together a diagnosis from a complex puzzle. Though humanism is somewhat emphasized, training in the awareness of the problems faced by the LGBTQ community unfortunately initially comes during interactions, much like the one I was having with this patient.

Studies have repeatedly demonstrated a vast majority of pain physicians dont feel like they have adequate training in meeting the unique needs of this patient population, though most agree that such efforts are very necessary. This disconnect between demand and supply is a problem, a big one.

With the current pandemic stretching many people thin financially, the last thing that needs to happen is people avoiding the hospital out of fear, not of the virus, but of the health care field itself, much like what my patient seemed ready to do. In some instances, this could be the difference between life and death.

There needs to be a much larger emphasis placed on training students and even residents on how to become more aware of micro-aggressions, biases, and the struggles of the LGBTQ community. Im not saying the changes will be evident overnight, but they wont ever happen if we arent willing to even try.

In fields such as anesthesia and surgery, it is easy to get tunnel vision and focus on the procedural aspects of patient care. Far too often have I seen surgeons with fully loaded schedules, still doing their best to address their patients concerns. Surgeons and anesthesiologists who enjoy their pre-operative interactions with patients and families, but simply cannot afford to spend more time doing so. It is truly unfortunate that doctors who are initially drawn to medicine to listen to and help people often go home feeling something lacking in the experience.

Something has to change for everyone involved.

As someone pursuing anesthesia for residency, I made it a personal mission to learn more about this patients experience and validate it, so that he felt understood and realized that the medical field can and will change for the better. For the sake of my future patients, our future patients, we must.

As I was leaving, the patient asked me for my name. Not just student doctor. He gave me a sincere smile and said: Hey Indy, thanks for listening, it means a lot. Sometimes change begins with something as simple as being willing to listen.

Indraneel Prabhu is a medical student.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
A new teaser for The Block shows the emotionally charged moment host Scott Cam tells the contestants that filming for the series will be temporarily suspended due to the COVID-19 crisis.

With dramatic music playing in the background, contestants are seen breaking down into tears after hearing the shocking news.

Interstate contestants are then forced to discuss their next plan of action, with one contestant declaring he'll 'walk home to his family if he has to'.

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Tough times: A new teaser for The Block shows the emotionally charged moment host Scott Cam [pictured] tells the contestants that filming for the series will be temporarily suspended due to the COVID-19 crisis

In the tense scenes, everyone gathers around the TV screen as Premier Daniel Andrews reveals: 'Life is changing in Australia, as it is all around the world.'

'This is so scary,' a contestant admits in response.

Scott then interrupts everyone to tell them: 'I'm sorry it's come to this. I'm shutting it down now.'

With their future on the show uncertain, many break down into tears as they attempt to process the news.

Upsetting: With dramatic music playing in the background, contestants are seen breaking down into tears after hearing the shocking news

Dramatic: Interstate contestants are then forced to discuss their next plan of action, with one contestant declaring he'll 'walk home to his family if he has to'.

In the tense scenes: Everyone gathers around the TV screen as Premier Daniel Andrews reveals: 'Life is changing in Australia, as it is all around the world'

Heartbreak: With their future on the show uncertain, many break down into tears as they attempt to process the news

Filming was suspended for The Block in late March for six weeks.

Additional safety precautions were put in place to protect everybody on set from daily temperature checks to hand sanitisers readily available.

Meanwhile, in an extended trailer for Monday night's program, Tash already reached breaking point, wiping tears from her face.

The 32-year-old, who appeared overwhelmed by figures and paperwork, was comforted by her father Harry, 57, who is competing on the show alongside her.

Breaking point: In an extended trailer for Monday night, The Block's Tash (right), 32, was clearly overwhelmed and comforted by her father Harry (left), 57

'I can't wrap it around in my head, I don't understand it!' an overwhelmed Tash told her father.

'I know it's a lot,' he said, attempting to calm her down.

Harry, who shares Tash with Melbourne's celebrity hairdresser Andrea Pavlou, said in a piece to camera that no parent would want to see 'their child go through that'.

The father and daughter duo are competing on the show alongside couples Sarah and George, Daniel and Jade, Luke and Jasmin, and Jimmy and Tam.

Emotional: Appearing flustered by what looked to be figures and paperwork, Tash broke down in tears

A father's love: Harry, who is competing alongside Tash on the show, later said in a piece to camera that no parent wants to see their child going through an ordeal

Each team will be tasked with renovating a house, based on a particular decade.

The winner of Sunday night's 'beach box challenge' will have the first pick of the houses.

'That's massive, that dictates your auction, that dictates everything for you,' Sarah said in Monday night's trailer.

How will they go? The father and daughter duo will find out on Monday night how they placed in Sunday night's 'beach box challenge'

Jade added: 'It gives you a lead straight away.'

While Jasmin appeared confident, announcing on camera that she and Luke are there to win.

'We want to have the advantage of picking the right house to set us up for The Block. We want to win!' Jasmin said.

Veteran host Scott Cam has returned for the 2020 season, alongside judges Shaynna Blaze, Neale Whitaker and Darren Palmer.

The Block continues Monday at 7.30pm on Channel Nine
Through the help of virtual instruction, students at Harmony Schools of Laredo have finished their first week with the help of their parents and teachers.

With the help of their parents, students were able to turn their rooms into a more personal classroom desk. Harmony fifth grader Angelique Juarez said that she has continued to learn despite the virtual-only instruction thanks to her teacher.

I feel good about it. I'm learning a lot from my teachers, Juarez said. I would prefer to be at school, but this is nice too. I liked that my mom helped me set up my home school area."

As an educator, Arlene Duran said that the week has started well despite the adjustment period.

It was a good start to the school year. We are all adjusting but it felt so good to see my students, Duran said. We miss the in-person interaction, but until their safety is no longer an issue, we will continue to help them adjust. Im proud of the work we have all done in this first week back.

Similarly, Heather Reilly said she had a good experience besides some technical hiccups. However, once cleared, she and her students shared a week of learning and teaching. She was also happy about the parents support throughout the week and before.

It was a surprisingly wonderful new experience. I had really good attendance in all my classes. A few minor technology issues came up, but our IT support really came through, Reilly said. Our administrators were readily available for our needs as teachers and the needs of our students and parents.

READ MORE: Map: Which Laredo zip code has the most coronavirus cases?

Reilly added that she misses her students but understands the safety of them and the rest of the staff is the highest priority.

I really miss my students, however, I feel they are safe and we are safe, she said. Until as a community we have a better understanding of COVID, I prefer to help teach them from home for everyones safety.

Students Cristen Campa said being taught at home through the virtual instruction makes him feel safe during the time where his mother had been COVID-19 positive.

I don't want to get sick also, so I am glad to be home, Campa said. I liked virtual school because I get to see my friends online.

As public schools edge toward the start of the new school year, schools like Harmony and the Catholic Diocese schools have all seen success in the virtual-only instruction school days. The principals have touted the strength of being able to operate in safe spaces without having students on the campus.

Being part of the administration team, I can say that we are truly together in Harmony, Harmony of Laredo Public Relations and Outreach Coordinator Nicole Romanos said. A feeling of unity is definitely present among our teachers, parents and staff. We wish our neighboring schools a great and successful school year as they begin their school year.
The Mejlis (parliament) of Turkmenistan held the tenth session of the sixth convocation via video link.

The MPs discussed the draft laws of Turkmenistan On Prevention of Offenses, On Physical Culture and Sports and On International Humanitarian Aid in Emergency Situations.

The MPs also reviewed the draft laws on amendments and additions to the Criminal Procedure Code of Turkmenistan, the Criminal Code, the Code of Administrative Offenses, the Air Code, laws On Public Associations, On the State Border of Turkmenistan, On Insurance, On Migration and other legislative acts.

The parliament heard the report by the Ombudsperson of Turkmenistan, Yazdursun Gurbannazarova, which highlighted the main directions of Turkmenistans policy in ensuring and observing the economic, social, cultural, political rights and freedoms of citizens of the country and analyzed the results achieved in this area.

In addition, the MPs discussed a number of draft resolutions of the Mejlis and other issues. The parliament unanimously approved and adopted all draft laws.

In accordance with the legislation, the legislative acts adopted by the parliament will be submitted to the President of Turkmenistan for signature, after which they will pass into law.

 TURKMENISTAN.RU, 2022
Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen leaves after paying her respects to the deceased during an event to mark the 62nd anniversary of the Second Taiwan Strait crisis in Kinmen, Taiwan, on Aug. 23, 2020. (Ann Wang/Reuters)

US Joins Taiwan to Mark Battle Anniversary Amid Tension With China

KINMEN, TaiwanAmid rising tensions with Beijing, the de facto U.S. ambassador in Taiwan took part on Sunday for the first time in commemorations of a key military clash and the last time Taiwanese forces joined battle with the Chinese Communist Party on a large scale.

The Chinese regime has stepped up military activity around the democratic island, moves denounced by Taiwans government as an attempt at intimidation to force them to accept Chinese communist rule.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen laid a wreath and bowed her head in respect at a memorial park on Kinmen island, which sits a few kilometres (miles) off the Chinese metropolis of Xiamen, to mark the 62nd anniversary of the start of the second Taiwan Straits crisis.

In August 1958, Chinese communist forces began more than a month of bombarding Kinmen, along with the Taiwan-controlled Matsu archipelago further up the coast, including naval and air battles, seeking to force them into submission.

Brent Christensen, head of the American Institute in Taiwan and Washingtons de facto representative, offered his respects too, standing behind Tsai, in a symbolic show of U.S. support for the island.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (R) and Director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) William Brent Christensen, third from left, attend a memorial service held for Taiwanese soldiers killed there fighting Mainland China on Aug. 23, 1958, in Kinmen, Taiwan, on Aug. 23, 2020. (Chiang Ying-ying/AP Photo)

Christensen also laid wreaths at a monument honoring two U.S. military officers who died in a 1954 Chinese attack on Kinmen, the institute said.

Commemorations such as these remind us that todays U.S.-Taiwan security cooperation builds on a long and proud history that exemplifies the phrase Real Friends, Real Progress, it said in a statement.

Taiwans presidential office thanked Christensen for participating on a day it said serves to remind Taiwans people of the importance of defending freedom and democracy.

Brent Christensen, director of the American Institute in Taiwan talks to soldiers after attending an event to mark the 62nd anniversary of the Second Taiwan Strait crisis in Kinmen, Taiwan, on Aug. 23, 2020. (Ben Blanchard/Reuters)

Chinas Taiwan affairs office did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment on the commemoration.

Washington has no formal ties with Taipei but is its largest arms supplier. President Donald Trumps administration has made bolstering relations a priority, to Beijings anger.

Like Tsai, Christensen did not make public comments.

Taiwan fought back at the time with support from the United States, which sent military equipment like advanced Sidewinder anti-aircraft missiles, giving Taiwan a technological edge. The crisis ended in a stalemate.

Soldiers pass incense to each other to pay respects to the deceased, during an event to mark the 62nd anniversary of the Second Taiwan Strait crisis in Kinmen, Taiwan, on Aug. 23, 2020. (Ann Wang/Reuters)

Major General Liu Qiang-hua, spokesman for the Kinmen Defense Command, said it was important to remember an event that was crucial to ensuring Taiwans security.

Of course we hope there is no war, but it is dangerous to forget about war. This is the spirit we need to safeguard, he told Reuters.

Formerly called Quemoy in English, Kinmen today is a popular tourist destination, though remnants of past fighting like underground bunkers are scattered across the island, and Taiwan maintains a significant military presence.

By Ben Blanchard
ATLANTA  As Hurricane Marco barreled toward Louisiana as a Category 1 storm, officials urged residents on Sunday to seek higher ground and make sure they were stocked up on food and supplies. They were repeating a message that is part of a predictable summer routine on the Gulf Coast as hurricane season reaches its climax.

But this time, there was added urgency: Another storm, one predicted to be even more powerful, is expected to pummel the same stretch of the coast not even 48 hours later.

You need to be prepared to ride out the storms, you and your family, wherever you are at dark tonight, Gov. John Bel Edwards of Louisiana told residents during a briefing on Sunday, warning that they might be sheltering in place for as long as 72 hours. The looming second storm, Laura, he added, could ground search and rescue teams and delay efforts to restore electricity.

Even for a region familiar with the dangers of hurricanes and the rhythms of responding to them, the threat of tandem storms stirred a heightened sense of alarm. It is so rare of an occurrence that meteorologists strained to find more than a couple of comparable instances over the past century.
Amid intensifying clampdown in Belarus, countrys chief prosecutor Alexander Konyuk has launched a scathing attack on opposition leaders accusing them of making attempts at seizing power. Belarus held its presidential elections on August 9, which saw a competition between Alexander Lukashenko, who was contesting for a sixth term, and Svetlana Tikhanouskaya, who joined the race after her husband was jailed. However, the results handed the countrys leadership to Lukashenko triggering nationwide protests.

Meanwhile, opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanouskaya, who is currently in exile, said that she was ready to take over the countrys leadership. She had previously proposed a Coordination Council to ensure a transfer of power. However, the indictment from Konyuk said that the creation and activity of the opposition Coordination Council were only aimed at seizure of state power, and at harming national security".

'Unconstitutional'

Reading the indictment in a video statement on August 20, Konyuk said that creating such bodies werent allowed as per the countrys law and was unconstitutional. "Several citizens, realising that such activities are illegal, have said they are quitting the council and disagree with its aims," he added.

Read: Belarus' President Steps Up Efforts To Reassert His Control After 10 Days Of Protests

This comes as Lukashenko has stepped up efforts to reassert control. According to reports, Lukashenko said that he has given orders to end the unrest in the capital city of Minsk. On August 19, the Belarusian president reportedly approved a cabinet that would see Roman Golovchenko retain his role as prime minister. He will also take over many key members of the previous government reappointed. Talking about the protests.

Read: Belarus Opposition Leader Appeals To EU To Reject Election Result

Lukashenko had previously said that these protests would increase the number of COVID-19 cases and will deepen the damage caused by the virus. According to reports by AP, he said, "People must be told that they have the only chance to save their enterprise that feeds them, only saving their factory, they will feed their families. They can take to the streets, there are thousands of them walking, and they can join and take to the streets, but there is no money".

Read: Belarus President Lukashenko Says He Is Ready To Share Power As Protests Intensify

Read: Belarus Opposition Leader Tikhanovskaya Ready To 'act As National Leader' Amid Protests

Image credits: AP
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-24 02:43:13|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will kick off his four-country trip starting on Sunday, the U.S. State Department said in a statement.

Pompeo will travel to Israel, Sudan, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from Aug. 23 to 28, State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

Pompeo's first stop is Israel, where he will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on regional security issues and "establishing and deepening Israel's relationships in the region," according to the statement.

During his stay in Sudan, Pompeo will meet with Sudanese leaders to "discuss continued U.S. support for the civilian-led transitional government and express support for deepening the Sudan-Israel relationship."

The top U.S. diplomat will then travel to Bahrain and the UAE.

Pompeo's visit comes after Israel and the UAE agreed to the full normalization of relations earlier this month, which was brokered by the United States.

According to the deal, Israel agrees to suspend its plan to annex parts of the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who first touted the deal on Twitter, said earlier that the two sides would have an "official" signing ceremony at the White House in the next few weeks.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said last week that the peace deal between the UAE and Israel "is a stab in the Palestinians' back."

Abbas called on all Arab countries to abide by the Arab Peace Initiative, launched in 2002, which stipulates that the Arabs can only normalize relations with Israel after the Palestinian issue is resolved. Enditem
Home improvement retailer Lowes is getting into a new niche business, selling slightly imperfect appliances, and will open its first East Coast store using that format next month.

The North Carolina-based retailer will open its Lowes Outlet store in the Meriden Parkade at 1201 E. Main St. sometime before mid-September. But company officials declined to reveal any details about the size of the store or how many people would be working there.

The Lowes Outlet is opening in a former full-service store the retailer opened in 2008 and closed in 2011. The store has remained vacant since.

Joe Feest, Meridens economic development director, said the outlet store will be about 60,000 square feet, a fraction of the former size of the full-service store. Feest said city officials are excited about the new store opening.

Its something that is unique in our area and we hope it will draw people from all over the state and beyond, he said.

Feest said the opening also will be beneficial to other tenants in the Meriden Parkade, which include an Ocean State Job Lot and Valencia Liquors.

The past four or five years has seen consistent economic growth along the portion of East Main Street that is east of the Interstate 91 interchange, he said. The area at one point had been home to a pair of adult-oriented businesses years ago.

An example of the new business activity, Feest said, is F. W. Webb. The high-end regional bathroom, kitchen and lighting retailer opened a showroom in 2018 where a Volvo dealership once had been located on nearby Pomroy Avenue.

Lowes executives decided to get into what is commonly referred to as the scratch and dent business in early 2019 and opened its first appliance outlet in Morovia, Calif., according to Burt Flickinger, managing director of New York City-based Strategic Resource Group, an industry consulting firm.

Flickinger said getting into the appliance outlet business is a smart strategic move as it tries to out-maneuver rival Home Depot. Lowes saw its most recent same-store sales come out 10 percent ahead of Home Depot, he said.

Many of the retailers that had been in this sector are either getting out of the business or are in financial trouble, Flickinger said, offering Sears and JCPenney as examples. Lowes is filling a key void.

Buying appliances with cosmetic flaws enables consumers to get deep discounts, he said.

Flickinger said although the Meriden Lowes Outlet will be just the second such store for the chain, he expects dozens of locations to open across the country over the next year.

Connecticut already has local retailers selling both new appliances and those with slight imperfections. Hallocks Appliance Express in Branford is one such retailer as is Buzaid Appliance, which has stores in Danbury and Brookfield.

Owner Norman Buzaid has been in the appliance business for about 20 years. He said the the coronavirus pandemic has made it harder to get both new appliances and well as those with slight imperfections.

People are holding on to these type appliances unless they dont work because they dont want people having to come into their homes multiple times, he said. Its a different business than it used to be. Scratch-and-dent is becoming very valuable because of the scarcity of product.

Scratch-and-dent appliances are sold by manufacturers to retailers like Buzaid, who bids on truckloads of merchandise at a time. When told of Lowes plans, Buzaid said the home improvement giant may find this particular niche more difficult than expected to make a profit in.

The availability of product is so bad, they may have trouble filling their showroom in September, he said. Its a lot of work and you really have to be geared up for it.

The scarcity of appliances with minor imperfections has also had an impact on the size of discounts that consumers can get. While Flickinger said that the discounts sometimes run as high as 60 percent, Buzaid said since the arrival of the pandemic, discounts of 15 percent to 20 percent now are more common,

David Cadden, a professor emeritus at Quinnipiac Universitys School of Business, said he expects that Lowes entry into the scratch-and-dent appliance business will have an impact on the local retailers.

The big-box retailers have the advantage of being able to buy in bulk and because these are big ticket items, they can still offer deeper discounts, Cadden said. The local stores are going to have to compete by offering ancillary services the big stores dont have.

But to some extent, the move into the scratch-and-dent market could backfire on Lowes, according to Cadden.

When your selling appliances at a full-service store, you have an opportunity for the consumer to buy complementary products, he said. The person coming into a Lowes Outlet store to buy a dishwasher is not going to be able to buy new kitchen countertops at the same location.

luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com
<! Alleged serial killer Shodipe: re-arrested >

Sunday Shodipe, the alleged serial killer, who broke detention at an Ibadan police station, has been rearrested.

The 19 year-old Shodipe escaped from detention on August 11, to the embarrassment of the police establishment.

Spokesman of the Oyo State Police Command, Gbenga Fadeyi, confirmed the rearrest of Shodipe on Sunday.

The suspect, accused of killing no fewer than six people in Akinyele LGA, was rearrested in the home of his grandmother in Ojoo area of Ibadan.

On Saturday, the Oyo Police commissioner, Chuks Enwonwu announced a N500,000 reward for information that would lead to his arrest.

The Inspector General of Police also deployed three special squads to assist in the manhunt.

Related
Dan Budnik, a photographer who captured abiding images of 1950s artists at work, key events of the civil rights movement, the Hudson River restoration effort, Native Americans in the Southwest and more, died on Aug. 14 at an assisted living residence in Tucson, Ariz. He was 87.

His nephew, Kim Newton, said the causes were metabolic encephalopathy and dementia.

Mr. Budnik shot assignments for Life, Look and numerous other leading magazines, and his work was collected in several books, including Marching to the Freedom Dream (2014), which featured his pictures from three significant civil rights moments: the 1958 Youth March for Integrated Schools, the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the protest march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in 1965.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: After the Delhi police alleged that a lawyer had forged documents and instigated a man to depose falsely in a case related to the communal violence in north-east Delhi in February this year, a city court on Saturday directed it to further investigate the matter.

The police made the charge against lawyer Mehmood Pracha, who has been appearing for some of the accused and complainants in the riots cases, in its report before the court.

Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Yadav said it would be appropriate if the matter was investigated by the Crime Branch or the Special Cell and requested the Commissioner of Delhi police to look into it and pass appropriate directions.

During the hearing, the police informed the court through its report that complainant Irshad Ali had appeared before the Additional Commissioner of Police (Gokulpuri) on August 12.

Ali's shop in Dayalpur area was allegedly looted and set on fire by the rioters during the communal violence in February.

"During the investigation, he (Ali) was enquired about the names of Deepak, Navneeet and Mintu, as mentioned in his complaint. He said that he knows them by their names and does not know anything about them personally. He also stated that he does not identify the accused persons in the video," the report said.

It further stated that Ali had alleged that "one lawyer namely Mehmood Pracha called him in his office and told him that he has a complainant of a similar incident and there was also an eyewitness, who witnessed the whole incident as he was present there on February 24 and February 25."

"Advocate Mehmood Pracha also said that if the complaint of Sharif is attached with your complaint, it will make your case stronger and you will get an eyewitness of the incident regarding looting your shop. It is pertinent to mention here that the present complainant Irshad Ali does not know or met eyewitness Sharif ever," the report alleged.

It further claimed that during the investigation, the statement of Dilshad, Ali's brother, was recorded, in which he had alleged that on February 24, he was at his home with his brother and when he got a call that his shop had been looted, both of them reached the shop and it had been looted.

"They had not seen anybody looting or burning their shop. After that, they both returned to their home. Later on, they got a call that their shop had been set on fire. Regarding the video shown to him by the complainant, he stated that he did not recognize anyone in the video and no one in the video was from the local vicinity," it alleged.

It further claimed that during the investigation, the statement of Shakil, brother of one of the accused Gulfam, was also recorded, in which he had stated that he does not know anyone named Ali.

During the course of investigation, it was revealed that the eyewitness was already wanted in another case related to the February riots and was still absconding, the report alleged.

It further alleged that the affidavit of Ali, which was submitted before the court, was attested by a counsel who had expired in 2017.

His wife had stated that after his death she had no knowledge of any document attested by the stamp of her husband's name/notary public, it claimed.

"The above sequence of events clearly indicates and raises a strong suspicion that how a person who expired way back in 2017 can attest a document in July 2020," the report alleged.

The court said in its order, "Since the preliminary enquiry in the matter has been conducted on the directions of local DCP, that is DCP (North-East) and it has been conducted by ACP (Gokapuri) and SHO, PS Dayalpur, it will be appropriate if the matter is investigated by an independent agency like Crime Branch or Special Cell.

"Accordingly, a copy of this order be sent to the Commissioner, Delhi Police with a request to look into the matter and pass appropriate directions therein," it said.

The counsel for accused Gulfam expressed shock over the report and withdrew from the case, saying that he morally felt he should not represent the accused in the matter as there has been alleged forgery of documents which were submitted in the court as genuine and in connivance with members of the Bar.

Another counsel for accused Arshad Qayyum and Mohd Abid also said that apparently forgery in the matter has taken place and it needed to be unearthed as to who all were responsible for forging the "affidavit" of the complainant.

Communal clashes had broken out in northeast Delhi on February 24 after violence between citizenship law supporters and protesters spiralled out of control leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.
SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford has denied claims his party leaked the location of the prime minister's holiday cottage. (Getty)

The SNP has been forced to deny claims it leaked the location of Boris Johnsons holiday cottage in Scotland to the press, causing him to cancel the getaway.

The prime minister was pictured by the Daily Mail enjoying a break on the remote Scottish coast with his partner Carrie Symonds and their baby son.

After the photos were published late on Friday, the couple were forced to cancel their break with Downing Street sources citing security concerns.

Shortly afterwards, however, Tory MPs accused the SNP of having leaked the location to the newspaper.

The prime minister was pictured on holiday in Scotland earlier this week. (Getty)

To blame @theSNP for this is classic deflection from a Prime Minister who is under attack for his shambolic Government. It was not @theSNP who told the Daily Mail and for what its worth so many folk in the Highlands told me they knew where the PM was. https://t.co/0WSYk6lOQH  Ian Blackford (@Ianblackford_MP) August 22, 2020

The partys Westminster leader Ian Blackford stringently denied the claims in a series of tweets on Saturday morning.

To blame the SNP for this is classic deflection from a prime minister who is under attack for his shambolic government, Blackford said.

He added: It was not the SNP who told the Daily Mail and for what its worth so many folk in the Highlands told me they knew where the PM was.

And just for the record, I was not informed by Number 10 that the prime minister was in Ross, Skye and Lochaber.

The Daily Mail reported that Johnson was accused by a local farmer of setting up a tent and lighting a campfire without permission.

Sheep farmer Kenny Cameron told the newspaper: Mr Johnson is meant to be leading the country and yet he is not setting a great example.

Johnson has been under fire over the A-levels crisis that saw the government perform an embarrassing U-turn over grades last week.

His critics had urged him to return from his holiday early to deal with the aftermath of the crisis.

A government source confirmed to the PA news agency on Saturday that the PM had returned from Scotland, cutting short his holiday by three days.
Afraid of being scolded for losing his mobile phone, a 13-year-old boy hanged himself from the ceiling fan at his house in Partap Nagar near Dholewal.

Inspector Amandeep Singh Brar, SHO, Division Number 6 police station, said the boy was an only child.

His father, a labourer, had bought him a mobile phone to attend online classes. On Saturday evening, he went out to play with his friends with the phone in his pocket, and later realised he had lost it. He shared with a friend that he was scared of being scolded by his parents, Brar added.

In the evening, when his parents returned home, they were shocked to find the boy hanging from the ceiling. They rushed him to a local hospital, where doctors declared him dead.

The body was handed over to the family after autopsy at the Ludhiana civil hospital. Police have initiated inquest proceedings under Section 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
China's poverty reduction efforts may shift from eradicating extreme poverty to alleviating relative poverty after 2020, an expert said during an online lecture on Aug. 17.

"The elimination of absolute poverty under the current standard does not mean that China will cease its poverty alleviation efforts," an expert said during an online lecture on Aug. 17.

"Poverty alleviation is a long-term task," Sun Jiuwen, a member of the Advisory Committee of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development and a professor at the School of Applied Economics of Renmin University of China (RUC), said during a live-streamed lecture organized by Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of RUC.

China has set a deadline to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects and eradicate absolute poverty by the end of 2020.

"Since the 18th CPC National Congress, more than 93 million rural people have been lifted out of poverty. The number of rural people living in poverty at the end of 2019 was reduced to 5.51 million," Sun said. "We are capable of reaching the poverty elimination target this year."

Sun emphasized that relative poverty will still exist. However all impoverished rural populations under the current standard will be lifted out of poverty, and regional poverty problems will be resolved by the end of this year.

He predicted there will be three changes in poverty alleviation work in China after 2020, "The first is to transition from eradicating absolute poverty to alleviating relative poverty; the second is to shift from combating poverty in rural areas to both rural and urban areas; the third is to transition from poverty alleviation to reducing relative poverty and revitalizing rural areas."

Sun pointed out that efforts should be intensified to improve infrastructure, public services, environmental governance, and industrial development in less-developed areas to narrow the gap among regions.

"China's poverty alleviation will move into a new phase. The poverty reduction goal will shift from cutting income poverty to reducing multidimensional poverty," Sun noted.
Sign Of Kansas City Love Towers Over Skyline

A Kansas City Artist's Empowering Message Has Spread To Hundreds Of Billboards Around The World Nicole Leth's father died from suicide when she was only 17. Since then her life goal, she writes, "has been to give people a space to heal from the inside out." Leth started an affirmation project with a single billboard on a Kansas City highway, that eventually included more than 600 across the world.

Shawnee Burns Today

8 displaced after duplex catches fire in Shawnee SHAWNEE, KS (KCTV) -- Firefighters in Shawnee were working to extinguish a fire on Saturday afternoon at a duplex. The fire department was called to the area of W. 71st Terrace and Flint Drive just before 2 p.m. No injuries were reported and no one needed to be hospitalized.

Kansas City Wrestles With Risk

Rocky Mountain Nationals event draws thousands to Hy-Vee Arena KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Youth wrestlers from as many as 40 states are in Kansas City, Missouri, this weekend for the Rocky Mountain Nationals youth wrestling event. The competition runs from Friday until Sunday at the Hy-Vee Arena in the West Bottoms. A 41 Action News reporter observed those attending get security checked and have their temperatures taken before entering the arena.

Local Rent Fight Contd

'They got him': Former tenant shocked by TEH Realty exec's indictment KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A former tenant of a now-indicted, alleged slumlord is speaking out about her time renting from TEH Realty. On Thursday, a federal grand jury indicted Michael Fein, co-owner of TEH Realty, on felony charges of wire and bank fraud. TEH Realty, which operates multiple low-income housing complexes in Kansas City and [...]

CELEBRATE PANTY PROFITS!!!

Victoria's Secret owner reports surprise profit | Reuters Video Posted L Brands Inc on Wednesday reported a surprise quarterly profit boosted by strong demand for Bath & Body Works' sanitizers and soaps, as well as higher online sales of Victoria's Secret lingerie during coronavirus-led lockdowns.

Prez Trump Warns Of Deep State Vaxx Conspiracy

Trump accuses 'deep state' FDA of thwarting efforts for coronavirus treatments until after election President Trump on Saturday accused the "deep state" at the Food and Drug Administration of "making it very difficult" for drug companies to test coronavirus treatments -- and suggested the agency is trying to delay them until after Election Day.

Candidate Promotes BIGGER, BETTER Shut Down Part Deux

Biden to ABC's David Muir: 'I would shut [country] down' to prevent spread of COVID-19 if scientists recommended Biden, Harris' first joint interview airs Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC Former Vice President Joe Biden said in an exclusive interview with ABC "World News Tonight" Anchor David Muir on Friday that as president, he would shut the country down to stop the spread of COVID-19 if the move was recommended to him by scientists.

In Defense Of Israel

Iron Dome intercepts rocket fired from Gaza; IDF tanks hit Hamas positions Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip fired a rocket at Israel on Friday evening that was intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system, the army said. There were no reports of injuries or damage. Rocket warning sirens wailed in southern Israel, sending thousands of Israelis running for bomb shelters as they sat at their Shabbat evening meals.

Deutschland Coronavirus Science Works To Save Lives

Germany puts on crowded concerts to study Covid Three pop concerts are being staged on one day in Germany to enable scientists to investigate the risks of such mass indoor events during the pandemic. Some 4,000 healthy volunteers aged between 18 and 50 were urged to sign up for Saturday's study in Leipzig, carried out by Halle University.

Rock Chalk Print Demands Continued KU COVID Shut Down

KU student newspaper says campus administrators lied about COVID strategy, wants in-person classes halted LAWRENCE, KS (KCTV) -- The University of Kansas' student newspaper released a staff editorial Thursday calling on school leaders to halt in-person classes and saying administrators lied about COVID-19 safety measures.

Get Well Soon Salvy, Again

Salvador Perez to the Injured List with vision problems Salvador Perez has been placed on the Injured List with "lingering effects of blurred vision" and the team has activated left-handed reliever Randy Rosario. According to Alec Lewis, Perez has been suffering from "left eye central serous chorioretinopathy", a condition in which fluid accumulates under the retina.

Election End Game OR Votes For Giant Meteor Winning

Oh, great: NASA says an asteroid is headed our way right before Election Day by: CNN Wire Posted: / Updated: Well, 2020 keeps getting better all the time. Amid a pandemic, civil unrest, and a divisive US election season, we now have an asteroid zooming toward us. On the day before the presidential vote, no less. Yep.

We take a quick peek at knowledgeable hotties, community news, pop culture and top headlines for our weekend news junkie community.And this is thefor tonight . . .
TikToks decision to challenge Donald Trumps order banning the popular video-sharing app is set to trigger a legal battle that many analysts see as a long shot.

The US President signed an executive order on August 6 banning TikTok within 45 days unless it is sold to US owners, citing national security concerns.

Trump made the order under a 1977 law that lets the president block transactions and seize assets in response to an unusual and extraordinary threat.

Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the big stories originating in China.

Trump issued another order a week later giving ByteDance, its Chinese owner, 90 days to divest its US operations, including all data gathered in the United States.

The lawsuit, to be filed by TikTok on Monday, challenges the August 6 executive order on the grounds that the orders reliance on the US International Emergency Economic Powers Act deprives TikTok of due process, Bloomberg reported citing sources.

A statement from TikTok released on Saturday said it had sought to engage in good faith to provide a constructive solution even though it strongly disagrees with the grounds for the ban.

What we encountered instead was a lack of due process as the [Trump] administration paid no attention to facts and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses.

To ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and users are treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the executive order through the judicial system, the company said.

The decision by TikTok follows an earlier report by the South China Morning Post that Bytedance, one of Chinas most successful tech firms internationally, was planning a legal and public relations campaign as it battles for survival in the US.

Jerry Fang Jinawei, a partner at Zhong Lun law firm which practises in both China and the US, said TikTok faced an uphill struggle in its legal battle but might present an opportunity for TikTok to continue its services to its US users.

Story continues

Fang, who has advised both Chinese and US companies on cross-border litigation, said TikTok could challenge the decision on the grounds of due process or the first amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech. He is not involved in the TikTok lawsuit.

The lawsuit is unlikely to take years, unlike the extradition hearing involving Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou case, according to Nathaniel Rushforth, a US-qualified lawyer and cybersecurity specialist at Shanghai-based DaWo Law Firm.

Since there are strict timelines built into this situation, and there is likely a strong interest in disposing of any related lawsuit quickly, said Rushforth, Much of it will depend on how the parties craft their pleadings.

Chinas official news agency Xinhua has also reported that employees at TikTok are also planning to take the Trump administration to court over the executive order. Separately, some US-based users of WeChat are challenging an order that could cut their access to the Chinese messaging app.

However, a Chinese official in Beijing who is involved in supervising Bytedance operations in China, said TikToks lawsuit was a symbolic move, citing a failed attempt by Huawei to challenge a federal law limiting its operations in the US.

But it is still the right move [to sue], the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. Bytedance shouldnt surrender without a fight.

Zhang Yiming, the founder of Bytedance, sent a letter to the companys employees days before Trump issued his first executive order saying he would try to preserve TikTok.

TikTok, which has a Chinese version known as Douyin, has more than 100 million users and over 1,500 employees in the US.

Microsoft has confirmed that it is in talks with Bytedance to buy TikTok operations in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Twitter and Oracle are also reportedly among the bidders. It remains to be seen whether the legal action by TikTok would affect these talks.

Brian Tang, founding executive director of the LITE Lab at University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law, said maximising the sale price  of Bytedances US assets by reducing the uncertainty regarding what transactions [they] can enter into could be one tactical rationale behind the lawsuit.

The decision to sue the Trump administration has been extensively reported in China, including by a social media account run by the Communist Party committee responsible for the police and courts, receiving widespread public support.

One comment on the social media report argued that Bytedance had made the right move because it showed the Chinese company wont be slaughtered by others without making a single noise.

Mei Xinyu, a researcher with the Ministry of Commerce, said TikTok had to try all possible means because the situation just cant get any worse.

Whether TikTok can successfully change its fate by suing Trump order is unknown, but the lawsuit itself imposes a cost on those trying to strip Chinese assets, Mei said. As the Chinese national anthem goes, Bytedance is now forced to make the final roar.

This article TikTok faces uphill struggle in court challenge to Donald Trumps ban first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2020.
New Delhi: The CBI has entered Day 3 of its investigation in actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death case. Today, one team will be questioning Sushant's flatmate Siddharth Pithani, his cook Neeraj and another domestic help Deepesh Sawant while another team reached Water Stone Resort in Mumbai where Sushant was allegedly made to stay there for a long time by his girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty. As per earlier updates, Sushant's counselling also happened at this place and his bank statements too showed payments for his stay here.

Meanwhile, the CBI sleuths also arrived at the Hinduja Hospital where Sushant was taking his treatment. Dr Kesari Chawda, a consultant doctor at the hospital, was treating the actor.

Sushant's family had mentioned in the FIR that some doctors were also involved in this whole conspiracy.

On Friday, CBI officials interrogated Siddharth Pithani and Neeraj on many important details pertaining to June 13 and 14, the day Sushant died. On Saturday, a team visited the actor's Bandra home to reconstruct the sequence of events. The team left Sushant's home at around 8 pm, after spending more than five hours there. The team was accompanied by Neeraj, Deepesh Sawant and Siddharth Pithani. The trio was present in the flat when Sushant was found hanging in his room.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-24 02:47:27|Editor: huaxia

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BAGHDAD, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- A roadside bomb exploded on Sunday near a convoy of trucks carrying equipment belonging to the U.S. troops in the north of Iraq's capital Baghdad, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.

The explosion took place in the evening when the convoy was moving in al-Taji area, some 20 km north of Baghdad, leaving minor damage, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but unidentified militant groups have frequently targeted civilian convoys contracted to the U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq, which usually travel from neighboring Kuwait to the coalition's bases in central and northern Iraq.

"The attack on the vehicles is unjustified as they are carrying logistical equipment instead of weapons. Besides, the withdrawing forces are advisers rather than combating forces," said Tahsin al-Khafaji, spokesman of the Joint Operations Command (JOC), said in a press release.

Earlier in the day, the U.S.-led international coalition forces, tasked with fighting the Islamic State (IS) militant group, handed over a military base in Camp Taji in the north of Baghdad to Iraqi forces, the JOC said.

The attack came as the Iraqi-U.S. relations have witnessed a tension since Jan. 3, when a U.S. drone struck a convoy at Baghdad airport, killing Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy chief of Iraq's paramilitary Hashd Shaabi forces.

More than 5,000 U.S. troops have been deployed in Iraq to support the Iraqi forces in the battles against the IS militants, mainly providing training and advising. Enditem
New Delhi, Aug 23 : From the next summer season, the Delhi government's Child Development Department has planned to replace jaggery with sweet candy (mishri) from its Supplementary Nutrition Food (SNF) menu for children and pregnant and lactating women.

The decision was taken on the basis of feedback that jaggery melts in the summer while packing and after some time it might even get infected by bacteria.

To keep the food items dry and healthy, it was decided to replace jaggery with sweet candy (mishri) and will continue till the present SNF menu exists, while the quantity would be decided by the Department as per requirement.

"From the next summer season (for month of May, June and July) the sweet candy would be distributed in place of jaggery," Delhi Women and Child Development (WCD) Minister Rajendra Pal Gautam said here on Sunday.

The Minister said the functioning of the Aganwadi Centres in Delhi, which is responsible for distribution of nutritious food to pregnant women and children, was suspended temporarily in the first week of March this year in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Anganwadi Centres were renewed last year in March with an aim of ensuring regular supply of nutritional supplements that included "Panjiri or Pushtik Laddoo" to the registered beneficiaries in the national capital.

The laddoos given to per beneficiaries every day contains 500 calories and 12-15 gms of protein.

Gautam informed that the menu of SNF was revised from May 20 this year and Panjiri or Pushtik Laddo was replaced with wheat dalia, black raw gram, jaggery and roasted black gram in different quantities for different types of beneficiaries under the existing system of giving THR (Take Home Ration).

It was delivered at the doorsteps of beneficiaries through the respective Anganwadi centers, the Minister said.

Around five lakh citizens benefit from this scheme.
top leader and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam on Sunday asserted that he expected office-bearers to be loyal to the party alone and not him.

Against the backdrop of a recent debate over the Chief Ministerial candidate for the 2021 Assembly elections, Panneerselvam said "Our goal should be to return to power in 2021.

Let bygones be bygones. Let the things to come be good."



The deputy chief minister, in an interaction with party functionaries here, advised them to work with a sense of unity overcoming all divides, be it caste, religion or any other thing.

The stellar work of founder M G Ramachandran and late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa for the growth of the party should always be remembered and the experience of past elections would come in handy for them, he said.

Functionaries and workers should always be faithful to only the party and "at no point of time had I persuaded loyalty to me," he stressed.

Recently, Cooperative Minister Sellur Raju had said that elected MLAs would pick the Chief Minister following elections next year, while Dairy Development Minister K T Rajenthra Bhalaji had pitched for incumbent Chief Minister K Palaniswami.

Also, posters had appeared that clamoured 'OPS for CM' and the row ended with a joint statement from Panneerselvam, party coordinator, the numero uno party post and K Palaniswami who is the co-coordinator, asking cadres to work unitedly.

On August 15, the duo said all important policy decisions like the one related to the CM choice would be taken democratically.

(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.)
GODFREY  Some people do not think about coming back home. For Kim Tanner, of Chicago, it happened on accident, but she is so glad it did.

Tanner, born in Alton, plans to relaunch her business, Strangelovely, a seller of vintage furniture and home decor, in Godfrey. Shes not sure of the exact physical opening date, due to the spike of COVID-19 cases in Madison Count, but she loves the new location, she said.

Tanner has lived in Chicago for the past 20 years and in 2012 she started Strangelovely there. When the coronavirus pandemic started, her business had to close per the citys regulation.

It was really stressful to be in a higher populated area and real expensive, Tanner recalled.

As if by chance, Tanner came across a house that she remembered from growing up in the Alton-Godfrey area. The house is located near the Alton-Godfrey border and was designed by Calvin Riley. The house itself is approximately 3,000 square feet on two acres of land and its going to be the new home of Strangelovely. Riley also designed and built the Benjamin Godfrey Mansion, on Godfrey Road, named for the village of Godfreys namesake, Capt. Benjamin Godfrey, who lived there.

Tanner contacted a Realtor friend of hers but, at the time, she was adamant that she was not moving back.

I thought, Im just going to go see it, because it cant be as good as I think it is, Tanner said of the house.

Once she saw the house it turned out to be as good as she thought, so she made difficult decisions about her life trajectory.

This was it. The stars just aligned perfectly and Im so happy they did, Tanner said.

Until Strangelovely physically opens in Godfrey, she continues to sell online, which she has been doing since the pandemic began. She said she will keep an online business focus for the foreseeable future since there will be less foot traffic.

Tanner said that she has always had a passion for interior design, even obtaining in Bachelor of Fine Arts in interior design.

My family is largely antique dealers, appraisers and decorators, she said. Its in my blood, it has always been around me.

Tanner is ready for a post-COVID-19 world to continue her project in Godfrey.

Im looking forward to opening Strangelovely to the public soon, and offering a unique mix of vintage and antique furniture, home decor and womens wear in an eclectic boutique setting, she said.

I believe that luxury is a level of service, not a price point. Im all about the mix and integrating ageless style into contemporary homes and giving them a sense of history and a collected feeling, as opposed to cookie cutter interiors.

For more information, visit www.strangelovely.com.
SAN FRANCISCO  Firefighters in California were racing to slow the spread of wildfires that burned nearly one million acres in a week and destroyed hundreds of homes as weekend weather threatened to spark new fires and overwhelm the states firefighting ability.

Responding to the emergency, President Donald Trump issued on Saturday a major disaster declaration to provide federal assistance. Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement that the declaration will also help people in counties affected by the fires with crisis counseling, housing and other social services.

Two clusters of wildfires in the San Francisco Bay Area broke old records to become the second- and third-largest wildfires in recent state history by size.

Light winds, cooler and more humid nighttime weather helped fire crews make a bit of progress, but their efforts could be hurt by warm, dry weather, erratic wind gusts and lightning in the forecast, state fire officials said.

A firefighter monitors the advance of the the CZU August Lightning Complex Fire Friday, Aug. 21, 2020, in Boulder Creek, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)AP

The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning of high fire danger across the Bay Area and along the Central Coast, beginning from Sunday morning to Monday afternoon.

"The worst is not behind us. We are in a battle rhythm," California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Chief Thom Porter tweeted.

Since thousands of lightning strikes began on Aug. 15, the state responded to 585 wildfires that have burned nearly a million acres, or 1,562 square miles, according to CalFire.

Many were small and remote. The bulk of damage was from three clusters of fire complexes that were ravaging forest and rural areas in the San Francisco Bay Area and wine country north of San Francisco. They have burned 1,045 square miles.

The third one was burning in the Santa Cruz Mountains and along the coast of San Mateo County, south of San Francisco.

A firefighter rubs his head while watching the LNU Lightning Complex fires spread through the Berryessa Estates neighborhood of unincorporated Napa County, Calif., on Friday, Aug. 21, 2020. The blaze forced thousands to flee and destroyed hundreds of homes and other structures. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)AP

The fires have killed five people, torched nearly 700 homes and other structures and forced tens of thousands from their houses.

"Tuesday night when I went to bed I had a beautiful home on a beautiful ranch," said 81-year-old Hank Hanson of Vacaville. "By Wednesday night I have nothing but a bunch of ashes."

Earlier in the week, fire officials in charge of each of the major wildfires said they were strapped for resources. Some firefighters were working 72-hour shifts instead of the usual 24 hours.

By Friday, the approximately 13,700 firefighters on the line began to get help on the ground and in the air from 10 states, along with the National Guard and U.S. military.

Those fires were a top priority. But in a sign of how overburdened the state's firefighting agency is, fire officials said only 1,400 firefighters were assigned to battle the LNU Lightning Complex fire in wine country, which was only 15% contained.

In comparison, about 5,000 firefighters were assigned to the Mendocino Complex fire in 2018, the largest fire in recent state history.

"All of our resources remain stretched to capacity that we have not seen in recent history," said Shana Jones, the chief for CalFire's Sonoma-Lake-Napa unit.

Firefighters protect a home in the Berryessa Estates neighborhood of unincorporated Napa County, Calif., as the LNU Lightning Complex fires burn on Friday, Aug. 21, 2020. The blaze forced thousands to flee and destroyed hundreds of homes and other structures. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)AP

"We are making progress, but we are not out of the woods," she said.

Underscoring the danger the fires pose for firefighters, the Sonoma County sheriff's office released dramatic video of the helicopter rescue Friday night of two firefighters trapped on a ridge line at Point Reyes National Seashore. They were hoisted to safety as flames advanced.

"Had it not been for that helicopter, those firefighters would certainly have perished," Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick said.

Containment for a fire that destroyed nearly 100 structures in the Santa Cruz mountains south of San Francisco grew slightly from 2% to 5%. Firefighters established a fire break aimed at protecting the evacuated University of California, Santa Cruz campus and the surrounding area.

Its not a silver bullet. But it gives us a really good stronghold to keep the fire from moving south toward those communities, Cal Fire Battalion Chief Mark Brunton said.
FLINT, MI -- A man has received his sentence for an October 2018 robbery and rape of an 88-year-old woman at her Flint Township home.

David Latreal Griffin, 42, of Flint was sentenced Aug. 18 in Genesee Circuit Court to a minimum of 20 years and maximum of 50 years in prison on 35 charges including first-degree criminal sexual conduct, felony firearms, first-degree home invasion, carjacking, unlawful imprisonment, and extortion.

The charges stemmed from an Oct. 24, 2018, incident at home in the area of Corunna and Graham roads.

Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton previously said Griffin was accused of entering the home without permission and once inside stealing a .22-caliber revolver that belonged to the womans late husband.

The victim testified at a Nov. 28, 2018, preliminary exam in Genesee District Court.

I said I was an 88-year-old woman - please dont touch me, the woman testified. I begged him not to. I said, Please, please dont touch me.

The woman testified that she had just gotten done watching the news at her home, when she looked up and saw Griffin standing in her living room.

She started screaming and told him to get out of her home.

He put his hands over my mouth. He said if I didnt quit screaming he would hurt me, the woman testified. He said there were other people outside who would burn my house down if I called the police.

She was forced to get into her car, with Griffin looking for crack cocaine and later returned to the home after getting drugs.

Griffin masturbated in front of her before sexually assaulting her, she testified.

The woman was then forced back into her vehicle to go with Griffin to a local Walmart store.

After buying a $700 television, Griffin forced the woman to write a $2,000 check.

The entire incident in the store was caught on surveillance video.

Griffin then left with the TV and the woman said she locked all the doors and barred them with chairs. She also turned on her alarm.

A short time later, Griffin returned to the woman's home and broke in through a basement window, she testified.

Griffin forced the woman to write another $2,000 check and stole her checkbook, she told the court.

The woman waited until the next morning before calling her daughter in Shiawassee County. A short time later, there was a knock at the door and the woman answered, she told the court, thinking it was her daughter.

But it was Griffin at the back door with another man.

"I said, 'Oh my God, I'm in trouble' and I took off running out the front door," the woman testified.

Her alarm started going off when she left her home and she ran down the street and hid in a neighbors shed.

Law enforcement officials were able to develop Griffin as a suspect. A Flint Township police officer located the vehicle stolen by Griffin in the area of Corunna Road and Ryan Street.

Griffin was taken into custody the day after the original incident following a brief foot pursuit by Flint Township police with assistance from Michigan State Police, Michigan State Police K-9 Jax, Flint police, and the Genesee Auto Theft Investigation Network, or GAIN.

He pleaded no contest last month to all 35 charges as a fourth-time habitual offender.

Griffin will receive credit for 662 days served on the felony firearms charges. His sentence requires lifetime sex offender registration.

More on MLive:

88-year-old woman testifies she begged man not to rape her

Man faces 25 charges in robbery, sexual assault of 88-year-old woman
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Today, Sunday the 23rd of August 2020 began a bloody Sunday as the Police and the DSS attacked members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) at the Practicing Primary School located opposite St Patricks Secondary School at Emene, Enugu.

According to a witness, the police in cohorts with the DSS launched an attack on a group of persons assembled inside a primary school in Emene for a meeting. It was understood that the persons were members of the proscribe IPOB.

The DSS and the police broke into the school compound and began shooting. And killed a member of IPOB.

The killing resulted in anger within the community.

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The community member in tandem with the members of IPOB began reacting to the killed youth. Houses were burnt. And gunshots where heard. More bodies were said to have dropped to the ground  lifeless.

Unconfirmed reports placed the number of dead at 3.

Other reports indicate that policemen attached to Emene Police Division had at the early hours of Sunday swooped on the members of the outlawed group at there normal Sunday worship center at Emene, Enugu East Local Government Area of the state killing two of the members.

The IPOB members had on sighting the policemen allegedly took to their hill, but the operatives allegedly opened fire on those running away, and in the process shot two while wounding so many other members.

One of the sources said that over 10 members who did not run was arrested and manhandled by the operatives who came to the venue with two police patrol vans.

Efforts to get the Police Public Relations Officer, Daniel Ndukwe for reaction were futile as his phone was said to be switched off.

Also, the state commissioner of police, Ahmad Abdurraham did not answer his calls.



Stay tuned

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Seoul, Aug 23 : Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit South Korea "at an early date" once the Covid-19 situation stabilizes, the Presidential Palace in Seoul said on Sunday.

The announcement was made after a meeting in Busan on Saturday between President Moon Jae-in's national security adviser Suh Hoon and Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China's (CPC) Central Committee, reports Yonhap News Agency.

"The two sides agreed to get President Xi Jinping's early visit to South Korea realized after the condition is created, with the Covid-19 situation stabilized," Presidential Palace spokesman Kang Min-seok said.

China confirmed that South Korea was at the top of the list of countries that President Xi will travel to, he added.

Diplomatic authorities plan to continue consultations on relevant details, including the specific timing of Xi's trip here.

Xi agreed to make a trip to South Korea in the first half of 2020, but it has been postponed due to the pandemic.

At the meeting, Suh and Yang also discussed the need for holding an annual trilateral summit involving Japan within this year.
The federal government is prepared to fight Beijing at the World Trade Organisation after the Chinese Ministry of Commerce launched an anti-dumping investigation into Australian wine.

Minister for Agriculture David Littleproud said on ABC Insiders on Sunday morning the government was willing to challenge any allegations local winemakers dumped bottles under two litres into China at reduced prices.

Agriculture Minister David Littleproud. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

"We'll vigorously defend that and if required, we'll go through the process and go to the WTO. We have form for that," he said.

Australia has previously taken disputes with India and China to the WTO, he said, adding of the 37 OECD countries only New Zealand subsidises farmers less than Australia.
Pompeo is traveling to Israel, several Gulf Arab states and Sudan and will be away when he is scheduled to speak on Tuesday to the Republican National Convention, which will nominate Trump for a second term. Should Pompeo appear by remote or recorded video, it will break a long tradition of secretaries of state declining to participate in the public political nomination process.
JD(U) is set to launch an exclusive digital platform, JDUlive.com, for canvassing ahead of October-November Bihar assembly elections keeping in mind the limited scope for campaigning on the ground in the view of the coronavirus pandemic outbreak and the detailed guidelines issued by the election commission mindful of the changed circumstances.

The digital platform, which the party insiders claim to be one of its kind for any political outfit in the state and also the country, will be launched with chief minister Nitish Kumars virtual meet, expected next month. Kumar is also JD(U) national president.

We planned this with the help of a group of IITians from Bihar to utilise the lockdown period, as there was a clear indication that campaigning this time wont be the same as before due to the pandemic. JDUlive.com will redefine the mode of communication with the masses in the digital era, said a senior party leader, pleading anonymity.

The platforms current integral on-boarding capacity is one lakh live viewers for a digital /virtual public rally. This can be expanded up to 10 lakh (one million) participants for any given live interaction in the future, said the leader, adding the global lockdown necessitated out-of-the-box solutions for public campaigning.

The platform can easily evolve as a dedicated communication channel to engage not just with party cadres but also the general public. In this context, a Live.tv menu on the portal is to enable any person to share any positive video or news item which, upon approval by the portals administrator, can get posted online. This will provide a single point source of positive news to the media, too.

Platforms like Zoom, Google meet, etc, have gained huge popularity as the preferred modes for organising public meets, but being third party service providers, there are obvious limitations on using them, said party leaders.

It is Janata Dal Uniteds own video conferencing platform which supports both way video communication. Developed entirely by local talents, it qualifies both as a true Make in India and a Make in Bihar product; and a platform with no dependence on any foreign or public platforms like Zoom, Google, etc., said a senior party leader.

Besides hosting live public rallies and /or private conferences, this party portal can be used as an interface with the public and for holding regular meetings with party cadres.

Also Read: BJPs plan for Bihar assembly polls involves careful study of the voters list

On the JDULive.com website, both party functionaries and people can put their views, such as through the Virtual Survekshan (survey) menu designed for Digital Survey, said those handling the digital set up.

Also Read: NDA to fight Bihar polls under Nitish Kumars leadership: Nadda

Data on the portal is being updated so it serves as a database of party functionaries down to the booth levels. It will be a storehouse of information, including development works in various spheres, speeches of the national president, yatras of Nitish Kumar, etc, they said.

The right to the platform will only be given to authorised party functionaries from the state and district levels for uploading and managing data and information relating to their respective jurisdictions.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 23) Hundreds of local officials and their co-conspirators have been slapped with criminal complaints over alleged anomalies in the distribution of the governments COVID-19 cash aid program, the Interior Department said Sunday.

In a statement, DILG said 437 elected and appointed local public officials are now facing cases before the various Prosecutors Office of the Department of Justice. Six-hundred twenty six more remain under probe by the Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group for supposed irregularities in the payouts of the social amelioration program.

Out of the 437 individuals facing complaints, 203 are elected public officials including mayors, councilors, barangay captains, and Sangguniang Kabataan chairmen and councilors.

A total of 102, on the other hand, are barangay and city personnel, which include local secretaries and treasurers, among others. The remaining 132 are civilian co-conspirators, the department said.

Majority of the cases filed were in relation to violations of Republic Act No. 3019 or Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, Republic Act No. 11469 or the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, and the Republic Act No. 11332 or Law on Reporting of Communicable Diseases, the agency added.

Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano, for his part, vowed officials will continue to monitor possible irregularities in the distribution of the coronavirus cash aid.

Habang patuloy ang pangalawang yugto ng pamimigay ng SAP, puspusan naman ang ating pagsasampa ng kaso laban sa mga tiwaling mga opisyal at ng kanilang mga kasabwat, the DILG chief said.

[Translation: While we continue with the second tranche of SAP distribution, well make sure to file cases against erring officials and their conspirators.]

Under the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act signed by President Rodrigo Duterte in March the government was authorized to provide an emergency subsidy of 5,000 to 8,000 each to millions of low-income households affected by the health crisis.
(Newser)  With heated debate over mail delays, the House approved legislation in a rare Saturday session that would reverse recent changes in US Postal Service operations and send $25 billion to shore up the agency ahead of the November election. Speaker Nancy Pelosi recalled lawmakers to Washington over objections from Republicans dismissing the action as a stunt, reports the AP. President Trump urged a no vote, including in a Saturday tweet, railing against mail-in ballots expected to surge in the COVID-19 crisis. "Dont pay any attention to what the president is saying, because it is all designed to suppress the vote," Pelosi said. She called the Postal Service the nations beautiful thread connecting Americans and said voters should ignore the presidents threats. Millions are expected to opt for mail-in ballots to avoid polling places during the pandemic. Ahead of voting the president tweeted, This is all another HOAX.

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More than two dozen Republicans broke with the president and backed the bill, which passed 257-150. Democrats led approval, but the legislation is certain to stall in the GOP-held Senate. The White House said the president would veto it. Facing a backlash over operational changes, new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testified Friday that his No. 1 priority is to ensure election mail arrives on time, but that he would not restore cuts already made. He could not provide senators with a plan for handling the ballot crush for the election. The American people ... just want their mail," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, chair of the Oversight Committee and author of the bill, which would reverse the cuts by prohibiting any changes made after January, and provide funds to the agency. But Republicans counter that complaints about disruptions are overblown, and no emergency funding is needed. Its a silly, silly bill, said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla.

(Read more USPS stories.)
Pope Francis turns his thoughts and prayers to the victims of the novel coronavirus, and recalls the 4th anniversary of a deadly earthquake in central Italy.

By Devin Watkins

Let us not forget the victims of the coronavirus.

Pope Francis made that call on Sunday, following the recitation of the Angelus prayer.

He was greeting pilgrims from the Italian province of Bergamo, who had arrived in Rome to commemorate the victims of Covid-19.

The Pope added that he had just heard a story of a family who lost their grandparents on the same day without being able to bid farewell.

There is so much suffering, he said. So many people have lost their lives and fallen victim to the disease. Many volunteers, doctors, nurses, religious sisters, and priests who have also died.

And he urged everyone to pray for the families who are suffering in similar circumstances.

Anniversary of earthquake in Italy

Pope Francis also recalled the 4th anniversary of a massive earthquake that struck central Italy, which took place on 24 August.

The 6.2-magnitude earthquake killed nearly 300 people in the central regions of Umbria, Lazio, Abruzzo, and Marche.

I renew my prayer for the families and the communities who withstood the worst damage, so that they might strive ahead in solidarity and hope, said the Pope.

He then expressed his hope that reconstruction efforts might accelerate, so that people can continue living peacefully in these beautiful areas of the Apennine Mountains."

Prayers for restive Cabo Delgado

Also on Sunday, Pope Francis expressed his closeness to the people of Cabo Delgado, in northern Mozambique.

He said many people there are suffering due to international terrorism.



I do so while remembering vividly the visit I made to that nation about a year ago, he said.

The Cabo Delgado province has seen a violent insurgency, reportedly by jihadist militants linked to the so-called Islamic State.

Pope Francis spoke earlier this week with Bishop Fernando Lisboa of Pemba, about the situation in northern Mozambique.
Back in 2010, Texas-based Anadarko Corp. (now a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum Corp.) and Italian energy giant ENI SpA announced the discovery of approximately 180 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves, equivalent to ~29 billion barrels of oil, in Mozambique's supergiant offshore basin of Rovuma, immediately catapulting the south African nation to a potential global LNG superpower. As expected, there was a stampede of oil and gas majors, including ExxonMobil, Total, Shell, and CNPC (China National Petroleum Corp.), who rushed in to stake their claims.

But now there's a real danger that the biggest investment splurge in Africa could go up in smoke even before it gets properly started thanks to the proliferation of terrorism in the region.

Mozambique could potentially reap nearly $100 billion in LNG revenues, or 7x its annual GDP, over the next 25 years, and boost real growth rate from 4% to between 4.8% and 5.4% (depending on the scenario) thus highlighting the sheer transformative power the project could have on the poverty-stricken nation.

But failure of the LNG projects to take off could deal a severe blow to Mozambique, the world's 6th poorest nation, as well as President Nyusi's government, which is desperate to attract foreign investment.

Growing Insurgency

A notorious terrorist organization that has aligned itself to the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks especially in the Cabo Delgado province.

Over the past three years, the insurgency has killed more than 1,500 people and displaced another 250,000 in the country's north, and no one even knows who they really are, what they want or where their loyalties lie, with the government keen to simply refer to them as a band of criminals. Locals call them "al-Shabaab", according to the Atlantic Council, but their official name--as far as we know--is al Sunna wa Jummah (ASWJ). The group's leadership is unknown.

Related: OPEC+ Complied 95% With Oil Production Cuts In July When they behead someone, there is no message--no demand. It is also unclear whether they have any real connection to the Islamic State, or whether such a connection is still metamorphosing.

The root causes, as always, are underdevelopment and corruption.

It has been about eight months since Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi was sworn in for a second term at the top seat. In his acceptance speech, Nyusi emphasized the importance of peace if the nation is to realize its full potential. Mozambique was plagued by a 16-year civil war that ended in 1992, yet resurgent armed conflict remains a major challenge to this day.

The president also vowed not to fall victim to the African curse where resource-rich nations tend to fare even worse economically than their less endowed peers.

Easier said than done. The previous government has a rather checkered history in terms of maintaining peace, but billions of dollars of natural gas are now on the line.

Last year, the Mozambican government approved the Rovuma LNG Development Plan, which is headed by oil majors ExxonMobil and ENI.

The initial development phase could see the companies pony up more than $60 billion in capex with Mozambique potentially becoming a chief LNG supplier to China after the Asian country launched Blue Sky Defence Action Plan designed to curb air pollution.

Related: Bank Of America: Brent Will Recover To $60 In H1 2021

However, it goes without saying that for this to become a reality, Nyusi will need to guarantee security to all the companies investing in a region where Islamic State-linked insurgents have lately intensified attacks against security forces and civilians. The government will be charged with the task of not only halting the attacks but also addressing the key drivers of the insurgency, including unemployment, poverty, and a general lack of economic opportunities.

That is looking to be a tall order, considering opposition hard-liners have continued with the killings despite Nyusi signing a peace accord with Renamo, the main opposition party, last year that brought a hiatus to the years-long conflict.

Corruption and Hidden Debt



Next, Nyusi will need to address the endemic corruption in the public sector to increase accountability and ensure that gas revenues do not end up in some government official's offshore account.

Just a year into his first term, Nyusi's government was thrown into a tailspin after international donors and the IMF froze monetary aid to the country after discovering that the government had failed to declare $1.2 billion in loans. The fallout hit a new low when the United States charged the former finance minister with money laundering with three Credit Suisse bankers also implicated.

No less than six fraud-related cases are still pending at the courts and Nyusi will have to

ensure this sort of thing never happens again under his watch if he wants to win over long-term investors and goodwill by the international community.

Total and ENI To Carry On

Although Nyusi's government has tried to put on a brave face and insists it can deal with the menace single-handedly, the persistent and disruptive attacks prove otherwise.

But maybe Mozambique's neighbors will come to the rescue.

A couple of days ago, Nyusi took over the reins of power as the chairperson of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) from H.E. Dr John Pombe Joseph Magufuli, President of the United Republic of Tanzania. The 16-nation regional trading bloc pledged to help Mozambique combat terrorism within its borders.

Thankfully, Total and ENI have indicated that they intend to carry on in the midst of the violence and might, hopefully, still be able to deliver within their deadlines. Total says in its website that the Mozambique LNG project is on track for delivery by 2024 though ExxonMobil is yet to make a final investment decision.

Nyusi will be keen to leave a legacy as the president who brought Mozambique from the bottom rungs of the UN development index to a middle-income nation, and the whole world is now watching because nearly 30 billion barrels are at stake.

Ultimately, despite the formidable challenges, Mozambique's LNG resources could spawn one of the continent's rare rags-to-riches stories. The economics are particularly appealing, with the country's low production costs a boon in this era of low energy prices.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 13:15:27|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- The National Education Examination Authority (NEEA), under the Ministry of Education, has admonished the provincial exam authority in east China's Zhejiang over the leak of a student's essay in this year's college entrance exam.

The local authority was urged to promptly investigate the incident and handle it in accordance with the law and regulations.

The marking and grading of the college entrance exam will affect the fairness of the exam and the vital interests of the students, said the NEEA in a notice published on Friday.

The NEEA said that there are strict working rules for graders, including bans on disclosing information about the grading, or students' answer sheets.

In the meantime, those who set the questions for the exams are banned from revealing their identities to the public, or offering tutorial classes.

The NEEA also pledged to further strengthen the supervision and guidance of local authorities, and improve the regulations to ensure fairness in the college entrance exam. Enditem
NORRISTOWN  While a pandemic forced them to perform virtually this year, some aspiring lawyers cut their teeth in the legal arena while taking part in a mock trial competition sponsored by Montgomery Countys top law enforcement officer.

Traditionally, during the annual intern trial competition sponsored by District Attorney Kevin R. Steele, law students who spend their summers working in the district attorneys office meet in a courtroom to prosecute a hypothetical criminal case. The young lawyers then are critiqued by prosecutors who have worked in the trenches for many years.

But this year, social distancing and restrictions on how many people could be at the courthouse during the coronavirus epidemic meant that the mock trial competition had to be held virtually, with the intern prosecutors and those who portrayed the judge, jury, defendant, defense attorney and witnesses all connected in a virtual courtroom through a video-conferencing app.

These eight, second-year law students were some of the best we have seen. Not only were they solid in their skills and had a great work ethic, but they also rose to the challenge and adapted to the virtual environment in which we all now must operate, Steele said on Friday.

Leah George, of Greensburg, Pa., representing Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law, and Jillian Kennedy, of Annandale, N.J., representing Drexel University Thomas L. Kline School of Law, won the competition.

Emily Hoff, of La Quinta, Calif., from Temple University Beasley School of Law, and Cecelia Carreras, of Mission, Texas, who attended Villanova, took second place in the final rounds of the competition.

Interns Madeline Bagley, of Ambler, Kendal Kessler, of Abington, and Shelby McBride, of Indiana, Pa., all of Temple law school, and Ryan Kelly, of Franklinville, N.J., of Villanova law school, also competed in earlier rounds.

Every one of the students was prepared, poised and professional in their prosecution of this mock trial case, and it was a close decision as to the winners, but Leah George and Jillian Kennedy were just excellent in the homicide prosecution they conducted, Steele said.

During the competition, the eight law students acted as prosecutors of a fictitious murder case that involved legal hurdles and factual challenges to create difficulty, going up against a current prosecutor acting as a defense attorney. The roles of witnesses were portrayed by current prosecutors and members of the district attorneys staff.

In the final rounds on Aug. 14, the jury was comprised of Steele, deputy district attorneys and several other prosecutors. First Assistant District Attorney Edward F. McCann, Jr. sat as the judge for the final competition.

Normally, the second-year law students are part of a larger summer intern class of between 30 and 40 undergraduate and law students, all working in the district attorneys office for the summer. However, this year, to reduce the spread of COVID-19, the president judge and court administrators modified and restricted access to the courthouse, not allowing any interns from any courthouse offices to work in the building.

So, the larger internship program was cancelled, and the second-year interns were provided a robust online learning experience, observing court proceedings through Zoom and Scopia video-conferencing systems. They also prepared, researched and wrote legal briefs for current court cases and learned about all aspects of investigations and prosecutions from detectives and prosecutors during weekly training sessions and other educational activities.
Jailed mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was on the brink of being freed by Iran in 2017 when a release deal collapsed, according to a BBC documentary.

Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said a date had been named for her return to the UK that year  December 28.

Although it is unclear why the deal fell through, almost two months before that date Boris Johnson, then Foreign Secretary, had made a widely criticised intervention in her case.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is a British-Iranian dual citizen, was initially detained in April 2016 and later sentenced to five years in jail for allegedly 'plotting to topple the Iranian government'.

Jailed British mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her husband Richard Ratcliffe and their daughter Gabriella as a BBC investigation reveals Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was due to be released in December, 2017, before the alleged deal between Iran and the UK collapsed (file photo)

She claimed she was visiting the country so her parents could meet her young daughter, but Mr Johnson said 'she was simply teaching people journalism, as I understand it'.

This undermined her defence and gave credence to claims by the suppressive Iranian regime that she was running a BBC journalism course aimed at 'recruiting and training people to spread propaganda against Iran'.

Her husband today told ITV's Good Morning Britain it is 'completely outrageous' for Iran to be holding people and 'using them as collateral'.

Mr Ratcliffe added he fears his wife could face a second court case once her current sentence comes to an end next spring.

Asked about claims Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was being held in order to force the UK into settling a 400 million pound dispute with Iran, Mr Ratcliffe said: 'It's completely outrageous to be holding people and using them as collateral.

'Behind closed doors the Government will admit things, certainly previous ministers have been quite open with us.

'And it's fair that neither Government likes to be too honest about what is going on.'

Mr Ratcliffe said his wife would be 'counting down the months' until the end of her sentence.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, pictured here wearing an ankle tag in March this year, is now under effective house arrest in Tehran due to the coronavirus pandemic

He added: 'I think, behind close doors, they keep saying there's a second court case, they keep talking about running it. My fear is that's what happens.'

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 42, who has served four years in jail and is now under effective house arrest in Tehran due to the coronavirus pandemic, once worked at the BBC in an administrative role.

Her employer in 2016, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, said she was a charity worker.

It has long been claimed Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe is being held to force the UK into settling a multi-million pound dispute with Iran.

Both countries deny this but Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has said the Iranian authorities have told her in private that her release hinges on the money being returned.

Mr Ratcliffe believes his wife is being held by Iran as 'diplomatic leverage'.

Details of the release deal were uncovered during a BBC Panorama investigation into the detention of westerners in Iran.

The programme airs tonight on BBC One at 7.30pm.
TikTok said on Saturday it plans to file a lawsuit on Monday against President Donald Trump's executive order prohibiting transactions with the popular short video app and its Chinese parent ByteDance, confirming an earlier Reuters report.

Reuters exclusively reported on Friday that TikTok would challenge Trump's executive order as early as Monday.

TikTok said it had tried to engage with the US administration for nearly a year, but faced "a lack of due process" and that the government paid no attention to the facts.

"To ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and users are treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the executive order through the judicial system," the company said in a statement.

TikTok's owner ByteDance issued a separate statement on Sunday saying it will officially file a lawsuit against Trump administration on Monday, August 24.

Trump issued an executive order on August 14 that gave ByteDance 90 days to divest the US operations of TikTok. ByteDance has been making progress in talks with potential acquirers, including Microsoft Corp and Oracle. Some of ByteDance's U.S. investors could also join the winning bid.

While TikTok is best known for its anodyne videos of people dancing and going viral among teenagers, US officials have expressed concerns that information on users could be passed on to China's government.

A representative for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Jammu and Kashmir's biggest yoga center is all set to come up in Udhampur's Mantalai. It is being built by National Projects Construction Corporation (NPCC) and it is expected that the centre would be completed by March 2021. The total cost of the project is Rs 9782 lakh.

Interestingly, the place was once famous for Dhirendra Brahmachari's yoga center Aparna, whose dilapidated building still exists there. It is to be noted that Dhirendra Brahmachari was the yoga teacher of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. After Brahmachari's death the property was taken over by government of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Deputy commissioner Udhampur Dr Piyush Singla told WION,"Yoga is part of life. Mantalai area has been famous for yoga activities because of yoga preacher Dhirender Bhramchari. To give a fillip to area, govt launched international Mantalai yoga center. Yoga center will give a filip to religious and tourist destination."

When it comes to Mantalai Yoga center, a pyramid shaped mega structure is being built. Besides this, houses for tourist, meditation pods, dinning block, helipad and some other projects will also come up there. The yoga center is part of larger project "integrated development of tourism facility in Mantalai, Sudh mahadev and Patni top".

At Sudh Mahadev, a cafeteria has been built and at Patni top a convention center will be built as part of the project. KR Rana, Project management, NPCC who is executing the project said,"focus is to get tourist. We are trying to expedite the project".

Land for the project was handed over in November 2017 by the then state government. It was to be completed in 36 months by November 2020 but the project got delayed due to coronavirus VOCID-19 crisis.

In long term focus is to even connect the yoga center in Udhampur to Vaishno Devi Shrine in Katra, Jammu. The yoga center, spa area and treatment center can togther have 60-70 people at any given time.
An anti-masker dubbed 'Bunnings Karen' and self-declared priestess insists she is not sick despite having pains in her neck, fatigue and body aches.

Lizzy Rose dismissed her symptoms in a video and said in a scratchy voice she was simply tired after battling a Freemason god of the underworld in Victoria.

'This is the after effects of Baal. I'm not sick, I'm not sick,' she said.

'I just have no voice. I'm a bit tired. My body feels beaten. I've gone through certain stages after the ritual. When I woke up the next morning, my whole body ached.'

Ms Rose first gained attention when she was filmed in a clash with Bunnings staff for refusing to wear a face mask at a hardware store in Melbourne in July.

She was given the name 'Bunnings Karen' and has since bragged about obtaining a travel exemption and visiting a nail salon in a country town when stay-at-home orders have been issued in Melbourne and Mitchell Shire.

In her new video, Ms Rose was sitting in her car and said she had just visited a 'beautiful forest' where she 'met Baal'.

Lizzy Rose dismissed her symptoms in a video (pictured) and said in a scratchy voice she was simply tired after battling a Freemason god of the underworld in rural Victoria

Ms Rose (pictured, holding face masks) first gained attention when she was filmed in a clash with Bunnings staff for refusing to wear a face mask at the hardware store in July

Baal was a fertility god worshipped by Middle Eastern communities such as the Canaanites.

His appearance in religious literature slowly took a dark turn. The Old Testament portrayed him as a god who accepted human sacrifices of first-born sons.

He is also regarded as one of the gods of the Freemasons.

'I met Baal at the gates, of hell, of the underworld, the realm of evil, of darkness,' Ms Rose said.

'I was offered a baby as a sacrificial lamb from Baal to me.

'I was challenged, I was punched in the face, I was grabbed by the hair and pulled to the ground.

Ms Rose went on to say her 'body felt broken, old and achy and stiff and painful' the next morning.

'It felt like I had been beaten to a pulp,' she said.

'The pressure around my neck and back of my skull and shoulders, it felt like my neck had been snapped.

Health authorities have warned residents to watch out for flu-like symptoms such as a fever, body aches, tiredness or a sore throat.

A person displaying symptoms is encouraged to immediately get tested for COVID-19.

Daily Mail Australia is not suggesting Ms Rose has coronavirus and has contacted her for comment.

Ms Rose has previously posted on Facebook that she visited a country town to get her nails done

Ms Rose has previously posted on Facebook that she visited a country town to get her nails done.

'It was wonderful to get my nails done and chat with the locals about the truth of the coronavirus agenda and to encourage people to say NO to wearing a forced facial muzzle of compliance,' she wrote.

Ms Rose said she was not breaching the stay at home restrictions as she has 'a letter of exemption'.

'I travel for education purposes as I'm currently studying and I have a letter of exemption to authorise that travel,' she wrote on Facebook, alongside an article.

'I travel to many places in Victoria just like thousands of other people right now are. I don't deliberately travel to random areas.'

Ms Rose also said her work requires her to move around.

'l also travel due to my business to see my clients, along the way I will stop to grab some food or get my nails done,' she wrote.
Published on 2020/08/23 | Source

Samsung was the only major smartphone maker in the world to lose market share in the first half of this year.

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According to market researcher Strategy Analytics on Tuesday, Samsung held on to its lead with a global smartphone market share of 20.2 percent, but that was down 1.8 percentage point on-year.

In contrast, China's Huawei increased its market share by 1.2 percentage points to 18.7 percent despite a war against it being waged by the U.S.

Apple's market share rose by a substantial 2.3 percentage points thanks to strong sales of its mid-priced iPhone SE series that hit stores earlier this year.

The three smaller Chinese smartphone makers Xiaomi, OPPO and Vivo also boosted their market share by between 0.4 to 1.1 percentage points.

Samsung's shrinking sales volume was to blame for the decline. The Korean giant sold 24 percent fewer phones worldwide than in the first half of last year to total 12.5 million.

Huawei's sales also declined, but by only 11.5 percent, Apple's by just one percent and Xiaomi's by 5.9 percent.

Industry insiders believe Samsung's dominance in the global premium smartphone market is rapidly weakening. Sales of the premium Galaxy S20 that hit stores in February were poor due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The company now hopes to bounce back with the foldable Galaxy Z Fold 2 and others. Mass production of foldable phones remains difficult, but Samsung claims it has gained an edge over its rivals with the innovative gadget.
Anna Reed wears her "Hotspots 4 Our Kids" antenna during a protest at the Comcast Technology Center in Center City on Monday, August 3, 2020. Internet access for students has become more crucial as schooling goes remote during the coronavirus pandemic, writes Philadelphian and Syrian refugee Nasr Sadar. Read more

I finally made the difficult decision to flee the violence of my war-torn homeland of Syria when I realized that there was no longer hope of building a future there for my wife, son, and parents. It was a difficult road to get where I am today. The process of applying for refugee resettlement in the United States is extremely rigorous and drawn out. I know how lucky we are to be here in a place where people look out for one another, a place built on connections.

As we see an educational system that is transitioning more online, that support needs to extend to tackling the digital divideand how it holds back immigrant communities. With resources increasingly available, we must work to ensure that all people find their path to that connection.

For centuries, immigrants to this country have availed themselves of the educational opportunities the U.S. offers to build better lives for themselves and brighter futures for their children. Access to education is critical to those futures.

 READ MORE: Why Internet access is a super determinant of health | Expert Opinion

I should know. I was a teacher in my home country, but, as with many professions, my overseas certification turned out not to be valid in America. I found a way to continue my lifes work of helping others by working at the Nationalities Services Center (NSC) here in Philadelphia, where I have served as the Job Development Coordinator for the past four years. While Im no longer in a classroom, I still work to connect with people and provide them knowledge and tools to improve their lives.

In this role, and at home, Ive seen that accessing quality, affordable internet is essential, especially during the COVID pandemic.

When the pandemic forced my sons schooling to an online format, I was able to help him set it up and navigate his various classes. But not as many immigrant children were so fortunate. Nonwhite Hispanic Americans lag White Americans in internet adoption by 8%, although the gap has been closing. There are a number of reasons for this, including language barriers, migration patterns, and fear on the part of undocumented families of signing up for service.

When the Philadelphia School District announced that public school students would not return to classrooms until mid-November earliest, I worried that immigrant youth  already facing multiple barriers to equity and inclusion  would fall farther behind.

Some of my worries were assuaged when the City, School District and a number of philanthropic and business partners announced their PHLConnectED initiative to link 35,000 low-income families  including many of the immigrant youth I serve  to free broadband services. These students will be connected to the internet via Comcasts Internet Essentials program, the service my family signed up for when we first arrived and which we still rely on to this day.

While I applaud this effort, providing free internet is only the first step. Now we have to make sure every student properly receives this service. This means Philadelphians stepping out of our siloes and getting creative in identifying families who lack internet service. It also means understanding why these families may not have signed up for internet prior to this, like language barriers and lack of digital literacy that go well beyond cost.

 READ MORE: Philly promises public school students will have internet access as coronavirus keeps classes online

At NSC, we work with the School Districts Immigrant and Refugee Education Collaborative, a group that includes government agencies, non-profits, and student advocates to solve the multi-faceted, complex challenges facing families. In addition to addressing the digital divide, the group has spearheaded efforts to ensure the needs of limited English proficient students and parents are met this fall by, for example, launching a community hotline and facilitating parent info sessions in different languages.

We will continue to work with this group throughout the rest of the summer and into the beginning of the school year to make sure the internet adoption rate among immigrant students is high, and that the students understand the technology theyre tasked with using.

These are the type of collaborative groups who will need a role in the digital learning process to ensure that the most vulnerable children among us are honored their right to better themselves through education.

By working together, we can deliver a brighter future for all of our childrenjust like the one I envision for my son.

Nasr Sadar is a Syrian refugee and currently employed as a Job Development Coordinator at the Nationalities Services Center.
NEW DELHI: ISIS terrorist Mohd Mustaqeem alias Abdul Yusuf Khan, who was arrested in Delhi's Dhaula Kuan area by the Delhi Police on August 21, was reportedly planning to carry out a 'lone wolf' style Fidayeen attack in Ayodhya. He, however, couldn't succeed in his plans due to strict security and coronavirus-infused lockdown in the state.

Sources said that he had planned terror strikes in a crowded area in the national capital. He had also planned to use his suicide vests and pistol to carry out maximum damage on the day of the attack. To carry out his nefarious plans, he practising with an airgun on a firing board at his Balrampur home.

Sources close to the development revealed that Yusuf had also planned to carry out an attack in the national capital on August 15, on the Independence Day. But he once again failed in his plan as he couldn't come to the city due to heavy security arrangements.

The Special Cell of Delhi Police today recovered two suicide vests, ISIS flags and jihadi literature from his house in Uttar Pradesh's Balrampur district. Mustaqeem was arrested on Friday (August 21) night following a brief exchange of fire from the section of the Ridge Road between Dhaula Kuan and Karol Bagh.

The police recovered two Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), weighing approximately 15 kilograms each in two pressure cookers, from his possession. Besides, a pistol was also recovered from him at the time of arrest.

According to Delhi Police, Mustaqeem alias Abu Yusuf was in touch with ISIS handlers for past 5 years, who instructed him to plan terror strikes in India.

He had also made passports in the name of his wife and 4 children. Earlier, he was being handled by Yusuf Alhindi who was killed in Syria. Later, Abu Huzafa, a Pakistani, was handling him. Huzafa was also later killed in drone strike in Afghanistan, the DCP Special Cell told reporters. "Khan had been under watch for the last year," PS Kushwah, DCP (Special Cell), Delhi Police said.
"This is a test for Scott Morrison. This is the test he himself set when there were allegations into Victoria[n] [Labor] ... [when] a minister [Adem Somyurek] was gone by the morning, a minister was expelled from the Labor party. "Now, once again, a bit like aged care, he's saying it's not his responsibility, it's a matter for the organisational wing. Well someone needs to tell Scott Morrison that he's actually in charge of the Liberal Party, that this is a scandal [and] his assistant treasurer is in it up to his neck and his position is untenable." In a statement issued on Sunday, the party's Victorian state director, Sam McQuestin, said he would request "full and detailed" responses from the Liberal figures. "The Liberal Party takes the integrity of its membership very seriously," he said.

"The party will decide urgently on immediate actions to be taken and will determine further measures having regard to the responses received and the findings of any further investigations." Late on Sunday night, the two politicians rejected the allegations and said they would ask the department responsible for politicians' staff to review whether funds were misused. Loading Mr Sukkar rejected the allegations and said he had never directed his staff to undertake party political activities. "Every member of my team has been directed to, and expected to, obey all applicable parliamentary policies and guidelines and workplace laws," he said in a statement. "I cannot speak to the operations of other electorate offices."

Mr Andrews said "the suggestion that I would be coerced into making decisions on staffing arrangements in my electorate office by others is untrue." "Tonight's 60 Minutes program made a number of allegations which are false," Mr Andrews said in a tweet. "As 'Father of the House' my integrity and my reputation mean everything." Treasurer backs Sukkar Mr Frydenberg said he had "real concern" about the allegations against his Victorian colleagues. He said he supported Mr Sukkar to remain in his position as the department conducted its investigation. "He certainly has my support  He's rejected those allegations," Mr Frydenberg said. "As my assistant treasurer, he's done a very good job."

"I've subsequently spoken to the president of the Victorian division [Robert Clarke], the state director as well as the leader of the opposition [Michael O'Brien], and the Liberal Party will now deal with the matters internally." Finance Minister Matthias Cormann said the Victorian Liberal Party was in the best position to assess the potential wrongdoing and "deal with it". "When allegations are made ... then in the first instance the department investigates independent of government. That's what I would expect to happen," he told ABC's Radio National. "If there are allegations of inappropriate use of taxpayer resources then that ought to be investigated." Former MP says Bastiaan threatened him over euthanasia vote

Former Victorian MP Simon Ramsey said Mr Bastiaan threatened to end his political career if he did not vote against the Victorian government's assisted dying laws in 2017. In a leaked recording published by this masthead, Mr Sukkar outlined a plan to remove or shift four Victorian MPs, including Mr Ramsey, who voted for assisted dying laws. Speaking on ABC radio on Monday, Mr Ramsey said Mr Bastiaan pressured him to vote down the Andrews government bill which passed the upper house by 22 votes to 18. "During the debate, the vote was getting very close. I received a call from Marcus Bastiaan saying he would prefer my vote to vote against the bill and that if I didn't, there would be repercussions for my endorsement," he said. "I told him in no uncertain terms that I will not be threatened or cajoled by someone of his ilk.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 23

By Nargiz Ismayilova - Trend:

Belgium's share in the total imports of Azerbaijan decreased from 0.49 to 0.48 percent from January through July 2020 of the total import volume, Trend reports citing the statistical bulletin of the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee.

In the first half of 2020, foreign trade operations of Azerbaijan and Belgium amounted to $29.1 million, which is 1.6 times less compared to the same period of 2019, said the bulletin.

As reported, the export of Azerbaijani products to Belgium in the first seven months of this year amounted $1 million, while a year earlier - $5.1 million. Thus, Belgium purchased 4.9 times less products from Azerbaijan than in the same period of the previous year.

At the same time, Belgiums share in total exports of Azerbaijan also decreased by about 4 percent, from 0.04 to 0.01 percent of the total export volume.

The import value of Belgian goods by Azerbaijan dropped by almost 44.4 percent, having decreased from $40.6 million to $28.1 million year-on-year, said the report.

Thus, the foreign trade balance of the two countries for the specifying period became turned out to be negative and amounted to $27 million.

---

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Linkedin Shadine Taufik and Stevie Emilia (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, August 23, 2020 10:54 515 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066fc85f3 1 Books #literature,#book,#books,#author,#profile,#people,#LaksmiPamuntjak,#novel Free

Like many other people during self-quarantine, award-winning Indonesian novelist, poet and essayist Laksmi Pamuntjak went through different stages.

In the first two months, she found it difficult to write anything other than emails and messages to friends asking how they were.

Youd think it is the most natural thing, to counter the loneliness and isolation with exterioration, to manifest all our fears and uncertainty in paper and ink. Youd think they would come pouring out of you, she said in an email interview.

But in reality, she did not write anything down, much less write about her feelings, thinking that everybodys story seemed more pertinent than her own.

My daily walks became more purposeful, my interaction with friends and family more heartfelt, my appreciation for nature more acute.

Reading room: Self-isolation has led to introspective moments for author Laksmi Pamuntjak. (Courtesy of Laksmi Pamuntjak/-)

Only in the third month, she began to read, and then write again.

Shes not sure if the pandemic has changed her writing, but the feeling of gratitude that infuses everything she does has probably affected the way she thinks about writing, finding the ability to write at all, let alone not run out of ideas, an immense privilege.

The serenity she started feeling around this period also allowed her to access the past differently  her memory opened up, finding herself remembering tiny yet affecting details of her daughters and her own childhoods, her lives in different cities or about her parents when they were younger and happier.

I have not written all of these thoughts down, but Im sure that the generosity that came with remembering them will inform the way I write about them one day.

Her only regret is not keeping a diary of the past few months.

As we know, a diary can serve as a stimulant to feeling and remind us that we are alive. What I learned instead was to learn to love the mundane, including my daily routine. It helps me manage my uncertainty, makes me feel safer, more anchored.

FALL BABY

Laksmis novel Fall Baby  a sequel to The Question of Red (TQoR), a love story set against the backdrop of the Indonesian anti-Communist massacres of 1965  won Best Literary Work at the 2020 Singapore Book Awards on Aug. 13.

Translated: Author Laksmi Pamuntjaks award-winning novel 'Fall Baby' has also been translated into German and Indonesian. (Courtesy of Laksmi Pamuntjak/-)

The novel, which explores the story of Siri  the love baby of Amba and Bhisma, The Question of Reds protagonists who were violently separated toward the end of the novel  was translated and recently published in Indonesian with the title Kekasih Musim Gugur by Gramedia Pustaka Utama.

If TQoR is the story of the mother and the father, Fall Baby is the story of the daughter. Actually, the original idea was always to have them in one story. I couldnt imagine one without the other.

In the earlier drafts, she said TQoR had always had the triple narratives  of Amba, her daughter Siri and Samuel, the Ambonese man who met Amba on her trip to Buru Island  flowing side by side, with alternating PoVs.

She said the mother-daughter story had always been crucial because it related to the leitmotif in most of her fictions: parenthood, adoption, the notion that children often cannot escape the fate of their parents and that the pain of historical trauma spreads from generation to generation.

But the novel got bogged down by too many storylines so she decided to take out the daughters story until an opportunity to write Siris story came after the German version of TQoR was published in 2015.

It is, after all, a story of a different generation, a different world altogether to TQoR. The circumstances are different, the sensibilities are different. They involve different ways of processing history, of approaching family. So, of course its voice, its tone and its pace are necessarily different from TQoR: in Fall Baby, they are faster, more direct and in some ways more irreverent.

Apart from the difference in narrative style and time period, Siri is by definition a traveler, both in the mental and physical sense, who is constantly struggling with her multiple identities, with what it means to be her true and adopted selves at once; to be Indonesian and of the world; and in life and in art.

In this sense, Siri is both very different and not so different from her mother, Amba, who is also curious about the world but lived in a world that was more restrictive in its norms, values and mobility.

The two novels also necessarily differ in form  The Question of Red is a historical fiction, Fall Baby is more contemporary.

When she started writing the former 15 years ago, Laksmi said she wanted a big canvas for a big novel, wanting to know what it would be like to write an epic, a big story about Indonesia and all its complexities.

In contrast, Fall Baby is more intimate. It is the first novel Ive written in which I dare myself to use the first person. Previously I always feared and mistrusted the I unless its in poetry [].

THE ARTS

Siris character is also painted to be one of fierce independence and a learned, cultured background, as Fall Baby is enriched with references to the arts and Indonesian history.

I dont know why, but I always need a way in into my novels, especially when I want to tackle big themes of humanity such as oppression and injustice or difficult subjects like communism, censorship and religious and cultural intolerance and tie them to the personal lives of the characters in the novel, she said.

In TQoR she found the Hindu epic Mahabharata the perfect framework to talk about the official lies constructed by the Soeharto regime around the massacres of 1965 to justify his dictatorship. In Fall Baby she found a way in through art.

For her, looking at art is like looking at mythology  about acknowledging different ways of seeing and even within one person, there are multiple identities and selves.

At home: Author Laksmi Pamuntjak poses in her reading room. (Courtesy of Laksmi Pamuntjak/Bona Sutirto)

Growing up with paintings, books, classical music and wayang stories, Laksmi said she was at her happiest when standing in front of a painting.

In 2006, she published The Diary of R.S.: Musings on Art, a series of short fictions based on the paintings she loves. It made her always want to write a novel about an artist looking at the world through paintings.

And she did it in Fall Baby, such as in one scene when Siri is taken by her mother, Amba, to the house of great Indonesian artist Sudjojono. And all the artwork by world renowned masters like Matisse, Rembrandt and Vermeer in the novel are among those that deeply resonate with her.

The focus on art also allows her to tackle one more concern: rising intolerance. Between 2015 and 2017, when I was still living in Berlin, rightwing extremism was on the rise. Trump happened, Brexit happened. Back home, society had become more polarized in matters of race, ethnicity, religion and belief.

Those were particularly bad years for art as well, she added, with art exhibitions, transgender cultural gatherings and public statues deemed pornographic being cracked down on, while anti-communism, anti-Chinese and anti-LGBTQ sentiment was on the rise.

Yet artists continued to wear the courage and intelligence of their resistance, as they have always done in the face of injustice and repression. This is why telling the story of an artist in an increasingly undemocratic time became even more crucial to me.

When translating Fall Baby, on some levels, she faced the same challenges she had when translating TQoR from Indonesian into English, finding it never easy to translate a story from one language, culture, mindscape and history into another. It involves writing anew especially if youre the storys own author, Laksmi said.

With Fall Baby there is a difference since it was first written in English and this time she had to render it into Indonesian. Moreover, she said Fall Baby had always been a cosmopolitan-ish novel, and whose voice embodied its protagonists cultural duality, which made it somewhat easier to translate into Indonesian, while TQoR had always been deeply contextualized, deeply Indonesian.

With the pandemic still in full swing, she thinks it will change the literary industry at least for some time, noting that almost every aspect of the industry has changed since the outbreak  with some bookstores still closed and no more book fairs and literary festivals to attend for some time while demand for print books has plummeted and select publication dates are pushed back or moved forward.

Authors, she said, cannot tour with their new books and have to learn new ways of promoting their books in a new environment like social media.

I dont know if the pandemic will change the literary industry in the long run, but I hope the short-term adjustments we all have had to make will help lay the groundwork for what the future of publishing might look like. (ste)

-- Shadine is an intern at The Jakarta Post.
For the past few days, a handful of Congress leaders have been preparing for the Congress Working Committee meeting. Its to be a departure from recent past and instead of Zoom, it will now be using WebEx for video conferencing the meet to tide over the fear of hacking. The last time Sonia Gandhi met Rajya Sabha MPs, the incident left a bad experience. So this time, the Congress is taking no chances and the ID for the meeting will be given to the participants just before it begins.

Ironically, the fear of leak or hacking is not from China, Pakistan or even the BJP. Its from within the party as the Congress faces a crisis of leadership and voices that were silent or reticent till now have started becoming vocal. At such a time, the last thing the top Congress leadership would want is for their internal strife to be made public.

However, the change in the means of conducting the meeting cannot put a lid on the crisis that the CWC could address. The biggest problem remains that of leadership. Most leaders in private and, some publicly, have complained that Congress has lost its steam; that it cannot fight the Modi juggernaut and the listlessness means soon Congress could be eased out of the national narrative. Apart from many leaving the party, those who stayed behind and are with the Congress often wonder whats happening.

Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tewari and Rajiv Satav are a few who have raised their voice against this.

The problem before Sonia Gandhi remains the reluctance of Rahul Gandhi to take charge. When recently, a year-old interview of Priyanka Vadra to a book surfaced in which she said she agreed with her brother on a non-Gandhi Congress president, there were alarm bells in the party. The Congress officially made a statement to say the old interview was being used to push an agenda and party workers and leaders accept Rahul Gandhi as their leader.

At the CWC, its quite possible more voices may come up asking for Rahul Gandhi to take charge as its clear that Sonia Gandhi wants to hand over the reins. But what if he remains adamant? There is a proposal in place which could be implemented.

There could be appointment of more than two vice-presidents to assist Sonia Gandhi. This is to address the concern that Congress needs a full-time president. But such an appointment could also ensure that Gandhis remain in control and the party continues to be headed by one of them, in this case Sonia Gandhi. Names which are doing the rounds are of Ghulam Nabi Azad, P Chidambaram and Mallikarjun Kharge, but its quite possible that young leaders could be propped up.

This apart, many new faces could be brought in for key posts and most of them are perceived to be close to Rahul Gandhi. Sushmita Dev and Manickam Tagore are some names doing the rounds.

It would also be interesting to see whether Sachin Pilot is brought to the centre. While Pilot has made it clear that he sees Rajasthan as his karam bhumi and CM Ashok Gehlot doesnt want to leave the state yet, the Congress leadership could bring in Pilot to buy time till the committee submits its report.

The caveat for all this is, of course, that the Congress needs to have the urge to solve this turmoil. For now, the restlessness becomes tough to ignore. Some like Jitin Prasada have formed a Brahmin Samaj and this is to capitalise on the 12% Brahmin vote bank which his party doesnt seem to be concentrating on. Clearly, he wants to ensure that his politics stays alive.

Few others who dont want to leave the Congress are looking at ways to stay relevant. But the list of disillusioned leaders is long and growing, and many of these have at one point been influential or important in the scheme of things such as Milind Deora, Veerappa Moily, Anand Sharma, Ashwini Kumar, Salman Khurshid.

Some chose to leave the party, like Jyotiraditya Scindia, some fought back and continue to do so like Sachin Pilot. But as new leaders are being propped up and Rahul Gandhi has his favourites, many feel left out and yet, want to stay in the party. The CWC brings some hope to them that things could change. But will the Congress and CWC once again shy away from taking a decision?
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry felt 'unsupported and unprotected' by the Royal family after discovering leaks to the press came from 'inside the Palace', Omid Scobie has claimed.

The co-author of bombshell biography Finding Freedom, which offers a window into the couple's life during their time as senior royals, said the Duke, 35, and the Duchess of Sussex, 39, were stuck in a 'extremely unpleasant situation'.

Speaking on the The Heirpod podcast, the royal correspondent labelled the situation a 'HR crisis', claiming it became increasingly clear that Harry and Meghan, who now live in Santa Barbara, 'were never going to get the support they needed'.

Omid added that the leaked stories, which he says came from inside Buckingham Palace, left the pair feeling extremely vulnerable.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry (pictured in 2019) felt 'unsupported and unprotected' by the Royal family after discovering leaks to the press came from 'inside the Palace', Omid Scobie has claimed

'To have members of their team or family that they are part of being involved in some of their leaks was an extremely unpleasant situation for them and made them feel even more unsupported and unprotected,' he said.

'But you have to remember this is one very big establishment and what lies within are three very different households and agendas, all looking after their own bosses and own agendas. It left them very exposed.'

The royal author added that Meghan and Harry struggled with the Royal Family's 'no comment policy'.

He said Meghan found this approach difficult to adjust to, adding: 'You need to lean on your new family for support and it just wasn't there often enough.'

The co-author of bombshell biography Finding Freedom (pictured), which offers a window into the couple's life during their time as senior royals, said the Duke, 35, and the Duchess of Sussex, 38, were stuck in a 'extremely unpleasant situation'

Speaking on the The Heirpod podcast , the royal correspondent labelled the situation a 'HR crisis', claiming it became increasingly clear that Harry and Meghan (pictured in March), who now live in Santa Barbara, 'were never going to get the support they needed'

Omid's remarks come following his claim that the couple spoke to 'Buckingham Palace about restructuring the press system' last summer.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are currently living in their $14million Santa Barbara mansion, having stepped back from their duties and withdrawing from the 'royal rota' system in March.

Finding Freedom was selling 31,000 copies across the UK five days after its release on August 11, its publisher has claimed

Last week, Omid revealed how the couple began discussing 'restructuring that press system' in the summer of 2019, just one year after the royal wedding.

Speaking to The Cut, he revealed: 'In the summer of 2019, Harry actually had a conversation amongst his team and his senior aides within Buckingham Palace about restructuring that press system and making him and Meghan more accessible to a wider, more diverse media landscape.

'And the answer was well, "If you want to do that, you can pay for your own engagements".

'And so that was the first seed of, "Well, maybe we will break away, maybe we will do our own thing."'

Finding Freedom offers a window into Meghan and Harry's lives during their time as senior royals, and is full of details on their shock exit from the royal family.

It addresses the alleged rift between brothers Harry and William, 39, as well as the relationship between their wives.

Omid has given several high-profile interviews to publicise the book since its release, including one with True Royalty TV which hit the headlines.

Omid added that the leaked stories, which he says came from inside Buckingham Palace, left Meghan (pictured in March) and Harry feeling extremely vulnerable

In the discussion with Kate Thornton he claimed Prince Harry had made an exasperated call to his grandmother, 94, following an alleged tussle with Her Majesty's long-time dresser Angela Kelly.

'Harry had to intervene,' Omid explained. 'He called his grandmother and said, ''I don't know what the hell is going on. This woman needs to make this work for my future wife''. And of course, we can kind of see now where this 'what Meghan wants, Meghan gets' narrative came from.

'Harry felt that there were those within the institution that would stop at nothing at the very least to make Meghan's life difficult.'

Omid also alleges that Prince William has not spoken to his brother properly since he revealed his plan to quit the UK for North America.

In the TV interview to promote the book, Omid claimed: 'The brothers had not spoken since around the time of the Sandringham summit.

'They hadn't seen each other. That's really going to take some time to heal. I think the distance between the brothers grew wider and wider. And that's partly because of things that take place - and we discuss them in the book.'

Earlier this month, it emerged that Meghan and Harry bought a sprawling nine-bedroom and 16-bathroom mansion in upscale Santa Barbara for $14.65million on June 18, making them neighbors with celebrities Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres, according to DailyMail.com.
B oris Johnson has issued a personal plea to parents to send their children back to the classroom when schools reopen in September.

The Prime Minister said the risk of contracting coronavirus in schools is "very small" and pupils face greater harm by continuing to stay away from the classroom.

He said it was the Government's "moral duty" to reopen the schools as he stressed that authorities now know more about Covid-19 than they did when the country went into lockdown on March 23.

"I have previously spoken about the moral duty to reopen schools to all pupils safely, and I would like to thank the school staff who have spent the summer months making classrooms Covid-secure in preparation for a full return in September," Mr Johnson said.

"We have always been guided by our scientific and medical experts, and we now know far more about coronavirus than we did earlier this year.

The Prime Minister has urged parents to send their children back to school next month (PA) / Jeremy Selwyn/Evening Standard

"As the Chief Medical Officer has said, the risk of contracting Covid-19 in school is very small and it is far more damaging for a childs development and their health and wellbeing to be away from school any longer.

"This is why its vitally important that we get our children back into the classroom to learn and to be with their friends.

"Nothing will have a greater effect on the life chances of our children than returning to school."

Many pupils in England have not been to class since March when schools were closed, except to look after vulnerable children and those of keyworkers.

Schools in Scotland reopened earlier this month, while those in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are expected to welcome all pupils from the beginning of September.

Mr Johnson's comments come after the UKs chief medical officers issued a joint statement seeking to reassure parents that it was safe to send their children back to school.

They said "very few, if any" children and teenagers would come to long-term harm from the virus solely by attending school, while there was a certainty of harm from not returning.

Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman Layla Moran said: "The Government must rapidly upscale Test and Trace and ensure schools have the mental health support, financial resources and the use of community spaces they need ahead of opening fully.

"The country, and seemingly the Prime Minister, has lost faith in Gavin Williamson. To restore confidence among parents, pupils and teachers the best thing the Prime Minister could do is sack him, rather than speak for him."

It comes as analysis found there were 30 outbreaks of coronavirus in schools in England after they reopened.

UK Schools begin to reopen during Coronavirus lockdown ease 1 /28 UK Schools begin to reopen during Coronavirus lockdown ease Harris Academy Primary School Jeremy Selwyn Parents drop off children at Queen's Hill Primary School, Costessey, Norfolk, as pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6, begin to return to school as part of a wider easing of lockdown measures PA Harris Academy Primary School Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School in Croydon Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School in Croydon Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School in Croydon Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School in Croydon Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School in Croydon Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School in Croydon Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School in Croydon Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School in Croydon Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School in Croydon Jeremy Selwyn Parents and children arrive at Watlington Primary School as some schools re-open Reuters Lessons with reduced class sizes at Queen's Hill Primary School, Costessey, Norfolk, as pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6, begin to return to school as part of a wider easing of lockdown measures PA Parents and children arrive at Watlington Primary School as some schools re-open Reuters Parents drop off children at Queen's Hill Primary School, Costessey, Norfolk PA Parents drop off children at Queen's Hill Primary School, Costessey, Norfolk, as pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6, begin to return to school as part of a wider easing of lockdown measures. PA Parents drop off children at Queen's Hill Primary School, Costessey, Norfolk, as pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6, begin to return to school as part of a wider easing of lockdown measures. PA

A Public Health England report, published on Sunday, said the reopening of schools following the easing of national lockdown was associated with a total of 198 confirmed Covid-19 cases, 70 in children and 128 in staff.

There were 67 single confirmed cases, four "co-primary" cases and 30 outbreaks of Covid-19 in schools during June, it added.

A total of 121 cases were linked to the outbreaks, 30 in children and 91 in staff, the analysis said.

The report said there was a "strong correlation" between community coronavirus incidence and risk of outbreaks in educational settings, even during a period of low Covid-19 incidence.

But it added this was not surprising because increased community transmission provided more opportunities for the virus to be introduced into educational settings.

Medical chief says coronavirus risk at school smaller than damage of not going

The report said: "The potential for spread within educational settings, as observed from the wider swabbing of some schools in our surveillance and from recent reports from other countries, does suggest that school closures may be necessary as part of lockdown in regions with increasing community infection, although given what is known about the detrimental effects of lack of access to education on child development, these should probably be considered only in extremis by comparison with other lockdown measures."

Education settings in England were asked to reopen to children in nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 at the start of June, extending to Year 10 and 12 students from June 15, the analysis said.

But it said the reopening was not mandatory and was met with "mixed responses", with only 1.6 million of the 8.9 million pupils nationally attending any educational setting during the "summer mini-term".

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary, of the National Education Union, said schools and colleges needed to know what should happen if an outbreak of the virus occurs in individual schools or through national, regional or local spikes.

UK stays alerts during Coronavirus - In pictures 1 /38 UK stays alerts during Coronavirus - In pictures People wearing PPE sit on bench's at Earl's Court Station Reuters Worlds End Nurseries in Chelsea opens for business. Customer Nika Kucifer is shown flowers by Janson Lotery Nigel Howard Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressing the nation about coronavirus (COVID-19) from 10 Downing Street, London. PA Coronavirus Covid-19 Colour Coded Alert System A sign is pictured explaining that the road has been narrowed to aid social distancing when using Camden High Street AFP via Getty Images Commuters on the Jubilee line Nigel Howard Phil Spencer, Cheshire coach of the year 2019 photographed in action at the Bowdon Lawn Tennis Club coaching 9-year-old club member Gigi Welch on the first day the prime minister is allowing family members to enjoy unlimited outdoor activities and various sports played with social distancing on May 13, 2020 in Bowdon Getty Images A golfer plays the first hole while wearing a face mask at West Essex Golf Course Getty Images Pedestrians and cyclists make their way across London Bridge following prime minister Boris Johnson's advice for people to return work if possible but not use public transport. Daniel Hambury Two men wear face masks on the London Underground Jubilee line PA Key workers in Birmingham city centre, as the UK continues in lockdown to help curb the spread of the coronavirus PA Coronavirus-themed street art by mural artist and illustrator KMG in Camden PA Traffic is seen on the M25 motorway during the morning rush hour near Heathrow Airport i AFP via Getty Images A member of staff take a trolley from customers for disinfection at a garden centre in Caerphilly, Wales, as minor changes to lockdown restriction begin across Wales PA Commuters on the Jubilee line Nigel Howard A woman wearing a protective face mask and gloves is seen walking past a mural, Reuters Pedestrians pass heavy traffic passing over Tower Bridge in London, PA Commuters wait to board a train at Canning Town underground PA A satellite image shows Trafalgar Square in London via Reuters A member of staff hands over a coffee from behind a plastic protective screen at a branch of Pret a Manger in central London PA A general view of Old Compton Brasserie in an empty Soho Daniel Hambury Cyclists exercise in The Meadows in Edinburgh as the UK continues in lockdown to help curb the spread of the coronavirus PA A general view of Gerrard Street in an empty Soho Daniel Hambury A man wearing a protective face mask is seen at Westminster tube station, Reuters Workers carry a pane of glass on a construction site near Guildford AFP via Getty Images Commuters wearing PPE (personal protective equipment), including a face mask as a precautionary measure against COVID-19, wait to catch a red London bus in the morning rush hour AFP via Getty Images Traffic crosses Waterloo Bridge PA Pedestrians and cyclists make their way across London Bridge Daniel Hambury Commuters on the Jubilee line Nigel Howard

He said the Government needed to issue guidance on moving to teaching rotas or limited openings and to hire more teachers to allow education to continue if infection rates rise.

"Government advice needs to cover the possible self-isolation of bubbles and, in extremis, moving to rotas or to more limited opening," Mr Courtney said.

"It needs to cover advice to heads about the protections needed for staff in high-risk categories if infection rates rise.

"Government should be employing more teachers and seeking extra teaching spaces to allow education to continue in a Covid-secure manner if infections rise."
WASHINGTON, D.C.  U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, voted Saturday afternoon to fund the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) with an additional $25 billion to manage challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the anticipated surge in votes by mail in the upcoming presidential election.

Ive consistently supported the U.S. Postal Service and worked to ensure that it has the resources necessary to fulfill its constitutional mission, Bost said. While Congress approved additional funding today with my support, I still share President Trumps concerns over the process in place for counting an unprecedented number of votes by mail.
The summit will also be attended by high-ranking leaders from Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and China.

The MLC is a sub-regional cooperation mechanism that was jointly established in 2016 by six countries along the Mekong River, namely Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. Since then, various exchange activities among political parties, officials, youth and religious groups have been organised.

The biennial event is organised in rotation among member countries.
Photo credit: YouTube

From Good Housekeeping

Paris Hilton's new documentary, This Is Paris, is premiering on September 14 on Hilton's YouTube channel, and in it, she shares her story of abuse as a teen, per People.

In the documentary, the 39-year-old socialite, businesswoman, and DJ reveals that she was abused at Provo Canyon School in Utah, a boarding school she attended in the late 1990s.

"I buried my truth for so long," Hilton, told People. "But I'm proud of the strong woman I've become. People might assume everything in my life came easy to me, but I want to show the world who I truly am."

Hilton told People that before she left for boarding school, she was living in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel with her parents, and she often broke her parents' rules.

"It was so easy to sneak out and go to clubs and parties," recalls Hilton. "My parents were so strict that it made me want to rebel. They'd [punish me] by taking away my cell phone, taking away my credit card, but it didn't work. I would still go out on my own." So, Hilton's parents decided to send her to the Provo school, where she stayed for 11 months.

As soon as she arrived, Hilton said, she had a bad feeling about the school. "I knew it was going to be worse than anywhere else," she said. "It was supposed to be a school, but [classes] were not the focus at all. From the moment I woke up until I went to bed, it was all day screaming in my face, yelling at me, continuous torture."

She continued: "The staff would say terrible things. They were constantly making me feel bad about myself and bully me. I think it was their goal to break us down. And they were physically abusive, hitting and strangling us. They wanted to instill fear in the kids so we'd be too scared to disobey them."

A few of Hilton's classmates reportedly appear in the documentary and share similar stories of being force-fed medication and being held down by restraints.

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by Ngoc Lan

Whilst respecting social distancing rules, Cao Xa parish offers daily prayers and Masses via social media. Priests visit families and confess the faithful. Parish council members pray with family groups.

Phu Cuong (AsiaNews)  Located in the Diocese of Phu Cuong (southern Vietnam), Cao Xa parish has more than 3,000 members. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the local parish priest has worked hard to find new ways to engage in pastoral outreach.

Across the country, the coronavirus outbreak does not seem to be stopping. After months of lockdown with no deaths, more than a thousand cases and 25 deaths have been reported since late July.

In the Diocese of Phu Cuong, Bishop Giuse (Joseph) Nguyen Tan Tuoc urged all 103 parishes to find ways to remain in communion and unity with the Church, pray to God and Mother Mary for the end of the pandemic, and strengthen love in the family and for one other.

Fr Phero (Peter) inh Quang Manh Hung, a Dominican friar, is parish priest in Cao Xa. Since the pandemic broke out, he has celebrated Mass seen live online every day.

We cannot go to church and attend Mass directly, he explained, but we can listen to the Word of God every day through the parish's live stream.

For this reason, he has urged his parishioners to pray and share experiences via the parishs website and Facebook page.

One parishioner, Ms Dung Nguyen, for example wrote, Lord, deliver us from this epidemic, heal the sick, bless those who serve coronavirus patients.

Another one, Hoa, a young woman who in the parish choir, said that she prays to Our Lady: Mother Mary, protect our family and the world, keep them safe in your hands. Mother Mary, help priests and keep them safe.

Young people, above all, feel the seriousness of the situation, and express their sadness at not being able to participate directly in the Mass and share parish life in person.

However, If we remain sad, we wont know how to solve our problems, said Fr Phero. For now, we have to keep social distancing and follow the online Mass.

Following the bishop's suggestion, priests have incorporated family visits in their pastoral outreach action. In some cases, they have been joined by members of the pastoral council.

Some residents of the Vietnam Martyrs area in Cao Xa parish were moved by the visit of the priests and the parish council. After the visit, the priests confessed us and then gave a blessing to all of us. We also prayed together in front of an altar in the house.
Schools in the US are reporting a shortage of laptops and other required equipment for online learning. A report by the US news, citing an Associated Press investigation, states that laptop giants like Lenovo, HP and Dell, have told school districts they have a shortage of nearly five million laptops.

The shortage is due to a surge in demand coupled with restrictions and sanctions imposed by the Trump government on Chinese suppliers. School districts are said to be in talks with the Trump administration to resolve the issue, saying that distance learning without laptops will amount to no learning for some of the countrys most vulnerable students.

Tom Baumgarten, superintendent of a school in Californias Mojave Desert said, Im very concerned that Im not going to be able to get everyone a computer. He said that all 8,000 students qualify for free lunch and most need computers for distance learning. Baumgarten ordered 5,000 HP laptops in July and was told they would arrive in time for the first day of school in August. The delivery date then changed to September, then October.

There are no nationwide tallies on the numbers of laptops and other devices that schools are waiting for but the shortages and backorders are affecting school districts in more than 15 states, according to interviews with school districts around the country, suppliers, computer companies and industry analysts.

Denver Public Schools district, the largest in Colorado, is waiting for 12,500 Lenovo Chromebooks ordered in April and May. The district has scrambled to find machines but is still short with about 3,000 devices. Lenovo had informed Denver and other customers months ago of supply chain delays. In late July, Lenovo sent a letter to say the Commerce Departments trade controls would cause another slowdown. The letter listed 23 Lenovo models made by their Chinese supplier, Hefei Bitland Information Technology Co. Ltd.

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

HP is short 1.7 million units of laptops because of production shortages in a variety of components made in China, the report added. Dell offered a similarly opaque response to detailed questions about a backlog. We cant comment on demand and supply specifically, Dell said in an emailed statement, adding the company was seeing increased orders due to virtual learning and trying to fulfill orders as efficiently as possible.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 20:44:54|Editor: huaxia

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WINDHOEK, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Marjory Chinono sprays some sanitizer on a piece of cloth before wiping the pen her customers use to sign in her log book and passes it to her next customer to write name. And then she sanitized her hands and ready to take the next order.

This is the new normal for the informal fruits and vegetables trader if she is to remain in business and comply with the country's coronavirus regulations.

"I have to make sure I protect myself and my customers so this is necessary. I want people to feel comfortable when they come to buy my products and for them to want to return again," Chinono said.

On this day, the mother of three is very busy with a lot of customers with some still in their vehicles taking turns making sure they practice social distancing.

For the past 10 years, Chinono has been selling fresh fruits and vegetables on a busy stand at one of Namibia's capital's central markets located in the Eros suburb. The 46-year-old has been buying up fresh produce directly from local growers across the country and selling them to customers at a profit.

Informal fruit and vegetable markets are very popular in Namibia because their prices are slightly lower than those of formal supermarkets.

The first half of this year has been tough on the traders who had to close shop for close to two months while the country was on lockdown to prevent the further spread of the coronavirus.

Once the lockdown was lifted, the traders were only allowed to operate under strict conditions which meant that they had to comply with certain regulations.

"It was very tough for us when we were not able to operate because most of us depend on this for an income. This is why it is a must for us to follow the rules or the authorities will shut us down," Chinono said.

This is the same for her fellow traders at the same location who also follow the same routine where some even have bucket taps for customers to wash their hands.

"Business is picking up and we are finally able to cover the losses we made during the lockdown," Chinono said.

Although business is picking up, their livelihood is still under threat as COVID-19 cases surge in the country making the traders uneasy and scared that they might end up being shut down as a measure to control further spread of the virus.

"We are just hoping that the surge in cases will not force the government to shut us down. If they do, then it will really be a disaster. Most of us will not make it," Chinono said.

Survival for informal traders has been really difficult and most have had to make adjustments to bear the hardships brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Her stand caters for about three neighborhoods but there are also other vendors she shares the space with where there is stiff competition.

On a good day, Chinono can take home over 3,000 Namibian dollars (about 175 U.S. dollars) but she says its not all profit some she will use to buy stock.

"I am not complaining, the market is able to sustain the family as long as we keep operating," she said.

Namibia under a United Nations Development Programme initiative has partnered with a local online shop to provide informal traders with a digital commercial platform to reach more clients.

The platform which was launched in May aims to leverage technology to connect small and informal market vendors to a wider customers base using an online delivery system where fruit and vegetable vendors can sell their goods through an E-commerce platform.

According to the founder of the platform Jerobeam Mwedihanga in a previous interview, the initiative targets specifically but not limited to, those that provide essential goods so to limit the movement of people amid COVID-19.

"Due to the limited movement of people during the lockdown, the flow of customers was limited and we came up with the proposal that digital tools could provide assistance in reaching more customers. As such, we piloted the initiative to ensure that informal traders do not lose more income," Mwedihanga said.

Last week, Namibia reinstated stricter lockdown measures because of the surge in cases by migrating back to State of Emergency stage-3 for 16 days after having moved to stage-4 on June 29.

Under stage-3, travel in and out of hot-spot areas such as Windhoek and Walvis Bay will be restricted to emergency situations while any persons living these areas will be quarantined upon arrival at their destination.

The southwest African nation also imposed a curfew on the restricted towns as well as limit alcohol sales while public gatherings including weddings, funerals and religious events was limited to 10 people. Enditem
OAKLAND, CALIF.  Twitter hid one of President Donald Trumps tweets behind a notice warning users that the message violated company rules against dissuading people from voting. Trump posted the tweet, which said that ballot drop boxes were not being sanitized to prevent the coronavirus and could be used for fraud, about five hours before Twitter took action Sunday.
On Sunday, West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar said that he has urged Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to unshackle political caging/chaining of police and administration.

West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Sunday said that he has urged Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to unshackle political caging/chaining of police and administration.

Dhankar tweeted that he urges Chief Minister to unshackle political caging/chaining of POLICE and administration, Law and order alarming-with reports of the free run to illegal bomb-making. He added that it is unfortunate that Police and administration ever at door of ruling party-in readiness to knock the door of opposition. He further said that public servants are not political workers, and if they behave like one, then it is against the democratic value of the Indian constitution.

Dhankar said that it was a staggering blow to rule of law and democracy, the menacing stance of police and administration would generate consequences, politically committed police and administration-death knell of democracy. He added that public servants are not political workers.

Also read: Ahead of crucial CWC meet, Congress leaders write to Sonia Gandhi

Urge CM to unshackle political caging/chaining of POLICE and ADMINISTRATION @MamataOfficial Law and order alarming-with reports of free run to illegal bomb making. UNFORTUNATE- Police & administration ever at door of ruling party-in readiness to knock door of opposition.(1/3)  Governor West Bengal Jagdeep Dhankhar (@jdhankhar1) August 23, 2020

Also read: BJP, LJP, JDU will fight Bihar elections together: JP Nadda

The Governor added that in West Bengal the unlawful conduct of bureaucracy is an open secret, and the essence of democracy is being shredded in the state.Never thought IAS /IPS could so capitulate and be in crawl unlawful mode-blatantly unmindful of conduct rules. Their actions are OPEN SECRET. Democratic essence shredded. Why be a party to this and crucify democratic values!

Earlier on August 22, Dhankar raised questions on the team that was investigating the pandemic purchase scam and accused them of covering up the massive irregularities in the matter.

He said, PANDEMIC PURCHASE SCAM COVER-UP- GETTING MURKIER What kind of probe it is! Post facto ratification of massive irregularities by subordinates would be SHAM. IRONICAL-Those who need to b investigated is probing to report to those who need to be accountable!

Also read: Jharkhand Agriculture Minister Badal Patralekh tests Covid-19 positive
A Nova Scotia fishing buoy has seemingly ignored COVID-19 travel restrictions by taking a trip to Marblehead, Mass.

On Wednesday, David Fanning spotted what he thought was a bright yellow beach ball washed ashore outside of his home.

His wife walked down to the beach to get a closer look. Included on the buoy was a seven-digit phone number and the name Terry Saulnier.

Assuming the buoy came from a port near his home, Fanning started phoning different local area codes, plus the seven digits, but didn't have any luck.

"I was wondering what else I could do and I absentmindedly plugged in Terry Saulnier and up came a reference to a CBC story," he said.

CBC News previously reported on another fishing buoy that belonged to Saulnier, who fishes out of Yarmouth Bar, N.S., that ended up Andenes, Norway, in 2015.

A search by the Norwegian man who found the buoy resulted him in connecting with the Saulnier family. With some help from the Canadian Forces, Saulnier was reunited with the buoy.

Google Maps

It was suspected the Gulf Stream, which runs up off the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. and outside of Sable Island, N.S., transported the buoy to the North Atlantic Drift, which flows from west to east across the northern Atlantic Ocean.

The North Atlantic Drift then branches off into a number of smaller ocean currents, including the Norwegian Current that runs parallel to the north coast of Norway.

Reading this left Fanning with one question: "My immediate response was what brought it west and south toward us?" he said.

Submitted by David Fanning

The distance across the sea between Marblehead and Yarmouth Bar is about 420 kilometres.

CBC meteorologist Tina Simpkin said a buoy could easily get pulled out of the Bay of the Fundy and into the Gulf of Maine, where it could bob for a long time. In this case, it appears not to have to been picked up by the Gulf Stream.

"It appears that this bouy spent some time in the Gulf of Maine before being diverted back to shore, either by winds or the tides themselves," Simpkin said.

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"Unless it was tracked by satellite, only this rogue buoy could tell the tale of its seafaring voyage."

Submitted by Tracey Saulnier

Saulnier said he lost the buoy last December or January.

"I just told my wife I'm starting to be [buoy] famous," he said.

The lobster fisherman said he uses 42 buoys and loses around a half-dozen a year, but usually gets most of them back.

Of the fishermen he knows, he said he's never heard that any of their lost buoys have turned up as far away as his have.

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A judge has declared that a New York City woman must continue to live with a 'serial grifter' even though she's allegedly been squatting in her home for months - without paying rent.

Heidi Russell, who lives in Manhattan's West Village, told the New York Post that on Saturday, a city judge ordered her to keep living with Kate Gladstone, 44, who was supposed to be a short-term renter.

Russell said that she had offered to let Gladstone - who she had rented to in the past - use the spare bedroom in her 650-square-foot apartment for $2,000 a month in June 2019.

A judge has decided that Heidi Russell (left) must continue to allow Kate Gladstone, 44 (right), to live in her home due to the city's ban against evictions during the coronavirus pandemic

But, Russell said that she suddenly needed the room back for her mother, who was due to have surgery, so she asked Gladstone to vacate the premises by June 30, 2019.

Gladstone 'flew off the handle, yelling, "No, no, impossible, youre going to ruin my life.  Im not leaving,"' Russell told the newspaper.

In court papers, Russell claimed that Gladstone's method of backing up that claim involved moving her daughter into the room she was renting, while she slept in the living room. The papers also stated that Gladstone threatened to sue Russell and that she moved boxes of her possessions into the living room.

Additionally, Russell claimed that Gladstone - self-described documentary filmmaker - would spray her with cleaning chemicals and saturate door handles and doors with the liquid, according to the lawsuit.

Russell said that she resorted to using the bathroom at friends' homes or in nearby laundry facilities, while also trying to avoid interacting with Gladstone, and her daughter, by wearing headphones when she returned home.

Another one of Gladstone's behaviors, according to Russell, was to sit in the dark and then record her when Russell got home.

Russell claims that Gladstone, meant to be a short-term renter, has been squatting in her home for months. Russell said Gladstone moved her possessions into her living room (pictured)

Russell said that she originally asked Gladstone to vacate her home at the end of June 2019. Russell's living room is pictured prior to Gladstone moving into her home

Russell told the newspaper that Gladstone would steal her food, accost her when she used the bathroom or kitchen and allow her dog to urinate inside the apartment. Russell said Gladstone accused her of scaring her daughter, too.

Russell said that Gladstone was due to be evicted from her home in March, but that coronavirus stopped it from happening, as courts banned evictions during the pandemic.

Consequently, Russell said that she would have to leave her own apartment during the day to avoid Gladstone.

'Shes turned me into a homeless person during the pandemic,' Russell told the newspaper. 'Im out on the street, with my mask and my old dog in a carriage. Its just taken over our lives.'

Russell said she was stuck with Gladstone until July, when the woman suddenly left for 17 days.

During that time, Russell said she changed the locks out of fear that Gladstone might've shared the keys with someone else. When Gladstone returned and couldn't get back inside the apartment she was allegedly squatting in, she went to housing court to claim that she'd been illegally locked out.

A judge said that Russell had to allow Gladstone back into her home and that only city marshals could legally remove her.

Russell appealed the decision, but on Saturday, a second judge agreed with the original ruling.

Gladstone is expected to return to Russell's home Sunday and if that happens, Russell said, 'shes never going to leave.'

Russell is now appealing the second judge's decision, but NYC's coronavirus-induced eviction ban in NYC has been extended to October 1.

Russell, who was laid off in 2019, said she is now 'financially ruined' and 'scared for my safety.'

The New York Post reported that Gladstone has allegedly squatted in people's West Village homes at least three times in the past.

Court records obtained by the newspaper indicate that she has been accused of squatting, harassing landlords and refusing to pay rent, and was arrested twice - once for alleged stalking and a second time for forgery and grand larceny after allegedly stealing an ex's credit card and using it to pay for hotel rooms.

She is expected in court in September on those charges.

Matt Titus, an author and matchmaker who rented Gladstone his West Village apartment in 2017, told the newspaper that she is 'just absolutely one of the most vile, terrible human beings I have ever encountered.'

He claimed that she had squatted in his apartment, along with her daughter, for months, ruining his credit and leaving him with $20,000 in debt.

Meanwhile, Gladstone's ex-girlfriend claimed that she squatted in her West Village home for months and wouldn't leave until she was paid off with $20,000.

Gladstone denied Russell's claims, telling the New York Post that she 'can't even comment.'

Russell believes that even if Gladstone, who she called a 'serial grifter,' were offered free housing, the woman wouldn't take it because 'she wants to live in the village. She wants the prestige, she wants her child to go to school here.'
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) walks through Statuary Hall to the House Chamber for President Donald Trump's State of the Union address in the Capitol in Washington on Feb. 4, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Pelosi Says Shell Accept the Results If Trump Wins Reelection

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday that she would accept the results if President Donald Trump wins in November and is reelected as president.

However, Pelosi said that Democrats will attempt to focus on changes that were made to the U.S. Postal Service in recent days and Russian interference.

Of course. But that doesnt mean that we will not shout out against his initiatives, whether its to tie up the Postal Service so that we will not have the opportunity for people to vote by mail, to not having to choose between their health and their vote, Pelosi told CNN. It doesnt mean that we ignore the Russian interference into our election and they try to cloak it by saying, Well, we look at many countries. No, the Russians 24/7 are interfering into our election.

Without evidence, Pelosi said that Trump welcomes it, apparently referring to Russian interference. Trump has long said that he has not colluded with the Kremlin while former special counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence that his campaign colluded with Russia in 2016.

Last month, the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center said China, Russia, and Iran are attempting to undermine the 2020 election. However, the agency placed special emphasis on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), saying that Beijing is ramping up its efforts to shape American policy and is pressuring political figures while countering criticism of the regime.

It isnt a question of accepting the result. The question is, is making sure the public knows that they must vote, they must have a plan to vote, they must vote early because their playbook is one that has all kinds of obstacles to participation in our country, she said.

Pelosi on Sunday called on people to ignore Trumps comments that sought to downplay the security of mail-in voting.

The best thing, all the time, is to ignore what he has to say, because it has no association with fact, validity or truth, Pelosi said. He may have his bully pulpit, but we have the American people and well make sure they turn out to vote.

Trump, in recent months, said that mail-in votingdesigned to curb the spread of the CCP virusin November could lead to widespread voter fraud and delays.

On Saturday, the House of Representatives approved a measure to allocate $25 billion to the U.S. Postal Service and ban operational changes that slowed deliveries in recent weeks. The White House has threatened to veto the measure.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Sunday on Fox News that the USPS bill is going absolutely nowhere and is merely meant to send a political message.

It has everything to do with a political statement, Meadows added. Heres how I know. Because in the privacy of the negotiating room, I offered $10 billion plus reforms for the Postal Service that actually theyve been asking for for a long time, to Speaker Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.
The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and Sidley Austin law firm have jointly filed a lawsuit seeking immediate injunction of the rule hiking the US non-immigration visa fee.

The fee hike is set to be implemented from October 2, 2020.

The lawsuit has been filed against Chad Wolf, Kenneth Cuccinelli, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), The Economic Times reported.

Jesse Bless, director of litigation at AILA told the paper, the dramatic fee increase would immediately devastate vulnerable populations and our organisational plaintiffs who serve them.

Calling the move wealth tests that belong in the dustbin of history, Bless noted the 83 percent increase for naturalisation applications and unprecedented hike for asylum applications place unlawful barrier on those seeking eligible immigration benefits.

The DHS on its part justified the hike citing increased costs and budgetary shortfall. To which the complaint noted the USCIS opaque process for costs calculation and accused the organisation of burning through ample reserves it had in hand just a few years ago.

The DHS increased fees for non-immigrant work visas by 21-75 percent, as per which employers filing visa petitions will now pay $555 fee (21 percent increase) for H-1B high-skill visas and $850 (75 percent increase) for L (intra-company transfer) visas.

The rule change, first proposed in November 2019, is meant to align visa fees with the time agency offices spend adjudicating petitions and applications, it said.

The development came even as the USCIS appealed to the Congress for emergency funds of $1.2 billion as earnings from visa processing dropped due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The impact on Indian IT and services companies is expected to be huge, as many of these companies hired 50 percent employees on H-1B or L-1 visas. Theyll now pay additional $4,000-4,500 for each visa extension. As such, industry body NASSCOM has filed their protest with the DHS, terming the move illegal. Proimmigration bodies such as the American Immigration Council (AIC) and the AILA had earlier also filed comments opposing the move as one that would hurt US businesses.
The resignation came as the Federal Governments contingency plan involving international carriers managed to move only about 2000 of the 30,000 passengers who wanted to fly interstate.

Australias 1640 domestic pilots resigned en masse yesterday, paving the way for an extended shutdown of the airline industry.

Before the resignations  submitted by the Australian Federation of Air Pilots  Ansett, Australian Airlines, East-West and Ipec started sacking pilots and issued writs against 50 individual pilots seeking damages for breach of contract.

The Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, last night left open the possibility of airlines recruiting foreign pilots to replace local crews. He said that if Australian pilots decided to find work overseas, it would be appropriate to bring in foreign pilots.

The resignations mean potential payouts of about $400 million from the airlines superannuation funds. Ansetts fund, managed by the AMP Society, faces a payout of $250 million; the Australian Airlines pilots super fund, run by the Commonwealth Bank, faces payouts of about $150 million.

Ansett is considering legal action which, if successful, would reduce its pilots superannuation payout. The airline, in writs issued to Ansett pilots, says it is considering its obligations in regard of the misconduct provisions of the (superannuation) deed.

Speaking on ABC Radio last night, the chief executive of Australian Airlines, Mr James Strong, said the companys superannuation fund was fully funded and the resignation of its 600 pilots would not put financial pressure on the company.
As incidents of police violence against Black people spark outrage in the United States, campaigns against police brutality across Africa have also gained traction. Protesters in some of the continents most populous countries  Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa  have rallied outside the respective U.S. embassies there to condemn the death of George Floyd.

In Nigeria, Africas most populous country with roughly 200 million people and one of the largest youth populations in the world, a report by the National Human Rights Commission found that in the first two weeks of the countrys coronavirus lockdown in March, more people died at the hands of the security forces than from COVID-19.

The report documents 18 extrajudicial killings during those two weeks, a period during which Nigeria had just 11 COVID-19-related deaths, and in total during the countrys five-week lockdown, 29 extrajudicial killings were documented.

The abuse does not end there.

Image: A police man arrests a demonstrator and supporter of the

As a director in Nigerias booming Nollywood film industry, Lanre Adediwura is a man of privilege and standing. That didnt stop him feeling victimized by the countrys notorious police.

When he was pulled over last year on a road into Lagos, Nigerias largest city, Adediwura expected his interaction with police to be quick and uneventful. Instead, according to his account, he and his pregnant friend ended the day at a police station, beaten and arrested.

Adediwura said he was driving to a rehearsal in April 2019 when he picked up his friend at a bus stop on a busy city road. As he merged back into traffic, a tuk-tuk  or three-wheeled vehicle  carrying four police officers pulled him over, he said.

One of the officers, a woman, got into the passenger seat of his car and told him he was being arrested for blocking the entrance to a bank, he said. They argued, and Adediwura said an officer pinned him to the steering wheel. His friend in the back seat shrieked and the policewoman hit his friend in the face with her elbow.

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Adediwura said he and his friend were arrested for assaulting the female police officer. After the ordeal, he was left with a broken windshield and bruises on his face, he said. His friend sustained an injury to her face, as well, he said.

I had to sell my car because every time I drove it, I remembered my nightmare experience with the police, Adediwura, 36, told NBC News by phone from Lagos State, Nigeria.

The case went to court, but Adediwura said the magistrate threw the case out because the police did not attend the court session.

NBC News was not able to independently verify Adediwuras account. Nigerian state police did not respond to numerous telephone and email requests from NBC News for comment about Adediwuras allegations.

Reports of police brutality have been seized by those trying to push police reform to highlight what they say are abuses on their own soil.

Segun Awosanya, a civil rights and social justice advocate who founded the Social Intervention Advocacy Foundation in Nigeria, said he was not surprised by the commissions findings.

We are asking police officers to add lockdown enforcement to their duties even though they were already failing in their normal day-to-day duties, he said.

In countries that are predominately Black, police brutality isnt rooted in racism, Awosanya said, but rather stems from the history of colonialism, which focused on the protection of the ruling elite. This problem is compounded by underfunding and lack of training, he said.

Image: A police man reacts to demonstrators and supporters during

In late July, the Nigerian police force released a statement online saying it had arrested three police officers and one civilian alleged accomplice for the dehumanizing treatment and harassment of a woman in a viral video.

In the video, the local police officers in the city of Ibadan, speaking in Yoruba, asked a woman inappropriate questions about her relationship with an armed robbery and kidnapping suspect, following a raid at his house  including queries about whether the suspect had taken her virginity and whether he was her sugar daddy.

Police said the three police officers were arrested for their role in the discreditable conduct and incivility to a member of the public.

According to a report put out in June by United Kingdom-based human rights group Amnesty International, there have been at least 82 cases of torture, ill-treatment and extrajudicial execution by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad within the Nigerian police force between January 2017 and May 2020. The anti-robbery unit is commonly known as SARS.

SARS officers have turned their duty to protect Nigerians into an opportunity for extortion and stealing money, property and other valuables belonging to suspects and their families, Amnesty International wrote.

The report is based on five field research missions carried out by its researchers in Nigeria between January 2017 and February 2019. They interviewed 82 people, including victims, journalists, human rights defenders, witnesses of abuses, relatives of victims and lawyers, the report said.

Since 2017, human rights activists, including those at Amnesty International Nigeria, have called for the dissolution of the unit, but it continues to operate. In January last year, the Nigerian police tweeted that it was working to reform SARS and told the Nigerian public to be patient.

The Nigerian police force that oversees SARS did not respond to NBC News request for comment about the criticism.

Police misconduct is not limited to Nigeria.

Image: A protester wearing face mask, carries a banner outside the Nigerian Police Headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria, during a demonstration to raise awareness about sexual violence in Nigeria (Kola Sulaimon / AFP via Getty Images file)

On the other side of the continent, in Nakuru County, Kenya, three police officers were arrested in June after a video showing men dragging a woman behind a motorcycle and whipping her went viral on social media, sparking outrage across the continent. The Directorate of Criminal Investigations in Kenya released a statement online confirming that the suspects are in lawful custody helping with further investigations into the matter.

In South Africa, a country with racism deeply rooted in its history, protests were underway in June over the death of a man who was being taken into police custody. The countrys police watchdog, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate, told NBC News that during the coronavirus lockdown, it received 588 complaints of excessive police force and was investigating 11 deaths from police action.

One of the root causes of police brutality in Nigeria lies in the history of how policing agencies were first formed, said Awosanya, the Nigerian civil rights advocate.

Most of the policing system we have across the continent is the system that was put in place during colonialism, he said. The Nigerian government still relies on the law enforcement principles established during European rule, he said.

Policing in the colonial era was designed to protect the rulership and not the ruled, Awosanya said. Even today, police in Nigeria work for the people in power, he said, an idea that echoes the practices of European colonialist powers from 60 to 100 years ago.

A report this year by Awosanyas foundation said that of the more than 371,000 police officers in Nigeria, about 100,000 are now assigned to provide security for the elites instead of looking after regular duties.

The spokesperson for Amnesty International Nigeria, Isa Sanusi, agreed, telling NBC News that in Nigeria, the policing system carries on the legacy and the impunity of the colonial era  and this is partly the reason why the police are now more known for their brutality.

But colonialism isnt the sole source of police violence in Nigeria.

Lack of funding for the police breeds corruption, and there is a dire need for adequate training and pay for officers, according to Awosanya.

He said the entire Nigerian national police needs reform, not just the SARS unit. There have been attempts to reform the police force in the last 10 years, he said, but every attempt to execute or implement police reform, restructuring, re-equipping the Nigerian police always fails due to lack of political will of the government and the people.

Community policing initiatives must also be adopted to encourage police to build a relationship with the public they serve, Awosanya said. Those changes, he said, cant happen without the support of lawmakers.

Things have to change, Sanusi said, and policing must have a human face.
Californians braced Sunday for a troubling shift in the weather that was expected to bring unpredictable winds, more sizzling temperatures and potential lightning strikes that could ignite new wildfires across an already ravaged state.

Firefighters have been battling more than 600 blazes  sparked by a staggering 12,000 lightning strikes  for a week. About 1.2 million acres of land has been torched. Most of the damage was caused by three clusters of fire complexes ripping through 1,175 square miles of forest and rural areas in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The fires have burned about 1,000 homes and other structures, forced tens of thousands to flee, killed six people, blanketed communities with a pall of dangerous smoke and haze, and left residents on edge.

Tuesday night, when I went to bed, I had a beautiful home on a beautiful ranch, said Hank Hanson, 81, of Vacaville. By Wednesday night, I have nothing but a bunch of ashes.

California wildfires become a target for looters: A firefighter is among the victims. His wallet was stolen, bank account 'drained.'

The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning through Monday afternoon for the Bay Area and the central coast, meaning extreme fire conditions, including high temperatures, low humidity and wind gusts up to 65 mph, may result in dangerous and unpredictable fire behavior.

There was the potential for scattered "dry" thunderstorms over much of Northern California, the weather service said, and lightning could spark new blazes.

RED FLAG WARNING has been issued for the entire San Francisco Bay Area and Central Coast from 5 am Sunday to 5 pm MONDAY (updated) for Dry Lightning and Gusty Erratic Outflow Winds from Thunderstorms. #cawx #cafire pic.twitter.com/3qo57XlGMd  NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) August 22, 2020

Mark Brunton, a battalion chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), said the winds can blow a fire in any direction, increasing the peril. Theres a lot of potential for things to really go crazy out there, he said.

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Cal Fire unit chief Shana Jones urged residents Sunday to take the red flag warnings seriously. "What this means, is that any lightning that comes through ... its going to likely result in additional fires. We do have a plan in order to immediately attack those fires, but its going to take some work.

I cant stress enough the importance of being prepared to leave, Jones said.

Two blazes ballooned into the second- and third-largest in the state's history, according to Cal Fire. Among the casualties of the fires: ancient redwood trees at Californias oldest state park, Big Basin Redwoods, and the parks headquarters and campgrounds.

A sixth fatality was reported Sunday night in Santa Cruz County, where the local sheriff's office confirmed the death of a 70-year-old man in the CZU Lightning Complex Fire.

Fire crews made small progress over the weekend, and some evacuation orders were lifted. But the ominous weather reports had officials warning residents new orders could be coming.

Fires rage: About 600 wildfires burn a million acres in California in a week

Theres not a feeling of pure optimism, but a feeling of resolve, a feeling of we have resources backing us up, Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore said.

Flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires consume a home in unincorporated Napa County, Calif., on Aug. 19, 2020. Fire crews across the region scrambled to contain dozens of wildfires sparked by lightning strikes.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Saturday that the White House granted the state's request for a Presidential Major Disaster Declaration  despite President Donald Trump publicly chiding California over the wildfires last week.

About 14,000 firefighters man the lines, according to Cal Fire, and crews have been working around the clock. Jones said reinforcements have been streaming in. "Im pleased to report more resources have been arriving to help fight our fires," Jones said. "The LNU Complex remains the No. 1 priority for immediate resources as they become available from other incidents that were in California and for other resources outside the state."

Despite the assistance, "we are definitely far from getting these fires handled. Were not out of the woods by far, Jones said.

Lightning danger: This is how a lightning storm can start a wildfire

The Sonoma County sheriffs office released dramatic video of a helicopter rescue Friday night of two firefighters trapped on a ridge line at Point Reyes National Seashore. They were pulled to safety as flames raced.

Had it not been for that helicopter, those firefighters would certainly have perished, Sheriff Mark Essick said.

Of the two biggest blazes, the SCU Lightning Complex Fire was 10% contained Sunday; the LNU Lightning Complex Fire was 17% contained.

Contributing: Joel Shannon and Grace Hauck, USA TODAY; Scott Linesburgh, The Stockton (Calif.) Record; Joe Szydlowski, The Californian (Salinas, Calif.); The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: California fire map, wildfires: Lightning could ignite new blazes
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 02:19:44|Editor: huaxia

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A worker prepares to move a barbecue grill to the outdoor dining area of the Chinese restaurant named Golden Imperial Palace in New York City, the United States, Aug. 21, 2020. Chen Shanzhuang, who has run Golden Imperial Palace for more than three decades, is facing an unprecedented crisis under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the executive order of "New York State on PAUSE", his restaurant closed in March. Although outdoor dining was permitted in the phase two of reopening starting June 22 in New York City, Chen did not reopen outdoor dining at his restaurant until Aug. 21. In order to attract more customers, he now provide stir-fry dishes and even barbecue as a new way of business. He also bought a large number of protective masks, gloves, disposable bowls and chopsticks and disinfection supplies. All customers need to register for the purpose of tracking. Although outdoor dining has not yet brought much profit, Chen was excited for the reopening. "Now there are many old customers coming to eat, and I'm moved hearing the words 'Thank you for reopening!'" Chen said. "I will do my best to adjust my strategy to outdoor dining." (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

NEW YORK, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- "The restaurant's turnover is only two to three percent of what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. Rent, utilities and staff salaries have to be paid as usual," Chen Shanzhuang, owner of a Chinese restaurant named Golden Imperial Palace in New York City, told Xinhua.

Chen, who has run the restaurant for more than three decades, is facing an unprecedented crisis. In mid to late March, the COVID-19 pandemic worsened in the United States, and businesses were shut down across New York State. With the executive order of "New York State on PAUSE", his restaurant chain had to close.

Actually his restaurant began to feel the negative impact of COVID-19 in January, Chen said. "An important indicator was the number of tourists decreased significantly."

"We tried a take-out service in late June, but there were only 20 takeaways a day," Chen said.

Although outdoor dining was permitted in the phase two of reopening starting June 22 in New York City, Chen did not reopen outdoor dining at his restaurant until Aug. 21. He bought a large number of protective masks, gloves, disposable bowls and chopsticks and disinfection supplies. All customers need to register for the purpose of tracking.

In order to attract more customers, he started barbecue as a new way of business.

"Our restaurant used to be so popular that we offered more than 200 banquets a year. Banquets accounted for 60 percent of the turnover," Chen said. "The average yearly turnover of the restaurant before the outbreak was more than 8 million dollars. The turnover is only more than 1 million dollars until now this year."

In the meantime, his restaurant offered free lunch and dinner to frontline workers during the pandemic. "They are fighting the virus with their lives, we certainly should offer supporting service, providing them with warm and tasty dishes," Chen said. His restaurant has donated more than 6,000 free meals to frontline works up to now.

The number of Chinese restaurants has reduced by around 20 percent since the COVID-19 pandemic hit New York City, said Chen, president of American Chinese Restaurant Alliance (New York).

"Now there are many old customers coming to eat, and I'm moved hearing the words 'Thank you for reopening!'" Chen told Xinhua. "I will do my best to adjust my strategy to outdoor dining." Enditem
An armed group in the eastern DR Congo has agreed to President Felix Tshisekedis appeal to suspend attacks on its ethnic rivals, the militia and government said Sunday.

UN officials have blamed massacres they say are akin to crimes against humanity on the Cooperative for the Development of Congo (CODECO), which draws its members from the mainly farming Lendu people who have historically clashed with Hema traders and herders.

We are stopping the acts of violence as the head of state is asking, CODECO spokesman Basa Zukpa told AFP.

We are ready to seize his outstretched hand. Thats why we are telling our units to respect this process, to be calm.

It was not clear when the ceasefire was agreed.

CODECO was most recently blamed for killing 19 civilians in attacks on August 9 on three villages in the troubled eastern province of Ituri.

The ceasefire was signed through the mediation of a group of former warlords in Ituri, who were sent by Tshisekedi to convince CODECO to stop its attacks.

Since the ceasefire was signed, CODECOs acts of violence have decreased, said Lieutenant Jules Ngongo, spokesman for the national army in the region.

The army is continuing to follow closely developments on the ground as a precaution, Ngongo said. We are not yet at zero acts of violence from the CODECO side.

Since December 2017, violence in Ituri has claimed nearly 1,000 lives and displaced half a million people, according to an International Crisis Group report last month.

The violence escalated after the army launched a crackdown on armed groups in October.

UN human rights investigators in June said at least 636 people had died since the start of the year.

Attacks spread into new areas after CODECO splintered following the killing of its main leader Ngudjolo Duduko Justin in March, they said.

The bloodshed in Ituri is part of a patchwork of problems engendered by armed groups in eastern DR Congo  the legacy of two wars in the 1990s.

The Lendu and Hema communities were embroiled in a bloody conflict between 1999-2003 which led to the European Unions first foreign military mission, the short-term Operation Artemis
The complaint was filed against this man for posting photos of the Prime Minister on Facebook along with obscene comments

Jabalpur: A man has been arrested in Madhya Pradesh for allegedly posting morphed photographs of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and obscene comments on a social media platform, police said on Sunday.

Parvez Alam, aged around 28, has been booked under Indian Penal Code Sections 292 (sale of obscene books, etc), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and the Information Technology Act Section 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form), Gohalpur police station''s inspector Ravindra Goutam said.

On 12 July, one Sartaj Alam lodged a police complaint against Parvez Alam, accusing the latter of uploading morphed photographs of the prime minister with obscene comments on Facebook, he said.

The accused was arrested late Friday night, the official said, adding that he was produced before a local court which sent him in judicial custody.
The black boxes of a Ukrainian airliner mistakenly downed in Tehran have revealed the pilots were still alive after the first of two missiles hit the plane, Iranian officials said Sunday.

Flight 752, a Ukraine International Airlines passenger jet, crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran's main airport on January 8.

Iran admitted days later that its forces accidentally shot down the Kiev-bound Boeing 737-800 aircraft, killing all 176 people on board.

Tehran's air defences had been on high alert at the time in case the US retaliated against Iranian strikes hours earlier on American troops stationed in Iraq.

The head of Iran's civil aviation authority on Sunday revealed for the first time what was on the black boxes, which had been sent to France for analysis.

Touraj Dehghani Zanganeh said that the cockpit voice recorder registered a conversation between the pilot, co-pilot and an instructor between the two blasts.

"Up to 19 seconds after the first missile exploded in the vicinity of the aircraft, (they) noticed abnormal conditions and were in control of the aircraft until the last moment," he said, quoted by state television's website.

"The instructor indicates that the aircraft has an electronic problem and the auxiliary power has been activated," he said.

"The pilots were notified that both engines of the aircraft were on."

The black boxes stopped working 19 seconds after the first explosion, making it impossible to retrieve data on the impact of the second missile, he said.

Analysis on the "effect of the second missile cannot be obtained from the black boxes," said Zanganeh.

Iran, which has no means of decoding the black boxes, sent them to France for analysis in mid-July, nearly six months after the disaster.

A source close to the investigations said the Iranian statement contained no surprises, adding that the black boxes could never have revealed who had shot the missiles or whether the strike was deliberate.

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Known as the "Tropical Trump," President Jair Bolsonaro is a divisive figure, condemned as racist, sexist, homophobic and dictatorial by his critics, but adored as a "Messiah" -- his middle name -- by his base

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday threatened to punch a reporter repeatedly in the mouth after being asked about his wife's links to an alleged corruption scheme.

"I so want to pound your mouth with punches," the far-right president said when a reporter from O Globo, posed the question.

The reporter was part of a group that met Bolsonaro after his regular Sunday visit to the Metropolitan Cathedral in Brasilia. The president ignored protests from other journalists after the remarks and left without making further comments.

The O Globo reporter asked about a report in the magazine Crusoe linking First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro to Fabricio Queiroz, a retired police officer, friend of the president, and former adviser to her son Flavio Bolsonaro, who is now a senator.

Queiroz and Flavio Bolsonaro are under investigation for a scheme that allegedly swindled pay from government employees when the younger Bolsonaro was a regional lawmaker in Rio de Janeiro, and before Jair Bolsonaro became president in January 2019.

According to the magazine, Queiroz deposited funds in Michelle Bolsonaro's bank account between 2011 and 2016.

The first lady has said nothing about the case.

Soon after the president's outburst O Globo issued a statement repudiating his "aggression ... towards a journalist from our newspaper that was carrying out his job in a professional manner."

Such intimidation "shows that Jair Bolsonaro does not acknowledge the duty of a public servant ... to be accountable to the public."

pr/ch/mdl
bluejayphoto/iStockBy PATRICK REEVELL, ABC News



(MOSCOW) -- Russia's best-known opposition leader, Alexey Navalny, was flown from Siberia to Berlin on Saturday for emergency treatment for suspected poisoning, after Russian doctors permitted him to be evacuated from Russia to Germany following a day of demands from his family and colleagues.



The plane carrying Navalny, still in an artificially induced coma and gravely ill, landed in the German capital's Tegel airport early Saturday morning and he was taken to The Charite hospital in a large convoy of ambulances and security vehicles. Video showed Navalny lying in a plastic capsule being wheeled on a stretcher by medics into the hospital.



The air ambulance was organised by the Berlin-based nonprofit Cinema for Peace, at the request of Petr Verzilov, a member of Pussy Riot who was evacuated in a similar manner to Germany in 2018 after he was mysteriously poisoned.



Cinema for Peace in a statement said Navalny's condition had remained "stable" following the flight.



Navalny fell suddenly critically ill on Thursday while flying to Moscow from Siberia where he had been meeting with members of a branch of his grassroots activist group. The plane made an emergency landing in the Siberian city of Omsk and he was rushed to a hospital there where he was put in an induced coma and hooked up to a ventilator in intensive care. His colleagues have said they believe he was poisoned, possibly from something slipped into his tea at the airport.



Throughout Thursday and Friday, Navalny's wife and colleagues demanded that he be allowed to be flown to Europe for treatment. But Russian doctors at the hospital for a day refused to allow Navalny to be evacuated, saying his condition did not allow it, even after the German plane arrived in Omsk.



Navalny's colleagues accused the Kremlin of deliberately delaying the flight in order to allow any substance that had poisoned Navalny to pass out of his system and make it harder for Western clinics to detect. Navalny's team in Omsk said large numbers of plain clothes Russian security agents and police were present at the hospital and accused them of managing the doctors' statements, while Russian state media and anonymous law enforcement sources published a series of contradictory theories about what might have caused the opposition leader's sudden sickness.



On Thursday, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel as well as France's president Emmanuel Macron had said their countries were ready to treat Navalny.



A German medical team that arrived on the plane were allowed to assess Navalny on Thursday afternoon and gave their unequivocal consent that he was stable enough to fly. Navalny's wife, Yulia, also wrote a letter to president Vladimir Putin asking him to allow Navalny to be evacuated.



Russian doctors finally gave their consent for Navalny to fly on Friday night, though they said they still did not recommend it.



The plane was delayed for several more hours to comply with German flight regulations, but early on Saturday morning Navalny was driven to the airport in Omsk by ambulance and loaded onto Challenger 604 air ambulance which took off and landed a few hours later in Germany.



"The battle for the life and health of Alexey is only beginning and there is a lot more to go through before us, but now at least the first step has been done," Kira Yarmysh, Navalny's spokeswoman wrote on Twitter after the Russian doctors released him to fly.



Another anti-Kremlin activist who works with Navalny, Ilya Yashin, wrote on Twitter he felt "relief as if after long negotiations with terrorists they had freed a hostage."



Navalny, 44, has become Russia's most prominent opposition leader and is known as the most troublesome domestic critic of president Vladimir Putin, having built a grassroots movement largely through blockbuster investigations that have exposed alleged corruption among some of Russia's top officials and some of the country's most powerful business figures, including among Putin's inner circle.



In recent years he has helped coordinate some of the largest protests against the Kremlin in Moscow and recently has been trying to mount a national campaign to undermine Putin's ruling party, United Russia.



A number of Kremlin opponents have been poisoned over the years, including the former Russian intelligence officer Sergey Skripal in the British town of Salisbury in 2018. A pro-democracy activist, Vladimir Kara-Murza was poisoned twice in 2015 and 2017, nearly dying on both occasions and requiring months of rehabilitation. Verzilov, from Pussy Riot, was evacuated to Germany after also being nearly fatally poisoned in the autumn of 2018.



Navalny has been arrested many times and suffered attacks from pro-Kremlin activists. Last year, he was hospitalised with what his colleagues said was poisoning after suffering severe inflammation of his face while serving a brief jail sentence for protesting. Many analysts in Russia have noted that Navalny has made many enemies through his investigations, meaning he might have been targeted by the Kremlin or by others in Russia acting on their own initiative.



"In Navalnys case, there is no lack of potential enemies," Mark Galeotti a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and an expert on Russia's security services wrote in an op-ed for The Moscow Times. Could it be "someone he was investigating for one of his forensically presented and devastating video exposes of official corruption, who assumed that the Kremlin would ultimately forgive direct action? A political figure who feared Navalnys electoral tactics or who assumed that the Kremlin would like to see him taken out of the equation?" or another power player unconcerned with Putin's reaction, Galeotti speculated. "It's certainly not impossible that the Kremlin was to blame. So far, at least, we dont know."



Doctors at the Omsk hospital have said they do not believe Navalny was poisoned and have said tests have shown no trace of any poison in his urine or blood. After he was airlifted to Germany, Omsk's regional health ministry published a statement that no oxybates, barbiturates, strychnine, or synthetic poisons had been found. Instead it noted that "alcohol and coffee" had been found in his urine.



The Russian doctors on Thursday said their working diagnosis was that Navalny had suffered a "metabolic disorder", causing his blood sugar to fall sharply that made him lose consciousness on the plane.



Navalny's team have accused the doctors of acting under pressure from the Russian authorities and have said what they have presented as a diagnosis is in fact just a list of symptoms, without explaining the cause. Navalny's personal physician has said he does not have underlying health issues that could have caused such a deterioration.



Navalny's family have said a police officer on Thursday had told them investigators had identified a potentially lethal substance that could have poisoned Navalny and that it posed a danger not just to him but to those around him, meaning those handling him needed to wear protective suits.



The Berlin hospital now treating Navalny, The Charite, said on Saturday it was now conducting a medical examination of Navalny.



"The examination will take some time. And so we ask your patience, We will inform your as soon as we have information," the hospital said in a statement



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George H.W. Bush was in trouble. It was July 1988 and Michael Dukakis, the Democratic candidate for president, was on a roll after his partys convention in Atlanta. A Gallup poll showed Bush trailing by 17 points.

But he had a road map to victory.

One month earlier, Bushs top aides had gathered at the Jefferson Hotel in Washington, deliberately out of sight and away from campaign headquarters, to review a thick binder of polling and focus group data. The campaigns research showed that Dukakis record was not well-known and that some of his liberal positions, in particular supporting prison furloughs and opposing the death penalty, could swamp him in a general election.

Using the plan laid out in that room, the Bush campaign proceeded, as Lee Atwater, the campaign manager, put it, to strip the bark off the little bastard, beginning in force with Bushs hammer of a speech at the Republican National Convention in August through Election Day.

Bush not only overcame Dukakis summer polling advantage, but defeated him handily: by a margin of 53% to 46%. He won 40 states.

In many ways, with Atwater as its dark prince of strategy, the Bush campaign of 1988 marked the birth of the modern-day negative campaign. Most memorably, Republicans plastered Dukakis, then the governor of Massachusetts, with the case of Willie Horton, an African American man who raped a white Maryland woman and stabbed her boyfriend while on a Massachusetts prison furlough program.

As President Donald Trump faces similarly daunting poll deficits in his contest with Joe Biden, he is running one of the harshest campaigns since Bush defeated Dukakis, and Republicans are looking back at the 1988 race as a beacon of hope in a bleak political landscape. For all of the differences between the Democratic nominees in 1988 and today, Dukakis collapse in the face of an onslaught by Bush has long stood as a lesson in how quickly public opinion can change, how summer polls can prove ephemeral and how an artfully executed party convention can help turn around a struggling campaign.

As Republicans gather in the coming week to nominate Trump for a second term, the president and his political and media allies have torn into Biden and particularly his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, including making racist and sexist attacks. There is a direct line between the hard-edge campaign Bush ran portraying Dukakis as a far-left liberal  and the racial undertones personified by seizing on Horton  and the Trump campaign that is emerging today.

Bush, then the vice president, won in 1988 by moving that summer to aggressively define Dukakis, who was held up in Massachusetts being governor, as an Ivy League elite who was out of touch with the nation. Bush invoked the hot-button issues  in particular, taxes and crime  that have repeatedly proved effective against Democrats, the same ones Trump has embraced against Biden and Harris.

Im not the most enthusiastic Trump supporter in the world, but I tell my friends who are, its not hopeless, said Charlie Black, who worked as a senior adviser to Bush. Theres plenty of ammunition for Trump to work with. The question is, do they have a disciplined enough candidate to do that?

But if the 1988 race offers a cautionary tale for Biden, there are some critical differences between that race and the current campaign that is now moving into high gear as Democrats finished their convention last week and Republicans step on to the mostly virtual stage.

Biden is far better known than Dukakis was and he has shown a resilience to caricature that Dukakis did not have. Trump is viewed unfavorably by a big swath of voters, in no small part because of the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 175,000 people in the United States and devastated the economy on his watch. His lack of credibility with many Americans has undercut his ability to deliver an attack.

The nation is more pessimistic than it was when Dukakis faced Bush, who as Ronald Reagans vice president was effectively running as an incumbent. A New York Times/Siena College poll in June found 58% of respondents said the nation was headed on the wrong track. In the fall of 1988, a significantly lower 46% of registered voters said the nation was going in the wrong direction, according to a Washington Post/ABC News Poll.

This is going to be tricky for them: Biden is a pretty well-known quantity, said Susan Estrich, who was Dukakis campaign manager. The way you usually burst balloons is paint the other guy as a risk.

Dukakis, proud and disdainful of politics, refused to believe these kind of attacks would hurt them, and did not heed the advice of his staff that he fight back. He allowed Bush to define him before Labor Day.

I made this dumb mistake not to respond, Dukakis said in a recent interview. And I paid for it. This death penalty thing: Im from Boston. Hes from Houston. Massachusetts had the lowest homicide rate in America. Most people even in Massachusetts didnt know that.

In what might prove to be the most important difference between 1988 and today, Biden has been far more aggressive in repelling Trumps attacks.

They have run a good campaign, said John Sasso, who was Dukakis senior strategist. They know what to let go by. They seem to know what is not credible in this barrage of accusations and distortions and they dont bite on it.

Yet one of the lessons of the Bush campaign was that many voters do not begin to pay close attention to a race until late in the summer. Biden has picked a running mate, Harris, with a more liberal record and less experience in national politics, which may give Trump more of the target. And Bidens lead over Trump is not as large as the Dukakis midsummer advantage; the president is certainly within striking distance of victory, particularly in some battleground states.

The similarity is that Biden is committing to an awful lot of progressive, socialist, whatever-you-want-to-call-it ideas in order to unify his party, Black said. Trump, he said, could use Bidens alliance with Sen. Bernie Sanders to portray his Democratic rival as an out-of-touch liberal  much the way Bush portrayed Dukakis as an out-of-touch liberal  even though Biden and Sanders disagree on many issues.

Still, Black said, Republicans should only have so much hope. Most political pros would rather be in the position of being ahead at this point than that far behind, he said.

The turning point was the convention

Bush was struggling when he arrived at the Republican convention in New Orleans in mid-August. He was trying to buck history by leading his party to a third consecutive term in the White House.

He was behind for a couple of reasons, said Janet Mullins Grissom, who was Bushs deputy national political director. He spent eight years as vice president and the solid Reaganites were always suspicious of Bush 41 for not being conservative enough. And he endured a lot of lousy press coverage that was a caricature of him.

The turning point was the convention, Grissom said. That was our reintroduction of Bush and our first real opportunity to define him without filters. People saw him through the convention, the convention speech. No new taxes. Kinder, gentler.

The glowing reintroduction of Bush set the table for the attack. The campaigns plan to bring down Dukakis was unambiguously telegraphed in Bushs acceptance speech, mixed in with all the talk about a kinder, gentler nation. Bush listed all those positions Dukakis had taken that his aides had reviewed at the hotel room in Washington.

Should public schoolteachers be required to lead our children in the Pledge of Allegiance? Bush said, in just one example, as he informed his audience that the governor had vetoed a bill that contained exactly that requirement. My opponent says no  but I say yes.

On the campaign stump and television, in mailings and radio advertisements, Bush used Dukakis record to make him a threat to middle-class voters. Bush used the governors own words against him, such as being a card-carrying member of the ACLU.

His opponents even raised questions about Dukakis mental fitness, decades before Biden faced the same. Conservative groups were circulating rumors, with no substantiation, that Dukakis was hiding the fact that he had been treated for depression.

As the summer came to an end, Reagan was asked if Dukakis should release his medical records. Look, Im not going to pick on an invalid, he said.

Reagan later said this was a failed joke, but by design or not, it succeeded in thrusting the rumor to the center of public attention. Dukakis called a news conference to say he had never struggled with mental illness.

But in his most devastating attack, Bush seized on the case of Horton, which was Exhibit 1 in the case he made against Dukakis and his liberal criminal justice policies. The furlough program became a staple of Bushs attacks on Dukakis, and in many ways, came to define the 1988 contest.

The Bush campaign produced an advertisement attacking the Massachusetts furlough program that showed a series of prisoners walking through a revolving door, but did not mention Hortons name. But an advertisement produced by an independent political action committee included an ominous black-and-white picture of Horton. Dukakis not only opposes the death penalty, the announcer said. He allowed first-degree murderers to have weekend passes.

Atwater denied any connection between the Bush campaign and the campaign that featured the photograph of Willie Horton. Dukakis never believed that. And whatever the case, Atwater had always made clear that Willie Horton was key to a Bush victory.

If I can make Willie Horton a household name, well win the election, he said.

For the Trump campaign, the lessons of 1988 seemed to have been absorbed even before Democrats finished their convention. On Thursday, in remarks in Pennsylvania hours before Bidens convention acceptance speech, Trump launched a new attack on Harris that had direct echoes of Willie Horton.

As district attorney of San Francisco, Kamala put a drug-dealing illegal alien into a jobs program instead of into prison, Trump said. Four months later, the illegal alien robbed a 29-year-old woman, mowed her down with an SUV, fracturing her skull and ruining her life.

Through the summer, the Dukakis campaign was lulled by the polls that showed him heading for victory. And Bush operatives had learned from to consultants in Massachusetts who had run campaigns against Dukakis that he would stay silent if attacked.

Estrich said Dukakis rejected her idea that he lead the Democratic convention in the Pledge of Allegiance, a move she told him could blunt the attacks.

Dukakis allowed the Bush operation to define him during that period in a distorted way, Sasso said.

Bush was a genial product of Connecticut, and he told his advisers he considered negative campaigning distasteful. But when they warned him it was the only way he would win, he took their direction with so much gusto that he all but apologized for the tenor of his campaign after he won.

It took weeks for Dukakis to reach that point. At the end of October, Dukakis embraced what had been Bushs central line of attack. Im a liberal in the tradition of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and John Kennedy, he said.

It was too late.

While Trump may face a steeper hill, there are a number of avenues that Republicans see as a way to reprise the Bush comeback. He is portraying Biden as a captive of the left. He is demonizing Harris. He has seized on episodes of civil unrest in places like Chicago.

But as the Democratic convention ends and the Republican one is set to begin, time is growing short.

The problem for Trump is he has yet to find his Willie Horton, as it were, Estrich said. But hes looking.

c.2020 The New York Times Company
Doctors are urging governments not to compel Australians to get a COVID-19 vaccine, warning the fast-tracked approval process could create a risk of harmful side effects.

Australian Medical Association President Omar Khorshid said while the peak body was "very supportive of vaccination generally because of its extensive science behind the safety, it's not going to be the case for a COVID vaccine, at least initially."

The AMA does not support a mandatory uptake of a brand new COVID-19 vaccine. Credit:Peter Braig

Dr Khorshid said tying vaccination to access to services such as childcare, school or social security payments, as state and federal governments do with paediatric vaccines under 'no jab, no play' and 'no jab, no pay' laws, could not be justified with a brand new COVID-19 vaccine.

"We have to acknowledge it is a rushed approval process and even if the phase three trials on this Oxford vaccine go really well, it's still not absolutely proven that it is safe, not as proven as is normally the case," he said.
The Conservative Partys candidate for London mayor has said he will urge businesses to drug test workers and publish the results if he wins his way into City Hall in 2021.

Under Shaun Baileys proposal, laid out in an open letter, businesses in the capital with more than 250 employees would be urged to sign up to a drug-testing charter that would see them routinely test staff members for narcotics.

The results would then be published as part of a city-wide league table, Mr Bailey said.

The candidate, who previously served as a youth worker targeting gang culture, said he believed the measure would help tackle the use of drugs more commonly seen in middle-class circles  such as cocaine.

He wrote: This is a huge problem. Drug use is not only a crime in itself; drug use is a direct cause of crime, from county lines gangs to stabbings on our streets.

When people buy drugs, they are funding the criminals who traffic vulnerable kids and unleash mayhem on our streets.

So as mayor, Ill call for every business in London with over 250 employees to sign up to a drug testing charter.

Current working rights mean companies are obliged to ask for consent from employees before testing them for narcotics  with the measure most often deployed in sectors with direct safety requirements like transport, energy and construction.

However, Mr Bailey said the policy would be designed to preserve the anonymity of workers, instead prompting culture change among big business in the capital.

The purpose of this charter is not to get employees fired or shamed. Individual results will be anonymous, he said.

The purpose is to change our culture. City Hall will publish an annual league table showing which companies have the highest and lowest rates of drug use.

Because the way to start tackling a problem is to shine a light on it.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 14 January 2022 Ecologist Emma Smart (left) and retired GP Dr Diana Warner outside HMP Bronzefield, in Surrey, following their release from the prison where Emma undertook a 26-day hunger strike during her incarceration. Ms Smart was sentenced in November, along with other members of Insulate Britain, to serve four months for breaking a High Court injunction by taking part in a blockade at junction 25 of the M25 motorway during the morning rush hour on 8 October last year PA UK news in pictures 13 January 2022 A TV presenter holds a copy of a newspaper outside 10 Downing Streetafter the Prime Minister apologised for attending a gathering of colleagues in the Number Ten garden in May 2020, while the UK was in strict lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic Getty UK news in pictures 12 January 2022 Fitness guru Derrick Evans after receiving an MBE during an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 11 January 2022 A couple walk underneath an umbrella during wet weather on Westminster Bridge in central London PA UK news in pictures 10 January 2022 A jogger passes the Covid Memorial Wall in London AP UK news in pictures 9 January 2021 The sun rises over horses at Seaton Sluice in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 8 January 2022 Riders compete during the Veterans Men's race at the UK Cyclo-Cross National Championships 2022 in Ardingly, south of London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 7 January 2022 A dog looks out of a car window at the wintry conditions in Killeshin, Co. Laois PA UK news in pictures 6 January 2022 People walk through frost and mist alongside a frozen lake during sunrise in Bushy Park, London REUTERS UK news in pictures 5 January 2022 A skier jumps on the slopes at Allenheads in the Pennines to the north of Weardale in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 4 January 2022 Freshly-fallen snow covers houses in Corbridge, near Hexham in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 3 January 2022 Dean Morrison, 13, receives his Covid-19 vaccine from student nurse Anthony McLaughlin during a vaccination clinic at the Glasgow Central Mosque PA UK news in pictures 2 January 2022 Konastantinos Tsimikas of Liverpool with Chelseas Mason Mount during the Premier League match at Stamfrod Bridge Liverpool FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 January 2022 New Years Eve Lasers, drones and fireworks illuminate the sky in front of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich shortly after midnight in London EPA UK news in pictures 31 December 2021 Competitors in fancy dress run across the Pennine tops near Haworth, West Yorkshire, in the annual Auld Lang Syne Fell race which attracts hundreds of runners every year PA UK news in pictures 30 December 2021 Sunrise at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 29 December 2021 The Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, looks at Becket, a six month old red-billed chough as he visits Wildwood Wildlife Park in Kent on the anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket PA UK news in pictures 28 December 2021 Troops of the Household Cavalry are seen reflected in a puddle during the changing of the Queens Life Guard, on Horse Guards Parade, in central London PA UK news in pictures 27 December 2021 A pedestrian walks past a winter sale sign outside a John Lewis store on Oxford street in London Getty UK news in pictures 26 December 2021 Riders take their bikes through the snow near Castleside, County Durham PA UK news in pictures 25 December 2021 Patrick Corkery wears a santa hat and beard as waves crash over him at Forty Foot near Dublin during a Christmas Day dip PA UK news in pictures 24 December 2021 People stand inside Kings Cross Station on Christmas Eve in London Reuters UK news in pictures 23 December 2021 Christmas shoppers fill the car park at Fosse Shopping Park in Leicester PA UK news in pictures 22 December 2021 The sun rises behind the stones as people gather for the winter solstice at Stonehenge. Getty UK news in pictures 21 December 2021 People take part in a winter solstice swim at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to mark the solstice and to witness the dawn after the longest night of the year PA UK news in pictures 20 December 2021 An auction employee displays poultry to buyers and sellers attending the Christmas Poultry Sale at York Auction Centre in Murton PA UK news in pictures 19 December 2021 Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers looks on during the Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea at Molineux Getty Images UK news in pictures 18 December 2021 Freight lorries queuing at the port of Dover in Kent PA UK news in pictures 17 December 2021 Newly elected Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, bursts 'Boris' bubble' held by colleague Tim Farron, as she celebrates following her victory in the North Shropshire by-election PA UK news in pictures 16 December 2021 Brussels sprouts are harvested by workers as they prepare for the busy Christmas period near Boston in Lincolnshire PA UK news in pictures 15 December 2021 Lewis Hamilton is made a Knight Bachelor by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 14 December 2021 The Royal Liver Buildings surrounded by early morning fog in Liverpool PA UK news in pictures 13 December 2021 People queue outside a walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in Westminster Getty Images UK news in pictures 12 December 2021 People take part in the Big Leeds Santa Dash in Roundhay Park, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 11 December 2021 People arrive at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at Elland Road in Leeds, PA UK news in pictures 10 December 2021 Stella Moris speaks to the media after the US Government won its High Court bid to overturn a judges decision not to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange PA UK news in pictures 9 December 2021 Camels are lead around Salisbury Cathedral during a rehearsal for the Christmas Eve Service PA UK news in pictures 8 December 2021 Margaret Keenan and Nurse May Parsons, a year after Margaret was the first person in the UK to receive the Pfizer vaccine PA UK news in pictures 7 December 2021 Snowfall in Leadhills, South Lanarkshire as Storm Barra hits the UK with disruptive winds, heavy rain and snow PA UK news in pictures 6 December 2021 A person tries to avoid sea spray on New Brighton promenade in Wallasey as the UK readies for the arrival of Storm Barra Getty UK news in pictures 5 December 2021 People release balloons during a tribute to six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes outside Emma Tustin's former address in Solihull, West Midlands, where he was murdered by his stepmother PA UK news in pictures 4 December 2021 People walk through a Christmas market in Trafalgar Square Reuters UK news in pictures 3 December 2021 A pedestrian carries a dog as they dodge shoppers on Oxford Street in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 2 December 2021 Duchess of Cambridge inspects a Faberge egg at the Victoria and Albert Museum Getty UK news in pictures 1 December 2021 Meerkats at London Zoo with an advent calendar PA UK news in pictures 30 November 2021 Workers put the finishing touches to the Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree ahead of the lighting ceremony later in the week PA UK news in pictures 29 November 2021 Home Secretary Priti Patel is greeted by a police dog at a special memorial service for Met Police Sergeant Matiu Ratana Getty UK news in pictures 28 November 2021 Riyad Mahrez of Manchester City battles for possession with Aaron Cresswell of West Ham United during a match at the Etihad during snow Manchester City/Getty UK news in pictures 27 November 2021 Residents clear branches from a fallen tree in Birkenhead, north west England as Storm Arwen triggered a rare red weather warning AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 26 November 2021 A killer whale (orca in the fjord of Skjervoy, northern Norway AFP/Getty

Liberal Democrat Siobhan Benita, who ended her bid for City Hall citing the financial difficulties of maintaining her run during the coronavirus pandemic, criticised the proposal as intrusive.

What is it with Tories and invasion of privacy, she wrote on Twitter. Stop and search, facial recognition technology and now random drugs tests? To deliver safe streets, remove power from violent drugs gangs. Legalise, regulate and treat drug addiction as the health issue it is.

It comes as the Conservative candidate attempts to drum up momentum for his campaign following reports in June that senior party figures had wanted him to be replaced due to consistent poor showings in the polls.

Mr Bailey has languished behind the Labour incumbent Sadiq Khan in public surveys throughout his bid for the mayoralty, a campaign that has been stretched out by the one-year postponement of the election due to the pandemic.

And despite attempts to focus attentions on the incumbents record on crime, as well as delays to the Crossrail transport project, latest polling figures from Redfield Wilton put Mr Khan ahead with 49 per cent support compared to the Mr Baileys 26 per cent

Additional reporting by agencies
OTTAWAJagmeet Singh wanted this.

The day before last years federal election, the NDP leader urged voters to elect at least enough New Democrats to reduce Justin Trudeaus Liberals to a minority government. That way, he said, his progressive team could force Canada to the left on a range of policies, from taxing the ultra-rich to creating new programs like pharmacare.

Almost one year later, Singhs NDP is in a position to do just that  at least on paper. It is one of three opposition parties that separately hold the balance of power in the House of Commons, and the only that says it wants make Parliament work. The other two parties have called for Trudeau to resign, with the Bloc Quebecois threatening an attempt to topple the government if he doesnt.

As the Liberals prepare for a confidence vote on their vision for the path out of the COVID-19 crisis in a new Throne Speech on Sept. 23, can the NDP use its position to influence the course forward?

It certainly wants to.

Our goal is to extract the best policies and programs for Canadians during a really difficult time, Anne McGrath, a veteran NDP strategist who is the federal partys national director, told the Star on Friday.

We intend to act on all of the tools that we have to be able to achieve results.

Karl Belanger is the president of the Douglas-Caldwell Foundation and was a top aide for former NDP leader Thomas Mulcair. He said much depends on whether the Liberals are serious about winning the support of at least one opposition party with their Throne Speech, or if they are deliberately staging their own downfall to trigger a pandemic election.

If Trudeau really doesnt want to go to the polls, that could give the NDP influence over the policies to come, Belanger said  but only if the NDP is prepared to let the government fall.

McGrath said the NDP is ready to campaign if it has to, despite its less-than-ideal financial situation. The party is still raking in far less money than the Liberals and Conservatives, but McGrath said recent fundraising has picked up  the NDP took in $1.3 million in donations in the second quarter of this year  and the party has whittled its post-election debt down to about $1.5 million from about $7 million in January.

I would like to go toe-to-toe with the other parties. That is always my goal, McGrath said. It wouldnt happen if an election is in the next year.

It may not matter if the Liberals present a policy vision the NDP cant refuse. Theyre already signalling they want to pursue a slate of policies that fit snugly in the NDPs wheelhouse.

Trudeau and his new finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, have promised as-yet-unspecified action to make the post-pandemic economy fairer for women and racialized Canadians, to ensure the recovery programs aide the transition to a greener Canada, and more. On Thursday, the government announced $39 billion in supports for people who lose work during the crisis  $22 billion of which requires legislation that wont be possible unless the Liberals survive the vote on the Throne Speech.

Could the NDP really vote down such policies?

Belanger said the situation could force the NDPs hand  support the government or vote against your own policies  but the party would still be able to claim credit for NDP-friendly policies, even if the party is not directly involved in forming them.

The party has already done so repeatedly in recent months when the Liberals broadened pandemic programs after the NDP called for changes, including when they increased student aid and raised the wage subsidy from 10 to 75 per cent.

If the Liberals decide to go ahead and take away pages from the NDP policy proposals, then yes, it is a win, said Belanger.

It is also important for the NDP to be able to tell left-leaning voters that their presence in the Commons has a meaningful impact on the policies that come out of the minority government, said Farouk Karim, a former NDP caucus press secretary.

The NDP needs to be able to say to the electorate that its useful to vote NDP. It forces (a) more progressive orientation, he said.

If, as Karim predicts, the next election will be fought over how to recover from the generational crisis of the pandemic, Singh could then pitch progressive voters again on how the NDP can push the policy response to the left without winning the most seats.

The strength of that argument is about to be tested.
Days ahead of a final deadline, activation of a long-planned Algeria-EU trade deal risks unravelling as political and business leaders in the North African country warn it will undermine economic sovereignty.

The deal is meant to come into effect on September 1, a decade and a half after the two sides initially agreed their Free Trade Agreement as part of a wider pact setting out economic, social, cultural and judicial cooperation.

But as the clock ticks, concern has grown in Algiers about the coronavirus-hobbled economy's ability to cope without tariffs on steel, textiles, electronics and vehicles -- protective measures originally meant to end three years ago.

For Ali Bey Nasri, chairman of Algeria's exporters' association, "the agreement was badly negotiated from the start."

"When the deal was ratified in 2005, the EU had only 15 members, while now it is 27 strong and in a few years the membership will grow," said Nasri.

A free trade zone would be a "disaster for the national economy", he added.

In early August, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune called on Commerce Minister Kamel Rezig to reassess the European Union deal.

The head of state insisted that the deal "must be the subject of special attention, asserting our interests for balanced relations", an official statement said.

- Mounting pressure -

Algeria's hydrocarbon-dependent economy is in an extremely fragile state, as the effects of policies around the world to contain the coronavirus pandemic have hit already diminished oil and gas revenues.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts that Algeria's economy will shrink 5.2 percent this year.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Abdelaziz Djerad pledged a thorough review of the country's trade terms and promised to revise all economic and commercial agreements "harmful to the country".

Djerad did not mention the EU free trade deal explicitly, but he was clearly alluding to it.

Story continues

The EU is Algeria's largest trading partner, and Algeria is the EU's third-largest supplier of natural gas after Russia and Norway, according to the European Commission.

Algeria imported $320 billion in goods from the EU between 2005 and 2019, according to Nasri, mainly in the form of machinery, transport equipment and agricultural products.

This figure is more than 20 times the $15 billion in non-oil and gas exports Algeria sent to the EU over the same period.

Algiers has repeatedly asked to renegotiate the terms of the agreement.

It says the EU has failed to respect a part of the deal concerning the transfer of technology and the movement of people, with Algerian nationals finding it extremely difficult to obtain EU visas.

Algiers has also asked the EU to encourage European companies to invest in the country, but to little avail.

- 'Pause needed' -

"The Algerian-EU partnership did not fulfil its promises for Algeria," said economics professor Nadji Khaoua.

The deal is not a fair one for the country, the economist contends, and opening up its markets to foreign consumer goods will do little to create an economy less dependent on oil revenues, nor will it make it more productive.

"A pause is needed to discuss afresh fundamental issues that are hindering a fair distribution of economic benefits," Khaoua said, adding that Algeria should renegotiate the deal with the EU.

Nasri agreed that a rebalancing of relations with the Europeans is sorely needed.

"They want to sell (to us) and we are cash-strapped," he said.

"I am one of those who says 'basta'", said Nasri, using an Italian term for 'enough'.

"The EU does not want Algeria to implement measures to protect our already fragile production," he added.

Asked by AFP about the looming deadline for implementation of the trade deal, the ministry of commerce was vague.

An official said only that an inter-ministerial working group had been formed and tasked with "evaluating" the agreement, without giving further details.

amb-agr/hkb/dwo/lg/tom
BRASILIA, Brazil - About 2,000 people in northeastern Brazil were living away from their homes Saturday after a pipe in a water diversion project ruptured, damaging a dam and flooding the projects power plant, authorities said.

Rogerio Marinho, minister of regional development, told The Associated Press that the people were told to leave home as a precaution late Friday afternoon after the concrete conduit broke open in the city of Jati, in Ceara state.

He said water shooting from the ruptured conduit damaged about 40 metres (130 feet) of a 140-meter (460-foot) wall of the dam holding the reservoir fed by the pipeline. Workers needed about 4 1/2 hours to contain the spill, he said.

The situation of the dam is absolutely fine and we have already started work to restore the structures wall, Marinho said by telephone from the accident site.

He said the evacuated residents should be able to return home within 72 hours.

The dam is part of an enormous project to divert water from the Sao Francisco, the most important river in northeastern Brazil, to supply arid regions in three states.

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Want to manufacture BrahMos so that no country has audacity to cast evil eye on us: Rajnath Singh

IAF chopper crash: Rajnath Singh likely to be apprised of probe team's findings in next couple of days

Security situation in Ladakh reviewed by Rajnath Singh

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Aug 23: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday reviewed the overall security scenario in eastern Ladakh amid the ongoing talks between India and China on the disengagement process in the high-altitude region, people familiar with the developments said.

The meeting was attended by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat, Army Chief Gen MM Naravane, Navy Chief Admiral Karambir Singh and IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria.

Modi sarkars relentless persistence got Pakistan to admit Dawood is in Karachi

The sources said all important aspects of the border row with China in eastern Ladakh were discussed in great detail.

The meeting also deliberated on the future course of approach in dealing with the situation, they added.

The analysis comes in the wake of the assessment by the Army that the Chinese military is not serious about the resolution of the border conflict in eastern Ladakh.

There has been a stalemate in the military talks as the Indian Army was strongly insisting that the Chinese side must restore the status quo ante of April this year to resolve the over three-month-old row.

The Indian Army has clearly stated to the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) that "shifting" of the Line of Actual Control is not acceptable to it, the sources said adding Chinese military is now desperately attempting to give "ex post facto strategic meaning" to its actions in eastern Ladakh.

"Due to the strong response of the Indian Army, the PLA is faced with unanticipated and unintended consequences of his misadventure," said a source, adding it is looking for a "face-saving exit strategy".

India and China have held several rounds of military and diplomatic talks in the last two-and-half months but no significant headway has been made in resolution of the border row in eastern Ladakh.

On Thursday, the two sides held another round of diplomatic talks following which the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said they had agreed to resolve outstanding issues in an "expeditious manner" and in accordance with the existing agreements and protocols. However, the sources said the meeting could not produce any significant outcome.

Pakistan finally admits Dawood Ibrahim is on their soil

The formal process of disengagement of troops began on July 6, a day after a nearly two-hour telephonic conversation between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on ways to bring down tensions in the area. However, the process has not moved forward since mid-July.

The Chinese military has pulled back from Galwan Valley and certain other friction points but the withdrawal of troops has not moved forward in Pangong Tso, Depsang and a couple of other areas, sources said.

In the five rounds of corps commander-level talks, the Indian side has been insisting on complete disengagement of Chinese troops at the earliest, and immediate restoration of status quo ante in all areas of eastern Ladakh prior to April.

Even as both sides have been engaged in diplomatic and military talks, the Indian Army is making elaborate preparation to maintain its current strength of troops in all key areas in eastern Ladakh in the harsh winter months.

Army Chief Naravane has already conveyed to all the senior commanders of the Army, overseeing operation of the frontline formations along the LAC, to keep up a significantly high state of alertness and maintain the aggressive posturing to deal with any Chinese "misadventure", the sources said.

The Army is also in the process of procuring a number of weapons, ammunition and winter gears for the frontline troops, they added. The temperature in some of the high-altitude areas along the LAC drops to minus 25 degrees Celsius in the winter months.

The tension between the two sides escalated manifold after the violent clashes in Galwan Valley on June 15 in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed. The Chinese side also suffered casualties but it is yet to give out the details. According to an American intelligence report, the number of casualties on the Chinese side was 35.

Following the Galwan Valley incident, the government gave the armed forces "full freedom" to give a "befitting" response to any Chinese misadventure along the LAC.

The Army sent thousands of additional troops to forward locations along the border following the deadly clashes. The IAF has also moved air defence systems as well as a sizeable number of its frontline combat jets and attack helicopters to several key air bases.

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Story first published: Sunday, August 23, 2020, 9:14 [IST]
Update: Syracuse police identify 34-year-old woman shot, killed on North Side

Syracuse, N.Y.  A 34-year-old woman was fatally shot early this morning on Syracuses North Side.

Police were called to Josephine Street, near Butternut Street, around 2:40 a.m. When officers arrived, they found a woman who had been shot in the stomach, said Syracuse Police Sgt. Matthew Malinowski, a department spokesman.

She was rushed to Upstate University Hospital, but later died.

Multiple spent casings were found at the scene, Malinowski said.

About half the block had been cordoned off while police investigated the shooting, but reopened around 10:15 a.m.

Syracuse police ask anyone with information about the incident to contact them at (315) 442-5222.

Contact Jacob Pucci at jpucci@syracuse.com or find him on Twitter at @JacobPucci.
China successfully launched a new optical remote-sensing satellite from its Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China on Sunday.

The satellite, Gaofen-9 05, was sent into orbit by a Long March-2D carrier rocket.

A multifunctional test satellite and another satellite named Tiantuo-5 were also launched via the rocket.

Sundays launch was the 343rd mission of the Long March rocket series, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

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Five Connecticut residents and one Massachusetts resident face federal narcotics trafficking offenses after they were indicted earlier this month, authorities said.

The six individuals were charged on two indictments, which were unsealed Friday.

On Aug. 12, a federal grand jury in New Haven returned a seven-count superseding indictment that charged five men with conspiracy to distribute fentanyl, heroin and crack cocaine.

Charged on that indictment were Tyson Ty Quinones, 34, of Waterbury; Deeshawn Low Pittman, 30, of New Haven; Quentine Davis, 29, of New Haven; Glen Redmond, 55, of Springfield, Mass.; and 49-year-old Wilton Renoso, also known as Manuel Jose Echevarria-Lugo, a citizen of the Domician Republic last living in Waterbury.

The charges against the five stemmed from an investigation that started in late 2019 into heroin and fentanyl sales in New Haven. It was led by the DEA New Haven Task Force.

During the investigation, thousands of communications were intercepted over court-authorized wiretaps, according to a news release from the office of U.S. Attorney for Connecticut John Durham.

Those wiretaps helped reveal that Pittman, Davis and others were allegedly distributing fentanyl, heroin and crack cocaine to a large customer base in New Haven County, authorities said. Quinones allegedly supplied Pittman with fentanyl and heroin. Quinones was accused of also selling narcotics to his own customers in and around Waterbury.

Authorities said Quinones and Redmond were supplied fentanyl and heroin by Reynoso, who got large amounts of fentanyl and heroin from a source in New York.

Pittman, Quinones and Pittman were initially charged by an indictment on June 17. Davis and Reymond were arrested earlier this week after the superseding indictment was returned.

Each defendant was charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute, and to possess with intent to distribute, fentanyl, heroin and cocaine base  crack.

Reynoso and Pittman are also charged with additional fentanyl distribution charges by the superseding indictment. Reynoso was also charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, authorities said.

Reynoso, Quinones and Davis are detained. Pittman and Redmond are released on bond.

On Aug. 12, the grand jury also returned a three-count indictment charging Quinones and Norman Alexis Gallardo, 36, of Meriden, with conspiring to distribute cocaine between February and June.

They are each charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute, and to possess with intent to distribute, 500 grams or more of cocaine, and two counts of attempt to possess with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine.

Gallardo was arrested out of state and is in custody awaiting transport to Connecticut.
I dont know how many times I heard a politician warn about Donald Trumps threat to our democracy at that Democratic Convention last week. Heres a question I would like to put to each one of them:

If a politician can make a unilateral decision to dispense with the election code in his state prior to a hotly contested election, then what hope is there for our democracy?

Thats what Phil Murphy has done here in New Jersey with his decision to eliminate the traditional practice of machine voting and substitute a universal vote-by-mail system.

As soon as that decision was announced, I heard from Mike Carroll, the former state assemblyman and constitutional scholar from Morris County. Carroll emailed me to say that the election code bans the use of the sort of drop boxes that would be available to receive ballots under Murphys plan:

NJSA 19:63-4 provides that No person shall serve as an authorized messenger or as a bearer for more than three qualified voters in an election, Carroll wrote.

It does indeed. Not only that, but the number of ballots the bearer can deposit was reduced from 10 to three as recently as 2015. Thats because prior election results had been reversed in court because of relatively small numbers of disputed votes. In a 2012 case involving a Republican freeholder primary, a candidate who won by a mere six votes had his win overturned in court because of disputed messenger ballots.

As for the practice of mailing out ballots to every voter, that conflicts with the next section of the code, which states In the case of any election, the application for a mail-in ballot shall be made to the county clerk.

Murphys Executive Order 177 suspends numerous other sections of the code as well. The ostensible reason is that the COVID-19 crisis makes it unsafe for people to vote in person.

But plenty of other states have retained their traditional systems of voting, most prominently Florida. A friend of mine who voted in that states primary elections last week called to tell me that Florida retains the highly efficient system of machine voting backed up by paper ballots that was adopted after the 2000 Bush-Gore fiasco. (That system produces results on election night, but switching to a system could drag out the election for weeks, as Trump has warned.)

If Murphy had wanted a new election code, all he had to do was ask his fellow Democrats who control both houses of the Legislature. If both houses passed such a bill, the minority Republicans could not have stopped it.

Last week the state and national Republican parties filed a lawsuit last week arguing that Murphys move is unconstitutional.

The suit filed in federal court argues that Article I, Section IV of the U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures, not governors, the power to set the time, place, and manner of Congressional elections.

They also argue that a blanket vote-by-mail mandate opens the door to fraud and thereby unconstitutionally dilutes the power of each individual voters.

To that end they cite the example conveniently provided by Murphys fellow Democrats in that municipal election in Paterson in May:

The Attorney General has charged four individuals in Paterson, N.J. - including one sitting city council member and one candidate for city council who nominally won his race - on charges arising from a scheme to collect and illegally mail in hundreds of absentee ballots in that election, the 37-page GOP filing states.

State Sen. Mike Testa, a Cape May County Republican and lawyer who is a co-author of the brief, said that if the GOP wins, voters will still be able to vote by mail as in prior elections.

Were not trying to take away the ability to vote by mail, Testa said. We just dont feel were well equipped enough to handle an election in which the governor has unilaterally changed the code.

Its not just a matter of fraud, Testa said. In the recent primaries, he said, about 10 percent of mail ballots were thrown out, mainly because a poll worker decided that the signature on the ballot did not match the name on file.

Meanwhile the system lacked the ability to quickly count even the relatively small number of votes cast in a primary, Testa said. The race for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate took more than a month to decide. Some of the general-election contests could drag on as long as Bush v. Gore.

But the real problem here is not the upcoming election. Its the governors assumption he can change the rules for it without even consulting his fellow Democrats, never mind the Republicans.

If our democracy can be cast aside that easily, then there wasnt much to it anyway.

Thats what the foremost critic of democracy said almost 100 years ago.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Our governor is doing his best to prove H.L. Mencken right.

ADD:

If youre worried about some imagined hazard from voting in person, read this article on Dr. Anthony Faucis views on the subject. If you go and wear a mask, if you observe the physical distancing, and dont have a crowded situation, theres no reason why you shouldnt be able to do that, Fauci said.

Meanwhile the Republicans say theyre getting numerous complaints from voters upset that they were unable to vote by machine in the primary.

Unlike with the machine, I have no way of knowing whether my vote was counted. According to New Jersey Spotlight, 10 percent of ballots were rejected in the recent primary elections, mainly because the signatures were rejected.

Meanwhile provisional ballots are not counted at the polling place. If the ballot is rejected for some reason, the voter has no way of knowing.

Theres only one way to make sure your vote is counted. Go to the polls and register it on a voting machine.

Theres no reason traditional voting cant co-exist with mail-in ballots for those those who want them.

Well, theres one reason.

Ill leave it to you to figure out what it is.
WASHINGTON>> Americans tuned into the Democratic National Convention were told Thursday that the higher minimum wage favored by presidential candidate Joe Biden would lift all full-time workers out of poverty. Thats not what $15 an hour is likely to do.

SEN. CORY BOOKER: Together, with Joe and Kamala in the White House, well raise the minimum wage so no one who works a full-time job lives in poverty.

THE FACTS: Thats an improbable outcome for the $15 minimum wage supported by Biden.

A 2019 report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour would lift 1.3 million Americans out of poverty, a small fraction of the roughly 38 million people living in poverty in 2018.

Moreover, the report estimated a $15 minimum wage would cost 1.3 million people their jobs because they would be priced out of the market.

Altogether, some 17 million people might see higher pay, the office said, but not enough to raise most who are below the poverty line above it.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report on the working poor in 2018, 3.7 million people who usually worked full-time were below the poverty level. That finding suggests that a $15 federal minimum would not take all full-time workers out of poverty. And, of course, it would still leave millions of part-time workers and the unemployed in poverty.
There are other things going on that need to be considered: Gage Roads has announced an impressive new brewery at the A Shed in Fremantle Harbour, signifying a potential rebirth of the area.

The government intends to move the Port to Kwinana.

Main Roads intends to remove the old Fremantle Traffic Bridge and spend $230 million on two new bridges (one for rail and one mainly for cars). Most people would be excited by the prospect of a new microbrewery looking out over the harbour, especially one with a childrens play area. But what will we be looking at  the monumental cranes, ships and container mountains of a working port, or a mini-Gold Coast of residential apartment towers blinding us with reflected sunlight? The best outcome is probably a balance of the two. It seems like a no-brainer that the main port servicing Perth should be in a dedicated industrial area, with room for future expansion. However, if it is economically possible, it would be wonderful for Fremantle Port to remain as a useful working secondary port, perhaps servicing specialised areas. City of Fremantle councillor Hannah Fitzhardinge makes the important point that the size of the port area is some 180 hectares of land (1.8 million square metres), sandwiching the river.

This is a massive amount of land in the centre of a city. If all, or most, of Fremantle Ports business was to move to Kwinana, the vacant land mass needs to be integrated into Fremantle. Loading This is the key project for the future, and community and expert consultation should start now, before secondary decisions are made. Planning a 180-hectare city within a city will take a while. It is also an opportunity to create something special  there is plenty of space on this ocean and river peninsula. In addition to a working secondary port, and the usual commercial and density residential, my wish list includes a central park/city forest, and a sporting complex catering for multiple community sports, with a waterside stadium to bring more excitement to the Port City. This leads to the question of bridges. The old Fremantle Traffic Bridge is a heritage-listed timber icon, built in 1939. It is an architecturally unique, honest structure that serves as the entrance to Fremantle, and connector to North Fremantle. To some, it is a rickety old bridge that needs to be scrapped. To many others, it is rich in history, beauty and meaning.

The problem is that the old bridge needs significant maintenance works and is no longer suitable for bearing heavy loads. In addition, the adjacent rail bridge currently needs to service both passenger and freight trains. An existing plan is to retain the old traffic bridge and build a new road bridge between the existing two bridges. However, Main Roads has now decided that the old bridge is unsafe and uneconomic (without providing supporting data or explanations to the public), and that it needs to build a new bridge (for vehicle traffic, cyclists and pedestrians) as well as a new passenger rail bridge. Main Roads contends that there isnt enough space between the existing bridges on the northern side (30 metres) to execute its plans, so the old bridge has to go. This is Main Roads $230 million Swan River Crossings plan for the area: Main Roads' plan for Fremantle Traffic Bridge. Credit:Main Roads WA

Main Roads belated community consultation on this pivotal project is limited to window dressing such as visual elements and heritage interpretation. This is bureaucratic code for stay out of it and let the experts do their jobs. But they are experts on roads, not place-making. The red stub on the right of the map is the sad remains of the old bridge, after its heritage has been Interpreted. Ironically, Main Roads argues that greater connectivity and recognising heritage are key benefits of the plan. This is hard to swallow, given they are the benefits of keeping the old Traffic Bridge. Main Roads has not publicly released any substantive information in its community consultation stage that actually allows the community or other stakeholders to have a clue. It is impossible to judge whether the singular plan put forward is justified, or whether better alternatives are achievable. Main Roads has confirmed the bridge costs approximately $400,000 per year for inspections, monitoring, maintenance and emergency repairs.

Main Roads also states it would need to repair and replace the rapidly deteriorating bridge deck with a concrete and steel deck at an estimated cost of $44 million. This leaves the question of whether the deck would need replacement if heavy vehicle traffic is removed. Another key issue for Main Roads is river safety, which is fair enough. The old bridge is apparently hard for boats to navigate, with poor clearance. According to the Department of Transports boating guide, the clearance heights are as follows: Fremantle Rail: 8.1 to 8.2m

Fremantle Traffic: 6.7 to 7.3m

Stirling: 7.4m Looking at Google, the distance between navigation channel pylons is about:

Fremantle Rail: 25m

Fremantle Traffic: 15m If the vertical and horizontal clearance in Fremantle Bridges two navigation channels is inadequate, then an appealing solution that has been mooted is to remove a full section from the middle of the bridge and replace it with a suspended pedestrian and cycle path at a slightly higher elevation (given Stirling Bridge is less than one metre higher). This could potentially span the 54-metre width of the existing navigation channels. It would create the space needed for boats while retaining the majority of the heritage structure and, importantly, keeping it as a connected and cohesive bridge across the river. Subject to the hard realities of budgets and engineering, here is another vision: Dont build a new rail bridge. We already have one, and the main port is probably moving to Kwinana anyway. If we do really need one, place it on the spacious west side of the existing railway.

Dont demolish the historic traffic bridge. Almost everyone loves it. Apportion $100 million or so to re-purpose it for people instead, so it becomes a tourism generator. Think the Green Line, Perths version of New York Citys famous High Line. Loading It could be a sustainable transport corridor, avoiding the need for Main Roads to build new pedestrian and cycle paths. It could be re-imagined with grass, trees, live music, food trucks, dolphin-spotting, mini-festivals. Even extend the green corridor into Fremantle proper so you can walk from Mojos to The Naval Store to Gage Roads Brewery. It could be amazing. Use the remaining $130 million or so to just build an interesting and inspiring new road bridge. Now its just a road bridge, hey presto, it can fit between the existing two bridges.

But lets talk about the elephants in the room. Coming up with a suitable plan for the bridges is highly complicated, for many reasons. Even looked at in isolation, it should not be rushed, and the community should be deeply involved. Then there is the fact that the bridges are to connect some 180 hectares of inner-city land that has not even been planned yet. This is cart-before-the-horse on an epic scale, and is almost guaranteed to create a $230 million outcome that is not fit for future-purpose. There is a petition out for those who would like to slow things down, so the job can be done properly. Fremantle and North Fremantle retain the gritty, exciting reality of being industrial hubs. They have the heritage, old buildings and structures from the dawn of Perth, when our ancestors arrived by boat and built this city up.
Royals are all about putting up a bright and positive front for fans and the media. Whenever members of the royal family are seen together, they are often smiling and laughing with no semblance of ill feelings between them. However, a royal expert now claims that there actually is a lot of jealousy and competition in the royal family, especially when it comes to popularity.

Members of the royal family | Anwar Hussein/WireImage

Different royal households reportedly compete with each other

According to Omid Scobie, a royal reporter who co-authored Finding Freedom, a new biography on Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, the royal family is made up of various households who compete with each other.

There are different households: Clarence House, Kensington Palace, and Buckingham Palace, Scobie told The Cut. Each one has the responsibility to look after the royal family members that they work for. These are the private aides, the communication staffers, the courtiers. Theyre the characters that work behind the scenes.

Scobie added, Often, its a popularity contest: Members of the royal family are almost competing over coverage in the papers.

He cited the example of Prince Charles, who is often frustrated because his children, Prince William and Prince Harry, tend to get more press coverage than he does.

There are people within his household working to make sure that he gets as much of a prolific feature for his work as possible, Scobie shared. Often that leads to jealousy within the different households as well.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle dealt with jealousy because of their popularity

RELATED: Fans Think Meghan Markle Could Have Been More Patient With the Royal Family

The jealousy issue reportedly also came about when Harry married Meghan and the couple became extremely popular with royal followers.

Harry and Meghan are really not considered the most senior members of the royal family, and suddenly they became the most talked about couple on the planet, Scobie said, noting that Meghan being a biracial American woman was a large reason for her popularity.

He continued, It changed what it meant to be royal and regal  those connotations were no longer only associated with being white. This made Meghan a huge draw for the royals  but being a draw, you will also attract jealousy.

Was there tension between the Sussexes and the Cambridge because of this?

RELATED: Prince William Admits Kate Middleton Is A Lot More Patient Than He Is When It Comes to Their Kids

In the past year, there have been numerous rumors about tension between the Sussexes and the Cambridges. The root of the alleged tension is unknown, but a lot of theories are floating around. Some fans believe it might have stemmed from Prince William questioning Harrys relationship with Meghan when they were dating. Others think William and Harrys different personalities and roles in the royal family had something to do with it.

According to Scobies book, Finding Freedom, Harry and Meghan also felt they were often being passed over in favor of William and his wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.

As their popularity had grown, so did Harry and Meghans difficulty in understanding why so few inside the palace were looking out for their interests, Scobie and his co-author, Carolyn Durand, wrote. They were a major draw for the royal family Instead they had to take a backseat. Sometimes they would be told that their projects had to wait when the Prince of Wales or Prince William had an initiative or tour being announced at the same time.

Additionally, Harry also reportedly felt he and Meghan were being used for their popularity by the palace.
After Boris Johnson announced a crackdown on obesity last month, telling the nation he was 'too fat', the world is now watching every morsel that passes his lips.

My spies spotted him lunching at Indian eatery Dishoom in Kensington, with daughter Cassia, 23, the day before he embarked on his summer holiday camping trip to Scotland.

My mole reports: 'He ordered a small plate of grilled chicken tikka and garlic naan but didn't eat any of it, just sat there staring at it. He knew everyone was looking.'

Is this one policy Boris is determined not to do a U-turn on?

Boris Johnson announced a crackdown on obesity last month, telling the nation he was 'too fat'

The PM was spotted lunching at Indian eatery Dishoom in Kensington, with daughter Cassia, 23, the day before he embarked on his summer holiday camping trip to Scotland

Star Trek actress Alice Eve didnt need Scotty to beam her up and transport her home as she left Marylebones Chiltern Firehouse last week  she settled for a lift in a black cab.

Smiling Alice, 38, daughter of acting heavyweights Sharon Maughan, who starred in the famous Nescafe ads, and Trevor Eddie Shoestring Eve, had clearly enjoyed her long lunch date with a friend.

And rather than staying off the leash for more fun with her chum, she headed home with her obedient pet dog Buddy.
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan's prime minister said on Saturday the country was ready to cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) so those accused of war crimes in Darfur appear before the tribunal, a list that includes ousted President Omar al-Bashir.

Bashir, who has been in jail in Khartoum since he was toppled after mass protests last year, is wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity in Darfur in a conflict that killed an estimated 300,000 people.

The government reached a deal with rebel groups in February that all five Sudanese ICC suspects should appear before the court but Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok had not previously publicly affirmed Sudan's position.

"I reiterate that the government is fully prepared to cooperate with the ICC to facilitate access to those accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity," Hamdok said in a televised address on the anniversary of his ascent to office.

Sudan's transitional government, a three-year joint civilian-military arrangement led by Hamdok, says it is close to a peace deal with some rebel groups active in Darfur, a vast region roughly the size of France.

The government and some of the rebels are expected to initial an agreement on Aug. 28.

Hamdok also said during his TV address that Sudan had come a long way towards being removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

There are intense communications with the American administration about removing Sudan from the list and significant progress is expected in the coming weeks, a senior government source told Reuters on Sunday.

Washington added Sudan to the list in 1993 over allegations that Bashir's Islamist government was supporting terrorist groups at the time.

The designation makes Sudan technically ineligible for debt relief and financing from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. The U.S. Congress would need to approve Sudan's removal from the list.

(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz in Khartoum, Nadine Awadalla and Ahmed Tolba in Cairo; Editing by Aidan Lewis and David Clarke)
OAKLAND, Calif.  Twitter hid one of President Trumps tweets behind a notice warning users that the message violated company rules against dissuading people from voting. Mr. Trump posted the tweet, which said that ballot drop boxes were not being sanitized to prevent the coronavirus and could be used for fraud, about five hours before Twitter took action on Sunday.

Twitter has begun enforcing its rules more strictly against Mr. Trump as the presidential election approaches. In May, Twitter added fact-check labels to two of Mr. Trumps tweets that contained misinformation about mail-in voting.

Twitter escalated its efforts on Sunday, hiding Mr. Trumps message behind a warning that said it violated the Twitter Rules about civic and election integrity. Twitter also restricted other users from sharing, liking or replying to the tweet, a move intended to prevent the message from spreading.
"Now they need that money in order to make the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots ... But if they dont get those two items that means you cant have universal mail-in voting, Trump said on the Fox Business network on Aug. 13.

Trump has repeatedly said, without evidence, that mail-in voting is rife with fraud. Expecting a surge of mail-in voting because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Democrats insist upon giving the Postal Service more money and stopping the changes that DeJoy is implementing.

Rep. Brian Higgins, a Buffalo Democrat, took to the House floor to rage against what he called "the destructive acts of the president and his postmaster disaster."

And in an interview afterwards, he said his office was inundated with hundreds of calls of complaints from Buffalo-area residents whose mail has been delayed. Hundreds of veterans are not promptly getting their prescriptions, while Social Security checks and business mail are being slowed, too, he said.

"All of this is being jeopardized by a president who has acknowledged he is sabotaging the United States Postal Service because he can't win an election fairly or honestly," Higgins said.
Political opposition is building against Victorias protracted state of emergency after Premier Daniel Andrews said extraordinary powers in force since the start of the pandemic would be needed until a COVID-19 vaccine was found.

The Victorian opposition has rejected extending the emergency provisions indefinitely, while crossbench MPs said the issue was fuelling community anxieties and concerns about the impacts of lockdown.

We cant keep living like this, Reason Party MP Fiona Patten told The Age.

The provisions for these extraordinary powers under a state of emergency were written for short-term, immediate issues. In no way were they designed to last two to four years.
The plan was to go to various cities throughout the state, each of which would be solicited for grants. Rooms within the center would then be named for the granting city in a room size corresponding to their grant. The first grant was for $25,000 from Columbus. Subsequent requests pointed out this gifts size ensuring other cities would be encouraged to do better, each one building on the size of its predecessor.

The location chosen for the center was the extreme southwest corner of East Campus, the northeast corner of 33rd and Holdrege streets, which was principally empty land but home to what might be considered an initial start of the universitys arboretum, partially begun years earlier by Charles Bessey.

Construction bids were solicited in 1959 and a number of rare and valuable trees were marked for salvation. But the bulldozer inadvertently destroyed the marked trees ... one of the finest collections of its kind anywhere, (was) gone forever.
Kuwait said it will rebuild Lebanon's only large grain silo that was destroyed by the massive Beirut port explosion, raising fears of food shortages in a country already in financial meltdown.

The destruction of the 120,000-tonne capacity structure at the port, the main entry point for food imports, meant buyers must rely on smaller private storage facilities for their wheat purchases with no government reserves to fall back on.

Kuwait's ambassador to Lebanon, Abdulaal al-Qenaie, said in comments to local radio VdL at the weekend that the silo was first built in 1969 with a Kuwaiti development loan.

The Gulf monarchy will now rebuild the silo so it remains a symbol of "how to manage relations between two brotherly countries that respect each other", Qenaie was cited as saying.

The port explosion killed at least 180 people, injured thousands and wrecked swathes of the Lebanese capital, pushing the government to resign.

The now caretaker economy minister, Raoul Nehme, has reassured the public that there would be no flour or bread crisis in Lebanon, which buys almost all its wheat from abroad.

Plans for another grain silo in Lebanon's second largest port Tripoli were shelved years ago due to a lack of funding, a U.N. official, port official and regional grain expert told Reuters earlier this month.

Humanitarian aid has poured into Lebanon. But foreign donors have made clear they will not bail out the state without reforms to tackle entrenched corruption and negligence.

Gulf Arab states who once gave Lebanon financial support have grown weary in recent years of the Iran-backed Hezbollah's expanding role in state affairs.

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The Assam unit of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has rubbished veteran Congress leader Tarun Gogois claim that the former Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi could be the BJPs chief ministerial candidate for next years assembly polls.

People utter lot of meaningless stuff, when they grow very old, and we would like to put Gogois statement in that category. I have met many former CMs, but no one makes such baseless assertions such as Tarun Gogoi. There is not one iota of truth in what he had said, Assam BJP president Ranjeet Kumar Dass told HT.

On Saturday, Tarun Gogoi (85), who was Assam CM from 2001 to 2016, told mediapersons in Guwahati that the former CJI, who took oath as a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha (RS) in March, could be the BJPs CM face in the assembly polls. I have heard from my sources that Ranjan Gogois name is in the list of BJPs probable CM candidates. I suspect he might be projected as the CM by the party in the next assembly polls, Tarun Gogoi said.

Also read: Will fight Bihar polls under Nitish Kumars leadership - BJP chief JP Nadda

The BJP is happy with Ranjan Gogoi for the Ram Mandir verdict and, as a result, he was nominated as a RS MP after his retirement as the CJI. (Ranjan) Gogoi could have refused to be a RS MP, but his acceptance shows he is interested in active politics, he added.

Ranjan Gogoi was the CJI when the Supreme Court, last November, awarded the disputed land in Ayodhya to Hindu parties, clearing the decks for a Ram Temple there and settling a 135-year-old legal dispute.

Tarun Gogoi, who represents the Titabar seat in Assam assembly, said that he would contest next years elections, but would not be the Congresss prospective CM candidate.

On Saturday, the Congress and the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) came together to form an alliance against the ruling BJP for the 2021 polls. Theres nothing to comment on Tarun Gogois utterances. He seems to know more about our party than those who are in it, said Rupam Goswami, chief spokesperson, BJPs Assam unit.

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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trumps older sister, a former federal judge, is heard sharply criticizing her brother in a series of recordings, at one point saying of the president, He has no principles.

Maryanne Trump Barry was secretly recorded by her niece, Mary Trump, who recently released a book denouncing the president, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the Worlds Most Dangerous Man. Mary Trump said Saturday she made the recordings in 2018 and 2019.

In one recording, Barry, 83, says she had heard a 2018 interview with her brother on Fox News in which he suggested that he would put her on the border to oversee cases of immigrant children separated from their parents.

His base, I mean my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this, Barry says.

At another point she says: His goddamned tweet and lying, oh my God. She adds: Im talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit.

Barry can also be heard saying that she guesses that her brother has never read her opinions on immigration cases.

What has he read? Mary Trump asks her aunt.

Barry responds: No. He doesnt read.

The recordings were first reported by The Washington Post. The Associated Press then obtained the recordings.

The recordings came to light just a day after the late Robert Trump, brother to Maryanne and the president, was memorialized in a service at the White House. Later, the president was dismissive of the recordings.

Every day its something else, who cares. I miss my brother, and Ill continue to work hard for the American people, Trump said in a statement. Not everyone agrees, but the results are obvious. Our country will soon be stronger than ever before.

In the weeks since the release of Mary Trumps tell-all book about her uncle, she has been questioned about the source of some of its information. Nowhere in the book does she say that she recorded conversations with her aunt. On Saturday, Mary Trump revealed that she had covertly taped 15 hours of face-to-face conversations with Barry.

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Sunday it was really a sad day when a family member secretly tapes 15 hours of a conversation with somebody, obviously to promote an agenda. Meadows said he had not met Maryanne Trump Barry but had hoped to see her at her brothers funeral, where he said the presidents tribute showed his compassion and love for his family.

And Meadows, speaking on Fox News Sunday, dismissed the idea that the president was not well prepared, claiming Trump reads so much that it causes me to have to read many times well into the night to catch up with him.

The president has frequently spoken highly of his sister; the recordings are the first time a family member, outside of Mary Trump, has been critical of him.

Mary realized members of her family had lied in prior depositions, said Chris Bastardi, a spokesman for Mary Trump. He added: Anticipating litigation, she felt it prudent to tape conversations in order to protect herself.

The recordings illuminate the tension between the president and his sister. At one point Barry says to her niece: Its the phoniness of it all. Its the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel.

Mary Trumps book was filled with attacks on her uncle, including the assertion  he denied it  that he paid someone to take the SATs for him as he sought to transfer into the University of Pennsylvania.

In one recording, the federal judge says that a Joe Shapiro took the test for Trump. The president was friends with a person at Penn named Joe Shapiro, who is deceased. Shapiros widow and sister told have said he never took a test for anybody.

Bastardi said of Mary Trump: She never expected to learn much of what she heard, including the presidents sister, federal judge Maryanne Trump Barry, state that Donald Trump had paid someone to take an SAT exam for him.
The Ministry of Steel has asked RINL and South Korean player POSCO to form a joint working group to oversee their plans of setting a green-field project in Andhra Pradesh.

The South Korean steel major and state-owned RINL have been in talks for quite some time over their plans to set up a joint venture (JV) for manufacturing value-added special grade of steel.

According to a ministry update, "The way forward for the proposed greenfield investment project by POSCO Steel at Visakhapatnam was discussed with the representatives of POSCO Steel...through a video conference. "It was agreed to set up a Joint Working Group (JWG) consisting of representatives from POSCO and RINL to facilitate the implementation of MoU signed between the two companies regarding investment on land owned by RINL."

The JWG would meet regularly to expedite the implementation of the MoU, the ministry said. The MoU between the two players was signed towards the end of last year, an official said, adding the group would now work on the aspects of the "final agreement as to what will be the share of the players (in the JV), amount of the investment, among others."

In July 2019, senior POSCO officials had met the then Steel Secretary Binoy Kumar and submitted an investment proposal. POSCO's interest in India is not new.

Earlier, the company had proposed to set up a 12 MTPA plant at Jagatsinghpur in Odisha at an estimated cost of Rs 52,000 crore.

An MoU was also signed between POSCO and the Odisha government in this regard in 2005 but the plant could never be set up due to various reasons from delay in environmental clearances to protests by locals, and the pact ultimately expired in 2010 and was not renewed again.

RINL's 7.3 million tonnes plant in Visakhapatnam is a shore-based integrated steel plant. It has a land of over approximately 22,000 acre of its own and enjoys access to Gangavaram Port, where raw materials such as coking coal etc arrives.

An expert said, since RINL is located on the eastern coast of India, a JV plant will give access to the South East Asian markets besides catering to the domestic needs of special steel through rail and road.
A Kildare man is today running 68km in memory of his late mother, with money raised going to Our Lady's Hospice in Harold's Cross.

Lar O'Keeffe is taking on the challenge to honour his mother Patty, who sadly passed away in February.

The run will start in Monasterevin, where Lar now lives, and end at Our Lady's Hospice, where the family has some wonderful memories of their mother's final days, thanks to the staff at St Gabriel's Ward.

Lar's friend Sean Mahony will accompany him for the full run, while Lar's eldest son Jason and Sean's eldest daughter Faye, both aged 12, will take on the first 5k with their dads.

Despite the extended lockdown, the charity fundraiser has permission to proceed. It will take back roads through Kildare, and receive a garda escort once it reaches Dublin. The route will pass Patty and her husband Paddy's home in Crumlin on its way to the runners' final destination.

Paddy was well known in her community, as well as being the life and soul of the family, according to Lar's wife Sharon. She was a mum of five - Karen, Michelle, Lar, Patrick and Jonathan - and is survived by her husband.

She worked as a cleaner, with her last job being in her local pub Frehills, where herself and her husband had a corner named after them.

"She loved to knit and knit many cardigans for her grandchildren, and her last project saw her knit tea cosies. She was one of the longest serving novena in the community and was well known around Crumlin village," said Sharon.

Online fundraising has so far raised over 7,000 for the hospice. Donations can be made until the end of August. Click HERE for the link to the fundraiser.
Babachir Lawal, former secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), says the All Progressives Congress (APC) must create an enabling...





Babachir Lawal, former secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), says the All Progressives Congress (APC) must create an enabling environment for aspirants to contest for the presidency in 2023.

Lawal was sacked as SGF in October 2017 after he was indicted in a N544m grass-cutting scandal.

Speaking on the issue of zoning of the 2023 presidency in an interview with The Punch, Lawal said Bola Tinubu, a national leader of the APC, was instrumental to President Muhammadu Buharis victory in 2015 and should be given a chance in 2023.

First of all, I want to declare that I am a Tinubu man. Theres no denying that theres a Tinubu factor in the APC. Just like I was a Buharist and every time Buharis name was mentioned, I stood by it. But the crisis that started in the APC has nothing to do with 2023. It just had to do with the mismanagement of the party by those entrusted with that responsibility  namely the NWC, Lawal said.

One of our specific goals was to make Buhari the president. Tinubu was a colossus of south-west politics. If he had said there would be no merger, there wouldnt have been any merger.

By the time we went to the APC national convention, the north-west was not with Buhari. The north-west people were either for Atiku or Rabiu Kwankwaso; most of them, at least. The late Inuwa Abdulkadir and I continued to pile pressure on Tinubu, giving him the statistics.

It became very clear that Buhari was going to win that primary election once Tinubu declared publicly his support for him and accepted that the south-west would vote for Buhari. Between Wednesday and Thursday (before the convention), it was clear Tinubu and Bisi Akande were going to support Buhari and the north-west had no choice but to support Buhari, otherwise, they were going to lose out.

So if Tinubu had not conceded at that point, I think probably Kwakwanso would have won the presidential nomination of the APC. For that reason alone, you can see Tinubus contributions to the emergence of Buhari as president and his role in building the party.

Therefore, except we want to bring the wrath of God on our heads, which we dont want, the party must create an environment that is free and fair for anybody who wants to contest, including Tinubu, to do so. Allow the delegates, who must have emerged through a similarly free and fair process, decide who they want to vote for. It will be our duty as Tinubus boys that time to say, Let us vote for Bola.

Lawal said Tinubu rallied funding for the campaign when Buhari had no money to fund his election and brought in an agency from the United States that branded Buharis image.

Everybody knows Buhari had no money and he doesnt play money politics. So he won his presidential primary election without spending money. Also, Buharists didnt have money; they only had ideas, zeal and fanaticism. And politics requires money, he said.

Tinubu, who had his tentacles spread across the corporate world, was the only man who knew where and how to raise the funds needed. He was the one that reached out to all the big men who were at the time scared of the then President Goodluck Jonathan.

At the time, Nigerians saw Buhari as just a wood. He had no emotions. People werent seeing him as a loving husband and father and doubted if he could be humane. It was Tinubu who brought in consultants from the US  the firm behind the successful execution of President Barrack Obamas campaign. It helped to repackage Buhari to Nigerians.

That was when you started seeing Buhari wearing a suit, and in Igbo, Yoruba and Kanuri attire. The strategy was to transform his image and show a humane, loving and trustworthy person. It helped us.

Tinubu doesnt like to take credit for what he does; he lives for politics, gets his money from politics and spends it on politics. He has no other interest except politics. The monies he spent out of his pocket that is unaccounted for outside of the partys campaign finances are quite enormous. I know this because hes my friend and because I am also involved in the Buhari government.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will visit Israel on Monday and the United Arab Emirates a day later to discuss the countries' normalisation deal, two sources briefed on his itinerary said.

Also on Pompeo's agenda will be the security challenges posed by Iran and China in the region, said the sources, who declined to be identified by name or nationality.

Israel and the UAE announced earlier this month that they would normalise diplomatic ties and forge a broad new relationship.

Under the accord, which U.S. President Donald Trump helped broker, Israel agreed to suspend its planned annexation of areas of the occupied West Bank.

The deal also firms up opposition to regional power Iran, which the UAE, Israel and the United States view as the main threat in the conflict-riven Middle East.

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, is expected to travel to Israel and the UAE in early September, and may stop in other countries as well, an administration official said. Kushner will be accompanied by Avi Berkowitz, Trump's Middle East envoy, the official said.

Kushner and Berkowitz will thank Israel and the UAE for completing the deal, the official said.

(Reporting by Dan Williams, Steve Holland, and Jan Wolfe; Editing by David Clarke and Daniel Wallis)
Protesters defy warnings and presidential show of strength to stage biggest rally since disputed election.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has made a show of defiance against the massive protests demanding his resignation, toting a rifle and wearing a bulletproof vest as he strode off a helicopter that landed at his residence while demonstrators massed nearby.

In the 15th day of the largest and most determined protests ever in Belarus, a crowd of about 200,000 rallied on Sunday against Lukashenko in a square in the capital of Minsk, defying warnings.

They then marched to another rally and approached the Independence Palace, the presidents working residence.

Video from the state news agency Belta showed a government helicopter landing on the grounds and Lukashenko getting off holding what appeared to be a Kalashnikov-type automatic rifle.

No ammunition clip was visible in the weapon, suggesting that Lukashenko aimed only to make a show of aggression.

The streets surrounding Independence Square turned red and white as demonstrators carried flags symbolising their opposition to Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994.

A man waves an historical Belarus flag in front of a riot police blockade during a protest in Minsk, Belarus [Sergei Grits/AP]

Al Jazeeras Step Vaessen, reporting from Minsk, said there was quite a festive atmosphere at the huge rally, with the crowds singing and shouting slogans for Lukashenko to leave office while the authorities kept ordering them to leave the square.

Lukashenko has previously dispatched riot police to disperse rallies that erupted after he claimed a sixth presidential term in an August 9 election that critics say was rigged.

Officials on Sunday warned Belarusians against participating in illegal demonstrations and local news outlets published videos on social media showing water cannon and riot police with shields moving towards Independence Square.

The defence ministry, meanwhile, said it would intervene to protect World War II memorials, which it described as sacred places, and four metro stations in central Minsk were closed.

We categorically warn: any violation of peace and order in such places  you will have the army to deal with now, not the police, it said in a statement. We, soldiers, will not allow these places to be desecrated, there can be no fascism there!





Vaessen said that along with riot police, dozens of military trucks carrying soldiers had also made their way to the centre of the capital.

It was the first time we saw the military being deployed right here in the heart of Minsk. There was a lot of concern that there would be this violent crackdown but that didnt deter anyone. People just came streaming in, Vaessen said, adding that protesters say they have no fear any more.

Solidarity rallies were also due in neighbouring Lithuania, where demonstrators planned to form a human chain from Vilnius to the Belarus border, three decades after residents of the Baltic states joined hands and linked their capital cities in a mass protest against Soviet rule.

The European Union has rejected the results of the presidential election that gave Lukashenko 80 percent of the vote.

The bloc has also promised to sanction Belarusians responsible for ballot fraud and a post-election police crackdown that saw nearly 7,000 people arrested and sparked gruesome allegations of torture and abuse in police custody.

People flash lights from their phones during an opposition demonstration against presidential election results at the Independence Square in Minsk [Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters]

Lukashenko has brushed aside calls to step down, dismissed the possibility of holding a new vote and instructed his security services to quell unrest and secure the borders.

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His opponents have organised strikes and the largest protests in the ex-Soviet countrys recent history over his re-election, with more than 100,000 people turning out in Minsk last weekend.

Yet fewer workers at state-run factories  usually a bastion of support for Lukashenko  have continued to strike, with activists citing pressure from the authorities.

Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has said her countrys people have changed and will no longer accept Lukashenko.

Tikhanovskaya, who has fled to neighbouring Lithuania citing safety concerns, said Lukashenko should step away and it is better for everybody.

Sooner or later he will have to step away. Its better for everybody. Its better for the country if it will happen in the shortest time, the 37-year-old leader told Al Jazeera.

The Belarusian people have changed. They will never accept the old authorities.

People protest against presidential election results at the Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus [Reuters]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, meanwhile, accused Belarusian opposition members who left the country during recent protests of seeking bloodshed, according to the RIA news agency.

Lavrov said on Sunday it would be impossible to prove Lukashenko did not win the election in the absence of international observers.

He also said Moscow calls for the launch of a genuinely broad national dialogue in Belarus.

Lukashenko has threatened to shut down production lines from Monday where workers have put down their tools.

Lukashenkos military inspection this weekend came ahead of large-scale military exercises planned on the border with the EU between August 28 and 31.
TAJI BASE, Iraq, Aug 23 (Reuters) - United States-led international coalition troops withdrew from Iraq's Taji military base and handed it over to Iraqi security forces, Reuters witnesses said.

The withdrawal came days after President Donald Trump redoubled his promise to withdraw the few U.S. troops still in the country. Iraq's parliament had voted earlier this year for the departure of foreign troops from Iraq, and U.S. and other coalition troops have been leaving as part of a drawdown.

The United States has had around 5,000 troops stationed in the country, and coalition allies another 2,500. (Reporting by Maher Nazeh and Thaier al-Sudani Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
For nearly four years Serbian artist Vladimir Miladinovic started his day with a morning coffee and the diary of one of the Balkans' most notorious war criminals, Ratko Mladic.

Word for word, he painstakingly copied the notebook's 400 pages by hand onto fresh white sheets, which now cover the walls of a Belgrade exhibit raising questions about how to confront one of the region's darkest chapters.

For the 39-year-old artist, the task was in part a "performative act of trying to deal with this very harsh material which we are still forced to deal with today, 25 years after the war", he told AFP from the austere gallery on the banks of the Danube.

His subject, the 77-year-old former Bosnian Serb commander whose troops committed genocide in Srebrenica among other war crimes during Yugoslavia's collapse, was sentenced to life in prison by an international tribunal in The Hague in 2017.

His appeal trial is due to start on August 25.

Yet while the legal process moves forward, the wounds he left in former Yugoslavia still fester and his personal legacy remains a battleground.

Many Serbs still consider Mladic a hero and deeply distrust international courts they feel are biased against them.

After his conviction in 2017, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic called on the country to "start looking to the future".

But Miladinovic has gone in the other direction: finding artistic inspiration through immersing himself in the granular details of his country's troubled history.

His previous works have involved a similar redrawing of wartime newspaper pages and primary documents that deal with the "problematic parts of the past that are still negotiable in the present".

- 'Banal' -

Lining the walls of the stark gallery space, the diary entries are easy to read -- written in simple, spare language with ink wash -- but their sheer number makes them difficult to fully absorb.

Spread out page for page, they make visible the effort needed to face one's history, individually and collectively through institutions like a court.

And yet the pages themselves reveal little about the writer.

Many Serbs still consider the convicted former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic a hero /  AFP/File

Drafted in militaristic prose, these are not the crazed scribblings one might expect from a man deemed the "epitome of evil" by a UN rights chief.

Rather, they are a neat log of notes from political and military briefings, with bullet-point lists recording each speaker's remarks.

"In the end we can say that it's even banal, banal language that says nothing but at the same time says a lot," the artist said.

Some entries are purely logistical, for example one that notes the limited supplies of flour and oil for a local bakery.

Another details the precise number of Serbs in various Bosnian towns,eerily bringing to mind the ethnic cleansing that took place as Mladic carved out a Serbs-only statelet in an area once shared with Croats and Muslims.

"We have a state on a platter, we just need to take it," reads one comment in a conversation with Momcilo Krajisnik, a Bosnian Serb political leader also convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Mladic's own point of view is hard to find, though in one entry he writes under the words "my contribution" that Bosnia's Serbs need "unity", "manpower and officers", "funds for conducting a war" and "allies".

- 'Opposite' of forgetting -

The art exhibit, titled "The Notebook", is only the latest incarnation of the diary.

Dating from 1992, the start of Bosnia's war, it was one of some 18 notebooks discovered by ICTY investigators behind a fake wall in the Belgrade home of Mladic's wife a decade ago.

At the time, the man himself was still on the run and would not be arrested until a year later in Serbia, ending a 16-year manhunt.

Miladinovic isn't surprised that his exhibit has drawn more attention abroad than at home, as he says it is trying to do the opposite of what Serbian society is seeking to do -- to forget /  AFP

Handwritten in Cyrillic, the diaries were transcribed by a team of graphologists into a digitised version.

This text was then translated into English and French for the court's international members.

Miladinovic continued the cycle, using the English text as the basis of his own work.

The exhibit has garnered more attention internationally than at home, which does not surprise him.

"The work itself is trying to do something which is the opposite of what (Serbian) society is trying to do, to forget -- to deny, to erase such important issues from the past," he said.
Supporters cheer from their cars as Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden are seen on a huge monitor as fireworks light up the night sky on the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention outside of the Chase Center in Wilmington. (Image: AP)




ZANU-PF Bulawayo Province will today hold elections to choose an interim executive committee that will steer the party forward and instill discipline among members.





Bulawayo Province has been without an executive following the dissolution of structures in 2019 and was operating under the chairmanship of Politburo Member Cde Absalom Sikhosana who died in May. Addressing party members at Davies Hall in Bulawayo yesterday, the National Political Commissar, Cde Victor Matemadanda, said his visit was to pave way for the electoral process.





We want to re-introduce a provincial structure but in an interim capacity for Bulawayo and we are convinced this is going to cause better management of the party in the region. We have done the introduction and we are going to look at the curriculum vitaes of the elected District Coordinating Committees members. Those interested should indicate the positions that they want to contest for. If it is felt that they can contest then they can go ahead and we declare winners, he said.





Cde Matemadanda also spoke of the need to instill and maintain discipline in the party. This comes after the suspension of a member of the District Coordinating Committee (DCC) in Bulawayo area five over allegations of misconduct.





We are saying this party is driven by discipline and if we find that in an area there is misbehaving then we deal with that. In fact, the party is dealing with those issues. Even in the Politburo people have been suspended and some have been expelled, the party is emphasising on the need for discipline, he said.





Cde Matemadanda stressed the need for cadres to behave in a manner consistent with the values of the party.





The President has said we must build cadreship of the party, it is a course that everyone in the leadership is going to go through so that we understand what it means to be a member of the party or a cadre of the party. Zanu-PF is a party with ethics and regulations, he said.





He added; What we do as Zanu-PF must not tamper with the values of the Unity Accord, if you do not understand what it is then consult with those that are in the know. It is very important that any generation of leadership that comes, recognises the Unity Accord.





Cde Matemadanda also castigated the organisers of the failed 31 July demonstrations saying it was only a social media fuss and nothing more.





There was a demonstration planned for 31 July 2020, it was only noise from the Twitter brigade and absence of actual people on the ground. Those who organised the demonstrations then addressed the nation saying they did not want to have an actual march but wanted the country to shut down and considered their plan as a success. But now we are seeing the Americans saying there are abuses of human rights as people did not take to the streets, how, when the organisers said they had successfully launched a demonstration, he said.




Over the years, Bobby Fouther has watched the historic center of African-American life in Portland bloom, shrink and expand again. The 69-year-old artist was born into a creative family from the neighborhood of Albina, which he remembers filled with jazz music and beauty. Black artists were thriving here in the 1950s, he recalled. My parents had turned our grandfathers garage into a miniature theater, where my stepfather and his friends would perform late into the night.

Then came a 1962 study by the Portland Development Commission, which declared the area  home to nearly 80 percent of the citys Black population  lost to advanced blight. Over the next decade, many Albina residents found themselves forcefully relocated as the city carved through their neighborhood with an expanded highway system and hospital project. Even today, Black residents are fighting to preserve the areas historic homes from circling real estate developers.

They tried to scoop us out of the city, explained Mr. Fouther. Now there are generations of Black artists working in Portland to create historical artifacts around our own existence to show that we have always been here.


Farmer May Cho Win has been working on the same land for over 10 years.

When the 28-year-old heard that a conservation project would include her farmland, she wondered how she and her husband would support their children.

Without our land we cant live, she told The Associated Press, speaking by phone from her one-room home. If they come and do this project, we will have nothing to do  well be like dead people.

The $21 million project was the idea of the United Nations development program in Myanmar, the country also known as Burma. It would conserve nearly 14,000 square kilometers of land, coastal areas, and waters in the countrys south.

The Global Environment Facility has offered financing to pay for the project. Other money would come from the Myanmar government, Americas Smithsonian Institution, and other partners.

But Indigenous and land rights activists say the project will affect about 225 villages in the proposed park area. They note that many of the villagers depend on farming and fishing for their survival. The project has been delayed while the U.N. programs inspector general investigates their concerns.

Lack of community approval

With development and deforestation increasing worldwide, Indigenous activists and conservationists recognize the importance of protecting natural areas. They provide a living space for many animals and plants and valuable carbon storage for a warming planet.

Yet palm oil companies, seafood farming, mining and illegal logging operations have caused environmental damage in much of Southeast Asia. Between 2010 and 2015, U.N. officials say, Myanmar experienced the worlds third-highest forest loss after Brazil and Indonesia.

But local activists say when the U.N. program designed the conservation project, it did little to consult with the local community. That violates a central right contained within the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The U.N. said there were many consultations with the community. But activists say that many villagers were not informed of the project until after it was approved.

Both the project side and government sides didnt come and inform us about the project, said Saw Min Yin by phone.

Saw Min Yin is a village leader in the proposed project area. We dont accept this project, because our traditional ways of life may disappear because of it, the 36-year-old said.

Indigenous activists also fear the project would deny some people the right to return home, meaning those forced to flee during years of conflict. Such a return is guaranteed under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Conservation Alliance Tanawthari is a coalition of Indigenous community organizations. It made an official complaint in September 2018 to the independent U.N. development program inspector general for investigation.

The U.N. said project activities are currently fully suspended, and the inspector general still has no estimated release date for findings.

U.N. officials rejected The APs requests for interviews.

Questions over U.N.-supported projects

The Myanmar project is not the first time U.N.-Global Environment Facility conservation projects have been questioned.

In January 2020, a draft of a report by the U.N. development program found that the Baka people had been forced from their homeland in the Republic of Congo. They had lived in forests close to a national park that the U.N. program had financed with other partners. The draft report found the Baka had been beaten by park workers and that women tribe members had been sexually harassed.

Holly Jonas is with the ICCA Consortium, a group working for Indigenous rights. She told The AP there is a false belief that nature is better without people and that we have to protect nature from people.

After learning of the U.N. project in Myanmar, land rights activists spent nearly a year talking with local communities. Their goal was to draft a separate proposal for the Indigenous people to conserve the land.

The proposal involved traditional community-led conservation efforts that have been used for generations. It includes land and forest supervision and traditional customs and actions that protect biodiversity.

We consider ourselves like an animal of the forest. Its like we are tigers  when you take a tiger out of the forest, how will it live? said Paul Sein Twa. He leads the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network. We consider it part of our life and duty to protect our lands.

Evidence of the effectiveness of such community-led conservation already can be found in Myanmar. Earlier this year, a community-led conservation project in Karen State won the U.N. Equator Prize for environmentally safe development solutions.

For May Cho Win, the desire to keep protecting her forested land and to grow durian and cotton plants remains firm  U.N. project or not.

Im Alice Bryant.



The Associated Press reported this story. Alice Bryant adapted it for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

conservation  n. the protection of animals, plants, and natural resources

indigenous  adj. living or existing naturally in a particular region or environment

logging  n. cutting down trees for timber

consult  v. to talk about something with someone in order to make a decision

complaint  n. a statement that you are unhappy or not satisfied with something

interview  n. a meeting at which people talk to each other in order to ask questions and get information

draft  adj. not yet in final form

park  n. a large area of public land kept in its natural state to protect plants and animals

harass  v. to annoy or bother someone in a constant or repeated way

biodiversity  n. the existence of many different kinds of plants and animals in an environment
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-24 00:08:11|Editor: huaxia

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BAGHDAD, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi Health Ministry on Sunday reported 3,291 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total nationwide infections to 204,341.

In a statement, it also reported 75 fatalities during the day, raising the death toll to 6,428, while 3,016 more patients recovered in the day, bringing the total number of recoveries to 146,409.

The new cases were recorded after 19,679 testing kits were used across the country during the day, and a total of 1,433,626 tests have been carried out since the outbreak of the disease, according to the statement.

Meanwhile, Ziyad Hazim, a public health specialist in Baghdad Health Department, said in a press release that controlling the spread of the coronavirus in Iraq is in the hands of the citizens through their compliance with the health preventive measures.

He said that the recent increase in COVID-19 infections was mainly due to the increase in testing capacity and the non-compliance of the citizens with health preventive measures.

Hazim also said that the health ministry's daily figures are encouraging in general despite the hike of COVID-19 infections, "as the rate of recoveries is 72 percent of the total infections and the fatalities rate is no more than 3 percent."

Iraq has been taking a series of measures to contain the pandemic since February when the first coronavirus case appeared in the country.

China has been helping Iraq fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

From March 7 to April 26, a Chinese team of seven medical experts spent 50 days in Iraq to help contain the disease, during which they helped build a PCR lab and install an advanced CT scanner in Iraq's capital Baghdad.

Since March 7, China has also sent three batches of medical aid to Iraq. Enditem
When Fox News Sean Hannity asked President Donald Trump last week if poll watchers would ensure voters are registered in November, the president said were going to have sheriffs, and were going to have law enforcement, and were going to have, hopefully U.S. attorneys, and were going to have everybody and attorney generals.

On Sunday, Trump administration officials backed off the presidents assertions after voting experts and lawmakers expressed concerns about voter intimidation and suppression.

Federal law bars any civil or military leader from ordering or bringing any troops or armed men to any place where a general or special election is held, with the only exception being if the force is necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.

Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told CNNs Jake Tapper that the president had absolutely not discussed deploying DHS agents to polling locations.

Thats not what we do at the Department of Homeland Security, Wolf said. We have law enforcement authorities and law enforcement officers at the Department. We have expressed authorities given to us by Congress, and this is not one of them.

Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf says the President has not discussed deploying law enforcement agents from his department to polling locations. Thats not what we do at the Department of Homeland Security. https://t.co/B5wCINmJAO #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/P0tn2nL05S  State of the Union (@CNNSotu) August 23, 2020

Wolf noted that DHS agents had been sent to cities like Portland to protect federal property, and other cities to curtail violence  which the president, a few months before the November election, has framed in political terms by blaming an antigovernment movement from the Left ... in (Democratic) run cities.

Pressed by Tapper on whether hed send agents to polling locations if the president demanded it, Wolf said, We dont have any authority to do that at the department.

Meanwhile, Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, told Fox News Chris Wallace on Sunday that Trumps remarks addressed safety, not intimidation.

.@MarkMeadows walks back President Trump's claim that sheriffs will be present at polling places on election day saying "So to the extent that we're going to deploy thousands of sheriffs, no we are not going to do that." #FoxNewsSunday  FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) August 23, 2020

I think what the president was really addressing was to make sure that if you want to show up and vote in person, were going to make sure that that is safe, Meadows said. To the extent that were going to deploy thousands of sheriffs, no, were not going to do that.
Bihar assembly election 2020: BJP, JD(U), LJP to fight together, says JP Nadda

India

pti-Madhuri Adnal

New Delhi, Aug 23: BJP President J P Nadda said on Sunday that all three NDA constituents in Bihar, the JD(U), LJP and his party, will fight the coming assembly polls in the state together with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as the face of the alliance, and expressed confidence that it will emerge victorious.

Nadda's remarks at a virtual meet of the Bihar BJP comes amid a bitter war of words between Kumar's JD(U) and Chirag Paswan-headed LJP. The BJP has been maintaining that the ruling National Democratic Alliance is intact in the state and has stuck to Kumar's projection as its chief ministerial face.

Bihar assembly election 2020: BJP President JP Nadda begins 2-day virtual strategy meet today

Nadda also claimed that the opposition in Bihar as well as elsewhere has become a "spent force" and asserted that the BJP is the only party which is being looked at by people with hope.

The opposition has neither ideology nor vision nor any spirit to serve people, and it can't rise above petty politics, he added. He praised the Bihar government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and floods in the state. The special package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been implemented in "letter and spirit", he said, asking the state BJP to go to people with its details.

Nadda also shared details of the Modi government's work to boost health care measures to battle the pandemic and to provide relief to people, especially the poor, with several packages. Assembly elections in the state are due in October-November.
Deepak Sathish By

Express News Service

COIMBATORE: Health Minister C Vijayabaskar on Sunday said the state government is planning to initiate an automated system that enables residents' to receive Covid-19 test results through SMS.

He was speaking to newsmen after heading a high-level review meeting at Coimbatore Collectorate on Sunday, which was also attended by Municipal Administration Minister S P Velumani.

Vijayabaskar said the automated system shall be put in place within two weeks. He stated the Covid-19 test results are declared in 24 hours, but said the re-testing of the samples might consume 48 hours.

Talking about the steps to control the virus spread in Coimbatore, he said the administration shall go with aggressive testing strategy, as similar to Chennai.

"Fever camps world continue to be hosted across the district for early diagnosis of the symptoms of Coronavirus, ILI, or SARI. In Coimbatore, 1,902 people have been diagnosed with Covid-19 through 6,312 fever camps," said Vijayabaskar.

Besides, he said they are fully equipped to handle the Covid-19 cases in Coimbatore with the bed tally of 5,821. Coimbatore's recovery rate as on Saturday stands at 78 per cent, he added.

Earlier, Ministers Vijayabaskar and S P Velumani inaugurated the plasma bank worth '25 lakhs at Coimbatore Medical College Hospital to provide convalescent plasma therapy to the infected patients.

Vijayabaskar informed four donors including a medical student, two military personnel, and a news photographer of a vernacular daily have come forward to donate their plasma.

According to sources, about 400 ml of plasma collected from the donors would be provided to two infected patients with a moderate health condition.

Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan, District Collector K Rajamani, CMCH Dean (in-charge) P Kalidas, professor, and other government officials were present.
Thou Shalt Admit Thy GuiltOr Maybe Not

Commentary

One of the clear signs of a totalitarian situation is the imposition of guilt of some kind upon people who have shown no evidence of having perpetrated a crime.

I dont mean cases of false arrest or mistaken prosecutions, whereby the officials truly believe in the as-yet-unproven guilt of the suspect or have some preexisting grudge against him. I mean cases in which the authorities are willing to admit that you havent committed any particular crime, but demand that you nonetheless assume that youre guilty and require correction.

On June 3, the provost of Converse College, a private, liberal arts school in South Carolina, sent a letter to all the faculty members on campus announcing that everyone was obligated to take two online professional development courses. One of them was entitled diversity inclusion training, the other uncovering unconscious bias.

The mandate followed a statement issued by President Krista Newkirk that spoke in plaintive words of the death of George Floyd and the many others we have heard about in the last few years [that] highlight the impact of a system of racism.

The presidents letter proceeded to attribute the higher death rates from COVID-19 among African Americans to the same thing, systemic racism. The pandemic itself highlights the injustices in our own backyards. She closed with a fervent exhortation, urging Converse people to raise our voices to condemn the racist actions around us. If they do not do so, we allow hatred, racism, and violence to grow in our midst. In short, we must do better.

The provost quotes those words from the presidents statement and aligns the training sessions with doing better. He also signals his concern over student protests when the fall term begins and hopes that everyones participation in the anti-racism program will prove to distressed and angry students that Converse personnel are listening closely and showing sensitivity.

Everything in the vocabulary and tone of the statements indicates that the positions taken by the administration are earnest and conscientious. What they propose, however, is so solemn and urgent, not to mention commonplace, that its easy to blink at how accusatory and coercive it is. Think about the basic message: Racism is all around us; you are complicit in the problem; if you do not become an active, vocal anti-racist, you are guilty.

In other words, this training plan tells everybody at Converse that they are culpable characters. Professors and staff must undergo that training as a first step in correction.

The willingness of college professors who otherwise pride themselves on their independence and academic freedom to comply with these accusations and orders has been one of the remarkable stories in higher education in this year of woke reform. The mandatory training that has happened at Converse and many, many other places amounts to a disciplinary punishment.

You must be purified of your unconscious bias, and we will lead the ceremony. You are guilty, and we will show you how. If you believe you arent racist, if you support affirmative action in hiring and admissions, if you always include African American material on your syllabus that doesnt count. You still must undergo training. Indeed, if you think you dont need it, that only proves you really do need it.

But something different happened this time. After the provosts letter went out, a 68-year-old professor in the Department of History and Politics, Jeffrey J. Poelvoorde, issued a long public letter stating, I cannot and will not comply with this mandate.

Poelvoorde didnt like the coerciveness of the proposal, and he also criticized the president for ignoring the looting, rioting, and violence that followed the death of Floyd. He worried, too, that the diversity and bias training imposed an ideological demand that, as the only Jew at a Christian college, he was particularly well-equipped to discern. Added to that, he admits to being a Republican and a political conservative, an identity that aggravates his isolation.

Reaction was swift. Students wrote to the president to say how much Poelvoordes letter upset them. Newkirk replied with a letter to all students assuring them of Converses commitment to diversity and that Dr. Poelvoorde  does not speak for Converse. She repeated her demand that everyone complete the bias videos and asked any students who experience discrimination to report it to the deans.

A few days later, she wrote to Poelvoorde telling him that bias training is necessary because of a greater disease that affects Converse: racism and discrimination. She also accuses him of counseling students of color to shrug off the racism of white student-peers (she says she grieves over the pain he has thus caused them). He must follow the mandate, she repeats, which is not an infringement of your rights.

Poelvoorde hired an attorney who sent a letter back to the president in late July. The attorney drew a sharp distinction between professional training in laws regarding harassment and ideologically oriented trainings, which she characterized as an intrusive attempt at thought reform. She cited the colleges stated policies on freedom of thought and identified the bias training as compulsion of thought. She asks that Converse do but one thing: make the training voluntary, not mandatory.

The president answers with a curt refusal. The training remains mandatory. Furthermore, she argues, the materials arent coercive at all, merely a way for personnel to reconsider their opinions.

Poelvoorde wasnt impressed, and he didnt obey. That led to a note from the provost dated Aug. 4 warning that if Poelvoorde didnt proceed with the training, Converse will take appropriate corrective action, up to and including termination of your employment.

A quick reply from the attorney offered a compromise. If Converse would make the training voluntary, Poelvoorde would happily take it. But he will not agree if it remains a mandate.

A final letter from the administration ended the episode. The provost informed him that his refusal to complete the video courses constituted insubordination in the performance of contractual responsibilities. The administration decided only to reprimand him, however, not to terminate him, though his conduct will be included in future compensation decisions.

This ends the story of one mans dissent. He didnt lose his job, he had to hire a lawyer, and he endured public shame, but he continues his professional life with integrity intact. Poelvoorde is one of those individuals who react at the sensation of undue pressure. He isnt willing to accept on faith the college administrator as a moral guide (Newkirk is new to the job). And he doesnt like being told that he has a problem and needs reeducation. (There is no evidence that Poelvoorde has ever discriminated against students or anyone else in the past.)

Why arent there more dissenters like him? Obviously, because campus dwellers are afraid; they dont want trouble; they have kids and mortgages  But here is the thing: If only two other professors would have joined Poelvoorde in his resistance, the affair would have ended quickly. The administration would have backed down and made the training voluntary.

One dissenter, you see, can be marked down as an eccentric, a trouble-maker, a kook. Three dissenters begin to look like a genuine protest. If three people object to a policy, its hard to chalk it up to personal reasons or sheer obstruction. The real story at Converse wasnt Poelvoorde. It was all the colleagues who failed to stand up and say, Leave him alone!

I take his case as a win for academic freedomperhaps. It depends on whether his example will multiply. We shall see in the coming months, because we should expect many more thought-control initiatives to surface on campuses across the country. Poelvoordes case shows that these meddling bureaucrats may not be as powerful as we think.

Mark Bauerlein is an emeritus professor of English at Emory University. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Post, the TLS, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
In the flood of articles currently buffeting the gates at Rideau Hall there is a common description, often employed derisively, of the governor general being largely a ceremonial figure in our democracy. Caustic references to ribbon cutting feed into the national tendency of diminishing the ceremonies and traditions woven into our society, rather than seeing them for what they are: integral parts of living in a modern democracy.

As a high school teacher, I witnessed a herculean effort by colleagues, administrators and parents to ensure that our students graduation was marked in some way in leu of formal graduation ceremonies cancelled by the pandemic.

Commencement is a rite of passage as much for the families as it is for the students themselves even though the ceremony itself does not confer a diploma (that happens the moment a student meets the necessary provincial requirements). The processions, handshakes, awards, pomp and ceremony are employed to humanize and mark the transition from one part of life to another.

The Crown sits at the apex of our democracy. The Queen, represented by the governor general (and provincially by the lieutenant governors), acts as a reflection of the very best ideals of Canada. Central to that role is their participation in the traditions and ceremonies that hold this precarious and constantly evolving federation together.

The presence of the Crown elevates an event and its participants, reaffirming their importance to the greater society. Thousands of invitations received by the Governor General each year attest to this.

Turning to the governor general's role as treaty partners with Indigenous Peoples highlights the critical part ceremony plays in maintaining these dynamic relationships. Treaty relationships are deeply personal, requiring meaningful participation of the Queens representative in protocols and ceremonies across the country.

I was gifted an important teaching that said, for non-Indigenous people, ceremony is often siloed at the beginning and end of gatherings, however for Indigenous people, it is interwoven into the entire relationship. Thus, the active participation of the Queens representative is a requirement.

As a society we have stripped away many of the ceremonies and traditions that marked our national life in the name of austerity and notions of modernity. As we reflect on the role of the governor general, the oldest public office in the land, we need to heed our Indigenous partners who teach us to honour the ceremonies and traditions that magnify our lives, both personally and nationally.

Rather than being trivial, the traditions and ceremonies surrounding the Crowns representatives are critical to understanding our complex federation, history, treaty relationships and evolving democratic institutions.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh and Chinese State Counsellor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on August 23 co-chaired a ceremony to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the signing

of the Vietnam-China Land Border Treaty at Mong Cai International Border Gate in the northern province of Quang Ninh.

Deputy PM and FM Pham Binh Minh (right) and Chinese State Counsellor and FM Wang Yi on August 23 co-chair a ceremony to mark the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Vietnam-China Land Border Treaty. (Photo: VNA)

The ceremony also marked the 10th year of the implementation of three legal documents on land border signed between the two countries.

In his remarks at the event, Minh underscored the significance of the signing of the treaty in 1999, the completion of their boundary demarcation and marker planting in 2008, and the implementation of the three legal documents on land border since 2010.

They mark the completion of the two sides 36-year negotiations on border demarcation, Minh said.

He said both sides had consistently pursued the principles of equality, mutual respect and valid concern over each others interests on the basis of agreed legal framework and international laws while demarcating the shared border.

He reaffirmed that the Party, State and people of Vietnam always attach great importance to maintaining the friendship with China and stand ready to deepen the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership.

The Vietnamese official proposed the two countries to continue coordinating in border management, promoting the role of the Vietnam-China Land Border Joint Committee and implementing the three legal documents.

Deputy PM and FM Pham Binh Minh (left) and Chinese State Counsellor and FM Wang Yi visit border landmark 1369 in China. (Photo: VNA)

He also urged the two sides to further foster cooperation in economics, trade and tourism along the shared border and to beef up friendly exchange and win-win partnership between border localities in each nation.

Yi, for his part, called on the two countries to well handle issues emerging along the shared border and improve the effectiveness of border management. The good settlement of land border and Gulf of Tonkin issues between the two sides will provide valuable experience for resolving maritime disputes, he said.



The two officials also exchanged views on the situation and measures to boost relations between the two Parties and States in the time to come, as well as issues of mutual concern, including facilitating the travel of experts, technicians and peoples of the two countries, on the basis of ensuring the COVID-19 fight. They agreed to assign relevant authorities of their sides to further discuss on this matter./.VNA
Bhopal: Union Minister for Road Transport, Highways and MSMEs Nitin Gadkari will lay the foundation stone of and inaugurate 35 highway projects in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday (August 25, 2020).

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan will also preside over the virtual function.

It will also be attended by Thavar Chand Gehlot, Narendra Singh Tomar, Prahlad Singh Patel, Faggan Singh Kulaste and Gen Dr V K Singh (Rtd), Ministers from the State, several MPs, MLAs and senior officers from the Centre and the State.

These projects for inauguration and foundation laying carry a road length of 1139 kilometres and involve construction value of over Rs 9400 crore.

"Paving the way for development of MP, these roads will enhance better connectivity, convenience and economic growth in the State," said the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways.

Earlier on August 21, Nitin Gadkari had launched Harit Path, a mobile app to monitor the plantations through geo-tagging and web-based GIS-enabled monitoring tools. The app has been developed by

NHAI to monitor location, growth, species details, maintenance activities, targets and achievements of each of its field units for each and every plant under all plantation projects.

While inaugurating the mobile app, the Minister emphasized on strict monitoring of plantation and transplantation of trees.

Chairing a meeting to review New Green Highways Policy (Plantation) and to discuss the use of new technologies in road construction through video conference, he said that it should be our mission to reduce the cost of construction by 25 %.

He suggested that specialised persons or agencies should be hired for plantation of trees along the highways.


Another week is over and done, so let's look at the top stories. The US patched its ban on Huawei by adding some 38 third-party companies that Huawei used to circumvent some of the restrictions. Thus Huawei effectively is left without access to US-based chips and chip technology and could end up without a chip supplier for its phones.

We spotted renders of what could prove to be the Sony Xperia 5 II. While we're very eager for a successor to the tiny and powerful Xperia of 2019, this likely isn't it as the renders look like a miniaturized version of the Xperia 1 II so were likley fake.

The Realme C11, which was unveiled in Malaysia at the end of June is coming to Europe this week, on August 26. It has a 5,000mAh battery, 6.5-inch screen, dual 13MP + 2MP camera and a Helio G35 chipset. We expect the Realme C11 to cost around 100.

The Samsung Galaxy S20 Fan Edition leaked in six colors. It is coming with an Exynos 990 chipset, 6.4-inch or 6.5-inch FullHD+ AMOLED display, 4,500mAh battery and a triple camera with 12MP main, 12MP ultrawide and 8MP telephoto sensors. We expect the Galaxy S20 Fan Edition to come in October, priced at KRW900,000 ($760/640).

A report suggests that the upcoming Samsung Galaxy M51 will bring, are you sitting down, a 7,000mAh battery. Looking at the Galaxy M31 and its 6,000mAh and the report begins to make sense.

Speaking of Samsung, it made a lot of its fans happy with a promise of at least 3 major updates for all of its Galaxy S, Note and Foldable series (starting from the Galaxy S10/Note10) and a select number of its Galaxy A series. The full list of devices is here.

The Asus Zenfone 7 series are coming next week - on August 26. We expect both the Zenfone 7 and 7 Pro to have a Snapdragon 865 (possibly a SD865+ on the Pro) and start at just 500.

iQOO launched the iQOO 5 and 5 Pro last week. The pair launches in China on August 24, starting at CNY 3,998 and CNY 4,998, respectively and bring 6.56-inch AMOLED screens with 120Hz refresh rate, Snapdragon 865 chipsets and a different set of cameras and batteries. The 5 Pro has a 50MP main camera, 8MP 135mm periscope telephoto and 13MP ultrawide, along with a 4,000mAh battery. The iQOO 5 has a 50MP main camera, 13MP 2x telephoto (not a periscope), 13MP ultrawide and a 4,500mAh battery.

Those were the key stories of last week.



Alleged Sony Xperia 5 II renders surface, but there's a problem Sony's lineup is missing its petite flagship this year, however multiple sellers on Alibaba are listing cases for the phone.





Realme C11 is coming to Europe on August 26 The phone will compete in the 100 category and the ace up its sleeve is the "gaming" Helio G35 chipset.





Samsung Galaxy M51 to bring 7,000 mAh battery, SD730 chipset No, this is not a typo - the report says seven thousand mAh with 25W fast-charging.





Samsung confirms devices eligible for 3 Android OS updates All future Galaxy S, Note, Tab S and foldables are guaranteed 3 OS updates alongside select Galaxy A members.





Google Maps get more detailed in a colorful update Maps will have more color to distinguish different geographies and cities will have more detailed streets, crosswalks, and pathways.





iQOO 5 and 5 Pro unveiled with 120Hz screens, Snapdragon 865 and blazing fast charging The Pro gets the impressive 120W Flash Charge and a periscope module while the vanilla settles for 55W charging and a 13MP portrait camera.


The Presidency listed Buharis achievements in the last one year after being re-elected in 2019.

The achievement cuts across the economy, governance, transportation, oil and gas as well as human empowerment. Some laws which President Buhari assented to in the last one year, were also added to the list.

See the full list below;

Establishment of new Ministries, including Police Affairs and Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.

Restoration of the Budget Implementation Cycle to a January-to-December Calendar, with the signing of the 2020 Appropriation Bill in December 2019.

Signing into law a Finance Bill, to reform domestic tax laws, introduce tax incentives for investments in infrastructure and capital markets, and improve the business environment. It was the first time since the return of democracy in 1999 that a Federal Budget was accompanied by a passage of an enabling Finance Bill.

Approval of 10 billion Naira Intervention Fund for the upgrade of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu. That project is now very close to completion.

Ordering a forensic audit of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

Rise to 131st position, from 146th on the World Bank Doing Business Index, earning a place as one of ten top performing countries in the word.

Assent to the Deep Offshore (and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contract) Act, a landmark legislative reform which will generate hundreds of millions of dollars in extra government revenues annually.

Performing the ground-breaking for the University of Transportation in Daura, an investment by CCECC in Nigeria. On a similar note, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo performed the ground-breaking for a new Wagon Assembly Plant in Kajola, Ogun State, which will produce rolling stock for Nigerias new Rail Lines, and create jobs for thousands of Nigerians.

President Buhari approved the Financial Transparency Policy, mandating publication of Public Financial Information through an Open Treasury Portal.

Nigerian has a new Visa Policy, that will improve the business environment, attract innovation and FDI, boost tourism and improve African integration.

Nigeria commenced issuance of Visas on Arrival to all persons holding passports of African countries.

President Buhari approved the commencement of the Community Policing initiative, and has approved a 13.3 billion Naira take-off grant.

Nigeria commenced Operation Ex-Swift Response, a multi-agency security operation to secure the nations land borders.

President Buhari flagged-off construction of the AjaokutaKadunaKano (AKK) gas pipeline.

President Buhari launched the the Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Scheme.

President Buhari established the Economic Sustainability Committee (ESC), under the leadership of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. The ESC has since developed the Nigeria Economic Sustainability Plan (NESP), a 2.3 Trillion Naira stimulus package to help cushion the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The Federal Executive Council approved the kick-off of pre-engineering phase (and payment of part counterpart funding) of the Presidential Power Initiative, a government-to-government deal involving the Nigeria, Germany and Siemens AG.

Final Investment Decision was reached on the US$10 billion Train 7 expansion of Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Limited (in which the NNPC holds a 49 percent stake). This was followed by the signing of the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the project. The Train 7 will expand NLNGs capacity by 35 percent, and further position Nigeria as one of the leading producers and exporters of LNG in the world.

Commencement of payment of increased Allowance (33,000 Naira monthly) to NYSC members.

President Buhari established the National Humanitarian Coordination Committee (NHCC), and the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 (PTFCOVID19).

President Buhari approved the release of a 10 billion Naira Grant to the Lagos State Government and a five billion Naira Grant to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), to support the Coronavirus Response.

President Buhari signed an Amendment to Executive Order 8, the Voluntary Offshore Assets Regularisation Scheme (VOARS).

The Department of Petroleum Resources has commenced the bidding round for 57 Marginal Fields, the first such process in almost 20 years.

A National Special Public Works (SPW) programme kicked off in the first quarter of 2020, with a successful pilot programme in eight States. It is now being expanded nationwide, and will provide employment and stipends for 774,000 young Nigerians  1,000 beneficiaries per Local Government) for three months, starting October 2020.

The Itakpe-Warri Railway Line is now ready for operations. Construction commenced more than three decades ago, and then the project was abandoned for many years, until President Buhari took office. It has now been completed and is ready to commence commercial operations, as Nigerias Central Line.

Track-laying for the main section of the new Lagos-Ibadan Standard Gauge Railway Line was completed in March 2020, almost exactly three years after Vice President Yemi Osinbajo performed the ground-breaking ceremony for the project, on behalf of President Buhari

The Nigeria Police Trust Fund, established by the President in 2019, has now been operationalised, with the appointment and inauguration of a Board of Trustees, and an Executive Secretary.

Nigeria defeated Polio  attaining, in Q3 2020, the status of being officially free from the Wild Polio Virus, for the first time in the countrys history.

No fewer than three private Modular Refinery projects have been completed in 2020, a clear manifestation of the success of the New Vision for the Niger Delta, President Buharis Peace, Security and Development Agenda for the oil-producing region of Nigeria. The Modular Refining element of the New Vision involves extending policy and financing support to private investors seeking to establish Modular Refineries.

The first of the dozen A-29 Super Tucano light attack, combat and reconnaissance aircraft ordered by Nigeria in a government-to-government deal with the United States successfully completed its inaugural flight at the production facility. The full fleet is scheduled for delivery in 2021.

President Buhari approved the establishment of a 75 billion Naira Nigerian Youth Investment Fund (NYIF), to provide 5%-interest business loans to Nigerians aged between 18 and 35.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) launched a 50 billion Naira Household and SME support facility, to cushion the effect of the Coronavirus pandemic. As at July 2020, N49.195 billion has been disbursed, to over 92,000 beneficiaries.

Applications opened (and have now closed) for a new Batch of beneficiaries for the N-Power Jobs Scheme, a component of the National Social Investment Programme, overseen by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development. More than 5 million young Nigerians applied for the 400,000 places to be filled.

The Federal Government approved a new Policy for the promotion of local production of Bitumen and other construction materials In Nigeria.
Dozens of people took to the streets of Lafayette, Louisiana, in response to the death of Trayford Pellerin, 31.

Community activists said they will present their frustrations and demand racial justice from the leaders of a Louisiana city on Sunday, following a night of violence that erupted after police shot and killed a Black man.

Dozens of people took to the streets of Lafayette on Saturday in response to the death of Trayford Pellerin, 31.

On Friday night, officers followed Pellerin on foot as he left a convenience store where he had created a disturbance with a knife, Louisiana State Police said. Stun guns failed to stop him, and the officers shot Pellerin as he tried to enter another convenience store, still with the knife, according to a news release.

The shooting was captured on video, and the state ACLU condemned what it described as an horrific and deadly incident of police violence against a Black person. Both the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center quickly called for an investigation.

Rikasha Montgomery, who took a video of the shooting, said a man holding what looked like a knife kept walking down the highway while some officers fired stun guns at him [Screengrab/Twitter via Ben Crump]

Saturday afternoons protest started peacefully but violence broke out as night fell, leading to officers clearing the crowd with smoke canisters, Trooper Derek Senegal said.

Officials said at a news conference late on Saturday that fireworks had been shot at buildings and fires set in the median of a road where demonstrations had taken place.

Our intent is not going to be to just let people disrupt our town and put our citizens and our motorists and our neighbourhoods in danger, Interim Police Chief Scott Morgan said.

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Arrests were made, Morgan said, but an exact number was not immediately available.

We do support peoples First Amendment rights, Lafayette Parish Sheriff Mark Garber said. However, when it comes to the destruction of property, we are not going to have Lafayette set on fire.

The activists attempted to attend the news conference but were escorted out because Lafayette Mayor-President Josh Guillory said it was private, Lafayette NAACP President Marja Broussard said. They planned to confront Guillory on Sunday at 5pm at Lafayette City Hall.

Activist Jamal Taylor said the demonstrators who caused destruction on Saturday night came from out of town.

They picked the wrong city to do this in, Taylor said. If youre one of these bad actors that comes in and sets fires and throws rocks and pops firecrackers, youre not welcome here in Lafayette.

The activists also expressed discontent that leaders did not offer condolences to Pellerins family at the news conference.

Josh Guillory is lower than a dog for that, Taylor said.

Tensions surrounding the fatal shooting follow a global reckoning over police tactics and racial injustice that stems from the death of George Floyd on May 25 under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer.

Calls for officers dismissal

National civil rights lawyer Ben Crump said he was representing Pellerins family, and that he and Baton Rouge lawyer Ronald Haley had begun their own investigation by interviewing witnesses.

The officers involved should be fired immediately for their abhorrent and fatal actions, Crump said in a statement on Saturday.

Pellerins mother said her son was intelligent, shy and had sought therapy for social anxiety. Pellerin became anxious in groups and may have been frightened by the officers, Michelle Pellerin told The Advocate. He had sought professional help earlier this year, she said.

The family believes Pellerin may have been having a mental health crisis, Crump said.

Lafayette police asked state police to investigate  standard procedure in the state for shootings by local officers.

Demands for change

Rikasha Montgomery, who took a video of the shooting, told The Advertiser that a man holding what looked like a knife kept walking down the highway while some officers fired stun guns at him. Officers holding guns shouted at him to get onto the ground, said Montgomery, 18.

She said they fired when the man reached the door of a Shell gas station.

When I heard the gunshots, I couldnt hold my phone like I was first filming, she said. I feel kind of scared about it. Im traumatised. Youre so used to hearing about this, but I never thought I would experience it.

The incident was the third shooting by Lafayette police since mid-July. State police said a man was critically wounded last month after being shot during an altercation with police. Another man was in a stable condition after being shot during a burglary investigation earlier this month.

Haley told The Advocate that he and Crump will be seeking reform and policy changes in the police department as well as damages.

We want policy changes as well, so that Ben and I are not in the living room with another family in Lafayette dealing with this, Haley said.
Actor Sushant Singh Rajput's flat-mate Siddharth Pithani and cook Neeraj Singh reached the DRDO guest house on Sunday morning for questioning by the CBI in connection with the actor's death case, a police official said.

Pithani and Neeraj arrived separately at the guest house located at Kalina in Santacruz, where the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team probing the case is staying, he said.

Their questioning was underway, the official said.

On Saturday, the CBI team accompanied by Neeraj, Rajput's another domestic help Deepesh Sawant and Pithani visited the late actor's house in Bandra to reconstruct the sequence of events before he was found dead there on June 14.

These three were present in the apartment when Rajput was found hanging in his room.

The CBI team, which also comprised forensic science experts, left around 8 pm, after spending more than five hours in the actor's flat.

Another CBI team on Saturday visited the state-run Cooper Hospital in the city, where autopsy had been performed on Rajput's body.

A third CBI team had visited the Bandra police station to meet Mumbai Police officials who were investigating Rajput's alleged suicide earlier.

On Friday, the CBI officials recorded the statements of Pithani and Neeraj.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the transfer of an FIR, lodged by Rajput's father in Patna against actor Rhea Chakraborty and others for allegedly abetting his suicide, to the CBI.

After Rajput, 34, was found hanging in his apartment, the Mumbai Police had registered a case of accidental death.

Later, Rajputs father filed a police complaint in Patna, accusing Chakraborty and her family of abetting the actor's suicide and misappropriating his money.
Legend has it that famed Hollywood producer Samuel Goldwyn once told a filmmaker "if you want to send a message, use Western Union". But at Participant Media, the US-based production company with 19 Academy Awards to its name, they'd most likely say "bring it on".

Founded in 2004 by Jeff Skoll, the entrepreneur and philanthropist who was eBay's first president (and also its first employee), Participant unashamedly makes films, documentaries and TV series with a message. Its recent successes include Green Book, Spotlight and Roma, and it counts some of Hollywood's biggest names  Steven Spielberg (Lincoln), Steven Soderbergh (Contagion), George Clooney (Good Night, and Good Luck)  among its past collaborators.

Jude Law in Steven Soderbergh's pandemic thriller Contagion, an early Participant production that has taken on renewed relevance.

Its documentary arm is just as important, producing the likes of this year's Oscar-winning American Factory, Ai Wei-Wei's Human Flow, and Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and its sequel.

From next week, a batch of Participant's non-fiction titles will begin dropping on local streamer Docplay, adding to those that are already there. By year's end, there will be 20 Participant titles  including Jimmy Carter, Man From Plains, Last Call at the Oasis, Citizenfour and Page One: Inside the New York Times  on a platform that Participant CEO David Linde says has a vital role to play in the future of the medium.
Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan has conveyed a message on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The message reads as follows:

Dear compatriots, proud citizens of the Republic of Armenia,

Thirty years ago, the Supreme Council adopted the Declaration of Independence of Armenia, which heralded the start of the establishment of independent statehood. This historic decision was hinged on the will of the Armenian people to have an independent state and derived from that will, which was confirmed through a referendum for Armenias independence a year later.

The past 30 years have been years of many trials, failures and victories. Among the major victories was the victory in the glorious battle for the liberation of Artsakh that became the foundation and stimulus for the formation of the Armenian army. The victorious battles in July 2020 proved that we Armenians have an efficient army that is capable of defending Armenias security and that Armenia can guarantee the security of Artsakh with honor.

The biggest failure of the past 30 years is the low level of functioning of state and public institutions, if not to say the absence of institutions. Almost right after it gained independence, Armenia suffered from the absence of a judiciary, rule of law and equality of everyone before the law.

For many years, corruption has been the major toolkit for public administration, and as a result, Armenia remained without an effective public administration system. Corruption has penetrated into all sectors, including the public administration system, the judiciary, schools, kindergartens, universities, academic and cultural circles, mass media outlets, the electoral system and sometimes even spiritual relations. This has been the failure of all of us.

The most devastating result of all this was the fact that citizens were alienated from their state, rights and duties, state order became alien for citizens because it was based on political coercion hinged on corruption and electoral fraud, not the will of the people.

The non-violent, velvet and peoples revolution that took place in 2018 solved this problem. Citizens who were alienated from their rights regained their right to form government, and this is a historic opportunity to enshrine the successes of the past 30 years and fix the failures.

Our primary objective is the functioning of state and public institutions. The normal development of the army must continue, and we must set the objective to have one of the most efficient armies in the world.

An electoral mechanism that will rule out electoral fraud, an independent judiciary, an education system serving the institutional goals of the state and people and increasing competitiveness and free of fraud, a public administration system promoting high professionalism and effectiveness, an innovative, creative and competitive economy, citizens, businessmen and officials who treat obligations with zeal  these are our future pressing objectives.

Work, education, ongoing increase of skills and knowledge must become the bedrock for social security and welfare of all citizens, every citizen himself must become responsible for welfare, and the government and state must create sufficient educational, legal and competitive conditions.

Dear people, proud citizens of the Republic of Armenia, I congratulate all of us on the 30th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of Armenia. We recently adopted the new Strategy on National Security in which we stated that Armenia today is positioning itself as the major milestone for the statehood of the Armenian people and that the line of conduct today will determine the destiny of the Armenian people for the next millennium. The state order established in Armenia must become familiar for every citizen and must derive from the informed responsibility of every citizen.

We represent the generation that adopted the Declaration of Independence, and it is our historical duty and mission to turn the proclaimed wishes into a reality. This makes each of us responsible because the Armenian state must exist forever and the Armenian people must exist forever.

And so,

Long live Freedom!

Long live the Republic of Armenia!

Long live the Republic of Artsakh!

Long live we and our children who are living and will live in a Free and Happy Armenia!
The election sign on Shelley Glicas front yard in Niagara Falls, Ont., doesnt say anything about her preference for Democratic nominee Joe Biden over Republican incumbent Donald Trump.

But it is a call to action for American citizens living in Canada to cast a ballot in Novembers U.S. presidential election.

I think its our civic responsibly to vote, said Glica, a dual citizen from New York state and member of the new Niagara Region chapter of Democrats Abroad.

My children are adults and Ive always encouraged them to vote as well, so I have two kids registered with Democrats Abroad and they vote from Canada.

I think this year particularly, its important to get out and vote. I dont think four more years of the current administration is going to be a good thing for the U.S.

Democrats Abroad is pushing the message in countries around the world that American citizens living outside the U.S. can vote in American elections no matter how long theyve been outside the country. They can find out how to cast a ballot by going to the non-partisan votefromabroad.org.

Thats something few U.S. citizens on this side of the border actually practise.

Its estimated that just more than five per cent of the more than 620,000 eligible U.S. voters living in Canada cast their ballots in the 2016 presidential election.

A lot of people dont realize they still have their right to vote even though theyre not living in the state, said Heather Paterson, a St. Catharines resident from Buffalo and co-chair of the Niagara chapter.

If they retain their U.S. citizenship, they are able to vote from abroad.

Theres a sense of urgency this year that they do it and do it quickly, not only because Democrats dont want a repeat of 2016 which saw Hillary Clinton lose to Donald Trump, despite winning the popular vote.

There are concerns the COVID-19 crisis is causing slowdowns in postal services around the world that voters from abroad must rely on if their home state requires a mail-in ballot.

On Saturday, the Democrats Abroad umbrella organization, which has members in 190 countries, posted on its website it is imperative voters in states that require mail-in ballots request absentee ballots early and return them as soon as possible.

For many Americans in Niagara and other border communities, the closure of the border to non-essential travel means they cant hop across and drop their ballot in a U.S. mailbox like theyve done previously.

We are concerned about the delays and cuts in the postal service and how this will impact the ability of Americans living in Canada to exercise their right to vote, Paterson said.

That is something that were worried about and thats just why we keep saying there is that urgency to return it as soon as possible.

Voters are encouraged to immediately fill out a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot, or FWAB, which is an emergency backup ballot specifically for voters outside the U.S. in case their official ballot doesnt get to them in time to meet the ballot return deadlines.

But even voters from states that dont require mail-in ballots are being asked to get a move on.

One of our messages is vote now. Vote tonight. Vote tomorrow. Vote Tuesday, said Joanne Smale, a Niagara Falls resident originally from Florida and vice-chair of the Niagara chapter.

The internet can get jammed close to Nov. 3. Stay ahead of it and vote now.

Democrats have said there are enough eligible U.S. voters in Canada to tip the balance of close races.

David Mivasair, chair of the Hamilton-Burlington chapter from which Niagara branched, said Americans living in Canada are directly impacted by their vote in the U.S.

Decisions made by the American government affect Canadian trade, agriculture, quality of water and air and more, he said.

We have a stark choice between four more years of just destruction if Trump is re-elected and a return to stability and humane government that impacts the whole world, he said.

Christopher Morgan, a Niagara Falls resident from Buffalo and co-chair of Niagaras chapter, said Americans outside the U.S. shouldnt feel like they are removed from the states and dont want to get involved in the politics.

Youre still interconnected. It affects, especially in Canada, the close relationship we have with the border trade and the border being closed, he said.

Thats especially poignant for Americans right now who cant see their families.

The policies that keep Americans south because of coronavirus are a very salient impact that we can see based upon the politics that are currently in America.

Democrats Abroad forms Niagara chapter

The Niagara region now has its own chapter of Democrats Abroad after the organization grew big enough to branch off from the Hamilton-Burlington chapter.

Co-chair Heather Paterson said more than 300 members in the Niagara area have registered through Democrats Abroad.

There was so much interest, being that were so close to the border, that we decided we needed a more local group, she said, adding that when and if they can get together in person in the future, they can do so locally rather than travelling to Hamilton or Burlington.

The chapter is also hoping to reach out to U.S. international students at Brock University.

Niagara residents were part of the Hamilton-Burlington-Niagara chapter that was formed decades ago. The local chapter was newly formed on Aug. 15.

The organization as a whole is growing, especially the last month or so, said David Mivasair, chair of the Hamilton-Burlington chapter, estimating numbers have increased 30 per cent.

Weve seen an explosion in membership. I think Americans who live here are feeling very motivated to get involved, whereas in the past maybe really werent.

Information can be found at www.democratsabroad.org/ca_niagara.
Carr Hardware, a family-owned business for more than 90 years, has launched Round-up for the Schools to benefit the local Berkshire County school districts.

Biz Briefs: Carr Hardware Donating Personal Protective Equipment for Schools

'Round-up for the Schools'

Carr Hardware, a family-owned business for more than 90 years, has launched Round-up for the Schools to benefit the local Berkshire County school districts. Carr Hardware is offering all their customers the option to round-up the final cost of their purchases to the nearest dollar. Carr Hardware will then match those donations and purchase needed personal protective equipment, such as masks, gloves, sanitizer and other needs they can secure, to donate to our local schools. Carr Hardware also will have collection jars stationed at all locations for customers to donate.

"If there is a chance at defeating this pandemic and have students return to school safely at some point, then it will be by using the CDC guidance for PPE, physical distancing, and education on personal hygiene practices. We are so thankful to our community partners at Carr Hardware for supporting our schools." said North Adams Superintendent Barbara Malkas.

To date North Adams Public Schools, Lee Public Schools and Pittsfield Public Schools have agreed to partner with Carr Hardware with more rolling in. The local community can stop into any Berkshire County Carr Hardware retail store to donate.

EforAll fall cohort

Entrepreneurship for All (EforAll) Berkshire County has announced the 12 business ideas chosen to participate in the Fall 2020 Business Accelerator program, which begins the week of Sept. 7 and will be held completely virtually. These businesses represent a wide array of ideas and come from a broad swath of the region: Charlie Nadler & Kiar Holland: Laugh Dealers/North Adams; Nicole Ferry: Ferrytale Endings/Becket; Lindsay Neathawk: Neathawk Designs/Williamstown; Rebecca Childs-Lee: Martial Arts Institute of the Berkshires/Lee; Alex Kacheris: Equine Assisted Therapy/Pittsfield; Kristen Tool: Olsen Farm, Free Produce/Lanesborough; Laurie Rock: 21st Century Scuba/Pittsfield; Purple Valley Sustainable Connections/Williamstown; Mary Childs: Ceramics New England/Lee; Liam Gorman: GeoCa$h/Pittsfield; Courtney Gilardi: Custom Crafted Remedies/Pittsfield; and Kate Abbott: By The Way Berkshires/Williamstown

This will be the second class for EforAlls Berkshire County site, with a 50 percent increase in the number of participants (which was eight in the original Winter 2020 group.) EforAll was delighted to receive many applications and also get strong community support in the form of mentor commitments which allowed the class to be much larger. The public will be invited in mid-December to the Gala and Showcase at the conclusion of the 12-week intensive program.

BBPW applications

Berkshire Business and Professional Women is accepting applications for its career advancement scholarship program. The deadline has been extended to Aug. 31. The group annually awards career advancement scholarships to working women residing in Berkshire County. Scholarships may be used for tuition, books, child care, uniforms, or other related educational expenses. Scholarship amounts and the number of scholarships awarded will be determined by the scholarship committee and trustees of Berkshire BPW's non-profit affiliation, Berkshire County Education Council.

Eligible applicants need to be Berkshire County residents at least 25 years of age, who are either working or currently seeking employment, enrolled at an accredited college, technical or vocational schools and matriculating on a full-time or part-time basis for the 2020-21 academic year.

On September 21, Berkshire BPW is honoring Andrea Harrington as the 2020 Woman of Achievement at Balderdash Cellars. This annual fundraiser benefits the Career Advancement Scholarship fund. Visit https://berkshirebpw.org/ for more details on the Woman of Achievement fundraiser and to access the online application under the Programs tab. For scholarship questions, contact June Roy-Martin by email or call 413-464-1839.

Zogics contract

Zogics has entered into a five-year, $5.5 million dollar contract with the United States Navy for crucial cleaning and disinfecting supplies to help combat the spread of COVID-19. While focusing mainly on the United States Navy, the contract is applicable to all military branches. The contract also solidifies Zogics existing service to the entire United States Armed Forces; over the last 10 years, Zogics has shipped their disinfecting wipes, hand sanitizers, cleaning and disinfecting products, amenities, facility products and more to military installations worldwide.

The company will be providing the Navy their flagship Antibacterial Wipes, which meet the EPA's criteria for use against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Zogics is a leading supplier of cleaning and disinfecting products to the United States Government through the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA).

Wild Oats donation

Thanks to the generosity of its customers, Wild Oats donated $2,338.02 to Berkshire Food Project this week. The money was generated in July through the store's Round Up For Change program, which allows shoppers to round up their total purchases at checkout and donate the spare change to the featured organization of the month. Throughout the month of August, Wild Oats is collecting for Berkshire Helping Hands.

The Berkshire Food Project seeks to alleviate hunger, food insecurity, and social isolation by serving healthy, no cost meals and connecting people to other resources, all in a dignified and respectful manner. Due to the pandemic, it has adapted its previous dining system to offer meals to go as it acclimates to operating under the new safety guidelines. For nearly four decades, Wild Oats has been Northern Berkshire County's primary source of local, organic and sustainable food choices.

SVHC awards

The Southwestern Vermont Health Care Marketing and Communications Department has received two prestigious regional healthcare communications awards from the New England Society for Healthcare Communications for work produced during 2019. SVHC earned a Silver Lamplighter Award for its SVMC Orthopedics Restoring Active Lifestyles Campaign and the distinction of Excellence for the Memorable Moments for Colon Cancer Screening Awareness Campaign.

Each of the entries consisted of many parts, including outreach events, advertisements, mailers, social media posts, and e-mail communications. The 2020 competition totaled 285 entries in each of more than 20 healthcare marketing and public relations categories from hospitals in all six New England States, including large academic medical centers and those in metropolitan areas. They are judged by a panel of healthcare marketing experts.

Edward Jones honor

For the 11th time, financial-services firm Edward Jones ranks "Highest in Employee Advisor Satisfaction among Financial Investment Firms" by J.D. Power. Edward Jones financial advisers gave the highest satisfaction ratings in all the six study categories, with an overall score of 920 points out of 1,000. This compares to the employee average of 711. Edward Jones was among the seven employee channel firms captured in the J.D. Power 2020 U.S. Financial Advisor Satisfaction Study.

Between January and April 2020, financial advisers were asked to rate their firms in terms of leadership and culture, products and marketing, professional development, operational support, technology, and compensation. Among the categories measured, Edward Jones ranked highest in all of them, and a full 10 percentage points higher than the 2020 employee average.

Edward Jones has been the top performer among employee channel firms in 11 J.D. Power adviser satisfaction studies, which were completed in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012-2015, 2017-2020.

Greylock pledge

Greylock Federal Credit Union has joined the African American Credit Union Coalition. In addition, Greylock's Board of Directors has unanimously voted to sign on to a national Credit Union Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Collectives statement of solidarity and commitment to change. The nation-wide commitment, spearheaded by the African American Credit Union Coalitions Commitment to Change, brings credit unions together to listen, learn, advocate and amplify the voices of the marginalized and vulnerable members of the community. The cooperative philosophy of the credit union movement has always focused on financial equity. This pledge helps credit unions focus on clear actionable efforts to create real, meaningful, transformative and sustained change.

Through membership in the AACUC, Greylock is working to strengthen access to financial services for people of color in the community. The added counsel and tools of the AACUCs Commitment to Change will help Greylock as the credit union continues to pursue meaningful change around historically unequal access to financial resources. The pledge has gained the support of a coalition of over 150 credit unions and service providers nationally since its launch on Juneteenth (June 19th). The position statement commits that "Together, we are stronger. Together, we can create a better world where all members of our communities can take part in our democracy, live free of fear from violence, and enjoy physical and financial well-being. We stand for financial democracy."
Dr Eva Orsmond is urging the Government to follow the example of Boris Johnson in encouraging the population to shed the pandemic kilos.

The TV doctor believes the nation is sleepwalking into a worsening obesity crisis during the lockdown.

International studies are showing Covid-19 weight gains of more than two kilos in France and Italy, while an American study found one in five people put on between two and 4.5kg, due to extra snacking at home.

"Everybody is talking about the famous Covid stone," Dr Eva said.

"French people put on an average of 2kg of weight over the pandemic and I think in Spain it was between 3kg to 6kg.

"I didn't put on weight. I was in Portugal but it was because I was seriously working on it.

"There were those who got focused and lost weight - but we are talking about the majority of Irish people, who probably put on weight. Some 60pc were already overweight or obese before Covid-19."

Dr Eva, who has a master's degree in public health, says the Government needs to urgently highlight the issue as studies show obesity is a risk factor in coronavirus cases.

A study published last week confirmed obesity is linked to higher odds of Covid-19 hospital admission.

"We had a serious epidemic before and now everything is concentrated around the pandemic, but we need to tell people there is a serious link with the worst outcome of Covid-19 and obesity," she said.

"At least in the UK, Boris Johnson has actually mentioned something about the [population] being overweight or obese.

"I haven't heard any of the [Irish] ministers say anything about overweight or obesity. They should fight, not just against Covid, but against overweight and obesity and make the link of worse outcomes in overweight and obese people.

"All the international data suggests it is going in a worse direction and this pandemic hasn't helped."

The obesity specialist, who has weight-loss clinics in Dublin, Cork and Galway, also urged the Government to highlight the importance of vitamin D, which plays a key role in the body's immune response to fight infections like Covid-19.

Australian vitamin D researchers say a study on 30,000 people shows it reduces acute respiratory tract infections.

It is estimated one in eight Irish adults under 50 is deficient in the sunshine vitamin - while just over a quarter of over-70s are estimated to be deficient in Vitamin D, which comes from the sun and various food sources.

"Vitamin D deficiency is another thing that has been linked to Covid-19. Who is talking about vitamin D deficiency?" the doctor said.

"I took blood the other day from one of my patients, and his vitamin D was 20nmol/l - it should be over 80nmol/l.

"There are so many things that can help people to build their immunity, because this Covid-19 is clearly not going away. It is basically trying to learn to live with the disease in a different way and getting people's immunity stronger," she said.

She believes strong immune systems are protecting people from the virus.

"Many people who have it are asymptomatic because they have a good immune system," she said.

"I wouldn't be surprised if I had it because I hardly ever get the flu - I seem to have a very good immune system. But I look after my immune system. I actually work on it.

"WHO says 80pc of the cases are mild or asymptomatic. All the restrictions are killing the country's economy, and with the economic and psychological damage it creates, it is foolish thinking we can eradicate the virus."

"We need to learn to live with the virus and work on making people healthier with healthier immune systems," she added.

During the past few months, the high-profile doctor has wondered why the Government couldn't have tackled the obesity crisis in a similar way to the pandemic.

She said: "I have been thinking all the way through this Covid crisis on how much money has suddenly been found for unemployment benefits and all these different supports.

"How is it possible that we never found the money to give people the right [weight loss] advice and proper weight-loss clinics?"

Before the pandemic, she said 10pc of the health budget went to the treatment of Type 2 diabetes.

"Type 2 diabetes is a total lifestyle-related condition - 99pc of people with Type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese," she added.

She said it is worrying that young people who are socialising are eating one or more meals a night in the pub under current guidelines.

"This whole situation must be very bizarre for younger people, who are used to meeting friends.

"Some young people might be careful and eat nothing during the day and maybe they go out and don't gain weight, but 25pc of children and teenagers are overweight and obese.

"And 70pc of obese and overweight teenagers remain obese as adults."

Prevention is the key component in the fight against obesity, she said.

This is why she believes it is so important to hammer the message home to children at a young age and to their parents.

She said: "We have to start with children because once you get somebody overweight and obese, it's much more difficult to correct. It's difficult if you don't get parents on board."

She warns hospitals will be overrun if the national waistline keeps expanding.

"Coronary vascular diseases are the number one killer and then cancers and Type 2 diabetes, but they are all linked to lifestyle."

She added: "Weight is not easy to lose, but it can be done as my patients seem to be able to do it."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 20:54:36|Editor: huaxia

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NAIROBI, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Stronger China-Africa ties are key to the post-COVID-19 economic recovery of the African continent, a Kenyan scholar said on Sunday.

Peter Kagwanja CEO, Africa Policy Institute, a regional think tank, said in a commentary published in the Sunday Nation that as the global COVID-19 crisis continues, promoting manufacturing and technological innovation is emerging as key to Africa's COVID-19 response and recovery.

"With the resurgence of isolationism, protectionism and shrinking resources for investment from Africa's traditional partners in the West, cooperation with China offers a common response and recovery strategy for African countries to combat COVID-19 while promoting manufacturing to roll back poverty, provide jobs and livelihoods," Kagwanja wrote.

He noted that rising economic nationalism, isolationism and protectionism in the West has made Africa's cooperation with China even more urgent and pivotal.

"But with the resurgence of the cold war-era geopolitics, signified by trade and technology wars between America and China, Africa has to make bold and enlightened choices in favor of its post-COVID-19 recovery and greater development," he observed.

Kagwanja said that since February, Beijing has collaborated with the 54 African countries to fight COVID-19, noting that since COVID-19 struck, Africa has waged two wars.

"The first is the war to contain the spread of the virus, which affected more than one million people. The other is the war against poverty that would come from succumbing to the disease either as a health threat or as an economic threat," he added.

The scholar observed that the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on African economies is yet to be assessed but what is certain is that it has exacted a heavy toll on jobs and employment, disrupted manufacturing supply chains, leading to a shortage of raw materials, reduced orders and led to the closure of manufacturing plants around the world.

According to the scholar, South-South cooperation offers new avenues of recovery from COVID-19 and sources of investment to spur industrialization.

He revealed that over the past two decades, China has expanded its footprint in Africa's manufacturing and industrialization.

Kagwanja said the launch of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2000 moved this cooperation to a whole new level in the 21st century, providing a new strategic framework for collaboration in Africa's industrialization and infrastructure.

"African countries are increasingly participating in China's multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative," he noted.

Kagwanja said that China has been the continent's leading trading partner since 2009 and there are nearly 100 China-Africa joint industrial parks under construction across the continent.

He noted that Beijing's investment stock in Africa now exceeds 10.8 trillion shillings (100 billion U.S. dollars), the largest investment by a single country on the continent and there are more than 10,000 Chinese firms on the continent, about one-third of them in manufacturing.

According to the scholar, China's development assistance has immensely contributed to a hopeful Africa, rising up and out of poverty.

He said the Asian nation has also calibrated its foreign policy and investments to support Africa's Agenda 2063, the continent's development blueprint. Enditem
We asked you, Dear Readers, to share pictures/videos and tell us how you are celebrating Ganeshotsav.

Some interesting responses we've received:

IMAGE: Senthil Kumar from Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu, sent us this picture of Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations at his home and explained why he is so fond of the festival.

'I don't believe in immersing Ganesha because it feels like leaving a very close relative in water. So this time, I invited Lord Ganesha in a black stone statue made from a good shilpi worker in town. We offered prayers at bramha muhurat today.'

This Lord will remain with us for the rest of our lives.'

IMAGE: Lakshmikishore from Santa Clara, California, sent us this photograph featuring a Ganpati idol his daughter made using turmeric as clay.

IMAGE: Jaideep N Malaviya's eco-friendly Bappa is made from 'clay, line, cow-dung and turmeric.'

'May the Lord remove all obstacles caused by the current pandemic and bring back happiness and prosperity to this country. Ganpati Bappa Morya !!!'

IMAGE: This is how Bishakha Sarkar and Sumantra Sarkar welcomed Ganesha in Auckland, New Zealand.

<p

IMAGE: Hitesh Khushlani was excited to bring Bappa home in Sydney, Australia.

'We got our first Ganpati Bappa,' he wrote sharing this picture.

Dear readers, how are you celebrating Ganeshotsav this year?

Are you making your own Lord Ganesha idol? How do you plan to decorate it? Will you be inviting guests?

What are the exciting sweets and delicacies you'll be preparing this year?

How is this year different from the celebrations last year? Tell us all about it!

Please mail photographs and videos of your Lord Ganesha idol and decorations to getahead@rediff.co.in (Subject: Bringing Home Lord Ganesha) along with your NAME and LOCATION. We'll feature the best responses here on Rediff.com.
WATERLOO REGION  Businesses in Waterloo Region are entering uncharted territory.

With Ontarios commercial eviction freeze ending at the end of the month, coupled with the end of the business rent subsidy program, landlords are facing tough decisions as the COVID-19 pandemic continues on and tenants struggle to bring in a profit.

More evictions are going to happen, says James Boudreau, a broker with Coldwell Banker Commercial Peter Benninger Realty, but it might not be the best decision for anyone looking for long-term sustainability.

If the regions landlords decide to kick out every tenant who is having trouble paying rent, Boudreau said, there is going to be a widespread problem.

Fortunately, he doesnt think its going in that direction.

If you care about the future of your investment, you wan to see your tenant succeed, he said. And unless you have a lineup of people out there who are looking to lease your building, why would you evict?

While the commercial real estate market has started to rebound from the complete standstill in the early days of the pandemic, new commercial tenants arent exactly knocking down doors to find opportunities.

The region has already seen a number of closures over the last five months  the latest coming in an online announcement from the live concert venue Rhapsody Barrel Bar  and landlords understand where the market is, said Boudreau.

Some of his clients havent charged rent since May, taking the short-term hit to ensure their tenants have the time to get back on their feet.

Theyre trying to keep a balance, he said, because if the landlord cant make their financial commitments and loses the property, everyone suffers.

But there may be more help on the way, said Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce vice president Art Sinclair.

Its imperative on the provincial and federal governments to come up with some type of an alternative solution going forward, or an extension of these rent programs.

Sinclair said he is anticipating an announcement to that end sometime soon, in similar fashion to Thursdays Canada Emergency Response Benefit extension, with the feds allotting $37 billion to continue that program for four more weeks and boost Employment Insurance.

Were finding that a lot of the pressure is on the cash flow side for businesses, said Sinclair. So, I think the commercial rent assistance program is valuable in terms of providing that cash for the businesses across Waterloo Region.

However, Sinclair warns that any type of government program needs to start addressing the long-term challenges of local businesses, not just keeping them afloat.

The COVID-19 pandemic is going to leave lasting impacts on every business in the region  small, medium and large  and he said those long-term fiscal challenges will need to be addressed to ensure the future viability of the regions business sector.

That point was mirrored by Uptown Waterloo Business Improvement Area executive director Tracy Van Kalsbeek, who said Friday that more help is needed if its main street businesses are to survive.

Small and medium sized businesses are the backbone of our countrys economy, she said. From the beginning of the pandemic, we have advocated for rent relief and other government grant programs to assist small businesses now and over the next year.

She said it also falls on the community to make choosing local a priority during the pandemic.

Purchasing online, ordering takeout or delivery, making shopping appointments and showing love on social media will need to continue to get small and medium-sized businesses through this downturn.

We will continue to ask the public to keep this up  moving into the fall months.
Starting out with limited collections made from the fabric remains from different Italian fashion houses, Custommade has come a long way since its conception in 2002. Founded by Christian Dam, the Copenhagan label is now an established fashion brand with a ready-to-wear line and shoe collection.

As the name suggests, Dam was inspired to create custom-made and beautiful clothing, focusing on timeless designs with a contemporary edge that exude simple sophistication. Its elegant style infused with Scandinavian cool.

Available online, Custommade is also stocked at various UK independent boutiques in store and online.
Pubs, car washes, property agencies, and a construction company belonging to a dead man are among the firms awarded government contracts for COVID-19 personal protective equipment (PPE), according to several reports.

The reports follow the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) revealing to Parliament earlier this week that it was investigating the awarding of R5-billion in COVID-19-related government contracts for equipment and services intended to fight the virus.

SIU head Andy Mothibi explained these include unlawful contracts for the procurement of PPE, ventilators, catering services, hospitals, quarantine sites, and wheelchairs.

The SIU is one of nine entities which have been instructed by President Cyril Ramaphosa to probe irregularities around COVID-19 contracts.

Rapport reported that SARS Commissioner Edward Kieswetter updated Parliaments Standing Committee of Public Accounts (SCOPA) on Friday regarding several of these probes.

Many companies were previously registered, but they were not in the PPE business. We found providers registered as pubs, IT companies, car washing companies, and property renting companies, Kieswetter said.

The tax authority is supporting the SIU with around 370 cases in the Free State, and is also investigating 17 tenders worth R1.2 billion with political links.

Contract for a dead man

DispatchLive has reported that a company belonging to a deceased East London businessman secured a tender worth around R1 million to provide COVID-19 PPE to the Eastern Cape health department.

The company was included in a list of over 600 firms that have benefitted from the departments R1.2-billion COVID-19 expenditure over the last three months.

However, the companys sole director and owner has been dead for two years, a family member told the publication.

An insider in the department told DispatchLive that corruption is running deep in the province.

If you dig more, you will find there are ghost companies that got paid millions of rand, the source said.

There are companies that were given appointment letters but no work was given to them, yet their names appear on the provincial list as companies that were awarded work, the official added.

Equal to murder

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has also responded to reports of PPE-related corruption in South Africa.

In a scathing indictment, the organisations director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that depriving healthcare workers of PEE equipment was tantamount to murder.

Corruption related to PPE, for me its actually murder. Because if health workers work without PPE, were risking their lives. And that also risks the lives of the people they serve, Tedros stated.

So its criminal and its murder and it has to stop, he said.

Flood of corruption complaints

The allegations of COVID-19-related corruption are not limited to PPE, however.

During the early stages of lockdown, members of the public claimed that government officials were hoarding food donations intended for deprived families, and selling them.

In early August, the Public Protectors office said it had received a flood of complaints regarding conduct and service failures related to the coronavirus pandemic.

The majority of these complaints relate to the governments R350 COVID-19 financial relief scheme, with more than 450 people approaching the office to complain about what they deem to be unreasonable grounds for declining their applications.

In most cases, the complainants either allege that they were not provided with reasons as to why their applications were unsuccessful, or that the applications were declined on the basis that the applicants were found to be recipients of some form of income or that they qualified for UIF, which they disputed.
Farmers in Uttar Pradesh, who were expecting a good rice crop this season on the back of above-average rain this monsoon, have been hit by a fertiliser crisis caused by a shortage of urea. The increase in the paddy crop area this season and smuggling of fertlisers to Nepal are said to be the main reasons behind this crisis.

In most of the UP districts, long queues of farmers can be seen outside state-run sales centres, waiting for their turn to get their supply of urea. In the open market, the fertiliser is available at extremely high rates. According to officials, the area under ...
KENOSHA  Carthage College has begun initiating a plan to promote understanding of race relations, a commitment to hiring diverse faculty and staff, and closing student retention and graduation gaps between Black students and their white peers.

To that end, students a year from now will be required to complete a course in U.S. race history in order to graduate, according to Carthage President John Swallow.

All students starting next fall would have a requirement where they would take a class, which would have a significant component on U.S. racial history, Swallow said of the proposal that would be mandatory for graduation. There may be other requirements that the faculty may want to have around U.S. history, or around other forms of diversity in either direction. But U.S. racial history, I think is something, frankly, that we just dont talk about because were too uncomfortable.

Swallow said faculty would receive assistance from colleagues who have experience leading discussions on race, including education Professor Michele Hancock and others.

They and others will be available to help our faculty do this, and Ive committed myself to seek any resources that would be needed nationally to bring in speakers or do workshops because, in some ways, its not the facts or the information, Swallow said.

Its how to conduct the conversations in a class, how to have inter-group dialogue, how to allow for a space where students feel they can express themselves and yet deal with some very difficult topics all at the same time.

I think over time, our unwillingness to have these conversations has led us in directions like political correctness, identity politics  those are ways in which were not having the discussions we need to have, and I believe that its time for a college to have a requirement like this.

Swallow said Carthage is situated in an area that has historically been the home to different Native American tribes and is between two major destinations of the great migration of African Americans. He said that students taking the course would also have the opportunity to experience the cultural diversity of neighborhoods in Kenosha, Racine, Milwaukee and Chicago.

Im not saying that this work is easy. But I do think its time that we all do it  students and as many faculty as possible  so we start to create an environment on campus where we are having those hard conversations, he said.

Swallow added while voluntary or optional diversity training has been valuable, it isnt enough.

Additionally, Swallow said students would also be involved in the process. He held listening sessions with them following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and the colleges Director of Equity and Inclusion, Roger Moreano, has also been in contact with diverse student groups on campus.

Im confident also that as this idea is discussed with the faculty that we will reach out to students and students will reach out to us with their opinions about it, Swallow said.

Beginning this fall, according to the plan, Carthage will initiate and staff an intercultural center with additional resources for diversity, equity and inclusion, located in the Todd Wehr Center. It will be a place for students, faculty and staff to have frank discussions about race and outcomes. The plan also includes the campus engaging with the Braver Angels movement, a national nonprofit organization which seeks to de-polarize the discussions around race from politics.

It brings together self-identified reds (Republican) and blues (Democrats) to talk through how to have a conversation and see the other person as a human with a variety of opinions that may not line up neatly with partisan politics, Swallow said.

Braver Angels is presenting the With Malice Toward None program this fall at the campus, along with other ELCA colleges and universities.

Swallow said the conversations have been ongoing on how to advance the work of diversity, inclusion and equity.

But particularly after George Floyds killing, it seemed that it was time to make some claims about how we were going to move forward in the future, he said. This really brought to a moment our desire to take some significant steps.
Mumbai:

The lawyer of Indrani Mukerjea, prime accused in the Sheena Bora murder case, on Friday argued before the special CBI court in Mumbai that charges such as attempt to murder and cheating were not maintainable against her.

The court is hearing arguments on framing of charges.

Indranis lawyer Sudeep Passbola contended that charges under IPC sections 307 (attempt to murder), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery) were not applicable against his client.

The charge of 307 is proposed in the first charge sheet which was filed on November 19 last year. However, statement of Mikhail (Indranis son from an earlier relationship and Sheenas brother) was recorded in June this year, he said.

Passbola argued that for the charge under section 307, there must have been an actual attempt on Mikhails life. CBI had not specified when and where this attempt took place.

According to CBI, when Indrani and others killed Sheena, they had also planned to eliminate Mikhail after drugging him.

Nothing poisonous was given to Mikhail, he was offered a drink and he threw it away. It was only his apprehension that the drink was spiked, Passbola argued.

CBI had also pressed charges of cheating and forgery regarding two documents, he said. One was the resignation letter of Sheena sent to her employer after her death; the second was termination of her house rent agreement.

Indrani forged the two documents to make it appear that Sheena was alive, as per the CBI.

Passbola said no one was actually cheated, neither Sheenas employer Reliance Metro, nor her landlord, by these two documents.

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V Kumara Swamy By

Name notwithstanding, CoronaOven, the manufacturers claim, is an all-rounder as it can get rid of a wide variety of germs, including bacteria and viruses.

Its not too far-fetched to imagine that this may, one day, end up on your shoe stand to disinfect groceries from outside.

The Bengaluru startup, which invented it, claims that even French President Emmanuel Macrons residence has one.

Several Bengaluru homes, hospitals, police stations and even the airport have installed it, according to its inventor, Log 9 Materials.

If necessity is the mother of invention, the present and near future could well prove to be the grandmother of many innovations.

The rules of engagement among humans are also undergoing many changes. And the presence of humanoids among us more than ever before could be one of them.

It was a novelty all these years. But because of the coronavirus, robots will be seen in offices, restaurants, hospitals and other places in large numbers in the coming years, says Rajeev Karwal, MD, Milagrow Business and Knowledge Solutions, the company that came up with humanoid robots; RoboJulia (named after Hollywood actor Julia Roberts) can serve three tables at a time and RoboDiCaprio can man reception desks.

Robots may not supplant humans in many other aspects of our lives and not many can afford a disinfecting oven, but innovations, safety concerns and a bit of paranoia are forcing changes happening at a rapid pace and they are probably here to stay.

The office space, for instance, may undergo a complete transformation. It may no longer be sardine-can like, with employees getting more square feet per person and a bit more privacy, thanks to social distancing entering the office design lexicon.

But the desks may smell more like bathrooms due to regular bouts of sanitisation.

The concept of anytime, anywhere using any device workplace has been in existence for a long time with technology evangelists talking about it for even longer, but it was probably held back by the fear of taking a collective leap forward.

Right smack in the middle of a crisis, there is realisation that they may have little choice.

Slog from Home

After taking over as the CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer decided to do away with work-from-home (WFH) in 2013. She had her reasons.

Mayer wrote in an internal memo to employees that working side-by-side was important for communication and collaboration and that some of the best decisions and insights came from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings.

Her biggest argument against WFH was that often it led to the sacrifice of speed and quality. We need to be one Yahoo! and it comes with physically being together, she argued. Today, Mayer would be branded a yahoo.

In a 2014 paper, the researchers at Pennsylvania State University, US, said that people felt less stressed working in an office than at home.

This was after they tested cortisol, a biological marker for stress, among 122 workers during the weekdays and weekends.

But more recent studies, after the mass lockdown, seem to suggest that people are in favour of working from home, even if their stress levels are higher.

The indications from the jobs market, which is anyway going through a crisis, point to the fact that many of the jobs on offer are related to remote-working.

According to JobsForHer, a career platform for women, WFH is becoming the norm for the majority of the workforce.

Our platform saw women mostly applying for job roles like journalist, editor, content writing, tele-calling, customer services, QA Testing, etc. We also observed that education, IT, recruitment, internet/e-commerce and advertising and PR were some of the most popular industries, says Neha Bagaria, founder and CEO, JobsForHer.

With more and more people wanting to convert a room or a corner into a workspace, companies have jumped into the fray to cash in on this potentially growing business.

For instance, Awfis, which offers coworking office space and on-the-go mobile offices, has come up with the concept of Awfis@Home under which it offers toolkits for a price. Besides providing ergonomic furniture and high-speed broadband connection, it also offers office-like-design at home, including cubicle-like settings. WFH was considered an experiment. It is tried and tested now, and it is here to stay.

The companies have clearly understood that they need to think about bringing down costs and WFH is one way of doing it, and employees, having proved that they can be as productive at home as in the office, can be confident of this becoming a permanent concept and hence spend money on having their own office at home, says Amit Ramani, founder, Awfis.

Awfis is not alone in seeing profitable opportunities in the WFH space. For instance, a Gurugram-based furniture brand launched a line of WFH tables that can be adjusted to stand or sit while working.

Whether it is Facebook or Google at the world level or large companies like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in India, they clearly foresee a significant number of their employees working from home in the future. In fact, TCS has announced that 75 percent of its 4.5 lakh staff would permanently work from home by 2025. Currently, their share is around 20 percent.

Getting used to the new normal will not be easy. You will realise that doorbell will ring at the most inopportune time, your kids may crash your video conferences or want to talk to you just when you are about to finish something important, and you may want to rush to your kitchen to check your oven or taste something that is cooking and there will be a thousand other distractions. But its time to better get used to them. These would be just another day in the office.

Away from gyms and parks, people are already finding ways to stay healthy at home, thanks to mobile apps. Delhi-based Shweta Shinde, 35, has roped in her pre-teen sonsbored of sitting at hometo join in her live workouts with FITTR, a fitness app. I dont want them to just watch TV all day, so I make them exercise with me whenever I attend live workouts. Theyre fun to do and keep my boys active, she says.

Our platform saw women mostly applying for job roles like

journalist, editor, content writing, tele-calling, customer services, QA Testing, etc. We also observed that education, IT, recruitment, internet/e-commerce, and advertising and PR are some of the most popular industries. Neha Bagaria, founder and CEO, JobsForHer

WFH is becoming the norm for the majority of the workforce, as per the women-only career platform. JobsForHer has found ways to spend some fun time with its employees.

Yoga and Zumba dance workouts on Zoom may become a regular affair. Life, as we know it, has changed and the best thing we can do is adapt to the new normal. That includes fitness and nutrition, says Jitendra Chouksey, founder of FITTR.

According to him, they have come out with various exercise routines and nutrition plans that can help people stay fit even within the confines of their homes.

But the stress of working at home is real and several surveys in recent times point to just that. I think initially for many of us, this (WFH) was a nice consequence. Of not having to commute, sleeping in a little longer, not worrying about getting dressed for work, switching between work and home chores and being able to spend time with the family. However, I believe for many the honeymoon phase is over! We are social beings, after a while we crave engagement with our peers and the world around us, says Aparna Samuel Balasundaram, author and behavioral health consultant.

According to her, many may miss the rituals of going to work as for some it was a space to even escape the humdrum of home life and perhaps even get in touch with the other sides of their personalities that perhaps emerged only at work with peers and colleagues.

With the boundaries between work and home getting blurred, people are now realising that there is no off switch that they used to mentally turn off all these years, she says.

Getting Lean and Mean

Neetish Sarda, founder, Smartworks, one of Indias leading workspace providers, says he had never imagined such rapid workplace transformation.

According to him, enterprises are looking to ensure and maintain the highest levels of hygiene so that everybody feels confident about doing their job while staying healthy and secure.

Future workspaces will be about decongesting offices, from rethinking density to spaced desks, visual signs/marks between workstations for social distancing, and reconfiguring common areas to limit the number of people at a time and reinvent the offices, explains Sarda.

Smartworks clients are asking for 100 sq ft space ratio per employee to ensure proper distancing between workstations and they are also looking for multiple offices instead of one big space to ensure business continuity in case of any uncertainty.

While some are providing office furniture (a table and chair) to employees on need basis to enable them to carry out WFH, reimbursement of internet bills with upgrade plans have been prioritised.

Companies admit that the current crisis has been a wake-up call.

For instance, BridgeLabz, a Mumbai-based software solutions company that provides skilled engineers to startups and enterprises, is moving 100 percent online, from having all its operations offline with over 1,500 learners in its two labs in Mumbai and Bengaluru.

While we always believed that a major part of the programme could be conducted through online mechanisms, we were stuck with our offline mindset. The lockdown changed everything. Suddenly we were forced to question every aspect we held unchangeable. And within a week of the lockdown, we had taken all our programmes completely online, says its founder Narayan Mahadevan.

Location location location is perhaps the most beaten-to-death phrase when it comes to the deciding factor on the price for a house or office.

That may undergo a change, according to Ramani of Awfis. It will now be location, space and time. Corporates now dont want to be in a single location and they may look for smaller offices in various parts of a city so that they can be nearer to their employees and also protect themselves from future shocks. Demand for co-working spaces may go up, he says.

Office space is something that companies are definitely thinking about scaling down or spacing out. Take BridgeLabz, for instance. Today we have over 6,000 sq ft-sized places and we will only probably be able to do with 1,500 sq ft in the new locations, says Mahadevan.

This sits with recent studies of Indian workplaces. For instance, according to a survey by Colliers Indiaa real estate professional services and investment management company45 percent of office-space occupiers foresee only up to 30 percent of their employees returning to the workplace even after the relaxation of lockdown restrictions.

Sixty percent of occupiers plan to accelerate technology adoption in order to reduce the need for physical meetings.

Commercial space renting companies are under pressure to reduce rates and some have already announced concessions.

But some argue that as companies may spread out rather than being bottled up in one large campus, there would be a huge demand for standalone or coworking spaces in the future.

But in all this, there is another side to it all that employers have to take care of.

A US employees survey by Eagle Hill Consulting recently revealed that just a month into the pandemic, 45 percent of American employees reported feeling burnt out.

Some of the reasons given for it were workload (45 percent), juggling professional and personal lives (35 percent), and lack of communication with employers (32 percent).

Thirty-six percent of the people said their employees were not doing enough to stem the feeling of being burnt out.

Some companies are already taking steps to make their employees feel more at home. JobsForHer, for instance, has found ways to spend some fun time with its employees. It has designated time for employees to exchange stories on how they are coping with the lockdown, including their kids school load.

We also encourage our team members families to get involved by showcasing their talents in singing, poetry, etc. We even celebrate birthdays, play virtual Antakshari and quizzes, says Bagaria.

As for the service industries, Pravin Agarwala, founder of Better Place, one of Indias largest blue-collar staff management organisations, says companies are adapting to new realities and multi-tasking is in. All workers in service industries have to adapt to new guidelines. For instance, security folks have to now manage beyond just movement etc. They have to look at deliveries within the premises, co-ordination with stakeholders while ensuring that guidelines are adhered to. In some cases people have started performing multiple roles due to shortage of resources, says Agarwala.

There is a huge emphasis on skilling and reskilling now, say experts. Employers would now prefer a resource pool that is skilled and readily available. Service industry staff-providers may have to go for employability-driven training in participation with employers and most of it would be before joining the job.

The demand surge for blue-collar workers can come in fits and starts depending on the situation. But they have to be ready.

Agarwala realised it recently when a logistics customer, who is into deliveries of essential goods across the country, got in touch with Better Place with a demand for 2,000 well-trained people. As part of onboarding, we ensured that they were all well trained on all the facets of safety measures. We also equipped them with face masks, sanitisers and face-shields and others, he says.



Future Tense

A few myths have been busted and boundaries stretched. For instance, technologies were in place to have video-conferences over various platforms and the bandwidth has been extended.

But hardly anybody imagined that the whole world would be working from home and using these technologies almost at the same time.

Working from home was looked down upon by employers for years now with many fearing that it would encourage employees to slack off at home.

Even many employees felt that the office atmosphere allowed for creativity and made it easier to reach out to each other for solving problems. Not any longer.

For skilled workers who have lost their jobs, going out there and working as freelancers is the only way out. At least until the various sectors of the economy pick up pace.

And WFH is virtually the only thing to do. With more and more companies looking to great work but without the overhead costs that they have to incur on the regular employees, it seems that freelancing may have undergone a change forever with companies jostling to pick the best of talents for a price that they are more comfortable to pay than ever.

As for those who have kept their jobs and have experienced some form of pruning of their salaries, it is just the beginning, warn experts. Employees should get used to looking at the pay packages closely, and slicing and splicing each expense.

Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, in fact, indicated recently that the pay packages of those who work remotely would be looked at closely keeping the cost of living and labour.

It is bound to happen worldwide too. That will not mean that expectations from the employees would come down.

A phone call answered a little late would be frowned on and a 10.30 pm office meeting wouldnt be considered odd. After all, the employee has been at home the whole day and gets paid for it!

The effects of the pandemic may remain daubed on the consciousness of this generation for all their lives, but not becoming a hostage and carrying on with life as well as one can is the only way forward.

Balasundaram says we have to reframe this time in our lives. Yes, we have been forced to hit the pause button and learn new ways of being that cause us anxiety. But, can we take this time to introspect, spend precious time with family, reconnect with ourselves and the people around us? Being able to channelise our nervous energies into something positive and creative, will have a calming effect on us.

That could be a goal worth striving for.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday held a security review meeting with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat and the three services chiefs.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday held a security review meeting with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat and the three services chiefs. According to sources, the situation on the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh and other areas also came up for discussion.

India and China have held five rounds of Lieutenant general-level talks for disengagement from the eastern Ladakh sector but not much success has been achieved in that direction. The Chinese are sitting near the Finger 5 and Gogra post in Eastern Ladakh and are refusing to disengage completely from there.

The Chinese have also created a build-up along the LAC opposite Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh but the Chinese troops there are in-depth areas.

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The Chinese created tensions with India on May 5 when they marched into the Galwan Valley in very high numbers and tried to change the status quo on the LAC.

The two countries held the 18th meeting of Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on border affairs on Thursday and agreed that restoration of peace and tranquility in the border areas would be essential for the overall development of bilateral relations.

They agreed to resolve the outstanding issues in an expeditious manner and in accordance with the existing agreements and protocols and said the two sides will continue to sincerely work towards complete disengagement of troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh.

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The owners of a New Jersey diner have continued to defy state orders and local police in order to allow indoor dining - even after the police turned up to change the locks to their restaurant.

Couple, Brian and Debbie Brindisi, told NJ.com that they received a call from their alarm company on Friday morning around 4.30am notifying them that three doors at the Lakeside Diner had been broken into.

Debbie said they immediately went to the establishment where they found deputies from the Ocean County Sheriff's Office, a locksmith and the Lacey Township police.

Couple, Brian and Debbie Brindisi (pictured) who own Lakeside Diner in New Jersey, have continued to defy state orders and local police in order to allow indoor dining

The couple said they received a call from their alarm company on Friday morning around 4.30am notifying them that three doors at the Lakeside Diner (pictured) had been broken into

Debbie said they immediately went to the establishment where they found deputies from the Ocean County Sheriff's Office, a locksmith (pictured) and the Lacey Township police

She said they were in the process of changing the locks when her husband, Brian, managed to get inside.

By 7am, the Brindisis had opened their restaurant to diners eating inside and out.

According to NJ.com, the couple have opened their doors to indoor dining since June in order to stay financially afloat amid the coronavirus pandemic.

New Jersey Gov Phil Murphy indefinitely banned indoor dining in late June after seeing spikes in other states 'driven by, in part, the return of indoor dining'.

As a result, businesses in the state have to rely on outdoor seating and delivery and to-go orders.

Debbie also shared images of the locksmith outside their restaurant, saying: 'You would think that they wouldn't because they're trespassing. But I guess because it was an executive order from our wonderful governor. They didn't want to do it. But they're doing their jobs as well.'

The Brindisi started opening their doors to indoor dining in early June in order to stay financially afloat amid the coronavirus pandemic. Around the same time, they received a $1,000 fine (Facebook post from Brian)

State officials said that Friday's incident marked the diner's 10th citation since early June. Two of those citations occurred last week

State officials said that Friday's incident marked the diner's 10th citation since early June.

Two of those citations occurred last week.

Debbie said she and her husband believe that they are well within their constitutional rights to keep their restaurant operating financially.

'As well as a need financially to pay our bills here, pay our bills at home, pay our employees, it's also a constitutional right,' she told NJ.com.

A GoFundMe page was also started to raise $1,000 that would go toward paying off the couple's fines.

According to the page, which has raised more than $1,200, the rest would go toward 'a charity of their choice'.

New Jersey has reported more than 191,000 coronavirus cases and at least 15,943 deaths since the pandemic hit the state in mid-March.
Metro Health reported 137 more cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, pushing the total number closer to 45,000 since the pandemic started five months ago, but the spread of the virus has slowed down steadily in the last few weeks.

On ExpressNews.com: TABC suspends popular bars liquor license for coronavirus violations

Weve seen how quickly COVID-19 can spread, so we must remain vigilant, Mayor Ron Nirenberg said in a social media post Saturday. We cant let our guard down in the face of smaller daily case numbers. This is not the time to let up.

The citys health authority verified 14 more deaths from the virus Saturday. The death toll stands at 712, up from 698 Friday.

The deaths from COVID-19 reported Saturday occurred between July 3 and Aug. 20. They include five Hispanic men in their 60s and 70s, three Hispanic women in their 50s and 60s, and one Hispanic man in his 40s. A white man in his 80s also died.

Among the reported deaths, no race or ethnicity was listed for one woman in her 50s, another woman in her 70s and two men in their 50s.

Statistics updated daily at covid19.sanantonio.gov showed the number of people in the hospital with the disease continue to drop; there were 482 on Saturday compared with 520 Friday.

On ExpressNews.com: Get the latest update on coronavirus and a tracking map of U.S. cases

That number has gone down six days in a row, but the available staffed hospital beds has remained below 20 percent and overall the citys health system is still considered to be under high stress.

On Saturday, the city reported 16 percent of staffed hospital beds in the area were available. Fifty-eight percent of the local supply of ventilators were ready for use.

Of those in the hospital Saturday, 213 were in intensive care, down from 232 Friday, and 144 were on ventilators to help them breathe, down from 153 Friday.

In recent weeks, the number of COVID-19-related hospitalizations has persistently trended downward.

The number of people hospitalized and the number of patients in ICU have both fallen by 35 percent over the last two weeks. And there are 37 percent fewer patients on ventilators than there were 14 days ago.

The number of new cases cropping up has slowed this month, as well.

Since Aug. 1, the city of San Antonio has reported 197 new cases per day. Thats down sharply compared with the last two weeks of July, when the city averaged 869 new cases of COVID-19 each day.

As of Saturday, at least 44,951 people in Bexar County have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic began in mid-March.

Metro Health officials said 205 cases likely will be added to that total today as a result of coding errors for tests conducted at Walgreens Pharmacy. The Texas Department of State Health Services has been working on 59,000 Walgreens test results in Texas, and it appears 205 belong to Bexar. Once finalized, those cases will be added to the total, which is expected to happen today.

In nearby Comal County, officials reported five new cases on Saturday. The death toll there remained at 80, while the number of confirmed cases increased to 514.

Diego Mendoza-Moyers covers manufacturing, the automotive industry and the energy sector. To read more from Diego, become a subscriber. diego.mendoza-moyers@express-news.net | Twitter: @dmendozamoyers
Several First Nations on B.Cs northern coast want COVID-19 measures strengthened in the wake of an influx of out-of-province visitors.

In a news release issued Aug. 20, the elected leaders of Lax Kwaalaams, Metlakatla, Gitxaala, Gitgaat, Kitselas, Kitsumkalum and Kitasoo noted many of the travellers who have licence plates from the U.S. or provinces other than B.C. are staying for non-essential recreational purposes.

Although non-essential travel has been encouraged by the B.C. government since June 24, the leaders said they would like to see restrictions for non-essential activities such as recreational fishing and other tourism-related activities.

It is very alarming to see licence plates near our communities from places like Texas and Washington where COVID-19 is out of control, said Chief Judy Gerow of the Kitselas Nation.

The new controls for people through to Alaska have improved the situation, but there are still risks to our people.

Stricter rules and additional entry conditions for foreign nationals transiting through Canada to Alaska were announced by the federal government on July 30.

The leaders argue there is no capacity in their remote communities to manage the spread of COVID-19.

After having written a letter to Premier John Horgan earlier this month, which urged the B.C. government to restrict travel between provinces to prevent the spread of COVID-19 involving non-essential activities such as recreational fishing and other tourism activities, the First Nations said they are expecting to meet with Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor, Mike Farnworth, and set up a COVID-19 risk management co-ordinating committee.

Boaters have been coming into the Gitgaat territory for non-essential travel and are risking our peoples health and well-being, Chief Arnold Clifton said.

There is a blatant disregard for my communitys safety and we need to take matters into our own hands if people dont take the COVID-19 safety measures seriously.

Farnworth and Horgan did not return a request for comment.

Farnworth announced on Aug. 21 the ability of police and other provincial enforcements to issue $2,000 violation tickets for individuals contravening provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henrys order on gatherings and events.

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Image: Reuters

Garuda Prakashan on August 23 said it will publish the book Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story. This comes after Bloomsbury India said it was withdrawing the book after seeing outrage over a virtual pre-publication launch event that featured Bhartiya Janata Party leader Kapil Mishra.

Garuda Prakashan which claims to promote the "indic narrative", has previously also published "Urban Naxal" by director and author Vivek Agnihotri, "India Facts: Hindu Human Rights Report 2017" by author Mayank Patel, and "The English Medium Myth" by author Sankrant Sanu.

The publishing house said that Delhi Riots is expected to hit the stands within 15 days.

"Garuda Prakashan is committed to an authentic narrative of Indian history  both ancient and contemporary. It is sad to see that other publishers are being driven by extraneous events rather than the content of the book. We support eminent authors of the book to bring out the true picture of Delhi riots," said Sankrant Sanu, CEO of Garuda Prakashan.

After withdrawing the launch of the book on August 22, Bloomsbury India issued a statement which read: "In view of very recent events including a virtual pre-publication launch organised without our knowledge by the authors, with participation by parties of whom the publishers would not have approved, we have decided to withdraw publication of the book. Bloomsbury India strongly supports freedom of speech but also has a deep sense of responsibility towards society.

The authors  advocate Monika Arora and Delhi University teachers Sonali Chitalkar and Prerna Malhotra  have thanked Garuda Prakashan for agreeing to publish the book and supporting freedom of expression. They have alleged that Bloomsbury UK was pressurised by some international authors and social activists for not publishing their book.

"The book launch was planned on 22nd August, 4 pm. At 3:30 pm Bloomsbury India tells us that Bloomsbury UK has pressurised them to withdraw this book. They said that Bloomsbury UK was pressurised by international authors and other social activists who have tweeted and tagged Bloomsbury UK not to publish this book. "These people have not read this book and without reading they have pressurised Bloomsbury to withdraw the book. This is killing of freedom of expression. It is killing of writers' right to write. We want to tell Bloomsbury UK that black lives matter, brown lives matter too," the authors said in a joint statement.

-- With inputs from PTI
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is a hostage in Iran and was on the brink of being freed from jail in Iran almost two-and-a-half years ago until a planned deal collapsed, according to a new documentary.

The mother-of-ones husband Richard Ratcliffe said the family had even been given a date of December 28 2017 for his wifes return to the UK.

It is unclear why the deal fell through.

The revelations were made during a BBC Panorama investigation into the detention of British and other western citizens in Iran, which airs on Monday night on BBC One at 7.30pm.

It has long been claimed Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe is being held in order to force the UK into settling a multi-million pound dispute with Iran.

The debt dates back to the 1970s when the then-Shah of Iran paid the UK 400 million for 1,500 chieftain tanks.

When he was toppled in 1979, Britain refused to deliver the tanks to the new Islamic Republic but kept the cash, despite British courts accepting that the money should be repaid.

Panorama said that according to its sources, the Ministry of Defence has objected to the repayment.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has said the Iranian authorities have told her that her release hinges on the money being returned.

But publicly the Iranian authorities have denied any link between the debt and Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffes imprisonment.

The UK Foreign Office also said they do not recognise any linkage between the debt and her imprisonment, adding it is unhelpful to suggest otherwise.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has so far served four years in prison and is currently on temporary release under effective house arrest at her parents home in Tehran due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

It is unclear whether she will be permanently freed or recalled to prison.

Richard Ratcliffe believes his wife is being held for leverage (Kirsty OConnor/PA)

She was arrested at Tehran airport in April 2016 as she was returning to London with her daughter, following a visit to her parents to introduce them to their grandchild.

Story continues

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was convicted of spying and jailed for five years.

She has been afforded diplomatic protection by the UK Government, which states that she is innocent and that her treatment by Iran failed to meet obligations under international law.

Mr Ratcliffe believes his wife is being held as diplomatic leverage by Iran.

The US authorities agree.

US Special Representative to Iran, Brian Hook, told Panorama Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other western detainees are effectively hostages.

The Americans that are held in Iran are wrongfully detained and Iran has unfortunately a sad history going back to 1979 of hostage taking, when they took our American diplomats hostage, he said.

This is a practice. Its a tool of statecraft.

Its part of Irans foreign policy to take people hostage who are innocent and then trade them later for some objective that they think advances their own objectives.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 23

Trend:

On August 23 at about 05:45, the sabotage-reconnaissance group of the Armenian armed forces made an attempt to commit a provocation in the direction of the Goranboy district of the front, Trend reports with reference to the Defense Ministry.

As a result of the resolute actions of the units of the Azerbaijan Army stationed in this direction, the enemy, suffering losses, was forced to retreat.

During the battle, the commander of the Armenian sabotage group, according to the initial interrogation, First Lieutenant Gurgin Alberyan was taken prisoner.

"We declare once again that the military-political leadership of Armenia bear all responsibility for the aggravation of the situation at the front," the ministry said.
Ready to step down as Congress president: Sonia Gandhi tells aides after letter row

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Aug 23: Sonia Gandhi, the Congress interim president has responded to a letter by party colleagues saying she would step down from the party's interim chief's post and that the party should choose a new president.

Sonia had taken over as interim chief on August 10 last year after Rahul Gandhi resigned taking responsibility for the party's debacle in the Lok Sabha election.

Gandhi has sent a formal reply in which she has asked the party leaders to get together and find a new chief as she does not want to carry out the responsibilities any further.

Ahead of crucial CWC meet tomorrow, different voices have emerged within the party with one section comprising sitting MPs and former ministers demanding collective leadership, while another group has sought the return of Rahul Gandhi to the helm.

While two dozen Congress leaders including some ex-ministers have written to party president Sonia Gandhi for overhaul of the organizational structure and changes to the leadership, some leaders close to Rahul have also written to the CWC pressing for the Gandhi scion's return as chief.

The letter by former ministers and some MPs was believed to have been written a few weeks ago and sets the stage for a stormy CWC meeting where issues flagged by dissenters are expected to be discussed and debated.

Gandhi vs non-Gandhi: Congress leaders call for changes in party, another group bats for Rahul

These leaders have called for bringing changes in the organization by effecting reforms through decentralisation of power and empowerment of state units besides setting up of the Central Parliamentary Board, a body that existed in the party in the 1970s but was later wound up.

The letter in question has also stressed collective decision-making with Gandhi family as its "integral part."

They have also called for the appointment of a full-time leadership which is active and which can be easily contacted by workers and leaders. The pro-reform leaders are further learnt to have called for free and fair organizational polls from the block up to the working committee level.
As Mumbai braces for the first day of immersion of Ganesh idols on Sunday, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has advised citizens celebrating in home to carry out immersion at their homes in buckets or drums.

The BMC has also banned processions for immersion and has given the option to conduct immersion at 70 natural and 170 artificial spots in the city by following social distancing and hygiene norms. Every year on the first day, over 35,000 idols are immersed in the city. In 2019, over 46,000 idols were immersed on the first day.

The BMC has uploaded a list of natural and artificial ponds on its website http://stopcoronavirus.mcgm.gov.in/ganesh-visarjan-locations.

In case of 70 natural immersion spots that also includes sea, only those citizens or devotees residing within 2 km radius of these spots are allowed to immerse their idols there by handing them over to the BMC. The citizens or devotees shall not be allowed to enter the sea water or water of natural spots to immerse the idols themselves under any circumstances, the BMC said in an advisory.

Devotees who are celebrating Ganesh festival in their homes are advised to carry out idol immersion of the Ganesh idols at their homes in a bucket or a drum as their first preference, the advisory also said.

The BMC has also asked mandals and those celebrating from home and residing in containment zones or sealed buildings to either defer immersion for next year or make arrangements on their own using buckets or drums.

The advisory issued by BMC in this context reads, The Ganeshotsav Mandals as well as citizens situated in Containment Zones shall immerse their Ganesh idols by creating necessary arrangements in the mandap /pandal and their homes itself . Alternatively they can defer the immersion of the idols to the next year. Devotees who are staying in sealed buildings shall mandatorily immerse their Ganesh idols in their homes itself (in bucket/ small drums) or postpone the immersion to the next year.

Further, the BMC has said that devotees shall perform pooja and aarti in their homes itself and then hand over the idols to the BMC because these will not be permitted at the immersion spots. Those taking part in immersion will have to use masks, sanitizers and follow necessary social distancing, added the BMC.

Meanwhile, as a special arrangement, BMC this year has created the mobile immersion spots on wheels by making necessary arrangements by fitting suitable water tanks in trucks. Devotees are also requested to take advantage of these mobile immersion spots after taking information from the official website of BMC.
If you get an email from your rabbi or pastor, chances are you wont think twice about whether its legitimate.

But you should.

Scammers are sending out emails to members of religious congregations, asking for a favor. They appear to come from that congregations spiritual leader and say, email me as soon as you get this message. Once you reply, you get another email asking that you buy eBay gift cards to help a friend whos hospitalized with cancer. The friend, according to the email, needs the cards to download music and videos to boost his confidence on his next phase of surgery.

The clergy member promises to pay you back for the cards, requested in denominations of up to $1,000. Of course, this will never happen because you are corresponding with an imposter. The best protection is to contact the clergy member or the congregation office directly to see if the request is kosher.

* * *

Warning to New Mexico businesses from the state attorney general: Beware of fake federal inspectors who are visiting restaurants and collecting $100 fines for alleged violations. The AGs Office is hearing about scammers visiting New Mexico restaurants and impersonating Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspectors.

Only after paying the fine do restaurants discover that the so-called inspector is a fraud, a news release said.

Authorized inspectors always show credentials when visiting a restaurant or other business, and any concerns or fines will be presented through official means, such as in writing, the AGs Office says. Report incidents like this at www.nmag.gov or call 844-255-9210.

* * *

The latest scam coronavirus cures or treatments involve electric current device zappers, nasal spray and intravenous vitamin and ozone therapies.

The FTC has filed lawsuits against marketers hawking these products or services, saying they are not supported by scientific evidence. Talk with a health care professional before trying any supposed COVID-19 products. Information on the virus and treatments in development can be found at www.fda.gov/patients.

Other schemes hitting New Mexicans:

 Watch out for emails claiming to be from the Clerk of Court, saying you must complete a questionnaire because you have been chosen to serve as a potential juror for two months, according to the U.S. District Court in New Mexico. The emails come from jurors@clerkofcourt.org, which is not associated with the courts. It also contains a link that is not legitimate and could be dangerous if followed. The court says it does not send out jury summons via email.

 Reminder about a fake letter from law enforcement seeking pledged donations and child ID information, such as fingerprints, a hair sample and current photo. The letter makes reference to the National Police and Troopers Association, also known as the International Union of Police Associations.

* * *

Congress has not yet approved a second coronavirus stimulus package, creating an uncertainty that provides a perfect breeding ground for fraudsters, the FTC says. Consumers should use caution when looking for work-at-home job opportunities. For example, online ads might tout internet businesses, shipping or mailing work or selling positions.

A tip-off that its not a legitimate help wanted ad is when it requires you to pay something upfront. The ad might say, for example, that you have to pay a fee for certification or supplies. Research potential employers online, and use legitimate, well-respected sites.

Also during this time, be wary of mortgage help offers that want you to pay before you get any help in return. ITs illegal for companies to charge you before they help you with your mortgage, the FTC says. If you are behind on your mortgage, contact your mortgage server to see what options you might have.

Contact Ellen Marks at emarks@abqjournal.com. To report a scam to law enforcement, contact the New Mexico Consumer Protection Division toll-free at 1-844-255-9210.
Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP

Donald Trump is set to travel to Charlotte on Monday, to attend in person as delegates to the Republican National Convention renominate him for US president.

Related: 'I decided I had to do something': can young voters flip a key swing county against Trump?

The North Carolina city was chosen two years ago as the site where Republicans would officially launch Trumps bid for re-election, only for the coronavirus pandemic to throw such plans into disarray. An attempt to shift a standard convention format to Jacksonville, Florida, was ditched as the virus surged.

Trump will nonetheless reportedly make an appearance in Charlotte on Monday, with Republicans determined to mount elements of an in-person convention.

This weeks Democratic National Convention, originally planned for Milwaukee, in Wisconsin, was comprised of remotely filmed segments, without the familiar audience of cheering delegates. Most observers deemed it a success.

Details for the Republican convention remain vague, although Trump is set to flout convention by delivering his acceptance speech from the White House, traditionally a place free of party politics, on Thursday.

I think you are going to be surprised by some of the things we do Lara Trump

Events in the capitol will be centered on the Andrew W Mellon Auditorium, which will have a reduced capacity due to social distancing concerns. The venue is close to Trumps Washington hotel, which is expected to act as a social hub, netting income for the family business. A fireworks display on the National Mall is also planned.

Trump will appear on each night of the four-night convention, according to Lara Trump, his daughter-in-law and adviser.

We want people at the end of our four days to be reminded that America continues to be the greatest, most exceptional nation in the world, she told NBC on Saturday. I think you are going to be surprised by some of the things we do.

Trump also accused the Democratic convention of being dark, dismal and really depressing, words which echoed Democrats criticism of the president. The Democratic event featured sharp attacks on Trumps handling of the pandemic, which has caused more than 175,000 deaths in the US, before nominee Joe Biden pledged to be the ally of the light, not the darkness.

Story continues

On Saturday, Trump tweeted a falsehood that Democrats had removed the word God from recitals of the pledge of allegiance, which they did not. He also again appealed to suburban women, accusing Democratic-run cities of being rampant with crime, which many critics allege is a racist dogwhistle.

ABC News released clips from a joint interview with Biden and Kamala Harris, newly minted Democratic nominees for president and vice-president, which will air on Sunday night.

I would shut it down, Biden said, asked if he would close the country again to deal with the pandemic, as Trump has not done. I would listen to the scientists.

I will do whatever it takes to save lives because we cannot get the country moving until we control the virus Joe Biden

I will be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives because we cannot get the country moving until we control the virus. That is the fundamental flaw of this administrations thinking to begin with. In order to keep the country running and moving and the economy growing, and people employed, you have to fix the virus, you have to deal with the virus.

In an earlier, solo interview with ABC, Biden was asked about another subject central to the quickening campaign, as protests over police brutality continue: President Trump says that you want to defund the police. Do you?

No I dont, Biden said. I dont want to defund police departments. I think they need more help, they need more assistance, but that, look, there are unethical senators, there are unethical presidents, there are unethical doctors, unethical lawyers, unethical prosecutors, there are unethical cops. They should be rooted out.

By the way, Biden added, [Trump] proposes cutting a half a billion dollars of local police support. ABC said that was probably a reference to proposed cuts to a federal programme that helps hire local law enforcement officers.

In the joint interview, interviewer David Muir brought up Trumps attacks on Harris.

President Trump has referred to you as nasty, a sort of madwoman, a disaster, the meanest, most horrible, most disrespectful of anybody in the US Senate. How do you define what you hear from the president?

Harris laughed.

Related: After a repentant Trump voter's one-man protest, what happened next?

Listen, I think there is so much about what comes out of Donald Trumps mouth that is designed to distract the American people from what he is doing every day that is about neglect, negligence and harm to the American people.

And incompetence, Biden added. The idea that he would say something like that  no president, no president has ever said anything like that. No president has ever used those words.

And no president has said people coming out of fields with torches and spewing antisemitic bile and met by people who oppose them, and someone dies, and he says theyre good people on both sides. No president of the United States has ever said anything like that ever.

That was a reference to far-right protests in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017, in which Heather Heyer, a counter-protester, was killed. Biden said those events, and Trumps response to them, helped inspire his third run for the White House.
CARsgen Therapeutics Receives IND Clearance from the NMPA for CT041 CLDN18.2-CAR-T Cells

Details Category: DNA RNA and Cells Published on Thursday, 20 August 2020 13:42 Hits: 1318

SHANGHAI, China I August 20, 2020 I CARsgen Therapeutics Co., Ltd., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, today announced that the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) has cleared its Investigational New Drug (IND) application for the first-in-class drug candidate CT041, autologous chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells for the treatment of claudin18.2-positive solid tumors.

CT041, a humanized CAR-claudin18.2 T-cell therapy developed by CARsgen Therapeutics for patients with claudin18.2-positive adenocarcinoma of the stomach, gastroesophageal junction, or pancreas, previously received IND clearance from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in May 2020. CT041 is the first claudin18.2-targeted CAR T-cell therapy IND cleared for clinical trials in China.

"Annual incidence of gastric cancer in China has already exceeded 600,000 cases. Pancreatic cancer is also one of the malignancies with highest unmet medical needs. Despite the development of novel therapies, gastric and pancreatic adenocarcinomas remain incurable, and new treatment options are urgently needed," said Professor Lin Shen, principal investigator from Beijing Cancer Hospital, Peking University in China. "Claudin18.2 is abundant in a variety of human malignancies including gastric, pancreatic, esophageal cancer, and biliary tract tumor, which indicates that claudin18.2 is a highly attractive target for cancer immunotherapies. We will continue to advance the clinical trial and facilitate its translation into robust clinical benefits."

"The IND clearance by the NMPA is an important regulatory milestone in the clinical development and commercialization of CT041 anti-claudin18.2 CAR T cells," said Dr. Zonghai Li, founder, CEO and CSO of CARsgen. "According to the World Health Organization, about 1,030,000 new cases of gastric adenocarcinoma and over 450,000 new cases of pancreatic adenocarcinoma are expected each year[1] . Gastric and pancreatic cancer are among the malignancies with the highest unmet medical needs. Our goal is to develop novel, safe and effective immunotherapies. This is our long-standing commitment to cancer patients worldwide."

[1] Bray F, Ferlay J, Soerjomataram I, Siegel RL, Torre LA, Jemal A. Global cancer statistics 2018: GLOBOCAN estimates of incidence and mortality worldwide for 36 cancers in 185 countries. CA Cancer J Clin. 2018;68(6):394-424.

About CARsgen Therapeutics

CARsgen Therapeutics is a clinical-stage immune-oncology company committed to the development of First-in-Class and Best-in-Class CAR-T and antibody therapeutics.

Founded in 2014, CARsgen is based in Shanghai, with operations in both China and the United States. CARsgen has established a broad pipeline of CAR-T product candidates covering several solid and blood tumors in areas of significant unmet medical need. The company has launched several First-in-Class CAR-T clinical trials for the treatment of relapsed/refractory tumors, including CAR-Claudin18.2-T for gastric and pancreatic cancer, CAR-GPC3-T for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and squamous lung cancer and CAR-EGFR/EGFRvIII-T for glioblastoma. CARsgen also has ongoing clinical programs with a fully human CAR-BCMA-T for multiple myeloma and a humanized CAR-CD19-T for leukemia.

CARsgen's proprietary antibody platform enables the development of therapeutic antibodies. Its leading humanized monoclonal antibody targeting Claudin18.2 has obtained IND approval from the NMPA.

For more information, please visit: www.carsgen.com

SOURCE: CARsgen Therapeutics
Bastion in the gourmet capital of Kinsale, Co Cork, another Michelin-starred restaurant

Wilde in The Lodge at Ashford Castle in Co Mayo

With staycations very much in vogue, there has never been a better time for a destination dining adventure in Ireland, says Lucinda O'Sullivan. From the Michelin-starred to the just damn wonderful, these are the kind of places that have gourmets galloping from far and wide. And, you won't just eat absurdly well, you'll also be supporting some of our very best restaurants, which, like everyone else, have been hit hard by the Covid-19 crisis

AIMSIR

They came, they saw, they conquered. Cornwall native Jordan Bailey, ex the three-star Maaemo in Oslo, and his Danish wife, Majken, came to Co Kildare to set up Aimsir at Barry O'Callaghan's Cliff at Lyons and, within six months, garnered two Michelin stars. 'Get there before they get stars and the price trebles', I said in my review. It hasn't quite trebled but it's gone from 105 to 180 for their 15-course tasting menu. Overnight packages; plus lounge 'snacks' at 18.50pp, Wed-Sat. Sunday lunch, 45.

aimsir.ie

ANANDA

The flagship of Asheesh Dewan's Jaipur group in a colourful airy penthouse in Dundrum Town Centre, where young head chef Karan Mittal is creating stunning food that should have already had Michelin sending stars in their direction. Pre-theatre and a la carte menus plus a superb tasting menu, 70, available Fri/Sat.

anandarestaurant.ie

CHAPTER ONE

Ross Lewis's long-standing Michelin-starred restaurant just gets better with time. Now opening at 5pm, Wed-Sat, with a pre-theatre menu, 45, and dinner menus, 85-120. Chef's table also, plus lunch Fri/Sat, 45.

chapteronerestaurant.com

DAX

Olivier Meisonnave's little bit of France, set in a basement on Upper Pembroke St, with Graham Neville as head chef, has superb food and ambiance. Think foie gras and courgette flowers stuffed with Dublin Bay prawns in a lemongrass and ginger bisque. Dinner Wed-Sat, 2-4 course, 5.30pm/6pm or 8.30pm/9pm, 65-89, or Lunch Thurs/Fri, 2-4 courses, 32-48.

dax.ie

L'ECRIVAIN

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Derry and Sallyanne Clarke's legendary Michelin-starred restaurant in a mews on Dublin's Baggot St will be closing at Christmas as they pursue another venture. So don't miss this experience. Dinner Tues-Sat, three courses 85+12.5pc s/c.

lecrivain.com

LIATH

Damien Grey's Michelin-starred Liath in Blackrock Market is a must for anyone interested in cutting edge food. Tables here, due to its tiny capacity, are like gold dust. Multiple-course tasting menu, 120. Plus Wed-Sat from 5.30pm-7pm, there's a three-course menu for just 55.

liathrestaurant.com

RESTAURANT PATRICK GUILBAUD

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Dublin's long-standing two Michelin star restaurant never falters. Dinner, Tues-Sat, 98-160, lunch 55-65. Think ravioli of blue lobster and lacquered Challans duck breast. Lunch on Sat has the best people-watching opportunities.

restaurantpatrickguilbaud.ie

THE GREENHOUSE

With Eamonn O'Reilly at the helm and chef Mickael Viljanen, The Greenhouse achieved its second Michelin star last October. Think langoustine tart, Oscietra caviar, Champagne vinegar. Tasting menus, 140/180. Lunch 65.

thegreenhouserestaurant.ie

VOLPE NERA

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Watch this space for a Michelin star. Barry Sun Jian is delivering exquisite food at Volpe Nera in Blackrock with a fusion of Italian, Spanish and Chinese influences. ALC Dinner Fri/Sat. Lunch Sunday. Great value.

volpenera.ie

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BASTION

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The gourmet capital of Ireland, Kinsale, was delighted when Paul and Helen McDonald won a Michelin star for the town. Their contemporary plates are well balanced in an eight-course menu at 77.50. Dinner Wed-Sun.

bastionkinsale.com

CAMPAGNE

Great French cuisine, in a spacious relaxed atmosphere, at Garret Byrne and Brid Hannon's Michelin-starred Campagne in Kilkenny. It's extraordinarily good value with a three-course dinner menu at 60 including foie gras terrine with Pedro Ximinez jelly. The early bird menu is 40, as is lunch on Sat/Sun. It's the only Michelin-starred restaurant in Ireland doing Sunday lunch.

campagne.ie

CHESTNUT

There's something unique about Rob Krawczyk's little Michelin-starred Chestnut in the dinky West Cork village of Ballydehob. Set in an old-world pub, the eight-course menu at 95 is served Thurs-Sat, and, believe me, you'll remember it.

restaurantchestnutwestcork.ie

DEDE

Ahmet Dede, ex-The Greenhouse and Mews in Baltimore, West Cork, where he achieved a Michelin star, is now running the show at his own restaurant, down the road at The Custom House, creating the Turkish food of his childhood but in a contemporary style. Superb. Three-course menu from Thurs-Sat, 50.

customhousebaltimore.com

LADY HELEN

Set in one of the most beautiful estates in Ireland, the Michelin-starred Lady Helen at Mount Juliet, Co Kilkenny, is a serene experience with exquisite cuisine created by executive head chef John Kelly. Seven-course tasting menu from Tues-Sat, 95.

mountjuliet.ie

LIGNUM

Danny Africano sure put the townsland of Bullaun, near Loughrea, on the map, when he opened Lignum last autumn. It's located in a fab purpose-built Grand Designs type house where everything is cooked over wood. Michelin-worthy stuff, I said on my visit, and yep, I still think so. But then again, who knows with Michelin! Superb 6/8 course tasting menu, 75/95.

lignum.ie

MACNEAN HOUSE

Ireland's best-loved chef Neven Maguire has added a lovely outdoor courtyard to his MacNean House in Blacklion, Co Cavan. Offering lovely food with lovely rooms to match, MacNean is an ideal spot for a staycation. Dinner served Wed-Sun. Tasting menu 89. Sunday lunch 48.

nevenmaguire.com

THE HOUSE

A new team was appointed at The Cliff House Hotel in Ardmore, which sees executive and head chefs Ian Doyle and Adam Kavanagh, both ex the two-star Oaxen Krog in Stockholm, bringing the restaurant forward with some fresh ideas. 6/10-course tasting menus, 95/120, Tues-Sat, with sittings at 6.30pm and 8pm.

cliffhousehotel.ie

THE OAK ROOM

Head chef Michael Tweedie, in less than two years at the Oak Room's stove, pretty smartly achieved a Michelin star for JP McManus's exquisite Adare Manor. Dinner, three-courses, 100, will be luxurious with perhaps foie gras, lobster, or turbot with Exmoor caviar. Eight-course market menu, 120. Open seven days a week.

adaremanor.com

THE LODGE AT ASHFORD CASTLE

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Set on the Ashford Estate, head chef Jonathan Keane's mantra is 'local food with imagination', which he delivers every time, both in the fine dining Wilde's Restaurant and the Quay Bar & Brasserie. His training is classical French but he casts his culinary net far and wide borrowing from Italy and Japan amongst others. Superb accommodation also and various packages to choose from.

thelodgeac.com

THE OLD POST INN

Offering an outrageously pretty setting, in Cloverhill, Co Cavan, Gearoid and Tara Lynch's Old Post Inn is a perfect escape with excellent food and drink to be had. Dinner served, Thurs-Sun 69. Sunday lunch 45.

theoldepostinn.com

lucindaosullivan.com
(Newser)  President Trump has suggested Joe Biden has slipped mentally. Age is a fair issue, Joe Biden says in a new interview. "I think it's a legitimate question to ask anybody over 70 years old whether or not they're fit and whether they're ready," the Democratic presidential nominee says. Trump is 74, and Biden would be taking office at age 78. Biden's answer to doubters: "Watch me." Biden addressed the issue in an interview to be broadcast Sunday night, ABC reports. Interviewed with his running mate, Kamala Harris, Biden said, "Look at us both, what we say, what we do, what we control, what we know, what kind of shape we're in." Asked what it meant when he suggested he's a transition candidate, Biden said it didn't mean he would be a one-termer. He "absolutely" is open to serving two terms, he said.

story continues below

The "transition" reference was about Democratic failures in "building the bench" in state offices, Biden said. The nominee said his goal is to "make sure when this is over, we have a new Senate, we won back statehouses, were in a position where we transition to a period of bringing people up to the visibility that they need to get to be able to lead nationally. And that's about raising people up." Harris laughed off Trump's insults in the interview, per the Guardian, as attempts to distract from "the harm" he's doing to the country. In an recent opinion piece on CNN, Lincoln Mitchell pointed out the dangers of coming into office as a lame duck. If Biden makes clear he's only in for one term, Mitchell writes, Harris becomes the frontrunner for 2024, and "Democratic unity will not last long." (Read more Joe Biden 2020 stories.)
Theres tremendous opportunity in that region, Pekau said. Wed like to see medical buildings and pharmaceutical businesses in the area. The close proximity to Chicago and OHare makes it a perfect location for those types of businesses. That brings good paying jobs to our community.

Also close by are University of Chicago Medicine, Loyola Medical Center, Palos Health and Silver Cross Hospital. Village administrators believe that additional medical and pharmaceutical campuses will complement each other.

CSIA offers more than 850 acres with utilities ready or nearby. We are very optimistic on the development well see in the area over the next few years, Pekau said.

Pandemic aid

When it came to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the economy, Orland Park was no different than any other village. We had hundreds of businesses that closed their doors with little or no notice, Pekau said. While the mall and the I-80 campus are big businesses, we understand that small independent businesses are the heart of our community. So, we decided to establish programs to help our local business owners survive the economic impact of the pandemic.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-24 03:49:17|Editor: huaxia

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DAMASCUS, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. forces have brought 40 truckloads of military gear and armored vehicles from Iraq to U.S. bases in Syria's northeastern province of Hasakah, a war watchdog reported Sunday.

The military gear crossed into the Syrian territory through the al-Walid border crossing from the Iraqi Kurdistan region on Saturday, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The shipment is the latest to reach U.S. bases in Hasakah.

On Aug. 7, U.S. armored vehicles entered areas in northeastern Syria and reached U.S. bases in the region.

The United States maintains several bases in areas controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Hasakah.

The Syrian government has repeatedly slammed the U.S. troops present in Syria as forces of occupation, saying they entered the country without the consent of the Syrian government. Enditem
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A police captain plans to sue the NYPD for $5 million, claiming she was the victim of alleged discrimination and retaliation, according to multiple reports.

Capt. Sharon Balli, 42, a retired Army major and the NYPDs first female Indian-Guyanese captain, filed a notice of claim with the city comptroller this week, according to the Daily News. The notice alleges sex, race and employment discrimination as well as retaliation, the report said.

Balli, who is assigned to Manhattan South Narcotics, said she was allegedly repeatedly asked about her sex life by a fellow captain and was targeted with an Internal Affairs probe after complaining about it, according to the notice, the New York Post reported.

The notice also alleges the captain tried to get into Ballis office to catch her undressing and tried to get into a shared executive bathroom while she was showering, according to the report.

Balli claims reporting the alleged incidents only created a more toxic hostile work environment, the report said.

An NYPD spokesman told the Daily News and the Post that the department would review the lawsuit once it is served.
The Bombay high court on Friday rejected anticipatory bail applications of two Pune residents, including RTI activist Ravindra Barahate, accused of conniving with a dancer to extort money from a 64-year-old builder.

Barahate and his alleged accomplice Amol Chavan had moved HC after being booked by Kothrud police in Pune, on the basis of a complaint lodged by the builder Sudhir Karnataki.

Karnataki in his complaint alleged that he was introduced to the dancer, 34-year-old Dipti Aher in 2007 during the wedding reception of his nephew. A friendship developed between them and he started attending her dance programmes in Pune.

In November 2013, on the dancers request, Karnataki arranged a three-bedroom flat at Bavdhan for her family on rent and two years later purchased it showing Aher a co-owner. However, from last year Dipti started threatening the builder

Karnataki alleged that from 2019, the dancer started threatening to implicate him in a false rape case and started extorting money from him. He said in November 2019 she visited his office and demanded Rs. 6 lakh and also full ownership of the flat at Bavdhan.

The builder also alleged that he was coerced into transferring full ownership of the flat to the dancer and also pay her primarily because of her accomplices - RTI activist Ravindra Barahate, extortionist Amol Chavan, a director of a well-known newspaper from western Maharashtra, and a suspended policeman. He alleged Barahate was the brain behind the extortion.

Karnataki alleged that on December 26, 2019, when he was about to leave a mall after shopping, Aher and Chavan accosted him and demanded an additional sum of Rs 2 crore and the transfer of a plot that he owned in Pune in the dancers name. He was, thereafter, made to call different people, who too terrorised him and asked him to fulfil Ahers demands.

The builder eventually approached police and lodged a complaint after he had been booked on the basis of complaint of rape lodged by the dancer.

Apprehending arrest in connection with the crime, Barahate and Chavan had moved HC, primarily on the ground that the FIR did not attribute any active role to the applicants. Barahate also claimed that he was falsely implicated, as being a RTI activist he had exposed many wrongdoings.

Additional public prosecutor Mankuwar Deshmukh opposed the plea and pointed out to the court that Barahate has amassed illegal wealth to the tune of Rs. 2,760 crore.

The nature and the gravity of the accusation, as can be seen, is quite serious, said justice Prithviraj Chavan while rejecting both applications for pre-arrest bail.

According to the prosecution, Barahte runs a land mafia and is the prime accused in many of the cases registered against him in Pune.

Prima facie, it is demonstrated that he (Barahate) has been the brain behind drafting a false complaint of rape against Sudhir, said justice Chavan after perusing statements of several witnesses in the case. The said report, it seems, is nothing but a calumny, the judge said.

The judge said antecedents of the applicants speak for themselves and need no further elaboration.

Although nothing is placed on record as to whether the applicant had suffered any conviction or imprisonment, yet the material on record is quite sufficient to refuse the pre-arrest bail to the applicants. From the entire material on record, it is difficult to infer that false accusations have been made against the applicants with an object of injuring or humiliating them, said HC.
 Flash

Iran's ambassador to the United Nations said that Tehran's reaction against Washington's attempts to reinstate pre-2015 UN sanctions on the Islamic republic would be proportionate to the state of affairs, Tasnim news agency reported on Saturday.

Iran's reaction to the U.S. bid to snapback sanctions will be commensurate with what is happening to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), namely Iran's 2015 nuclear deal, and the UN Security Council Resolution 2231, Majid Takht Ravanchi was quoted as saying.

President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the Iranian 2015 landmark deal in 2018 and reimposed major sanctions on the country's energy and financial sectors. In reaction, Iran dropped major parts of its nuclear obligations.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Thursday that Washington started the process to restore all pre-2015 UN sanctions against Iran. Recently, U.S. failed to extend a UN arms embargo against Iran at the UN Security Council.

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the attempts by the U.S. administration to snapback the UN sanctions against the Islamic republic will further isolate Washington, Tasnim reported on Saturday.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 17:40:01|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- ByteDance, owner of the popular video platform TikTok, announced on Sunday that it will file a lawsuit against the U.S. government Tuesday Beijing time to protect its rights and interests while beginning to prepare a shutdown plan for its business in the United States.

"Over the past year, we have earnestly sought to communicate with the U.S. government, and provided solutions regarding its concerns. But the U.S. administration disregarded facts, disobeyed necessary legal procedures, and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses," ByteDance said in a statement. "To ensure that the rule of law is not discarded, and that our company and users are treated fairly, we announce that we will officially file a lawsuit to safeguard our interests."

Besides the lawsuit, the company is also preparing for the worst -- a shutdown plan to keep its employees in the United States on the payroll, even if the app is shut down in the country.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Aug. 6, blocking all transactions with ByteDance, to "address the national emergency."

The New York Times, however, reported on Aug. 7 that even the Central Intelligence Agency assessed that there is no evidence showing China had intercepted TikTok's data, or used the app to intrude on users' mobile phones.

The order was to take effect within 45 days. On Aug. 14, the president signed another executive order, this time giving ByteDance 90 days to sell or spin off TikTok in the United States.

TikTok has more than 100 million users, over 1,500 employees and thousands of business partners in the United States, according to ByteDance.

ByteDance worries that, due to the extremely wide scope and highly uncertain content of the U.S. executive order against ByteDance, the company is unable to ensure that a solution acceptable to all parties can be reached within the time limit set by the U.S. government.

In just a few years, TikTok has become one of the most beloved apps among the global youth population, providing a platform for people to display their talent through short videos.

Data from app analytics firm Sensor Tower showed that it was the most downloaded non-gaming app globally in June 2020, and its installs were much higher than those of Facebook, Instagram and YouTube during the first two quarters in the United States.

Besides the company's lawsuit, its U.S. employees are also planning to take the Trump administration to court over the executive order. Enditem
TikTok said on Saturday it plans to file a lawsuit against President Donald Trump's executive order that prohibits transactions with the popular short video app and its Chinese parent ByteDance, confirming an earlier Reuters report. Reuters exclusively reported on Friday that TikTok would challenge Trump's executive order as early as Monday. TikTok in a statement said that it had tried to engage with the US administration for nearly a year, but faced "a lack of due process" and that the government paid no attention to the facts. "To ensure that the rule ...
The threats tides and storms pose to the county are expected to accelerate as the climate warms, suggesting more communities will inevitably disappear. Models suggest the Chesapeake Bay will rise as much as 2.1 feet by 2050  enough to put most of the southern half of Dorchester under water  and close to 4 feet by 2100. Scientists say this is happening both because global seas are rising as temperatures do, and because the Delmarva Peninsula has been sinking since the last Ice Age.
MUMBAI: The Special Investigation Team of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probing the death of Sushant Singh Rajput is likely to summon actress Rhea Chakraborty and record her statements. The team is also expected to question the keymaker, who broke open the door of the late actor's bedroom on July 14, in connection with the case.

Rhea was reportedly given unauthorised access for 45-minutes to the mortuary, where Sushant's mortal remains were taken for post-mortem. The CBI is expected to collect the forensic data and may question the doctors about Rhea's visit to the mortuary.

The CBI also questioned Sushant's roommate Sidharth Pithani, staff Dipesh Sawant and cook Neeraj today. According to reports, a team of Forensic experts of CBI, along with Pithani and cook Neeraj, on Sunday reached Sushant's Bandra flat, where he was found dead under mysterious circumstances on June 14. The agency interrogated the cook for the third time, whereas Pithani and Sawant were questioned for the second time.

Here's CBI tentative plan for today:

CBI to visit Sushant's Bandra flat today.

CBI may question the keymaker who broke open the actor's bedroom on July 14.

Likely to interrogate Sushant's cook Ashok.

Question Sushant's accountant Rajat Mewati today.

Sources said that probe agency has reportedly found contradictions in statements from Cook Neeraj and Pithani related to events that took place around Sushant on June 13 and 14. Sources added that the agency is also looking to grill Keshav, Sushant cook. Reports stated that he was probably the last person to meet Sushant on June 14. The CBI also questioned Pithani about how he knew Rhea and why the actress moved out of Sushant's residence on June 8.

According to reports, the crime scene recreated by CBI officials at the actor's flat will also be analysed again today.

A team of CBI reached Water Stone Resort where Sushant was allegedly made to stay for a long time, almost 2 months, by Rhea. Sushant's counselling also used to take place at this resort. His bank statements, too, showed payments for his stay here.

A separate team of CBI arrived at Hinduja Hospital, Khar, where Sushant was being treated for depression. Dr Kesari Chawda was a consultant doctor at Hinduja Hospital and was treating the actor. It is to be noted that Sushant's family has in the FIR accused a few doctors in the conspiracy surrounding the actor's death.

Earlier, the team arrived at Cooper Hospital where Rajput's mortal remains were taken for post-mortem.

The CBI has formed five teams which are looking at different aspects in Sushant death case.
TIKAMGARH: A retired government employee, his wife and three other family members, including a four-year-old minor child, were found hanging at their home in Madhya Pradesh's Tikamgarh district on Sunday (August 23).

PTI quoted District Superintendent of Police Prashant Khare saying that a few neighbours alerted the police after they noticed that nobody came out of the house on Sunday morning. The police later reached the spot and got opened the door which was bolted from inside.

They found Dharamdas Soni (62), a retired state government employee, his wife Poona (55), their son Manohar (27), daughter-in-law Sonam (25) and a four-year-old grandson hanging from the ceiling, the official said.

The police said the bodies were sent for postmortem, adding that an investigation was underway into the case from all angles.
By Andrei Makhovsky

MINSK (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of protesters demanding Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko step down defied a warning from the military on Sunday and flooded into Minsk, briefly gathering near the president's residence, before dispersing peacefully.

The veteran leader denounced the demonstrators as "rats" and was seen in state media footage wearing body armour and holding a rifle, projecting an unyielding image amid the huge nationwide demonstrations that erupted after a disputed election on Aug. 9.

The protests have provided the biggest challenge yet to Lukashenko's 26 years at the helm and tested the loyalty of his security forces.

Minsk's streets turned red and white as demonstrators carried flags symbolising their opposition to Lukashenko and chanted for him to leave power and for new elections to be held.

The crowd marched towards Lukashenko's residence at the Independence Palace, on the northern edge of the capital, the majority gathering at some distance, while a smaller group approached to between 10 and 20 metres of the building, a Reuters witness said.

Lukashenko, a former Soviet state farm boss, was shown in state media footage flying over the protests in a helicopter before landing at his residence and emerging in body armour with a rifle in his hand.

Some protesters milling below chanted "coward" as a helicopter was seen flying out of the residence, the Reuters witness said.

Later, a video circulated by state media showed Lukashenko walking over to riot police outside his residence and thanking them, eliciting an outburst of applause from security staff.

It was the first time in this month's demonstrations that protesters have neared the building's doors. The approach to the palace took place after a crowd estimated by a Reuters witness to number as many as 200,000 rallied in central Minsk for the second weekend in a row.

The crowd began to disperse in early evening. Reuters witnessed no clashes with police.

Story continues

"They have scattered like rats," Lukashenko could be heard saying in a video clip published by the Belta news agency as he flew overhead.

Belarus state television said 20,000 people took part in the protest.

Earlier, the defence ministry said the army would deal with security around national World War Two memorials and issued a direct warning to protesters whom it likened to fascists.

"We categorically warn: any violation of peace and order in such places - you will have the army to deal with now, not the police," it said in a statement. "We, soldiers, will not allow these places to be desecrated, there can be no fascism there!"

MOSCOW'S VIEW

Protests triggered by Lukashenko's claims of a landslide election victory on Aug. 9 found a leader in opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a former teacher who took her jailed husband's place on the ballot.

Following threats to her safety, Tsikhanouskaya fled to neighbouring Lithuania.

Traditional ally Russia issued some of its strongest comments yet criticising Tsikhanouskaya on Sunday.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said her statements were directed at a Western audience.

"It seems ... she has started to make political statements, harsh ones, demanding walk-outs, strikes, protests," Lavrov was cited by the RIA news agency as saying.

He described her political agenda as the opposite of constructive, focused instead on creating disunity by generating anti-Russian sentiment and squeezing out the Russian language and culture, and by aiming to join the European Union and NATO.

Tsikhanouskaya, who speaks Russian at home, has said she would like to see Belarus maintain close relations with Russia, but that Belarus should remain independent and not integrate further into Russia.

Lavrov said that by calling for Lukashenko to quit, protesters were pushing for a Venezuela-style crisis.

(Reporting by Andrei Makhovsky and Polina Ivanova; Writing by Polina Ivanova and Tom Balmforth; Editing by David Goodman, William Maclean)
UAE deal puts Israel's economic reach on Iran's doorstep Iranian business people now in 'Dubai or the UAE in general are the ultra-pragmatic' kind, says research fellow Cinzia Bianco

Israel's landmark deal with the UAE to normalise ties could see businesses from the Jewish state operating on arch-rival Iran's doorstep, but are unlikely to disturb Emirati economic ties to Iran.

It could also pave the way for direct economic engagement between Israeli and UAE-based Iranian business people that would reap benefits from politics, experts say.

Cinzia Bianco, a research fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said it would be "a while" before Iranians in the UAE come face to face with Israelis.

"It is important to stress here that most Iranians with real ties in the Islamic republic were either expelled or moved away in the past years," she said.

"Those who remained in Dubai or the UAE in general are the ultra-pragmatic business people, who refuse to get enmeshed in any kind of politics. So some of them view this deal as an opportunity, not a challenge," she added.

The oil-rich United Arab Emirates was the first Gulf state to establish ties with Israel, in a deal that came amid rising tensions with Iran, accused by its neighbours of fuelling regional instability.

Abu Dhabi accuses Tehran of occupying three Emirati islands since 1971, and downgraded ties with Iran in 2016 amid rivalry between UAE ally Saudi Arabia and the Islamic republic, which is also targeted by painful US economic sanctions.

Despite tensions, the UAE and Iran, which lie 70 kilometres (44 miles) apart across the strategic Strait of Hormuz, have maintained diplomatic exchanges and crucially protected their economic ties, generating billions for both sides.

"Tehran is not in a position to forego its economic ties with any country -- especially not the UAE which is practically next door," said Ellen R. Wald, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Global Energy Centre.

"Iran also has close ties to countries like China that work alongside Israel," she told AFP.

- Deep economic ties -

Story continues

Two days after US President Donald Trump's shock announcement of the deal, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned the UAE "against opening the path of Israel to the region".

The UAE summoned Iran's envoy to protest the "threats", although it insisted the next day the agreement "was not directed against Iran".

But feelings are still running high in the Strait of Hormuz -- a vital corridor connecting the petroleum-rich states of the Middle East with markets in Asia, Europe, North America and elsewhere.

According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), 35 percent of the world's seaborne oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran last week said it seized an Emirati boat and arrested its crew after two Iranian fishermen were shot dead in an incident in the Gulf.

But the foreign ministry in Tehran conceded the UAE had promised "compensation for any damage caused".

Trade between the UAE and Iran is worth billions of dollars, with Dubai historically serving as a centre for Iranian offshore business.

Exchange between the two oil producers was worth $8.3 billion last year, according to official Emirati statistics, down from $15.2 billion in 2018 -- before US sanctions reached their peak in May 2019.

Iranian businesses and individuals complain those sanctions mean their banking services are often suspended or withdrawn, but fail to actually stop them trading.

Mobiles phones, cars, frozen meat, clothes and other goods flow between the two countries' ports almost constantly.

- 'Cooperative relationship' -

More than 8,000 Iranian companies and 6,000 traders operate across the UAE, making it highly likely they will encounter the expected wave of Israeli merchants and investors.

"Iranians in the UAE are not in a position to complain about the Israel-UAE relationship, but there is little indication that the typical Iranian would be disturbed by this," Wald said.

She noted that before the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah, "Iran and Israel had a cooperative relationship".

The UAE is also home to a sizeable Iranian community that owns hundreds of properties and has invested heavily in the infrastructure of the country since its formation in 1971.

According to Emirati media, tens of thousands of Iranians live in the UAE while Iranian officials estimate their number to be closer to half a million. Around 350,000 Iranians visit the Emirates each year.

Many prominent Emirati families are originally from Iran, with some members holding government jobs.

Some Iranians, like public relations executive Fariba, say they are not concerned by the UAE-Iran deal to normalise ties.

"I am a divorced mother, and I need to work to raise my son. That's all I care about," the 45-year-old who did not give her surname told AFP.

mah/gw/hkb
Women are underrepresented in the field of academic surgery, but women surgeons are earning a disproportionate share of research grants from the National Institutes of Health, a new study has found.

Women make up 19% of surgery faculty at academic health systems but held 26.4% of prestigious "R01" grants in place at surgery departments as of October 2018, the researchers found.

Female surgeon-scientists are underrepresented within academic surgery, but hold a greater than anticipated proportion of NIH funding. This means that female surgeon-scientists are a crucial component of future surgical research." Shayna L. Showalter, MD, Researcher, Breast Surgical Oncologist at UVA Health and the UVA Cancer Center

Women in surgery

Showalter and colleagues queried the number of grants from surgery departments throughout the country to determine the percentage of R01 grants held by women. They identified 212 grants held by 159 principal investigators. Of those 159 investigators, 42 were women, holding a total of 49 R01 grants. "Female surgeon scientists are doing impressive work and have been able to succeed in a very competitive research environment," Showalter said.

Diving deeper, the researchers determined that women were more likely than men to be first-time grant recipients. More than 73% of women were first-time recipients, compared with 54.8% of men. "Within the research community, we are potentially moving away from the tradition of awarding funding to longstanding, proven researchers," Showalter said. "Females in this study were twice as likely to be first-time grant recipients. I hope that the focus continues to be on awarding funding to a diverse group of surgeon-scientists."

Women who held R01 grants were more likely to be part of a department with a female chair or that is more than 30 percent female, the researchers determined. They also found that women had fewer research articles published in scientific journals than did their male colleagues. "This finding may be related to the number of first-time grants and is consistent with previous studies that have demonstrated that women in academic surgery have fewer publication in general than men,' Showalter said.

The researchers encouraged surgery departments to nurture and promote female faculty, and to advocate for women in leadership positions. Strong mentorship programs are important, Showalter said.

"Currently, there are a number of accomplished female surgeon-scientists, and I am confident that many more will play crucial roles in the future of surgical research," she said. "As a community within academia, we need to support and promote a diverse faculty."

Findings published

The researchers have published their findings online in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. The research team consisted of Elizabeth D. Krebs, Adishesh K. Narahari, Ian O. Cook-Armstrong, Anirudha S. Chandrabhatla, J. Hunter Mehaffey, Gilbert R. Upchurch Jr. and Showalter.
Load-shedding has once again become a daily reality in South Africa, and experts predict that South Africans should brace for many more years of rotational blackouts in the country.

The CSIR recently published a presentation which said South Africans should expect load-shedding to get significantly worse over the next three years.

Energy expert Ted Blom agreed with the CSIRs findings and added that his own projections extend to load-shedding for at least the next five years after Eskom signed on the opening of new coal mines to feed its current coal fleet.

Blom said that the predictions could change if Eskom decided to start importing extra power from power barges or new power islands.

To manage the disruptive impact of load-shedding, South Africans with the means are looking for ways to break their dependence on Eskom for electricity.

Whether through using backup generators or batteries and solar power, many people are searching for ways to beat the blackouts.

This raises the question: how much would it cost to go completely off-grid and not have to rely on Eskom at all?

Building a solar power plant for your home is expensive

Greg Blandford, the director at Rubicon Renewables, said that the issue is a complex one.

There are so many factors to consider, but ultimately it will require a lifestyle change for the client to live off the grid  or close to that  without being ridiculously expensive, Blandford explained.

He added that there are general ways to tackle the problem:

Add solar and energy storage to cover current power usage as-is. Perform an energy efficiency audit prior to installing solar power and batteries.

Blandford said that trying to cover your existing power usage without an energy efficiency audit is unwise unless money truly is no object.

We have seen customers follow this route and invest in multiple battery packs and solar totalling many hundreds of thousands or millions of rands.

The wiser option is to consider the cost of energy storage.

Even though lithium battery technology, and other higher-end energy storage, continue to fall in price the overall cost of the system can be mitigated if energy efficiency measures are implemented first, stated Blandford.

This includes replacing electric stoves and hobs with gas appliances, replacing all older lighting systems with LED lighting products, and replacing standard hot water geysers with solar geysers or heat pumps.

A final step to consider is to replace appliances such as fridges, freezers, and washing machines with energy-efficient variants that have an A+++ rating or more.

The A rating of an appliance such, as A+++, means it is 30% more energy-efficient than a standard A-rated appliance, Blandford said.

To illustrate these basic principles, Blandford provided two examples of off-grid installations for three-bedroom suburban homes in Johannesburg to highlight the difference in price.

He emphasised that the costs he gave are indicative only, as each off-grid system will be slightly different.

There are many product options to suit various budgets, so this is a median of some of those options. Every solution will be bespoke to the client, so these are budgetary values.

No energy efficiency audit  R350,000

For the first scenario, Blandford considered a family home in Johannesburg with no grid feedback allowed:

3 bedrooms

2 bathrooms

2 geysers

Standard appliances (no gas)

Pool

This installation assumes an average monthly power usage of 1,200kWh per month or 40kWh per day, with most usage of power during sunlight hours (25-30kWh) and 10kWh after sunset.

Blandford said that such a home would require a solar panel array of approximately 8kWp and a battery system of at least 15kWh.

The solar would produce on average 40kWh per day over the year if the power produced was fully utilised and any excess energy then stored in the battery for night-time consumption.

A solution of this size would cost in the region of R300,000 to R350,000, which includes installation.

The package would include around 20 solar panels of 400Wp each, a standard solar grid-tied inverter, Tesla Powerwall, and balance of system components to install the kit.

With energy efficiency audit  R240,000

For the second scenario, Blandford considered a similar home:

3 bedrooms

2 bathrooms

1 geyser (solar or heat pump)

Gas appliances

A small pool with a 1kW pump

This installation assumes an average monthly power usage of 700kWh per month, or 23kwh per day, with most usage of power during sunlight hours (15kWh) and 8kWh after sunset.

Blandford said that such an installation would require a solar panel array of approximately 5kWp and a battery system of at least 7kWh.

The solar panels would produce on average 25kWh per day over the year if the power produced was fully utilised and any excess energy then stored in the battery for night-time consumption.

A solution of this size would cost in the region of R215k to R240K, including installation.

The package would include around 12 solar panels of 400Wp each, a full hybrid 5kWp inverter, a 7kWh lithium battery pack, and the balance of system items to install the kit.

In a nutshell, there are many products and solutions available in South Africa from the very basic backup for a few thousand rands for a TV, light, and Wi-Fi, to super high-end systems for multi-million rand homes, Blandford said.

It all depends on the need of the customer and budget requirements.

Will all these solar panels fit on your roof?

In addition to providing an idea of how much it would cost to go completely off-grid, Blandford also answered several questions about the capabilities of solar systems.

Our questions and his answers are given below.

Can you run an electric fence from an off-grid solar system like this?

Yes, no problem.

Must you get a gas stove, or can it have an electric oven or electric induction plate?

It is more economical to use a gas hob/stove than to use a battery for this purpose. It is possible, but the cost of the battery often makes this decision nonsensical. If electric power is the only consideration then an induction plate is a preferred choice which draws less power over a short period.

When you go off-grid like this, must you also switch to gas heaters rather than electric? What about other winter comforts like electric blankets?

It is again a budgetary decision. It does make more sense to use gas or combustion-type heaters, especially when trying to achieve autonomy from the grid or being as self-sufficient as possible. Comfort items such as electric blankets can be used as they draw relatively low power.

Will you be able to fit all the solar panels you need for an off-grid system like this on the roof of an average suburban home?
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Ellen DeGeneres has revealed her next attempts at damage control as her TV show continues to face an onslaught of criticism.

The 62-year-old talk show host was seen departing a restaurant in the Southern California city with a female friend amid claims that she allowed a 'toxic' workplace to fester at The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

When asked about how her show would look following the firings of three top producers, the comedian simply said, 'I will be talking to my fans,' before departing.

Speaking up: Ellen DeGeneres, 62, said she would be talking to her fans after leaving a lunch in Santa Barbara on Saturday amid allegations that she fostered a 'toxic' workplace

Ellen kept her lunch look casual with a white button up shirt and a set of baggy olive cargo pants.

The stand-up star paired them with brilliant white trainers, and she blocked out the sun with a set of aviator sunglasses.

Ellen's friend was dressed similarly in a white shirt, though she wore simple khakis and tan loafers with it.

Both women wore cloth masks over their faces to help slow the spread of the novel coronavirus amid a surge in California, though Ellen removed hers once she was near her car and more than six feet away from others.

No fuss: Ellen kept her lunch look casual with a white button up shirt and a set of baggy olive cargo pants

Laid-back: The stand-up star paired them with brilliant white trainers, and she blocked out the sun with a set of aviator sunglasses. Ellen brought a mask along and wore it while with her friend, though she removed it once she was by her car and at least six feet away from others

On Monday, Warner Bros. Television announced that three senior producers had been fired from Ellen's show: Ed Glavin, one of the executive producers, Jonathan Norman, a co-executive producer, and Kevin Leman, the show's head writer.

They were fired following an investigation instigated by descriptions of a 'toxic work culture' in a BuzzFeed News investigation.

Employees described working in a culture rife with 'racism, fear and intimidation.'

Much of the employees' ire was directed at Glavin, along with the producers Mary Connelly and Andy Lassner, but Connelly and Lassner both retained their jobs and will continue to work in the same roles.

Casual: Ellen's friend was dressed similarly in a white shirt, though she wore simple khakis and tan loafers with it

On Monday, Warner Bros. Television announced that three senior producers had been fired from Ellen's show: Ed Glavin, one of the executive producers, Jonathan Norman, a co-executive producer, and Kevin Leman, the show's head writer. Employees described working in a culture rife with 'racism, fear and intimidation'

Leman was accused by multiple employees of sexual harassment, though he denied any improper behavior.

Ellen addressed her staff on Monday via video chat to announce the firings, while also revealing that the show's DJ Steven Laurel Boss had been promoted to executive producer.

The comedian offered up a second apology to her employees on the same video call, following an earlier apology in July in which she presented the misconduct allegations as something that she wasn't aware of.

Ellen is under contract to continue hosting The Ellen DeGeneres Show for Warner Bros. Television through 2022, and she recently inked a new deal to develop three shows for WarnerMedia's new streaming platform HBO Max.

Rallying the troops: Ellen addressed her staff via video chat on Monday to announce the firing of the top staff. She offered her second apology to them, following one from July

Though much of the misconduct was alleged to come from her top staff, the focus has turned to Ellen's own behavior in recent days.

On Friday, Modern Family star Sofia Vergara responded after a clip of Ellen poking fun at her accent resurfaced.

The Colombian-born actress claimed they were just 'two comedians having fun with each other to entertain.'

'I was never a victim guys,' Sofia continued. 'I was always in on the joke.'

Comedian Kevin Hart also came to his friend Ellen's defense and claimed she and her staff had always been kind to him and his own employees, though she was never accused of mistreating people she considered her equals.

Clearing the air: Sofia spoke out after a clip of Ellen poking fun at her accent went viral. She claimed it was just a joke and that she was in on it the whole time

In the clip: Ellen is seen making fun of Sofia's English-speaking skills on multiple occasions, which has given fans pause as the host has gained scrutiny as to how she treats others

Strong bond: Kevin Hart credited his defense to his friendship with Ellen. 'Well, I dont lose sight of the definition of friendship, and in our business, its one thing that people dont really hold on to,' he said; pictured in 2017 with (L-R) Eniko Hart, Ellen and Portia de Rossi

On Thursday, Variety reported that Ellen's newest damage control strategy was to off her employees new benefits.

Staffers will now get five paid days off for use as they please, though it wasn't clear if this was on top of vacation time, or if employees on get a total of five paid days off per year.

Employees will also get their birthdays off with pay, and there's a more liberal policy for paid time off for medical appointments and family matters.

The news was delivered by Connelly and Lassner, the subjects of many of the toxic workplace allegations.

It's working: Sources with knowledge of the situation told Variety that new measures are already having the desired effect of boosting morale within the staff after Ellen video chatted with employees to announce they were getting five paid days off, paid birthdays off, and paid time off for medical appointments and family matters; shown in November 2019

On Sunday, Ellen's wife Portia de Rossi went out for a horse riding lesson in Santa Barbara.

The Arrested Development star looked sleek in a black tank top with white pants and knee-high black leather boots and a black helmet for safety.

She rode on a gorgeous black horse with a white diamond on its forehead.

Earlier this month, Portia shared a post on social media that read, 'I Stand By Ellen,' and she thanked their fans for their support.

Horse girl: On Sunday, Ellen's wife Portia de Rossi went out for a horse riding lesson in Santa Barbara. The Arrested Development star looked sleek in a black tank top with white pants and knee-high black leather boots and a black helmet for safety
LATEST: Aug. 22, 7:15 p.m. The fire in Point Reyes National Seashore held fairly steady throughout the day Saturday, growing a few hundred acres since Friday evening.

The Woodward Fire is now at 2,689 acres, up slightly from 2,259 on Friday. It remains 5% contained. An evacuation warning remains in effect for the communities of Olema, Inverness, Inverness Park and Seahaven. A full map of evacuation warnings can be found here. Point Reyes National Seashore west of Highway 1 is closed to all visitors due to the fire.

Officials expressed concern at a press briefing on Saturday evening that winds are expected to pick up over the next few days. Marin County Fire says it expects to have updated containment numbers on Sunday morning.

SEE MORE: Dramatic video shows helicopter rescue of firefighters battling Woodward Fire

Aug 21, 6:31 p.m. The Woodward Fire was 5% contained Friday evening, the Marin County Fire Department said. The fire has burned 2,259 acres.

Aug 21, 3:45 p.m. The Marin County Fire Department said the Woodward Fire has now grown to 2,259 acres and is 0% contained.

Aug 21, 3 p.m. Multiple helicopters, air attack, tankers and super scoopers are on the scene of the Woodward Fire now. Marin County Fire said on Twitter: "We are experiencing more wind today than yesterday near the fire, but crews and aerial assets remain engaged in fire suppression."

Aug 21, 2:55 p.m. Point Reyes National Seashore west of Highway 1 is now closed to all visitors.

The evacuation warning area has been expanded to include Olema, Inverness, Inverness Park and Sea Haven for the Woodward Fire. All previous warnings still in effect.

Aug 21, 8 a.m. A vegetation fire burning in the Point Reyes National Seashore grew to 2,100 acres overnight and is 0% contained Friday.

No injuries have been reported and no structures have been damaged.

Firefighters did make some headway Thursday when aerial resources were brought in, but weather conditions in the region continue to be challenging.

The coastline did not see fog last night, Marin County Sheriff's Sgt. Brenton Schneider said. As the heat picks up and the wind picks up we anticipate seeing more fire activity today.

The fire area is steep with limited access on foot, which has caused ongoing challenges for firefighters who must hike in to battle the blaze.

Additionally, resources are strained in the state due to the large number of fires burning. The National Park Service has requested assistance from teams in the Northern Rockies, which includes Montana, North Dakota, Idaho and South Dakota, and those should arrive Saturday or Sunday.

The Woodward Fire began on Tuesday evening near the Woodward Valley Trail. It is currently burning south of Limantour Road, north of the Bear Valley Trail, and west of Shoreline Highway (State Route 1).

An evacuation warning  a request that residents stay ready to leave at a moment's notice  is in place for all residents west of Shoreline Highway between Sir Francis Drake Boulevard in Olema south to Bolinas. Weber cautioned that mandatory evacuations could be necessary if winds pick up. Limantour Road remains closed.

Cal Fire says the fire was started by lightning.

MORE WILDFIRE COVERAGE:

These are the fires burning in the Bay Area right now

Map: See where wildfires are burning in Bay Area

105 homes burned, 25,000 threatened by North Bay fires

Vacaville wildfire destroys homes, evacuations extended into Fairfield

California's oldest state park now completely surrounded by fire zone

What to do to keep wildfire smoke out of your house

Tessa McLean is a digital editor with SFGATE. Email her at tessa.mclean@sfgate.com or follow her on Twitter @mcleantessa.
Eat Natural has recalled some of its fruit and nut bars over salmonella fears.

The Essex-based brand has said customers should not eat its Brazil nut and sultana bars as they could be contaminated with the dangerous bacteria.

The Brazil nuts are the potential cause of salmonella, the Food Standards Agency said.

The recall comes after a small number of people reported falling ill with the disease, some of whom had eaten an Eat Natural bar containing Brazil nuts.

Eat Natural has recalled its Brazil nut and sultana bars (pictured) as they could be contaminated with salmonella

Salmonella can lead to serious gastrointestinal problems, such as cramps and diarrhoea, and is potentially fatal.

The bacteria live in the guts of animals but make humans ill if they are consumed.

Anyone can fall ill from salmonella but the young, the elderly and those already in hospital are particularly vulnerable.

Usually symptoms take between six and 72 hours to show and illness can last several days.

The bars which are affected by the recall weigh 35g and 50g, as well as some included in multipacks. The best before end dates are those for August, September, October, November and December 2020 and January, February, March, April, May and June 2021.

Praveen Vijh (right), co-founder of Eat Natural, said: We are working closely with the relevant authorities, retailers and with our consumers to ensure that all brazil and sultana with peanuts and almonds bars are recalled from shelves immediately'

Eat Natural bars are stocked by a range of retailers, including Asda, Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsburys as well as Boots, Holland and Barrett and Superdrug.

Praveen Vijh, co-founder of Eat Natural, said: We are working closely with the relevant authorities, retailers and with our consumers to ensure that all brazil and sultana with peanuts and almonds bars are recalled from shelves immediately.

Our bars are heat treated and this diminishes the likelihood of contamination, but we are taking this matter extremely seriously and taking all steps possible, even though at this stage the notification is very much a precautionary measure.

This is an isolated incident related to some batches of Brazil nuts and does not affect any of our other bars or cereal products in any way.

Anyone who has bought the affected bars is urged not to eat them and instead return them to stores for a refund.
I am pretty confident this is the largest inventory of letterpress equipment in the world, says Michael Torosian, as he looks at drawer upon drawer of typefaces towering high above his head at Don Black Linecasting in Scarborough.

Torosian runs Lumiere Press and produces photography books using technology that most publishing outfits would regard as antiquated. Hes been frequenting Blacks warehouse for 40 years, getting his typecasting, printing and binding equipment for his shop where, as he describes it, every tool and machine is arcane, obscure and esoteric.

After Labour Day this business that supplied niche, old-school publishers, will be shutting down permanently.

We export all over the world, says Black, now in his eighties. Its dropped off considerably to what it was but its still worthwhile for a small business. I still sell a lot of stuff to Australia and quite a bit to the U.K. A family affair, Blacks wife Ruth and son Craig also worked for the business. Craig was set to take it over, but sadly passed away last year from cancer.

Black began his career in the newspaper industry. The one youre reading and others, large and small, were once printed with hot type. An army of workers would input each story, letter by letter, into a Linotype machine that would cast metal slugs from individual letter molds that were assembled into matrices, line by line. This would repeat until each newspaper page plate was laid out from which the paper copies would be printed. The entire process would then be repeated for the next issue.

Similar machines with variations in technique were used, with or without hot metal, for other kinds of printing. Computers and new technology replaced much of this, an evolution that can be seen in a 1978 documentary of the New York Times transition called Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu, named after the first two rows on a Linotype keyboard. Unlike your computers QWERTY keyboard, the Linotype placed the letters most frequently used first.

As news and communication has become so electronic and ephemeral, the raw molten metal process is romantic: so real and elemental. If youre reading the paper version of these words, you probably have a place in your heart for all this, as do many of Blacks customers.

He got his start as a Linotype apprentice mechanic at the Globe and Mail in 1953, but left during an unresolved 1964 strike and struck out servicing equipment on his own, buying and selling parts and equipment, along the way making contacts here and abroad. Eventually he bought up the inventory of Canadian Linotype, the Globe itself, and that of many other newspapers and presses, including some from the Star.

Walking through the warehouse, opening random drawers, looking at vintage presses, the variety of bits and pieces involved and the precision needed to make it all work together in a fast-paced environment, is impressive.

Today, its publishers like Torosian who still practise the trade, preferring this painstaking artisanal method to create their printed products, though he points out Toronto was once dotted with dozens of sites of printing history. Before the Internet, everything we read was physically printed somewhere.

Its an old technology thats come back and has been kept alive, says Albert Kwon, Don Blacks general manager of 10 years. A good portion of our business comes from people setting up stationery businesses or little letterpress shops that do custom printing with fancier type or special things like that.

Despite the overwhelming quantity of items in the warehouse, Kwon, trained as an industrial designer, pulls open drawers and opens cabinets, seemingly knowing where everything is. Most typefaces are metal and have substantial weight to them, but they also have wooden type, often used in sign making.

When youve been in business for 50 years you accumulate a lot of things, says Kwon, chuckling. This stuff is illuminating and explains why certain graphic design rules exist today. The terminology we use is all based on the old printing trades, a technology that was dominant for a couple hundred years.

All of it, now, has to go. Black has a collection of his favourite items in his basement and hopes to give some of it to their long-time customers as a way to remember his son. The warehouse stock that doesnt move in the next few weeks will likely be sold for scrap. You go through it and you pick the best and scrap the rest, says Black. One time we scrapped $4,000 worth of brass.

It all feels like it should be in a museum, but Kwon says theres no major Smithsonian-style institution that would want it. For now, people like him, Black and Torosian, and whoever buys it up before they close, are the ones who keep this old knowledge alive.

Correction  Aug. 24, 2020: This story was edited to remove a suggestion that Don Black Linecasting sold directly to a Nashville operation that supplied the Grand Ole Opry.
- Bank of America recently experienced technical errors that led to its customers receiving unusual bank balances

- A man in Massachusetts found his bank balance had been credited and was reading KSh 264 billion extra

- He assumed the bank could rectify the error but after a few days he realised it had not been changed forcing him to report to the bank

What would you do if you woke up one day only to find over 200 billion in your bank account? Could you report it or just go ahead and use it?

Now that was the exact dilemma that an American man found himself in after waking up only to find KSh 264 billion ($2.45 billion) displaying on his mobile banking application as his balance.

READ ALSO: Senator Cherargei blasts Sifuna for dragging Ruto's name into KEMSA scandal

The man was a customer of Bank of America. Photo: BBC

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Karibia tufanye kazi pamoja, Rais Uhuru amwambia DP Ruto

In a report by Bloomberg, Massachusetts psychiatrist Blaise Aguirre found the money in his account but did nothing about it.

In his mind, the Bank of America customer thought the lender could discover the error and rectify it, so he never bothered to ask the bank about the humongous amount of money in his bank account.

When that didnt happen, he reached out to his relationship manager to inquire about the mysterious money showing up on both the web and his phones mobile app.

READ ALSO: KEMSA fraud: William Ruto allies pile pressure on Health CS Mutahi Kagwe to resign

This was a display error and nothing more than that. Its been corrected, Bank of America spokesman Bill Halldin said.

However, the multibillion-dollar mishap wasnt the first involving customer accounts.

Weeks ago, the lender had a temporary display issue that caused some online and mobile-banking clients to see inaccurate balances.

That mistake, however, wasnt as potentially lucrative as Aguirres 264 billion mirage: Their accounts were showing zero balances.

READ ALSO: Clip of man behaving like a snake leaves netizens scratching their heads

The story came barely days after another man who was expecting KSh 180,000 coronavirus stimulus package received KSh 868 million mistakenly.

Charles Calvin, a volunteer firefighter in New Chigaco, Indiana, went to withdraw KSh 20,000 and was surprised to find his receipt confirming a balance of KSh 868 million.

Later on, he called his bank to ask if it had noticed the mistake and he was told the money was no longer in his account.

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Mumbai, Aug 23 : Actress Vaani Kapoor turned 32 on Sunday. She says her birthdays are always incomplete without her parents Shiv and Dimpy Kapoor, and sister Nupur Chopra.

"My birthdays are always incomplete without my parents and my sister. They are my pillars of strength and have been a part of every important thing in my life. So, I will miss them terribly this year. I'm just happy that they are safe and healthy and at home. Hoping next year can be different, since it's been long that all of us have spent time together," Vaani said.

She will be connecting with her family through video calls on her birthday.

"In a year such as this, one has to be content and grateful for the small moments of happiness and togetherness, and I'm blessed to have them in my life. My friends are also planning to get on a Zoom call, so we can cut the cake together. It will be fun, given the circumstances." Vaani has two films lined up for shooting -- "BellBottom" opposite Akshay Kumar, and Abhishek Kapoor's next co-starring Ayushmann Khurrana. She is expected to fly to Scotland soon to start shooting with Akshay for "BellBottom".

"These are sensitive times given the Covid-19 situation. So, I'm keeping it simple and cozy on my birthday this year which, honestly, is my way of spending birthdays. I would have definitely loved to make some plans with close friends but I start shooting for my films in September and October respectively, so I'm taking additional precaution and just staying at home," she informed.

Vaani recently wrapped her other upcoming film, "Shamshera", also starring Ranbir Kapoor.

"Work is a blessing and I'm only grateful to have it in my life. I'm really looking forward to getting busy now because I have been at home since March. I look forward to being on a film set," she wrapped up.
M'sian media sensationalised Sierra Leone graft probe - Limkokwing Uni

Limkokwing University of Creative Technology (LUCT) has finally spoken out about a probe by Sierra Leones Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) saying that the Malaysian media had implied corruption involving the university, when in fact it was merely assisting in investigations.

"It is unfortunate that the Malaysian media chose to sensationalise the issue by making allusions of corruption involving the University, primarily by the fact that the probe was conducted by the ACC.

"In actual fact, the university was assisting the government of the day and had earlier undergone a formal audit giving credibility to the legal standing on the institution," said LUCT's senior vice-president of corporate development, Gail Phung, in a statement dated Aug 21.

She said LUCT has been pioneering Malaysian education in Africa.

"The woes have been many, the uncertainties tremendous, but it has prevailed (by) overcoming issues that would have crippled many others."

Phung said the challenges included an outbreak of Ebola in 2014, just when the university was ready to begin its first semester with over 1,000 students. This resulted in a two-year delay, following which the university dropped fees by half.

She indicated that a change in government in April 2018, when president Ernest Bai Koroma was replaced by current leader Julius Maada Bio, proved to be a factor in triggering the probe.

"Eventually a new government took over and probes began to identify abuse of power of the previous government. Naturally, the university, as a foreign investor came under scrutiny, and funding for sponsored students came to a halt while the university underwent an audit in May 2018," she said.

Phung said the probe upheld the memorandum of agreement (MOA) signed between the university and the Sierra Leone government with recommendations to review the fee structure.

She also highlighted that the LUCT Freetown campus has been approved to reopen in a post-Covid-19 scenario.

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Probe identifies deceased minister as culpable

The ACC ended the probe earlier this month confirming that the country's former education, science, and technology minister Minkailu Bah, since deceased, had enabled a campus to be set up without following due processes.

In a tweet on Aug 6, the ACC's chief commissioner Francis Ben Kaifala said "the ACC had completed investigating the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology Malaysia in Sierra Leone and the former minister of education, science, and technology, the late Dr Minkailu Bah, for alleged misappropriation of public property and revenue, abuse of office, and abuse of position; all contrary to Sections 42, 43 and 48 of the Anti-Corruption Act, 2008, respectively.

"The investigations confirmed that Dr Minkailu Bah single-handedly agreed with the LUCT for its establishment as a private university in Sierra Leone in 2013, without following the due process as provided in the laws that govern tertiary public education in Sierra Leone; which resulted in committing the government of Sierra Leone to serious financial obligations," it said.

According to the probe's report, a key stipulation of the MOA was that the Sierra Leone government would provide campus space for the university and scholarships for 1,200 students per annum.

The ACC said in the course of its five-month investigations, Bah had passed away on May 18.

The investigations revealed that the agreement did not mention the fees each student was required to pay for each academic year although Bah had claimed that the fee structure had already been discussed with former financial secretary Edmund Koroma.

Sierra Leones Ministry of Finance, however, denied any involvement in the agreement.

The fees later amounted to US$3,000 per degree student and US$2,500 per diploma student, per annum, which was substantially higher than the tuition fees set by other universities within the nation, said to be between US$1,000 and US$1,500, said the report.

The ACC also found that the Sierra Leone government owes US$3 million (RM12.5 million) to LUCT, US$2 million (RM8.4 million) of which were revenues for one academic year and were paid in 2018.

It claimed that this was a huge variance, although the number of students currently enrolled at the Freetown campus cannot be confirmed.

Ben Kaifala said following the conclusion of the investigations, the ACC had made a number of recommendations to the Sierra Leone government stakeholders.

This included the recommendation that the Sierra Leone Ministry of Higher and Technical Education and Ministry of Finance engages LUCT for a thorough review of the MOA, especially on the fee structure, and seek ratification on the agreement from its Parliament.
NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police has so far recovered around 30 kilograms of explosives from the alleged ISIS operative arrested in the national capital, officials said on Sunday.

About half of this quantity was found at Mohammad Mustakim Khan's home in Uttar Pradesh's Balrampur during a search, an official said. An ISIS flag was also recovered there. Khan, armed with two pressure cooker IEDs, was arrested in central Delhi's Ridge Road area on Friday night following a brief exchange of fire.

A Delhi Police Special Cell team took him to his house in Badhiyaa Bhaisaahi village in Balrampur district.

A brown jacket containing three explosive packets and a blue-check jacket containing four explosive packets were recovered there, a Delhi Police officer said.

"Each explosive packet, removed from the jackets, was wrapped with transparent tape which contained explosives and cardboard sheet pasted with ball bearings, and electric wires were coming out from it," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) P S Kushwah said in Delhi.

Another police officer said 15 kilograms of explosives were seized from Khan at the time of his arrest. Altogether, about 30 kilos of explosives have been recovered so far.

"Khan said that he was operating alone, but it is a matter of investigation," the officer added.

Police on Sunday conducted raids at several places. Two bicycle shop owners were among those questioned in Uttar Pradesh, possibly over the origin of the ball bearings found by police.

Khan's father Kafeel Ahmed and wife Ayesha were also questioned, an official said.

Ayesha told a television channel that she had told Khan not to indulge in "wrong activities" but he did not listen to her. She appeared to be referring to activities that indicated he was being radicalised.

Ahmed said people knew his son as a good, polite person and never imagined that he would take the path of terrorism. He claimed he had never gone into his room, where the explosives were found.

Mustakim Khan had planned to carry out a "lone wolf" strike at a heavy footfall area in the national capital, police had earlier said.

"One ISIS flag, one leather belt containing around three kilogram explosives, eight to nine kilogram explosives in four different polythenes, three cylindrical metal boxes containing explosives and electric wires wrapped with transparent tape and two cylindrical metal boxes in which ball bearings were pasted were recovered from his house," DCP Kushwah said.

Other material recovered from his house included:"One wooden broken box (for target practice), 30 ball bearings of different diameters, one packet containing 12 small boxes of ball bearings, three lithium batteries -- two of 4V and one of 9V, two cylindrical metal boxes, one ampere meter, yellow colour."

"Two iron blades, attached parallel to each other, connected to electric wires from sides, one wire cutter, two mobile chargers, a table alarm watch attached with electric wires and one black colour tape were also recovered from his house," Kushwah said.

Security was stepped up in the national capital and neighbouring Uttar Pradesh following the arrest.

Khan, 36, planned to strike in the national capital on August 15, but could not do so due to heavy security arrangements, police said.

He had been under the watch of security agencies for the last year.

Khan was first handled by Yusuf-al Hindi, ISIS chief of India operations, who was killed in Syria in 2017. After that he was handled by Abu Huzaifa Al Bakistani, a resident of Pakistan, who was killed in a drone strike in Afghanistan in July 2019. Later, another handler instructed him to carry out strikes, police said.

He had tested a small IED near the burial ground in his village. Later, he used the same method to make two pressure cooker IEDs.

Television footage showed Khan, in handcuffs, being taken to the room at his Balrampur home where items that could be used for improvised bombs were stored.

His father told a TV channel that he did know anything about the material in his son's room.

"If I had any idea that he was collecting explosive material, I would not have allowed Abu Yusuf to stay in my house," he said, referring to his son by the other name he was known by.

The father said he realised what was there in the room only when the police arrived.

He said Khan left home on Friday for Rath in UP's Hamirpur district and after that his whereabouts were not known.

"On Saturday, we learnt that he has been arrested in Delhi," he said. Ahmed said he is "deeply saddened" by what has happened.

"Everyone knows that Abu Yusuf is a very good person. He used to speak very politely and did not get into fights with anyone," he said.

Khan had been on the police radar for over a year now, according to officials.

His wife confirmed that investigators found incrimination material in the room. Two jackets, one belt, one bottle, some explosive material, and some pellets were recovered. These were kept in a box," she told a TV channel.

Khan and his wife have four children -- two sons and two daughters.

He was sent to eight-day police custody by a Delhi court on Saturday.

Police have taken him to different places in Uttar Pradesh, including Balrampur, for further investigation, officials said.
 Flash

EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell speaks during a press conference after a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council at the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on July 13, 2020. (European Union/Handout via Xinhua)

EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell reaffirmed his determination to continue to work with Russia, the other remaining participants of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) and the international community to preserve the agreement.

Josep Borrell, the High Representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has affirmed that the bloc will work to preserve the Iran nuclear deal after the United States sought to reimpose sanctions on Iran.

He made the remarks in a telephone conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday, the EU's external action service (EEAS) said in a press release on Friday.

Talking to Lavrov, Borrell reaffirmed his determination to continue to work with Russia, the other remaining participants of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) and the international community to preserve the agreement.

The EU's external action service announced on Friday that a meeting of the Joint Commission of the JCPoA will take place in Vienna, Austria on Sept. 1, attended by delegates of China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and Iran.

Early on Thursday, the U.S. sent a letter to the UN Security Council requesting to initiate the "snapback" mechanism, which allows a participant to the JCPoA to seek the reimposition against Iran of the multilateral sanctions lifted in 2015 in accordance with resolution 2231, adopted by the UN Security Council.

Borrell claimed in a statement on Thursday night that the U.S. had lost ground to trigger the "snapback" mechanism as it withdrew from the agreement in 2018.

"As coordinator of the JCPOA Joint Commission I will continue to do everything possible to ensure the preservation and full implementation of the JCPoA by all," said Borrell, underlining that the JCPoA remains a key pillar of the global non-proliferation architecture, contributing to regional security.

File picture shows a meeting of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Joint Commission is held in Vienna, Austria, Dec. 6, 2019. (Xinhua/Guo Chen)

The JCPoA was inked by Iran in July 2015 with Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States, together with the EU.

The U.S., under President Donald Trump, withdrew from the JCPoA on May 8, 2018, and unilaterally reimposed sanctions on Tehran, despite objections from the international community.
At least 13 young people suffocated in a crush during a raid on a nightclub in Peru's capital, where a party was being held in violation of a coronavirus ban on large gatherings, police and press reports said.

"After a police operation in a discotheque in the Los Olivos neighborhood, 13 people have died," Peruvian police chief General Orlando Velasco told RPP radio.

Twenty-three people were arrested for taking part in what health officials said could be a mass-spreader event; 15 of them later tested positive for the coronavirus, police said.

Latin America has been badly hit by the pandemic, and Peruvian officials this month reimposed stricter curbs on movement and large gatherings.

Peru is the third-hardest-hit country in the region -- after Brazil and Mexico -- registering 27,453 deaths from the virus since March.

- Police tactics disputed -

The illegal birthday party on Saturday was organized on social media and drew a crowd of around 120, most of them in their 20s or 30s, to a licensed nightclub called the Thomas Restobar, the interior ministry said in a statement.

"Faced with the police operation, which did not use any type of weapon or tear gas, those attending the party tried to escape through the single exit, trampling each other and getting trapped in the stairway," the ministry said.

The police action, an hour before a nighttime curfew was to take effect, was triggered when neighbors called police to complain about the illegal gathering.

However, some who were at the party or who live near the nightclub disputed the ministry's version of events.

"It appears that police entered and threw tear gas canisters at them, and boxed them in," one local resident told RPP.

- No money for a burial -

The dead included 12 women and one man, according to Women's Minister Rosario Sasieta, who traveled to the scene before visiting with survivors in a hospital.

"It should never have happened. We are in a pandemic, in a health emergency. I am calling for the maximum punishment possible for the nightclub owners," she told RPP.

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Peruvian law calls for fines of about $110 and potential jail sentences for those who violate the virus-related restrictions.

Family members traveled to the Lima morgue to identify their loved ones.

"I found out that my daughter died, asphyxiated, this morning," Gregoria Velasquez, mother of 26-year-old Maryori Salcedo Velasquez, told the America Television channel. "I don't have money to bury her."

Another devastated young woman, who did not give her name, told reporters: "If I'm still alive, God knows why. My partner who was with me died in my arms."

Six people, including three police officers and three civilians, were injured, the interior ministry said.

It said authorities are trying to identify the party organizers and the owners of the club.

Witnesses said the incident began when police officers entered the club and ordered women to leave first.

Panic ensued when several men, fearing arrest, rushed toward a lone exit door, trampling several women blocked near the exit.

Peru, with a population of 33 million, has recorded 585,000 coronavirus cases. This month the country reimposed a Sunday curfew in response to the rising number of infections.

A nighttime curfew has been in place since March 16 while the borders are closed and school classes have been suspended for the rest of the year.

cm/ljc/es/kaf/qan/bbk
Iran's Prosecutor-General Mohammad-Javad Montazeri is urging President Hassan Rouhani to cancel the ban on holding mourning ceremonies of the Islamic month of Muharram in mosques and Tekyehs, places designed specifically for such ceremonies during the mourning month.

Fars News Agency reported on Sunday that Montazeri has said that the ban on holding mourning ceremonies in mosques, tekyehs and other enclosed spaces was an "abruptly announced decision by a Health Ministry deputy, rather than a measure adopted by the National Coronavirus Combat Taskforce.

"You are requested to order the ceremonies to be permitted in mosques and tekyehs with the same health protocols that have been approved," he wrote to Rouhani, according to Fars.

During the lunar Islamic month of Muharram, Shiites worldwide mourn the anniversary of the slaying of Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and the third Imam of Shiites. Husayn and his 72 companions were killed in 680 in the battle of Karbala in present-day Iraq against the forces of Yazid who had succeeded to the Umayyid throne.

The day of the slaying of Imam Husayn  known as Ashura -- will fall on August 28 this year.

Critics of the Health Ministry decision, which was announced only a few days before the start of the mourning month, "was a great shock to mourners and mourning groups" who had been allowed to hold their ceremonies indoors in places with high ceilings including mosques and tekyehs, per Fars.

Despite Montazeris claims, the Center for Management of Mosques said in a statement that the decision to ban the ceremonies in mosques had been adopted after "the change in the approach of the National Coronavirus Combat Taskforce" in a joint meeting with "the related authorities. The statement also pointed out that, despite being critical of the manner of the announcement of the new measure, the Center expected everyone to observe the ban.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has advised that the decisions of the Coronavirus Combat Taskforce must be obeyed.

Some mourning groups say health authorities have imposed "too-strict" measures, including a ban on mourners' processions in the streets, that seriously restrict the possibility and quality of the month-long ceremonies. More hardline groups have even advocated for "clandestine motives" for enforcing the measures.

Health authorities have repeatedly warned about the spread of the virus and a third wave of the pandemic during the mourning month.
President Trump and White House officials get an update on the opioid crisis from the president's daughter Ivanka Trump, seated in front, second from left, in the Oval Office on June 25, 2019. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press)

It was cast as a signature initiative for President Trump's new administration  bold action to combat an epidemic of drug addiction, which claimed some 64,000 lives the year Trump was elected, many in the small towns and rural areas key to his victory.

Watch what happens, if we do our jobs, how the number of drug users and the addicted will start to tumble downward over a period of years. It will be a beautiful thing to see, the president said at a White House ceremony in October 2017, when he announced a public health emergency to take on the crisis.

Yet, even as the White House kept rolling out media events, the death toll has continued to mount. Fatal overdoses in 2019 were up more than 10% from 2016, federal data show.

And across the country, public health officials, researchers and physicians say that despite some progress expanding drug treatment, the administration has largely failed to mobilize the kind of broad, national effort needed to save more lives.

Unfortunately, the uptick in deaths shows we still havent broadly implemented things that we know work, said Dr. Sarah Wakeman, medical director of the substance use disorder initiative at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Until we do, were going to continue to see deaths.

Instead, in a pattern with echoes in Trumps response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the White House has often favored rosy talk over real results.

Another parallel to the coronavirus response: The administration's consistent opposition to expanding the nation's healthcare safety net has impeded efforts to get more Americans into drug treatment, healthcare experts said.

Chuck Ingoglia, who heads the National Council for Behavioral Health, whose members include leading mental health and addiction treatment providers, said he couldnt think of any Trump administration initiatives that have made a substantial difference in the crisis.

And Dr. Shawn Ryan, a leader of the American Society of Addiction Medicine who runs a network of addiction clinics around Cincinnati, said the presidents main accomplishment may simply be signing legislation developed by Congress two years ago to provide additional money for addiction treatment.

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I cant point to anything theyve done thats transformational, Ryan said.

Trump administration officials defended their response, noting that billions of dollars of federal aid to states have helped expand drug treatment and slow addictions to pain medications and heroin.

I have never seen the level of resources put into any substance-use issue, and certainly not opioids, said Dr. Elinore McCance-Katz, a psychiatrist whom Trump tapped in 2017 to head the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

But Ryan and others working on the front lines to reduce substance use say the crisis has only worsened this year, as the federal governments failure to control the coronavirus  even as other wealthy nations have  is driving up drug use and putting treatment further out of reach for many sick Americans.

We see a huge storm coming this fall, said Kody Kinsley, who oversees substance use and behavioral health programs at the North Carolina Health and Human Services Department.

As people lose jobs and health insurance, growing numbers are unable to get care for addiction, Kinsley noted. There is virtually no safety net to catch these folks.

North Carolina is among a dozen states where Republican opposition to expanding Medicaid eligibility through the Affordable Care Act has left many poor adults without access to insurance.

In other states at the center of the opioid epidemic, expanding Medicaid to cover low-income working adults has been a vital tool, state health officials say. In Ohio, for example, more than a third of approximately 700,000 people who enrolled in Medicaid after expansion reported some drug- or alcohol-dependence.

Nevertheless, the Trump administration has been working for 3  years to roll back the 2010 healthcare law and the Medicaid expansion it authorized. The administration is currently supporting a lawsuit by Texas and other GOP-led states to repeal the whole law that, if successful, would strip health insurance from tens of millions of Americans.

Insurance coverage is the chassis on which treatment is built, said Brendan Saloner, an expert on substance use policy at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Yet this is an administration thats shown no real commitment to preserving coverage.

The federal government in recent years has increased aid to states to combat the opioid crisis, funded by bills passed by Congress, first in 2016 under President Obama, and then in 2018 under Trump.

The Trump administration loosened some rules to make it easier for substance-use patients to get treatment using telehealth and to fill prescriptions for addiction medicine.

And a nationwide effort to better track and limit prescriptions for opioid-based pain medicine has helped lower prescribing rates, a trend that began in 2012.

The increased funding helped increase access to treatment and to life-saving medicine, data show. But the improvements in many cases just continued trends already underway before Trump took office.

Retail prescriptions for nalaxone, the life-saving antidote used to revive drug overdose victims, doubled between 2017 and 2018, for example, according to data analyzed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That was the same rate of increase as between 2016 and 2017, and slower than the increase between 2015 and 2016.

Similarly, in the first two years of the Trump administration, use of buprenorphine, a medicine widely recommended for treating patients with opioid addictions, increased at the same rate as in the years before Trump was elected, researchers found.

More worrisome, the researchers found that buprenorphine use has been declining among younger Americans, a trend that also began before Trump.

It may be tempting to try to paint a rosy picture, but its definitely not rosy, said Dr. Mark Olfson, a Columbia University epidemiologist who led the study on buprenorphine. While the trend line is up, and that is encouraging, most people still arent getting the treatment they need.

And while the additional federal aid has helped, state leaders said the administrations preference for grants that last a year or two, rather than a permanent financing system such as Medicaid, has made it more difficult to build lasting systems to treat people suffering from addition.

It can feel like you get some money, you distribute it, you do some novel things with clinics, and then, poof, its gone, said Dr. Jeffrey Schiff, the former chief medical officer at Minnesotas Medicaid program, who spent years working on substance use treatment in the state. Youre not going to turn the money away, but it doesnt support a sustained strategy.

More broadly, public health officials noted that the Trump administrations efforts to pare back the broader safety net, including cutting housing assistance, unemployment and food aid, threatens the supports that people suffering from addiction vitally need.

That has left the country trying to control an epidemic without really addressing many of the root causes of addiction, said Dr. Karen Smith, who served as Californias public health director from 2015 to 2019.

Our national strategy is like buying a new tire every time you hit a pothole, instead of investing in fixing the road, Smith said. For the amount of money were spending, the results were getting are pretty pathetic.
Former Ambassador of India to Kazakhstan, Sweden & Latvia Ashok Sajjanhar has called out the hypocrisy of China which asks India not to comment on Hong Kong and Uyghur human rights violations in Xinjiang saying that it is China's internal matter, however, speaks about Indian Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and raises the matter of Kashmir at UNSC.

China warns India about commenting on issues of HK, Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang as they are internal matters of China. China itself speaks about Indian territory of J&K & also raises matter at UNSC. What hypocrisy! India should seriously reconsider it's stand on One China Policy.  ashok sajjanhar (@asajjanhar) August 22, 2020

This comes in response to the Pakistan-China second annual strategic dialogue of Friday wherein the two countries discussed the Kashmir issue along with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the Afghan peace process. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi brought in the Kashmir talks once again despite India categorically stating that the issue is bilateral.

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China-Pakistan's joint statement

A joint statement issued at the end of the meeting said that both sides underlined that a peaceful, stable, cooperative and prosperous South Asia was in the common interest of all parties. Parties need to settle disputes and issues in the region through dialogue on the basis of equality and mutual respect.The Pakistani side briefed the Chinese side on the situation in Jammu & Kashmir, including its concerns, position, and current urgent issues, it said.

The Chinese side reiterated that the Kashmir issue is a dispute left over from history between India and Pakistan, which is an objective fact, and that the dispute should be resolved peacefully and properly through the UN Charter, relevant Security Council resolutions and bilateral agreements. China opposes any unilateral actions that complicate the situation, the joint press release said.

India fires response

The spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs Anurag Srivastava said the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir is an "integral and inalienable" part of India and that it expects the parties concerned not to interfere in the country's internal matters.

"As in the past, we categorically reject the reference to the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir in the joint press release of the 2nd Round of China-Pakistan foreign ministers' strategic dialogue," he said.

"The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part and inalienable part of India and we expect the parties concerned to not interfere in matters that are internal affairs of India," he said.

"India has repeatedly conveyed its concerns to both China and Pakistan on the projects in so-called China Pakistan Economic Corridor, which are in the territory of India that has been illegally occupied by Pakistan," he said.

"We resolutely oppose actions by other countries that change the status quo in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir and call on the parties concerned to cease such actions," Srivastava added.

READ | Pakistan Releases Statement About Dawood Ibrahim; Lies After Admitting To His 3 Safehouses

READ | 'Don't Interfere': India Rejects Cornered Pakistan-China's Attempt To Discuss Kashmir
By PTI

NEW DELHI: A Delhi-based mushroom farmer, who had sent 10 of his workers to their home state Bihar by plane in May during the coronavirus-induced lockdown, has now booked air tickets for them and 10 other migrant labourers to return and join work here.

Pappan Singh has booked tickets worth over Rs 1 lakh so that the workers, who have toiled for him, some for over 20 years, can join him in farming mushrooms during the August to April season.

Of the 20 workers, 10 of them would be flying for the first time, and they will arrive at the IGI Airport here on August 27.

They will start working in the new mushroom farming season along with Singh in Delhi's Tigipur village.

Talking to PTI over phone from his native village in Bihar's Samastipur district, Naveen Ram said they are excited to travel on a plane, but added that he is not nervous this time as he has the experience of his first air travel in May.

Naveen was among the 10 migrant workers who Singh had sent back home in May after they were stuck in Delhi following the coronavirus-forced lockdown in the country.

He said they had tried to book railway tickets to reach Delhi, but trains are not available for the next one-and-a-half-month.

"If we wait for trains, we cannot do mushroom farming this season, which starts in August. When we told our 'malik' (employer) about this, he said that he will book flight tickets for us so that there is no delay," Naveen said.

Recalling his first flight experience in May, he said that he was nervous because all of the 10 workers did not know airport formalities.

But now, Naveen said, he knows how to get through such formalities at an airport.

According to him, Singh has also made travel arrangements for all 20 migrant workers to reach Patna airport on August 27 from their native places.

Singh said every year, he does mushroom farming on over three acres of land, but this time he is doing it on only one acre of land as old stock of mushrooms is still with suppliers due to the closure of markets in view of COVID-19 restrictions in recent days.

"I treat my workers as part of my family members as they have been working for me for 15 to 25 years. I could have arranged workers from here (Delhi) because I am doing mushroom farming on a small piece of land this year.

"But, I have an emotional attachment with my workers and that is why I have booked their air tickets so that they can earn their livelihood while working here," he said.

In May this year, Singh had spent around Rs 68,000 on flight tickets of his 10 migrant workers to send them to their home state Bihar.
Two tributes by Republicans carried particular symbolic weight for a Democratic candidate seeking to appeal across party lines: Colin Powell, the retired general and former secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration, delivered a message of support for Mr. Biden, whom he had previously endorsed. And Cindy McCain, the widow of Senator John McCain, appeared in a video about Mr. Bidens relationship with her husband.

By voting to nominate Mr. Biden, Democrats delivered to the former vice president a prize he has pursued intermittently since before the nights most prominent young speaker, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, was born. Two previous presidential campaigns ended in abrupt defeat: A plagiarism scandal extinguished his hopes in 1988, and his next effort in 2008 fizzled against the higher-wattage candidacies of Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama.

When Mr. Biden opted not to run for president in 2016, it was widely assumed that his dream of the Oval Office was finished. Instead, his nomination represents the apex  so far  of a slow upward climb by a man who entered the Senate in 1972 at the age of 30 as a grieving single father. No other presidential candidate in modern times has endured such a long interval between assuming a first major office and being nominated for the presidency.
As per initial investigation, the bus driver apparently dozed off when the vehicle was at a road turning, police said

Ujjain: Two labourers were killed and 36 others injured when their bus overturned in Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain district in the early hours of Sunday, police said.

The accident took place at 3.50 am under Kaytha police station limits, some 20 kilometres from the district headquarters, police inspector Pradeep Singh Rajput said.

The labourers, hailing from Etawah in Uttar Pradesh and hired by a contractor, were on their way to Ahmedabad, the official said.

As per initial investigation, the bus driver apparently dozed off when the vehicle was at a road turning.

As a result, the vehicle overturned while negotiating a turn, he said.

A 24-year-old labourer died on the spot, while another 26-year-old victim succumbed to his injuries in hospital, the official said.

The injured labourers were admitted in different hospitals, he said.

"We have registered a case and further investigation is on," Rajput said.
A bodybuilding Lothario accused of luring young women through dating apps and Facebook before bashing and robbing them has been arrested.

A police manhunt was launched for John Dennis Gurney, 31, after numerous reports of him allegedly swindling his dates or assaulting them and running away.

He then allegedly used their credit and bank cards to make fraudulent purchases or large ATM withdrawals.

A police manhunt was launched for John Dennis Gurney, 31, after numerous reports of him allegedly swindling his dates or assaulting them and running away

He is wanted by police after numerous reports of him allegedly swindling his marks or assaulting them and running away

CCTV allegedly shows him walk into a shop in West Gladstone, in Central Queensland, and use a stolen card to take out cash.

Gurney was finally tracked down on Sunday afternoon and arrested on an outstanding warrant by North Brisbane Police.

Police said he was linked to alleged crime including assault, robbery, fraud, unlawful use of a motor vehicle, and stealing.

He is yet to be charged over any of those alleged crimes, and his arrest was for failing to show up to court on an unrelated matter last year.

CCTV allegedly shows him walk into a shop in West Gladstone, in Central Queensland, and use a stolen card to take out cash

Gladstone detectives will continue to investigate the recent allegations and may press further charges at a later date.

Gurney's alleged crime spree started in July and targeted women between Brisbane and Rockhampton, Central Queensland.

'Police have received a number of reports of the man allegedly targeting women through social media, where he stays with them a number of days before stealing property and leaving,' police said.

'He has been allegedly detected using the womens credit cards at various locations following his departure.'

He has a rose tattoo on his neck as well as tattoos on his shoulders, arms and hand. The tattoo on his left arm reads 'one life one chance'.
After four weeks of continuous decline, new coronavirus cases recorded in Nigeria increased last week, even with fewer tests conducted, a PREMIUM TIMES review of official data shows.

Last week, which marked the 33rd week of the pandemic in Nigeria, the country recorded 3,135 cases, a 16 per cent increase from the previous weeks record of 2,628 cases.

Before last week, the cases had reduced for four consecutive weeks despite increased testing.

In the previous week (August 9 to 15), Nigeria recorded 2,628 cases, a 12 per cent reduction compared to the 2,989 cases recorded in the preceding week (August 2 to 8).

While the previous reductions in new cases suggest that the country was overcoming its worst phase of the virus, the latest increase raises concerns on compliance with the safety protocols.

Nevertheless, the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) have continually preached strict adherence to COVID-19 protocols including social distancing and use of face masks.

The situation might grow worse with the resumption of exit classes students, more civil servants and the gradual reopening of international flights.

Reduced testing

In a surprising turn, Nigeria recorded its lowest testing rate in six weeks last week. The number of tests conducted went down by 34 per cent when compared with the previous weeks record.

A total of 23,488 samples were collected last week as opposed to the 35,957 in the previous week.

Data from the public health agency showed that the 35,957 people tested the previous week was a six per cent increase from the 30,716 tested the preceding week. About 24,400 people were tested the week before that.

Nigeria has so far collected 374,077 samples since its first case was recorded in February.

The NCDC Director-General, Chikwe Ihekweazu, who appeared on Channels TV on Monday, clarified that the low testing capacity was not due to any fault of his agency or laboratories.

According to him, the reduction in the testing rate is as a result of some challenges including organizing, transporting samples for tests, and updating Nigerians with the result.

Recovery, Deaths wane

Further analysis showed that the recovery and death rates reduced compared to what was obtained in the previous week.

A total of 2,477 persons recovered from the disease and were discharged last week, which is a 24 per cent decrease when compared to the 3,264 persons discharged in the previous week.

The data also showed that a total of 23 persons died from the virus last week, which is the lowest weekly death recorded in the past four months.

The reduction in deaths could indicate an improvement in the management of COVID-19 cases despite the unavailability of a cure, and the potency of remdesivir, an anti-retroviral drug recommended for mild cases.

READ ALSO:

Recall that the health minister, Osagie Ehanire, in May, announced the usage of remdesivir in managing COVID-19 patients.

We have been using that (remdesivir); we have tried that in Lagos too, Mr Ehanire said while addressing members of the House of Representatives.

Nigeria so far

As of the time of reporting, Nigeria has confirmed 51,905 cases. Of this figure, 38,767 have been discharged and 997 deaths have been recorded in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.

A breakdown of the confirmed cases shows that Lagos State has so far reported 17, 764 cases, followed by FCT  4, 969, Oyo  3,036 , Edo  2,520, Rivers  2,048, Kano  1,704, Delta  1,701, Kaduna  1,999, Ogun  1,600, Plateau  2, 113, Ondo  1,501, Enugu  1, 043, Ebonyi  957, Kwara  931, Katsina  771, Borno  739, Abia  739, Gombe  709, Osun  762, Bauchi  607, Imo  521, Benue  430, Nasarawa  396, Bayelsa  356, Jigawa  322, Akwa Ibom  271, Niger  237, Adamawa  206, Ekiti  218, Sokoto  156, Anambra  181, Kebbi  90, Zamfara  78, Taraba  78, Cross River 80, Yobe  67 and Kogi  5.

Lagos State remains the epicentre for the disease with the highest number of confirmed cases and deaths in the country.

The other five states with the highest number of confirmed cases are FCT, Oyo, Edo, Plateau and Rivers states.

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Of all the 36 states and the FCT, only Benue, Jigawa, Kebbi, Yobe, and Kogi did not record at least a fresh case last week.

Timeline last week

On Sunday, 298 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in the country.

As of 11:55 p.m. on August 16, a total of 49,068 cases had been reported, out of which 36,497 had recovered and 975 deaths recorded.

On Monday, 417 new cases of the pandemic were reported in the country.

On Tuesday, 410 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded.

On Wednesday, 593 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in the country.

On Thursday, 476 new cases were reported in Nigeria, hence bringing the tally of confirmed cases to 50,964 as of 11:55 p.m. on August 20.

On Friday, 340 new cases of the pandemic were recorded.

On Saturday, 601 new cases were reported in Nigeria, hence bringing the tally of confirmed cases to 51,905 as of 11:55 p.m. on August 22.
Today marks the 27th anniversary of the occupation of Azerbaijans Fuzuli and Jabrayil districts by the Armenian armed forces, as part of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Trend reports.

On August 23, 1993, some 51 villages and the center of the Fuzuli district were seized by Armenians, as a result of which over 55,000 residents left their native land.

The district covers a territory stretching from the southeastern slopes of the Karabakh mountain range to the Araz River. It borders with Azerbaijani districts of Khojavand, Jabrayil, Aghjabadi, Beylagan, as well as Iran along the Araz River.

The area of the Fuzuli district is 1,386 sq. km. Some 13 settlements and 20 villages are located in this districts territory, freed from the occupation. Twelve of the settlements, constructed after liberation, accommodate the internally displaced families.

Since 1988, the Fuzuli district has been facing constant Armenian attacks. As a result of the occupation, over 1,100 residents of Fuzuli became martyrs, 113 were taken hostages and 1,450 were left handicapped.

Azerbaijani Ecology and Natural Resources Ministrys Operative Center, which inspects the devastating impact of the occupation on environmental and natural resources of Azerbaijan, found out that Armenians destroyed natural resources in the Fuzuli district during the occupation period.

Armenians cut down virtually all the trees in the Dovlatyarli village, and destroyed green spaces along the roads in the Gochahmadli and Yaglivand villages.

After the occupation of the Jabrayil district, which has a territory of 1,050 sq. km, some 72 secondary schools, eight hospitals, five mosques, two museums, 129 historical monuments and 149 cultural centers were left in the occupation zone. Some 61,100 IDPs from the Jabrayil district were settled in over 2,000 settlements in 58 districts across Azerbaijan.
Agra, Aug 23 : With the Yamuna still continuing to remain in spate in Agra, the rear view of the Taj Mahal stands transformed as the river is full of life-sustaining water, following incessant rains, providing a magnificent view from the Mehtab Bagh.

From a "sickly sewage canal" the Yamuna river stands as a vibrant and attractive water body which is said to be the lifeline of the city.

Heaps of garbage that had accumulated along the banks have now been swept away.

"The banks are now cleaner and greener thanks to the monsoon rains. The chirping birds are back and people stop by for a while to enjoy the spectacle of the Yamuna in its pristine glory," said Nandan Shrotriya, a temple priest of the Yamuna Kinara road.

Though the Taj Mahal remains closed for visitors due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the ambience of the area stands transformed as the Yamuna at the rear of the monument provides a magnificent view from the Mehtab Bagh. Emperor Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal because of the Yamuna river, but in the past few decades, the river has become a dying lifeline. For most part of the year "it remains a sickly drain," said a river activist Shravan Kumar Singh.

Right now the river is full of water, but for how long? "For almost eight months in a year, the Yamuna remains dry and polluted as upstream barrages from Hathini Kund to Wazirabad, Okhla and Gokul hold back all the water. The downstream cities suffer as a result. The need is to ensure a minimum flow of water round the year so that the river remains alive and the aqua-life is not disturbed," says environmentalist Devashish Bhattacharya.

Over 500 years ago, it was the grandeur of the Yamuna that had attracted the founder of the Mughal dynasty to open shops in Agra. In later years, his descendents chose to build some of the finest monuments like the Taj Mahal and the Etmaduddaula along its banks.

While the younger folk have generally stayed away from the stinking river which holds no charm for them, people of the older generations do occasionally venture out to conduct ritualistic pujas and baths.

The dozen-odd ghats along the riverfront, which once was the centre of a thriving commercial activity and river culture, have disappeared without a trace, reducing the 20 km-long riverfront to a vast wasteland.

From the Kailash temple to the Dussehra Ghat adjacent to the Taj, there were more than a score of permanent ghats, some of red sandstone and others of marble. Behind the Red Fort there were permanent ghats with highly decorative canopies for the royal females of the Mughals.

Some ghats fell prey to man's indifference, others were razed to the ground by zealous bureaucrats on the late Sanjay Gandhi's orders during the Emergency (1975-77) to make way for a "picturesque" river front like Mumbai's Chowpati. But before that dream could materialise, politics took a U-turn and Indira Gandhi was swept out of power in the 1977 General Elections after the emergency was lifted, recalled river activist Padmini Iyer.

Today, the river of decadence is an eyesore. Those who take the Yamuna Kinara road are often seen covering their noses to keep away the foul odour of the stinking mess. "Modi's minister Nitin Gadkiri had promised steamers in Yamuna will bring tourists from Delhi to Agra. Now he seems to have forgotten or has given up the project," commented Wake Up Agra president Shishir Bhagat.

River Connect campaigner Pandit Jugal Kishor lamented: "Those were the days when the citizens of Agra used to spend leisurely summer evenings on the river bank, which had a long row of temples. Children used to feed the tortoises and a whole lot of cultural and religious activities used to be held here. But now the people have turned away and have even forgotten there's a river in the city." Hathi Ghat near the fort still survives but the entire area has been rampaged by transport companies, whose vehicles are parked there. Nathi Lal of Katcheri Ghat warned: "If the ghats disappear, the river culture, the annual melas and 'tamashas', the 'tairaki' (swimming contests), 'patangbazi' and the mass bathing programmes on festivals would vanish too." Citizens groups like the River Connect Campaign have been exerting pressure on the government agencies to take up cleanliness drives, build permanent ghats and dredge out silt from the riverbed to hold back the monsoon overflow, but so far there has been no positive response, commented K. C.Jain, secretary Agra Development Foundation.

The Braj Mandal Heritage Conservation Society has urged the Yogi and Modi governments to replicate the Sabarmati model in Agra and Mathura. "The Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad was reduced to a dirty drain, but the then state government headed by Narendra Modi carried out structural changes and the success is there for all to see," society president Surendra Sharma said. Work on the Yamuna barrage downstream of the Taj Mahal should begin urgently, he added.
On Saturday afternoon, a large crowd of more than 100 far-right activists, including Proud Boys and armed militia members, descended on Portland, Ore., staging a "Back the Blue" rally in front of the Justice Center that houses the downtown police precinct. Hundreds of antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters gathered to oppose the far-right crowd.

People in the far-right crowd came armed with paintball guns, metal rods, aluminum bats, fireworks, pepper spray, rifles and handguns. Some people in the opposing left-leaning crowd brought rocks, fireworks and bottles filled with chemical solutions. Both crowds sported shields and helmets.

The two groups sparred for more than two hours, as people exchanged blows, fired paintballs at each other and blasted chemicals indiscriminately into the crowd. People lobbed fireworks back and forth. At least one person was hit in the abdomen with a device that flashed and exploded, causing bleeding.

The rally followed a much smaller right-wing event last week that ended with gunfire. On Wednesday, Portland police arrested and seized a gun from 27-year-old Skylor Noel Jernigan, a far-right activist who has frequently rallied against antifascists in the city in recent years. Many of the same people came out again Saturday, including Alan Swinney, who brandished a gun and pointed it at the opposing crowd.

As the brawls unfolded, Portland police officers remained at a distance. They made several announcements over loudspeakers, encouraging the crowds to "self-monitor for criminal activity," even as people beat others with sticks, and at least two right-wing activists brandished handguns.

"Each skirmish appeared to involve willing participants and the events were not enduring in time, so officers were not deployed to intervene," the Portland Police Bureau said in a statement.

Police said they did not stop the violence, although the event met the criteria to be declared a riot, because too few officers were available to respond and they deemed it too dangerous to intervene. Officers were tired from responding to a much smaller and less volatile protest that was declared a riot the night before, the bureau said in a statement, and incident commanders also had concerns that officers would be targeted by the crowd.

"PPB members have been the focus of over 80 days of violent actions directed at the police, which is a major consideration for determining if police resources are necessary to interject between two groups with individuals who appear to be willingly engaging in physical confrontations for short durations," the bureau said in a statement. "While the activity in the group met the definition of a riot, PPB did not declare one because there were not adequate police resources available to address such a declaration."

The Portland Police Bureau has struggled to quell confrontations between far-right groups and antifascists in the city since at least 2017, when a string of violent riots broke out over the summer and fall.

The decision not to intervene was a striking contrast to police tactics at several left-leaning Black Lives Matter protests in recent weeks. Officers have consistently declared unlawful assemblies and riots at nighttime protests that have devolved into property damage and projectiles thrown at police. Although those events have involved significant property damage at times, they have not involved firearms or rampant brawling among demonstrators.

Several people were injured in the chaos at the warring protests. Dakota Means, 25, was hit in the eye with a paintball fired by a man in the far-right crowd wearing a tactical vest with a "Texas" patch across his chest.

"I counted six shots - three of them whizzed past me, two of them landed in front of me, but the last one hit me right in the corner my eye, right where the bridge of my nose is," Means said. "I stumbled back and dropped to my knees and passed out for about a minute and then when I woke up there was medics all around me trying to figure out what was happening."

Means, who described himself as mixed-race and a Marine Corps veteran, said that he was at the rally to support Black Lives Matter and to oppose a right-wing crowd that was threatening to shoot civilians.

"They're not welcome in the city," he said. "I'm gonna make sure they're ran out."

The right-wing crowd chanted "USA! USA!" and expletive-filled chants against antifa. The opposing leftists responded with shouts of "Go home, Nazis."

After more than two hours of violent clashes, the far-right crowd retreated to their cars. Antifa demonstrators followed them as they moved through downtown to a parking garage a few blocks away. The two groups lobbed rocks at each other and exchanged more pepper spray.

Amid the right-wing crowd was a well-known Proud Boy, Tusitala "Tiny" Toese, who has frequently brawled in Portland since early 2017.

Last year, he pleaded guilty in a 2018 assault in exchange for a two-year probation that requires him to stay away from protests until his probationary period ends in 2021. Even before he showed up at Saturday's rally, there was an active warrant for Toese's arrest for violating other terms of his probation.

As the far-right crowd left downtown Portland, Toese walked past several Portland police officers who did not attempt to apprehend him.

After the far-right groups had cleared out of downtown, members of the left-leaning crowd reconvened in Terry Schrunk Plaza, which is federal property. Federal police declared the gathering an unlawful assembly and drove the protesters out of the plaza, though the crowd had become largely peaceful as the afternoon waned.
(Natural News) Earl Gray, criminal defense attorney for Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) officer Thomas Lane, one of the officers involved in the George Floyd incident, claims that his client and the other officers were simply doing their jobs at the time and that none of them killed him. In fact, Gray argues that, through a combination of an underlying medical condition and a drug overdose, the man that sparked a wave of engineered rioting and civil unrest across the country actually killed himself.

Lane, 37, is one of the three officers charged with aiding and abetting the death of George Floyd. The other two are J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao, while Derek Chauvin, the fourth MPD officer involved in the incident, has been charged with murder. All four officers were fired from the MPD after footage of the incident went viral and sparked outrage across Minnesota.

Lane and Kueng were responsible for holding down Floyds legs during his fatal arrest on May 25. Chauvin was the one who knelt on Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes, leading to the mans death.

Gray is fighting to get the charge of aiding and abetting murder dropped from Lane, as he believes that there is not enough evidence to convict his client.

None of these guys  even Chauvin  actually killed him. He killed himself. Gray is arguing that Floyd died from an overdose of fentanyl, a powerful opioid, coupled with an underlying heart condition.

We are going to show that my client and the other cops were doing their jobs.

The lawyers for Chauvin, Kueng and Thao have all declined to comment on Grays remarks.

The death of George Floyd has led to a massive wave of engineered rioting and civil unrest in the country. Fortunately, there is a lot that can be learned from these recent events. Listen to this episode of the Health Ranger Report, a podcast by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, to find out how people can be better prepared for the upcoming nationwide revolt by staying updated on the latest events regarding the rioting.

Legal proceedings underway to get charges against Lane and others dropped

On August 17, Gray filed a memorandum in court claiming that Floyd swallowed a lethal dose of fentanyl while he was resisting arrest. This will be the linchpin of Grays defense. He hopes to prove this by referencing the toxicology and autopsy reports as well as the released body camera footage from the four MPD officers present. This, Gray believes, can provide a fuller picture of the events surrounding Floyds death.

The body camera footage shows the disappearance of a conspicuous white spot on Floyds tongue, which Gray says looks like two milligrams of fentanyl, a lethal dose. Gray has also argued that Floyd has been struggling with addiction, which would make the fentanyl overdose a much more plausible story.

According to the memorandum, Gray is arguing that, during his arrest, Floyd intentionally ingested the 2 mg dose of fentanyl after Lane ordered him to put his hands up.

All he had to do is sit in the police car, like every other defendant who is initially arrested, wrote Gray in the filing. While attempting to avoid his arrest, all by himself, Mr. Floyd overdosed on fentanyl.

Given his intoxication level, breathing would have been difficult, at best, Gray continued in the memorandum. Mr. Floyds intentional failure to obey commands, coupled with his overdosing, contributed to his own death.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiners Office, which conducted the initial autopsy on George Floyds body, ruled his death to be a homicide, saying that his heart stopped when the officers restrained him and Chauvin put pressure on his neck. An independent autopsy concurred with these findings.

However, the medical examiners office also supported Grays argument when their report stated that they found signs of fentanyl intoxication in Floyds system. But they did not list this as the main cause of death, an error that Gray believes needs to be addressed.

George Floyds case not a slam dunk for prosecution

Legal experts are saying that Grays defense strategy may work. This is especially true given that juries are less likely to convict police officers.

This is not a slam dunk for the prosecution and not an easy case, especially for the higher-degree homicide charges, said Philip Stinson, a criminologist and former police officer who now studies police misconduct at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

If this case goes to trial and an officer testifies on his own behalf, it is possible there will be reasonable doubt for the jurors.

Along with Grays argument that Floyd committed suicide via a fentanyl overdose, the attorney is also using Floyds criminal background, history of drug use and struggles with addiction. These, he argues, can help get his clients charges dropped. (Related: George Floyds FENTANYL OVERDOSE  Multiple officers body cams reveal Floyd saying he was choking and couldnt breathe before he ever hit the ground.)

Floyd was previously arrested by the MPD on May 2019 in Minneapolis. During a traffic stop, he had to be physically removed from his car. A thorough search of the vehicle revealed that Floyd was in possession of cocaine, rock cocaine and oxycodone. The court records concerning the incident do not state whether or not Floyd was charged during the arrest.

Gray is expected to argue for the dismissal of the charges against Lane during a court hearing scheduled for September 11.

Floyds aunt and uncle, Angela Harrelson and Selwyn Jones, told the Star Tribune that Grays memorandum was disappointing. They argue that Floyds struggles with drug addiction are not connected to his death.

Its a sign of desperation, said Jones. I want to know, when did police officers get their law degrees, when did they get voted into being judges and when do four people do the job of a jury?

Floyds death caused a massive wave of engineered rioting to sweep through the nation. Learn about the latest criminal acts Antifa and Black Lives Matter are doing in his name in cities like Minneapolis, Seattle and Portland by reading the articles at Rioting.news.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk

LATimes.com

NYPost.com

Insider.com
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogans order last Friday to turn the Hagia Sophia from a secular museum into an active mosque not only flouts its importance as a Christian holy site but also puts in jeopardy the decades of religious dialogue and cooperation it has precipitated.

President Erdogans motive likely has very little to do with any deep sense of faith. Instead, he is clearly using the order to selfishly advance his own personal political agenda. His popularity among the Turkish people has been waning for several years, and this order appeals to his partys conservative religious base.

The problem is that, for almost nine decades, the Hagia Sophia has been a symbol of peace in the region. As The Washington Post columnist Ishaan Tharoor eloquently put it, it has been a monument to a universal legacy that transcends religion and underscored Istanbuls place at the heart of different cultures and faiths.

Making the building a mosque now is, essentially, a proclamation that this peace doesnt matter to Erdogan. It follows a long string of aggressive and reckless moves, including his invasion of Syria, which resulted in the death, persecution and expulsion of Syrian Christians. It also imperils one of the worlds most sacred Christian sites, and, as Christians, we must speak out against it.

The Hagia Sophia was intended to be a church, not a mosque. It was built as an Eastern Orthodox basilica by the Emperor Justinian I in 537. Over the centuries, it was converted into a Roman Catholic cathedral, an Eastern Orthodox cathedral again, and then a mosque in 1453, when the Ottomans conquered Istanbul. Each conversion damaged or destroyed invaluable features of the site. Finally, in 1934, it was declared a museum by Turkeys secularist modern founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Many of the stunning Christian mosaics that had been plastered over in the 1400s were uncovered, and the Muslim prayer niches were preserved so that the site could stand as a testament to peace instead of conflict. It became a World Heritage site in 1985.

Erdogans move has angered leaders around the world. UNESCO issued a statement asserting that the decision was made without any form of dialogue or prior notice, despite the fact that UNESCOs Director-General shared concerns with the Republic of Turkey in several letters. Pope Francis spoke out against the decision as well, saying he was deeply pained. Turkish Nobel Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk told the BBC on Friday that to convert it back into a mosque is to say to the rest of the world, Unfortunately, we are not secular anymore.

President Trump has not spoken out yet. But as this is certainly a political move by Erdogan, the worlds political leaders  especially Christian leaders  have a duty to take a stand against it. I urge President Trump to step in on this issue and demand that President Erdogan rescind his order.

The first Friday prayer service is scheduled for July 24. If the conversion goes forward, there could be great repercussions to Christians. For one, its breathtaking Christian mosaics of Jesus, Mary and other holy figures could be covered up. For most of its history, Islam has had a deep aversion to the lifelike portrayal of animate beings, especially human beings, explained The Economist in 2015, an aversion rooted in Islam's horror of idolatry. In addition, Christians and other non-Muslims could be legally kept from entering certain parts of the site. It could also be closed completely to non-Muslims during times of prayer, or permanently.

The Hagia Sophia should be a place of prayer to all  not exclusively a place of Muslim prayer. Its conversion into a mosque ignores its original intent as a place of Christian worship. It also fuels instability in the region in a time when countries should be putting aside their differences and working together for the well-being of their citizens. Instead, Erdogan has taken advantage of a global tragedy for his own personal gain. I shudder to imagine what might come next.
The good news is that leading experts believe it will be safe for nearly all Americans to vote in person at the polls this November. Dr. Anthony Fauci told National Geographic that those who are medically compromised can vote by mail but that otherwise theres no reason why we shouldnt be able to vote in person or otherwise.

The bad news is that states are facing a shortage of thousands of poll workers as older volunteers at higher risk for coronavirus cancel plans to show up on Election Day.

America already faced a vanishing corps of volunteers before the virus, as existing ones retired or died. Its become more and more difficult to convince younger generations to take on a job that involves twelve-hour days or longer and pays between $75 and $160 for the whole day.

According to the Election Assistance Commission, more than two-thirds of election boards reported that in 2018 it was either very difficult or somewhat difficult to obtain a sufficient amount of poll workers.

The nations 900,000 poll workers are responsible for everything from making sure voters get the right ballots to helping people with issues as they vote. Shortages of people could add confusion, long lines, and delays to an Election Day process that has already been taxed by coronavirus.

The Pew Research Center reports that 58 percent of poll workers in 2018 were 61 or older. Thats the age demographic that is particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus. The complexity of election laws has made the job increasingly stressful; plus, poll workers may face verbal or other abuse from angry voters.

So its no surprise that many have opted not to show up this year. Early in August, more than a third of election-judge positions were vacant in Maryland. Most worrying is that its older, more experienced judges who are dropping out  often after consulting with family and friends.

Other election officials are seeing early shortages and scrambling to recruit a new generation of poll workers for Election Day. With the increasing importance of technology in the election process, many are trying to harness the talents of tech-savvy young people. Some colleges and high schools are offering credit to students who help out by explaining new voting machines, assisting the disabled, and even serving as translators. Young people who work at the polls as understudies to older poll workers may become engaged enough to stay involved after they finish school.

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The Poll Hero Project, founded by a group of students from Princeton University and Denver East High School, is recruiting poll workers and guiding them through the process. Were there to hold their hand through the sometimes complex, sometimes annoying, bureaucratic-form-type processes of getting connected to the people they need to be connected with, Avi Stopper, a co-founder of Poll Hero, told NBC News. His group also points out that such service is great on a resume, and this is a really good way to demonstrate to colleges or graduate schools or employers that you are a participant in democracy.

Some state election offices, such as those in Iowa and Michigan, have specific programs to recruit young people. The Leadership Institute, a group based in Arlington, Va., that has trained nearly 100,000 young people in how to run for office and work on campaigns, is planning its own outreach effort

Compounding the challenge of involving young people in elections is the sad fact that in many schools, civics is no longer any part of the curriculum. In his Farewell Address as he left office in 1989, Ronald Reagan warned of the consequences of not educating Americans in their history and civic duties:

If we forget what we did, we wont know who we are. I am warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit. Lets start with some basics: more attention to American history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual.

Few would argue that since 1989 we have paid enough attention to Reagans warning. We may be paying part of the price for that neglect in the mindless protesting of so many young people for causes they dont understand. We also pay a price when we find it so hard to recruit enough poll workers. A shorthanded election process would eventually become a process that shortchanged the people.
She normally lives in her adopted home of Los Angeles with her two children.

But Alessandra Ambrosio swapped out Southern California for the tropical climate of the Maldives on Sunday in stunning photos shared to her Instagram.

The 39-year-old former Victoria's Secret Angel showcased her stunning figure in a post as she relaxed in the cool blue water.

Tropical vacation: Alessandra Ambrosio, 39, showed off her impeccable figure in a gold bikini in new photos from her trip to the Maldives on Sunday

Alessandra didn't leave much to the imagination with her gold string bikini.

She kept the sun out of her eyes with a pair of sunglasses and a wide-brimmed straw hat.

The 5ft9in Brazilian beauty highlighted her toned tummy and her long, tanned legs in a second snap as she jumped for joy while flashing peace signs.

'Back to my happy place ' she gushed in the caption, while noting that she was a paid partner with the Waldorf Astoria, where she was staying in the South Asian island nation.

Bright day: The bikini snaps highlighted her toned tummy and long legs, and she wore sunglasses and a wide-brimmed straw hat to protect herself from the sun

Lovebirds: In her Instagram Stories, Alessandra shared a short video revealing that she was traveling with her boyfriend Nicolo Oddi aboard a boat ferrying them to the island

Travel style: Alessandra looked casual in a brown tank top and flowing white pants

In her Instagram Stories, Alessandra shared a short video revealing that she was traveling with her boyfriend Nicolo Oddi aboard a boat ferrying them to the island.

She and the Italian businessman have been dating since 2018.

He wore a pale blue T-shirt with Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses, while Alessandra looked casual in a brown tank top and flowing white pants.

She also had a beige sweater tied over her shoulders, and she accessorized with a puka shell necklace and aviator sunglasses while sipping on a mimosa.

Nature: From her vantage point, Alessandra was able to get some great footage of dolphins swimming alongside the boat, and she spied what appeared to be a blacktip shark cruising in the waters surrounding the hotel

Can't wait: Her daughter Anja, 11, and her son Noah, eight, both waved excitedly toward the dock as the boat approached

From her vantage point, Alessandra was able to get some great footage of dolphins swimming alongside the boat, and she spied what appeared to be a blacktip shark cruising in the waters surrounding the hotel.

Her daughter Anja, 11, and her son Noah, eight, both waved excitedly toward the dock as the boat approached, and as soon as it docked they ran toward the buildings, which were on raised platforms above the water.

'Ok, after months being home, they are so excited to arrive in paradise!!!' Alessandra captioned her video.

After settling in, she shared a photo of the pristine hotel bed, which had a message laid out for her reading, 'Welcome Home.'

Throughout the videos, neither Alessandra nor her family wore masks to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, though all the employees around them did.

So excited: As soon as it docked they ran toward the buildings, which were on raised platforms above the water

Time to relax: After settling in, she shared a photo of the pristine hotel bed, which had a message laid out for her reading, 'Welcome Home'

The catwalk star shares her children with her former fiance Jamie Mazur, whom she split from in 2018 following a decade-long relationship.

'They [have] been trying to keep their split on the down low,' an insider told Us Weekly at the time.

'But Alessandra has been out and about ready to mingle and hasn't been taking Jamie to anything.'

'If I have been engaged to him for eight years, then it's not my priority,' Alessandra admitted to Cosmopolitan UK in 2016. 'I have a lot of things going on, and I haven't got married because I'm so busy. I'll think about that when I have time off.'
The deputy involved in a shooting on Saturday night at the Boston Branch subdivision at the 8200 block of Hixson Spring Road was involved in two prior shootings recently, including one fatal one.

The deputy involved was identified as Jordan Long-Ross. He has been placed on administrative leave with pay.

Ronald Hutson, the suspect involved in the Boston Branch incident, has been released from a local medical facility and booked into the Hamilton County Jail.

Hutson is charged with attempted first-degree murder, felony evading arrest, driving on a revoked license, reckless driving and failure to maintain lane.

Hutson, 50, lives at 8208 Hixson Spring Road.

Hutson has an extensive criminal record.

Authorities said deputies had attempted to perform a traffic stop on Hutson.

They said Hutsons Jeep had not maintained his lane and was all over the roadway. Deputies said the vehicle was driving at 70 miles per hour on Sawyer Pike on the wrong side of the 35 mile per hour road.

Police said the Jeep crashed once it reached the 8200 block of Hixson Springs Road. The police report said someone over the radio traffic was heard saying, He tried to run over the deputy.

An investigator said the Jeep was crashed in a curve right ahead of the two patrol vehicles. Police said as a deputy exited his vehicle to get to the Jeep, Hutson accelerated toward him and then continued to drive toward the other deputy.

Authorities said the deputy fired at the suspect and hit Hutson at least twice. Once the Jeep stopped, police took Hutson out of the vehicle and administered aid.

The deputy involved was later identified as Jordan Long-Ross. He has been placed on administrative leave with pay.



Deputy Long-Ross shot and killed a suspect during an altercation after a traffic stop in Sale Creek in May. The person killed was Tyler Hays, 29. That incident happened around 2 a.m. on Crestview Drive. A resident said he and his wife heard 2-3 shots. He said he went outside and heard the deputy say, "I shot him. I shot him." The TBI said Hays ran from and fought the deputy. The medical examiner's report says the victim died of a single shot to his mid-back.

In an incident in June, the Sheriff's Office said Deputy Ross-Long shot at a man who struck his open driver's door as he was exiting his patrol car. Eric Hayes Tyra, 37, was arrested after leading authorities in a pursuit that went into Marion County.

Deputy Long-Ross did not sustain any injuries.

One suspect was shot and was transported to a local medical facility. The extent of their injuries is unknown.

At the direction of Hamilton County District Attorney General Neal Pinkstons Office, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has been requested to conduct the investigation of the incident.
White said because the discussion is relatively new to Orange, the board is in flux. He said there are large groups on both sides of the issue and that puts the board in a tough spot. He said the board will do the best job it can in terms of reflecting the views of the community.

I think generally it should be a local matter. I think its OK to have done that, White said of the new law. But to have done it without guidance and without any consultation, that sort of leaves us hanging because we were no more prepared to deal with this as anybody was.

CAROLINE FORGING AHEAD

Nine Caroline residents spoke out against the Confederate monument in front of their courthouse at a July 14 Board of Supervisors meeting.

A protest was held at the site of the memorial on Aug. 3. Eight days later, there was a silent protest with demonstrators carrying signs opposing the statue during the board meeting.

Later that same meeting, 17 residents spoke regarding the monument, with 13 opposing a proposed referendum and urging the board to immediately take action to remove it.
The first trilateral summit was held in Cairo in March 2019, with the second summit held in New York in September of the same year.

Egypt, Jordan and Iraq are set to hold a trilateral summit in the Jordanian capital of Amman, the Royal Hashemite Court announced.

According to the statement last week, the summit, which will be held for the third time between the three countries, will cover economic, trade and investment cooperation, as well as regional developments.

It will be attended by Jordans King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi.

The first trilateral summit was held in Cairo in March 2019, with the second summit held in New York in September of the same year.

The past summits saw an exchange of views between leaders from the three countries on crucial regional issues and common security challenges, as well as means to restore stability in the region.



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Military families all over the world get this news every day. Deployments are always difficult, but preparing for one in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, when everything else feels so unsteady, is a particular challenge. My wife and I prayed a lot about this  why us, and why now? We concluded that our sacrifice is small compared with the sacrifices of others, and that we need not understand what God is doing in order to trust him. Nonetheless, we mourned the separation.

Two of our children were at camp when we got the news. I was supposed to leave town to teach a weeklong intensive course. This spring and summer had been a difficult one for the children, with online classes, online church, extended isolation and racial upheaval. How would they handle the added stress of an absent parent? How would I handle teaching at a college with its own combination of in-person and remote teaching while helping the kids, who would not be in school full time? Beyond that, my wife and I have been a team and have worked through life together the past decade and a half. How would I manage so long without her?

As unsettling as this deployment is for our family, we are not alone: Among those in active duty, about 15 percent are deployed at any given time. In the military community, there is always someone who is going through or who has been through what is happening to you. When I called one of my good friends, who is a reservist, to tell him the news, he told me that he, too, had been called up active duty and would be gone for even longer than my wife.

The community knows how to rally around families during a deployment, offering meals, babysitting and emotional support. The community came through for us as we prepared for my wifes deployment: They provided welcome insights, prayer and counsel.

They reminded us that my wife has a good deployment. It is not dangerous or overly long by military standards. But her job is complicated. Being a doctor in the military is always about balancing the health of your patients with the needs of the military. It is the job of the doctor to advocate for the emotional and physical well-being of servicemen and servicewomen, even when they deeply desire to get back to duty.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Congress was on Sunday in the midst of a growing tumult with the party deeply divided on the leadership issue on the eve of the crucial Congress Working Committee(CWC) meeting amid indications that its interim president Sonia Gandhi might offer to quit.

As the main opposition party faces yet another internal crisis, leaders including its chief ministers and PCC chiefs rallied behind the Gandhi family, calling for Sonia to stay or Rahul Gandhi to take charge again after a section of its top leaders called for sweeping changes in the way the party is run to arrest the drift.

The pro-reform leaders had in a letter to Sonia Gandhi sought a "full time" chief who is active on the field and also an institutional leadership mechanism to collectively guide the party's revival with the Gandhi family an integral element as part of the overhaul.

While Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, his counterparts in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan Bhupesh Baghel and Ashok Gehlot, Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and former ministers Ashwani Kumar, Salman Khurshid and KK Tewary backed the Gandhis, those wanting changes included Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Kapil Sibal, Mukul Wasnik, Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor and ex-Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

The details of the letter written around early August by the leaders, who included former union ministers, ex-chief ministers, former and current parliamentarians and senior functionaries, have emerged just ahead of the CWC meeting on Monday during which the issues flagged are expected to be discussed and debated.

The CWC is the party's apex decision-making body.

ALSO READ | Leadership row: Several Congress leaders throw weight behind Gandhi family on CWC eve

The letter, however, stressed that the Nehru-Gandhi family will "always remain an integral part of the collective leadership" of the Congress party.

After details of the letter became public, sources close to Sonia Gandhi said that in response to it she might offer to quit as party's interim chief and ask the leadership to scout for a full-time president.

AICC media chief Randeep Surjewal also denied reports that she had quit.

Sonia reluctantly took over as interim chief on August 10 last year following a request from the CWC after Rahul Gandhi declined the committee's unanimous appeal to stay as chief post the 2019 Lok Sabha poll debacle.

All eyes are now on the CWC meeting to see whether Sonia Gandhi resigns as she did in 1999 after the then Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sharad Pawar questioned her foreign origins.

The CWC eventually rejected the resignation and Pawar along with P A Sangma and Tariq Anwar had to quit the Congress to form the NCP.

Having a "full time" leadership that is active in the field and "visible" in party offices, dissolution of powers to state units and revamping the CWC in line with the party constitution are some of the far-reaching suggestions made by the 23 senior Congress leaders to revive the organisation, sources said.

The leaders said that over-centralisation of the organisation and micro-management has always proven to be counter-productive, and that uncertainty over the leadership has "demoralised the Congress workers and further weakened the party".

Highlighting the gravity of the challenges facing the party, they said it was "imperative" to urgently establish an institutional leadership mechanism to collectively guide the party's revival.

Opposing the bid to challenge the Gandhi family leadership, Amarinder Singh said this was not the time to raise such an issue.

"The move by these Congress leaders to demand an overhaul of the party at this critical juncture would be detrimental to its interests, and the interests of the nation.

"What the Congress needs is a leadership that is acceptable not just to a few but to the entire party, through its rank and file, and the nation at large," he said, adding that the Gandhis were the right fit for this role.

"Sonia Gandhi should continue to helm the Congress as long as she wants," he said in a statement, adding that Rahul Gandhi should thereafter take over as he is fully competent to lead the party.

Gehlot termed the letter as unfortunate and said the Gandhi family has kept the party united.

"I am not aware of any such letter but if this is true, then it is unfortunate. They all have worked with the party for so long and the move of the letter is uncalled for," Gehlot told PTI.

Former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah tweeted, "It is unfortunate that the leadership of Gandhi family is being questioned by few. In these difficult times of undeclared emergency and attack on democracy by BJP, we should collectively strive to strengthen Congress and not weaken it."

Some leaders close to Rahul have also written parallel letters to the CWC pressing for the Gandhi scion's return as chief.

ALSO READ | Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel urges Rahul Gandhi to become Congress chief again

In his letter, AICC secretary for Maharashtra Challa Vamshi Chand Reddy said any delay in Rahul Gandhi's reinstatement would be at the cost of the Congress.

Lok Sabha MP Manickam Tagore too demanded Rahul Gandhi's return as Congress president.

The Delhi unit of the Congress also held an "emergency" meeting presided by its chief Anil Kumar and passed a resolution demanding that Rahul Gandhi be appointed as the party's national president without further delay, a statement said.

Tharoor put out a cryptic tweet quoting Jawaharlal Nehru that said we have become prisoners of the past.

"Without passion and urge, there is a gradual oozing out of hope and vitality, a settling down on lower levels of existence, a slow merging into non-existence.

We have become prisoners of the past and some part of its immobility sticks to us," he tweeted.

Ashwani Kumar, Salman Khurshid and K K Tewary spoke against elections to the post of party president and favoured consensus.

Kumar and Khurshid both argued that elections would be divisive and consensus should be given a chance.

Tewary, a party veteran, feared the party might disintegrate if Gandhis withdrew.

In their letter, the pro-reform leaders are further learnt to have called for free and fair organizational polls from the block up to the working committee level.

They were also critical of the way the CWC was being constituted and was functioning.

They are learnt to have pointed out that the CWC is not "guiding" the party effectively in mobilizing public opinion against the BJP.

While most of the leaders who have written the letter did not answer calls on Sunday, some who answered remained tight-lipped on the issue having set the stage for a CWC debate on the need for a Gandhi versus a non-Gandhi Congress President.
The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, on Saturday described the amended Company and Allied Matters Act 2020, CAMA, sign...

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, on Saturday described the amended Company and Allied Matters Act 2020, CAMA, signed by President Muhammadu Buhari as satanic.

HURIWA said the amended CAMA Act was an affront on democracy and aimed at instilling dictatorship in Nigeria.

The rights advocacy group urged the Federal government to immediately expunge toxic provisions in the amended CAMA Act 2020 which seeks to disempower Non-Governmental bodies and churches and silence independent voices and opinions.

The group says the move is a direct affront on constitutional democracy and a new form of dictatorship.

A statement signed by the right groups National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko says it is backing Bishop David Oyedepo of the Living Faith Church and the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, in their position on the CAMA Act.

President Muhammadu Buhari had on August 7, 2020, signed the amended CAMA Act into law.

Reacting, both Oyedepo and CAN had faulted the Act, described as satanic and ungodly legislation directed against the church.

However, HURIWA, in a statement, lamented that the Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC, which would ensure the enforcement of CAMA is controlled by Hausa-Fulani.

The statement reads partly: A more recent obstacle to the enjoyment of fundamental freedoms and human rights as encapsulated in the Nigerian Constitution and international agreements that Nigeria signed into, which includes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the African Charter and Peoples Rights is the amendments to the Company and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) 2020, which forms the fulcrum of the statement.

On August 7, 2020, President Muhammadu Buhari assented to the Company and Allied Matters Act, 2020 (CAMA 2020), which repeals and replaces the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 1990. The controversial section 839 (1) and (2) provides that religious bodies and non-governmental organisations will be strictly regulated by the Registrar-General of Corporate Affairs Commission and a supervising minister.

The law also wields power to suspend the trustees of an association or a religious body and appoint an interim manager or managers to coordinate its affairs where it reasonably believes that there had been any misconduct or mismanagement, or where the affairs of the association are being run fraudulently or where it is necessary or desirable for the purpose of public interest.

On the crest of the desire of the people, the bill that sought to bring the religious organisations and NGOs under the control and influence of the government was rejected because it would kill the church, but regrettably it is now smuggled into CAMA through the ambush and making the rejected bill a law.

This is of utmost concern because the establishment of a church has a spiritual foundation and the invitation of a manager who obviously does not share the spiritual insight of the founders of the church would undermine the church, insidiously defeating its purpose. How can a secular and political minister be the final authority on the affairs and management of another institution which is not political?

Again, we discovered that CAC which will control Churches and NGOs has always been controlled by Hausa Fulani Moslem Northerners since inception. Even when Mrs. Azinge acted briefly, President Buhari brought up kangaroo charges of non-declaration of assets to unseat her so as to make way for the candidate of the Moslems, controlled from the Sultanate in Sokoto. How then can a non-Christian head of government ministry be empowered to determine the running of the church as envisaged by the CAMA 2020?

The amendment to CAMA is an NGO Bill in disguise because what NASS failed to do before through the NGO Bill they have now achieved through the backdoor. Obviously, the legislative & regulatory agenda of the present NASS as illustrated in several of their proposed legislations appears to be aimed at attacking freedom of speech & civil space and to abrogate property & economic rights.

The clause in section 839 of CAMA which shows that an order of court is required to suspend the trustees of an NGO under that section the extant principles of Nigerian administrative law are adequate to ensure that the wrongful exercise of the regulatory powers of the CAC are brought under the supervisory control of the courts is misleading and deceptive owing to the sabotage and the undermining going on in our nations judicial system.

HURIWA is totally in support of Rev. David Oyedepo and the organised body of Christians that opposed the amendments. We join our voices with theirs to task the federal government to immediately expunge those toxic provisions. We also urge Nigerians to institute multiple court cases to challenge these illegalities.

Just like CAN rightly noted, Nigeria should not be compared with any other nation when it comes to the relationship between the religious institutions and the government. In Nigeria, peoples religions are tied to their humanity and of course, their life. How can the government sack the trustees of a church which it contributed no dime to establish? In other climes, bodies registered as charities enjoy some forms of funding support from the public fund so such stringent rules on management are permissible but not the same position in Nigeria in which the Nigerian government has no role in the funding of non-governmental bodies.

In Nigeria, there is a clear separation between church and state and it is strange for the government to enjoy the arbitrary powers to suo moto nominate trustees for organisations that are Non-Governmental because this is a direct injury to the operational independence of non-governmental groups and a way to kill the vibrancy of the civil society.
Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

The soaring oratory had been replaced by visible anguish. Barack Obama stood in Philadelphia, where the signing of the constitution laid the foundation stone of American democracy, and warned that his successor is ready to tear it all down to cling to power.

Last weeks unprecedented attack by a former president on an incumbent at the virtual Democratic national convention crystalised fears that Trump poses a more severe danger to the 244-year-old American experiment than any foreign adversary.

Related: Trump's USPS attacks are already undermining confidence in vote by mail

Whereas in 2016 Vladimir Putins Russia meddled in an election, now it is the current occupant of the White House who seems hellbent on subverting an American election.

The greatest threat facing the nation was an insider threat and still is, Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, told the MSNBC network this week. The insider threat is sitting in the Oval Office.

Trump will this week be nominated by the Republican party for a second term as president. He will give his acceptance speech from the White House, a break from tradition that signals the formidable tools of incumbency at his disposal. This time, critics say, Trump is running two campaigns.

One is a brutally partisan attempt to demonize his opponent Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris, the first woman of colour on a major party ticket, whom he has already dubbed mean, nasty and a mad woman. The other is an insidious and potentially catastrophic campaign against the integrity of the election itself.

The Democratic ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are not the only adversary Trump is targeting in this election. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

The boundary-pushing president has spent four years eroding the rule of law, upending constitutional norms and slandering the intelligence community. In recent months, faced with dismal polls that show him losing, he has worked to spread disinformation, sow distrust in democratic institutions and plant doubts over whether the election will be a free and fair capture of the popular will.

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Trump has floated the idea of postponing the election because of the coronavirus pandemic, though he has no power to do so. He has repeatedly refused to say whether he will accept the result, prompting a once unthinkable debate over how he might be physically removed from the White House. At a campaign stop in Wisconsin last week, he warned baldly: The only way were going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.

He has also targeted the postal service. With the pandemic making physical distancing imperative, a record number of mail-in ballots is expected, meaning that the outcome is unlikely to be known on election night. Trump recently admitted that he was blocking money sought by Democrats for the postal service so he could stop people voting by mail.

His allergic reaction to mail-in voting is based on the false premise that it is riddled with fraud, an assertion debunked by numerous factcheckers and academic studies Five states  Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah  already carry out elections almost entirely by mail.

Mail boxes sit in the parking lot of a post office in the Bronx, New York, earlier this month, amid reports that many had been removed. Photograph: Bryan R Smith/AFP/Getty Images

Democrats claim that the presidents true motive is to disenfranchise millions of their voters; surveys show significantly more Republicans than Democrats say they would feel safe showing up to vote in person.

Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist based in Columbia, South Carolina, said: This is an attempt to do election interference 2.0. This time its done by this administration and not a foreign adversary. Not only is Trump trying to undermine the integrity of the election, hes trying to strike fear and chaos into our election.

We should not be trying to cripple the post office or eliminate what I view as part of the nerve centre of every community. My mother, when I was a child, worked at the postal service so I know what it means for people of colour. What theyre doing to dismantle the postal service has double, sometimes triple impact on communities that have already been left out and left behind by other factors.

Amid a national uproar, the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, a Trump donor, announced this week that he would suspend cuts to the service until after the election to avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail. Democrats called it a necessary but insufficient first step in ending Trumps election sabotage campaign  which has once again succeeded in dominating the media agenda, a potential self-fulfilling prophecy.

The assault demonstrates that Republicans belong to the party of voter suppression, Seawright added. Im black and so all of my life, including my sharecropper grandparents lives, they have been trying to do everything they can to limit our participation in the election process. This just elevates my concern going into this election. The playbook is pretty much the same.

Its just different players implementing the strategy, and the strategy has been recalibrated this time as vote by mail. Keep in mind were still in the middle of a pandemic where showing up to vote in person could mean life or death for some people. But black people have put their lives on the line to vote before and, if we keep going down this road, I think we are willing and able to do it again because this election is just that important.

Voters wait in line to deposit their vote-by-mail ballot at the Broward county supervisor of elections office in Floridas primary election on Tuesday. Photograph: Larry Marano/Rex/Shutterstock

This week a bipartisan Senate intelligence report revealed the extent of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. It found that Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman, worked closely with Russian intelligence officer Konstantin Kilimnik. US intelligence has warned that Russia is already interfering in the 2020 election with the aim of getting Trump re-elected.

But such threats currently appear less fundamental than that posed by a president gone rogue  a man who this week welcomed the support of believers in a baseless righting conspiracy theory that holds the world is run by a shadowy cabal of Satan-worshipping paedophiles.

Its very clear that Trump will use every lever of governmental power to stay in office Charlie Sykes

Charlie Sykes, a conservative author and broadcaster, asked: Who needs Vladimir Putin when we have Donald Trump? If you were Vladimir Putin and you wanted to disrupt this election, what would you do? Youd spread disinformation. Youd make people doubt the legitimacy of the vote. Youd peddle conspiracy theories and you might want to mess with mail-in voting. Thats all happening without him. Our president is doing that.

Sykes, founder and editor-at-large of the Bulwark website, warned of a very ugly post-election period. Its very clear that Trump will use every lever of governmental power to stay in office. Therell be many mail-in votes and the mail-in votes will be very different than the same-day votes.

What he will do  and it will be very much on brand for Donald Trump  is declare victory on election night and then, as the mail-in votes are counted, he will insist that that they are not legitimate, that the election is being stolen from him, and I think that has the potential to create massive doubt and chaos.

Such a scenario promises to dwarf the acrimony, chaos and confusion of the disputed 2000 election between Republican George W Bush and Democrat Al Gore, which went all the way to the supreme court.

Bob Shrum, a Democratic strategist who was an adviser to Gore, said: Im not worried that it wont be held and Im not worried that we wont get, in the end, an accurate result, assuming that we can straighten out this post office thing or just be patient as the votes are counted.

I am worried that what Trump is doing means that afterwards, if he loses, we will have a bitterly divided country with about 30% of the population angry, alienated, perhaps in the streets, something weve never seen here before. If Trump loses, hes not gonna be Al Gore who believed he won the election but who, after the supreme court decision, conceded for the good of the country.
Sonia Toure's kidneys failed after she got COVID-19. She now needs dialysis. This photo was taken by a nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York on May 6. She went home May 12. She said there is "no hope" that her kidneys will recover. Read more

When the new coronavirus stormed the Northeast this year, Alan Kliger, a Yale University kidney specialist, thought it would behave like a typical respiratory virus.

There had been signals from China that the new disease was hard on kidneys, but nephrologists like Kliger were not prepared for what happened when cases surged in New York. So many patients suffered kidney injury that dialysis supplies ran short. Two studies of New York patients found that 68% to 76% of intensive-care patients with COVID-19 had kidney damage. In one, a third of ICU patients needed dialysis, a process in which a machine performs the kidneys blood-filtering work.

The amount of acute injury and failure was unexpected and dramatic, said Kliger, cochair of the American Society of Nephrologys COVID-19 Response Team.

It is too early to know whether survivors of serious COVID-19 will have long-lasting kidney damage, but doctors are worried. People are just waking up to the fact that the kidney is an unappreciated manifestation [of COVID-19] but one that is pretty important, said Girish Nadkarni, a nephrologist and researcher at Mount Sinai Health System in New York. There might be an epidemic of post-coronavirus kidney disease coming.

Sonia Toures story is what Nadkarni fears. Toure, 54, who worked as a research coordinator for City University of New York in the spring, had no chronic health problems before her first symptom of COVID-19  a single cough  during a work Zoom meeting on March 25. Within a day, she had a sore throat and 103-degree fever, but no breathing problems. Over the next few days, there was more fever along with aches and pains that made her feel as if a mob had beaten her. For one blessed day, she thought she was getting better, but by April 7, she knew she had to go to the hospital.

At Mount Sinai, doctors discovered she was in kidney failure and started dialysis. She had pneumonia, but never needed a ventilator. After 35 days in the hospital, she went home on May 12 to her two sons, aged 19 and 21, and two German shepherds. The next day, a doctor called with the results of her kidney biopsy.

The doctor said there was absolutely no hope, that my kidneys were so damaged I would never recover, she said. I would have to be on dialysis the rest of my life until I could get a transplant.

 READ MORE: Organ-by-organ, see how the coronavirus can attack the body

Jia Ng, a nephrologist at New Yorks Northwell Health, said even patients who recover from acute kidney injury are at higher risk for developing chronic disease later.

Chronic kidney disease is already a major problem for the country, costing us billions, Nadkarni said. He is co-investigator of a new study looking into the long-term prognosis for coronavirus patients who suffered kidney damage, as well as how that damage occurs. The study will include researchers from Rutgers University, Yale, and other large medical centers.

Currently, Kliger said, half a million Americans are on dialysis, a process that requires most patients to be connected to a machine for four hours a day, three days a week. About 100,000 new people start dialysis each year while another 100,000 stop because they die.

An important question is whether coronavirus will cause a net increase in dialysis patients. It remains to be seen how deaths of people already on dialysis who catch COVID-19 will balance out new dialysis patients, doctors said. Fresenius Medical Care North America and DaVita Kidney Care, the nations two largest dialysis providers, did not respond to questions about whether demand for dialysis has increased.

It is also unclear whether COVID-19 will lead to an increase in demand for kidney transplants. Kliger said his health system encourages virtually all patients with permanent kidney failure and dialysis to consider transplant.

While dialysis keeps people alive, it does not return them to normal. A 30-year-old on dialysis will have [roughly] the same life expectancy of a 55-year-old not on dialysis, Kliger said.

People who already have damaged kidneys have the greatest risk for more injury if hospitalized for COVID, but 70% of kidney injuries at Mount Sinai were in people not previously known to have kidney disease, Nadkarni said. Diabetes, high blood pressure, vascular disease, older age, and being Black or Hispanic raise the risk of kidney problems.

Hospitalization was always hard on kidneys

Even before COVID-19 hit, hospitalization  especially an ICU stay  raised the risk of acute kidney injury. Normally, 22.7% of hospitalized patients have acute kidney injury, Ng said. Only about 4%, though, are at stage 3, the most serious. Studies showed kidney injury rates of 60% to 78% for ICU patients before COVID. During the COVID surge, 37% of Northwells COVID-19 patients, including 90% of those on ventilators, had kidney injury. Nearly a third of those had stage 3 disease. Thirty-five percent of COVID-19 patients with kidney injury had died by the time a study was published in May.

A Mount Sinai study of 3,235 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 between Feb. 27 and April 15 found that 46% had acute kidney injury with 20% requiring dialysis. Forty-five percent had stage 3 disease. About a third of those in the ICU needed dialysis. The mortality rate for those with acute kidney injury was 41% overall and 52% for ICU patients. Fifty-six percent of those who were discharged alive had recovered their kidney function.

There are no studies yet of whether kidney function is affected by coronavirus infection that doesnt lead to a hospital stay.

 READ MORE: The road to recovery after serous COVID-19 is long. Some may never be the same.

Nephrologists at Penn, Jefferson, and Temple Health said they have not yet analyzed their patient data in detail. While it was hard to care for a big influx of very sick patients who needed isolation, they said their hospitals did not face dialysis supply shortages. Dan Negoianu, a Penn Medicine critical care nephrologist, said Penns numbers are in line with New Yorks. Omar Maarouf, a nephrologist who directs the Jefferson acute dialysis unit in Center City, said about 20% of Jeffersons coronavirus patients had kidney injury and 10% of those needed dialysis. Suzanne Boyle, a Temple nephrologist, said she couldnt share statistics, but her hospital had a high volume of dialysis patients during the COVID-19 surge.

Paul Palevsky, a University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine nephrologist and incoming president of the National Kidney Foundation, said there is anecdotal evidence that kidney injury has placed less stress on health systems in hot spots outside of New York that had more time to prepare. Data from the South and West are lacking. It is possible, doctors said, that improvements in COVID-19 treatment are reducing kidney damage.

Doctors arent sure why the kidneys are so vulnerable. One reason is that many hospitalized COVID-19 patients are extremely ill, and thats hard on the kidneys. Critically ill COVID patients are incredibly sick, Negoianu said. The kidneys need strong blood flow, but flow diminishes when patients are dehydrated or have low blood pressure. Fevers, nausea, and diarrhea can lead to dehydration. Early in the pandemic, many patients may have been afraid to go to the hospital, Ng said. We saw a large number of patients who were very dry, she said. Maintaining blood pressure is a challenge in people with breathing problems.

The inflammation that comes with sickness and intense immune response could further weaken the kidneys.

Doctors said the kidneys suffer along with the rest of the body. The kidney is kind of an innocent bystander sometimes, Boyle said. If the rest of the body isnt doing well, the kidney feels it too.

Whether the coronavirus directly attacks kidney cells is controversial. Some studies find no sign of the virus in kidney tissue, but a recent Lancet study found viral RNA in 60% of 63 autopsy samples and in 72% of samples from patients with acute kidney injury.

Another possibility, Negoianu said, is that blood clotting caused by COVID-19 damages kidneys.

Genetics may also play a part. APOL1 genetic variants have been tied to a higher incidence of kidney disease in people of African descent and have been associated with kidney injury with other viruses, including HIV, Palevsky said. Nadkarni is studying whether the genetic variant, found in 1 in 7 African Americans and 1 in 20 Hispanics with Caribbean ancestors, may also affect how people react to the coronavirus.

Whatever is causing the damage, the kidneys stop doing their job. Toxins build up in the body. Palevsky said that can cause confusion, even coma. The kidneys also are responsible for getting rid of salt and excess fluid. When theyre not working properly, fluid can build up in the lungs and cause shortness of breath. Higher potassium levels can cause severe and fatal heart rhythm problems.

If patients are going to recover kidney function after an acute injury, it usually happens within one to three months. Occasionally, patients get better after a year. Under normal circumstances, half to three-quarters of patients who start dialysis in the hospital will be able to come off of it, Maarouf said. Boyle said patients are more likely to recover if their kidneys were normal to begin with. Theres little the patient can do, other than to try to eat well and avoid salt.

Negoianu said the patients who were sickest are often the ones whose kidneys wont recover. Dialysis may not be their biggest problem as they head to rehab. Theyve often had their whole bodies ravaged by COVID-19, he said.

Dialysis is a reminder that shes sick

Sonia Toure is still new to kidney failure, and she doesnt like it. Her whole life now revolves around her illness and dialysis visits. Im sick every single day, she said. Im nauseous and vomiting every single day and all day. That kind of changes your mood. Going to a dialysis center, she said, is a constant reminder that you are among the sick.

Its not fair. I cant accept it, she said. I dont want to accept it. I just want to hang on to being angry at it because thats the only control I have.

Still, she got a new job after her release from the hospital. Shes got two boys in college. Shes now doing COVID-19 contact tracing for the City of New York. That seemed fitting. She tries not to wallow in her own problems. Everybodys going through something, she said. If I need to compare, I can compare to all the people who died on my floor.

One of her sons has volunteered to donate a kidney, but shes not sure she could accept it.

He told me Im being selfish, she said. No matter how old they are, they still need their mother.
Washington: Maryanne Trump Barry, President Donald Trump's older sister and a former federal judge, described him as a liar who has "no principles" in a series of audio recordings made by her niece, Mary Trump, in 2018 and 2019.

The recordings were provided to The Washington Post, which published them online Saturday night, local time. In the recording, Barry can be heard disparaging her brother's performance as President.

Donald and Melania Trump with the President's sister Maryanne in 2005. Credit:AP

"His goddamned tweet and the lying, oh, my God," she says in one of the recordings posted by the newspaper. "I'm talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying."

Mary Trump is the author of the recently published book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man. In it, she recounted how the President's upbringing turned him into what she called a reckless leader.
Thai pupils have acted out the scene of a teacher giving a humiliating haircut to a student to demonstrate the country's draconian school rules.

High school pupils have followed the example of university students who have been leading anti-government protests and last week 400 teenagers rallied outside the education minister's office in Bangkok.

The broader demonstrations accuse former general Prayuth Chan-ocha of rigging last year's election after he seized power in a military coup in 2014.

At one recent protest two youngsters acted out the scene of a teacher cutting a pupil's hair to an applauding crowd.

Teachers cutting a school girl's hair in front of her peers at a school in Kanchanaburi in the west of Thailand in January 2019

A social media image which circulated last year shows a boy whose hair was cut by a teacher in Khon Kaen province

A 15-year-old girl stood crying while her hair was sheared off by the 'teacher' before falling down on her knees.

It replicates the shocking reality which has been widely shared on social media, of children with savage-looking haircuts given by teachers as punishment for not having an appropriate length of hair.

On Wednesday, hundreds of high school pupils besieged education minister Nataphol Teepsuwan outside his offices to make their feelings known.

About 400 students wearing school uniforms with white ribbons, a symbol of the protest movement, joined in anti-government chants and gave three-fingered salutes, a sign of resistance to oppression borrowed from 'The Hunger Games.' Some tied white bows to the gates of the ministry.

Pro-democracy students raise a three-fingers, symbol of resistance salute and their mobile phone during a protest rally in front of Education Ministry in Bangkok, Thailand, Wednesday

Thai Education Minister Nataphol Teepsuwan, center left in white shirt, talks to pro-democracy students during a protest rally in front of Education Ministry in Bangkok, Thailand, Wednesday

Pro-democracy students raise a three-fingers, symbol of resistance salute during a protest rally in front of Education Ministry in Bangkok, Thailand

When Teepsuwan and his aides appeared, a chorus of jeers rose from the crowd. He tried to talk to some students near the front of the group, only to be roundly scolded and told he was late so should go to the back.

It was a remarkable response to an authority figure from students schooled in a system that stresses deference and respect for elders.

He did as instructed, going to the very back of the group, then sat down and listened patiently to those there, writing down their complaints and responding, while sweating heavily in the afternoon sun.

Six years ago, Nataphol took part in large-scale street protests that helped trigger the army coup that brought Prayuth to power. Some student protesters blew whistles as he spoke, a disruptive tactic his own movement had used in 2014.

'I'm happy that they dare to speak out and that they are interested in politics at this age, as long as their ideas are beneficial to the country,' he said just before leaving. 'They are the future and my future depends on them.'

Many pupils seemed unimpressed, jeering him again and making thumbs-down gestures.

Protests at high schools began last week with students showing support on their campuses for a growing wave of anti-government demonstrations led by university students.

Pro-democracy students raise a three-fingers, symbol of resistance salute during a protest rally in front of Education Ministry in Bangkok

Pro-democracy students raise a three-fingers, symbol of resistance salute during a protest rally at Mahidol University in Nakhan Pathom, Thailand

'If we carry on protesting just within our school grounds other people wont be aware of it. The wider we spread awareness the better for the cause,' one 15-year-old said.

The student-led protests are becoming the most serious threat yet to Prayuth's rule.

As army chief, he seized power in the 2014 military coup and then retained it in a 2019 election widely seen as rigged to all but guarantee his victory.

But with key Cabinet posts still in the hands of former generals, people are weary of the military's continuing influence on the running of the country and of Prayuths leadership and performance.

The economy has struggled to compete with its neighbors, even before the heavy damage inflicted by measures to counter the coronavirus pandemic.

The administrations image has also been tarnished by corruption scandals for which no one has been held accountable.

The student protests have declared three core demands: holding new elections, amending the military-imposed constitution and ending the intimidation of critics of the government.

Protest leaders triggered controversy earlier this month when they expanded their original agenda, publicly criticizing Thailands constitutional monarchy and issuing a 10-point manifesto calling for its reform.

Their action was virtually unprecedented, as the monarchy is considered sacrosanct and any criticism is normally kept private. A lese majeste law calls for a prison sentence of up to 15 years for anyone found guilty of defaming the king.

One of the activists who allegedly made critical remarks, Arnon Nampha, was arrested Wednesday and charged with sedition and violation of a public assembly law for participating in a Harry Potter-themed protest on Aug. 3. Three other political and labor activists were arrested Wednesday, according to the Thai Lawyers for Human Rights. They were charged with sedition and other offenses related to a protest in July.

Pro-democracy students raise a three-fingers, symbol of resistance salute during a protest rally in front of Education Ministry in Bangkok

The group also tweeted that Arnon was denied bail and would be brought to the criminal court Thursday morning.

Human Rights Watch said in a statement that Thai authorities should drop all charges and release the detained pro-democracy activists.

'The Thai governments repeated promises to listen to dissenting voices have proven meaningless as the crackdown on pro-democracy activists continues unabated,' said Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. 'The authorities should right their wrong and immediately drop the charges and release Arnon and other detained activists.'
For Melissa Mynes, the final days of August are usually a flurry of happy planning to ensure her kindergarten class is ready to welcome students.

But this year, like thousands of her colleagues across Ontario, Mynes is filled with anxiety instead of excitement as she contemplates the first day of school amid the uncertainty of COVID-19.

Trying to envision how you are going to be safe in the classroom and also teach a full kindergarten curriculum is just too stressful to contemplate, said Mynes, who teaches at Torontos Fraser Mustard Early Learning Academy, an all-kindergarten school in Thorncliffe Park that supports about 600 students.

September is like New Years Day for teachers. Its what we look forward to all year. But now we cant get excited because we literally have no idea what our classes will be like.

I know we have to change the way we teach, but Ive been teaching kindergarten for 17 years and I cant envision a classroom where my children are all distanced and my children are all working alone.

A school year set to start in the middle of a global pandemic brings a multitude of unprecedented challenges, but perhaps none more so than for kindergarten classes where back-to-school safety measures will face their biggest test.

Physical distancing will be especially difficult in kindergarten classes which are often the largest in schools, many with between 25 and 30 students and two adults  a teacher and early childhood educator (ECE)  in a single space.

Unlike other elementary grades, kindergarten classrooms are set up to facilitate group-style, play-based learning, not for students to sit at individual desks.

The provinces youngest learners are also those that will require the most help to manage hand hygiene, mask wearing and keeping their hands away from friends and faces, all critical for limiting the spread of COVID-19. Some 260,000 kindergarteners were enrolled in Ontario in the 2018-19 school year.

Add to that the emotional needs of 3- 4- and 5-year-olds  many who are leaving parents for the first time  and experts worry that kindergarten classes will be unable to meet both public health requirements and the educational needs of students.

We have given kindergarten teachers incredibly challenging parameters within which to work, said Amy Greer, a Canada Research Chair in population disease modeling and an associate professor of population medicine at the University of Guelph. These are large cohorts where the primary goal is to build social skills in a group setting  all during a pandemic.

With this virus, what happens in schools is going to spill back into the community. Its all of our responsibility to do this well and do this to best of our ability.

School boards across Ontario are grappling with how to make classes smaller without ample funding or classroom space.

On Thursday, Toronto District School Board trustees unanimously approved a proposal that would see kindergarten classes drop to an average of 13.3 students in COVID-19 hot spots, including the citys northwest corner. Other elementary schools across the city would have an average kindergarten class size of 21.6 students.

For Keith Canivet, whose youngest child will be starting junior kindergarten, the solutions offered by their Etobicoke elementary school do not go far enough to alleviate his concerns.

On August 17, Canivet learned his school would have two kindergarten classes  one with 33 students overseen by a teacher and an ECE and one with 15 students and a single teacher. Parents were told there were not enough funds to hire an additional ECE, he said, noting the school is older with a boiler system instead of central ventilation and small classrooms.

They have one or two windows  if youre lucky that they open.

On Thursday evening, Canivet heard from a TDSB school trustee that his school could divide the kindergarten classes evenly in two, sharing one ECE between the two classes of 24.

Thats still just one ECE  dealing with a cohort of almost 50 people and with one-on-one physical contact, Canivet said.

Beyond the public health worries, Canivet is concerned that an individual teacher will struggle to teach a group of 24 kindergarteners for long stretches with no help.

Our concern is for (the students) emotional health and physical health and that there hasnt been enough consideration for the reality of that situation.

Greer, who in July reviewed the return-to-school guidance led by the Hospital for Sick Children, said smaller cohorts of kindergarten students is critical for reducing the risk of COVID-19 spreading within a classroom. She said kindergarten classes of around 30 students is far from an ideal situation.

I think that is high-risk and opens up kids and staff to enhanced risk, she said, adding that smaller kindergarten cohorts will help ensure young children follow other safety measures, such as physical distancing and hand hygiene. Research so far suggests most young children do not get severely ill with COVID-19, though it is still not clear the role they play in asymptomatic transmission of the virus.

Non-medical face coverings for students in all grades, including kindergarten, is also key, Greer said, noting there is benefit to younger kids wearing masks, even if done imperfectly.

Public health interventions work best in layers. No single one is going to be perfect. You get added impact by putting the different interventions together.

Greer, who has young children herself, said it is fantastic some school boards have worked hard to lower kindergarten class sizes, some by splitting the teaching team and student cohorts in half.

This change will mean that kindergarten children in these boards will have fewer overall contacts, which reduces the risk of transmission.

Still, Greer cautioned that teachers and ECEs will need to be vigilant, especially with hand hygiene, as they move between the two student groups.

In a recent statement, the Ontario Principals Council released recommendations for a safe return to school, one of which is capping kindergarten classes at 15.

The council, which represents 5,000 elementary and secondary school principals and vice-principals, focused on kindergarten class sizes for a number of reasons, including: younger children will require a lot of help to learn public health measures, hand washing for each child will be time-consuming and cleaning classrooms and sanitizing objects to COVID-19 standards will be increasingly difficult with more than 15 children in a class.

In an email to the Star, the councils President Ann Pace, a principal from the York Region District School Board seconded to the council for the 2020-2021 school year, noted that kindergarten rooms are the same size as other classrooms, yet may contain up to 30-plus students and two or three adults (a teacher, an ECE and on occasion, an Education Assistant to support students with special needs).

It is impossible for this many students and staff to physically distance in such a small place, she wrote.

Beyond the challenges of large class sizes, kindergarten teaching teams will need additional time to rework their play-based curricula and learning environments upended by physical distancing requirements, said Emis Akbari, a professor and program co-ordinator at George Brown Colleges School of Early Childhood.

But they need time to change the classroom, modify the environment, create individual learning bins that arent isolating, said Akbari, a Senior Policy Fellow at the Atkinson Centre for Society and Child Development at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE).

I cant say how much more time they need, but definitely more than they are being given.

OISE Professor Kerry McCuaig, an expert in early childhood policy, said the play-based kindergarten curriculum can work in a physically distant environment  if there is ample space and fewer children in a class.

There is a way of teaching healthy behaviours in a play-based environment, she said. But we have to remember, the youngest kids here at just 3 years old  so some of the expectations may require a rethink, she said.

McCuaig said more than the application of the curriculum, she is concerned that educators will feel pressure to constantly reinforce the need for children to stay apart, which could impact their notion of socialization in the long-run.

It is so integral to childrens development to interact, and communicate up close and personal, she said. If there is such pressure on the educator to constantly maintain (physical) distancing, I think it is not just difficult, I think it actually becomes harmful to the childrens development. she said.

Teachers will need flexibility in order to teach students about the new norms in a way that they can understand, she said.

Kindergarten teacher Suki Padda said educators are increasingly worried as September looms, especially over the added expectations to protect children from COVID-19.

You want kindergartners to social distance? Are you kidding me? she said, adding that in her experience, remote learning for kindergarteners was a struggle. Theres no way that is going to happen. So there is a great sense of anxiety among educators. We want to keep the kids safe, and apart, but how do we do that without compromising the program, compromising ourselves?

She said many kindergarten teachers have already started to make kits that students can use for independent play. Teachers are also thinking through how to communicate pandemic precautions to kindergarteners, something she said must be done at their level.

A lot of visual learning aids will be set up in the classrooms to teach students healthy habits, Padda said. A lot of students are coming in at ages 3, 4, 5, and they dont know how to read  and we have a lot of families coming in that may not know English. We need to create a natural environment for the students so it doesnt all come to them as a shock.

Toronto mom Karen Leiva started teaching her 4-year-old son about physical distancing and safety in April, in part because her husband is a transplant recipient and at high risk for developing a severe case of COVID-19.

My little guy understands that he needs to wear a mask if he is around other people, she said. We give him the choice: Do you want to see your friend? Yes? Then you have to wear a mask. If he doesnt want to wear a mask, he knows he wont see his friend.

Still, despite the practice, Leivas son struggled with social interactions when he started outdoor summer camp.

The challenge we ran into in the program is that my son was always trying to touch people with hugs and pressing his face to theirs. It was like a novelty that after four months of not seeing anyone other than us that he could touch people.

Leiva said the family decided to seek the help of a youth and mental health professional to ask for tips on how do we further teach our son to be safe in a pandemic without scaring him or crushing his spirit?

She said one session helped them communicate the pandemic more effectively with their son.

When my son feels like he needs attention or affection now from camp counsellors or other kids, he understands now to do elbow bumps. We didnt take away his opportunities to show affection, we just redirected him to a safe option.

As school boards across Ontario race to develop back-to-school plans, Mynes hopes those in leadership positions understand the unique challenges kindergarten classrooms face in a pandemic, from the emotional to the practical.

We are on the floor, were playing together, collaborating, sharing materials, eating snacks at a communal table, sharing our food and conversation, she said. Its a very intimate space.

Mynes, whose kindergarten class last year had 29 students, said manoeuvring through COVID-19 precautions will be far smoother with smaller classes.

On Friday evening, Mynes heard the Fraser Mustard Early Learning Academy was among the high priority TDSB elementary schools that would have smaller kindergarten classes according to its newest proposal.

Im going to do everything I can to keep kids as safe as we can. It will be a bumpy road. I hope we are successful.
WASHINGTONOn July 23, Juan Tang was ensconced inside the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco when federal officers came to the door with an arrest warrant for the 37-year-old cancer researcher.

Law enforcement officials had already seized Tangs passport and moved to revoke her visa during an interview in June, ensuring she could not leave the country  but they couldnt arrest her on foreign diplomatic property.

Tang, a researcher at the University of California-Davis, became hysterical when the consular officials told her about the arrest warrant. Believing she needed medical help, her diplomatic hosts took her to a hospital, according to court papers. Federal law enforcement officers followed closely behind, ready to arrest Tang as soon as she was discharged.

Now, Tang is in the Sacramento County Jail, charged with visa fraud. Tang said on her visa application she had not served in the Chinese military, when in fact she is a uniformed officer in the Peoples Liberation Army, the Justice Department said in announcing charges against her.

The charges against Tang are part of a sweeping initiative from U.S. President Donald Trumps administration that targets alleged Chinese government spying and intellectual property theft, particularly at American universities and research labs. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other Trump officials have given new prominence to the crackdown in recent weeks, delivering scorching speeches casting China as a menace to American democracy and a threat to U.S. national security.

Critics say the Trump administrations rhetoric is inflammatory and its actions have created a hostile climate for Asian students and researchers working and studying in the U.S.  often working on cutting-edge scientific developments. Some argue the aggressive push will backfire, driving away talented students and scientists who fear being profiled because of their ethnicityat a time when the U.S. desperately needs scientific and medical advances to combat a crippling pandemic.

We face not only the racial hostilities  and a lot of that has been heightened because of COVID-19, said Yangyang Cheng, a physicist from China who works for Cornell University.

Now, she said, were seeing parallels between my birth country and my adopted home in their rhetoric towards science and scientists  how the state is claiming ownership over scientists themselves, as well as the work they produce. And that is deeply troubling.

Chinese scientists working or studying in the U.S. feel torn about where they belong, she wrote in an essay last spring: In their home country, where an authoritarian government is increasing its hold on society, aided by technology for surveillance and censorship? Or in a country whose president actively rejects them, where they are painted as spies?

The new emphasis on Chinese espionage is part of a broader get-tough-on-China policy from the White House as Trump seeks re-election. U.S.-China tensions have dramatically escalated in recent months amid the coronavirus pandemic, troubled trade negotiations and Beijings decision to restrict freedoms in Hong Kong.

The Trump administration has cast the policy in terms of helping the U.S. protect its scientific and technology research, including that related to the pandemic. The president has also used racist language to talk about COVID-19, as he seeks to blame China for the virus spread.

Chinese propagandists at PTA meetings?

Trump administration officials say the crackdown on Chinese spying is not an attack on all Chinese individuals working or studying in the U.S. Instead, they say, its directed at the Chinese government and its ruling Communist Party leaders.

This is not about the Chinese people, and its certainly not about Chinese Americans, FBI director Christopher Wray said in a July 7 speech at the conservative Hudson Institute think tank. More than 100,000 Chinese students and researchers come to the U.S. annually, he noted. Our society is better for their contributions.

Still, Wray painted a stark picture of the threat.

Weve now reached the point where the FBI is opening a new China-related counter-intelligence case about every 10 hours. Of the nearly 5,000 active FBI counter-intelligence cases currently underway across the country, almost half are related to China, he said. And at this very moment, China is working to compromise American health care organizations, pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions conducting essential COVID-19 research.

Pompeo cast an even wider net, suggesting China had dispatched propagandists into every corner of U.S. society and Americas decades-long engagement with China had created a Frankenstein.

We opened our arms to Chinese citizens, only to see the Chinese Communist party exploit our free and open society. China sent propagandists into our press conferences, our research centres, our high schools, our colleges and even into our PTA meetings, Pompeo said in July 23 remarks at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library.

Theres no question the Chinese government is encouraging and recruiting people to steal American intellectual property and engage in other criminal behaviour, said Margaret Lewis, a law professor at Seton Hall University and expert on China. But the way the Trump administration has framed the issue is problematic, Lewis said, because it sweeps up anyone who has ties to China and subjects them to scrutiny.

Pompeo and others have exacerbated the problem by casting it as an ideological fight between American democracy and Chinese communism, she said. China experts have warned of a new red scare that echoes Cold War-era rhetoric about the Soviet Union and casts a cloud of suspicion over all Chinese Americans, as well as Chinese foreign nationals living in the U.S.

In addition to the Justice Department prosecutions, the Trump administration has also rescinded visas for certain Chinese graduate students and taken steps to nix the Fulbright exchange program in China and Hong Kong.

Some Republicans in Congress are pushing for an outright ban on visas for Chinese graduate and postgraduate students who want to study STEM fields in the U.S.

Weve fed Chinas innovation drought with American ingenuity and taxpayer dollars for too long, Sen. Marsha Blackburn said in a statement announcing the GOP bill. Its time to secure the U.S. research enterprise against the (Chinese Communist partys) economic espionage.

Chinese espionage aims at American academia

Former U.S. president Barack Obamas administration also viewed China as a significant threat in terms of intellectual property theft and espionage.

From 1997 to 2009, 17 per cent of defendants charged under the Economic Espionage Act were of Chinese descent, according to an analysis by Andrew Kim, a litigator based in Texas and a visiting scholar at South Texas College of Law. After 2009, the percentage of Chinese espionage defendants tripled to 52 per cent, he found.

The Trump administration significantly ramped up the investigation and prosecution of such cases, launching a formal unit to probe Chinese economic espionage with John Demers, head of the Justice Departments national security division, at the helm.

Now, the DOJ says about 80 per cent of all economic espionage prosecutions brought by federal prosecutors include allegations of conduct that would benefit the Chinese state. And there is at least some nexus to China in about 60 per cent of all trade secret theft cases, the Justice Department says.

A Justice Department spokesman did not respond to an email seeking additional information about those statistics.

The Justice Departments initiative casts a blanket of criminal suspicion over anyone associated with China, said Lewis, the Seton Hall professor.

The United States criminal justice system does not allow guilt by association, but that is what the DOJ has done, she wrote in a legal analysis of the departments China Initiative. And it takes a fear-provoking turn with repeated rhetoric framing intellectual property theft and espionage as part of a broader communist threat.

Many of the Justice Departments China Initiative cases involve allegations of false statements, failure to disclose income or visa fraud, China experts note  not espionage or intellectual property theft, which are harder to prove.

That sweeps in a much broader range of potential defendants than crimes that are more overtly nefarious, like stealing a competitors robot technology, Lewis writes in her analysis. Instead of overkill prosecution, she says, universities could resolve these issues by beefing up their reporting requirements, increasing transparency, and expanding auditing to guard against possible conflicts.

In his analysis, Kim found that 21 per cent of Chinese and 22 per cent of all Asian defendants charged under the Economic Espionage Act were never found guilty of spying or another serious crime. He looked at a random sample of EEA cases from 1997 to 2015. In about one-fifth of those cases, he said, the defendant was either acquitted, pleaded guilty to making false statements or the prosecutors dropped all charges.

In other words, as many as one in five Asian-Americans accused of being spies may be innocent, Kim writes. The same can be said for only 11 per cent of defendants with Western names.

Cases based on Google searches?

When prosecutors announced charges against Tang, the cancer researcher in California, the Justice Department said she was one of four Chinese nationals charged with lying on their visa applications about their affiliation with the Chinese military.

Todays announcement shows the extreme lengths to which the Chinese government has gone to infiltrate and exploit Americas benevolence, John Brown, head of the FBIs national security branch, said in the July 23 statement. In interviews with members of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army in over 25 cities across the U.S., the FBI uncovered a concerted effort to hide their true affiliation to take advantage of the United States and the American people.

But Tangs lawyer, Malcolm Segal, said the case is weak and appears to be based on photographs that federal agents found online.

The basis for the governments claim appears to be a published picture of Dr. Tang taken at a Chinese hospital where both civilians and military personnel wear uniforms, with different insignia to distinguish members of the military, Segal said in an email to USA Today. We believe they have misunderstood or misinterpreted the photographs and her professional background.

He said Tang speaks little to no English and is being held in the county jail, as COVID-19 rages through such institutions. He said hes working to resolve the case quickly so she can be reunited with her family in China after what turned out to be a very brief stay in the United States solely for the purpose of scientific study.

Tangs first lawyer, a public defender, said Tang fled to the consulate in San Francisco after agents took her passport because she needed assistance from her home government.

Justice Department officials in Washington and California declined to discuss Tangs case with USA Today. But a motion opposing her release on bail says the FBI found a photo online of Tang wearing an Air Force uniform bearing the insignia of the Civilian Cadre.

In an accompanying article, the FBI says, Tang was listed as an associate researcher at Air Force Military Medical University, Molecular Medicine Translation Center. Members of the (Air Force) Civilian Cadre are considered active duty military members, the motion states.

When federal officers interviewed Tang in June, she denied being in the military, although investigators said they found further evidence when they searched her residence. They say she also lied about having experience with chemical or biological agents.

Tang operated clandestinely in the United States, along with apparently several (if not more) of her colleagues, the prosecutors motion states. The defendants in these cases are operating in the U.S. with the knowledge and support of their government. Tang has already demonstrated operational sophistication by deleting materials from her electronic devices and repeatedly making demonstrably false statements to the FBI.

The judge denied Tangs request to be released on bail during a July 31 hearing held via Zoom.

Tangs case is one of at least 50 brought by the Justice Department since launching the China Initiative in 2018. The charges range from economic espionage to wire fraud to bribery.

One of the most high-profile cases came to light in January, when prosecutors charged Charles Lieber, then-chair of Harvard Universitys department of chemistry and chemical biology, with lying about his participation in Chinas Thousand Talents Plan and failing to report income from a Chinese university on his tax returns. Beijing created the Thousand Talent program in 2008 to encourage scientists in the U.S. to share knowledge and research with China  in exchange for salaries, research funding, and other incentives.

Prosecutors said Lieber was paid $50,000 (U.S.) a month by the Wuhan University of Technology and living expenses of up to $158,000 via the Thousand Talents program. And he snagged another $1.5 million to set up a research lab at the Chinese university, according to the Department of Justice.

Liebers lawyer, Marc Mukasey, has adamantly denied the allegations and suggested the charges were political.

The indictment is flat-out wrong. We will not let Prof. Lieber be used as part of anyones political agenda, Mukasey said in an emailed statement. The notion that Prof. Lieber was engaged in improper work with China is laughable. There is not a more gifted, selfless, dedicated, patriotic scientist in this country than Charlie Lieber. He is innocent and his name will be cleared.

China has not made any secret of its talent recruitment program, and Beijing is hardly alone in trying to attract top-notch scientists  or in using financial incentives and other perks as a lure.

Federal prosecutors acknowledged as much in announcing the charges against Lieber.

All the Thousand Talents Program does is induce people doing research in the United States to come to China and help them do the same research by offering them money. And thats not illegal, per se, said Andrew Lelling, U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts.

The problem is Lieber hid the money and his connections with Chinese entities, Lelling said.

Lawmakers in Congress have also raised alarms about the program.

Chinese and American participants in the Thousand Talents Plan have downloaded sensitive electronic research files before going to China, submitted false information when applying for grant funds, and wilfully failed to disclose receiving money from the Chinese government on U.S. grant applications, according to a Senate committee investigation of the program.

They find promising research and researchers, they systematically target them and then they take that research over to China, Sen. Rob Portman said at a recent Senate foreign relations committee hearing. It is military, it is economic, its health care, its everything.

Portman said he wants American researchers to benefit from international co-operation, but we dont want to have this U.S. taxpayer-funded research being stolen.

A very deep scar: Wrongly accused scientist says prosecutions are hurting US innovation

Others say theres a big difference between sharing scientific insights and stealing them.

Xiaoxing Xi  a Temple University professor and American citizen who was wrongly charged by the FBI for allegedly providing sensitive technology to China  said the U.S. now seems to view any collaboration with China as a crime, no matter the potential value and in contradiction to the nature of scientific research.

In 2015, federal agents banged on Xis door and brandished their weapons, as they woke his wife and two daughters and put him in handcuffs. Four months later, the Justice Department abruptly dropped the charges after apparently realizing they had mistakenly accused him of sharing sensitive superconductor technology; he had not shared any sensitive information but rather was engaged in normal academic collaboration.

That left a very deep scar on us, not only psychologically and physically (but) ... from a professional standpoint, he said.

Xi and others say that international scientific collaboration should be encouraged, not seen as a threat, because it fosters an exchange of ideas.

If you suppress that, then you stifle the American innovation, and that is exactly hurting American competitiveness, said Xi.

He said the current climate reminds him of the red scare during the 1950s, when people lost their jobs, or worse, because they were painted as communists.

Cheng says the U.S. approach is particularly ill-advised in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, as scientists across the globe scramble to find an effective vaccine and treatments.

The nationalistic approach to COVID is absolutely harmful and genuinely stupid, said Cheng. She said some competition among individual scientists can be a healthy motivator.

But in terms of public health, in terms of biomedical research, the results should be a public good, she said. It should not be in ownership of any individual state and somehow weaponized as a geopolitical tool.

The pandemic has sparked a go-it-alone response from many world leaders, and in the U.S., the crisis has prompted fears that China or another foreign government will try to steal vaccine research.

Indeed, earlier this month, the U.S. Justice Department accused two Chinese hackers of targeting the computer networks of companies known to be developing a potential coronavirus vaccine and treatment. Prosecutors said the hackers allegedly stole information for themselves, as well as information they knew would be of interest and value to the Chinese government. The U.S. and its allies have also accused hackers backed by the Russian government of trying to steal information from researchers and pharmaceutical companies racing to find a COVID-19 vaccine.

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Thiruvananthapuram: Unfazed by criticism over his stand favouring Centre's decision to lease out the airport here to Adani Enterprises, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said on Saturday privatisation would help expand its potential and attract investors. The congress MP had faced flak not only from the Left parties but even from his own party for his stand favouring privatisation of the Trivandrum airport.

"Dear @drthomasisaac, thanks4yr thoughtful criticism of my stand on TvmAirport. I think you miss the point, which is not about revenue.

It is about expanding the potential of the airport to its fullest, there by providing a better facility to businesses & locals & attracting investors," Tharoor tweeted on Saturday in reply to a tweet by state Finance Minister Thomas Isaac.

Isaac had earlier tweeted that Tharoor was "vocal for primitive accumulation of corporates in contemporary India."

"...Tharoor is so eloquent against primitive accumulation of British in India but so vocal for primitive accumulation of corporates in contemporary India.

When we have successful model of CIAL in Kochi why does Tharoor consider Adani is indispensable for TVM? #airportprivatisation. "Thiruvananthapuram airport privatised to Adani rejecting the claim of Kerala govt, even after offer to match Adanis rate.PMOs promise to accept Kerala proposal broken.

People of Kerala will not accept this act of brazen cronyism.#Airportprivatisation," Isaac had tweeted on August 20.

Tharoor in his tweet today said the Airport Authority of India receives Rs 2,500 crore yearly.

"But since you mention revenue, in Delhi airport, @GMR agreed to give 46% revenue share to@AAI_Official, a huge amount the Govt had never made before.

Today for Mumbai and Delhi airports, AAI gets 2500 crores yearly.

And for Thiruvananthapuram, there are the additional benefits of attracting businesses to our city that are now deterred by our poor (& worsening) air connectivity.

The spinoff benefits in employment & income generation will also increase the state govt's tax revenues," Tharoor said.

The Union cabinet had on Wednesday approved the proposal for leasing out airports at Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram through public-private partnership (PPP) for a 50 yearperiod.

Adani Enterprises had won the rights to run six airports -- Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati -- through the PPP model after a competitive bidding process in February 2019.

The CPI(M)-led LDF government and the UDF spearheaded by the opposition Congress had opposed the centre's decision and an all party meeting called by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on August 20 had demanded its withdrawal.

Earlier Tharoor had come out in support of the centre's decision and said "a private entity running the operations competitively is the only way this airport could flourish."

"The people of Thiruvananthapuram want a first-class airport worthy of the city's history, status and potential.In this context, a decision, however, controversial, is preferable to the long delay we have suffered," he had said in a tweet.

However, Congress party state chief Mullappally Ramachandran had criticised Tharoor's stand and said there was no need for anyone to support a corporate giant and the move to privatise the airport was "deplorable".

"We need to protest in order to force the centre to withdraw this decision.None of us need to be in the payroll of these corporate giants," Ramachandran had said on Thursday.
Americans in the top 20 percent of incomes received a 2.9 percent increase in their after-tax incomes while middle-class Americans got just a 1.6 percent increase. Businesses responded to the cuts by raising dividends and share buybacks to record highs while an initial increase in capital investment quickly faded.

The Trump administration claimed that the legislation would pay for itself through increased economic activity. That, not surprisingly, turned out to be another lie. The deficit jumped to more than $1 trillion last year from $681 billion in 2017, the calendar year before the tax cut.

Then came the virus.

The presidents terrible handling of the crisis directly translated into the enormous problems we now face: an economy in its worst crisis since the Great Depression.

From the start, Mr. Trump has been talking about a quick bounce back and a V shaped recovery. In April, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, said the economy would be rocking by July. Less than two months ago, Mr. Trump declared, Americas economy is now roaring back to life like nobody has ever seen before, and claimed, All of this incredible news is the result of historic actions my administration has taken.

But thats not what we have. What we have is an economy in shambles.

Our economy has contracted by 10.6 percent during the first six months of 2020, by far the biggest, fastest decline since the Great Depression. Unemployment soared to 14.7 percent. More than 22 million jobs were lost. And the pain was disproportionately felt by women, people of color, the young, lower-paid workers and those with less education. For example, nearly a quarter of jobs held by Americans with less than a high school education have disappeared, compared to only 2 percent of jobs held by those with college degrees.
Jen-Hsun Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., holds up a Titan C CPU and GeForce GTX Titan X graphics card . David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Stocks have delivered very impressive gains recently. Indeed, indexes are circling record levels, boosted by strong second quarter earning reports and reopening optimism. That's despite economic decline and rising jobless claims as the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic continues. For investors, the key is to focus on stocks that are set to deliver strong growth in expanding markets. Here we look at six stocks that do just that- and what's more, all these stocks have received bullish calls from the Street's top analysts over the last week. TipRanks analyst forecasting service attempts to pinpoint Wall Street's best-performing analysts- so investors can follow the recommendations of analysts that tend to get it right. These are the analysts with the highest success rate and average return measured on a one-year basis  factoring in the number of ratings made by each analyst. Here are the best-performing analysts' six favorite stocks right now:

Amazon

Five-star Needham analyst Laura Martin has just reiterated her Amazon buy rating with a bullish stock price forecast of $3,700. She made the move after taking a deep dive into the company's Amazon Prime and Prime Video services. "We calculate that Amazon Prime is worth nearly $200B, or 12% of AMZN total EV. Stand alone, we calculate that Prime Video is worth nearly $40B, or about 2% of AMZN's total EV, based on NFLX current per sub valuations" the analyst told investors on August 17. Martin highlights more than a dozen independent data providers' May, June and July data points that demonstrate accelerating consumer adoption of streaming services- like Amazon's Prime Video. Indeed, coronavirus shelter-at-home orders, shuttered cinemas, no live sports, and negative topics dominating the news cycle have all boosted streaming demand, says the analyst. And unlike Netflix, Prime Video benefits from its tie-in with other Prime services- bringing new subscribers and lowering churn. The analyst cites a Diffusion group survey which found that 80% of subscribers pay for Prime primarily for free shipping, while the remaining 20% pay primarily for its media assets. According to TipRanks, Martin is ranked at an impressive #94 out of almost 6,900 analysts, with a 20.1% average return per rating.

Regeneron

Regeneron is currently developing a promising antibody cocktail against coronavirus. REGN-COV2 could help treat people already experiencing coronavirus symptoms- and prevent infection in people exposed to the virus. "We are excited about the potential for one medicine to serve both as a treatment for those infected as well as protection for people exposed to the virus. REGN-COV2 could be a critical line of defense against the COVID-19 pandemic," Bill Anderson, CEO of Roche stated on August 19. Following a call with Regeneron management, top Oppenheimer analyst Hartaj Singh reiterated his buy REGN buy rating with a $725 price target. "We stay bullish and view REGN as a core holding" the analyst wrote. He notes that REGN is running the REGN-COV2 trials in a full spectrum of patients (preventative, hospitalized, etc.), testing various doses, and working with other firms to scale manufacturing and working on future accounting treatment, pricing, and distribution. Regeneron's pipeline is also progressing well, says Singh, with Dupixent in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and oncology among the standouts. "REGN is on the cusp of strong 20/21 sales growth," Singh told investors on August 17.

Nvidia

Bank of American analyst Vivek Arya has just reiterated his 'Top Pick' status on chip stock Nvidia following stellar earning results. He also ramped up his stock price forecast from $520 to a Street-high $600 (24% upside potential). "Solid beat/raise, with ~30% YoY sales, ~50% YoY pf-EPS organic growth and importantly, 38% FCF margins that are best-in-class in not just large-cap semis but also likely in all-tech" cheered the analyst on August 19. Meanwhile, NVDA's developer base crossed 2 million, with the second million coming in just the last two years, 5x faster than the first. Looking forward, Arya sees continued secular momentum with new product cycles (next gen 7nm Ampere launch) and recovery in cyclical autos offsetting a potentially 'lumpy' data center business. "Bigger picture, we believe NVDA has an unassailable hardware / software / developer lead in some of the largest and fastest growing markets in semis/tech (AI, Gaming, Autonomous), all derived from a common architecture" the analyst tells investors. He believes this can potentially drive sales at 20% and EPS at a 25% pace to head towards $22/ share by CY24E. According to Arya, this now paints a scenario for the world's first $0.5 trillion market cap chip vendor. Thanks to his strong stock picking skills, Arya is ranked at #117 out of 6,895 analysts tracked by TipRanks.

2U

2U Inc specializes in digital education, including supplying colleges and universities with a cloud-based software-as-a-service platform, coursework design and infrastructure support. And the stock has just received the thumbs up from top Needham analyst Ryan MacDonald. This five-star analyst reiterated his TWOU buy rating with a $50 price target on August 17. Despite shares already surging 64% year-to-date, his stock price forecast indicates further upside potential of 27%. "We remain bullish on 2U's growth prospects as the company continues to find creative ways to drive an accelerated adoption of online education" the analyst told investors. TWOU's most recent partnership offers a credit-bearing "Semester of Code" program for Arcadia University. Not only does Arcadia boast 2,400 undergrad students, but the university's study abroad program hosts nearly 3,000 students from 300 university partners annually. "We view this new partnership as a creative and accretive way to further penetrate the sizable undergrad opportunity" MacDonald writes. Investors are currently underappreciating the ongoing shift to online education, and 2U's progress towards limiting cash burn says the analyst. With a 20% EBITDA margin achievable longer term, he believes "the discounted valuation creates an attractive entry point."

"One for the record books" cheered five-star Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem after Lowe's blowout second quarter. The analyst reiterated his buy rating on the home-improvement retailer on August 19, while boosting his price target from $180 to $185. For a company of LOW's size, a 35% comp and 312bps of EBIT margin expansion is rare and historic, wrote the analyst, highlighting the extremely impressive 135% online growth for Lowes.com. According to Fadem, LOW's better-than-expected Q2 results "serve as further evidence that execution has clearly improved (after years of mismanagement), the category remains very strong (20%+ through Aug), and near-term benefits likely prove both cyclical and structural." And while tailwinds and government stimulus inevitably ease, he still sees plenty of long-term levers (Pro loyalty, Tool rental, Omni-channel, etc.) to drive sustainable comp growth and margin improvement that should ultimately exceed LOW's ~12% mid-term target. Despite all these tailwinds and associated fundamental improvements, LOW shares remain undervalued vs. rival Home Depot and a -10% discount vs. the S&P 500. "In our view, this isn't the LOW of old, and it's about time valuation caught up" Fadem concludes. With a 30.6% average return, this is one of the Top 30 analysts on TipRanks.

Analog Devices
Megan Thee Stallion at Variety's Hitmakers Brunch in 2019. (Associated Press )

Megan Thee Stallion underwent surgery for a gunshot wound, and shrapnel was removed from her left heel in the hours after she says she was shot in the Hollywood Hills last month after a night of partying, records show.

More details of the incident emerged Friday, a day after Stallion for the first time, through her Instagram Live account, said her fellow hip-hop artist pulled the trigger that left her wounded on July 12.

Medical records now in possession of authorities show that the rapper, who was born Megan Pete, underwent a surgical procedure to remove a foreign object from her heel hours after the shooting. She had a 4 cm by 4 cm wound, the records show.

The "WAP" and "Savage" rapper was treated at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She reported she "felt pain in both feet."

With the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office considering whether to file felony assault with firearm charges against Lanez, Stallion said it was time for him to admit to shooting her.

Yes ... Tory shot me. You shot me and you got your publicist and your people going to these blogs lying, the 25-year-old rapper said in an Instagram Live video. Stop lying. Why lie? I dont understand.

She acknowledged that when police first responded to a report of a shooting and found the two recording artists outside an SUV, she did not tell responding officers she had been shot because she was afraid of the legal repercussions and afraid for her safety.

I didnt tell the police nothing because I didnt want us to get in no more trouble, she said in the video, explaining that she feared being shot by the police when they heard of a gun in the vehicle. She also said she wanted to spare Lanez the trouble and did not explain how she was injured. Initially, she told officials she thought it was a glass cut, not realizing the nature of the wound. She was barefoot at the time of the incident after a night of partying.

Lanez was arrested on suspicion of possession of a concealed weapon after the vehicle he was in was stopped by the LAPD. Video from the scene showed Lanez and Stallion limping barefoot. Lanez, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, was released on bail.

Story continues

L.A. County prosecutors on July 24 received a felony assault with a firearm investigation from the LAPD but sent it back for further investigation.

The 28-year-old rapper has not made any statements about the incident. But Stallion, in her comments, said she believed his publicist and people had been lying about the incident to deflect blame.

Stallion, her friend, Lanez, and his security guard were in an SUV after a party at a home owned by Kylie Jenner in the early hours of July 12, when the female rapper from Houston said an argument erupted and she decided she had enough and got out to walk away. She said she was minutes from the house she was staying in. She then alleged that as she walked away, her fellow artist fired at her from the back seat. "You shot me. I didn't get cut by no glass. But I tell you why they are saying that."

On that night in July, L.A. police officers swarmed the 1800 block of Nichols Canyon about 4:30 a.m after receiving a report of gunfire. According to the LAPD, witnesses to the incident provided a description of a suspect(s) and their vehicle. Officers stopped a vehicle matching the description, detained multiple people and eventually arrested Lanez, according to a statement.

In a video of the aftermath, both Lanez and Stallion can be seen in handcuffs as officers try to determine what happened.

Without naming the female rapper, the LAPD said one person was taken to the hospital with a foot injury.

Stallion in the aftermath repeatedly said she expected to fully recover, but said in subsequent posts that the shooting and subsequent surgery was super scary and the worst experience of my life, and she felt blessed that the gunfire hit where it did.

On Wednesday, Stallion posted  and then deleted  an image on Instagram that she said showed the result of her being shot. Why would I lie about getting shot, Stallion said in a blunt post in response to comments questioning whether she was really hurt. She said she underwent surgery to remove the bullets.

She had, until Thursday, avoided naming Lanez as her assailant even in interviews. But then she accused him of lying to cover up the episode and accused him of getting allies on social media to drag her down.
Patna, Aug 24 : BJP President J.P. Nadda on Sunday said that his party will fight upcoming Assembly election in Bihar, along with the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), under the leadership of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Nadda's statement comes at a time when LJP President Chirag Paswan has taken a tough stand against Nitish Kumar, the JD-U chief.

Paswan, in a statement, said that he will raise issues related to the common people of state. This is also seen as a bid to exert pressure on the JD-U and the BJP to claim more seats to contest.

Chirag Paswan and his father Ram Vilas Paswan are the among prominent Dalit leaders in Bihar, exerting influence in Hajipur, Saran, Chapra and some other key constituencies in north and central Bihar.

As per January 2020, Bihar has total 7,21,40,945 voters, and 15 per cent of them belong to Dalit and Mahadalit communities. Paswan also claims to be leader of Muslim community, which forms 17 per cent of the electorate.

Addressing the party's Bihar working committee via video conferencing, Nadda said that all the three alliance partners will fight Bihar polls together and emerge victorious.

"Bihar has the capacity to establish itself in the country. The silk industry of Bhagalpur, Litchi farming of Muzaffarpur, paintings of Madhubani, Makhana (food) of Darbhanga have potential to establish themselves as export hubs. We have to become vocal for local to become self-reliant," he said.

"The opposition parties (Mahagathbandhan) is visionless at the moment. Hence, voters of Bihar expect better future only from NDA. The people of Bihar are labourious and have potential to change the status of the state," he added.
(@FahadShabbir)

NOUAKCHOTT (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2020) The new Malian authorities, who came to power after the recent coup, are discussing with Senegal the possible deportation of detained President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to Senegal, a Malian military source told Sputnik.

"There are talks with Senegal on his [Keita's] deportation [to Senegal]," the source said on late Thursday.

The coup began on Tuesday at the Kati military base near the Malian capital of Bamako. The rebels detained Keita, Prime Minister Boubou Cisse and some other senior government officials.

Keita then announced his resignation and dissolution of the parliament. The rebel leaders established the National Committee for the Salvation of the People as Mali's new governing body.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) announced on Thursday plans to send a high-ranking delegation to Mali to help restore constitutional order in the country. ECOWAS wants to seek the reinstatement of Keita as the Malian president.
Without citing specific numbers, University of Alabama president Stuart Bell said there was an unacceptable rise in COVID-19 cases in a Sunday message to campus.

Posted on the UA website, the letter addressed to students, faculty and staff had a dire tone.

Make no mistake, Bell wrote, this trend is a real threat to our ability to complete the semester on campus.

Bell went on to say the university police force and Tuscaloosa police would be partnering to monitor bars, restaurants and off-campus residences where the citys COVID-19 ordinances and UA guidelines are not being followed.

RELATED: Auburn University investigating students packing bars amid pandemic

Photos and videos of packed bars continued to make social media rounds on the first weekend after classes began Wednesday. The school on Friday announced new limitations on activities and Greek housing as concerns grew over quarantine space for students testing positive on campus.

Joint task force officers are risking their personal health and safety to protect yours, Bell wrote. UAPD officers are also focusing efforts on our residence halls and Greek housing to ensure safety and compliance.

Bell also reminded students that discipline for violating COVID-19 protocols included suspension from school.

Completing the fall semester together is our goal, Bell wrote Sunday. The margin for error is shrinking.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.
The love child of Belgium's former King Albert II has revealed why she outed the royal as her father, insisting she would have done so regardless of his status.

Artist Delphine Boel, 52, won a seven-year legal battle in January, which resulted in Albert, 86, admitting he was her biological father after submitting to a court-ordered DNA test last year.

The revelation confirms her as the half-sister of King Philippe, 60, and Queen Mathilde, 47, and puts her 15th-in-line to the Belgian throne. She's also entitled to a share of Albert's estate when he dies.

Delphine is thought to be the result of an 18-year affair Albert - who abdicated in 2013 - had with Belgian aristocrat Sybille de Selys Longchamps.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Delphine spoke of her relief that she's finally being 'taken seriously' - adding that her children, aged 12 and 16, had become accustomed to being asked if their mother was 'right in the head' for claiming to be one of the royals.

Delphine Boel, 52, pictured earlier this year, won a seven-year legal battle in January, which resulted in Belgium's former King Albert II admitting he is her biological father

Albert, pictured last year with Queen Paola confirmed his paternity following a court-ordered DNA test last year

She insisted her battle was not born out of a desire to be 'elevated' in society, and claimed she would have still gone to court to prove her father's paternity if he was a 'zookeeper or a criminal'.

Delphine was already an aristocrat prior to her claims and told the publication she had no intention to financially benefit from Albert being her father.

She pointed out her mother's former husband, steel magnate Jacques Boel, 91, whose family fortune is estimated to be around 1.4 billion, is 'far wealthier' than the royal family, and Delphine claimed she would often run in the same circles as British royalty growing up.

Sybille and Albert's affair is believed to have begun in 1966 when Albert was not yet king, but was married to Italian aristocrat Donna Paola Ruffo di Calabria, whom he wed in 1959.

Delphine (left with her mother in 2000) is thought to be the result of an 18-year affair Albert had with Belgian aristocrat Sybille de Selys Longchamps, pictured

The couple lived apart for a large part of their early marriage, amid rumours that she disliked living in Belgium, finding it too cold and rainy.

Delphine was born in 1968, and the affair between her parents is thought to have ended in 1984.

Albert's legitimate children - Philippe, now King of Belgium, Princess Astrid and Prince Laurent - were born in 1960, 1962 and 1963 respectively.

Speaking to the Sunday Times, Delphine said Albert was 'absolutely present' in her life for years when she was young, even after she moved to London with her mother who married into the wealthy English Cayzers family after divorcing Jacques Boel.

She recalled: 'Its not that I was always sitting on his knees going googoo gaga dada. But he was available. I could call him whenever I wanted.'

Albert is thought to have started an affair with Baroness Longchamps in 1966 (pictured in 1965), before he became king but after he got married

Albert ascended the throne in 1993, following the death of his elder brother, King Baudouin, from heart failure.

Delphine said she remained in contact with him, via phone calls, and received gifts on her birthday, until he cut off contact shortly after the publication of an unofficial biography of Queen Paola which alluded to an affair the king had which produced a lovechild.

Albert acknowledged problems with his marriage in his Christmas speech the same year, referring to a 'crisis' which nearly ended his marriage 30 years before, but said he and his wife 'surpassed those difficulties to find a deep understanding love'.

But Albert never addressed the issue of a child, and for years the palace neither confirmed nor denied the reports, merely saying that it was a 'private matter'.

For years Albert lived apart from his wife, Italian aristocrat Donna Paola Ruffo di Calabria (pictured together in 1965 in Italy), who is thought to have disliked being in Belgium

Delphine's quest to expose the true identity of her father didn't always make her popular in Belgium.

'Some people thought I was a nuisance or ridiculous,' she said. 'Now, at last, I'm being taken seriously.'

Despite years of private lobbying, Delphine was unable to get Albert to recognise her true identity.

In 2005 she claimed she called the palace to try to get help for her mother who was being harassed by journalists. She said she spoke to Albert, who told her: 'You are not my daughter.'

Albert (right) has alluded to problems with his marriage to Paola, former Queen of Belgium, in the past but has refused to admit Ms Boel is his daughter until now

Delphine claims that questions over her lineage led to her and her mother being put on a 'high risk' list by financial institutions, which led to Royal Bank of Scotland abruptly closing both of their bank accounts in 2012.

She said her then 11-year-old son was also put on the register, limiting his access to financial institutions.

Delphine was told she would have to publicly denounce claims that Albert was her father in order to have their names removed.

In 2013, she filed a lawsuit against King Albert in which she demanded he publicly recognise her as his daughter.

Ms Boel is pictured alongside her husband, American James O'Hare, in Brussels in 2008. The pair will now be entitled to a share of Albert II's estate when he dies

The same year the legal case began, Albert abdicated for 'health reasons', passing the throne to son Philippe.

After several early setbacks, the breakthrough for Delphine came in November last year when a court ruled that Albert must provide a DNA sample for testing. Failure to comply would result in a 5,000 fine for each day the sample was missing.

Albert is thought to have undergone the DNA test shortly afterwards, which proved he is Delphine's father. The royal then issued a statement confirming the paternity in January.

Despite the admission, Delphine said she doesn't hold out much hope that she'll reunite with her paternal father and fears she'll never get to ask him why he disowned her face-to-face.

She added: 'If he had told me and there was a good reason for it, everything would have been settled.'
An award-winning gin producer is to fight charges of illegally selling booze in his own distillery.

Earlier this month Copeland Distillery won a prestigious gold medal at the International Wine and Spirit Competition for its specialty gin, and next month owner Gareth Irvine is up for a Northern Ireland Director of the Year award.

But the 27-year-old is now facing four charges of illegally selling alcohol from his distillery building - charges his lawyer said would be battled in the courts.

Irvine, from Millmount Village Avenue in Dundonald, east Belfast, converted a disused cinema and community centre in Donaghadee into a distillery and visitor attraction last year.

The charges allege he made alcohol for sale without a licence and sold alcohol without a licence on October 18 last year.

He is accused of the same charges at Harbour and Company, a restaurant around the corner from his distillery, on the same day.

Irvine is further accused of exposing Harbour and Company's owner to the risk of prosecution on liquor licensing offences by falsely claiming he would operate on the restaurant's premises in line with the law.

During a sitting of Newtownards Magistrates Court on Tuesday, held via videolink because of coronavirus restrictions, defence lawyer Darren Duncan said Irvine intended to fight the charges.

"To that end we have sent a request for a significant amount of disclosure to the Public Prosecution Service, but so far we haven't received a response," he added.

A prosecutor replied that Mr Duncan's letter was "being looked at", after which the case was adjourned until September 29.

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After making a name for itself with its flavoured gins, the company invested 600,000 in opening a distillery on Manor Street in Donaghadee last summer, offering guided tours and tastings.

The business, which also makes whiskey, is named after the Copeland Islands off the coast of the village.

Commerce leaders and politicians have hailed the company as a Northern Irish success story.

When the pandemic struck in March, the distillery announced it would temporarily switch to making alcohol-based hand sanitiser, to help out as stocks ran low across NI.
If ECOWAS leaders want to restore democracy in Mali, the man they need to woo is Imam Mahmoud Dicko, the mullah who led the two month revo...

If ECOWAS leaders want to restore democracy in Mali, the man they need to woo is Imam Mahmoud Dicko, the mullah who led the two month revolt against President Boubacar Keita.





But for now, he appears solidly in support of the coup plotters who have taken control of the country.

Dicko is the Malian version of Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, who led the revolt against the Shah of Iran in 1979.

Malian opposition to Keitas government calls Dicko the religious guide. And like Ayatollah, he is a cleric and also a politician.

The 66 year-old Dicko is a Saudi-trained Muslim cleric and hugely popular. He backed Keita until they fell out in late 2017 over, among other things, the presidents choice of Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga as prime minister.

As a religious leader, he wants the government to negotiate with jihadist groups.

Last year, he stepped down as head of the influential Islamic High Council, but he said the action was not a prelude to his gunning for a political post. He said, on the contrary, he was retiring from politics.

What he didnt say then was that he would rally a coalition against Keita.

On Friday, he led the M5-RFP leaders to a rally at Independence Square in Bamako, in support of the armed forces and the Colonel Assimi Goita-led CNSP. It was also a rally of celebration of victory against Keita.

Thousands of Malians were at the rally, reported LEssor, the countrys main newspaper.

The prominent politicians, leaders of the protest movement, present at the rally were Choguel Kokalla Maiga, Montaga Tall and Cheick Oumar Sissoko .

During the rally, the movement welcomed the resignation of President Keita and his regime.

The leaders also castigated the ECOWAS leaders for adopting severe economic sanctions against the country.

Kokalla Maiga, one of the leaders, said it was wrong for ECOWAS to close the borders against the country.

According to him, international conventions prohibit the closure of borders to a landlocked country.

Imam Dicko, who also spoke at the rally regretted the acts of vandalism and looting.

Mali is not a country of revenge. But a country of understanding, said the imam.

Throughout his speech, Dicko advocated non-violence against revenge.

We must come together today in order to drive out the demon of division and hatred. Its time

The religious guide also asked his supporters to forgive President Keita.

To the military, Dicko asked them to respect their oath and their commitment to the people.

A delegation of the military committee led by Colonel-Major Ismael Wague, spokesperson and Colonel Malick Diaw, deputy president of CNSP joined the rally.

We are happy to be with you this afternoon. We thank the Malian people. Our job has been to complete your fight , declared CNSP spokesperson Col-major Ismael Wague.

Tuesdays coup in Mali followed two months of unrelenting protest against Keita.

Now the movement that toppled him, along with Dicko and the soldiers, believes that the fight has been won.

On Tuesday, a group of soldiers, from the Kati garrison, mutinied, deposed Keita and his government and arrested him and his Prime Minister Boubou Cisse, as well as some other ministers.

The arrests are continuing, according to local media.

What may cause a showdown between Dicko and the M5-RFP on one hand and the military on the other, is if they fail to announce a credible transition programme.

This was made clear at the Independence Square rally, when Kokalla Maiga, speaking for all the other politicians called for an urgent  civil transition for a new Mali.
Pictured: Caul Grant, who was sacked after he drove his van at two youths who threw a doughnut at his head in a racist attack

A black worker who distributed Boris Bikes has been sacked after he drove his van at two youths who threw a doughnut at his head in a racist attack.

Caul Grant, 58, mounted the pavement and drove on the wrong side of the road as he chased those who threw the pastry at him in London, a tribunal heard.

Mr Grant, who was the victim of two racist attacks in a week, was found guilty of gross misconduct after the rental bike distributor's bosses launched an investigation into his behaviour.

He was later sacked after his relationship with the company soured.

Mr Grant has now lost a race claim against former employers Serco, who run the London Cycle Hire Scheme launched by Boris Johnson.

The tribunal heard that on March 10, 2018, Mr Grant was called a 'monkey' by a driver who tailgated him near Waterloo Bridge.

Just a week later, while dropping off bicycles, Mr Grant had a doughnut thrown at the back of his head by two white youths who told him 'shut up you black c**t'.

Mr Grant, who was 'extremely offended and totally humiliated', then got into his van and sped at the youths, even driving on the wrong side of the road and mounting a pavement.

'I was in a state of total disbelief, I was extremely offended, totally humiliated and deeply hurt,' he said.

'I think if they had ran, I would have felt like I still had some dignity but... to just casually walk on, offended me further. That suggested they believed they could do whatever they wanted to me and I could do nothing.

The tribunal heard that on March 10, 2018, Mr Grant was called a 'monkey' by a driver who tailgated him near Waterloo Bridge (pictured)

'In that frame of mind, I got into my vehicle and drove towards my attackers, it was an act of self-defence and it forced them to run.

'Fortunately, I did not make any contact with them and my vehicle and as they ran away, I came back to my senses.'

Mr Grant later complained Serco did not immediately report it to the police, although it was heard they offered him support and reported it at a later date.

Serco launched an investigation into his driving and Mr Grant was signed off on sick leave with work-related stress for two weeks.

He said: 'I want the record to show that I am both deeply offended and insulted for having my conduct called into question having reacted to being physically and racially abused in an unprovoked attack.'

Mr Grant was allowed to keep his job despite being found guilty of gross misconduct but his relationship with the firm soured and he was dismissed in February last year.

At the London hearing, he claimed he was unfairly dismissed and racially discriminated against by Serco, where he 'passionately' worked with an unblemished record for eight years.

He alleged he was discriminated against after his all-white Serco managers investigated his driving following the racist abuse and ruled it amounted to gross misconduct.

However, a judge ruled Serco had supported him after being racially abused and was justified in deeming his driving so 'serious' it amounted to gross misconduct.

Employment Judge Emma Burns dismissed his claims of unfair and wrongful dismissal, victimisation as well as race discrimination and harassment.

Judge Burns said: 'The positions of the racist youths and [Mr Grant] and their respective relationships to [Serco] were completely different.

'[Serco] is entitled to lay down rules for its employees and act when those rules are breached. In contrast, [Serco] had no ability to take any action against the racist youths.

'All of the [Serco's] witnesses acknowledged the attack and that it provoked the [Mr Grant] to act in a way that was out of character.

'Nevertheless, they all felt that his consequential behaviour was so serious that it could not be ignored.

'Our finding is that the [Mr Grant's] behaviour was so serious that it constituted a fundamental breach of the claimant's contract. Although the conduct was provoked, this does not reduce the seriousness of the [Mr Grant's] behaviour.'

Mr Grant said he will be appealing the employment tribunal's decision to dismiss all his claims.

He said: 'I find the tribunal's decision deeply offensive, I cannot begin to understand how it is that a victim of an unprovoked violent racist assault should be accountable for their reaction to such an assault.

'Whilst there is consideration about what could have happened to the lives of the two white men who assaulted me 'if' I had struck them with my vehicle, there is no such consideration what could have happened to my life if the object which they threw and struck me on the back of my head had been a brick.

'It seems like my black life doesn't matter. I will be appealing this outrageous decision.'
The Italian government is not considering new lockdown to curb coronavirus infections, Health Minister said in a newspaper interview on Sunday, despite a steady rise in new cases over the past month.

Italy, one of Europes worst-hit countries with more than 35,000 deaths, on Saturday reported 1,071 new coronavirus infections, exceeding 1,000 cases in a day for the first time since the government eased its rigid lockdown measures in May.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

We will not have a new lockdown, Speranza told daily newspaper La Stampa, saying the current situation cannot be compared to February and March, when the disease was spreading out of control and it was difficult to track and isolate infected people.

I am optimistic, although prudent. Our national health service has become much stronger.

Speranza added that Italy has doubled the number of beds in intensive care units.

The number of new infections remains considerably lower than those registered in Spain and France and daily death tolls are low.

In a separate interview with newspaper Corriere della Sera, Health Undersecretary Sandra Zampa said she was convinced Italy would not impose a nationwide lockdown but did not rule out restrictions on territories where there are spikes in infection numbers.
WASHINGTON  The House interrupted its summer recess Saturday for a rare weekend session to approve legislation blocking cost-cutting and operational changes at the Postal Service that Democrats, civil rights advocates and some Republicans fear could jeopardize mail-in ballots this fall.

The measure, put forward by Democratic leaders, would also require the Postal Service to prioritize the delivery of all election-related mail and grant the beleaguered agency a rare $25 billion infusion to cover revenue lost because of the coronavirus pandemic and ensure it has the resources to address what is expected to be the largest vote-by-mail operation in the nations history.

Democrats were joined by 26 Republicans in voting yes, passing the legislation 257-150, with more than 20 Republicans not voting. But the bill, as written, appeared unlikely to move through the Republican-controlled Senate. President Donald Trump opposed the measure in last-minute tweets, calling it a money wasting HOAX by Democrats.

Democrats framed Saturdays action as an emergency intervention into the affairs of an independent agency to protect vital mail and package services that have seen significant delays this summer as the new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, moved swiftly to cut costs to close a yawning budget gap. They said it was also necessary to instill confidence in American voters that the agency would safeguard their ballots despite near daily attacks by Trump on mail-in voting.

This is not a partisan issue, said Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, D-N.Y., the lead author of the bill, as she released Postal Service statistics documenting the slowdown in delivery since early July. It makes absolutely no sense to impose these kinds of dangerous cuts in the middle of a pandemic and just months before the elections in November.

Most Republicans in the House opposed it after DeJoy, facing intense backlash and with the vote looming, announced this past week that he would temporarily halt the removal of blue mailboxes and sorting machines, as well as changes to post office hours and to mail delivery operations until after Nov. 3 out of an abundance of caution.

In testimony before the Senate on Friday, DeJoy reiterated that pledge and said ensuring successful mail-in voting would be the agencys No. 1 priority. He called Democrats assertion that he was working with Trump to hinder the program outrageous and testified that he planned to continue the agencys practice of prioritizing election mail.

He is scheduled to testify again Monday before the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

The decision to recall lawmakers back to the Capitol underscored just how high the political and electoral stakes have become around the operations of a usually humdrum federal service, especially in the eyes of Democrats. Even if it does not become law, they reason, the vote will help elevate the issue in the eyes of regular Americans and further tarnish Trump.

Dont pay any attention to what the president is saying because its all designed to suppress the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said before the vote.

Postal leaders have been warning for months that the sharp decline in mail caused by the pandemic could jeopardize the solvency of an agency that has struggled to turn a profit. But DeJoy, a Trump donor and former logistics executive, introduced measures to cut down on transportation costs and overtime this summer  leading to substantial delivery delays of vital items like medicines, checks and even chicks. Democrats and postal unions began to caution that the Trump administration may be moving to destabilize the Postal Service during an election year and aid its private competitors because of the presidents animus against mail-in voting.

In his tweets Saturday, he said the Postal Service did not need the money, despite its outstanding request to Congress for the funds, and repeated false claims that voting by mail is fraudulent.

He accused Democrats of backing a universal vote-by-mail scam in violation of everything that our Country stands for.

Voting by mail is neither new, a scam, nor at risk of widespread fraud as Trump insists. Millions of Americans in conservative and liberal states alike cast their ballots through the Postal Service in 2016 and 2018. Trump plans to do so this year but makes a distinction between absentee voting through the mail and programs overseen by Republicans and Democrats that proactively send ballots to all voters.

Adding to some lawmakers worries, DeJoys changes coincided with the long-planned removal of hundreds of blue postal collection boxes across the country and the decommissioning of mail-sorting machines, part of a regular practice to adjust to the steady decline of mail.

Many Republican lawmakers have joined Democrats in voicing concern over the slowdowns and demanding assurances from DeJoy and others that the Postal Service will be able to carry out the vote-by-mail initiatives.

Among the Republicans bucking their leadership Saturday were moderates, representatives of heavily rural districts that rely on the mail for basic services and several lawmakers fighting for reelection this fall.

We should be preserving and enhancing USPS delivery standards and services, not implementing operational changes that could delay delivery times and undermine quality services that every American depends on, said one of them, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa.

More conservative Republicans and allies of Trump accused Democrats of continuing to fan hyperbolic and unsupported theories of a conspiracy overseen by Trump to sabotage the election for their own political gain.

Like the Russia hoax and the impeachment sham, the Democrats have manufactured another scandal for political purposes, said Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the top Republican on the oversight panel.

Many Senate Republicans  including moderate senators facing tough races in November  are supportive of granting the agency a direct appropriation, albeit with some policy stipulations to address its long-term business model. Congress provided $10 billion in loan authority for the agency this spring, as well, that it has yet to use.

But Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said plainly Saturday that he did not plan to bring up a stand-alone bill in the Senate when lawmakers are at a stalemate over broader coronavirus relief legislation.

The facts show the USPS is equipped to handle this election, and if a real need arises, Congress will meet it, he said in a statement. The Senate will absolutely not pass stand-alone legislation for the Postal Service while American families continue to go without more relief.

The Democratic legislation would amount to an extraordinary intervention. Though it is a government entity explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, the modern Postal Service functions as a self-sustaining business that raises funds through postal products, not from taxpayers.

Democrats $25 billion comes with no strings attached, but their bill would effectively bar Postal Service leaders from making any changes that impede prompt, reliable, and efficient service through at least January. It would reverse changes already put in place that DeJoy had declined to.

By imposing strict requirements until the end of the pandemic, it would, if approved, also effectively block the postmaster general from making more sweeping changes he has planned after Election Day that Democrats generally oppose.

The $25 billion in direct funds match a request the Postal Service made of Congress this spring to cover lost revenue.

DeJoy and the Postal Service remain supportive of a direct grant from Congress, though they have more cash on hand than previously anticipated. Still, he opposed the restrictions that Democrats bill would impose. On Friday, he urged lawmakers to pass bipartisan legislation to address the agencys longer-term financial woes by unburdening it from a requirement to pre-fund retiree benefits that has put it deep in the red.

Even a short-term infusion of cash has become tied up in larger political and policy fights over how to respond to the pandemic.

Lawmakers had hoped to reach bipartisan consensus on a huge relief bill  including around $10 billion for the Postal Service  before they left town for their recess, but talks stalled.

McConnell expressed some optimism in recent days that the intense interest in the postal issue could present a new negotiating opportunity to draft a smaller, short-term bill to circumvent the impasse.

Democratic leaders had also been under pressure from more than 100 rank-and-file lawmakers to use Saturdays session to address other elements of the coronavirus relief negotiations as well. And Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, spent part of the day buzzing around the chamber to try to reignite talks.

If you really want to help Americans, how about passing relief for small businesses and unemployment assistance ALONG with postal funding? he wrote in a tweet. We agree on these. Theres NO reason not to deliver relief for Americans right now.

Pelosi insisted she was unwilling to break up Democrats $3.4 trillion relief bill into parts, arguing that the postal bill was necessary to handle separately because it included policy provisions that the larger measure did not.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
The British economy is functioning like a wasting muscle  vastly underused and at risk of permanent damage.

It has been in a state of atrophy since lockdown was imposed in late March, and the longer it is allowed to continue in such a state, the harder it will be to coax it back to anything like normal.

The figures make for horrific reading. Just last week, Government debt rose above 2 trillion for the first time ever.

Spending on measures such as the jobs furlough scheme means that this staggering level of debt now equals the value of everything the UK produces in a single year.

The figures make for horrific reading. Just last week, Government debt rose above 2 trillion for the first time ever. Pictured, Richard Walker with non-plastic packaging after Iceland became the first major retailer to commit to eliminate plastic packaging

And at the heart of this growing catastrophe is retail and the high street. Today, five months since lockdown, shops are open but they are not operating anywhere near like normal.

Over the past few months, during my store visits to every corner of the country, it has become plainly clear just how empty our high streets are.

And, as I understand it, with the declining number of shoppers and squeezed margins, supermarkets are tooling up for the mother of all price wars from September in a desperate effort to keep hold of customers  putting yet more family businesses in peril.

Last month, footfall was down by 47.2 per cent on the high street and by as much as 42 per cent in shopping centres and 19.9 per cent in retail parks.

You might say this is the new normal and that we should simply adjust. After all, Iceland, the supermarket chain my parents founded, has done well during lockdown and has grown its market share (file image)

The number of visitors to Central London remained 69 per cent lower than in 2019.

A tide of redundancies has already started, with some of the biggest names in Britain caught up.

Marks and Spencer has announced it is cutting 7,000 staff, with 4,000 being slashed at Boots.

This is merely the tip of the iceberg  the true scale will not be apparent until the furlough scheme ends. Millions could be unemployed overnight.

You might say this is the new normal and that we should simply adjust. After all, Iceland, the supermarket chain my parents founded, has done well during lockdown and has grown its market share.

Why should I be so concerned? The answer is that retail and the high street are at the very heart of our community as well as our economy. If town centres suffer, then Iceland suffers and our customers as well.

There is too much at stake for us to simply accept the death of our high streets and the historic towns that help give this country its identity.

It is not a done deal. Local shops not only bring a sense of community to millions, they are in many cases a vital resource. Not everyone has been in a position to order food from Ocado while spending lockdown in second homes in Cornwall or the Cotswolds.

The Highstreet in Walsall saw few shoppers amid the coronavirus lockdown earlier this year

It is the most vulnerable people in our society  the elderly, disabled, and those with low incomes and large families  who are the most dependent on bricks-and-mortar shops and the human contact that goes with them.

So whats to be done? How do we get people out of their homes and back to work  to factories, offices, high streets and shops?

The first thing we need from the Government is leadership and clarity, including a publicity campaign persuading workers to return. We must all play our part.

It is heartening that commercial traffic has returned in the past week to something like normal. But if White Van Man can do his bit, why cant White Collar Man and Woman do the same?

Teachers hold an especially important role. Not only do they educate our young and shape minds, but they give parents the freedom to return to their workplaces.

Shoppers, some wearing face masks, walk along Oxford Street in heatwave conditions in London, England, on June 25, 2020

Since the crisis began in March, millions of essential workers  from brilliant shop workers, like my employees, to NHS staff, to the tradesmen on our roads  have kept our country going.

Yet during this time, office workers have remained comfortably at home. Perhaps too comfortably.

Of course it can have many attractions, and my own business has functioned very effectively with just a skeleton staff manning our head office and the rest of our central teams working remotely.

But face-to-face contact drives engagement and sparks fresh thinking. It cant be matched through Zoom calls.

So we are now encouraging our colleagues to come into the office more frequently, while taking all necessary steps to ensure their safety.

Everyone needs to look at the balance between office and home working to ensure we have both business efficiency and personal happiness.

I agree there is a happy medium to be struck, but simply staying at home full time will gravely harm our economy and our society.

Shoppers are seen in central Manchester, northwest England, on July 31, as lockdown restrictions were eased

If we all abandon the habit of travelling to work, then the whole supporting infrastructure of trains, buses, taxis, restaurants, sandwich bars and convenience stores is doomed, along with the jobs they provide.

There are wider things the Government can and must do. The outdated system of business rates has already been effectively suspended.

Now, surely, is the time to abolish it completely and replace it with an online sales tax that will level the playing field between traditional high street retailers and offshore online mega-corporations with advanced degrees in tax avoidance. (I write this, incidentally, as a retailer with a substantial online presence of my own.)

For non-food retailers, a prolonged reduction of VAT would also be extremely helpful.

We should also take a hard look at the outdated rules and regulations that restrict when shops can open and what they do, rules that make it so much harder to compete with online trading.

Shoppers wearing a face mask or covering due to the COVID-19 pandemic, walk past a shop in London on August 12

And landlords need to be realistic about the rents that shop owners can actually afford.

The Governments proposed changes to planning laws are a big step in the right direction.

Redundant shops can also be viewed as latent housing stock, providing affordable homes where young people actually want to live and work.

This would be a far better option than tearing up the green belt with housing estates that necessitate the use of cars.

Repurposing buildings  as opposed to knocking them down for replacement  needs to become the norm.

Covid-19 is, of course, a danger, but one that we need to keep in perspective. The Office for National Statistics estimates that about 28,000 people in England have it, or 0.0005 per cent of the population. Seven times more people are currently dying of the flu.

Make no mistake, jobs, families and entire communities depend on how and where you choose to spend your money today.

If a steelworks or aerospace factory closes, it is front page news. Yet thousands of retail job losses are already being announced every day right now, and it has scarcely created a ripple.

So the next time youre distracted from working at your laptop at home by the thought of ordering something from Amazon, maybe pause and think how empty life will seem if there is no longer a functioning town centre where you can go out to meet friends, browse, eat, drink and chat.

Then consider getting back into the office at least some of the time, using the public transport network that will cease to exist without you, and supporting the local coffee bar or bakery.

Its down to all of us to shape the sort of society we want to live in, and all our actions count. Maybe shop out to help out could become our next national slogan?
An Ebola victim is put to rest at the Muslim cemetery in Beni, Congo, on July 14, 2019. (Jerome Delay/AP Photo)

New Ebola Outbreak Reported in Congo, WHO Alarmed

A new outbreak of the Ebola virus has infected 100 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Equateur Province, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which said several dozen people have died.

The outbreak was first declared on June 1 in the province, and a cluster was first found in Mbandaka, the capital.

The outbreak has since spread to 11 of the provinces 17 health zones. Of the 100 cases reported so far, 96 are confirmed and four are probable, the agency said.

Some 43 people have died from the deadly virus, which causes hemorrhagic fever.

The outbreak presents significant logistical challenges, with affected communities spanning large distances in remote and densely-forested areas of the province, which straddles the Equator, said WHO. At its widest points, the outbreak is spread across approximately 200 miles both from east to west and from north to south.

The agency said that providing relief to affected populations can take days. Supplies and first responders have to travel areas that dont have roads and may have to rely on river boat travel, according to WHO.

Burial workers put on their protective gear before carrying the remains of Mussa Kathembo, an Islamic scholar who had prayed over those who were sick, and his wife Asiya to their final resting place in Beni, Congo DRC, on July 14, 2019. (Jerome Delay/AP Photo)

In the same province, an outbreak of Ebola occurred in May 2018, killing at least 33 people.

With 100 Ebola cases in less than 100 days, the outbreak in Equateur Province is evolving in a concerning way, said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti with WHO. The virus is spreading across a wide and rugged terrain which requires costly interventions and with COVID-19 draining resources and attention, it is hard to scale-up operations.

Earlier in August, Congolese Ebola health workers protested over unpaid wages.

The provincial health minister, Bruno Efoloko, said the governor had concluded negotiations with the striking workers late on Monday afternoon. They were protesting against the health ministrys recent publication of their pay scales, which they thought were too low, and the governments failure to pay them since the start of the new epidemic, Keita said.

The negotiations were successful. The laboratory is now operational, Efoloko told Reuters, adding that some lab technicians had returned to work after the talks. The national ministry of health promises to examine their claims, Efoloko said. We will continue to educate others for an effective resumption of activities.

In June, Congo celebrated the end of a separate Ebola outbreak in the east of the country, the second-worst on record, which killed more than 2,200 people over two years.

WHO said over the weekend that the current response is indeed in need of funding.

Without extra support the teams on the ground will find it harder to get ahead of the virus, said Dr. Moeti. COVID-19 is not the only emergency needing robust support. As we know from our recent history we ignore Ebola at our peril. He was referring to the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

Reuters contributed to this report.
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Each Wednesday morning until the day after the November election, the Colson Center is hosting a virtual prayer gathering for the Church and for our nation. Not only are we praying together weekly, but Ive asked a select group of leaders to help direct our prayers for the coming week. On a recent Wednesday morning, Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose Driven Life, offered a few critical reminders for Christians in this time of, as he called it, virus and violence.

First, in times of tension and transition, like ours, the Church has always found unique opportunities to point people to Jesus. In the second and third centuries, even as plagues swept the Roman Empire, Christians ran toward the sick and suffering as pagans ran away. Through Christian love and hospitality, the faith grew. Not only did many people ultimately embrace Christ, but the world was ultimately blessed with hospitals, the name ultimately given to those places that showed this kind of Christian hospitality.

Though in our day, entire health care systems exist to deal with pandemics, illnesses, injuries, and diseases, only the Church is uniquely called and empowered to address what Pastor Rick called the disease that people have, including the fears, tensions, emotional, spiritual, and certain physical needs.

In a terrific, practical example of this, Pastor Rick described that when many food banks and pantries shut down across Southern California during the pandemic, Saddleback Church stepped up and established pop up food distribution centers. Since the beginning of the pandemic, theyve reached a quarter of a million families with 2.5 million pounds of food. Even better, through this effort, over 9,000 people have professed faith in Christ for the first time, and over 1,000 new members of the Body of Christ have been baptized in, he assured us, a COVID-safe manner.

The next opportunity for the Church to, as Chuck Colson often said, be the Church, is to parents and children as the school year starts. The Church that figures out how to care for kids and parents, Pastor Rick argued, will have the ear of America. I think hes right, and even more, I needed to be reminded that despite all the chaos of this culture moment, the work of the Church cannot be stopped. The Church has out-survived movements and philosophies and nations and leaders and empires. Its going to survive November also.

After all, as Pastor Rick prayed, our Hope is not found in who we put in the White House, but in Who we put on the cross. As far as election results, the safest and most sure prayer is the one Jesus taught us to pray: Thy Will Be Done. Because we know it will, even if we dont necessarily like it.

As much as I hope for certain results in November and will work toward them on a national level and a local level, this week especially I will pray that God would strengthen, protect, and use His Church during this time, and that we, as His people, would place trust, not in horses or chariots or polls or strategies, but in Christ.

Next Wednesday, we will gather again, virtually.

Due to limitation on our audience capacity, we are asking folks to register each week to join us live via Zoom. We will, however, send a link to the recording of each prayer time and a prayer guide for the week, to anyone who registers. You can also join us on the Colson Center Facebook page or the BreakPoint Facebook page. In fact, come to BreakPoint.org and click on this commentary to get the recording of last weeks session with Pastor Rick Warren, as well as the prayer guide.

I will close with the prayer I prayed at the end of session Wednesday:

ALMIGHTY God, who hast promised to hear the petitions of those who ask in thy Sons Name; We beseech thee mercifully to incline thine ears to us who have now made our prayers and supplications unto thee; and grant that those things which we have faithfully asked according to thy will, may effectually be obtained, to the relief of our necessity, and to the setting forth of thy glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Originally posted at breakpoint.org
Editor's note: Wamika Kapur is an Indian Ph.D. scholar of international relations at South Korea's Yonsei University. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

China's CPC Central Committee's Political Bureau member, Yang Jiechi, recently completed his visit to the Republic of Korea (ROK) where he met National Security Advisor Suh Hoon. Why has this meeting come at this time?

Sino-ROK relations stand at a crucial juncture and collaboration between the countries is essential for the peace in East Asia. It has major geopolitical implications on a global, regional and peninsula level and offered a unique opportunity for both countries to recommit their support toward multilateralism, free trade and peninsular peace.

America is leading a campaign against China by forming an "arc of democracy" and the ROK is a middle power caught in between. Each country fulfills a different need; China is the ROK's largest trading partner while the ROK is dependent on the U.S. for defense requirements.

However, America has recently proven itself to be an unreliable partner as its "America First" policy has pushed it toward isolationism, withdrawing from multiple international agreements and repudiating its security guarantees, which put the ROK in a vulnerable position vis-a-vis the DPRK.

The Trump administration has had three summits with the DPRK which failed to make any progress toward denuclearization and in May it charged 28 DPRK and five Chinese citizens in its largest crackdown on DPRK sanctions violations, further raising tensions.

The ROK is also deadlocked in negotiations with the U.S. over burden-sharing in the Special Measures Agreement (SMA). In 2017, Sino-ROK relations were jeopardized by U.S. insistence of installation of a U.S. missile defense system, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), in the ROK despite China's protests that it could be used by the U.S. to spy on China.

This offers China a unique opportunity to boost its economic, trade and cultural exchanges with the ROK. In a world where the majority of diplomatic business is being conducted virtually, the face-to-face meeting highlights the fact that both countries have been successful in their COVID-19 responses. This sets the tone for expanding trade between the Asian powers in the post-pandemic world starting with creating travel bubbles, tourism being a major source of revenue.

The ROK has also shown the intent of maintaining good relations with China. During the pandemic, over 20,000 Korean companies stayed in China. As seen by the latest ROK defense plan, there is also a clear shift toward more military sovereignty.

Despite growing pressure, while Japan has aligned itself with the U.S., the ROK has not taken a stance on Hong Kong, Huawei or TikTok. U.S. moves to ban Chinese companies have been extremely detrimental to the ROK's economy.

The ROK's chip sales to China are almost double of that of the U.S. and it has called the latest sanctions on semiconductor sales to Huawei "unacceptable." Samsung is in talks with Huawei to provide chipsets using Japanese and European technology which would be a welcome relief in the absence of sales from the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).

National flags of South Korea and Japan. /Reuters

On a regional level, China supports the ROK as the chair of China-Japan-ROK cooperation. According to the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat (TCS), China-Japan-ROK cooperation accounts for 23 percent of the global GDP, 20 percent of the global population and global trade volume, and 59.7 percent of the global patent applications. They are also major donors to the Official Development Assistance (ODA).

However, ROK-Japan relations have been deteriorating over historical issues where the ROK seeks reparations for atrocities committed during the Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula, particularly comfort women and forced labor.

In 2018, the ROK's top court ordered Japanese company Mitsubishi Heavy to compensate Koreans over forced labor and upon non-compliance seized their assets in the ROK. In 2019, Japan removed the ROK from favored trade partner status and imposed export controls in the electronics sector.

China plays an important role in paving the way to de-escalation in the conflict between the ROK and Japan and promoting cooperation on issues of regional security, establishing multilateral trade deals and information sharing.

On a peninsular level, ROK-DPRK relations are at an all-time low after failed denuclearization talks between the U.S. and DPRK and the anti-DPRK leaflet incident which led to the DPRK blowing up the Kaesong liaison office, cutting off all communication with the South and threatening military action.

ROK National Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug has expressed his wish to engage with the DPRK on disease prevention, health, agriculture and forestry as well as railroads but to no avail. China wishes to play a constructive role in settlement of the issue of the Korean Peninsula by facilitating dialogue.

Being a major trading partner to both Koreas, China has enjoyed a steady relationship with the peninsula and is in a perfect position to play the middleman. The ROK's unification minister, Lee In-young, has hailed China's role and expects China's cooperation going forward.

The meeting is a part of China's attempts to bolster its Asia diplomacy and foreshadows a proposed visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to the ROK. It comes after Yang's visit with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong aimed at deepening mutual trust and cooperation with Singapore where those of Chinese descent account for 70 percent of the population.
While the decision defused the immediate budget crisis, it did not address the deeper issues that have plagued the power-sharing arrangement between Netanyahu and his bitter rival, Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz. Since forming a coalition government in May, the two men have repeatedly feuded, and Netanyahu, facing the distraction of a potentially career ending corruption trial, has repeatedly hinted that he would prefer a new government that might be more lenient toward his legal woes.
Australias unemployment rate is likely to shoot up to whopping 13 per cent by the end of September, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced, according to a news agency report. As many as half a million Australians are feared to lose jobs that could cost the national economy between $10 billion and $12 billion. Countrys second most populous city was clamped down to stem the second wave of the novel coronavirus. Australian PM Scott Morrison said, Government is looking at job keeper wages subsidy in the light of the deteriorating outlook, at the press conference.

As the COVID-19 situation evolves, to help those most impacted, the Government has announced adjustments to the JobKeeper Payment extension turnover test and reference date for employee eligibility. https://t.co/C0wRZ8zj75 #coronavirusaustralia #COVID-19 #Covid19Aus  Australian Treasury (@Treasury_AU) August 7, 2020

Australias Treasury estimated a gross domestic product (GDP) shrink by at least 0.75 per cent in the September quarter due to the statewide shutdown, which will further raze 1.75 percentage points from growth. It stated that the recent lockdown would result in a 2.5 per cent contraction in real GDP in the September quarter.

Lockdown would push up Australias underlying unemployment  thats what the unemployment rate would be if the government wasnt paying employers to retain staff  from just over 11% to almost 14% AP reported Australia's government as saying.

Read: Pence Counterattacks Democrats' Criticism, Says Biden's Presidency Would Crush Economy

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Citing Australia's Treasury Department, Frydenberg said that at the end of July, the unemployment rate was put at 9.9 per cent which dipped from a record high of 14 per cent in April. However, he predicted that over 450,000 people might go out of jobs, of which, 5 million comprise in Victoria state capital, Melbourne. He added, the recovery from the economic turmoil from the recent lockdown that halted the business operations will be bumpy. Due to spike in the COVID-19 deaths in Australia, the state of Victoria earlier this month ordered the economy to close down in a lockdown that imposed movement restrictions in a bid to curb the second wave, reports confirmed.

Lockdown, which extends across Victoria state, but is less restrictive beyond Melbourne, was expected to cost the national economy up to 9 billion Australian dollars ($6.5 billion) in the September quarterAP reported Australia's PM Scott Morrison as saying. This is a heavy blow. A heavy blow, Morrison said.

Government-issued permit needed

While businesses in the state of Victoria shut down once again in the governments initiative to control the pandemic, citizens whose jobs were deemed essential had to reportedly secure a government-issued permit in order to move across the state. State-imposed the strict curfew from 8 pm to 5 am that even made masks mandatory. Melbourne lockdown hit the local economy hard, sending almost 250,000 people out of jobs thus far.

Read: Thailand's Economy Shrinks Most In More Than 20 Years Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

Read: Despite Disappointing Reports, Trump Touts Economy

(With Agency Inputs)

(Image Credit: AP)
New Delhi, Aug 24 : A day before the crucial Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting, Delhi Congress unit passed a resolution thanking party interim chief Sonia Gandhi for her dynamic leadership and also demanded that Rahul Gandhi should be appointed as party President immediately.

Delhi Congress in an emergency meeting of the state unit under the leadership of its president Chaudhary Anil Kumar passed a resolution demanding that Rahul Gandhi should be appointed as the president of the Congress without any further delay, to provide dynamic and youthful leadership to the party in these trying times.

The resolution noted that only a powerful and fearless leader like Rahul Gandhi can expose the "lies and falsehood" of the BJP and the Narendra Modi government.

The resolution also noted to make the people aware of the dangerous direction the country was going under the Modi government.

The emergency meeting was attended by several senior leaders of the party, including ex-MPs, ex-Ministers and ex-MLAs.

The resolution passed by the Delhi Congress also thanked Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi for inspiring the Congress cadres to work among the masses to solve their problems under testing circumstances, while the BJP government and its leaders kept a blind to the sufferings of the people, including lakhs of migrant workers who were left to fend for themselves.

The resolution, while acknowledging the freedom of speech, felt that some senior leaders going public with their statement regarding a change of leadership in the Congress was improper, as it not only gave ammunition to the opponents to criticise the party, but also demoralised the party cadres. The resolution noted that this was an issue that should have been raised in the internal forum of the party, instead of going public by leaking it to the media.

Sonia Gandhi was made the party interim President in August last year after Rahul Gandhi stepped down following the debacle in 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The CWC meeting on Monday could be a stormy affair after a letter written by scores of party leaders has surfaced, calling for drastic changes and reform in the grand old party.

The party sources said that there is no challenge to the leadership of Rahul Gandhi but if the name of another person is pushed forward, there will be protests from others.

It's anticipated that Rahul Gandhi may push the name of KC Venugopal, so everybody is gearing up with their strategies. But if the CWC decides for elections, the matter may be laid to rest. In the meantime, top Congress managers are busy reaching out to dissenters in the party.

However, after the letter surfaced calling for reform from top to bottom within the Congress, the pro-Gandhi family lobby has come out against the letter and lashed out at those behind it.

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh also rejected the letter, as he said in a statement that Sonia Gandhi should continue as party president. "What the Congress needs is a leadership that is acceptable not just to a few but to the entire party, through its rank and file, and the nation at large," he said, adding that the Gandhis were the right fit for this role.
Donald Trump, Maryanne Trump, and Robert Trump during Opening of Donald Trump's Taj Mahal Casino - April 5, 1990 at Taj Mahal Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, United States.

President Donald Trump's older sister Maryanne Trump Barry described him as a "cruel" man with "no principles" in tapes that were secretly recorded in 2018 and 2019 by his niece, Mary Trump.

The recordings, which were published by The Washington Post late on Saturday, are the first to emerge from one of the president's siblings criticizing his character.

They show Barry, a former federal judge, delivering a critical assessment of her brother's handling of the presidency and provide the basis for some claims made by Mary Trump in her recent tell-all memoir which casts her uncle as a dangerous narcissist.

"All he wants to do is appeal to his base," Barry said in one recording. "He has no principles. None. None. And his base, I mean my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this."

"His g------- tweet and lying, oh my God," Barry said. "I'm talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy s---."

Mary Trump told The Washington Post that she recorded 15 hours of conversations between her and Barry in an effort to demonstrate she had been misled about Trump family patriarch Fred Trump Sr.'s will.

In July, Mary Trump published "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man," and she has said she is supporting Trump's Democratic rival Joe Biden.

President Trump, in a statement provided to the Post by The White House, dismissed the recordings as insignificant, and cited the death of his younger brother, Robert Trump, who passed away earlier this month.

"Every day it's something else, who cares," Trump said. "I miss my brother, and I'll continue to work hard for the American people. Not everyone agrees, but the results are obvious. Our country will soon be stronger than ever before!"

Maryanne Trump Barry could not immediately be reached, and she did not provide a comment to The Washington Post.

One of the recordings appears to show a source of the rift between President Trump and his sister. In it, Barry says that she asked her brother to help her secure a nomination from Ronald Reagan to the federal judiciary via Trump's lawyer Roy Cohn, who was known to be close to Reagan.

"He had Roy Cohn call Reagan about needing to appoint a woman as a federal judge in New Jersey," Barry said in the recording. "Because Reagan's running for reelection, and he was desperate for the female vote."

Barry received the nomination, but later harbored resentment when President Trump "tried to take credit for me," Barry said.

Trump asked her once, she said, "Where would you be without me?"

Barry said that she responded: "You say that one more time and I will level you."

Barry was nominated to the U.S. District Court in New Jersey by Reagan in 1983 and later elevated to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by Bill Clinton. She retired last year, effectively ending a court inquiry into Trump family tax practices spurred by an investigation by The New York Times.

In another recording, Barry said she worked to help get her brother into college, including by doing his homework for him. She also makes an allegation that appears in Mary Trump's book: That Trump did not take his college entrance exams.

"He got into University of Pennsylvania because he had somebody take the exams," Barry said in the recording.

"SATs or whatever," Barry said. "That's what I believe."

The White House has rejected the allegations in Mary Trump's book and said that she was motivated by her own financial self-interest.
Last August, residents launched a reconnaissance mission, filming Noakes' employees spray-painting the navys Young Endeavour while it was docked in the water. They complained Noakes was in breach of EPA licence conditions requiring the work to be undertaken on land in a fully sealed enclosure. This was to prevent toxic run-off and fumes escaping from the boatyard, which is flanked by luxury units and a park frequented by children. Noakes was already on the EPAs radar, having been fined $15,000 after four litres of toxic anti-foul substances leaked from a broken drain.

Following an investigation, the EPA alleged Noakes had breached its licence conditions because the Young Endeavour was not fully encapsulated during the work. The offence carries a maximum penalty of $1 million but the EPA issued Noakes with a caution and changed its licence so it could work over the water. North Sydney Council fined Noakes $6000, alleging its development consent only allowed painting on land or on a boat ramp and it had exceeded its maximum allowable number of boats on site. Mr Langman said the company was vigorously defending the council's allegations in court and believed the council had no jurisdiction over water-based activities. He also denied Noakes breached its licence, but admitted it had been told to improve its practices.

"As far as environmental compliance, we are setting the standard and above," Mr Langman said, adding Noakes undertook monitoring for airborne toxins. However, residents were furious at the caution. "The EPA seemed to be very accommodating to Noakes, which is of great concern," said McMahons Point resident Karen Foster. The residents then complained to the navy, which ordered the Young Endeavour immediately be removed from Noakes site and worked on at the naval base. It was a "hard blow" for Mr Langman, who lodged a freedom of information request with the EPA to "flush out" the complainants names.

The residents objected and were reassured by the EPA their privacy would be protected. However, Mr Langman was able to establish the residents' identities via public submissions they made to council, he said, and his lawyers sent letters to them. The letters alleged the residents "false and misleading statements" to the navy had caused the Young Endeavours relocation and "considerable disappointment" to community members. The letters instructed the residents to remove "Say no to Noakes" signage outside their homes and write a letter of apology to the navy asking for the Young Endeavour to be returned to the boatyard. The residents politely refused. Hostilities have now erupted over the proposed floating dry dock - a sealed unit for 1000-tonne ships to be worked on above the water.

An application to the Sydney North Planning Panel to install it at Berrys Bay has attracted more than 300 objections from residents concerned about noise, visual and environmental pollution. There are fears the 75-year-old structure is not fit for purpose, after a presentation heard it was sold to Mr Langman because it "keeled over" with a naval ship inside it. Michael Stevens and Karen Foster of the "Say no to Noakes" action group at Berrys Bay. Credit:Wolter Peeters HarbourCare founder Michael Stevens argued the dock would ruin a "treasure spot" that had already been de-industrialised and attracted visitors from across Sydney. Residents were not asking for Noakes to be shut down, Mr Stevens said, but wanted it to abide by its licence and opposed an escalation in its activities.

Mayor Jilly Gibson argued the FDD would be an "intrusive unnecessary element" in the picturesque bay. Say No to Noakes action group members have been sprayed with abuse online and labelled "yuppy whining c---". "I hope you dont fall over and land on the end of my boot kicking your teeth out," one commenter said. Another joked: "Let's move both our boats near his house and power up the needle guns - give him something to really whinge about." There is no suggestion Mr Langman was involved in making the online comments. Mr Langman said the FDD would be lined by drains preventing "even a drop of rainwater" from entering the harbour.

Loading He said the structure would be kept within the companys lease area and more than $4 million had been spent bringing it up to standard. "If you dont like someones washing over the back fence, dont look at it," he said. Mr Langman told a meeting he wondered whether he should have already tied up the dock in Berrys Bay and "beg[ged] forgiveness later". An EPA spokesman said it had worked closely with residents to respond to their concerns about Noakes, conducting 11 inspections in five years. The caution had resulted in additional regulatory oversight, he said.
Sam Vigil will never be able to get the image out of his head.

His wife, Jacque, an immigrant from Colombia whose two sons grew up to be New Mexico State Police officers, had just left their home in an upscale West Side neighborhood at 5 a.m. last Nov. 19 to go to the gym when he heard the horn on her Cadillac sedan. He went outside thinking she had forgotten her gym bag. Instead, he encountered a horrific scene in which Jacque had been shot and killed, slumped over in the vehicle that was still locked with the engine running.

I noticed the bullet hole, he said in a Journal interview in February. They just shot her through the window of the car. And then I noticed the Jeep begin to pull out like a bat out of hell.  And I saw a face in that Jeep.  And it was just the most awful moment of my life. It still haunts me to this day.

At least now, Sam Vigil told the Journal on Wednesday, he might be able to sleep at night with news that the suspect in his wifes murder  33-year-old Mexican national Luis Talamantes  is behind bars in Texas on felony illegal reentry charges.

We should all sleep better. Talamantes, a member of a Juarez-based street gang, was roaming neighborhoods in the predawn hours looking for something to steal, according to court documents. The preferred theft targets were Cadillacs and guns.

Federal agents and prosecutors went to court in San Antonio last week seeking to increase Talamantes possible prison sentence in the immigration case from about five years to 20 given his long criminal history and his alleged role in the murder of Jacque Vigil  who worked in a child care center and texted prayer verses morning and night to loved ones. She was 55.

Previously deported three times, Talamantes had already pleaded guilty to the reentry charges. He was arrested by ICE agents in January and has been in custody since. He has not been charged in Jacque Vigils death.

The federal government in 38 pages detailed evidence in the case along with Talamantes criminal history that includes domestic violence, criminal damage to property, aggravated stalking, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, receiving stolen property, shooting at a dwelling or occupied building and commercial burglary. He has done time in both state and federal prison.

On this particular morning, J.V. suffered the tragic misfortune of opening her garage door and backing her car onto her driveway at the same time defendant was lurking nearby as he was looking for items to steal, FBI Agent Bryan Acee wrote.

Jacque Vigils murder hit the national spotlight in July when President Donald Trump invited Sam Vigil to the White House as part of a press conference on Operation Legend, in which federal agents work with local partners in an effort to take down violent crime around the country.

Sam Vigil said there hadnt seemed to be much progress in solving Jacques case  one of a record 80 murders in the city last year. Once federal agents started working the case, things began to happen, he told Journal investigative reporter Colleen Heild.

While federal agents laid out their case in court filings on Wednesday  Acee also was a key agent in Juarez cartel and Syndicato prosecutions  Mayor Tim Keller and APD chief Mike Geier were busy issuing a press release claiming credit.

We are fortunate that APD has been doing the hard work over the last nine months to identify a suspect and ensure he was locked up, they said. The suspect was identified and arrested as a result of the work of APD homicide detectives long before Operation Legend and the U.S. Attorney got involved.

Without question, work done by APD was recognized in the federal documents. APDs call to Texas authorities is what got Talamantes picked up early this year. Crime Stoppers also played a role with tips.

But patting your own back to the exclusion of others nine long months after a heinous crime is tone deaf at best. So far the feds have let court documents do their talking, although its hard to imagine Trump wont use this case for his own political agenda.

Politics aside, all this begs the proverbial elephant-in-the-room question. If APD had built such a solid case, why didnt it arrest Talamantes and charge him with murder? Why was it up to federal agents and prosecutors to use an illegal immigration case to lay out the evidence in a killing that rocked Albuquerque like none has since little Victoria Martens? Why has it been left to federal authorities to keep Talamantes  a career criminal  locked up as long as possible?

Meanwhile, District Attorney Raul Torrez says he is committed to prosecuting Talamantes once the investigation is concluded and formally submitted to our office. And why hasnt that happened yet? Why does it appear the mayor and chief seem more interested in public relations than a viable murder prosecution?

Or is the district attorney dragging his feet, perhaps still feeling burned by the flawed APD investigation that turned the Martens prosecution into a courtroom debacle and left the case in the unsolved-murder column?

The evidence laid out in the federal court documents is compelling. It ranges from matched shell casings to an alleged confession by Talamantes to an inmate at MDC during a recorded telephone call. So give credit where its due: the feds have demonstrated in the past that they know how to put a case together. Now building on evidence gathered by APD, it appears they have done it again.

But they dont have jurisdiction to bring the state charge that should be filed here. And thats murder. Thats up to APD and the district attorney. The community deserves to know why that hasnt happened  and if it ever will. That would be a press release worth reading.

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.
As hotels and guesthouses in the capital gear up to reopen after a lull of five months, owners of such establishments have a new reason to worry  a bunch of new fire safety norms, which were notified in May 2019.

The owners have requested the Delhi government to extend the deadline (from March 31, 2020 to March 31, 2021) for the implementation of the new norms that are currently under review.

A delegation of Delhi Hotel and Restaurant Owners Association met chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in this regard on Friday. The new rules demand amendments to building bylaws to strengthen fire safety norms.

As per the new amendments, kitchen or cooking activity in any form is not allowed on rooftops or basements of buildings, and storage of inflammable materials or temporary roofing is banned in terraces.

Besides, inflammable materials  like carpets and wooden or foam panelings  are not allowed on passages, corridors and staircases of buildings, and storage of gas cylinders in violation of standards prescribed by the National Building Code is also banned.

After a massive fire in Karol Baghs Hotel Arpit Palace claimed 17 lives in February last year, the Delhi government had got all hotels in Paharganj and Karol Bagh inspected. The government had later notified amendments to the building bylaws to strengthen fire safety norms in May 2019. The amendments, which are under review after hotel owners raised concerns about certain provisions, were to be implemented by December 2019 but was extended till March 31, 2020.

In November last year, the Delhi government had constituted a sub-committee, which was chaired by a special commissioner of police (licensing), to review and make appropriate recommendations for fire safety of guest houses and restaurants. The committee is yet to submit its report, said a senior police official.

Mohit Shah, general secretary of Delhi Hotel and Restaurant Owners Association, said, The process got delayed due to the pandemic. Our fire NoCs are not valid right now since the new norms were notified. After the recommendations of the committee are notified, we need time to implement the new fire safety norms. In our meeting with the CM on Friday, we requested him to extend the deadline for the implementation of the new norms till March 31, 2021.

On Friday, the Delhi Fire Service held a meeting with the Delhi governments principal secretary (home) to decide on the issue. A meeting with chief secretary Vijay Dev was also held recently to discuss the matter, said a senior official, requesting anonymity.

According to a senior official in the home department of Delhi government, the decision to extend the deadline for the implementation of the new norms has to be taken by the urban development department.

So far no decision has been taken in this regard, said a senior official with the urban development department.

Hotel owners say that they need time till next year, as the industry is badly hit due to the pandemic and there is shortage of labourers. Implementation of the new norms require some changes in our building. But right now, construction workers are not easily available. Moreover, we want to first restart our businesses, said Boddy Lohia, president of Mahipalpur hotel owners association.

The hotel owners had raised objections to a few provisions in the amendment, such as installation of Carbon monoxide detectors and fire check or protection doors, and no fire NoCs to hotels with more than four floors.

Former DFS chief AK Sharma said the new amendments were an outcome of the Hotel Arpit Palace fire tragedy as it was realised that these hotels need additional norms with respect to life and fire safety. He said that the new norms should be implemented in a timebound manner.

Not only in view of the Covid pandemic, but even earlier also these hotel owner organisations had requested time for implementing these mandates. Are we not playing with the safety of people? Since the government has decided to open hotels, the review committee should get it done on war footing and the report must be submitted without delay. The same must be implemented in a time bound manner. Thereafter, those who do not implement the new rules must be penalised, Sharma said.

Every hotel or a lodging house needs a licence from DCP (licencing) to run it, under the Delhi Police Act. For obtaining the licence, an application form has to be accompanied with land ownership proof, rent agreement and the site and building plan and the premise has to be inspected by the licencing branch.

Joint commissioner of police (licensing ) Suvashis Choudhary said the report is being prepared by the sub-committee cand is in its final stage. It is expected to be submitted within the next two weeks.

The new rules issued by the fire department through a notification dated May 27, 2019, were not being followed by many hotels at that time and therefore many of them were forced to shut down. Because hotel owners also had apprehensions towards the new norms, the committee was then set up in November last year to review them, Choudhary said.

Delhi polices public relations officer Eish Singhal also did not comment on the matter.

A Delhi government spokesperson said, The government will consider their proposal and decide after examining all the details.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 20:30:46|Editor: huaxia

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KABUL, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Ten Afghan civilians were killed in separate roadside bomb explosions in two Afghan provinces on Sunday, local sources said.

In eastern Ghazni province, seven civilians were killed after a vehicle touched off a Taliban-planted Improvised Explosive Device (IED) at noon, provincial government spokesman Wahidullah Jumazada told Xinhua.

"The victims were travelling along a main road in Jaghato district before their vehicle was struck by the IED. The killed included three women, two children and two men," he said, adding that the provincial police would notify the victims' relatives at an earliest time.

In northern Jawzjan province, three laborers of a government-run gas factory were killed when their vehicle was struck by an IED on the outskirts of provincial capital Shiberghan in the morning, local government spokesman Maruf Azar told Xinhua.

The workers were driving to inspect a gas field in the area before being hit by the blast, he said.

Militants in Afghanistan have been using home-made IEDs to make roadside bombs and landmines to target security forces, but the lethal weapons also inflict casualties on civilians.

More than 800 civilians were killed and over 2,330 others wounded in IED explosions in 2019, according to official figures. Enditem
Four Malian soldiers were killed and one seriously hurt Saturday when an explosive device detonated as their vehicle drove by in the centre of the country, a military source told AFP.

The explosion in the Koro region, near Mali's border with Burkina Faso, comes just days after a military putsch against President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.
2. The battle of the conventions.

Most of the events for the Republican National Convention will be online, but the kickoff on Monday will feature an in-person roll call in Charlotte, N.C., to nominate President Trump to lead the country for another four years.

Mr. Trump will be there to thank the delegates, and he will accept the nomination from the White House on Thursday. He has weighed in on much of the programming himself, and is speaking every night in the 10 oclock hour.Heres what to watch for.

On Saturday night, The Washington Post published a series of audio recordings of Mr. Trumps sister Maryanne Trump Barry in which she describes him as a liar who has no principles. The tapes were made in 2018 and 2019 by her niece, Mary Trump, who provided them to The Post.
The world's oldest man, who was not officially verified by any of the record books, has died at the age of 116. Fredie Blom from South Africa died on August 22 reportedly of natural causes. Blom was born in South Africa's Cape Town in 1904 and witnessed all the major global events of the 20th century, including the 1919 Spanish Flu, World War I, World War II, and the infamous apartheid in his own country. As per reports, Blom was a healthy man and was seen chopping woods until two weeks before his demise by his grandchildren.

Read: Guinness World Announces 'most T-shirts Worn At Once Record, Netizens Want To Beat It

Blom celebrated his 116th birthday on May 8 but due to government-imposed coronavirus restrictions, he was not able to celebrate it in grand style. Blom was reportedly a regular smoker and during an interview with a media house a few years ago had said that there is no secret to his long life except for god, who decides when to call up somebody or hold them down. Blom worked as a construction worker until he was in his 80s, according to close relatives.

116-year-old Fredie Blom from the Eastern Cape, believed to be the worlds oldest man, has passed away. pic.twitter.com/SjA0MaqpM7  Nqubeko Cue Sibiya (@CueSibiya) August 23, 2020

Read: US Woman Sets Guinness World Record For Spelling 56 Words Backwards In 1 Minute | Watch

World's oldest

South African media described Blom as the world's oldest man but according to the Guinness World Records, the title belongs to one named Jiroemon Kimura from Japan. Kimura was the oldest verified man, who lived for 116 years and 54 days and witnessed three centuries as he was born in 1897 and died in 2013. Meanwhile, Jeanne Calment of France was the oldest person ever whose age was independently verified as he lived for 122 years and 164 days from 1875 to 1997.

Read: Guinness World Records Shares Video Of 'extreme Basketball Challenge', Netizens Amazed

Read: Australia: 12-year-old Giraffe Declared World's Tallest By Guinness World Records

(Image Credit: @CueSibiya/Twitter)
KEARNEY  The man in charge at the Nebraska Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Store Association says he pays a lot of attention to legislative and legal issues to protect the business interests of his members.

He also understands the competitive nature of their business and that most are operating on thin margins when it comes to setting gasoline prices.

One of the most price sensitive products is gasoline, said Tim Keigher, who has many responsibilities as executive director of the states Petroleum Marketers Association. Among his duties is lobbying Nebraska lawmakers on issues, such as gasoline taxes.

Although Keigher focuses on issues other than fuel prices, he said as a gasoline consumer he understands why motorists have a keen interest in how much they pay at the pump.

Gasoline is a necessity.

People buy it to get to work, to drive children to school or to power machinery, so the less consumers pay, the more they might have to spend on other things.

Everybody lives on a budget. You only have so much money to spend, Keigher said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-24 00:32:22|Editor: huaxia

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KATHMANDU, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Almost all economic, social and religious activities in 48 districts out of 77 districts of Nepal have been restricted as the Himalayan country is witnessing a rapid resurgence of COVID-19 cases, Nepal's Ministry of Home Affairs said on Sunday.

"Chief District Officers have issued prohibitory orders in 48 districts including the districts of Kathmandu Valley, the capital city," the ministry said in a statement.

Although the Nepali government ended the nearly four-month lockdown on July 22, resurgence in the COVID-19 cases after the lockdown was lifted forced the government to take restrictive measures once again.

"The restrictive measures are aimed at controlling people's movement which is the main reason behind spreading COVID-19 cases," spokesperson at the home ministry Chakra Bahadur Buda told Xinhua.

"Vehicle movement except for essential goods and services has been suspended, the shops except that of essential goods have also been closed and religious activities that attract large mass have also been suspended."

The COVID-19 cases in the Himalayan country reached 31,935 with the addition of 818 new cases on Sunday, according to the Ministry of Health and Population.

"Now the disease is spreading in clusters of communities and spreading among people of all ages creating dangers to the elderly and people with existing conditions," Jageshwor Gautam, spokesperson at the health ministry, told Xinhua. "As a result, the death rate is also rising rapidly."

Nepal has so far witnessed 149 deaths from COVID-19 with three new deaths added on Sunday, the health ministry said. Enditem
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A grant was approved through the federal Lost Wages Assistance program that will allow New Yorkers laid off due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to collect an additional $300 in unemployment benefits.

The FEMA grant allows only those New York residents out of work due to the coronavirus to collect an additional $300 per week on top of their regular unemployment benefit, said FEMA administrator Pete Gaynor.

FEMA will work with Governor Andrew M. Cuomo to implement a system to make this funding available to New York residents, he said. FEMA said the timeframe to administer funding to individuals will vary by state/territory.

States/territories must adjust their unemployment insurance system to access these funds and accommodate program requirements, such as claimant eligibility, which may factor into delivery time state/territory systems and capabilities vary, said FEMA in a statement.

Earlier this week Cuomo had told a Rochester news station that New York would not apply for the FEMA funding. However, Robert Mujica, state Division of Budget director, confirmed to CBS6Albany on Friday that New York state would apply for the FEMA grant.

On Aug. 8, 2020, President Donald Trump made available up to $44 billion from FEMAs Disaster Relief Fund to provide financial assistance to Americans who have lost wages due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On Sunday, the state of New York agreed to administer a lost wages program for its citizens who are unemployed due to COVID-19.

For four months, any New Yorker who was unemployed received an extra $600 per week as part of the $2 trillion federal stimulus package. The bill, known as The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, was passed by the Senate in March. The extra $600 was added to regular employment checks from the week starting April 5 through July 31.

Twenty-three other states have previously been approved for lost wages assistance. A full list of states are available here.

To learn more about FEMAs lost wages supplemental payment assistance, visit: https://www.fema.gov/fact-sheet/fema-lost-wages-supplemental-payment-assistance.

*** CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE COVERAGE OF CORONAVIRUS IN NEW YORK ***

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(Natural News) With violent crime on the rise, residents of New York City who have not yet fled the failing metropolis are taking matters into their own hands by stocking up on bulletproof vests and other protective survival gear.

According to reports, sales of body armor in the Big Apple have nearly doubled compared to this same time last year, a demonstrative consequence of the unrest and chaos that continues to plague the area under the failed leadership of Mayor Bill de Blasio.

You wouldnt believe the people who call up and say, Im scared,' says Brad Pedell, owner of 221B Tactical in Midtown, which has seen around an 80 percent spike in body armor sales in recent weeks.

Most of Pedells customers hail from Brooklyn and the Bronx, where violent shootings have skyrocketed amid ongoing protests by Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Antifa. But others come from wealthier areas of Manhattan, which are also being hit hard by all the unrest.

One Manhattan woman who declined to discuss why she continues to buy up body armor indicated via text that she is merely a private citizen who is trying to keep a low profile.

A man from Queens who reportedly bought a bulletproof vest for a family member who works in a crime-ridden area of the Bronx, similarly refused to explain any further details as to what prompted him to make the purchase.

According to Pedell, the general sentiment is one of, the neighborhood is getting dangerous, which pretty much gets right to the point.

New Yorkers must have missed Jerry Nadlers memo that the Empire State is completely violence-free

What New Yorkers are encountering firsthand flies in the face of claims recently made by state Rep. Jerry Nadler, who on captured video suggested that all the violence is just a myth.

Perhaps Nadler needs to stop in to 221B Tactical sometime and have a chat with Pedell and his customers, who are right there on the frontlines dealing with the escalating violence that Nadler claims does not actually exist.

As it turns out, BLM and Antifa are showing no signs of relenting in their crusade to burn down not just NYC but the entirety of America. Law enforcement continues to battle these raging mobs of domestic terrorists, which are destroying businesses, attacking innocent people, and ravaging entire city blocks and neighborhoods with destruction.

Many New Yorkers are clearly worried about the violence spilling over into their locales, as well as being in the wrong place at the wrong time when protesters clash with police or other opposing groups.

The Amazing Kreskin, an illusionist who reportedly appeared off-Broadway back in 2018, is another such individual who is planning ahead for the worst by snapping up high-priced, well-designed body armor for his own protection and peace of mind.

The 85-year-old resident of nearby New Jersey says that he absolutely would don what he has purchased if ever coming to NYC anytime soon.

I love the city, but you can no longer feel at home and comfortable with a degree of safety, he is quoted as saying.

What really hits home is look at all the innocent children who have been shot, he added. Right now I would not feel comfortable living in New York City.

According to retired New York Police Department (NYPD) sergeant and professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan, people are scared, both of visiting and living in NYC.

Guns are flying off the shelves and now bullet-resistant vests, he says. Bring back cast iron tubs. Thats where mothers used to put their kids to sleep to deflect the bullets.

You can access more news stories like this one about the escalating violence and chaos in Americas cities at Chaos.news.

Sources for this article include:

NYPost.com

NaturalNews.com
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-24 06:02:29|Editor: huaxia

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CAIRO, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian and French foreign ministers discussed on Sunday regional crises including the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as well as the latest developments in war-torn Libya and blast-stricken Lebanon, said the Egyptian Foreign Ministry in a statement.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian stressed the necessity of preserving the principle of the two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to the statement.

They also agreed to continue supporting efforts that aim at achieving a comprehensive and just settlement for the decades-long conflict in accordance with international legitimacy "to ensure the achievement of peace, stability and security in the entire region."

With regards to the Libyan crisis, the two ministers welcomed the recent cease-fire separately announced by Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj, head of the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), and Aguila Saleh, speaker of the eastern-based House of Representatives that supports the self-proclaimed Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Khalifa Haftar.

Serraj and Saleh announced the cease-fire in separate statements on Friday, vowing to end all hostilities in Libya and calling for presidential and parliamentary elections and resumption of oil exports.

The Egyptian and French foreign ministers considered the move "an important step" on the way to achieve a political settlement in Libya.

Shoukry and Le Drian also discussed ways to support Lebanon after the massive blasts that rocked the capital Beirut earlier this month, leaving at least 177 people dead and around 6,000 others wounded. Enditem
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, August 23, 2020 08:48 515 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066fc5916 4 National crime,murder,Central-Java,Sukoharjo,robbery,police,murder-case Free

A family of four was found dead in their home in Duwet village, Sukoharjo, Central Java, on Friday. Neighbors said the family had not been seen for three days.

The victims have been identified as S, his wife and their two children. The police suspect they were murdered.

Duwet village chief Suparno said the body was discovered after a neighbor noticed a foul odor coming from S house, according to kompas.com. The neighbors then realized that they had not seen the family leave the house since Tuesday.

One neighbor entered the house on Friday evening, and found S and his family dead in separate rooms.

We suspected that the bad smell was coming from their fish pond. It turned out that it was coming from the dead bodies, Suparno said, as quoted by kompas.com.

The villagers reported the discovery to the police, who have since launched an investigation.

Read also: Six medical workers arrested for allegedly facilitating illegal abortions in Jakarta

Sukoharjo Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Bambang Yugo Pamungkas said the police had arrested a person they suspected of killing the family. The suspect, identified as 41-year-old HT, was apprehended in Baki early on Saturday.

The police identified HT as a close relative of the apparently murdered family.

The suspect had a large debt. He intended to steal the familys wealth, Bambang said.

HT was charged with aggravated robbery and premeditated murder. The latter charge carries a maximum punishment of life in prison.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Dont dismiss the leak of oil from the MV Wakashio that ran aground last month on a reef off the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius so quickly. The volume lost may seem tiny, but its location, mixed with other pressures already faced by the oil industry, means that it will have an impact far beyond its size.

The empty bulk carrier was 11 days into a month-long voyage from Singapore to Brazil, where it was due to pick up a cargo, when it ran aground just a mile off the islands southern tip on July 25. About three-quarters of the oil in its tanks  some 3,900 tons of very low-sulfur fuel oil, 200 tons of diesel and 90 tons of lubricant  was transferred off the vessel. The rest leaked into the sea  much of it coming ashore in the Ile aux Aigrettes nature reserve, home to the last remnants of Mauritiuss dry coastal forest and the endangered species that depend on it.

Compared to the biggest oil spills from tankers hauling as much as 300,000 tons of crude across the worlds oceans, the volume of oil that spilled from the Wakashio is a drop in the ocean. But size isnt everything.

The Exxon Valdez, probably the most infamous tanker spill in American waters, doesnt even make a list of the 30 biggest oil spills from tankers worldwide  it comes in at number 36. All spills are eclipsed by the 1.5 million tons of crude deliberately leaked into the Persian Gulf in 1991 by Iraqi forces seeking to forestall a possible amphibious invasion after their occupation of neighboring Kuwait. Even the fabled 1901 Spindletop discovery in Texas leaked more than three times as much oil as the Exxon Valdez before it was brought under control.

Mauritius, an island about the size of the city of Jacksonville, Florida, is located on the shipping lane between the southern tip of Africa and the northern entrance to the Strait of Malacca, which connects the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Its the route of choice between the huge markets and manufacturing centers of China, Japan, South Korea and the rest of Asia in the east and the resource-rich regions of West Africa and Latin America, or the markets of Europe and North America, in the west.

Story continues

Blue Bay, where the ship ran aground, was the one remaining area of undamaged coral reef off the coast of Mauritius. Declared a marine park in 1997, its the perfect place to spot colorful coral beds and an abundance of underwater life. The oil spill may have caused irreversible environmental damage to the southeastern coast of Mauritius, oceanographer Vassen Kauppaymuthoo told my Bloomberg News colleague Kamlesh Bhuckory.

We dont know yet why the Wakashio was so close to shore that it hit the reef, but it wasnt an isolated incident. A similar accident happened four years ago at a spot less than 10 miles away.

Most vessels plying that route pass much farther from the island, with few coming less than 20 miles from shore. The Wakashio, like the MV Benita in 2016, got much closer. The reasons for its proximity will form part of the investigation that is now under way and has seen the arrest of the ship's captain.

Because the ship wasnt carrying oil as a cargo, Mauritius may have little hope of a big settlement if it wins one. Compensation could be limited to as little as $18 million under the 2001 Bunker Convention, according to global law firm Clyde & Co. Thats a pitifully small amount to offset the cost of the cleanup and the damage caused to fragile and unique species on Ile aux Aigrettes. (The ship's owner, Nagashiki Shipping, has said it will respond in good faith to any damages in accordance with applicable law, according to an emailed statement.)

The accident will once again focus attention on the oil industry, as companies come under increasing pressure to bear responsibility for pollution caused by their product, as well as that resulting from their operations. Ships account for about 5% of global oil use and burn one of the heaviest, stickiest fractions of the barrel.

Steps have already been taken to reduce the amount of sulphur in ship fuel and targets set to halve the carbon footprint of shipping from 2008 levels by 2050. If that goal is to be met, well need to find a new, clean ship fuel within the next decade, according to the Getting to Zero Coalition.

As my Bloomberg News colleagues Ryan Hesketh and Jack Wittels wrote here, there is no obvious alternative fuel for ocean-going vessels like the Wakashio on long voyages. Alternatives such as ammonia, hydrogen, natural gas, or nuclear reactors either take up much more space than oil to provide the same amount of energy, are far more dangerous to carry or are a lot more expensive.

One thing is certain, though, images of oil-fouled beaches and wildlife from a pristine Indian Ocean island will add more pressure for change and a move away from a fuel that is increasingly seen to be unsustainable for reasons of local, as well as global, pollution. Imposing exclusion zones around vulnerable islands may provide some protection, but this latest accident is another loud call for a shift to less polluting ship fuels.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Julian Lee is an oil strategist for Bloomberg. Previously he worked as a senior analyst at the Centre for Global Energy Studies.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

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The United States Secretary Mike Pompeo will travel to middle east countries namely Israel, Sudan, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates to discuss Irans 'malign influence', said the US Department of State on Sunday (August 23, 2020).

Pompeo took to his official Twitter account and wrote, "Looking forward to speaking with leaders in Israel, Sudan, Bahrain, and the UAE to discuss Irans malign influence and to celebrate the historic Abraham Accords agreement between Israel and the UAE."

Looking forward to speaking with leaders in Israel, Sudan, Bahrain, and the UAE to discuss Irans malign influence and to celebrate the historic Abraham Accords agreement between Israel and the UAE. https://t.co/TJSwZNzn5S  Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) August 23, 2020

As per the US Department of State, Pompeo will travel to these countries between August 23-28.

"He will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem to discuss regional security issues related to Irans malicious influence, establishing and deepening Israels relationships in the region, as well as cooperation in protecting the US and Israeli economies from malign investors," read the official statement.

"In Sudan, the Secretary will meet with Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and Sovereign Council Chair General Abdel Fattah el-Burhan to discuss continued US support for the civilian-led transitional government and express support for deepening the Sudan-Israel relationship."

"The Secretary will then travel to Manama to meet with Crown Prince of Bahrain Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa," said the statement.

Pompeo will conclude his trip in the United Arab Emirates, where he will meet with Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi to discuss the historic Abraham Accords agreement with Israel and regional issues.

"The US commitment to peace, security, and stability in Israel, Sudan, and among Gulf countries has never been stronger than under President Trumps leadership," stated the US Department of State.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 22:59:52|Editor: huaxia

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by Mao Pengfei, Nguon Sovan

PHNOM PENH, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- The upcoming third Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) leaders' meeting is crucial to fighting the COVID-19 and setting direction to promote post-COVID-19 socio-economic development in the sub-region, Cambodian experts have said.

The third LMC leaders' meeting will be held via video link on Monday. The LMC, initiated by China in 2014, consists of six countries, namely China, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

Joseph Matthews, senior professor at the BELTEI International University in Phnom Penh, said the upcoming meeting is very important. "I think the meeting will deliberate and discuss the LMC collective efforts in addressing the COVID-19 crisis and strategically planning on how to promote socio-economic development and recovery in the post-COVID-19 era," he told Xinhua.

China has always supported LMC countries' development, Matthews said, adding Cambodia and other countries have greatly benefited through the infrastructure development of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and China's willingness to share its technological advances.

He said China has also been helping other LMC countries in their human resources management and development and in promoting agricultural businesses among LMC countries by importing agricultural products and equipping farmers with the latest farming technology and equipment.

On building the LMC Economic Development Belt, Matthews said it will definitely boost the sub-regional economy and alleviate poverty.

"I strongly believe that the LMC Economic Development Belt in the sub-region will be a driving force for promoting multilateralism, free and fair market economy, inclusiveness ..." he said, noting that it will open a new door of opportunity and investment in the sub-region.

Echoing Matthews, Chheang Vannarith, president of the Phnom Penh-based Asian Vision Institute, said the meeting will be a good opportunity for the LMC countries to reassert joint commitment to deepen sub-regional cooperation and connectivity and to build consensus.

"Since the first LMC leaders' meeting in Sanya of southern China's Hainan province in 2016, the LMC has progressed quite well ... political trust has been deepened," he said, also noting that the LMC Economic Development Belt presents new opportunities for the LMC countries to expand export markets to China and beyond.

Mey Kalyan, senior advisor to the Supreme National Economic Council, said that given the ongoing pandemic, the meeting is extremely crucial and timely. "There's an urgent need to find solutions to survive and prosper together," he told Xinhua. "Clearly, when lives are threatened, no prosperity can be achieved."

The pandemic, as well as flood or drought, threatens people's lives, so it's essential for the LMC countries to work together closely to address such challenges, he said.

The Lancang River originates on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in southwest China. It is called the Mekong River as it flows through the other five countries before emptying into the sea. Enditem
Samara Weaving won critical acclaim for her role in 2019 horror flick, Ready Or Not.

And her performance as the bride fighting for her life in a deadly game of hide-and-seek had producers scrambling to cast her in Scream 5.

However, while speaking to Collider on Friday, the 28-year-old revealed the reason she had to turn down the exciting role.

Bummer: Australian actress Samara Weaving, 28, (pictured) has revealed she had to turn down an offer to appear in the upcoming Scream 5 film due to scheduling conflicts

'We talked about it a lot, but unfortunately, because of scheduling, I couldnt do it.'

The former Home and Away star said that her current filming schedule for the Hulu series, Nine Perfect Strangers, in New South Wales' Byron Bay made it impossible to juggle both.

'Traveling is very difficult these days,' the actress explained.

'We were talking about it, but our schedules arent gonna work, which is a bummer,' she told Collider on Friday

Samara is currently filming Nine Perfect Strangers - a series based on the book by Big Little Lies author Liane Moriarty.

The series will see the rising star appear on screen alongside actors Nicole Kidman, Melissa McCarthy, Michael Shannon and Bobby Cannavale.

Hollywood took note last year when Samara starred alongside the likes of Adam Brody and Andie MacDowell in horror Ready Or Not - a role for which she won acclaim.

Samara is currently filming Nine Perfect Strangers, a Hulu series based on the book by Big Little Lies author Liane Moriarty, alongside actors Nicole Kidman and Melissa McCarthy

Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph in April, the Guns Akimbo actress said channeling her emotions into characters helps alleviate her anxiety disorder.

'Oh I am still terribly awkward. I have general anxiety disorder, so that's never really going to go away,' she told the publication.

Samara's parents first pushed her towards drama classes as a child hoping she'd come out of her shell, but she still feels 'terribly awkward' in everyday life.
'When my family goes to sleep, I start clicking, combing through digitised phone books, school yearbooks, and Google Earth views of crime scenes: a bottomless pit of potential leads for the laptop investigator who now exists in the virtual world." Author and citizen sleuth, Michelle McNamara wrote these words in a 2013 article for Los Angeles magazine, in a piece that secured her her first book deal and would profoundly alter the course of many people's lives.

For such a talented writer, Michelle McNamara's final years were plagued by cliche. The obsessive detective too close to the case? Check. The increasingly isolated workaholic? Check. The tortured artist reliant on toxic crutches? Check.

Of course, McNamara upended these tropes in a fundamental and significant way. She was a woman. A woman on the verge of both a major breakthrough and an even bigger breakdown, consumed as she was by the one she named the Golden State Killer - a murderer and rapist both grotesquely prolific and audacious in his mode of attack who'd operated in her home state of California in the 70s and 80s leaving 13 dead and countless lives destroyed.

McNamara was the child of Irish-American parents, her father was a lawyer, while her mother stayed at home and raised her, her four sisters and one brother. She grew up in Oak Park near Chicago where, when McNamara was 14, a young woman called Kathleen Lombardo was murdered and the man who cut her throat, never apprehended. An obsession was born the day after, when the young McNamara visited the scene and found the remains of the girl's walkman smashed on the ground.

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These traces of violence stayed with McNamara. She went on to study English, did a masters in Creative Writing and eventually relocated to Los Angeles to write in film and TV. When she met her future husband, comedian and actor Patton Oswalt in the early 2000s, they bonded over a shared fascination with serial killers. It was Oswalt who encouraged McNamara to channel her grim hobby and start her hugely popular blog, True Crime Diary in 2006. It was the early age of the internet and armchair sleuthing - the online community of true crime obsessives who meet in forums - was in its infancy.

As she explained in Los Angeles magazine in 2013: "By day, I'm a 42-year-old, stay-at-home mom with a sensible haircut and Goldfish crackers lining my purse. In the evening, however, I'm something of a DIY detective. I delve into cold cases by scouring the internet for any digital crumbs authorities may have overlooked, then share my theories with the 8,000 or so mystery buffs who visit my blog regularly."

"I'm drawn to cases that aren't so high profile," she wrote on the same blog in 2011. "That are maybe even a little neglected, but which have enough evidence and clues that anyone with a will and an internet connection can try to piece together."

For 10 years, McNamara covered unsolved murders on True Crime Diary and amassed a disparate group of similarly obsessed individuals from social workers to retired investigators. Her striking writing style hooked her readers, while her forensic knowledge of the cases that bit her, earned her the respect of the usually civilian-wary law enforcers. There was one case, however, that consumed McNamara above all others.

From 1976 to 1986, the one she hunted, stalked the sleepy suburbs of California. He entered the homes of his victims and destroyed the sleeping people therein. He traumatised and savaged them with rape and terror and eventually he began to murder them. He had the terrifying omnipotence of a killer in a horror movie. His appearance in the bedrooms of his chosen victims was rarely preceded by the sounds of broken glass or any other kind of fanfare. He could move confidently around these houses having memorised the layouts, it was rarely his first time there. He would meticulously shadow his prey often entering their homes in the weeks before the attacks, disabling porch lights, emptying bullets from guns the owners kept for protection and even hiding lengths of twine with which he'd bind his victims.

He was known to police variously as the Original Night Stalker, the East Area Rapist and the Visalia Ransacker, until eventually, nearly three decades after he had disappeared, McNamara, decided he needed a catchier name. She despaired that among the lore of American serial killers, this violent spectre was not better known - it's believed he was responsible for more than 50 rapes and 13 murders.

When it comes to serial killers, the name matters. Say the name David Berkowitz and there's a good chance we'll glaze over. Who? Say "Son of Sam" and we snap to attention. It's serial killer branding and, as McNamara proved, it's important to capture and hold our morbid fascination. In the 2013 article for Los Angeles magazine, McNamara dubbed the focus of her fixation, "the Golden State Killer" with the express intention of putting him back on the law enforcement agenda. It was nearly three decades since his last known attack. Shortly after, an FBI task force focused on the Golden State Killer was announced.

McNamara was convinced the source of her obsession would be found, given the evidence left in the wake of his attacks. Operating as he did before the use of DNA evidence, McNamara felt the day was coming when he would be connected to one of the many scenes of devastation he'd vanished from. This day did come. On April 24, 2018, Joseph James DeAngelo Jr was charged, two years and three days after McNamara's death.

McNamara never saw him face justice. She was arguably his last victim. At the time of her death a combination of prescription medications were found in her system, her death was ruled an accidental overdose but the combination of medication suggests that McNamara was haunted, desperately self-medicating, seeking peace of mind. She never got to see him "step into the light" as she wrote in the final words of her book in a chapter titled "Letter to an Old Man".

"The great tragedy to me is that this case is not better known," McNamara explains in archive footage in the new HBO documentary I'll Be Gone In The Dark, based on McNamara's book of the same name.

The series, produced after her death, is an intimate portrait of McNamara's last years, as well as a forensic examination of the Golden State Killer and the very culture that didn't take his crimes seriously enough until it was too late.

"When these crimes began in the 70s, women didn't talk about sexual assault because they were often blamed," one survivor tells the camera. For five years, the Golden State Killer entered the homes of couples and families in suburban towns, he tied up the men, placed stacks of dishes on their backs and told them if a single plate fell, he would kill their wives. He would then assault and rape the women, the ordeals sometimes went on for hours. "This is how it ends for you," he threatened one woman. "You'll be silent forever and I'll be gone in the dark." He mostly wore a ski mask and his victims struggled to find any identifying features except for an odd gasping voice, bulging calves and apparently notably small genitalia.

The Golden State Killer was oddly slapstick at times. In October of 1979, at two in the morning, a woman lay bound and gagged on the floor of her living room as he rummaged around the kitchen - he would often break for snacks during the ordeal - in this instance he was chanting "I'll kill 'em, I'll kill 'em, I'll kill 'em" - as though psyching himself up. The woman managed to escape out the front door screaming into the night. Moments later witnesses saw a man flee on a stolen bicycle. After that, the Golden State Killer would never leave a victim alive. Two months later, he slaughtered Robert Offerman and his girlfriend, Debra Alexandria Manning before apparently devouring Offerman's leftover Christmas dinner. He would go on to kill at least eight more people.

The scope of the Golden State Killer's crimes and the plethora of available evidence held McNamara's attention captive. Even in the years after her daughter was born, she was visiting old crime scenes. Walking in the footsteps of the killer to gain a better understanding of his psychology and in the process befriending other obsessives like her.

One woman she became particularly close to believes she may even have been a target for the Golden State Killer having received a spate of obscene phone calls during the late 70s when the killer was active. The proximity of McNamara to the crimes was doubtless one motivation for her devotion to unmasking the killer. She lived in Los Angeles just a few hours from the killer's known stomping ground.

She once spent a whole afternoon trying to track down every detail she could about a man who played for a water polo team for the Rio Americano High School in 1972 because "in the yearbook photo he appeared lean and to have big calves, maybe the same big calves that the Golden State Killer's earlier victims had identified".

"It's hard for me not to spiral upward into hyperbole, when I talk about her," writes Oswalt in the afterward of I'll Be Gone In The Dark. "I was married to a crime fighter for a decade. I saw her righteous fury when she'd read survivor testimony or interview family members who were still reeling from the wrenching away of a loved one.

"There were mornings when I'd bring her coffee and she'd be at her laptop weeping, frustrated and worn flat by another lead she'd chased that left her smashed, nose first against a brick wall but then she'd wipe her eyes and hammer away at the keyboard again."

The obsession was a potent one and one McNamara was warned about by others in the same boat. One dogged amateur investigator told McNamara: "I've learned you've got to watch out, to take care of yourself. Or it can consume you."

For McNamara this warning may have come too late, given she was already working on the book that would become her final endeavour and final undoing. I'll Be Gone In The Dark, is a true crime opus. As chilling and atmospheric as Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Forensically detailed, this work is arguably the definitive account of the Golden State Killer's rampage. Even though the author died before it could be completed.

On April 21, 2016, McNamara was found dead in her bed by her husband. A cocktail of prescription pills in her system taken to cope with her anxiety had collided with an undiagnosed heart condition. Oswalt has doubtless tormented himself with the knowledge that McNamara's descent into dependence had taken place in full view of her family and friends. Throwaway remarks and texts to friends came into sharp, terrible focus.

It was still two years before the Golden State Killer would be caught and it looked as though the trail would now, at last run cold. It feels telling that it took three people to complete the work that one woman alone had originated. Two trusted collaborators, Billy Jenson and Paul Haynes, along with Oswalt, completed the final manuscript. I'll Be Gone In The Dark became a New York Times bestseller.

"Cops will never and have never credited a writer or journalist for helping them solve a case but every time they said 'Golden State Killer', they credited the work of Michelle McNamara and I'll Be Gone In The Dark," her husband Patton Oswalt tweeted after the press conference announcing the capture of DeAngelo.

Although law enforcement didn't credit McNamara with involvement in the apprehending, they did allow that her tireless coverage "kept interest and tips coming in". In the end, authorities collared Joseph James DeAngelo Jr using familial DNA evidence. A distant relative of the Golden State Killer used their DNA to trace their family tree and unwittingly provided authorities with the crumb they needed. He is pleading guilty to numerous charges, appearing in court behind an odd plastic protective visor due to Covid-19 restrictions. He will never again be a free man and finally the families he destroyed will have some closure.

I'll Be Gone in the Dark is now available to stream on HBO and more. Sophie White is co-presenter of the podcast The Creep Dive





TRUE CRIME... and paperback police

Truman Capote

In Cold Blood

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In Cold Blood details the brutal murder of the Clutter family in rural Kansas in the late 1950s. Capote spent six years working on it, compiling a reported 8,000 pages of notes and formed an unlikely friendship of sorts with one of the perpetrators, Perry Smith. It also sparked controversy over supposed fabrications, in essence Capote had fictionalised the events but still insisted it was 100pc truth.

One true crime writer, Jack Olsen commented: "I know fakery when I see it Capote completely fabricated quotes and whole scenes. The book made something like $6m in 1960s money, and nobody in the publishing business wanted to discuss anything wrong with a moneymaker like that."

Capote's characteristic response was brief.

"Olsen's just jealous!"

Despite or perhaps because of the controversy, In Cold Blood was a huge success and with his literary pedigree Capote single-handedly elevated the reputation of the true crime genre.

Norman Mailer

The Executioner's Song

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Mailer's vast 'True Life Novel', The Executioner's Song was notable for its exhaustive portrait of murderer, Gary Gilmore and the central role the book played in the national debate over the revival of capital punishment in America.

Gilmore, who'd murdered two men during two separate robberies in Utah in 1976 was the first person to be executed in the United States when the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The book won the Pulitzer prize for fiction in 1979 and was a seminal work in the emerging genre of creative nonfiction or 'New Journalism' of the time.

Arguably Mailer was particularly well placed to write the chaotic and violent life of Gray Gilmore.

In 1960, Mailer himself was convicted of assault and served a three-year probation after he stabbed his wife Adele Morales with a penknife and nearly killed her.

Joan Didion

The White Album

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In the titular essay of her 1979 book The White Album, Didion weaves together several disparate events both personal and taken from the wider cultural landscape of the 1960s to create an evocative and unforgettable portrait of the time.

The most stunning vignette details the moment her own life intersected with the Manson murders when she met with Linda Kasabian, who acted as lookout and getaway driver during the Manson Family murders. Didion even went shopping for Kasabian, buying the dress Kasabian wore in court on July 28, 1970.
Multiple fires are burning in Contra Costa County, Alameda County, Santa Clara County, Stanislaus County and San Joaquin County. Cal Fire is referring to them collectively as the SCU Lightning Complex. "SCU" stands for Santa Clara Unit. Find official evacuation updates here and a map here.

LATEST, Aug. 23, 8 p.m. The SCU Lightning Complex grew only marginally through the day, as firefighters got a break Sunday from high winds and hot temperatures.

The fires started Sunday at 339,968 acres and grew to 343,965 acres by 7 p.m. Containment remains at 10%. It was encouraging news for fire crews, who are bracing for dry lightning and gusting winds over the next 24 hours.

"Gusty outflow winds remain a concern for unpredictable fire spread and safety of firefighters," Cal Fire said in a statement late Sunday.

Over 20,000 structures are threatened by the fires, which span five counties. Twelve structures have been destroyed.

Aug. 23, 3:19 p.m. A new evacuation order and evacuation warning were concurrently issued on Sunday afternoon, affecting several areas in Santa Clara County. At 3 p.m., residents living in the following zones were ordered to evacuate immediately:

 North of Magnolia Ct. and Magnolia Way

 East of Lower Thomas Grade along the East Dunne Corridor

 East of Hwy 101 to Meltcalf Rd.

 East of Coyote Creek, East of Cochrane Rd., East of Hill Rd.

 South of Main Ave.

 North of Dunne Ave.

 West of Shingle Valley Rd. and Anderson Lake, to include the Jackson Oaks and Holiday Lake Estates

 South of Meltcalf Rd.

The evacuation warnings also went into effect for these parts of Santa Clara County:

 South of Dunne Ave. and west of Lower Thomas Grade

 East of Hill Rd.

 North of Maple Ave., Foothill Ave. and North San Martin Ave.

 East of New Ave.

 North of Roop Rd.

 West of Coyote Creek and Coyote Lake

 South of Eagle View Dr.

 East of Peet Rd.

 North of Half Rd.

 West of Cochrane Rd.

A temporary evacuation point is located at Ann Sobrato High School's performing arts building. Those in need of shelter for animals and livestock were advised to contact the County of Santa Clara Animal Services at 408-686-3900.

View a map of the evacuation areas and read the full incident report from Cal Fire here.

Aug. 23, 7:15 a.m. The SCU Lightning Complex fire held steady overnight, remaining at 339,968 acres and 10% containment as of early Sunday morning. Five structures have been destroyed and 20,265 are threatened. The fire is the third-largest in state history, just behind the LNU Lightning Complex currently burning in the North Bay.

Fire crews are hoping to keep an upper hand on the fire today, as high winds and dry lightning returns to the forecast for Sunday evening and overnight into Monday morning.

"Even if the storms miss the complex, gusty outflow winds from nearby cells will be of concern for fire growth and firefighter safety," Cal Fire said in a statement. "Today, the incident is using aerial assets to assist in perimeter updates and operational decisions on the complex."

You can read Cal Fire's full incident update here.

Aug. 23, 5:15 a.m. New evacuations have been ordered in Alameda County.

At 3 a.m., residents in the Sunol Regional Wilderness area were ordered to evacuate immediately. The order spans all areas south of Welch Creek Road to the fire perimeter and the Alameda/Santa Clara County line, along with anyone east of Calaveras Road at Welch Creek Road to the fire perimeter.

MediaNews Group/East Bay Times via Getty Images/MediaNews Group via Getty Images

Aug. 22, 7:30 p.m. The SCU Lightning Complex is now 339,968 acres and remains 10% contained, Cal Fire said in a Saturday evening update. To start the day, the fire was 291,968 acres. It is now the second-largest fire in California history, followed by the LNU Lightning Complex currently burning in the North Bay.

Five structures have been destroyed and a further 20,065 structures are still threatened. Over 1,200 fire personnel are battling the enormous blaze.

"Hot air temperatures developed this afternoon with southwest winds keeping things active on the Canyon Fire [in Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties] as winds gusted to 15 mph over the ridges," Cal Fire said in its incident update. "Afternoon highs from 90-95 degrees were observed."

A red flag warning in the region goes into effect at 5 a.m. Sunday and is expected to last until 5 p.m. Monday.

Aug. 22 6:49 p.m. An evacuation warning has been issued Sunday evening that affects the following areas in Alameda County:

 East of the intersection of Mission Boulevard and Mission Road and south of the intersection of Mission Boulevard and Curtner Road

 East of Curtner Road and south along Interstate 680 to the Santa Clara County line

 South of Interstate 580 between Greenville Road and the San Joaquin County line to the Alameda/Santa Clara County line, south of the Livermore city limits, south of Highway 84 between Vineyard Avenue and I-680 to the fire perimeter and the Alameda/Santa Clara County line to the Livermore city limits, to Highway 84 to I-680

 North of the fire perimeter and the Alameda/Santa Clara County line to Highway 84, to the Livermore city limits, to I-580.

See a map of the affected areas here.

Many evacuation orders remain in effect. Go to Cal Fire's incident page for more detailed information on evacuations.

MORE WILDFIRE COVERAGE:

Map: See where wildfires are burning in Bay Area

LNU Lightning Complex fire second largest in California history

Crews harness CZU Complex fires before weather turns 'dangerous'

SCU Complex forces new evacuations in Alameda County

'It's sickening': Firefighter targeted by looters near Santa Cruz

What to do to keep wildfire smoke out of your house

Eric Ting and Katie Dowd are SFGATE reporters. Email: eric.ting@sfgate.com | katie.dowd@sfgate.com
Imperial Valley News Center

Bank of Nova Scotia Agrees To Pay $60.4 Million in Connection with Commodities Price Manipulation Scheme

Washington, DC - The Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank), a Toronto, Canada-based global banking and financial services firm, has entered into a resolution with the Department of Justice to resolve criminal charges related to a price manipulation scheme involving thousands of episodes of unlawful trading activity by four traders in the precious metals futures contracts markets.

Scotiabank entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) in connection with a criminal information filed Wednesday in the District of New Jersey charging the company with one count of wire fraud and one count of attempted price manipulation. Under the terms of the DPA, Scotiabank has agreed to the imposition of an independent compliance monitor, and will pay over $60.4 million in a criminal monetary penalty, criminal disgorgement, and victim compensation, with part of the criminal monetary penalty credited against payments made to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) under a separate agreement with the CFTC being announced today.

For over eight years, Scotiabank traders placed thousands of orders for precious metals futures contracts in an attempt to manipulate prices for their own and the banks benefit and to deceive other market participants, said Chief Robert A. Zink of the Justice Departments Criminal Division, Fraud Section. This deferred prosecution agreementwhich includes a criminal monetary penalty at the top of the United States Sentencing Guidelines range, money to compensate victims, and an independent compliance monitorreflects the seriousness of the offense and the state of Scotiabanks compliance program, and further helps to promote the integrity of our public markets.

For the markets to work fairly, everyone needs to be able to make trading decisions with consistent, accurate information, said U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito for the District of New Jersey. In the conduct described here, four Scotiabank traders attempted to rig precious metals futures prices in their favor by placing thousands of orders they knew they would cancel before the trades were executed. In this way, they sought to illegally manipulate the market to their own advantage, and to the disadvantage of other traders. The resolution announced requires Scotiabank to pay a substantial penalty and places them under watch by an independent compliance monitor.

Today, Scotiabank has admitted to their role in a massive price manipulation scheme aimed at falsely manufacturing the prices of precious metals futures contracts to serve the banks best interests, said Assistant Director in Charge William F. Sweeney Jr. of the FBIs New York Field Office. The banks actions were designed to lead others to trade in ways they never would have without what was believed to be legitimate market activity. Scotiabanks agreement to surrender more than $60 million in criminal fines, disgorgement and victim compensation underscores the severe penalties that can be levied against those who wish to engage in similar, illegal business tactics.

The consequences of the actions of these traders are far reaching, affecting not only the economy of the United States, but also the worlds financial markets, said Inspector in Charge Delany De Leon-Colon of the U.S. Postal Inspection Services (USPIS) Criminal Investigations Group. Anyone who thinks that manipulating trading markets to benefit their own bank accounts should see todays announcement as a significant warning. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service has an extensive history of investigating complex financial fraud schemes in order to protect investors as well as the integrity of the financial marketplace.

According to admissions and court documents, between approximately January 2008 and July 2016, four precious metals traders located in New York, London and Hong Kong engaged in fraudulent and manipulative trading practices in the markets for gold, silver, platinum, and palladium futures contracts (collectively, precious metals futures contracts) that traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange Inc. (NYMEX) and Commodity Exchange Inc. (COMEX), which are commodities exchanges operated by the CME Group, Inc. One of the traders, Corey Flaum, 42, of Delray Beach, Florida, pleaded guilty on July 25, 2019, to one count of attempted price manipulation in connection with his precious metals futures contracts trading at Scotiabank and another financial services firm, and his sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 27, 2021, before U.S. District Judge Brian M. Cogan of the Eastern District of New York.

As part of the DPA, Scotiabank has agreed to, among other things, continue to cooperate with the department in any ongoing investigations and prosecutions relating to the underlying misconduct, to modify its compliance program where necessary and appropriate, and to retain an independent compliance monitor for a period of three years.

A number of relevant considerations contributed to the departments criminal resolution with Scotiabank, including the nature and seriousness of the offense, the state of Scotiabanks compliance program, and Scotiabanks failure to fully and voluntarily self-disclose the offense conduct to the department.

As Scotiabank admitted in the DPA, Flaum and the three other traders, collectively, placed thousands of orders to buy and sell precious metals futures contracts with the intent to cancel those orders before execution. By placing these orders, the traders intended to artificially move the prices of precious metals futures contracts in a direction that was favorable to them, and to inject false and misleading information into the precious metals futures markets in order to deceive other market participants into believing something untrue, namely that the market reflected legitimate supply and demand. This false and misleading information was intended to, and at times did, trick other market participants into reacting to the apparent change and imbalance in supply and demand by buying and selling futures contracts at quantities, prices, and times that they otherwise likely would not have traded.

As set forth in the DPA, Scotiabanks compliance function failed to detect or prevent the four traders unlawful trading practices. Moreover, between August 2013 and February 2016, three Scotiabank compliance officers possessed information regarding unlawful trading by one of the traders other than Flaum but failed to prevent further unlawful conduct by this same trader. These facts were significant considerations that counseled for the imposition of a criminal monetary penalty at the high end of the applicable United States Sentencing Guidelines range under the DPA.

Since the time of the underlying offense conduct, Scotiabank has made significant investments to improve its compliance technology and trade surveillance tools, has nearly doubled its annual compliance operating budget, has added more than 200 full-time equivalent compliance positions, and is in the process of winding down its precious metals business. The department ultimately determined, however, that an independent compliance monitor was necessary because Scotiabanks remedial improvements to its compliance and ethics program have yet not been fully implemented and tested to demonstrate that they would be effective in detecting and preventing similar misconduct in the future.

Scotiabank did not receive voluntary disclosure credit because it did not voluntarily and timely disclose the offense conduct to the department. In 2016, after one of its futures commission merchants flagged trading by Flaum for possible spoofing, Scotiabank made a voluntary disclosure regarding Flaum to the CFTC. As a result of recordkeeping failures, however, Scotiabanks disclosure to the CFTC was materially incomplete. As a result, the CFTC was impaired in its ability to fully investigate Flaums unlawful trading and discover the true extent of the misconduct. The CFTC, relying on Scotiabanks incomplete and, ultimately, inaccurate disclosure, entered into a resolution with Scotiabank in 2018 that did not reflect the full extent of Flaums conduct (2018 CFTC Resolution). In the 2018 CFTC resolution, Scotiabank received a substantially reduced penalty in recognition of, among other things, its purported self-reporting.

Today, the CFTC announced two separate settlements with Scotiabank in connection with related, parallel proceedings. One of Scotiabanks resolutions with the CFTC relates to unlawful trading by Flaum and the three other traders that Scotiabank did not fully disclose to the CFTC in connection with the CFTCs prior investigation that resulted in the 2018 CFTC Resolution, discussed above. Under the terms of the new agreement between Scotiabank and the CFTC, Scotiabank agreed to pay approximately $60.4 million, which includes a civil monetary penalty of $42 million, as well as restitution and disgorgement that will be credited to any such payments made to the department. The second resolution between Scotiabank and the CFTC relates to certain false statements that Scotiabank made to the CFTC (including in connection with the investigation that resulted in the 2018 CFTC Resolution), the COMEX, and the National Futures Association. Under the terms of this agreement, Scotiabank has agreed to pay a civil monetary penalty of approximately $17 million.

The FBIs New York Field Office and the USPIS investigated this case. Assistant Chief Avi Perry and Trial Attorneys Matthew F. Sullivan and Alexander Kramer of the Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Catherine R. Murphy of the District of New Jersey prosecuted the case. The CFTCs Division of Enforcement provided assistance in this matter.

Individuals who believe that they may be a victim in this case should visit the Fraud Sections Victim Witness website at https://www.justice.gov/criminal-vns/case/the-bank-of-nova-scotia-dpa or call (888) 549-3945.
BOSTON -- President Donald Trump was in Ohio recently, claiming to have been very good to Ohioans. He boasted he didnt back down from my promises, and had kept every single one. Hes been telling the American people that, come Election Day, Nov. 3, theyre going to have the greatest economic year theyve ever had.

But the official economic data tell a different story. The Trump administration has broken its economic promises, not only in Ohio, but across the country.

One of the fictions of the Trump presidency is that its been good for the economy. But our analysis at Raise Americas Pay -- based on official U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data for current employment statistics (state and metro area) and occupational employment statistics, which tracks jobs and wages across 20 industry sectors -- reveals that for the period from 2017-2019, before the pandemic, Trump didnt come close to delivering on his economic promises. In fact, he fell far short of Ohioans economic gains during the Obama/Biden administration from 2014-2016.

Lets begin with total job gains across all sectors under Trump prior to the pandemic. Trump asserted Americas companies were coming back to the United States. But from 2017-2019, Ohio gained fewer than 80,000 jobs, only about a third of the 222,000 jobs gained from 2014-2016 during the Obama/Biden administration.

In manufacturing, Ohio gained only 11,500 manufacturing jobs pre-pandemic, compared to the 18,700 manufacturing jobs created from 2014-2016 under Obama/Biden. These figures support the U.S. Federal Reserves conclusions that American manufacturing competitiveness and job creation have been damaged by Trumps tariffs on China. Moreover, what few jobs were created under Trump have come at huge cost to the American people in higher prices. For example, economists at the Fed and the University of Chicago estimate that each job saved at Whirlpool cost $815,000.

Amb. David L. Carden, former U.S. ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is a director of the Project to Raise America's Pay.

Real wages echo the same story of Trumps economic failure. Under Obama/Biden, the average pay of workers in Ohio increased 6.7% from 2014-2016. Under Trump, the pre-COVID-19 average wage dropped by 1.5%. And under Trump, 32% of Ohioans were in occupations that experienced a pre-pandemic drop in real pay. Ohioans fortunate to keep their manufacturing jobs during his presidency actually lost a total of $1,100 during the same period. Under Obama/Biden, they gained $7,500 from 2014-2016. These economic failures disprove Trumps 2018 claims, made near Cincinnati, that wages are now, for the first time in many years, rising and that economists estimate that our business tax cut will raise the income of a typical family by an average of $4,000. These gains didnt happen in Ohio.

They also didnt happen elsewhere in America. Under Trump, America gained 6.2 million jobs in the three years before the pandemic. Under Obama/Biden, 1.7 million more jobs were created, a total of 7.9 million, from 2014-2016. And total real wage gains for individual workers were over eight times as high, $2,505, under Obama/Biden, than they were under Trump before the pandemic. Indeed, under Trump, the vast majority of states, including Ohio, posted wage and jobs numbers less than under Obama/Biden from 2014-2016.

Trump has tried to spin his failure to deliver for working families before the pandemic by pointing to gains in the stock market, in which only 10% of the wealthiest American households own 84% of the total number of shares. He also blames COVID-19 for the current state of the economy. Its true the pandemic has done enormous damage to the lives and livelihoods of many Americans, mostly because Trump has handled it so badly. But Trump was an economic failure before it arrived.

The official figures do not lie. President Trump can only hope the truths they reveal remain hidden from the American people until after the election. But hopefully, by the time America goes to the polls this November, the truth will be clear for all to see.

U.S. Amb. David L. Carden (ret.) served as U.S. ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. He is a director of the Project to Raise Americas Pay.

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* Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication.

* Email general questions, comments or corrections on this opinion column to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at esullivan@cleveland.com.
TRENTON  A woman was gravely wounded and reportedly clinging to life in a hospital after a drive-by shooting Friday night, sources said.

As of Saturday evening, county officials said Vernetta McCray was in critical condition.

McCray, who works for the New Jersey Department of Children and Families, is believed to be an innocent victim caught up in a hail of gunfire in the East Ward, sources said.

Vernetta McCray has worked for the Department of Children and Families for over a decade, Gov. Phil Murphy said in a press statement issued about 8 p.m. Saturday, gaining the respect of her colleagues and serving countless children and families in Mercer County. This tragedy is yet another reminder of the toll that senseless gun violence takes on our communities. Our prayers are with Vernetta, her family, and her loved ones at this difficult time.

Mayor Reed Gusciora also confirmed the victim is a state worker who was simply returning home from her job and was shot indiscriminately on her porch.

Gusciora called the incident another senseless act of violence resulting in an innocent person being gravely shot in the east section of Trenton.

The shooting happened around 9 p.m. Friday, according to sources, on the 100 block of Hampton Avenue. One source said as many as 23 shots were fired in rapid succession, injuring the woman who was standing on her porch when the gunfire erupted.

The longtime state worker was reportedly on the phone with a client when she was struck.

Trenton police responded after receiving a Shot Spotter activation for more than 20 rounds fired, Mercer County Prosecutors spokesperson Casey DeBlasio said via email. While searching the area, they discovered an adult female on the porch of a Hampton Avenue residence bleeding from her head.

Trenton has already had 25 murders this year, and counting, in what some community activists fear could be a record-breaking year of bloodshed in Trenton. The record for murders is 37, set in 2013.

Officials have painted police as seemingly helpless to staunch the bloodshed on the streets.

Gusciora and Trenton Police Director Sheilah Coley have called for more cops, with Coley pushing for another academy in the fall.

Theyve also touted a yet-to-be-constructed $4.5 million State Police real-time crime center hoping it helps law enforcement curtail the gunplay.

Gusciora plans to meet with state, county and local law enforcement officials on Monday to discuss how we can further stem the tide of violence on our streets, he said Saturday night via text message.

While in most of our homicides our police have identified suspects or persons of interest, he added, we need to find out how we can better assist in bringing these individuals to justice. We also need for the state to slow the early release of dangerous persons from incarceration simply because of the pandemic and no other factors.

A real-time crime center may help us better predict criminal activity, Gusciora said. But we also need our residents help, not just in ensuring young persons are staying home and that they avoid gang participation, but also assisting our police with reporting criminal activity on our streets. We all need to work together for the common good of our city.

Anyone with information on the random Friday night shooting of McCray may contact the Trenton Police Confidential Tip Line at (609) 989-3663.

Staff writer Sulaiman Abdur-Rahman contributed to this report.
McClain, an unarmed 23-year-old Black man, died after he was put in a police chokehold and injected with ketamine.

In the year since Elijah McClain died after being stopped by police in suburban Denver on his way home from a store, the number of people calling for justice to be done in his case has grown to millions of people around the world.

Like his family and activists who have been protesting over the Black mans death from the beginning, they want the three officers charged with killing McClain.

Three Aurora officers, including one involved in the encounter with McClain, were fired and one resigned in July over photos that mocked the neck hold that was used on McClain on August 24, 2019.

However, the three officers who got into a violent struggle with McClain, a 23-year-old massage therapist, after he questioned why he was being stopped have not faced any discipline for their actions in the encounter itself.

Elijah McClain died after suffering two heart attacks after being put in a police chokehold and injected with ketamine [Family handout]

Aurora activist Candice Bailey said action, not more dialogue, is what is needed.

Theres nothing to talk about. Were at an impasse in the conversation, she said.

A district attorney said last year he could not pursue criminal charges because an autopsy did not determine how McClain died, but state Attorney General Phil Weiser is looking at whether criminal charges are warranted in the case.

Governor Jared Polis ordered him to look at the case in June after outrage about McClains death grew amid protests against racial injustice following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

It is one of several investigations or reviews taking place related to McClains death, including a health department review of paramedics use of the sedative ketamine on him.

The Aurora Police Department also announced an independent review of its agency this month on the same day that the McClain family filed a civil rights lawsuit accusing the department of a pattern of racism and brutality.

Im just different

McClain was stopped because someone had called 911 to report that he was wearing a ski mask and waving his hands and seemed sketchy. His family said he wore the mask because he had a blood condition that caused him to get cold easily.

Police body-camera video shows an officer getting out of his car, approaching McClain and saying, Stop right there. Stop. Stop.  I have a right to stop you because youre being suspicious.

In the video, the officer turns around McClain and repeats, Stop tensing up, and says, Relax, or Im going to have to change this situation.

Other officers join in to restrain McClain, who tells them that he had stopped his music to listen to them and asks them to let him go.

Three Aurora officers, including one involved in the encounter with McClain, were fired and one resigned in July over photos that mocked the neck hold that was used on McClain [Reuters]

The officers move McClain over the grass in front of an apartment building but what happens next is not clear from the video. Police have said one of the officers applied the neck hold.

All three of the officers body cameras eventually came off during the struggle but continued to record audio. An officer says McClain grabbed one of their guns. McClain can be heard trying to explain himself and sometimes crying out.

Im just different. Im just different, thats all. Thats all I was doing. Im so sorry. I have no gun. I dont do that stuff. I dont do any fighting. Why were you attacking me? I dont do guns. I dont even kill flies. I dont eat meat, he said, as the officers talk among themselves.

One officer eventually retrieves his camera, which shows McClain handcuffed and laying on his side as another officer leans on him. The leaning officer says, Move your camera dude but the camera doesnt move and continues to show the scene.

McClain suffered two heart attacks on the way to a hospital and was taken off life support six days later.

Think harder!

The increased spotlight on the case recently has made it more difficult for McClains family to grieve his loss.

McClains mother, Sheneen McClain, initially had planned on Sunday to take the same route her son was taking to walk his spirit home but later cancelled the event, saying in a Facebook post that the event had gotten out of hand.

Sheneen McClain speaks during a rally and march about the death of her 23-year-old son, Elijah McClain, outside the police department in Aurora, Colorado [File: David Zalubowski/The Associated Press]

She was also upset that McClains pleading words to police have been invoked by those protesting his death. They have shown up on signs and at protests and were read in an Instagram video by Janelle Monae, Meagan Good, Jonathan Van Ness and others calling on Colorado officials to pursue charges against the officers.

Its not okay to repeat my sons dying words because thats all you can think to do. Think harder! that hurts me, Sheneen McClain wrote. She has declined media interviews until the police officers are held accountable.

Mari Newman, the McClain familys lawyer, said they welcome support from other people who are sharing the pain and outrage about McClains death but do not want to serve as a kind of masters of ceremony as they grieve.

Its just a very challenging time for them emotionally, she said.
A Santa Cruz firefighter battling the CZU Lightning Complex this weekend returned to his work vehicle to find his wallet stolen and his bank account drained, authorities said Sunday morning.

Its saddening. Its sickening, Cal Fire Operations Chief Mark Brunton said.

Officials said the fires in southern San Mateo County and northern Santa Cruz County had burned 71,000 acres and were only 8% contained at 7 a.m. Sunday. Damage inspection teams were arriving to survey locations where the fire had diminished, but already 115 structures have been destroyed and 24,323 were threatened.

Among the 1,349 personnel responding to the fires was the ground commander whose wallet was stolen. Though approximately 77,000 have been evacuated from the area, authorities have had trouble keeping out looters.

In incidents separate from the one involving the firefighter, five people suspected of looting were arrested Friday in Santa Cruz County, county officials said.

Frankly, I cant believe someone would have the nerve to break into a firefighters vehicle or enter their vehicle to steal something from them, while theyre there to protect the community, said Chief Deputy Chris Clark of the Santa Cruz County Sheriffs Office.

Officials asked residents to leave evacuation areas and not return. They also warned about scams in the area, including callers pretending to be from PG&E and asking for money.

Another scam, officials said, was a purported fake GoFundMe account, claiming to be established in support of the firefighter whose wallet was stolen. Cal Fire and Santa Cruz County officials asked that donations instead be made to Red Cross or the countys community foundation.

Rusty Simmons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rsimmons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Rusty_SFChron
KUBINKA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd August, 2020) Russia completed delivering Pantsir-S1 missile systems under contract with Serbia, the head of the Russian Federal Service of Military-Technical Cooperation, Dmitry Shugayev, told Sputnik.

"At the beginning of 2020, one battery of Pantsir-S1 air defense missile system was delivered to Serbia.

The supply of modern models of air defense systems will allow Serbia to maintain the security of its territory from external threats from any enemy," Shugayev said.

He added that Belgrade and Moscow were negotiating exports of air defense systems to the Balkan country.

"At the moment, negotiations are ongoing on the possibility of supplying modern air defense systems to Serbia, I think it is too early to speak about any specific models," Shugayev said.
Firefighters respond to a structure fire along Riverdale Blvd. during the CZU Lightning complex fire on Sunday. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

Authorities in the Northern California fire zone are warning about criminals taking advantage of the crisis, including one case in which officials said a firefighter was victimized.

Authorities on Saturday morning arrested five people on suspicion of looting, grand theft, burglary and conspiracy after they were stopped driving away from the Fall Creek Drive area, the Santa Cruz County Sheriffs Office said.

The suspects allegedly took advantage of the CZU Lightning Complex fire, which has forced about 77,000 people from their homes in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties.

Someone also broke into the department vehicle of a firefighting commander while he was out battling the blaze, stole his wallet and drained his bank account, Mark Brunton, Cal Fire operations chief, said at a briefing Sunday.

Its saddening, its sickening," Brunton said, "and we are doing everything we can to try to help the community and unfortunately these [things] happen.

Meanwhile, officials were asking people to stay out of evacuation zones to avoid hazards including downed trees and wires, and to keep roads open for emergency vehicles.

Tourists are also being warned away. The Santa Cruz County Emergency Operations Center said it was requesting that visitors refrain from traveling there through Sept. 1 to keep overnight accommodations available for evacuees.
A British air hostess has been released from jail in Dubai after spending two months behind bars living off of bread and water.

Derrin Crawford, 23, who works for Emirates and is based in the UAE, had been out for dinner with a man and agreed to go back to his apartment when it was raided by officers who found two cannabis joints at the scene.

Ms Crawford, who is from Liverpool, was thrown into the infamous Al-Barsha jail on June 21.

Yesterday, MP for Riverside Kim Johnson said she had spoken to Derrin's family following her release and confirmed she had been released from prison.

Derrin Crawford, 23, who works for Emirates and is based in the UAE, has been released from prison in Dubai after spending two months behind bars

The British air hostess, 23, had been living off bread and water in a Dubai jail after being forced into a fake confession over cannabis joints

Yesterday, MP for Riverside Kim Johnson said she had spoken to Derrin's family following her release and confirmed she had been released from prison

Ms Johnson Tweeted: 'Delighted to hear from the family that Derrin Crawford has been released from Dubai detention.

'Thanks to all who supported Derrin. Looking forward to seeing her back in Liverpool.'

The MP previously revealed she had talked to Derrin's family who said the air hostess had been fed on just bread, water and jam while in jail.

'They have not been allowed to take in toiletries and food. According to family members she is existing on water, bread and jam,' Ms Johnson said.

Ms Crawford's sister, Danielle, 28, told the Mail in July that police found two cannabis joints and arrested the pair.

The air hostess told relatives that she agreed to go on a date with the man, believed to be a fellow Brit and a marketing executive, from London, after meeting him on a night out

Ms Crawford was held in a police station for several days before being transferred to the notorious Al Barsha jail.

In a tearful phone call home, she told Danielle she had undergone blood tests for drugs and officers had agreed to let her go if they proved negative.

Although the tests came in July  and proved Derrin had no drugs in her system - she was kept in jail for more than a month afterwards.

Danielle said at the tim: 'She is innocent, she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

'The police have been trying to interrogate her, but she doesn't even know this guy.

'When she was arrested the police took her phone, she managed to call me a few days later when she was being transferred to jail.

Derrin, who lost her mother aged 11, and was raised by an aunt, moved to Dubai in September 2018 after securing a job with the airline. She was arrested on June 21 and managed to alert her family on June 25

'At first I couldn't understand what she was saying because she was just crying and crying. She didn't eat or sleep for days.

'She doesn't drink or smoke and has a good job with Emirates, so it is a shame she has got caught up in all this. She's only 23 and is just so scared.'

Derrin, who lost her mother aged 11, and was raised by an aunt, moved to Dubai in September 2018 after securing a job with the airline.

She was arrested on June 21 and managed to alert her family on June 25.

The air hostess told relatives that she agreed to go on a date with the man, believed to be a fellow Brit and a marketing executive, from London, after meeting him on a night out.

The Foreign Office has been approached for comment.
Japanese prosecutors have found new fingerprint evidence suggesting that a lawmaker charged with accepting bribes over a proposed casino resort offered money to a person to falsely testify in court, sources close to the matter said Saturday.

The fingerprints of Tsukasa Akimoto, a 48-year-old House of Representative member once involved in crafting Japan's policy for legalizing casino resorts, were detected on bills he allegedly handed out through an accomplice in order to bribe Masahiko Konno, a former adviser to a Chinese gambling operator.

Akimoto, who has been indicted for receiving bribes from the operator 500.com Ltd, was served a fresh arrest warrant earlier in the week for attempting to tamper with testimony. He has denied all the allegations against him.

He was released on bail in February but was taken into custody again on Thursday. Working together with his supporters, Akimoto is suspected of asking Konno, who has been indicted on a bribery charge, to give false testimony in return for 30 million yen in June and July.

Of the 30 million yen, Akimoto, who left the Liberal Democratic Party led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shortly before his initial arrest in December, is believed to have prepared 10 million by himself and the fingerprints are regarded by the prosecutors as strong evidence of his involvement, according to the sources.
Graffiti on a WWII memorial has triggered local indignation and the anger of French President Emmanuel Macron, who promised that everything will be done to find those responsible.

The texts were discovered when the center to commemorate second world war atrocities in the town of Oradour-sur-Glane opened its doors on Friday morning.

A picture taken by employees of Oradour's Martyr's Village shows the front of the building with the word martyr crossed out with a line of white paint, followed by the word menteur (liar,") and the question When will the truth come out?  Reynouard was right! referring to the notorious neo-nazi and holocaust denier Vincent Reynouard.

The memorial commemorates the massacre of 642 villagers during a raid by German SS troops on June 10, 1944.

The Nazis gathered the men of the village in a barn where they shot and killed them, then herded women and children into the local church before setting it on fire.

"They crossed out the word martyr, they put a liar and the name of a revisionist instead, you understand that we are shocked", the mayor of Oradour-sur-Glane, Philippe Lacroix said.

On Saturday morning, the center filed an official complaint.

"We think of Robert Hebras, a survivor, and we remember all the families of the victims," Lacroix said during a ceremony on Saturday afternoon, alongside other elected officials.

"We must never relent in our fight against denial and revisionism, and we must do this together."

Security camera footage

Local Councillor Fabrice Escure said an investigation is underway. "The gendarmes will see if they can get something out of it," he said, referring to footage of surveillance cameras at the site.

President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday promised that "everything will be done" to prosecute the authors of the graffiti.

In a statement, the Elysee palace said Macron "condemns with greatest firmness this unspeakable act."

The President has given his full support to the mayor and the municipality. He assures them that "everything will be done so that the perpetrators of this act are brought to justice."

Macron's office sent Jean-Baptiste Djebbari to meet with local representatives on Saturday afternoon.

Over the course of the day, many other politicians from across the political spectrum spoke out against the incident on social media.
Around 250 people gathered in Murrysville at a car dealership under construction Saturday morning to show their support for the reelection of President Donald Trump and to celebrate the opening of the nearby Murrysville Export Republican Committees 2020 Trump Victory Center.

Trump 2020 flags, T-shirts, buttons and signs floated around the lot as people decked out in American flag garb chanted Four more years. The event was slated to be held at the Victory Center, but a large attendance caused it to be moved down the street to provide for social distancing, which was encouraged, along with face masks.

People lined up to buy Trump-related merchandise and for photo opportunities with KDKA-AM News Radio 1020 host Wendy Bell, who was a speaker at the MAGA Meet Up event. Other speakers, who stood on a flatbed truck while delivering speeches, included Westmoreland County Commissioners Sean Kertes and Doug Chew, state Sen. Joe Pittman (41st District) and state Rep. Bob Brooks (54th District). All are Republicans.

In referencing mandates put in place to curb the spread of the coronavirus, Bell told the crowd, We have a president who believes in what we believe in: Safety, your freedoms, your ability to choose if you want to open your business or not, your ability to choose if you feel safe to go into those businesses. But our local and state leadership has let us down.

Bell, who entered the stage to Celebration, touched on current events like the pandemic, in which she stated there was a 99.9% chance of survival if under the age of 80.

Trump in July claimed that 99% of coronavirus cases are completely harmless, The Washington Post reported. The World Health Organization in March said 80% of infections are mild or asymptomatic, 15% are severe infection requiring oxygen and 5% are critical infections.

Allegheny County reported on Saturday that 922 covid-19 patients have been hospitalized out of 9,817 cases to date. Of its 306 deaths, the two new victims reported Saturday were in their 50s and 60s, respectively. Westmoreland has had 1,716 cases and 49 deaths.

Bell also touched on protests that have swept the nation following the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police office. Recent protests in Pittsburgh have centered around Mayor Bill Peduto and the arrest of a man who was taken into an unmarked van by plainclothes officers.

Bell said that Peduto has thrown law enforcement officers under the bus time and again.

Kertes agreed, adding, When I look around at the young people today, theyre not out trying to better themselves, theyre not out there trying to work or do right in society.  Theyre rioting, theyre burning things down, theyre trying to just make a point that they want things for free in life.

The event leads up to the Republican National Convention starting Monday in Charlotte, N.C. where Trump will accept his nomination for a second term on Thursday. The convention will be largely virtual, with Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and a group of congressional lawmakers attending an in-person roll call .

Several people at Saturdays event were excited to watch the convention, which follows the Democratic National Convention in which Joe Biden accepted his bid for president.

We need this win big, said Debbie Clark, 63, of Apollo. If Biden wins were done. Were done.

Chrissy Keener, 34, of Swissvale was at the event with her parents Jerry Compton, 66, and Lake Compton, 62, who is originally from Thailand.

Im a huge fan of Donald Trump, Keener said. Even as a minority, I think he cares about all individuals, he cares about our country  even for our communities; to see how somebody from a federal level can still care for somebody in our communities down to this level.

In addition to listening to speeches, event attendees were encouraged to register to vote and to learn more about absentee and mail-in ballots. Thats something people will be able to do at the Victory Center, located at 3145 Carson Ave. in Murrysville, center chairperson Jill Cooper said.

Cooper said of the event, It couldnt have been more successful. We werent expecting this many people.  We were sold out. so we were shocked.

Canvassers, made up of local residents, will take to the streets in September and October to encourage people to vote for Trump in the November election.

In ending her speech, Bell said. This in my mind is the heartland. Its not about LA and New York, its about the heartland, the middle of America. I think Pittsburgh is part of that. This is a special place, and we need to choose the right leaders who espouse our American freedom and values.
From the moment the Wuhan virus appeared in China in January 2020, America has bounced from one bizarre crisis to another: The virus, the lockdowns, the economic collapse, the Black Lives Matter protests that morphed into looting, riots, and all-out warfare, and, in California, an epic heatwave, rolling power outages, and raging fires.

If youre wondering what the heck is going on, you can attribute 90% of our nations apocalyptic feel to the Democrats. No wonder their convention painted a picture of America in freefall; they created that picture.

Its normal for the party out of power to focus on everything thats wrong with the country. If things are going swimmingly, theres nothing they can offer voters in the way of change.

Whats unusual in 2020  and, indeed, may be a first in American history  is the fact that the party currently out of the White House (that would be the Democrat party) is behind the apocalyptic happenings across the United States that theyre now claiming justify putting a Democrat back in the White House.

When the Wuhan virus appeared, Democrats were dismissive. After President Trump closed the borders to China and Europe, Biden accused Trump of xenophobia. In San Francisco, Nancy Pelosi urged people to go to Chinatown, as did politicians in New York, from Bill de Blasio on down.

Once they embraced the idea of a virus, though, Democrats were enthusiastic about responding. More than any other political group in America, they embraced the concept of lockdowns to bend the curve. While the initial idea was to slow the diseases impact on our healthcare system, at some point, Democrat politicians shifted the goal.

Moving forward, Democrat enacted policies that would ostensibly end all future infections until there was a vaccination. I doubt it was a coincidence that this new goal caused a swift economic collapse during an election year  and one, moreover, in which the incumbents main selling point was the extraordinary economy during his first three years as president.

Having thrown American into a shambles, the Democrats next embraced George Floyds death to accuse America of irredeemable racism that justified mass protests, looting, riots, property destruction and, in cities such as Portland and Seattle, all-out warfare. It was irrelevant that the police in the George Floyd case acted under the rules governing police in Minneapolis and that Floyd had severe heart disease and enough drugs in his system to take down an elephant.

What mattered was that a black man was caught on video dying during his arrest. This was more proof for Democrats, once again, to call President Trump a racist, a claim based on a crude journalistic hoax, and that ignores Trumps lifetime of working with the black community. And of course, all of Trumps supporters were tarred as racists too.

And so America was treated to a fiery vision of Hell on earth in Americas cities. While the Democrats studiously ignored the urban warfare as they performed at their convention, the sense of impending gloom from civil unrest permeated the event.

The Democrat-run apocalypse then shifted to California. It started with a heatwave. Californias had heatwaves before. Indeed, its averaged two a year for roughly the last half-century.

This heatwave apparently was hotter than usual. What made it a nightmare, though, was the rolling blackouts. Suddenly, a state with the fifth-largest economy in the world had a decidedly third world feel.

Blackouts mean a failing infrastructure and are demoralizing. In this case, the fault lies entirely with Californias climate change hysteria. Its commitment to renewables means its newest energy sources (wind, sun, and water) are too unreliable to meet a large communitys needs.

And now California is burning. Part of this is because fluke lightning storms followed the heatwave. However, 2020 marks the third year of uncontrolled fires in California. The last two years resulted because environmentalists make it impossible to clean out dead wood and engage in controlled burns. This year, its reasonable to believe again that these failures are part of whats causing the current hellscape.

2020 in a single remarkable photo



- by @noahberger3884 in California pic.twitter.com/EpT3SZWLNV  Rupert Myers (@RupertMyers) August 20, 2020

And there you see the photograph that sums up everything that the Democrats have done to America in 2020: They used the lockdown to destroy the economy, traumatize a generation of children, and created innumerable non-virus health problems. With the George Floyd hysteria, Democrats turned American cities into dystopias, especially in black neighborhoods. And with out-of-control climate change madness, Democrats have reduced large parts of California to ashes.

Democrats painted a dystopian picture of America at their convention, but its important to remember that, to the extent theres an apocalyptic feel in the air, the Democrats created it.

Image: Massive fire, by Jake Archibald on Flickr, CC BY 2.0
New Delhi, Aug 23 : Ahead of the Congress Working Committee meeting on Monday, interim chief Sonia Gandhi has communicated to members of the party's highest decision-making body that she was not interested in continuing and asked them to find a new chief, sources said, even as two Chief Ministers have come out to back the Gandhis' leadership.

Congress Communication Department chief Randeep Surjewala, however, denied any such move, saying nothing has been communicated by the interim President or said on her behalf.

A top aide of Sonia Gandhi too denied any such move and said that everything will depend on the Congress Working Committee meet.

The Gandhi family has found strong backing from Punjab and Chhatisgarh Chief Ministers, with the former, Captain Amarinder Singh saying that "this is not the right time to raise this demand (of a leadership change)".

His Chhattisgarh counterpart Bhupesh Baghel has urged Rahul Gandhi to return as the party's leader.

State Congress units are likely to hold emergency meetings to back the Gandhis for the top post.

Even some of the leaders who have written a letter to the party, said that there is no dispute on the leadership issue of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

The pro-Gandhi brigade is likely to take on the dissenters in the CWC meet, while many names have started doing the rounds, especially two Dalit leaders - Mallikarjun Kharge and Sushilkumar Shinde, as likely replacements if Sonia Gandhi doesn't want to continue.

While Kharge is close to Rahul Gandhi, Shinde has been a former Home Minister and Maharashtra Chief Minister.

Sources say that a collective system may also be proposed or a team of leaders may be appointed as Vice Presidents to assist Sonia Gandhi in case there is no consensus on the change of the leadership and Rahul Gandhi does not want to return to the leadership role.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Assam Congress president Ripun Bora said on Sunday that he had asked Sonia Gandhi to give partys leadership to her son since Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scared of Rahul Gandhi only.

In an earlier video conference meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi & Rajya Sabha MPs, I categorically appealed to Sonia Gandhi to give the leadership of Congress party to Rahul Gandhi as Narendra Modi is scared of Rahul Gandhi only, news agency ANI quoted Bora as saying.

Rahul Gandhi had resigned as Congress president in July last year, taking responsibility for the partys defeat in Lok Sabha elections.

The leadership question has been creating ripples inside the party, with a section writing to Sonia Gandhi about complete overhaul of the organisation. Other leaders, however, say that Sonia Gandhi is the best choice for the party.

A meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the partys highest decision-making body, is scheduled for Monday, news agency ANI reported.

Senior Congress leader and former Union law minister Ashwani Kumar questioned the timing of the letter, saying there are some who have harmed the party repeatedly even after receiving more than their just dues.

Kumar said that the Congress will function best on the basis of broad political consensus hammered through meaningful and wide consultations amongst the leadership. Sonia Gandhis judgement in the accommodation of competing claims to recognition has generally served the party well.

Another senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid on Sunday said that the party should give consensus a chance instead of elections which create divisiveness.

Khurshid also said Rahul Gandhi enjoys the full support and endorsement of party leaders and workers, and it does not matter whether he wears the label of a president or not.

A group of Congress leaders have raised questions and suggestions about the functioning of the party in their letter to Sonia Gandhi.

In her response, Gandhi told them that she was not interested in leading the party once again when the CWC on August 10 requested her to assume the reins of the organisation again, a senior functionary said on condition of anonymity.
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Linkedin Alya Nurbaiti and Budi Sutrisno (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, August 23, 2020 16:26 514 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066fd1e72 1 Politics COVID-19,cyber-attacks,cyber-crime,Tempo,tempo-co,CISDI,pandu-riono,hackers Free

Civil groups have condemned recent cyberattacks on the websites of two prominent institutions and the social media account of a scientist, all of whom have been critical of the governments handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling them a threat to democracy and freedom of speech.

The Twitter account of Pandu Riono, an epidemiologist at the University of Indonesia (UI), was reportedly hacked on Wednesday. The handle, @drpriono, posted pictures that aimed to damage Pandus reputation. The account was secured on Sunday and the pictures deleted.

Prior to the incident, Pandu slammed a potential COVID-19 vaccine developed by Surabaya-based Airlangga University, saying it had yet to undergo clinical trials. He also criticized the university for not reporting its findings to the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) and handing it over to the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) and the Indonesian Army instead.

Pandu has been voicing his concerns about the governments COVID-19-related policies, such as tourism promotion amid the pandemic, campaigns for a new normal and the ineffectiveness of rapid antibody tests that have become a requirement for traveling.

On Thursday midnight, news website tempo.co, which is a part of Tempo Media Group that also publishes Koran Tempo daily and Tempo weekly magazine, was hacked until early Friday. The media groups pandemic reported has included criticism against government policies.

At 12:30 a.m., the homepage turned black and played Gugur Bunga (Fallen Flowers), a patriotic song honoring fallen wartime heroes, for 15 minutes. The screen displayed the message, Stop Hoaxes, Dont lie to the Indonesian People, Return to true journalistic ethics [and] obey the Press Council. Dont [bow down to] people who pay. Deface By @xdigeeembok.

Tempo.co chief editor Setri Yasra said the attack was an attempt to silence the media.

We condemn anyone who tries to interfere with the work of the press. Press products are not always perfect, but we have a controlled mechanism, we have a press council to go to, Setri told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

The website of a research group that is also known to be critical of the governments coronavirus policies, the Center for Indonesias Strategic Development Initiatives (CISDI), was hacked for three days starting on Wednesday. The attack caused the institution to lose important documents on its website, cisdi.org.

The Civil Society Coalition, whose members include Amnesty International Indonesia, the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute (YLBHI) and the Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SAFEnet), demanded that the government and law enforcement bodies transparently investigate the cyberattacks and punished the perpetrators.

Amnesty International Indonesia has recorded at least 35 cases of alleged intimidation and digital attacks on government critics since February last year.

Read also: RI faces heightened threat of cyberattacks amid outbreak

The government must explain and share their information to the public  whether the attacks against the critics have anything to do with the government  because the public doesnt have the tools or access [for an investigation], YLBHI chairwoman Asfinawati told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

Amnesty International Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid said if the hackers were found to be part of the state, there should be no impunity.

Silencing criticism is a violation of human rights. The peoples rights to express their opinion is guaranteed in both Indonesias Constitution and international human rights laws, Usman said in a written statement on Friday.

Communications and Information Minister Johnny G Plate said labeling the cyberattacks as silencing criticism was a serious, groundless accusation.

Dont make accusations based on assumptions. Cybercrime happens every minute on any digital platform, including digital businesses and government websites, not just tempo.co or Pandu Rionos account, he told the Post on Saturday.

Read also: Indonesian businesses ramp up cybersecurity budget amid rampant attacks

Johnny said the ministry was ready to help but expected the victims to be proactive in reporting their case to the ministry or to the police, so the latter could move quickly to track down the perpetrators. In addition, the ministry and the National Cyber and Encryption Agency (BSSN) could audit the security system of the hacked parties.

The ministry cannot take action if there is no report. For example, we cant just go into Tempos system without permission, right?

He added that the ministry would like to evaluate and improve Tempos cybersecurity system.

A strong system wont be easily breached. The rising number of cyberattacks is a reminder for us to improve our security system and protect our digital space.
More than 3,700 people were dragged through Northern Ireland's courts for failing to buy a TV licence last year.

That's 14 people on average every working day who face a possible conviction for not paying the 157.50 fee.

A quarter of all the prosecutions went through Belfast's Laganside Courts, according to figures released to Sunday Life by the Department of Justice under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI).

But not all of the prosecutions resulted in a conviction - around 30% of those charged avoided conviction.

The number of prosecutions is troubling to one MLA, TUV leader Jim Allister, who said: "I understand the growing resentment at the BBC tax, particularly as people turn away from the traditional TV channels and in increasing numbers tune in to Netflix, Amazon Prime or other providers."

Both of these streaming services cost just over 70 a year - well under half the price of the TV Licensing fee.

The law says you must have a TV licence if you or anyone in your household watches or records any live TV, or downloads or watches BBC programmes on the iPlayer.

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But Mr Allister, who is also a barrister, says: "It is clear that the BBC model is outdated and in my view, it can be no longer justified.

"Other news outlets have to charge for their journalism with online subscriptions while the BBC is paid for by the general public whether they want to or not.

"This gives the BBC an unfair advantage over other media outlets."

"The decision of the BBC to revoke free licences for pensioners (over 75s) has, in my opinion, exhausted much of the residual support there would have been for retaining the licence fee," he added.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson was hardly glowing in his support for TV licences when he spoke on the issue during the Christmas snap election. "At this stage we are not planning to get rid of all licence fees, though I am certainly looking at it," he told reporters.

However, the BBC's arm's length body charged with licence fee collection and enforcement, TV Licensing, stated that not everyone failing to pay the fee would end up in the courts.

In a statement, it said the "prosecution figures refer to cases which have been submitted to court, but do not take into account the number which have been withdrawn by TV Licensing."

It added: "We will withdraw cases if it is not in the public interest to proceed and we always take an individual's circumstances into account. We also don't proceed with a case if it is a first time offender who buys a licence."

Those whose cases are pursued risk a court prosecution and a fine of up to 1,000 plus court costs and an offender levy.

Last year, almost 225,000 in fines was imposed upon people in Northern Ireland not paying the licence fee, according to the FOI request obtained by this newspaper. A small proportion of those convicted every year end up in prison for failing to pay court fines. In 2019, 23 people were jailed.

John O'Connell, the chief executive of the pressure group TaxPayers Alliance, slammed the statistics.

"It's ridiculous that 23 people went to prison over what is essentially a tax on owning a television.

The licence fee model means that there is no option for those who don't want to watch the BBC. It is a hangover from a past media age," he said.

"Taxpayers' shouldn't be forced to support the Beeb. Politicians should put a stop to this annual poll tax."
Kyrgyzstan has extradited Uzbek journalist Bobomurod Abdullaev to neighboring Uzbekistan, despite concern from the United States and rights groups that he could be tortured and persecuted.



Kyrgyzstan's national security committee said in a statement on August 22 that Abdullaev was extradited to Uzbekistan "in accordance with international law."



It said that the Uzbek government provided Kyrgyzstan with assurances that Abdullaev would not be ill-treated or tortured.



Upon arrival in Uzbekistan's capital, Tashkent, Abdullaev was released after visiting the Security Committee, his lawyer told RFE/RL's Uzbek Service.



Sergei Mayorov said his client was released to his sisters house but will be barred from traveling inside or outside Uzbekistan pending a full investigation and further questioning.



Uzbekistan has not specified the exact nature of the charges against the 47-year-old independent journalist.



Media reports in Uzbekistan suggest Abdullaev is being sought in connection with social-media posts critical of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev that were written under the pen name Qora Mergan (Black Shooter).



Abdullaev has denied that he has any connection to the writings.



Abdullaev's treatment has previously been the focus of rights groups after he and three other men were arrested in 2017 in Tashkent. They were charged with calling for a change to Uzbekistan's constitutional order by force.



Those charges stemmed from a series of articles under the byline Usman Haqnazarov, which was apparently used by more than one person.



Abdullaev also denied guilt then, saying he was doing his job as a journalist.



In May 2018, Abdullaev was convicted on charges of producing "anti-government propaganda." But he was cleared of the more serious charge of conspiracy against the state -- and was then released.



Kyrgyz authorities detained Abdullaev in Bishkek on August 9 and held him in a detention center pending a decision on Uzbekistan's extradition request.



Abdullaev studied for four months at Bishkek's American University of Central Asia and has been stuck in Kyrgyzstan due to coronavirus travel restrictions. Prior to that, the journalist had lived in Germany for several months at the invitation of the media rights group Reporters Without Borders.



Seven foreign-based human rights groups, including Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, had appealed to the Kyrgyz authorities to release Abdullayev out of concern he could face ill-treatment and persecution in Uzbekistan.



The U.S. State Department also called on Kyrgyzstan to release the journalist and let him depart to a country of his choice.
The Centre on Sunday announced standard operating procedures for resuming shooting of films and TV programmes, and these include measures such as social distancing and mandatory use of face cover or masks for cast and crew, except for actors in front of camera.

The guiding principles and SOPs on preventive measures for media production to contain the spread of COVID-19 were announced by Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar.



He asserted that these measures will facilitate resumption of shooting and provide employment to scores of people impacted due to the film industry being hit in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.



These SOPs have been finalised after consulting the health and home ministries, Javadekar said.

Shooting of films and TV serials can be started using these SOPs issued in the wake of the pandemic, the minister said.



Sharing details of the SOPs, Javadekar said barring those who are in front of cameras all others will have to wear masks.



"We are laying down SOPs as per international experience, and with the consultation of the health ministry and the home ministry, we have issued these SOPs," he said.



"This is an important aspect of the economy and it employs millions of people, therefore, we have issued this to facilitate now the production activity to resume. I am sure everyone will welcome this and all states will implement this," Javadekar said.

The I&B document also emphasised on the health and family welfare ministry's guiding principles which state that non-essential activities will not be allowed in COVID-19 containment zones.



The guiding principles also said that employees who are at higher risk, such as older employees, pregnant women, employees who have underlying medical conditions, should take extra precautions.



They should preferably not be exposed to any front-line work requiring direct contact with the public, according to the health ministry's guiding principles.



The guiding principles recommend the practice of frequent hand washing with soap for at least 40-60 seconds and making available provisions for hand sanitisation at entry points and in work areas.



They strictly prohibit spitting and state that respiratory etiquettes should be strictly followed.



"Installation and use of Arogya Setu App shall be advised to all," the guiding principles state.

The I&B ministry SOPs state that physical distancing of at least six feet to be followed as far as feasible at all locations at all times, while sitting, standing in queues, among others. These include places such as shoot locations, sound recording studios and editing rooms.



Aspects such as scenes, sequences, set-ups, camera locations, positions of various crew members, seating arrangements, food and catering arrangements, staggered meal timings should be planned while giving due consideration to physical distancing norms, according to the I&B ministry document.



Measures should be taken by the production team to involve a minimum number of cast and crew members during the shoot, the SOPs said.



Visitors and audience should not be allowed on sets and for outdoor shooting, necessary coordination with local authorities should be ensured to minimise and manage the spectators, they said.



Resting or stay-over facilities should be planned while adhering to physical distancing guidelines, according to the document.



Staggered call and pack-up timings for different production units should be ensured by studios having multiple sets, the SOPs added.



"There shall be designated entry and exit points for all shoot locations and other workplaces," the document said.



Common locations such as sets, cafeteria, make-up rooms, edit rooms, vanity vans, washrooms should be sanitised regularly, it said.



Sanitisation, to the extent possible, before and after the shoot should be done, the SOPs said.



They also stressed that measures for the safety of sanitisation staff such as adequate provisions for rational use of gloves, boots, masks, PPE, should be undertaken.



The document also states that as far as possible, the practice of work from home should be followed.



It says that sharing of costumes, hair wigs, makeup items, equipment should be kept at a minimum.



Make-up artists and hair stylists will use relevant PPE and artistes should be encouraged to do their hair styling and make-up remotely with the help of professionals, as per the guidelines.



Persons handling or working with common/shared equipment shall wear disposable gloves and efforts should be made to encourage wearing of gloves among other members of the cast and crew as well, they said.



Shooting for films and TV serials was suspended following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
The aircraft's flight crew  two pilots and an instructor also travelling in the cockpit  tried to keep control of the plane until the last moment, Zanganeh said.

Analysis from the black boxes of a downed Ukrainian passenger plane shows it was hit by two missiles 25 seconds apart and that passengers were still alive for some time after the impact of the first blast, Iran said on Sunday.

The announcement by the head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization marks the first official report on the contents of the cockpit voice and data recordings, which were sent to France for reading in July, Reuters reported.

Read alsoIran ready to pay compensation in Ukrainian plane case  mediaTehran has said it accidentally shot down the Ukraine airliner in January at a time of extreme tensions with the United States. All 176 people aboard the plane were killed.

The second missile hit the aircraft 25 seconds after the first, but only 19 seconds of that gap was captured on the recordings because of damage from the first missile, Touraj Dehghani-Zanganeh was cited as saying by state television.

"Nineteen seconds after the first missile hit the plane, the voices of pilots inside the cockpit indicated that the passengers were alive ... 25 seconds later the second missile hit the plane," he was reported as saying.

"Therefore, no analysis of the performance and effects of the second missile was obtained from the aircraft's black box."

The aircraft's flight crew  two pilots and an instructor also travelling in the cockpit  tried to keep control of the plane until the last moment, Zanganeh said.

Read alsoUIA plane crash: Ukraine's FM announces results of talks with Iran on payment of compensationIran's Revolutionary Guards shot down the Ukraine International Airlines flight with a ground-to-air missile on Jan. 8, just after the plane took off from Tehran, in what Tehran later acknowledged as a "disastrous mistake" by forces on high alert during a confrontation with the United States.

Iran has been in talks with Ukraine, Canada and other nations that had citizens aboard the downed plane, and who have demanded a thorough investigation into the incident.

Iranian and Ukrainian officials have also held talks on the compensation to families of the victims. Another round of talks is set for October.

Iran's investigation is being carried out under United Nations aviation rules calling for probes aimed solely at preventing future accidents, separately from any judicial process. But the probe has been swept up in regional and domestic tensions.

"The data analysis from the black boxes should not be politicised," Zanganeh said.

Over 20 people have been sentenced to jail terms up to 20 years in Iran for participating in peaceful protests against the downing of the plane.

Some Iranians took to Twitter on Sunday to show their anger, with at least one user tweeting "They were alive for 19 seconds ... a tragedy."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 13:53:32|Editor: huaxia

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Photo taken on Aug. 21, 2020 shows a logo of the video-sharing social networking company TikTok's Los Angeles Office in Culver City, Los Angeles County, the United States. TikTok confirmed Saturday that it will file a lawsuit against the Trump administration over an executive order banning any U.S. transactions with its parent company ByteDance. (Xinhua)

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- The video-sharing social networking company TikTok confirmed Saturday that it will file a lawsuit against the Trump administration over an executive order banning any U.S. transactions with its parent company ByteDance.

ByteDance announced later that the lawsuit will be delivered next Monday.

Los Angeles-based TikTok said it started this move which has been rumored for weeks since it has no other choice.

"To ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and users are treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the Executive Order through the judicial system," a statement acquired by Xinhua read.

The U.S. authorities repeatedly accused TikTok, the popular app run by the company, of misusing data from U.S. users since last year, but the company maintains that its American data is housed in the country.

"Even though we strongly disagree with the Administration's concerns, for nearly a year we have sought to engage in good faith to provide a constructive solution," TikTok spokesman Josh Gartner said in the statement, arguing the executive order deprived it of due process.

"What we encountered instead was a lack of due process as the Administration paid no attention to facts and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses," the statement said.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Aug. 6 blocking all transactions with ByteDance in an effort to "address the national emergency." However, the New York Times reported on Aug. 7 that even the Central Intelligence Agency assessed that there is no evidence showing China had intercepted TikTok's data or used the app to intrude into users' mobile phones.

Responding to the order, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian noted that the so-called "freedom" and "security" are merely excuses for the "digital gunboat policy" pursued by some U.S. politicians.

The order was to take effect within 45 days. On Aug. 14, the president signed another executive order, this time giving ByteDance 90 days to sell or spin off TikTok in the United States.

Besides the company's lawsuit next Monday, its U.S. employees are also planning to take the Trump administration to court over the executive order. Enditem
A trail of evidence and interviews with his relatives suggest he became radicalised while travelling through Europe with an inheritance from his father when he was 20, and by connecting with extremists he met on the internet. Brenton Tarrant in court. Credit:Stuff/NZ In a manifesto that Tarrant distributed online before the attacks, he wrote about his hatred for Muslims and non-European immigrants, expressing a belief in the racist "great replacement theory", which centres on the notion that falling birth rates among white people will lead them to be replaced by non-white people. The attack took place during Friday prayers. Tarrant killed 42 people at Al Noor mosque (two others later died in the hospital) and seven more at the Linwood mosque a few kilometres away. The youngest person killed was three years old. Tarrant used five weapons he had bought legally. It was the worst mass shooting in New Zealand's history and led to an overhaul of national gun laws, with a ban on military-style semi-automatic weapons and a gun buyback that has collected 56,250 prohibited firearms.

What makes the sentencing so complicated? Tarrant has hoped to gain notoriety through his crimes, which he livestreamed on Facebook, bringing the violence directly to large numbers of people. He recently fired his lawyers and decided to represent himself, making the sentencing a potential venue for the promotion of his abhorrent views, which have inspired other attacks. Media outlets from all over the world plan to cover the sentencing. Without counsel, Tarrant may have more opportunity to speak and try to confront the families of his victims. At least 66 people plan to deliver victim statements, either read aloud or submitted in writing.

"The unfortunate bottom line is no one really knows how it's going to go," said Alexander Gillespie, a law professor at the University of Waikato. "This is his last public performance, so for someone who has committed such an act, you can guarantee he will try to do something  and you just have to reduce that risk." What is the court doing to keep Tarrant from exploiting the situation? The judge in charge of the case, Justice Cameron Mander, has put in place a series of restrictions on media coverage that aim to keep provocative moments that might incite hatred from being shared immediately, if at all. In a memo sent to journalists last week, Mander warned that he had the right to set limits on what they reported. "The court may determine what information can be published about a hearing and when it can be published," he wrote.

Other rules are already in place. Any republication of the manifesto and the video of the attacks "is prohibited and constitutes an offence", according to Mander's statement. But doesn't Tarrant have a right to address the court? Defendants in New Zealand are typically granted the right to provide information that could mitigate their sentence. But the judge is expected to be strict about keeping in check what can be said. The reason a defendant committed a crime is a factor that often helps determine punishment. But Tarrant's motivation is not in dispute, because he pleaded guilty to terrorism, said Kris Gledhill, a law professor at Auckland University of Technology, who recently outlined what to expect from the sentencing. "That should allow the judge to control the hearing firmly." So-called standby counsel may also help. The judge has appointed a lawyer to act in this capacity to "advise the offender about the law and the court process and to provide the offender with assistance if sought".

What is the maximum or most likely sentence? Life in prison is the country's most severe criminal punishment, and its Sentencing Act requires a minimum period of imprisonment before the possibility of parole: 10 years for murder and, in very serious cases, at least 17 years. There are no concurrent life sentences. But the Sentencing Act also states that the court can require that a life sentence for murder be served without the possibility of release. Such a sentence has never been imposed in New Zealand. Many New Zealanders believe that Tarrant will be the first to receive one. How do victims of the shooting feel about the process?

Many victims and their families have been struggling with a flood of emotions in the run-up to the sentencing. Wasseim Alsati, 36, a barber who was shot along with his daughter Alen, six, at Al Noor mosque, had to travel back to New Zealand from overseas, making use of an exception to the country's border lockdown specifically for the sentencing. Loading He said he had made the trip from Turkey, where he was seeking treatment for Alen, because "this was the only chance I would have to stand before him and say 'Look what you have done'". His daughter, he said, still wakes up in the middle of the night screaming and cannot walk more than a few metres without falling down because of the lasting effect of the shooting.
No cause for panic, new media rules will benefit all: Javadekar

Will raise our climate ambitions but not under pressure: Javadekar

Now Ferraris and Lamborghinis can test in India: India gets Asias longest high speed track

SOPs issued for resumption of shooting of films, TV serials

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

New Delhi, Aug 23: Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar on Sunday announced the release of standard operating procedures (SOPs) for resuming shooting of films and TV programmes.

These SOPs have been finalised after consulting the health and home ministries, he said.

COVID-19: India crosses crucial milestone of 10 lakh tests a day

Shooting of films and TV serials can be started using these SOPs issued in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the minister said.

Sharing details of the SOPs, Javadekar said barring those who are in front of cameras all others will have to wear masks. He hoped that the release of the SOPs will not only lead to resumption of shooting of films and TV serials, but also generate employment.

Shooting for films and TV serials was suspended following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Sunday, August 23, 2020, 12:48 [IST]
Here are todays top news, analysis and opinion. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times.

Delhi to set up camps, help construction workers register for welfare funds

Delhis labour minister Gopal Rai on Sunday said that the government would set up camps in all 70 assembly segments in the national capital to help construction workers get registered for a state-run welfare fund. The facility would be available for 20 days, starting on Monday, he said. Read more.

Serum Institute clarifies after reports claim free Covid-19 vaccine shots in 73 days

Serum Institute of India (SSI), which has entered a manufacturing partnership with AstraZeneca to produce Oxford Universitys Covid-19 vaccine candidate, has issued a clarification, denying reports that the shot may be launched in 73 days as completely false and conjectural. Read more.

Get together and find a new chief: Sonia Gandhi in response to letter on leadership

Congress president Sonia Gandhi has responded to a letter written by a group of party leaders, who sought a complete overhaul of the organisation, saying that all of them should get together and find a new chief as she does not want to carry out the responsibilities any further, people familiar with the development said. Read more.

Pune Police shares a clip from The Office to convey this important message

Are you a fan of the sitcom The Office? If so, then this post by the Pune Police, which relays an important message about cyber safety, may evoke a special kind of appreciation in your comedy-loving soul. But if the answer to the previous inquiry is no, worry not, this advisory share, nonetheless, has a vital message which is beneficial for all. Read more.

Ganesh Chaturthi 2020: Restaurateur shares video of chocolate Ganesh idols, wows people

Ganesh Chaturthi is being celebrated with gusto across the nation. The Internet is filled with all sorts of images and videos of Ganesh idols created using eco-friendly materials. From idols embedded with seeds to those designed using dry fruits, social media platforms are flooded with such content. Read more.

Asus ROG Phone 3 review: Compromise? Whats that?

In 2018 when Asus introduced its first ROG gaming smartphone, it did take everyone by surprise. The beastly handset (at its time) carried a really distinctive look, packed the best of specs that were out there and a bit more in terms of dual USB ports, air triggers and the massive battery. Read more.

Dolly Partons mural, celebrating her position on Black Lives Matter, attracts tourists in Nashville

George Floyds murder in police custody earlier this year had shaken America into a Black Lives Matter movement that not only trickled to other parts of the world, in the heart of an ongoing pandemic, but has also stabbed the conscience of the white including country singer Dolly Parton. Read more.
Jerri-Lynn here. I share this Common Dreams post on inmates who are currently still confined to prisons that lie directly in the path of California wildfires for two reasons. First, theres been far too little attention devoted to the plight of inmates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

And second, I thought the commentariat might appreciate a chance to discuss the wildfires raging across California. Theyre very much at the top of my mind, especially after telephone calls to two close friends from my MIT days whove settled and made their lives in California. Theye each located in places where they are at least at present safe, but they both attested to the horrible air quality. I also checked in via messages with another close friend who although he no longer lives there, has family who does, and hails from Atascadero.

I should point out one reason the wildfires are raging out of control is that in the past California has relied heavily on prison labor to fight its fires. Now, some prisoners have been furloughed, whereas others are either sick or isolated due to COVID-19 outbreaks at their facilities, so they cannot fight the current fires.

Yes were talking inmates. Whove been sentenced according to our present legal procedures to serve time to pay their debt to society. But most of them were not sentenced to death. And even those who were would not have been executed using a lethal pathogen, nor smothered nor burned to death. For another news report, please look at this Mercury News link: No one deserves conditions like this: Fires present health risks, prompt pleas to evacuate nearby state prisons. And for some of Naked Capitalisms previous coverage, see here and here.

By Lisa Newcomb, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams

As wildfires rage in California, advocates are pushing for Gov. Gavin Newsom to evacuate prisons in the line of the fires.

Its disaster on top of disaster on top of disaster, Kirsten Roehler, whose 78-year-old father, Fred Roehler, is imprisoned in Lancaster, California, toldThe Guardian.

The 2020 wildfire season is especially difficult for multiple reasons, including record high temperatures and extreme weather and, of course, Covid-19.

Flames burned through more than 770,000 acres in the Golden State within just one week, the Washington Post reported Friday, leaving five people dead and air quality continually decreasing. Some of the states prisons are located in areas under evacuation orders, including the California Medical Facility (CMF) and Solano State Prison, which are outside of Vacaville, California.

They are breathing in fire and smoke, and they have nowhere to run, Sophia Murillo, 39, whose brother is incarcerated at CMF in Vacaville told The Guardian. Everyone has evacuated but they were left there in prison. Are they going to wait until the last minute to get them out?

Civil rights advocates have called on the governor to release offenders since the Covid-19 outbreak began ravaging prison populations and staff throughout the United States. Newsom and other governors have released thousands of prisoners in light of the pandemic, but with the fires raging closer and closer to physical prison structures, the calls for more action are growing.

In Vacaville, instead of releasing the nonviolent inmates, officials moved 80 prisoners to sleep in outdoor tents instead of indoor cells in a move meant to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 in its facility, The Guardian reported. But the wildfires have damaged air quality, prompting authorities to move the inmates back inside.

Im furious at the incompetence and severe inhumanity of this, Kate Chatfield, policy director with the Justice Collaborative, a group that fights mass incarceration, told The Guardian. Covid is allowed to rage through the prison system and kill people, and then they have tent hospitals set up  and now with wildfires, they take down the tents and put these people back in the Covid-infected building?

As wildfires burn and neighborhoods evacuate, California prison officials have declined to evacuate Solano State Prison in Vacaville. Instead, they will reportedly give incarcerated people N95 masks to protect against poor air quality. https://t.co/CBKUvS2ddk  The Appeal (@theappeal) August 20, 2020

In lieu of evacuating the Solano State Prison, authorities Thursday issued N95 masks to inmates and staff. Aaron Francis, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), told the Guardian Thursday that officials were monitoring the Vacaville fires but that the two prisons were not in immediate danger and had no current orders to evacuate.

It shouldnt come down to [Covid-19], uncontrollable fires, earthquakes, or other major crises for us to start releasing people, Adbab Khan, founder of Re:Store Justice, a prisoner advocacy organization tweeted Friday. Mass incarceration is the disaster.
Yuma News

Yuma, Arizona -This morning at approximately 10:48 a.m., the Yuma Police Department responded to the 2100 block of S. 4th Avenue for a report of shots fired.

Upon arrival, officers located one male subject with multiple gunshot wounds. The victim was pronounced deceased on scene. A second male subject was located with a single gunshot wound. That victim was transported to Yuma Regional Medical Center with serious injuries.

There is no suspect information at this time.

This case is still under investigation.

The Yuma Police Department encourages anyone with any information about this case to please contact the Yuma Police Department at (928) 373-4700 or 78-Crime at (928) 782-7463 to remain anonymous.
A sheep farmer who planted jars of baby food laced with razor sharp shards of metal on supermarket shelves is a former Conservative councillor, it has emerged.

Nigel Wright was found guilty of trying to extort 1.5 million from Tesco on Thursday in a campaign which led to the UK's biggest ever blackmail probe.

Wright was the councillor for Freshney ward of North East Lincolnshire Council after winning the seat for the Conservatives in 2003.

He switched allegiances to UKIP before standing for election as an MP in Brigg and Goole in 2010, polling 1,749 votes.

This is the chilling moment a sheep farmer plants jars of baby food laced with razor sharp shards of metal on supermarket shelves

Wright had previously served as the youngest-ever chairman of the Great Grimsby Conservative Association.

Footage released by Hertfordshire Constabulary shows the 45-year-old entering a store in Lockerbie, Scotland before approaching the baby food aisle.

After bending down to look at the jars, Wright removes something from his jacket pocket and puts it into his trolley.

He then appears to fiddle around with items in the trolley before placing multiple jars back on the shelf and leaving the store.

Nigel Wright was today found guilty of blackmailing Tesco for 1.5 million in a campaign which resulted in two mothers finding the dangerous fragments when feeding their children

Two mothers later found the dangerous metal fragments when feeding their children.

Married father-of-two Wright, who now faces up to 14 years in jail, also threatened to inject tins of fruit with cyanide and salmonella unless the supermarket giant handed over the cash in Bitcoin.

The threats sparked the largest blackmail operation seen in Britain, with more than 100 officers deployed across the country on the case.

At one stage there were in excess of 30 officers watching CCTV footage on day and night shifts.

Wright signed off his emails and letters 'Guy Brush & the Dairy Pirates + Tinkerbell the naughty fairy,' and claimed he represented dairy farmers who had been underpaid by Tesco.

He triggered two nationwide recalls on both Cow & Gate and Heinz baby food as a result of the threats, prompting the supermarket to clear 140,000 products from the shelves.

A detective posed as a Tesco employee named Sam Scott and handed over 100,000 in the crypto-currency to trap the blackmailer.

He was eventually arrested on February 25 of this year following an investigation led by the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit with the help of the National Crime Agency.

Also involved were the Food Standards Agency, Food Standards Scotland, Public Health England, Public Health Scotland and Police Scotland.

A jar of Heinz By Nature baby food that Mr Wright laced with fragments of a craft knife

CCTV footage showed Wright in a Tesco store in Lockerbie, where he planted a contaminated jar

Assistant Chief Constable Bill Jephson, who led the investigation on behalf of Hertfordshire Constabulary, described it as the 'most serious and most challenging' product contamination case ever dealt with in the UK.

Farmer's campaign to extort 1.5 million in Bitcoin from Tesco by contaminating baby food is largest blackmail probe ever conducted in UK Sheep farmer Nigel Wright's complicated blackmail plot against Tesco saw him plant potentially lethal jars of metal-laced baby food in two of the supermarket's stores in Lockerbie and Rochdale. His campaign to extort 1.5 million in cryptocurrency from the chain lasted almost two years and led to Operation Hancock - the largest blackmail investigation ever conducted in the UK. At various points there were more than 100 officers deployed across the country on the case, and at one stage there were in excess of 30 officers watching CCTV footage on day and night shifts. Wright was eventually arrested on February 25 of this year following an investigation led by the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit with the help of the National Crime Agency. Also involved were the Food Standards Agency, Food Standards Scotland, Public Health England, Public Health Scotland and Police Scotland. Assistant Chief Constable Bill Jephson, who led the investigation on behalf of Hertfordshire Constabulary, described it as the 'most serious and most challenging' product contamination case ever dealt with in the UK. Mr Jephson said there was 'very significant' concern over whether there were more contaminated jars of baby food, adding that he is confident everything that needed to be removed from the shelves was removed. Deputy Senior Investigating Officer Lucy Thomson said: 'He's clearly a man with some significant knowledge and understanding of how the internet works, and unfortunately put the understanding and knowledge to such negative purposes, which is a great shame. 'But in terms of his motivation, he's the only person who will ever truly know why he did what he did and put so many people at risk, including his family, and their livelihood.' She said his knowledge and understanding of how to manipulate cryptocurrency was 'effective'. Ms Thomson said Wright's defence that he was being threatened by travellers changed throughout and he did not maintain any consistency with that defence. 'We haven't uncovered any evidence that supports that defence,' she said, adding that inquiries were 'extensive'. Ms Thomson said cases like this are 'incredibly scarce', adding: 'I've never investigated a crime like this or been involved in an investigation of this breadth and severity.' She described what Wright did as 'absolutely disgraceful', adding: 'I think his crime was absolutely horrific and of the most cynical nature, putting babies at risk, and mothers, feeding their children. 'I don't think it gets much worse.' Mr Jephson said: 'He should be absolutely ashamed of what he has done and I hope he gets the justice that he deserves.' Advertisement

Wright was caught on CCTV buying wine and flowers for his wife after placing a contaminated jar on the shelves of a Lockerbie branch on November 29 last year.

He also placed two jars of contaminated food on the shelves of a Rochdale shop.

Scottish mother Morven Smith 'felt sick' when she spotted the shards in a jar of Heinz sweet and sour chicken her ten-month-old son was eating.

Mrs Smith, from Lockerbie, had already fed a few spoonfuls to her baby when she spotted a shard of metal in the bowl in December 2019.

She said: 'I took the bowl out of the microwave - I gave my son a couple of spoonfuls and noticed something shiny - I pulled it out with my fingers at that point.

'It was horrendous. I felt sick I was so shocked.'

Her husband found a second piece of metal at the bottom of the jar.

The incident led to a nationwide recall of 42,000 tins of the product.

A second mother, Harpreet Kaur Singh found 'shredded chippings of metal' in jars of Heinz Sunday Chicken Dinner and Cheese and Tomato Pasta Stars.

She wept as she told the court how she had been moments away from feeding them to her nine-month-old daughter.

'I put it into a bowl and when I went to microwave it there was a metal chipping in there and at first I didn't think anything of it. I binned it,' the mother said.

'But then [on a separate occasion] I opened a second jar, Heinz Cheese and Tomato Pasta Stars.

'Again I saw the metal chippings inside it.'

Prosecutor Julian Christopher, QC, said the blackmailer took 'delight' in his extravagant plan to outsmart the supermarket giant.

He believed he could 'get rich' without leaving any trace of his identity by using the bitcoin cryptocurrency and downloading the browser Tor allowing for anonymous communication.

But his emails and letters were forwarded onto police and he was soon unwittingly interacting with an undercover officer.

A draft of an email to Tesco was found on one of Wright's devices after his property was searched.

The threat read: 'Imagine a baby's mouth cut open and blood pouring out, or the inside of their bellies cut and bleeding. You pay, you save them.'

Reading excerpts of emails sent by Wright, the prosecutor said: 'Dear Sam, we have been polite and courteous as we recognise you're just an employee who goes home at the end of the day. We say you pay us then we will email you.

'It appears we both failed to do what we said we would. If you set up a bank account you can purchase bitcoin and transfer them into our account.

'As a goodwill gesture we will tell you you have eight jars of Cow & Gate baby food left on your supermarket shelves on Tuesday 21 and Wednesday 22 [January] there were only six jars left so only six potential dead babies.'

Wright admitted sending the emails and letters to Tesco demanding the money but told jurors he was forced to by a gang of gypsies.

He claimed the travellers had come to his farm and threatened to kill his children and rape his wife unless he paid them 500,000.

Asked why he ordered the company to pay him triple that amount, Wright said: 'I'd seen somewhere that ransoms are never paid in full, only half are paid.'

He said that he had been handed the contaminated jars by one of his alleged handlers, who followed him to the Lockerbie store in a BMW to make sure he carried out their orders.

But he admitted his threats to the company had been inspired by his own research, watching documentaries and searching for ideas on Google.

The farmer told jurors he had also experimented with tampering with jars himself, while maintaining he had only done so because he was 'curious' to see if his threats had been 'idle.'

Pictured: Nigel Wright's workshop. Assistant Chief Constable Bill Jephson, who led the investigation on behalf of Hertfordshire Constabulary, described it as the 'most serious and most challenging' product contamination case ever dealt with in the UK'

The Tesco store in Lockerbie where the contaminated jar was discovered and a national product recall was issued

Asked why he had failed to tell police about the travellers, Wright claimed: 'I've been to police in the past and they've failed me.'

He complained that the stress of the blackmail campaign had landed him in marriage counselling with his primary schoolteacher spouse.

Tearfully, Wright told jurors: 'My wife would have been really scared.

'If I'd told her she would have probably gone to the police and I would have got into trouble.

'I was on edge this whole time.

'I should never have got involved and I should have gone to the police.'

But prosecutor Julian Christopher QC told him: 'The truth is you were not in fear at all.

'You were carrying on your life normally while hoping to make yourself rich by threatening Tesco in this way while endangering the life of others in the process.'

The Tesco store in Rochdale where Wright planted more contaminated baby food

A jury deliberated for four hours and 33 minutes to find Wright guilty of two counts of contaminating goods and three counts of blackmail for demanding cryptocurrency from Tesco in exchange for revealing where the contaminated food had been placed.

He was also convicted of a further charge of blackmail for allegedly demanding 150,000 worth of bitcoin from a driver with whom he had had a road rage altercation.

Following the incident on the A46, the driver withdrew his complaint after receiving a 'nasty anonymous letter'.

Wright stood in silence as the guilty verdicts were announced.

Wright, of Pine Meadows, Caistor Road, Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, had denied two counts of contaminating goods and four counts of blackmail.

The maximum term for blackmail is 14 years while the maximum for contaminating goods is 10 years.

Mr Justice Warby listed the case for sentence on September 28 and asked for a psychiatric report on Wright to be prepared ahead of the hearing.

He warned the defendant he faced a 'lengthy custodial sentence'.

Nigel Wright was today found guilty of blackmailing Tesco for 1.5 million in a campaign which resulted in two mothers finding the dangerous fragments when feeding their children

The current Conservative leader of North East Lincolnshire Council, Cllr Philip Jackson told GrimsbyLive: 'Clearly what he has done is wrong and I would not defend anything he has done, not for a moment.'

Wright was 28 when he was elected to the council in May 2003.

He campaigned for improved flood defences in 2007 after his farm in Healing, Lincolnshire, suffered crop damage worth thousands of pounds.

Wright lost his Freshney seat in May 2006 before unsuccessfully standing for the Conservatives in Heneage in May 2007.
A pair of gold-plated spectacles believed to have been worn by Mahatma Gandhi and presented as a gift in the 1900s to a family from England have broken all records for a United Kingdom auction house after a United States-based collector acquired them with a whopping bid of 260,000 (Rs 2.55 crore).

The glasses, which were dropped through the letterbox of East Bristol Auctions in Hanham, south-west England, four weeks ago were estimated to fetch between 10,000 (Rs 9.8 lakh) and 15,000 (Rs 1.02 crore) but the online bids for the lot kept multiplying to finally go under the hammer of the six-figure sum.

The auction house said that the lot had attracted interest from all over the world, including bids from India, Qatar, American, Russia, Canada.

"An incredible result for an incredible item! Thanks to all those who bid," said auctioneer Andy Stowe of East Bristol Auctions, as he closed the bid for the online auction on Friday.

Stowe said it was a new record for East Bristol Auctions and described it as "the star lot of the century".

"These glasses have been lying in a drawer for the best part of 50 years. The vendor literally told me to throw them away if they were 'no good'. Now he gets a life-changing sum of money," he said.

"It's the 'good news' story that we all want -- as an elderly gentleman, our vendor has probably had a rough time in recent months and to be able to change his life is just incredible. The price is outstanding, but it's not about the money," he added.

"It's completely spellbinding, and a wonderful thing to be a part of," said Stowe.

The new owner of the spectacles is an unnamed collector based in the US and an elderly gentleman from Mangotsfield, South Gloucestershire in south-west England, who previously owned them said he will be splitting the 260,000 with his daughter.

The glasses are said to have been in the family of the unnamed man, who was told by his father that they were a gift to his uncle when he was working for British Petroleum in South Africa between 1910 and 1930.

"The story that appears with the lot is exactly what the vendor told us, and exactly what was told to him by his father some 50 years ago," says Stowe in reference to the provenance of the glasses, which are likely to be one of Gandhi's earliest pairs during his time in South Africa.

"It's been a complete honour to handle these spectacles and find them a new home. These glasses represent not only an auction record for us, but a find of international historical importance. Gandhi's glasses have surpassed all expectations, and previous house records. It's been a great day," added Stowe.

The glasses had been left in a plain white envelope in a letterbox at East Bristol Auctions on a Friday night and were not collected until the following Monday morning.

"They could quite easily have been stolen or fallen out or just ended up in the bin," Stowe said.

He said the owner had no idea of their value and "nearly had a heart attack" when he was told they might be worth 15,000.

The lot, titled 'Pair of Mahatma Gandhi's Personal Spectacles', was part of the auctioneers' Military, History and Classic Cars online sale.

"A pair of early 20th century c1920 gold plated circular rimmed spectacles by repute owned and worn by Mahatma Gandhi," read the auction lot details.

"The spectacles of usual form, with sprung gold plated arms and prescription lenses. Jointed by a gold plated nose bar. The spectacles formed an important and somewhat iconic part of Gandhi's overall appearance," it said.

"It was known that he would often give away his old or unwanted pairs to those in need or those who had helped him. A rare and important pair of spectacles," it said.

"The uncle worked for British Petroleum at the time and was stationed in South Africa, and it can be presumed that these were gifted by way of thanks from Gandhi for some good deed. A note from the vendor is included," it added.

Gandhi became synonymous with the iconic round-rimmed Windsor-style glasses, common during the period when he was studying law in England in the late 1800s and 1900s.

While initially used infrequently, the glasses became a regular feature during the national movement and Gandhi's civil disobedience protests in India.

He is known to have handed over his personal items as gifts to admirers and a number of similar items have emerged on the auction circuit over the years.
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Aircraft MRO software suit include software components for maintenance scheduling, maintenance tracking, budget forecasting, log book tracking, flight time tracking, manuals, work order management, service bulletins management, and electronic task card management. It also includes features aiding compliance with regulatory agencies like ICAO and FAA.

One of the key objectives of MRO software is to reduce downtime and to streamline maintenance processes. Most of the MRO software providers provide services like consultation, data migration services, training, and customization based on the requirements. All these services are extremely helpful for low cost carriers. Since low cost carriers run on a constrained budget it is not viable to employ a huge work force for maintenance activities.

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Global aircraft MRO software market is witnessing several modifications based on the changes in global dynamics. Most of the changes are associated with the growing focus on big data and analytics in the aviation industry. Aviation industry generates a huge amount of data which if tapped correctly could help MRO companies to improve their operational efficiency.

Focus in improving operational efficiency in the MRO industry is increasing the demand for MRO software which could provide customized solutions catering to the demands of the airlines. There is heavy competition among MRO vendors and many new players are coming up in the market seeing the potential of the market during the forecast period.

Global aircraft MRO market ecosystems include three major levels  OEMs, MROs, and Suppliers. OEMs are the ones who manufacture aircrafts and aircraft components. Some of the major OEMs include Boeing, Rolls-Royce, Pratt & Whitney, GE, and Airbus. MROs take care of the aircrafts once it comes out of the manufacturing unit and gets operational. Maintenance activities usually include line maintenance, base maintenance, and component maintenance. Line maintenance is done to provide minor but necessary maintenance tasks in between flight. Base maintenance is a much more complicated and time-consuming task which includes heavy checking including structural checking. This is done by large MRO centers with hangars.

Based on end-user, aircraft MRO software market is segmented into Third party and Independent MRO, In-house airline MRO, and OEM-affiliated MRO. The revenue generated from In-House airline MRO was higher in 2018 and is mainly driven due to increasing focus of airlines in revamping their IT infrastructure for better analysis on MRO activities.

Based on deployment, the market is segmented into on-premise and cloud-based. On-premise, generated major revenue since many MRO centers still uses legacy solutions due to concerns regarding security.

Based on the geography, the market is split into North America, Europe, APAC, and ROW. ROW includes Middle East, South America, and Africa. APAC is one of the fastest growing aviation MRO markets in the world in terms of shop visit volume and revenues and the growth is mainly driven by China. North American MRO software market is a mature market with most of the MRO activities expected to be focused in retrofitting, especially in the US. Retrofitting is mainly due to growing need to incorporate premium economy.

Global aircraft MRO software market is predominantly occupied by small focused players rather than major aviation companies and software vendors. While big software and IT companies have a presence in the MRO software market, they are not always the chosen one by MRO centers. The global vendors are expected to grow further by entering into alliances and strategic partnerships with other players in the market during the forecast period. Some of the major vendors in the market are Ramco Systems, Rusada, Traxxall Technologies, Swiss Aviation Software, AV-BASE Systems, Bytzsoft, ENGRAV Group, Flightdocs, and C.A.L.M Systems.

According to Infoholic Research, the global aircraft MRO software system will grow at a CAGR of 5.55% during the forecast period 20192025. The aim of this report is to define, analyze, and forecast the aircraft MRO software market on the basis of segments, which include end-user, deployment, and region. In addition, the aircraft MRO software market report helps venture capitalists in understanding the companies better and make well-informed decisions and is primarily designed to provide the companys executives with strategically substantial competitor information, data analysis, and insights about the market, development, and implementation of an effective marketing plan.

Global aircraft MRO software market is categorized based on three segments  End-user, deployment, and regions as shown below:

End-user include Third party and Independent MRO, In-house airline MRO, and OEM-affiliated MRO

Deployment include cloud-based and on-premise

Regions include North America, Europe, APAC and RoW (RoW includes Middle East, South America and Africa)
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 23)  The House Committee on Foreign Affairs has approved a substitute measure which requires the printing of the Philippine map, including its 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and Sabah, on Philippine passports.

House Bill 6399, which was consolidated into a bill that would amend the Philippine Passport Act of 1996, "aims to emphasize and insist on our victory on the West Philippine Sea over China in their International Arbitral Tribunal in the Hague, Netherlands, and our legal and historical rights over Sabah," said Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez who authored the bill.

He added: The inclusion of the map on our travel document is a strong statement that we are asserting our sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea and our EEZ."

The unnumbered bill, which was approved last Thursday, also pushed for a 32 percent discount on the processing, issuance, and renewal fees of passports. to senior citizens.

The amendment also seeks to criminalize the illegal withholding of passports and impose stiffer penalties on violators. Alien offenders may also be deported and blacklisted after service of sentence.

The measure may now be forwarded to the plenary for further deliberations.

The Philippines recently lodged diplomatic protests against China's aggression in the West Philippine Sea, a move which the latter claimed as "illegal provocation" in contested waters.

China insists on owning almost the entire South China Sea, rejecting a Hague tribunals ruling that invalidated its sweeping claim. The landmark decision recognizes the Philippines sovereign rights in areas within its exclusive economic zone that China claims.

President Rodrigo Duterte, who has nurtured close ties with China, agreed to set aside the ruling to pursue cordial relations with the East Asian giant.
On Tuesday, August 18, during morning rush hour, I walked through and around the Financial District of San Francisco and took photos to document the spookiness of it all. Pedestrians used to rush to work on crowded sidewalks, balling up at red lights, then stream across the intersection, and disappear into the entries of office towers as they went, and cars used to be stuck in traffic, and thick throngs of people would pour out of the Montgomery BART and Muni Metro station.

I started taking photos at Columbus Street where it ends at Montgomery Street, and then turned south into Montgomery Street and walked through the Financial District to the Montgomery Station at Market Street. Then I zigzagged back through the Financial District.

What you will see are streets and sidewalks and entrances into office towers that were eerily deserted during what used to be rush hour, with just a sprinkling of pedestrians, a few cars, the occasional skateboarder, some guys working on construction projects, and curiosities where you might be tempted to think, only in San Francisco.

With hindsight, it was the last beautiful sunny morning before the thick acrid smoke from the wildfires moved into San Francisco.

The data of how work-from-home impacts office patterns in a city like San Francisco are grim. According to Kastle Systems  which provides access systems for 3,600 buildings and 41,000 businesses in 47 states, and therefore has a large sample of how many people are entering offices during the Pandemic  office occupancy in San Francisco was still only at 13.6% of where it had been at the beginning of March, meaning it was still down by 86.4%, just above New York City:

What is staring at us now is the haunting shift brought about by work-from-home.

The Financial District is an area of office buildings. There are also shops, cafes, restaurants, and service establishments, such as bank branches and barbers, that workers go to before, during, or after work. There isnt much else. Other parts of the City are busy, and restaurants that are open (outside seating only) are hard to get into. But this is what office life looks like.

On Columbus Street, looking at the intersection with Montgomery Street, with the Transamerica Pyramid in the background. Im standing in the middle of the street to take this photo. Why? Because I can:



From the middle of Columbus Street  well, because I can  looking south on Montgomery Street. To the left, the sidewalk under the base of the Transamerica Pyramid:



On Montgomery, getting closer to Clay Street.



Desolate entrance to 456 Montgomery. Note the sign on the right wall. Detail in the next photo:



On the sign, note the Retail for Lease. The number of stores and restaurants that will likely never re-open and where landlords will need to find new tenants is astounding:

This is the office tower:

Intersection of Montgomery and California, another main drag, so to speak. The cable car rails have been unused since March, cables turned off. Looking south on Montgomery, across California:

San Francisco without cable cars takes some getting used to. I even miss the noise from the cables and pulleys, which Id always thought of as somewhat unpleasant  they normally run 24-7. But I get it. There are few tourists, and its not worth operating the cable cars for a few stragglers. Looking west on California, and theres just hardly anyone around:

Desolate entrance to 515 Montgomery:

Montgomery and Pine Street. Where is everyone?

But some people are working because, with the kinds of jobs they have, they cant work from home:

Montgomery looking toward the intersection with Bush Street. Finally, a few people walking:

Montgomery and Bush, looking west on Bush Street. A crowd of 1 people balling up at the red light, intently studying her smartphone:

Desolate entrance of 100 Montgomery, with our newfangled, solar-powered, wireless-connected smart meter in front (amount varies based on demand for parking, and you can pay by credit card because that fistful of quarters doesnt get you anywhere anymore):

This is the 100 Montgomery tower. Its a big building, and there should be some people walking in during rush hour, but there are not:

Across the street, 101 Montgomery. Some staff of the building hanging out in front. Otherwise dead.

This is the 101 Montgomery tower, nearly all of it just wasted space:

Looking back (north) on Montgomery, and catching the early sun hitting some of the buildings. Glorious day. Looks like Sunday morning in the Financial District, but it was Tuesday morning during rush hour:

On Montgomery, looking across Sutter Street. Skateboarder waiting at the traffic light. A crowd of one. Catty-corner, another lonesome soul waiting at the light:

From Montgomery, looking east on Sutter:

From Montgomery, looking west on Sutter. Two folks near the intersection, one left, the other right:

Entrance to 44 Montgomery. Practically crowded, with four people visible, three walking by, and a guy in the foreground working-not-from-home, watering the plants. Theres a Starbucks just to the right of the First Republic Bank branch, not visible in the photo. It was open, but I only saw a couple of employees in it:

This is the 44 Montgomery tower. Imagine what its like to be at your desk, alone in a huge office, alone on the entire floor, and for all you know, alone in a huge office building, except for the people taking care of the building:

The flower stand at Montgomery and Post Street. Someone is working there, but there is no huge demand for flowers at the moment. By the way the woman on the left is dressed  bare shoulders and carrying her cardigan this early in the morning  you can tell how unusually warm of a morning this was. In fact, it was a heat wave, and Northern California was burning after a large storm of dry lightning had swept through the area, igniting hundreds of wildfires. The smoke just hadnt arrived in San Francisco yet:

The Montgomery Station, at Market Street and Post. The Muni Metro is shut down, and the turnstiles to it are shut down too. Yellow tape tells you to keep out:

The other side of the Montgomery station, entrance to the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). This is normally a beehive during rush hour. BART ridership on weekdays in July was still down 89%, according to BART data. The last thing people want to do right now, those who dont work from home, is take mass transit:

Heres finally a lonesome soul going through the turnstile. And there was an employee-guy sitting in the info booth to the right, reading manga or something. Its a tough job, but someones gotta do it:

All mass-transit systems in the Bay Area are in a life-and-death struggle  with CalTrain, which goes from San Francisco down to San Jose and further, likely in deepest trouble of all. They just dont have passengers.

Entrance to Post Montgomery Center, at Post, Montgomery, and Market. San Francisco has lots of these weird five-street and six-street intersections due to the diagonal streets someone decided to include into the street layout back when dirt was still young. Not a soul:

This is the Post Montgomery Center. So much wasted space:

Walgreens is open. They all look like this in San Francisco now, after they got looted one night, one after the other, by an organized roving group of people in vehicles, including the six Walgreens within 10 minutes walk from our place.

So now, Im zigzagging back through the Financial District. View from Sutter near Market Street. No one:

Sutter and Sansome. If you look hard and hold your tongue just right, you can see on the left the cart and belongings, including two bicycles, of one or more homeless people, with one guy standing there:

Bush and Sansome. In the foreground, an astounding number of people (two, one left, one right):

The famous Ruru smoothies cart. Open for business. Guy doesnt speak much English, but knew, when I asked him, how to say that business was dead. As we were trying to communicate, an apparently homeless guy walks by, pushing two bicycles  the left with the saddle missing, but with inline skates attached to the bike. You might be tempted to think: Only in San Francisco:

Heres a closeup of the situation:

Looking across Market Street  dead, deader, deadest  into South of Market. In the background, the rounded glass corners of the Salesforce Tower, the tallest building in the City:

The Battery, Bush, and Market triangle. Deserted:

But wait Some guys are not working from home. They must not have gotten the invite to the Zoom meeting. Its a relief to see people on a mission:

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But critics remain alarmed.

In the middle of a pandemic, the Trump administration is using funds meant to support hospitals as a tool to coerce them to use an unproven, untrusted and deeply flawed system that sidelines public health experts, Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Health Committee, said in a statement.

In a statement, TeleTracking said it has three decades of experience providing health care systems with actionable data and unprecedented visibility to make better, faster decisions.

Still, public health experts and hospital executives are puzzled as to why the health agency chose such a difficult time to employ an untested private vendor rather than improve the C.D.C.s National Healthcare Safety Network, a decades-old disease tracking system that was deeply familiar to hospitals and state health departments.

The N.H.S.N., as it is known, had built up trust over decades of working with hospitals and state health departments. Administrators were reluctant to make the switch.

People  especially in public health and clinical health  are very protective of their data, so that trust factor is certainly an issue, said Patina Zarcone, the director of informatics for the Association of Public Health Laboratories. The fear of having their data leaked or misused or used for a purpose that they werent aware of or agreed to  I think thats the biggest rub.

Ms. Oakley said the C.D.C.s system was not designed for use in a disaster response and could not adapt quickly in a crisis. Allies of the C.D.C. say withholding taxpayer dollars from the CARES Act in lieu of cooperation was an inappropriate effort to push hospitals into a system they were reluctant to use.

Its an absolutely enormous lever, said William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University. Its a compulsion to oblige institutions to report to this TeleTracking system because they knew if it werent tied to money, it wouldnt happen.
Imperial Valley News Center

Man Pleads Guilty to Distributing Pesticides

Indianapolis, Indiana - An Indiana man who distributed unregistered pesticides to the tenants and managers of an apartment building he owned has pleaded guilty to three counts of violating the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).

Cai Feng Yang, aka Kevin Yang, 41, of La Porte, Indiana, pleaded guilty Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Judge John E. Martin in the Northern District of Indiana. Sentencing has been scheduled for Oct. 27, 2020.

According to court records, during trips to China in September 2015 and January 2016, Yang purchased multiple boxes of unregistered pesticides labeled cockroach killer bait and cockroach gum bait, as well as several small unlabeled bottles of liquid pesticide containing the active ingredient dichlorvos. Yang transported these pesticides to the United States in his checked luggage with the intent to use them in his La Porte apartment buildings to exterminate cockroaches and bed bugs. None of these pesticides were registered with the EPA as required by FIFRA. For that reason, Yang was obligated to submit a Notice of Arrival (NoA) prior to importing these products into the United States, which he failed to do. He also failed to declare this merchandise to Customs upon his return to the United States.

After returning from China, Yang distributed the vials of granular cockroach killer bait and the syringes of gelatinous cockroach gum bait to tenants renting apartments at 701 Maple St. and 606 Tipton Street. Yang also provided his part-time assistant building managers at 701 Maple Street an unlabeled bottle of pesticide containing dichlorvos to be applied in apartments to kill bed bugs. On several occasions, Yang applied the liquid pesticide in tenants apartments himself.

This case was investigated by the EPA-Criminal Investigation Division with assistance from the Office of Indiana State Chemist.

Trial Counsel R.J. Powers of the Environment and Natural Resources Divisions Environmental Crimes Section, Assistant U.S. Attorney Toi Denise Houston, Northern District of Indiana and Regional Criminal Enforcement Counsel David Mucha are prosecuting the case.
MINSK, Belarus (AP)  A former Soviet republic on the fault line between Russia and Europe is boiling with revolt this summer. Sounds familiar  but Belarus 2020 isnt Ukraine 2014, and thats why its hard to predict what will happen next.

Here is a look at whats different this time, and why it matters:

LEADERLESS RESISTANCE

The uprising in Belarus erupted last week in a democratic vacuum, in a country where challengers to President Alexander Lukashenko are jailed or exiled and where there is no experienced parliamentary opposition.

So those at the forefront of Minsk protest marches have been ordinary Belarusians, instead of established political leaders like those who helped galvanize crowds and funding for Ukraines 2014 protest movement, centered around the Maidan independence square in Kyiv.

In Belarus, the absence of bright leaders undoubtedly weakens the protests ... Leaders bring awareness, independent political analyst Valery Karbalevich said.

So Belarusian protesters formed a new Advisory Council this week to try to offer the street a clear plan and agenda, he said.

However, opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova argues that the mass protests this month in Minsk, which came together in decentralized clusters via messaging app Telegram, show that Belarusians no longer need a vertical hierarchy telling them what to do.

And a leaderless protest has one key advantage, she said: It cannot be beheaded.

ORDERLY, AND OK WITH RUSSIA

When unprecedented crowds of 200,000 people marched through the tidy, broad avenues of Minsk on Sunday, they came to a halt at red traffic lights, waiting obediently until they turned green.

In Ukraine, by contrast, protesters burned tires and threw Molotov cocktails, said Syarzhuk Chyslau, leader of the Belarusian White Legion organization.

Thats in part because the Minsk marches lack the kind of far-right and neo-Nazi militant groups that joined Ukraines uprising and fanned the violence.

It's also because Belarusians arent driven by the deep-seated anger at Russian influence that fueled Ukraines uprisings in 2004 and 2014, or Georgias ground-breaking Rose Revolution in 2003.

Story continues

While Ukraine has been geopolitically split between pro-West and pro-Russian camps since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Belarusians are broadly Moscow-friendly.

Not a single European Union flag has appeared at the Minsk rallies, and the protesters arent pursuing NATO membership at the Kremlins expense; they just want to freely choose their own leader after an election they believe was stolen from them.

Pavel Latushko, a former Lukashenko loyalist now on the protesters Advisory Council, hopes this could allow Belarusians to count on help from both Brussels and Moscow to settle the current tensions.

If the EU and Russia together acted as a mediator in resolving the Belarusian crisis, this would be an ideal option, Latushko told The Associated Press.

SHOESTRING BUDGET

While Ukraines protest movement built a huge tent camp in the center of Kyiv, complete with food delivery and security forces, the only perks for protesters in Belarus so far are bottles of water.

There are no oligarchs in Belarus who would give money for hot meals, medical treatment and tents. Even to pay police fines, Belarusian protesters collect money themselves, analyst Alexander Klaskouski said.

Unlike Ukraine's largely privatized economy, Belarus economy remains 80% state-run, and little has evolved since the Soviet era. That makes it even more remarkable that workers at state-run factories have joined this weeks protests and strikes.

The structure of the economy allowed Ukrainians not to be afraid of the state, which in Belarus could throw any person out on the street with nothing at all, said Klaskouski.

The EU and U.S. also had economic interests in Ukraine before its 2014 uprising, but have only a marginal role in the largely closed-off Belarusian economy.

MOSCOWS HAND

Given that, the Kremlin cant easily portray Belarus protests as a Western-backed effort to sow chaos in its backyard the way it could in Ukraine. Russia used that argument to justify its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and backing for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine in a war that still simmers, six years on.

But Russias role in Belarus is pivotal, as the countrys top trade partner and main military ally.

So far, Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear to Germany and France that they should steer clear of any interference, but hasnt revealed how he wants to deal with the protesters or with Lukashenko, the only leader in the former Soviet space whos been in power longer than Putin himself.

POTENTIAL PARALLELS

Ukraine has been a cacophonous democracy for much of the 29 years since winning independence from the USSR, and Belarus is dubbed Europes last dictatorship  but they share some similarities.

Lukashenko made the same mistake as (former Ukrainian President Viktor) Yanukovych  he began to brutally beat peaceful protesters, which sparked a tsunami of popular protest, insulted dignity and triggered a revolution, said analyst Vladimir Fesenko, director of the Penta Center in Kyiv.

Belarusian economist Dmitry Rusakevich, 46, participated in the Kyiv protests on the Maidan, and now goes out to Minsks Independence Square every evening.

Maidan woke up Belarusians and showed that we need to fight for freedom, he said. It took the calm Belarusians a long time to muster the courage to say no to the dictator.

___

Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

___

Follow APs coverage of the political turmoil in Belarus at https://www.apnews.com/Belarus
Rajesh Kumar Thakur By

PATNA: A massive fraud involving siphoning of government funds under the National Health Mission has been detected in villages of Bihars Muzaffarpur district.

In one case, a village woman aged 66 years is shown to have delivered eight babies in a span of 18 months!

Names of at least 50 elderly women  all beneficiaries of National Maternity Benefits Scheme  were used to receive Rs 1,400 per month since last year.

The money thus received was withdrawn from their bank accounts the next day of the receipt without the knowledge of the women covered by the Community Health Centre in Mushahari block.

Sample this: Shanti Devis youngest son is more than 20 years old, but the health department continued crediting Rs 1,400 into her account under the National Health Mission for giving birth to a child in a hospital from 2019  six times within 13 months.

She gets old age pension and has not been pregnant in the last 20 years. It indicates the racketeers not only knew the bank accounts but they also managed to hoodwink the entire system to loot the government funds.

Since the community service point (CSP) of a nationalized bank of Mushahari block was used, the collusion of local officials should be probed, said a senior government official.

The district police said CSP operator Sushil Kumar is absconding. Muzaffarpur District Magistrate Chandrasekhar Singh has ordered a probe by a four-member team of district officials, led by ADM Rajesh Kumar.

The committee will submit its report in the next two days along with details of payments made under the scheme in the last one year, said a government spokesperson.

Muzaffarpur SSP Jaykant said an FIR would be lodged after a written complaint is lodged by the officials. Meanwhile, state Health Minister Mangal Pandey has asked executive director of State Health Society Manoj Kumar to look into the matter.
Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP) President Kim Heung-chong said in an interview with The Korea Times at the institute in Sejong, July 29. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk



Gov't should help firms have a greater say in setting global green standards



By Lee Kyung-min



The much-anticipated "Green New Deal," a policy initiative of the Moon Jae-in administration, should not be reduced to a topic for a political wrangling but treated as a rare crucial drive to strengthen the competitiveness of the country's businesses to underpin long-term, sustainable economic growth, a noted economist said.



The government needs to increase funding for research and development (R&D) concerning eco-friendly projects and provide clear-cut related regulations, in a dual objective to help local firms flourish on the global stage where corporate profit can no longer neglect environmental consequences.



A prompt yet thorough review is required to maintain policy consistency needed for full execution of corporate business plans, a critical step in a wider virtuous growth cycle that will help local firms have a greater say in setting global green standards while facilitating global expansion and domestic technology advancement.



The most expected role of the government therefore is to buy time for local firms to sharpen their competitive edge after learning advanced technologies in Europe and mastering them for further application.



"It is no longer about emulating something better," Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP) President Kim Heung-chong said in an interview with The Korea Times at the institute in Sejong, July 29.



European countries have long set global green standards in ways that best reflect their own interests including safety in manufacturing, disposal and hazardous material management to name a few.



They are, he said, a rule setter, followed by Australia and Canada. Their initial draft later becomes an international standard. That's how the past 50 years have been with cases in point including rules governing the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Bank for International Settlements (BIS).



Kim believes that businesses should promptly develop technologies, industries should advance their corporate activities and the government should provide all the help needed along the way. This will in turn lead to Korea-developed standards being adopted as part of large-scale business deals among top global players, and increased participation of the country in multilateral-operated green platforms.



"Korea needs to speak up. It's about time. If we fall behind, the loss will be immense," said the top Korean expert on European affairs.



Notwithstanding the business goal-oriented nature of the initiative, the idea of green associated somehow more closely to liberal political leanings can easily become a subject for drawn-out partisan bickering, a reason why he strongly believes the issue requires a broader perspective to see "above and beyond."



The idea of renewable, green energy took shape as part of energy independency, a concern shared by European countries at large. The far-right force dominated the political forum over the past decade. But apart from the frequent left-right public sentiment swings, political voices representing the green energy initiative has been on a continued rise.



"This goes to show the issue will not lose steam just because of a change in the leadership of a country. Neither should it in Korea," he said.



In particular, intensive joint research efforts should be undertaken with global top institutes in material science, he stressed. Included among the highest-tech research bodies are Fraunhofer in Germany, the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), and the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters (Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab) in Denmark.



Reshoring won't be easy



The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the vulnerability of the current China-centered global value chain (GVC), the dependence of which has disrupted many key industries in countries around the world, leading to a plunge in their GDP.



Many hard-hit nations have since sought ways to have their firms operating overseas reshore, as part of a "reshoring initative" to limit uncertainty triggered by unexpected external shocks, Korea included.



Yet full reshoring is unlikely, a reason why he says government policy should be more tailored to best meet the specific, varying needs of individual firms that have left and are staying where they are.



"Having their manufacturing plants back in a country known for high labor costs backed by militant labor is not a viable option for many firms. Leaving China is practically impossible for labor-intensive businesses. This is true not only for Korea but major developed countries around the world."



The seemingly deadlocked situation therefore begs the question of how best to improve stability over efficiency, strengthening the case for "near-shoring," a highly viable alternative to Korea given its proximity to "new southern countries," mostly in Southeast Asia.



"We have learned not to put all our eggs in one basket. Now that's established, it should be about how much of a balance should be struck in diversification efforts."



A part of the function served by plants in China can be moved to one or two countries in Southeast Asia. If profit margins are met, dependence on China can be reduced and this will in turn lead to the expansion of the new alternative countries, a scenario he considers a "productive win-win," backed by government's official development assistance (ODA).



The government role in his view is to identify why local firms are reluctant to expand in certain countries and help resolve the situation.



If it is due to a lack of infrastructure, the government can build this there. If overall administrative inefficiency or corruption is the problem, the government can arrange sit-down negotiations. Kim said such need-specific government assistance will be much appreciated by small- and medium-sized firms (SMEs) which unlike their large conglomerate counterparts have limited resources and negotiating capabilities.



"A rise in value of Southeast Asian countries to Korea as an alternative to China will certainly come at a cost, which can be managed by thorough preplanning that bolsters mutual growth and cooperation," he noted.



Korea can better help with anti-virus ODA



Also needs a strategic approach to advancing the ODA program, Kim said, is "K-public health crisis management," a much-touted method of pandemic response of Korea defined by testing, tracing and treating.



Korea's response measure needs high-skilled medical and health professionals, high-tech information technology tracking system and testing facilities, a rather costly option to most developing countries.



Yet Kim views a need-based response measure could help induce the desired outcome, mostly by judging the scale of lockdowns in degrees when organizing an ODA program.



The Korean method works best for cities with large populations and robust economic activity. In densely populated areas with little economic activity, giving physical aid items is better. These are examples of how the government can offer different solutions to virus-hit countries with varying needs, he said.



"Promoting the Korean method is only as good as the applicability recognized by other countries in dire straits to weather the crisis. The cheapest way is a lockdown but it comes at an immense cost to the people, borne out by plummeting GDP. Korea can and should need to offer a tailored method to better help countries in need."


















Police investigating dissident republican group the New IRA have made an arrest at Londons Heathrow Airport.

Officers from Police Scotland are searching a property in the Blackhall area of Edinburgh following the detention.
Congress has not yet reached an agreement on the fifth stimulus relief package amid the coronavirus pandemic, that among other measures, it will send a second round of stimulus payments to millions of Americans struggling financially.

Lawmakers are scheduled to return back to work in September, after Labor Day weekend and hopefully Republicans and Democrats can draft and approve a stimulus relief package. While Americans await for Congress to come to an agreement, former Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden is already thinking about aiding Americans if elected in November.

Third round of stimulus checks

Joe Biden has stated that if he wins the elections in November and takes over the White House, he is willing to send a second round of stimulus payments to jumpstart the economy. Biden is proposing a $4 trillion in new tax increases to fund a collection of federal programs to pull the US out of recession.

Under his plan he wants to create an $8,000 annual tax credit for parents of young children, cover the cost of health-insurance for newly employed people and off course send another round of stimulus checks. Also Biden wants to implement paid sick leave for workers.

Even though Joe Biden talked about his economic plan amid the coronavirus pandemic, he did not specify the amount of money he plans to send in the third round of stimulus payments. Another subject he touched was about including a $700 billion initiative to shore up US manufacturing and research programs to spur innovation at home.
Patrick Semansky

After George Floyds murder, President Donald Trump called a press conference and announced he was send into American cities "thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel and law enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism, assaults and the wanton destruction of property.

Simultaneously, Attorney General William Barr ordered law enforcement from more than a dozen agencies to clear peaceful protesters out of Lafayette Square in front of St. Johns Church with tear gas and brutal force. (National Guard Major Adam DeMarco has testified he saw no justification for this violence.) After the square was cleared, Trump marched over to the church with an entourage that included the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in battle fatigues. Trump held up a Bible and stood for photos.
The military may be drafted in to airdrop food to the Channel Islands under emergency plans drawn up by the Government to protect the UK if a second coronavirus wave coincides with a no-deal Brexit.

A Cabinet Office reasonable worst-case scenario document, leaked to The Sun newspaper, also warns the Navy may be needed to stop British fishermen clashing with illegal European fishing boat incursions.

It says parts of the UK may face power and petrol shortages if thousands of lorries are stranded in Dover while shortages of medicines caused by port blockages could lead to animal diseases spreading through the countryside.

The classified document, dated July 2020, further warns that if trade restrictions triggered by a no-deal Brexit are combined with floods, flu and another coronavirus wave, then hospitals may be overwhelmed.

Town halls could go bust and troops may have to be drafted on to the streets if the economic toll causes public disorder, shortages and price hikes, according to the leaked dossier.

A Government spokeswoman said the document reflects a responsible Government ensuring we are ready for all eventualities.

UK and EU negotiators warned there has been little progress during the latest round of post-Brexit trade deal talks last week and time is running out to broker a deal before the transition period comes to a close at the end of the year.

Scientists are fearful that the winter months could bring about a second wave of coronavirus in the UK.

Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove said: We got Brexit done with a great deal in January and we are working flat out to make sure the United Kingdom is ready for the changes and huge opportunities at the end of the year as we regain our political and economic independence for the first time in almost fifty years.

Part of this work includes routine contingency planning for various scenarios that we do not think will happen, but we must be ready for come what may. Whether we trade with the EU on terms similar to Canada or to Australia, a brighter future awaits as we forge our own path.

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A Government spokeswoman added: At the end of the year we will be outside the single market and the customs union, whatever the outcome of negotiations, and intensive planning is under way to help ensure that businesses and citizens are ready to take advantage of the opportunities and changes that will bring.

This includes launching a comprehensive communications campaign to make sure everyone knows what they need to do to prepare.

As a responsible Government we continue to make extensive preparations for a wide range of scenarios, including the reasonable worst case.

This is not a forecast or prediction of what will happen but rather a stretching scenario. It reflects a responsible Government ensuring we are ready for all eventualities.
The fire chief of Lafayette, Louisiana, pleaded with protesters "don't burn down your city" after a vigil for a Black man killed in a police-involved shooting caught on cell-phone video turned into a clash with riot-ready police as "agitators" allegedly shot fireworks at buildings and set a blaze in a roadway, authorities said.

The civil unrest on Saturday night, which led to several arrests and prompted police to fire smoke canisters to disperse the protesters, came a day after several officers opened fire on 31-year-old Trayford Pellerin, who law enforcement said was headed into a gas station minimarket armed with a knife and refused orders to stop even after they deployed stun guns on him.

"As a chief and a leader in the community, I'm asking you do your protest peacefully, but don't burn down your city," Lafayette Fire Chief Robert Benoit said at a news conference early Sunday.

The shooting came amidst months of angry protests across the country stemming from a series of police-involved killings of Black people, including George Floyd, who died on May 25 while in the custody of Minneapolis police officers. Floyd's killing became a flashpoint that spawned angry and sometimes violent demonstrations nationwide over police tactics and racial injustice.

Benoit warned demonstrators that with two tropical storms threatening to develop into hurricanes aimed to hit the Louisiana coast, his agency might not have the resources to extinguish intentionally set fires caused by demonstrators.

PHOTO: Protesters take to the street and block traffic at the intersection of Willow St and Evangeline Thruway after a vigil held for Trayford Pellerin, 31, who was shot and killed by Lafayette police officers while armed with a knife, Aug. 22, 2020. (Scott Clause/The Advertiser via USA Today Network)

"If firefighters are not ready to be able to go out there in these trucks and extinguish these fire when the wind is blowing, when the rain is coming down and things are falling apart, what's going to happen to this city?" Benoit said. "I'm asking you tonight as a leader who lives here, this is our city. Let's protect our city. Let's protect our first responders and do the right thing and let the courts handle what they have to handle."

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Cellphone video taken by a witness showed police officers firing their guns multiple times at Pellerin as he appeared to be heading for the door of a gas station minimarket with a knife in his hands, according to a statement from the Louisiana State Police, which is leading the investigation. The officers involved in the shooting, who have been placed on administrative duty and have not been identified, resorted to the use of deadly force after they deployed stun guns on Pellerin that "were ineffective," according to the police statement.

On the cellphone video, at least 10 gunshots can be heard.

A gravely wounded Pellerin was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, officials said.

The shooting unfolded around 8 p.m. when Lafayette police officers responded to a different convenience store after receiving a complaint of a disturbance being caused by a person armed with a knife at the store, according to the state police statement. When officers confronted Pellerin in the store's parking lot, he allegedly refused repeated orders to stop and fled on foot as officers deployed stun guns on him, the statement reads.

PHOTO: Protesters take to the street and block traffic at the intersection of Willow St and Evangeline Thruway after a vigil held for Trayford Pellerin, 31, who was shot and killed by Lafayette police officers while armed with a knife, Aug. 22, 2020. (Scott Clause/The Advertiser via USA Today Network)

Police pursued Pellerin, still allegedly armed with a knife, for roughly a half-mile to a Shell gas station near the Evangeline Thruway, where they claim he was heading for the gas station's minimarket door, prompting them to shoot.

Pellerin's mother, Michelle Pellerin, told The Acadiana Advocate of Lafayette that her son suffered from anxiety related to social situations and began seeking professional help earlier this year. She said she suspects her son was scared by the group of police officers confronting him.

"He was very quiet. He had a big heart. He would give you the shirt off his back," Pellerin's aunt, Choicey Pellerin, said at the vigil earlier Saturday. "He was just an overall great kid. He didnt deserve this."

Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump and Baton Rouge attorney Ronald Haley, who are representing the family, said Pellerin may have been in the throes of a mental health crisis when he was shot.

Crump said in a statement that the officers involved in the shooting "should be fired immediately for their abhorrent and fatal actions."

"We refuse to let this case resolve like so many others: quietly and without answers and justice," Crump said in a statement. "The family, and the people of Lafayette, deserve honesty and accountability from those who are sworn to protect them -- the Lafayette Police."

Haley said he and Crump have launched their own investigation into the shooting for a possible lawsuit.

We want policy changes as well, so that Ben and I are not in the living room with another family in Lafayette dealing with this, Haley said.

PHOTO: Protesters take to the street and block traffic at the intersection of Willow St and Evangeline Thruway after a vigil held for Trayford Pellerin, 31, who was shot and killed by Lafayette police officers while armed with a knife, Aug. 22, 2020. (Scott Clause/The Advertiser via USA Today Network)

Lafayette Mayor-President Josh Guillory said in a statement that the officers involved in the shooting made "numerous efforts to de-escalate the situation, and multiple tries to subdue the knife-wielding suspect through the use of Tasers."

"The officers opened fire when it became apparent the armed individual was attempting to enter a convenience store, threatening the lives of the customers and workers inside," Guillory said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with our community tonight, and with the men and women in uniform who put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe."

Local NAACP officials organized what they said was supposed to be a peaceful vigil on Saturday afternoon near the Shell station where Pellerin was shot. But as night fell, the demonstration took an unruly turn when more than 100 demonstrators blocked traffic on the nearby Evangeline Thruway, locking arms and chanting "Tray," "Black Lives Matter" and "No justice, no peace."

MORE: Amber Guyger convicted of murder in wrong-apartment killing of innocent man

Lafayette Parish Sheriff Mark Garber said at a news conference that some people among the demonstrators fired fireworks at buildings and set a blaze on a road median.

Police officers in riot gear and some on horseback were mobilized and attempted to disperse the demonstration by firing smoke canisters into the crowd, officials said. Several arrests were made.

MORE: Texas cop never ID'd himself as police before fatally shooting Atatiana Jefferson in her own home: Official

Garber blamed the violence on "out of town agitators."

"If anyone is planning to enhance their techniques tomorrow or the next day, we are ready for you. We are prepared," Garber said. "We will not willingly give up this city. You have to go through every resource that I have and every resource that the police have in order to do harm to the citizens or their property."

Jamal Taylor, a local activist who participated in the protest, confirmed that agitators from out of town instigated the problems Saturday night.

MORE: Breonna Taylor, Kentucky EMT, allegedly killed by police executing search warrant

"Go back to the hell where you came from. We don't want it in this city. We can handle our own. We got this," Taylor said. "So if you're one of those bad actors that comes in and sets fires, throws rocks and firecrackers, you're not welcomed here in Lafayette."

Protest, fires erupt after police-involved shooting of Black Louisiana man Trayford Pellerin originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
A child died and another was seriously injured in Kent after being hit by a tree that fell over amid strong winds.

The tragedy took place in woodlands off Parsonage Lane in the village of Bobbing, near Sittingbourne on Friday.

Emergency services were called to the scene at around midday.

A child was pronounced dead at the scene, while another was flown to a hospital in London for treatment to serious injuries.

The incident happened amid winds of up to 50mph around the UK.

Kent police said in a statement: "Officers attended alongside South East Coast Ambulance Service, the air ambulance and Kent Fire and Rescue Service.

"One child was declared deceased at the scene and another child was airlifted to a London hospital with serious injuries.

"Kent Police is preparing a report for the coroner."
 Flash

China and Indonesia on Thursday formally launched a fast-lane arrangement to facilitate personnel exchanges for the purpose of ensuring epidemic prevention, maintaining the smooth flow of industrial and supply chains, and helping each other's economic recovery.

The arrangement was announced by Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi during their meeting for talks in Baoting Li and Miao Autonomous County, Hainan.

Indonesian Minister for State-owned Enterprises Erick Thohir also attended the talks.

Noting that Retno is the first foreign minister to visit China in the post-epidemic era, Wang said the joint visit of the two ministers not only shows the importance of Chinese-Indonesian relations, but also marks the resumption of the foreign ministers' offline diplomacy. It sends a clear and positive signal that the two sides are committed to jointly defeating the epidemic and reinvigorating the economy, said Wang.

Noting that this year marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Indonesia, Wang said China stands ready to work with Indonesia to promote greater achievements in bilateral relations. China supports enterprises engaging in all-round cooperation with Indonesia in vaccine research and application.

China is ready to work with ASEAN countries to ensure the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement (RCEP) within this year and an early conclusion of a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, Wang added.

Retno gave Wang a letter from Indonesian President Joko Widodo to Chinese President Xi Jinping, saying that Indonesia fully agrees to maintain good exchanges between the two countries, is willing to ensure the signing of the RCEP by the end of the year, and is committed to working with China to safeguard peace and stability in the South China Sea.
Patna, Aug 23 : Six unidentified criminals gunned down a property dealer and injured three others this morning in Patna's Beur locality, an official said on Sunday.

The attackers used a carbine for committing the crime. Area police recovered many spent cartridges from the crime scene.

The accused arrived at the spot on three motorcycles at around 11.30 am and barged into the office of property dealer Rajesh Yadav, firing indiscriminately. Yadav and three others present in the office sustained bullet injuries.

Beur police station SHO Phool Dev Chaudhary said that injured were taken to a nearby private hospital where Yadav succumbed to multiple gunshot injuries. The other three are admitted in the ICU.

After the crime, the attackers fled while brandishing firearms.

Preliminary investigation revealed that the deceased had a property dispute with a person, whose name has not been disclosed yet by police.

"Our investigation is on. The process of scanning CCTV footage is underway to find some clues. The culprits will be arrested soon," Chaudhary said.
Iran says analysis from the black boxes of a downed Ukrainian passenger plane shows it was hit by two missiles 25 seconds apart and that those on board were still alive after the first strike.



The announcement by the head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization on August 23 marks the first official report on the contents of the cockpit voice and data recordings, which were sent to France for reading in July.



Tehran has said it accidentally shot down the Ukrainian airliner in January, at a time of tension with the United States. All 176 people aboard the plane were killed.



"Nineteen seconds after the first missile hit the plane, the voices of pilots inside the cockpit, indicated that the passengers were alive ... 25 seconds later the second missile hit the plane," Touraj Dehghani-Zanganeh was cited as saying by state television.



Iran has been in talks with Ukraine, Canada, and other nations that had citizens aboard the downed plane, and who have demanded a thorough investigation into the incident.



"The data analysis from the black boxes should not be politicized," Zanganeh said.



Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps shot down the Ukraine International Airlines flight with ground-to-air missiles on January 8, just after the plane took off from Tehran, in what Iran later acknowledged as a "disastrous mistake" by forces on high alert during heightened tensions with the United States.



Iranian and Ukrainian officials have held talks on compensation for families of the victims. Another round of talks is set for October.

Based on reporting by AP and Reuters
The census wraps up Sept. 30, and while the state of Nebraska is in the top five states for the number of responses, officials say theres still a ways to go.

David Drozd, from University of Nebraska, said while door-to-door operations for non-response were pushed back four months, theres still time to fill it out at home.

Given COVID, weve been given some extra innings for allowing people to complete the census on their own, online or filling out paper forms, he said.

In order to process the data in time for the Dec. 31 deadline, which Congress did not change despite pandemic-related delays, the U.S. Census Bureau announced earlier this month that non-response follow-up, over the phone, email and door-to-door, started Aug. 11. Self-response online, by mail or phone closes the same day.

The Census Bureau was working under a timeline of finishing up with the non-response follow-up by Oct. 31, but theyve moved that up a month to Sept. 30, so theyve reassigned their workload, Drozd said.

While Nebraska is the fourth best in the nation with nearly 70% responding, the Panhandle response rate ranks in the bottom two-thirds.
While some Canadians spent the COVID-19 lockdown binging on Netflix or baking sourdough bread, tens of thousands of citizens were dabbling in another diversion: picking a new federal Conservative leader.

These are the people  and more than 250,000 of them were eligible to vote, according to the party  who will be eagerly awaiting the results of their pandemic preoccupation when the winner of the Conservative contest is announced on Sunday.

It may not have been one of the lockdown activities that most Canadians were reading about over the past five months, but what it produces will have a major impact on politics in the days and months ahead.

Justin Trudeau is facing a vote of confidence in Parliament about a month from now and the winner announced Sunday will be in a real position to plunge the country into a fall election.

Whether its Peter MacKay, Erin OToole, Leslyn Lewis or Derek Sloan, he or she will become the prime minister in waiting, based on how well they connected with the hearts and minds of committed Conservatives.

So who are these voters who are shaping the future of the political season ahead? Are they voters like any other  or are Conservatives a political breed of their own? Thats a crucial and difficult question, especially for the leader who wants to turn this weekends victory into something bigger for Conservatives.

Heres why: a party leadership race is not like New York of the famous song  making it there doesnt mean you can make it anywhere. What makes Conservatives happy may not sync with the preferences of the larger Canadian electorate, and may even be at odds with them. When that happens, the new leader is going to have to do some fancy pivoting to keep both constituencies onside.

I asked three of Canadas leading public opinion experts what distinguishes Conservative voters from the typical Canadian voter in 2020  not to mention a pandemic year.

The three with whom I spoke are Nik Nanos of Nanos Research, Greg Lyle of Innovative Research Group and David Coletto of Abacus Data. All of them have spent many years looking hard into the soul  or at least the opinions  of what we call the Conservative base.

What it takes to win the party leadership is different than what it takes to win an election, says Nanos. And one may be an obstacle to the other.

Nanos is talking here about how much social conservative policies play a part in Conservative politics, driven in this latest race by Lewis and Sloan. The plain fact is that the rest of the Canadian public is far less animated by discussions on abortion and other such policies and may indeed be turned off by them.

You know, you cannot win in this current iteration of the Conservative party, or its hard to win, unless you have some social conservatives, says Nanos. When that bubbles up in an election, though, as it did in 2019, these policies and supporters tend to drive vote to the Liberals.

In his Abacus surveys, Coletto has noticed several attributes that appear to be core to Conservatives, and not so much found in any of the other parties. Apart from its geographic concentration in Western Canada, the Conservative base is older, whiter, and more male than the typical Canadian voter, Coletto says.

The sharpest difference, in terms of current policy debates, is found in the realm of climate change.

Conservatives are far less likely to believe climate change is a crisis that needs immediate action, Coletto says. While 69 per cent of Liberal, NDP, Bloc and Green voters describe climate change as a crisis, only 31 per cent of 2019 Conservative voters feel the same way.

Leanings on immigration and religion also are part of the Conservative brand. While two-thirds of Liberal, NDP, Green and (Bloc) voters think immigrants strengthen the country, only 48 per cent of Conservatives feel the same way, Coletto says.

Religion is another dividing line between Conservatives and non-conservatives. While Canadians are far more secular than our American neighbours, the proportion of Conservatives who consider themselves belonging to a religion is 20 points higher than voters for other parties. Fifty-three per cent of Conservative voters identify with a religion or faith. Only 33 per cent of other voters do the same, Coletto says.

With his Innovative Research polls, Lyle has been delving beyond party labels, into the values that drive people to support party brands. He asks respondents how they feel about everything from equality to spending priorities to the question of whether people want government by experts or common sense.

Then Lyle sorts the population into demographic clusters, organized according to whether they are Core Left or Left Liberals, Thrifty Moderates or Conservatives of the populist or deferential sort.

One could definitely say that Conservatives are more populist than the average Canadian, Lyle says, though that has been declining  fascinatingly  through the pandemic. This is clearly something to watch.

Today there are fewer populists than people who are deferential. This is new, due to COVID, says Lyle.

Generally, even pre-pandemic, Conservatives were more likely to lean to authoritarian or what Lyle terms nativist politics  the kind we see in populists such as Donald Trump.

Trump is a polarizing figure in Canada, not likely to attract centrists that Conservatives need to expand beyond the base.

If that is the aim of the leader, Lyle thinks a Conservative coalition could be built by putting an emphasis on economic, free-enterprise policies  heavy on thrift and anti-waste  and steering well clear of hot-button moral issues.

The easiest way to imagine that is to see them shift from a conservative coalition to a free-enterprise coalition that embraces business Liberals, Lyle says. No matter what, it means playing down social conservatism and cultural politics and focusing on the politics of opportunity and hope.

All of the pollsters agreed that the new Conservative leader will have a tough task knitting together the base and the larger Canadian population in the days ahead. Coletto thinks the new leader will have an even harder job than Stephen Harper in pulling this off.

Expanding the Conservative tent is harder today than under Stephen Harper because I think the two electorates have moved farther away from each other, Coletto says. While we arent as polarized as the U.S., there has been increased polarization on climate, immigration and political correctness.

So Sundays results will tell us who did the best job of firing up the most enthusiastic of Conservative partisans over this pandemic, on all the issues that are distinctly their own. Starting on Monday, the new leaders next job is curbing all that enthusiasm before the next election.
By Express News Service

TIRUVANNAMALAI: A 38-year-old self styled sage allegedly attempted to rape a US national in Tiruvannamalai district on Sunday.

Police sources said the woman, aged 31 years, has been stayed at a house on the Girivalam Path.

She was alone in the morning when the sage, Manikandan, barged into her house and allegedly attempted to rape her.

In her bid to thwart his attempt, she lashed him with a knife inflicting injuries. And when she raised an alarm, the residents in neighbouring houses rushed to her rescue.

They overpowered the sage and tied him to a tree before manhandling him. Later, the man was handed over to the police. Tiruvannamalai Taluk police took him for interrogations.

Preliminary investigation revealed that Manikandan is from Thirumalaipatti in Namakkal district and has been staying in Tiruvannamalai for long.

"We are holding a probe into the matter. The man is being quizzed," a top police officer said.

The woman has come to India on a tourist Visa and has been staying here for more than five months, the police sources said.

The officer also stated that strict vigil will be put in place on Girivalam Path to ensure safety of foreign tourists who stay in large numbers in the temple town.
Readers hoping to buy Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (NYSE:AEM) for its dividend will need to make their move shortly, as the stock is about to trade ex-dividend. Ex-dividend means that investors that purchase the stock on or after the 28th of August will not receive this dividend, which will be paid on the 15th of September.

Agnico Eagle Mines's next dividend payment will be US$0.20 per share, on the back of last year when the company paid a total of US$0.80 to shareholders. Calculating the last year's worth of payments shows that Agnico Eagle Mines has a trailing yield of 1.0% on the current share price of $79.5. If you buy this business for its dividend, you should have an idea of whether Agnico Eagle Mines's dividend is reliable and sustainable. We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing.

View our latest analysis for Agnico Eagle Mines

If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. Fortunately Agnico Eagle Mines's payout ratio is modest, at just 34% of profit. Yet cash flow is typically more important than profit for assessing dividend sustainability, so we should always check if the company generated enough cash to afford its dividend. The company paid out 93% of its free cash flow over the last year, which we think is outside the ideal range for most businesses. Cash flows are usually much more volatile than earnings, so this could be a temporary effect - but we'd generally want look more closely here.

Agnico Eagle Mines paid out less in dividends than it reported in profits, but unfortunately it didn't generate enough cash to cover the dividend. Were this to happen repeatedly, this would be a risk to Agnico Eagle Mines's ability to maintain its dividend.

Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

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Companies with consistently growing earnings per share generally make the best dividend stocks, as they usually find it easier to grow dividends per share. If earnings decline and the company is forced to cut its dividend, investors could watch the value of their investment go up in smoke. It's encouraging to see Agnico Eagle Mines has grown its earnings rapidly, up 37% a year for the past five years. Earnings have been growing quickly, but we're concerned dividend payments consumed most of the company's cash flow over the past year.

The main way most investors will assess a company's dividend prospects is by checking the historical rate of dividend growth. In the past 10 years, Agnico Eagle Mines has increased its dividend at approximately 16% a year on average. Both per-share earnings and dividends have both been growing rapidly in recent times, which is great to see.

To Sum It Up

Is Agnico Eagle Mines an attractive dividend stock, or better left on the shelf? We're glad to see the company has been improving its earnings per share while also paying out a low percentage of income. However, it's not great to see it paying out what we see as an uncomfortably high percentage of its cash flow. Overall, it's not a bad combination, but we feel that there are likely more attractive dividend prospects out there.

While it's tempting to invest in Agnico Eagle Mines for the dividends alone, you should always be mindful of the risks involved. For example - Agnico Eagle Mines has 2 warning signs we think you should be aware of.

A common investment mistake is buying the first interesting stock you see. Here you can find a list of promising dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend.

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 D&L Trail spans 165 miles from Bucks through Northampton, Lehigh and Carbon into Luzerne counties, and about 140 miles are built.

Still, some gaps remain -- one to the north heading into Wilkes-Barre and another, about 7 miles long, on the Lehigh-Northampton border.

When were done well have the longest trail in the state of Pennsylvania, said Elissa Garofalo, executive director of the Easton-based Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor that oversees the trail. We will have a nationally significant story of innovation and industry of the people who have lived and built this wonderful area.

Last week, the corridor held a Zoom meeting focused on the Lehigh Valley gap and the ongoing projects that aim to improve its four distinct sections. As of the meeting date, the only county with an uninterrupted portion of the D&L Trail is Carbon, following the opening a year ago of the new Mansion House Pedestrian Bridge in Jim Thorpe that was decades in the making.

All told, the estimated cost is $40 million to acquire and improve the missing mileage in the Lehigh Valley, and that includes bridge reconstruction and new trails on both sides of the Lehigh River to create a new 14-mile loop through one of the D&L Trail's most populous regions.

Some of the projects are farther along than others, and Tuesdays meeting offered ways for trail users and other members of the public to help advance the effort.

In North Catasauqua, for example, the trail stewards asked for letters of support to local legislators to support grant applications for $650,000 from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and $166,000 from the state Department of Community and Economic Development. That money would be used to match $500,000 approved July 16 by Northampton County Council from its Livable Landscapes program to improve 1.56 miles of the trail.

Lauren Golden, the corridors trail manager, said after the meeting that project if completed would connect Northampton to Catasauqua by finishing out the remaining improvements needed within Northampton County.

The North Catasauqua work also includes an ADA-complaint non-motorized, multimodal trail; a new bridge across Lehigh Canal Lock No. 35; and new signage and plantings. The countys grant expires Dec. 31, 2022.

The project is shovel-ready, with permits in place to proceed, said North Catasauqua Borough Council President Pete Paone. If fully funded, construction could occur in 2021, Golden said.

To the south, from Race Street in Catasauqua south to Hanover Township Canal Park, Lehigh County has secured $1.3 million for engineering, permitting, construction and related costs and is moving ahead to close that leg of the gap, said county Director of General Services Rick Molchany.

Across the Lehigh River, Lehigh County has committed $2.5 million to acquiring rail-bed as part of the effort to create the 14-mile loop, Molchany said.

The fate of the trail on the west side of the river lies largely with a $24 million grant application before the U.S. Department of Transportation for the 3.5-mile-long Riverside Drive Multimodal Revitalization Corridor. That project is tied to The Waterfront, an estimated $425 million development in Allentown proposed by Jaindl Enterprises. The developer has committed $20 million in matching funds, according to Lehigh Valley Planning Commission Executive Director Becky Bradley.

D&L Trail fans can help close that part of the gap by sending a letter of support for the U.S. DOT BUILD Grant application. More information about that can be found at buildriversidedrive.com.

A decision on the BUILD Grant application is expected by Sept. 15, Bradley said.

Garofalo, the corridors director, said more video-teleconferences like Tuesdays are planned to keep the public apprised of efforts to close the trail gap through the Lehigh Valley. She invited participants to volunteer or become members and invite others to get involved, as well.

This is what it takes, and we only need more of this, she said.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.
Diplomats and other observers have warned of the hurdles to a quick resolution of the political crisis in Mali as a delegation of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on Saturday met with the coup leaders and the ousted president Ibrahim Keita.

The delegation arrived in the countrys capital, Bamako, for talks aimed at engendering Malis quick restoration of democracy through the release and reinstatement of Mr Keita.

The delegation was led by Goodluck Jonathan, a former Nigerian President who had previously led mediation talks with the opposition coalition whose call for the resignation of Mr Keita had preceded the coup.

Mutinous soldiers on Tuesday arrested Mr Keita and forced him to resign from power at gunpoint. He has since been held at Kati military base outside of Bamako where the mutiny first began.

The coup was condemned by the international community but celebrated by many in the country after months of political unrest.

The talks on Saturday between the ECOWAS delegation and the junta were set for 90 minutes, according to a provisional schedule from ECOWAS, but lasted for only 20 minutes, an ECOWAS source told Al Jazeera.

According to Al Jazeera, the meeting was held in Malis defence ministry where ECOWAS mediators in face masks sat at a long table opposite military government leader, Assimi Goita, who wore a desert camouflage uniform and was flanked by military officers in berets and fatigues.

Although ECOWAS and the coup leaders, who call themselves the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), have yet to comment, Mr Jonathan told the AFP that negotiations were going well.

He said he was very hopeful on where the mediation mission was heading to.

Also commenting on the condition of the detained president, Mr Jonathan said Mr Keita was alright.

We saw him, hes very fine, he said.

ECOWAS demands

ECOWAS and other countries and international organisations had immediately condemned the coup but are now meditating to end the political crisis in a country already battling an insurgency.

Nigerias President Muhammadu Buhari was among those who had expressed fear that the crisis could set off unrest in the entire region.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how Mr Buhari called for measures to deescalate the situation in Mali and to restore democracy.

The events in Mali are great setbacks for regional diplomacy, with grave consequences for the peace and security of West Africa. It is time for the unconstitutional authority in Mali to act responsibly and ensure restoration of constitutional order, peace and stability, the Nigerian leader said.

Like Mali, Nigeria is struggling to fend off a decade-long Boko-Haram insurgency in its northern region amidst other security challenges in the south.

A Nigerian political scientist and former vice-chancellor of Adekunle Ajasin University, Femi Mimiko, said the situation in Mali is a security challenge to the Sahel region stretching up to Nigeria.

Mali is virtually the weakest link in the Sahel security ring. The situation is quite fragile and if it is not carefully managed, the radical Islamists that were beaten back with Frances direct intervention in 2012 may overwhelm the military; and come to dominate the terrain.

This would pose a greater challenge to the security of the region, stretching even up till Nigeria, Mr Mimiko told PREMIUM TIMES.

Keitas reinstatement under question

While the Malians mutineers have promised to hand over power to a transitional government which would conduct elections within a reasonable period, ECOWAS wants the ousted president reinstated immediately.

The presidents of Ivory Coast and Guinea are among those pushing for a tougher response from ECOWAS in ensuring Mr Keitas reinstatement.

The regional bloc has already suspended Malis membership and halted financial inflows into the country.

According to Al Jazeera, one ECOWAS source said the presidents of both countries are also facing violent public protests to their third-term bids and want the bloc to show it will not allow power grabs in its own backyard.

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They cannot tolerate this taking place. They are taking it very personally. It is on their doorstep and they think they are next, another diplomat told Al Jazeera.

Mr Keita was ousted after months of mass demonstrations against what many considered as an inept rule, mired in corruption allegations and failure to defeat a ravaging insurgency.

Therefore, the call for his reinstatement has infuriated the Malian opposition which had taken to streets to celebrate his overthrow on Friday.

Ahead of the ECOWAS delegations visit, a diplomat told Reuters that reinstating Mr Keita should be left out of its discussion with the junta.

Reinstating IBK (Ibrahim Keita) is out of the question. The only thing they (the delegation) can achieve is the transition. Under the rules of ECOWAS. ECOWAS should midwife the transition, he said.

Mr Mimiko also advised the regional bloc and other partners to focus on seeing Mali through a transition to a democratic order in the country.

Beyond the open condemnation of the military junta, therefore, Nigeria, ECOWAS, and AU should explore some backchannel platforms to robustly engage the new military government, with a view to getting it committed to immediate transition to a new civil democratic order.

This has to involve France too, undoubtedly the most critical force in Mali and across the Sahel. Time is also of the essence in all of these, he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-24 02:23:14|Editor: huaxia

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ADEN, Yemen, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's pro-government forces on Sunday announced their killing of five Houthi rebels in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah.

"Military units of the joint pro-government forces managed to strike a military vehicle used for transferring a crew of (five) rebels specialized in infiltration to our sites," said a brief statement released by the pro-government Giants Brigades.

Houthis increased their sporadic armed assaults against the government-controlled areas in Hodeidah during the past days, according to the statement.

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 in Stockholm in December 2018.

Part of the Yemeni port city is under the 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 Hadi out of the capital Sanaa. Enditem
Mauritius says it is seeking compensation from the owners of a Japanese ship that spilled oil after it grounded in the shallow waters off the Indian Ocean island nation, while urgent efforts continue to pump out the remaining fuel.

The MV Wakashio has spilled 1,000 tons of its cargo of 4,000 tons of oil into the sea, fouling the coastline of Mauritius, including a protected wetlands area.

That threatens 35 years of work to restore the area, environmental activists said Wednesday.

An estimated 2,500 tons of fuel has been pumped from the ship, stranded on a coral reef at Pointe d'Esny, a sanctuary for rare wildlife.

Workers are racing to empty the ship before it breaks up in heavy seas and further pollutes the shore.

Thousands of Mauritians have been working for days to reduce the damage by making improvised booms from fabric and stuffed with straw and sugar cane leaves to try to contain the oil's spread.

Others have scooped up oil from the shallow waters. It is estimated that nearly 400 tons that spilled have been removed from the sea.

Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth said Mauritius will seek compensation for the extensive environmental damage from the Wakashio's owner, Nagashiki Shipping.

He has declared the oil spill a national disaster.
Suggestion made Covid-19 second wave could coincide with a No Deal Brexit

The government have drawn up battle plans for the possibility of being hit with a second wave of coronavirus and a No-Deal Brexit simultaneously, it has been claimed.

Leaked documents warn of a potential social care crisis from councils going bankrupt and the army being drafted in to prevent public disorder.

The revelation puts mounting pressure on ministers to negotiate a deal with Brussels to avoid a double-header in December, when it is predicted the country could be hit by a second spike.

The government have drawn up battle plans for the possibility of being hit with a second wave of coronavirus and a No-Deal Brexit simultaneously, it has been claimed

The revelation puts mounting pressure on Boris Johnson and his ministers to negotiate a deal with Brussels to avoid a double-header in December, when it is predicted the country could be hit by a second spike

The classified file, seen by The Sun, appears to be in the form of powerpoint slides and is titled 'Preliminary set of Reasonable Worst Case Scenario Planning Assumptions to support civil contingencies planning for the end of the Transition Period'.

It was created by the Cabinet Office's EU Transition Task Force over concerns the government was not doing enough to get a deal signed before the end of the Transition Period on New Year's Eve.

It follows the leak over Operation Yellowhammer in August last year, a civil contingency plan in the event of a No Deal Brexit.

The EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier this week raised concerns by saying getting a trade deal done in time 'seems unlikely'.

Leaked documents warn of a potential social care crisis from councils going bankrupt and the army being drafted in to prevent public disorder

Revealed in the leaked document, Whitehall is planning for the potential of public disorder caused by food shortages and price hikes

The implications of a No Deal on the economy could be far reaching, and would be considerably worsened when combined with a winter virus.

Revealed in the leaked document, Whitehall is planning for the potential of public disorder caused by food shortages and price hikes.

Troops may have to be drafted on to the streets to help the police in the worst-case scenario  1,500 are already on stand by.

The problem on food is expected to be worsened if the Port of Dover and the channel tunnel become blocked due to increased checks at the border, with as many as 8,500 trucks lorries lining up on the motorway to Kent.

The Cabinet Office responded to the leak by outlining a series of contingency plans said to already be in place, including an extra 3billion for the NHS

30 per cent of our food imported from the EU as well as medicines, chemicals for drinking water purification and fuel supply.

It also warns that the Navy might be needed to stop vigilante British fisherman clashing with illegal European fishing boat incursions.

The 'reasonable worst case scenario' also suggests that animal disease might rip through the countryside due to shortages of medicines and the Channel Islands could need military airdrops to avoid running out of food.

As result, social distancing measures and masks will have to continue until 2021.

Downing Street is pushing hard for a trade deal but is making contingency plans for an 'unruly' exit from the EU transition period at the end of December.

With trade talks looking set to go the wire, there is a risk they collapse  putting up trade barriers overnight on 1 January.

The Cabinet Office responded to the leak by outlining a series of contingency plans said to already be in place.

The government are believed to have allocated an extra 3billion for the NHS and an extra 600million for social care, although it is not clear if this will go to councils or be organised centrally.

Covid-19 testing capacity will be extended to 300,000 a day and billions of items of PPE delivered to health and social care workers.

A further 775million will be spent on new border and customs infrastructure and new border rules phased in over six months to try to avoid backlogs.

Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove told The Sun: 'We got Brexit done with a great deal in January.

'And we are working flat out to make sure the UK is ready for the changes and huge opportunities at the end of the year as we regain our political and economic independence for the first time in almost 50 years.

'Part of this work includes routine contingency planning for various scenarios that we do not think will happen but we must be ready for, come what may.'
Wife of the President, Aisha Buhari has confirmed the flight incident that nearly claimed her life and that of her daughter, Hanan on Friday.

DAILY POST reported earlier that the aircraft Mrs Buhari was travelling in encountered some troubles in the air while bringing the first lady home from her medical trip in Dubai.

Confirming the incident in a series of tweets on Saturday night, Aisha commended the crew of the Airforce flight for the courage in managing the dangerous movement.

She said, On our way back, the Nigerian Airforce Flight encountered violent clear air turbulence which was navigated safely and professionally by the Captain and crew of the Flight.
Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity has said that he is proud to be part of the current...

Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity has said that he is proud to be part of the current administration.

According to Adesina, criticising Buhari and his government cannot erase the gains that have been made.

The Presidential aide said this when he appeared on Channels Televisions Politics Today on Friday.

In a country of 200 million people, you will always have critics, Adesina said.

He said this does not change the fact that Buhari is at work and wont stop to do what it has set out to achieve for the country.

Adesina admitted that there are security challenges in the country, adding that You cant rejoice when you have a loss of lives and wanton destruction of properties. But it is relative to say it is worsening. We are not where we were.

I am proud of this government, he said. I am proud that I am a partaker, that I am an insider. I believe that it is genuinely serving the country and to the best of its ability.

According to him, some people have chosen to play politics with criticising the administration, others have shown understanding.

In a democracy, you are responsible for the people, he said.

But you have people who are playing politics with development, security, and loss of lives.
WASHINGTON  The Army Corps of Engineers will impose new demands for mitigating environmental damage from a vast proposed copper and gold mine in Alaska, potentially delaying approvals for the project beyond the presidential election, three people familiar with the Corpss plans said on Saturday.

The Corps is expected to send a letter on Monday to the developers of the Pebble Mine project, these people said, adding that it will not issue a permit until the company presents plans to protect an area in the surrounding watershed, a critical breeding ground for salmon, equal in size to the acreage that the mine would damage.

That requirement could significantly slow a project that had been sailing toward approval until it incurred the opposition of President Trumps son, Donald Trump Jr., as well as Vice President Mike Pences former chief of staff, Nick Ayers. If Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee, prevails in November, the project is likely to die.

The mine will be close to killed by this, said Whit Fosburgh, the president of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.
Demonstrators massed in central Minsk on Sunday after opposition leaders called for a huge rally to demand the resignation of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, the latest in a wave of protests over his disputed re-election.

Alexander Lukashenko has dispatched the notorious riot police to disperse spontaneous rallies that erupted after he claimed a sixth presidential term in an election two weeks ago that critics say was rigged.

Thousands of demonstrators draped in red-and-white flags of the opposition flooded Independence Square in Minsk as a group of women protested against police violence ahead of the opposition's "March of New Belarus" on Saturday.

"We have just two demands: fair elections and stop the violence," 32-year-old Igor told AFP.

Officials issued a warning to Belarusians against participating in "illegal demonstrations" and local news outlets published videos on social media showing water cannon and riot police with shields moving towards Independence Square.

Reacting to earlier demonstrations, Lukashenko, talking in a video conference with the Belarus Security Council, said that the social and political situation in the country remains tense despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of the country continues working ... threats against families of servicemen, police officers, special services, government officials, and journalists continue, which is a matter of major concern. "

Solidarity rallies were also due in neighbouring Lithuania, where demonstrators planned to form a human chain from Vilnius to the Belarus border, three decades after residents of the Baltic states joined hands and linked their capital cities in a mass protest against Soviet rule.

Challenger

The unlikely leader of Belarus's opposition, 37-year-old Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, fled to Vilnius after the polls, fearing reprisals for mounting the greatest challenge to Lukashenko and claiming election victory.

Story continues

In an interview with AFP ahead of the demonstrations, she urged protesters to continue to exert pressure on the authorities, saying it was "important to continue to be united in the struggle for the rights".

The authorities have to understand "we are not a protest movement... we are a majority and we will not step away. We are not afraid of them any more."

Lukashenko's opponents have organised strikes and the largest protests in the ex-Soviet country's recent history over his re-election, with more than 100,000 people turning out in Minsk alone last weekend.

No second Ukraine

Meanwhile, the European Union has rejected the results of the election and has vowed to sanction those responsible for ballot fraud and a police crackdown that saw nearly 7,000 people arrested and sparked gruesome allegations of torture and abuse in police custody.

Top EU diplomat Josep Borell warned that Belarus should not be allowed to become a "second Ukraine" and said it was necessary to deal with the 65-year-old Lukashenko, Europe's longest serving leader.

The man branded "Europe's last dictator" has brushed aside the calls to go, dismissed the possibility of holding a new vote and instructed his security services to quell unrest and secure the borders.

His judiciary opened a criminal investigation into the opposition's Coordination Council that is seeking new elections and the peaceful transition of power, after he said opponents wanted to "seize power".

Lukashenko ordered the military into full combat readiness during an army inspection on Saturday near the border with the EU and warned about NATO troop "stirrings" in Europe.

"The fatherland is now in danger. We cannot joke," Lukashenko said.

Lithuania's President Gitanas Nauseda said Lukashenko was trying to "divert attention" from unrest at home, while NATO dismissed the claims as baseless.
Firefighters in northern California who have battled wildfires for nearly a week were bracing themselves for a rise in temperatures, higher winds and lightning that could spark new blazes on Sunday.

Crews made slow but hopeful progress in battling the blazes on Saturday, aided by good weather but hampered by smoky skies that grounded water-dropping aircraft for some of the day.

Reinforcements arrived to bolster overwhelmed crews and evacuation orders were lifted in some areas.

The changing weather brought fears of new fires overnight and warnings from state and local officials for residents in threatened areas to prepare to flee at any moment.

Expand Close Firefighters hose down hot spots in Boulder Creek (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP/PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Firefighters hose down hot spots in Boulder Creek (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP/PA)

Theres not a feeling of pure optimism, but a feeling of resolve, a feeling of we have resources backing us up, Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore said.

Since August 15, state fire officials said more than 12,000 lightning strikes across the state have ignited more than 500 wildfires. Of those, about two dozen major fires were attracting most of the states resources.

Most of the damage was caused by three clusters of fire complexes that were ravaging forest and rural areas in and around the San Francisco Bay area. They have burned 1,120 square miles.

Among the casualties were ancient redwood trees at Californias oldest state park, Big Basin Redwoods, plus the parks headquarters and campgrounds.

Overall, the fires have killed five people, torched nearly 700 homes and other structures and forced tens of thousands from their houses.

Expand Close A firefighter monitors a controlled burn in the backyard of a home in Boulder Creek (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP/PA) / Facebook

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The changing weather brought good news for some communities, including Boulder Creek, an old logging community of about 5,000 people in the Santa Cruz mountains.

Fire officials said they expected the blaze to reach the community, but they took advantage of recent good weather to try to herd flames around the town.

The storms predicted for Sunday were expected to aid those efforts by changing the direction of the wind.

As bad as that weather prediction is overall for certain parts of this fire, it actually is going to help us move it away from those certain communities, said Mark Brunton, a battalion chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the states firefighting agency.

Responding to the emergency on Saturday, President Donald Trump issued a major disaster declaration to provide federal assistance.

Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement that the declaration will help people in counties affected by the fires with crisis counselling, housing and other social services.
The Bono Regional Chairman of the Convention People's Party (CPP), Mr Salifu Ali Dayinday has said the party was targeting five parliamentary seats out of 12 in the region.



He mentioned Wenchi, Berekum East, Dormaa Central, Banda Constituency and Jaman North as the constituencies that the party had targeted to win in the December 7, 2020 polls.



Mr Dayinday was speaking to Graphic Online during the party's National Delegates Congress in Sunyani in the Bono region.



According to him, the party had the chance of winning the five parliamentary seats, explaining the Members of Parliament of both the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) who had held the seats since Ghana returned to constitutional rule had performed poorly.



Mr Dayinday explained that CPP would therefore capitalise on the lapses of the two major political parties to cause a surprise in the targeted constituencies.



Chances



He stated the party had targeted the Banda seat because of the conflict between the NPP and NDC in the area, explaining that while the two parties were fighting, CPP was busily campaigning.



He said the Berekum East constituency had lacked development under both NPP and NDC MPs leadership and that the only option now for the people was to vote for CPP.



"After this National Congress we are going to embark on series of campaigns in these constituencies and I believe that plans put in place by the regional executives will help to win these seats", Mr Dayinday stated.



He said the CPP was going to pay particular attention to its parliamentary candidates across the country, saying "CPP will surprise Ghanaians in the December polls".



Mr Dayinday called on the electorate to consider voting for the CPP Presidential and Parliamentary candidates for good governance and better economy.



He challenged the NPP and the NDC to ensure peace before, during and after the December polls.

Source: Daily Graphic









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Vice President on Sunday asserted that India cannot make progress unless women are given equal opportunities in all spheres, including the political arena.

He also said that there is a need to show in action and in deeds that gender discrimination no longer exists in the Indian society.

In a Facebook post, he once again urged all political parties to arrive at a consensus on the long-pending proposal for providing adequate reservation to women in Parliament and state legislatures at the earliest.

The Women Reservation Bill, which sought to provide reservation for women in Lok Sabha and state legislatures, was passed by Rajya Sabha. But it lapsed following the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha in 2014.

"With women constituting about 50 per cent of India's population, we cannot make progress unless they are given equal opportunities in all spheres, including the political arena," he said.

The vice president noted that India's culture has always accorded respect to women and treated them as equals.

"In Vedic times, there were learned women like Maitreyi, Gargi, Ghosha and Vishwatara, who enjoyed equal status to that of men and used to participate in debates. Respecting women, recognising their talent and contribution has been an Indian way of life," he said.

There is also a long history of unparalleled accomplishments of many outstanding women like Prabhavati, the daughter of Chandra Gupta II, who performed administrative duties in her kingdom and Razia Sultana, the only woman monarch to rule Delhi, he said.

"We have a long list of women achievers, who broke the glass ceiling and brought laurels to the nation. Unfortunately, over the centuries, there has been a gradual erosion of the core values of our culture and abhorrent practices like preference to son over a girl child have crept into the social fabric leading to inhuman criminal acts of female foeticide and female infanticide," Naidu lamented.

There should be zero tolerance towards any kind of discrimination or violence against girls and women, he stressed.

"Undoubtedly, the flagship scheme 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' has created a positive impact. But much more needs to be done to change the societal mindset. There should be a movement on women's empowerment and to ensure that no girl child is out of school," he said.

"It is high time we give girls and women their due in society and leave no stone unturned to empower them," he 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.)
Rumors have swirled about a possible breakup between Jihoon Lee and Deavan Clegg of 90 Day Fiance: The Other Way in recent weeks. Still, 29-year-old Jihoon of South Korea and Deavan, a 23-year-old model and mom of two from Utah, havent made any official statements either way on social media.

But one thing has been more than clear: Jihoons ongoing issues with online critics as the second season of 90 Day Fiance: The Other Way rolls on. In addition to deactivating and reactivating his Instagram more than once, Jihoon has taken to social media to call out critics directly.

Recently, he posted a troubling comment in response to one particularly harsh trollleading to a wave of support from his fans, followers, and castmates alike.

Jihoon Lee | Jihoon Lee via Instagram

Jihoon shared a disturbing message from an online critic

Jihoon and Deavan have been targets for a great deal of online criticism in recent months. Deavan and her mom, Elicia Clegg, got backlash from fans after criticizing South Korea and being harsh on Jihoon.

The criticism ramped up even more after an incident on a recent episode in which Deavans daughter, Drascilla, appeared to run towards the street. Deavan took to Instagram to declare that the clip (which involved Deavan and Elicia yelling at Jihoon and Jihoon breaking down in tears) didnt show the whole story.

Meanwhile, Jihoon has deactivated and reactivated his Instagram account and turned off the comments on several of his posts after fans attacked him for his lack of steady employment.

Im sorry, but please dont fight with each other about my family, Jihoon wrote in one Instagram post. Im going to stop the comments.

More recently, the 90 Day Fiance star shared an especially horrific comment from a critic. The screenshot of the message, sent to him in a private DM, read: Youre such a bad father. Kill yourself you idiot f*ck.

Jihoons caption of the screenshot read simply, Oh really?

But in a comment that many believed was deeply alarming, Jihoon wrote in response to the message, Can I die?

RELATED: 90 Day Fiance: Fans Feel Horrible For Jihoon Lees Father After New Sneak Peek of The Other Way

TLC cast members swarmed the comments to offer kind messages

Fans immediately swarmed the post to offer their support to Jihoon. Many begged him to seek help from his loved ones or a mental health professional and urged him to ignore the cruelty of haters and trolls.

Jihoons 90 Day Fiance castmates also joined in to offer their words of empathy and wisdom.

David Toborowsky, Annie Suwan Toborowskys husband, wrote in an encouraging comment: Dont let anyone get to you. You know your love for your family and that is all that matters.

Kenneth Niedermeier, Armando Rubios husband, also shared some kind words, writing to Jihoon: Thats sad and pathetic, keep your head up high. Humans are not made to be perfect. You know who you are.

Jenny Slatten and Sumit also chimed in on their joint Instagram account, commenting: No no no no no. You, yourself know how much you love your kids and I am sure you are like other fathers who love their kids and do anything to keep them happy. People dont know you very well. Only people [who] know you best are your family, your loved ones, your friends. So never let any hate affect you and your family.

Even Aladin Jallalis ex, Laura Jallali, who has had her own share of comments from trolls over the years, had some generous words to share with Jihoon. She wrote, Ignore the trolls Jihoon, you got this and it will all work out. Sometimes things happen that we dont understand but good things will come out of it. Stay strong, hold your head up high!

RELATED: 90 Day Fiance: What Big Secret Was Jihoon Keeping From Deavan?

Deavans husband assured fans he was all right after he received support

Two days after his initial comment, which concerned many fans deeply, Jihoon assured his followers that he was feeling better and wasnt in any danger.

Thank you very much, he wrote in an Instagram story. I saw so many positive DM and the world is beautiful yet.

Later, the 90 Day Fiance star took to Instagram again to ask his followers not to send any hate towards his wife, mother-in-law, or stepdaughter, either. Jihoon begged fans to show more empathy and compassion for his family.

Not everyone is perfect, Jihoon wrote in his post. Me and Deavan, even Elicia, Im so sorry. But please stop all criticism. Especially Elicia, theyre probably having a harder time than I am. I heard that Elicia and Drascillas under threat of murder. It is 100% wrong. Im begging you guys, I just want peaceI apologize to you guys, but thank you so much.

In a caption for the post, Jihoon pointed out that the coronavirus pandemic was straining many peoples lives and relationships. He asked that his followers show kindness to each other during this hard time throughout the world. Jihoon also offered his sincere apology for only showing [fans] bad things, implying that he wanted to make some positive changes of his own as well.


I will say this about accessibility, Dedekian says. If it werent for the city regulating it so carefully, it would be really tempting for restaurants to take as much sidewalk space as possible. Its hard to make a go of it with so few seats, so anywhere some extra table space can be squeezed in is helpful.
Three men were arrested in the early hours of this morning as police continue to question a 15-year-old girl and 28-year-old woman after a man was stabbed to death on a road in Birmingham.

The men - aged 22, 30 and 40 - were arrested at separate homes in the Nottingham area and are being taken to the West Midlands for questioning, police said.

The victim, who has not been formally identified, was found slumped at the junction of Bristol road and Mill Pool Way, Bournbrook, yesterday at 4.55pm with stab wounds in his chest. He was rushed to hospital but pronounced dead at 6.15pm.

The girl and woman were arrested at the scene.

Police at the scene in Bournbrook today after a man was found slumped near the junction of Bristol Road and Mill Pool Way

West Midlands Police were called around 5pm on Saturday to reports of a man slumped near the busy junction of Bristol Road and Mill Pool Way in Bournbrook

A murder investigation has been launched by West Midlands police after the man, who was taken hospital, died at 6.15pm today

Detective chief inspector Stu Mobberley, who is leading the investigation, said: 'We've made rapid progress overnight having worked with colleagues at Nottinghamshire police.

'Our enquiries continue and we are actively seeking at least one other person.

'I still really need to hear from anyone who was in Mill Pool Way, Bournbrook, at around 4 - 5pm yesterday and who saw what happened or any disorder to get in touch.

'They may have seen something important so please call.'

A man was found slumped near the junction of Bristol Road and Mill Pool Way in Bournbrook with a knife wound

A police van and two cars remained near the top of Mill Pool Lane this morning. Plain-clothes officers were seen examining the murder scene.

A woman who lives close to where the stabbing took place said: 'We went out at 4.30pm and came back at 6.30pm and saw lots of police vans. The next thing we knew the road was closed off.

'We were told there was a major incident and it would be on the news later. We drove round the other way and had to walk back to the house.

'It's a shock because this is a quiet area where we've never had any problems.'

Another neighbour said: 'It's terrible. It's very close to home.'

The girl and the woman who were arrested at the scene remain in police custody

A murder investigation has been launched.

Bristol road has now been re-opened but a police scene tent remains in Mill Pool Way.

They urged people to call 101 or message via the Live Chat on the website, quoting 3112 from August 22.
Mr McCann kept extensive diary notes and paperwork from 2016 to 2018 detailing specific incidents relating to mismanagement and compliance breaches and the many executives that he told. Some still work there. In August 2016 he wrote: Procurement practices not being followed. Awarding friends and ex-colleagues contracts, not declaring conflicts of interest, approving invoices without substantiation  millions of dollars of contracts being awarded to people with close relationships internally and not declaring their conflicts of interest. I was constantly warned not to disclose any of my concerns to SIRA despite having evidence of theft, fraud, corruption, conflicts and other activities Whistleblower Chris McCann Documents reveal the removal of crucial information from reports he had put together. An October 2016 diary entry describes a senior executive becoming enraged when he raised concerns about icares deficient procurement processes. Mr McCann's concerns about an icare executive who was on the insurer's payroll but still being paid by his former employer  a consultancy firm that had won a contract from icare  were also angrily dismissed.

'F--- this, f--- that  how dare you come in here and tell me this, Mr McCann says the executive screamed at him. McCann described the executive banging on his desk when he asked him about the decision to award consultancy Capgemini Australia a contract to build a new claims management system without declaring his relationship with a senior official at Capgemini. (The project was put out to tender with a one-week deadline for submissions.) The Herald contacted the former icare executive about Capgemini but he declined to comment. Icare also ignored questions related to the executive and Capgemini. Icares claims management system cost an estimated $360 million, including software and consultants. Mr McCann said he made numerous attempts with many executives in icare to call out wrongdoing but he was always blocked.

I was constantly warned not to disclose any of my concerns to SIRA [the State Insurance Regulatory Authority, which oversees workers' compensation] despite having evidence of theft, fraud, corruption, conflicts and other activities, he said. The more I dug the more the company and the senior people dug their heels in and didnt like what I was asking, he said. Icares chief executive John Nagle resigned on August 3 after revelations he had been sanctioned by the board for "deficient" disclosure of a contract awarded to his wife without a tender and a trip to Las Vegas funded by a vendor without declaring it. Other resignations include Treasurer Dominic Perrottets chief of staff after revelations two ministerial staff, including US Republican Ed Yap, had their salaries paid by icare in breach of regulations.

Former ICAC counsel Geoffrey Watson is calling for a royal commission or special commission of inquiry into icare. He said the misconduct at the organisation was one of the worst instances of mismanagement of funds he had seen. Actually attempting to prevent the compliance officer from doing his job  the only inference is the worst possible inference, and that is it was a cover-up, he said. In a statement icare said it takes its compliance obligations seriously and compliance reports were provided to the board on a regular basis. Icare encourages its people to report any misconduct or wrongdoing and has processes and policies in place to support this." Chris McCann has been unable to work since leaving icare. Credit: Kate Geraghty About a year after joining icare in 2016, McCann was diagnosed with a serious illness that didnt prevent him from doing his job. He was excluded from meetings crucial to his work. In December 2017 his job was advertised without his knowledge. When he queried it, he was told the ad had been accidentally placed.

He also received a series of threatening emails from an anonymous email address and a package on his desk with a pair of rubber gloves and a message that said You filthy poofter who comes in here  Ask your co-workers [name deleted for legal reasons] and everyone else what they think of you. Disturbing emails were also sent to his work email from an anonymous account. icare does not want gay in the workplace. You should get out. Do not touch our cups, plates or cutlery. Your type are disgusting, one email using a fake address to his work email said. I used to ride my bike to work and there were days when I used to feel so depressed about both going in there and going home that I felt like driving in front of a bus," McCann says. " I felt gutted, destroyed, betrayed, and they were in effect destroying everything I had built up over those years in my career, he said. Loading Mr McCann left icare in 2018. He signed a non-disclosure agreement and booked himself into hospital where he was diagnosed with severe depression and PTSD. He has been unable to work since.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 11:03:29|Editor: huaxia

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Farmers harvest crops in Zabadani town in the countryside of Damascus, Syria, on Aug. 22, 2020. Farmers returned to their farmlands in the war-ravaged city after the town had been retrieved. This year farmers enjoy their first harvest in years. (Photo by Ammar Safarjalani/Xinhua)
Five days after doctors at the civil hospital here were accused of running a fake Covid report racket in connivance with agents to conduct early tests, especially of NRIs, in lieu of money, the district police have submitted an inquiry report to deputy commissioner Sandeep Hans on Sunday.

Hans said the police have investigated the bribe allegations against a doctor for conducting Covid tests a report has been submitted to his office. The report will be forwarded to principal health secretary for further action. Right now, I cannot disclose the report findings, he added.

Last week, Charanjit Singh, a resident of Dehadka village in Ludhiana district, had submitted a written complaint to the DC alleging that he paid a bribe of 3,500 for each test of nine of his NRI family members to get the reports early.

Our flight to Hong Kong was scheduled on August 4. We had only 72 hours to get the test reports. When I reached the Moga civil hospital along with my parents and my sister-in-laws family on August 2, the doctors informed they cannot conduct our tests that day due to long waiting. In the meantime, one Om Parkash of Moga came to me and said if we paid 3,500 per person, the tests would be done that day. We had no option but to pay 31,500 for the nine tests, he stated.

Later, Om Parkash also submitted an affidavit to the DC, claiming he had given 1.7 lakh to district epidemiologist Dr Naresh Amla to get the reports of 48 NRIs early. He said Dr Amla assured him that if any of them is tested positive, they will be given a fake negative test report.

SP Jagatpreet Singh said an inquiry report has been given to the DC, but they have asked the complainant to come again for further investigation. All the persons who had given bribe to get the test reports are in other countries, so we need to talk to them to clear some facts, after which an additional inquiry report will be submitted. Money was taken for the tests, but right now, I cannot comment on who is guilty, he added.

As per sources, the police have named the doctor guilty in its initial report.

FARIDKOT HEALTH DEPT HAD FLAGGED ISSUE

Suspecting that some patients from Moga had paid bribe to get Covid reports early, the Faridkot district health department had also informed the state authorities about it.

Faridkot civil surgeon Dr Rajinder Kumar said some patients who came for the tests had demanded reports at the earliest stating they had paid 3,500 for each test in Moga. So, we informed regarding this to the higher authorities, he added.

A health official said the Moga doctor had requested them to conduct tests of some patients claiming their machine was not working. During the tests, one of the patients got angry due to the delay and said he had paid 3,500 for the same at Moga. We were shocked to hear this, so we informed the civil surgeon, the official added.
Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Queensland billionaire Clive Palmer once famously listed "litigation" as a hobby in his Who's Who entry. While he has racked up his fair share of legal activity over the past month thanks to an epic stoush with the state of Western Australia, Premier Mark McGowan and his Labor government are working overtime to stop him having his day in court. Not only is Palmer challenging the constitutionality of WA's strict border restrictions after he was denied entry into the state, he has lobbed a $27.8 billion compensation claim over an iron-ore dispute dating back to 2012. The unedifying battle has become political and personal, with McGowan labelling the billionaire an "enemy of the state" and WA Attorney-General John Quigley using parliamentary privilege to call Palmer a liar and hypocrite. Palmer, in turn, has responded by calling for the Premier to be jailed. On August 20, he filed a defamation action against McGowan in the Federal Court. The WA government has also rushed through "emergency legislation" rubbing out Palmer's legal rights to claim compensation from the government. All of this has the state's political commentators furious, lawyers worried, and the public bemused over the possibility Palmer could double WA's already enormous debt with the biggest win in Australian legal history. So what are these legal actions? How did they come about? And why is a new WA law relating to Palmer so controversial?

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WA Premier Mark McGowan, left, and Attorney-General John Quigley in a press conference about their law relating to Clive Palmer. Credit:Nathan Hondros How did the trouble start? In April, WA closed the state's borders to stop the spread of COVID-19. The move enjoys popular support, especially since the state has virtually eliminated the virus with no community transmission detected for months. (The dwindling handful of cases have been returned international travellers in hotel quarantine.) But the hard border restrictions still allowed exemptions for some people to cross into WA, especially those on business. Enter Clive Palmer, who has significant business interests in the state. In May, he applied to enter WA on business grounds but was knocked back. Unhappy, and armed to the teeth with QCs, he lodged a constitutional challenge to the border restrictions with the High Court. Section 92 of Australia's constitution says "trade, commerce, and intercourse among the states ... shall be absolutely free". Not much wriggle room there, as WA Senator Mathias Cormann put it. Although the border restrictions were overwhelmingly supported by voters, as federal Attorney-General Christian Porter said, "what is constitutional and what is popular is not the same thing".

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It will be months before the High Court delivers a decision. How did a second legal battle begin? In the early evening of August 11, WA's Attorney-General got to his feet in Parliament and dropped a bombshell: Palmer had lodged an arbitration claim on the state government that could be worth $27.8 billion. Quigley said the figure was as much as the entire state budget for a year and almost as much as the government's state debt. In WA, mining companies sign "state agreements" with the government where they agree to pay royalties in exchange for the right to extract resources. State agreements are written into legislation, and have underpinned WA's reputation as a safe haven for international investment. Once a state agreement is inked, it is law and gives mining companies rights that can be worth billions. If there are disagreements, they are dealt with by arbitration rather than through the courts. In 2002, WA's then-Labor government granted Palmer's Mineralogy a state agreement, which is the source of much of his wealth. His companies own the rights to extract iron ore in the north of the state at the Sino Iron Ore mine, operated by Chinese conglomerate CITIC, who pay his companies $400 million a year in royalties.

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Under the Mineralogy state agreement, his companies also have rights to a proposed Balmoral South iron-ore mine 80 kilometres south-west of Karratha in WA's Pilbara region. But in 2012, then-premier Colin Barnett refused to assess a proposal from Palmer's companies under the state agreement. Palmer's company Mineralogy had the matter sent to an independent arbitrator, former High Court justice Michael McHugh, who ruled against the government in 2014, a decision that has sparked an unsuccessful government appeal and the arbitration that is now the subject of legal controversy. The parties were set for mediation by former WA Supreme Court chief justice Wayne Martin before heading back to arbitration later this year. It was while preparing for that legal process that Palmer's companies lodged their ambit claim in May, which totalled $27.8 billion as compensation for being unable to progress their iron ore project which requires government approval under the state agreement. The dispute has been in and out of legal forums for eight years, including five years in abeyance, before Palmer restarted proceedings. Quigley, a former lawyer, said the state had been unsuccessful in the past in relation to the claims and therefore a successful outcome in arbitration was not guaranteed. The nature of the arbitration also meant there would be limited avenues for appeal for the government and even if Palmer was partially successful, it could put the state's financial capacity to deal with the coronavirus pandemic in jeopardy. "The government is taking steps to protect the state from the rapacious nature of Mr Palmer [and his companies]," Quigley told Parliament.

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The arbitration proceedings continue. WA Governor Kim Beazley signing the anti-Clive Palmer legislation into law. Credit:Nine News Perth What did the WA government do next? McGowan has argued the government was forced to act. If Palmer's claim were to succeed, it would mean "mass closures of hospitals, of schools, of police stations, mass sackings of public servants, of child protection workers, of police officers". After Quigley outlined the financial risk to the state, he tabled legislation that he said would snuff out Palmer's claims. The law, which was rushed through Parliament in just two days, meant the billionaire and his companies would indemnify the state against any compensation claims he could bring under the state agreement and included a provision that "the rules known as the rules of natural justice (including any duty of procedural fairness) do not apply". The legislation also explicitly exempted government decisions about the dispute from being made public through Freedom of Information laws.

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It was a mid-August day amidst Vietnams second wave of COVID-19 outbreaks when Sierra, a U.S. national living in the Southeast Asian country uploaded a photo to her Instagram of a resort in the southern city of Can Tho.

My favorite staycation spot in the Mekong, she captioned the photo.

You can get there in 3 hours from Saigon if you go by your own car and dont hit any traffic jams.

She also attached the hashtag #staycation2020 among others in the comment section.

Scratching the travel itch

Sierra is not new to Vietnam. The 30-year-old woman has lived in the country for almost eight years.

After one year of living in the northern city of Ha Long and six years in the capital city of Hanoi, Sierra moved to Ho Chi Minh City in mid-2019.

Her husband, an expat from France, has also settled down in Vietnam for about 12 years.

With nearly two decades of Vietnam experience between herself and her husband, Sierra has picked a great deal of knowledge about how to properly blog about the countrys thousands of tourist draws.

Sierra said travel blogging for her mostly started out as just giving free advice to expats who are new to Vietnam, but she later got to think about making it a full-time job.

Like other fellow travel aficionados, Sierra did not hesitate to express her love for traveling to different cities or countries, until the COVID-19 pandemic that broke out early this year prevented her from doing so.

Travel restrictions all over the world plus the risk of being exposed to the virus have hold back travelers and tourists around the globe.

Staycations are a really interesting way to scratch that travel itch by staying close to home, Sierra explained, adding that prior to COVID-19 she would only book one or two staycations per year.

Sierra is seen in a photo she posted on her travel Instagram handle @lilmissadventure

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines a staycation as a holiday that you take at home or near your home rather than travelling to another place.

Recalling a recent staycation she took with her little sister at a hotel in District 3, Sierra shared that it is probably one of my favorite places in Ho Chi Minh City as it reminds me of an art gallery, but with perks like champagne, super Instagrammable afternoon tea sets, and a gorgeous rooftop swimming pool that is usually empty.

At the time of speaking to Tuoi Tre News, the American blogger currently has two more staycations planned with her husband and friends.

And with great promotions at luxury accommodations throughout the city, why not experience a different side of home?

Currently, several high-end hotels in Ho Chi Minh City are hoping to make up for lost revenues caused by the countrys closed borders by offering staycation discounts and collaborating with travel influencers.

Staycations also support the local economy because they help ensure that hotels and resorts that usually cater to foreign travelers can keep running and working as normally as possible, Sierra commented.

Fellow American Samantha, a travel blogger with more than 41,500 Instagram followers shared Sierras opinions about scratching the travel itch despite COVID-19-related travel restrictions.

I think planning a staycation in your city is a fun way to itch the travel bug, she shared.

Samantha is seen in a photo posted on her travel Instagram account @thereshegoesagn.

Samantha had planned to travel around Vietnam during the month of March but decided to stay put when COVID-19 began to tighten its grip on the country.

One month eventually turned into six, and Samantha 'accidentally' had more chances to explore the country and experience some staycations in Ho Chi Minh City.

Though she lives in Binh Thanh District, Samantha rarely passes on a chance to check out the hotel options in District 1.

I think theres so much to do and all the main sightseeing spots are there, so its nice to play tourist especially if you dont go to that area much, she said.

Samantha also shared Sierras opinion on the economic benefits staycationing can bring to the local economy.

You get the chance to travel and at the same time the money youd have normally spent in another city or country is being spent in your local economy, Samantha explained.

American expats are not the only ones hopping on the staycation train.

Leandre Heslop from South Africa is another foreign national living in Ho Chi Minh City who is fully on board with seeing another side of Saigon.

The great thing about a staycation is that you dont have to go far to get a holiday, she said.

Costs like traveling are also cut so it usually is a cheaper option."

According to Heslop, staycations are a great option because they are the only real form of a getaway she can get during the pandemic.

Normally, she does not usually go on staycation because she enjoys exploring different provinces.

Ive done more staycations during the COVID-19 pandemic than ever before and it feels like a real getaway, she admitted, calling a staycation a break from your reality within the city where youre currently staying.

Alyshia Turchyn is seen in a photo during her staycation in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: alyshiaturchyn.com

A relaxing weekend is also what Canadian Alyshia Turchyn had dreamed of when she got back into her typical six-day work week following the years COVID-19-caused extended Tet (Vietnamese Lunar New Year) holiday in February.

Just a quick little escape was exactly what I wanted in order to see a new side of Saigon, Turchyn said.

Ive never spent the night in District 1 so having a staycation certainly let me see the beauty of Saigon from a new perspective, she recalled of her two staycations in June and July.

Turchyn later reviewed her two stays on her blog, describing the delicious breakfast she had while enjoying the view of the landmark Bitexco Tower and the experiences she had wandering around streets near the Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts.

Another benefit of staycations, Turchyn shared, is that much of the time a vacation to somewhere new means your days are packed with things to do and see.

"So a staycation gives you the ability to just chill out if you want to.

Be a tourist at home

An important reason why a staycation makes sense to the travel bloggers Tuoi Tre News talked to is that it gives them a chance to see how beautiful the city and neighborhood they are living in is.

Having lived and worked in Ho Chi Minh City for almost three years, Turchyn, who defined a staycation as spending a night or two in the city or surrounding area where you live, admitted that she had never felt the urge to have a staycation in the city before the coronavirus pandemic.

We work, we relax at home, and we hurry to book trips to faraway places. We forget to slow down and appreciate whats waiting for us in our own backyard, she explained.

I think a staycation is the perfect opportunity to discover the beauty of the neighborhood and city where we live. It can make you discover a new cafe that you didnt know existed, it can spark your historical curiosity or it can allow you to bump into an old friend."

Meanwhile, Samantha, who described staycationing as an opportunity to "spend time in your own town or city as though youre an outsider coming to visit for the weekend," said that every town and city has its own special charm.

I find that if you try to look at your own home city in the same way youd look at a brand-new destination, youll discover more than you think, she insisted.

South African Heslop weighed in with her own explanation of the best reasons to take a staycation.

So many times, we look outside our city to find beauty, and because we are so comfortable with our routine, we forget to be tourists within our own city, she said.

Staycations allow you to change your mindset and see where you stay as a holiday destination for you to explore."

Leandre Heslop is seen in a photo posted on her travel Instagram handle @leandreh.

As for Sierra, staycationing is less about the journey itself and more about breaking old patterns and habits to discover something new and becoming open-minded.

A staycation is usually meant to be a vacation you can take at home, but after so many weeks of staying at home, theres no way to make it feel like a vacation anymore, isn't there? she raised a question.

So, for me a staycation can also mean seeing the place you live in a different way, like in the eyes of a traveler who has never been to your city before.

Stay in a different part of the city and try new things you may never have had the chance to do before."

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Suddenly, the city that never sleeps is starting to feel eerily sleepy. Apartment vacancies are at a record high, more than 1,200 restaurants have closed, and Wall Street bigwigs are doing their jobs from Greenwich or the Hamptons.

Why it matters: New York City is a success story in beating back COVID-19, but many of its wealthiest and most successful residents have fled, some of them never to return.

Driving the news: While the city typically empties out in August, with well-heeled New Yorkers taking vacations or moving to their second homes, this time feels different:

So many people are fleeing the city permanently that overworked moving companies are "turning people away," per NYT.

Early in the pandemic, people were trying to escape COVID-19. More recently, reasons include permanent work-from-anywhere arrangements, the prospect of safer in-person schools outside the city, and fear of looting and gun violence.

The impact: There are more than 13,000 empty apartments in Manhattan, and landlords are offering unheard-of discounts.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is destitute, and ridership is in a tailspin  despite the fact that subway cars are unnaturally gleaming.

In an echo of the 1970s, homelessness, violent crime and urban blight are on the rise.

The Empire State Building is suffering as tenants evacuate and tourists stay away.

Hamilton, Shmamilton: Broadway is shut down through at least January.

Theres no reason to do business in New York, Michael Weinstein of Ark Restaurants, which owns the famous Bryant Park Grill & Cafe, told the New York Times. I can do the same volume in Florida in the same square feet as I would have in New York, with my expenses being much less."

While Bryant Park Grill & Cafe remains open (for outdoor dining only), Weinstein said he'd never open another restaurant in New York.

With tourists and office workers largely gone, Keith McNally has shuttered Augustine, the popular Financial District eatery, and Thomas Keller has closed TAK Room and Bouchon Bakery in Hudson Yards, the trendy new West Side neighborhood.

Where it stands: A throwdown between Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city's unions over New York's massive municipal budget deficit could make matters much worse.

De Blasio has appealed to Albany and Washington for relief, but so far is hearing, "Talk to the hand."

He's threatened to fire 22,000 city employees unless unions agree to trim $1 billion in labor costs.

Meanwhile, trash is piling up in city parks, the city's EMS union chief says that "people will die" if first responders are cut, and New York's teachers have threatened a sickout to protest de Blasio's plan to open schools on Sept. 10.

The former New Yorker in the White House has been notably unsympathetic.

"The crime and chaos in Democrat-run cities have gotten so bad that liberals are even getting out of Manhattan's Upper West Side," President Trump and HUD Secretary Ben Carson wrote in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

What to watch: With cold weather approaching, New Yorkers debate: Will things get even worse? And for how long?

Pessimists include James Altucher, writer, former hedge funder and comedy club owner, who argued in a LinkedIn post that "New York is dead forever."

"Businesses are remote and they aren't returning to the office," he wrote. "And it's a death spiral: the longer offices remain empty, the longer they will remain empty."

Optimists include the comedian Jerry Seinfeld  who published a rousing rebuttal to Altucher in the NYT  and Andrew Hacker, the Queens College professor, Upper West Sider and author of a new Trump book called "Downfall," who tells Axios that the city will bounce back.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 16:10:45|Editor: huaxia

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KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- At least 10 militants were killed and five others wounded after Afghan Air Force pounded militants' position in the country's northern Kunduz province early Sunday, a local official confirmed.

"Clashes between security forces and Taliban militants have been continuing for days in Khan Abad district. A group of Taliban militants captured several security checkpoints in Dowkan-e-Adam Khan locality of the district Saturday, but air force targeted the militants early Sunday, killing and injuring the militants there," Qudratullah Safi, deputy district chief, told Xinhua.

The militants have blocked a main road connecting Kunduz with neighboring Takhar province within the past 12 days, the official noted.

Sporadic clashes have been continuing in Khan Abad in the eastern part of Kunduz since then as security forces tried to reopened the route, he said.

The two provinces have been the scene of heavy clashes and fightings for long.

The Taliban militant group has not responded to the report so far. Enditem
Express News Service By

MUMBAI: Stating that followers of the Tablighi Jamaat were made scapegoats, the Bombay High Courts Aurangabad bench on Friday quashed the FIRs against 29 foreign national belonging to the Tablighi Jamaat and said as no hotels were available for stay during the nationwide lockdown, the foreigners had no option but to stay in masjids.

The foreign nationals were booked under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code, Epidemic Diseases Act, Maharashtra Police Act, Disaster Management Act and the Foreigners Act for allegedly violating their tourist visa conditions by attending the Tablighi Jamaat congregation at Nizamuddin in New Delhi.

ALSO READ | Case against Tablighi Jamaat: ED conducts multi-city raids under PMLA

Apart from the foreign nationals, police also booked six Indian nationals and trustees of the masjids for giving shelter to the petitioners, who belong to countries such as the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Tanzania, Djibouti, Benin and Indonesia. A division bench of Justice T V Nalawade and Justice M G Sewlikar of the Aurangabad bench heard three separate petitions.

A political government tries to find the scapegoat when there is pandemic or calamity and the circumstances show that there is probability that these foreigners were chosen to make them a scapegoat, the bench said in its order.

The propaganda against the so-called religious activity (Tablighi Jamaat) was unwarranted. The activity was going on for more than 50 years and it is there throughout the year, the court noted. In a 58-page strongly worded judgement, the bench said in big religious places, including masjids, there are arrangements of stay made for religious persons or the persons who are involved for maintaining of the masjids.

ALSO READ | Delhi HC says 'no objection' in quashing separate FIRs against foreigners in Tablighi case

If pilgrims or followers are made to stay in an emergency situation, it cannot be seen as a breach of rules and the law, the court said.

If they allow some persons like foreigners to stay with them, it cannot be said that they have committed the offence of breach of the aforesaid orders. During lockdown period, all over India in many religious places arrangement was made for destitute persons, to give them shelter and to provide them meals. Such arrangements were made in gurdwara, masjids and other religious places. The court said to blame the Jamaatis for the spread of the virus was incorrect. It said the circumstances and the latest figures of COVID-19 in India show that action against the petitioners should not have been taken.

Tablighi FIRs: Time to repent action, says HC

It is now high time for the concerned to repent about this action taken against the foreigners and to take some positive steps to repair the damage done by such action, the court said.

During the situation created by the Covid-19 pandemic, we need to show more tolerance and need to be more sensitive towards our guests, particularly like the present petitioners. Instead of helping them, we lodged them in jails by making allegations that they were responsible for violation of travel documents and that they are responsible for spreading the coronavirus, the court said.

According to the petitioners, they came to India on a valid visa issued by the Indian government and contended that on their arrival at the airport, they were screened and tested for Covid-19 and only when they were found negative for the virus, they were allowed to leave the airport.

The bench noted that the Maharashtra police acted mechanically in the present matter and the state government acted under political compulsion. The government cannot give different treatment to citizens of different religions of different countries, the court said.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug.23

Trend:

Azerbaijan provided constructive engagement in negotiations on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but Armenia continued destructive policy, Assistant to Azerbaijans President - Head of the Foreign Affairs Policy Department of the Presidential Administration Hikmat Hajiyev said in an interview with TRT World, Trend reports.

Hajiyev said that initially, when Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan came to power, Azerbaijan had expectations that he could probably pursue a different policy than the previous Armenian leadership.

He recalled the meeting of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Tajikistans capital city of Dushanbe.

Hajiyev said that Armenian prime minister asked for some time to make a house cleaning in Armenia and prepare for the parliamentary elections and so on.

From Azerbaijans perspective, we have provided constructive engagement in the negotiation process and giving it time and also trying from our side to ensure a ceasefire regime, but unfortunately we have not seen reciprocity from Armenian side, he added.

Armenian government continued their destructive policy, Hajiyev said.

He emphasized that the core of this policy starts from the offensive military doctrine of Armenia that calls for new territories and new wars.

Then Armenian Security Minister said that no inch of [occupied] territory of Azerbaijan should be given back, and then Pashinyan said that Nagorno-Karabakh is Armenia, full stop, Hajiyev noted.
The authors' statements come shortly after Bloomsbury India faced criticism as the launch of a new book, Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story, was announced.

A day after Bloomsbury India announced the withdrawal of a new title on the 2020 Delhi riots, three authors tweeted that they were severing ties with the publishing house.

On 22 August, hours after the news of the withdrawal of Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story was made public, writer and economist Sanjeev Sanyal stated he will never publish a book with Bloomsbury India.

A few weeks ago, I had raised the issue of how a tiny cabal controls Indian publishing and constantly imposes ideological censorship. We have just witnessed one example of how this insidious control is wielded. 1/n  Sanjeev Sanyal (@sanjeevsanyal) August 22, 2020

Following suit, retired Indian Administrative Service officer and author Sanjay Dixit said he was ending his relationship with the publisher, cancelling his upcoming book with them, Nullifying Article 370 and Enacting CAA. "Let them paint themselves red," he added.

This censorship by @BloomsburyIndia is unacceptable. I do hereby announce that I am ending my relationship with them, and will send Bloomsbury a notice to withdraw my book 'Nullifying Article 370 and Enacting CAA' due to be released on Sep 20, 2020. Let them paint themselves Red https://t.co/K609dLw3yN  Sanjay Dixit     (@Sanjay_Dixit) August 22, 2020

Anand Ranganathan, professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University said he was 'appalled to see Bloomsbury India buckle under threats by fascists', and would return the advance payment made to him for his upcoming title Forgotten Heroes of Indian Science.

1. I am appalled to see @BloomsburyIndia, publisher of two of my books, buckle under threats by fascists and withdraw the book Delhi Riots - 2020. I stand in complete solidarity with the authors. This is an assault on Freedom of Expression and on those who cherish this freedom.  Anand Ranganathan (@ARanganathan72) August 22, 2020

The authors' statements come shortly after the publishing house found itself embroiled in an online row as the launch of Monika Arora, Sonali Chitalkar and Prerna Malhotra's Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story was announced.

Scheduled for Saturday, 22 August, the event listed among its guests BJP leader Kapil Mishra, whose pro-CAA speeches preceded the February 2020 communal riots in Delhi. Apart from Mishra, filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri and OpIndia editor Nupur Sharma were expected to mark their attendance as well.

After a row erupted on social media about the nature of the book and those attending the launch, Bloomsbury India released an official statement to Newslaundry, saying they were withdrawing the book. The statement shared in full reads:

"Bloomsbury India had planned to release Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story in September, a book purportedly giving a factual report on the riots in Delhi in February 2020, based on investigations and interviews conducted by the authors. However, in view of very recent events including a virtual pre-publication launch organised without our knowledge by the authors, with participation by parties of whom the publishers would not have approved, we have decided to withdraw publication of the book. Bloomsbury India strongly supports freedom of speech but also has a deep sense of responsibility towards society.
Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday appealed to people to remain extra careful during festivals and rains in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.

He was speaking after inaugurating a Covid care centre at COEP ground here via video link.

The 800-bed facility, including 200 ICU beds, was developed within 18 days, officials said.

The state government has already relaxed many lockdown restrictions. We have also developed adequate healthcare infrastructure in the state. However, we need to be more cautious to stop the spread of coronavirus during festivals and rain, he said.

Deputy Chief Minister and Pune district guardian minister Ajit Pawar said jumbo Covid care facilities will come up in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad township.
Nearly three years after a swarm of Wine Country wildfires devastated California, another explosion of flames is making clear that the states efforts to fight the crisis may be no match for the worsening conditions fueling it.

Flames leveled entire Santa Rosa neighborhoods in 2017, then destroyed almost all of the Butte County town of Paradise 13 months later. Each of those fires set records for destruction.

In the past week, the extent and complexity of the blazes have stretched Californias firefighting resources to the limit. Over a few days, fires ignited by lightning in an intense heat wave torched an area more than twice the size of Los Angeles, forcing 119,000 people to flee in the middle of a pandemic.

And its only August. The most dangerous fire-prone months are still to come.

The hots are getting hotter, the dries are getting drier  climate change is real, Gov. Gavin Newsom said, recording a cell phone video Thursday from a forest outside Watsonville, as flames encroached nearby.

If you are in denial about climate change, come to California, Newsom added in the video, which played for the Democratic National Convention.

John Blanchard

Climatologists share that perspective, blaming the repeatedly catastrophic blazes largely on higher temperatures that dry out vegetation more than ever before, priming it to ignite intensely, particularly when long, dry summers bleed into arid autumns.

More than 771,000 acres burned in less than a week  making the current fire siege already more than three times as large as the Wine Country disaster of 2017, when fires burned the North Bay for about a month.

Now, after an extremely dry winter in Northern California, conditions are more dire. An ominous forecast from Sunday into Tuesday that could bring another round of dry lightning presents another looming challenge.

We cant really afford another (major) fire, said Daniel Berlant, a Cal Fire assistant deputy director.

Some of the larger, more remote fires may still be burning when the state gets its first autumn offshore winds, said UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain. That would raise the terrifying prospect that one or more of the blazes could worsen even after firefighters gain ground.

These raging wildfires come with a severe human cost: Homes burn down, and thousands of people are dislocated. The aftereffects could be worse this year, complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic and sputtering economy.

By Friday, it was apparent that even though California has spent several years battling the same conditions, the current resources arent enough.

Firefighters said their supply of ground crews, engines and aircraft was stretched thin over the past week. Some 96% of Cal Fire engines were in use  a likely record. County and city fire departments have stepped in to staff firehouses while nearly all Cal Fire crews battle wildfires.

All of our first responders are working to the ragged edge of everything they have, state Assemblyman Jim Wood, a Santa Rosa Democrat, said during a briefing Friday in Calistoga.

Nic Coury / Special to The Chronicle

Newsom called for aid from across the country, even as other Western states contend with their own wildfires.

While California set aside $372.7 million in this years budget for an emergency wildland fire suppression fund, its not clear how much of that money it has spent. If it blows through that, it could dip into a $2.6 billion special fund for economic uncertainties.

But more state funds wont counter the trend of increased development in woodland areas, which some argue has made the situation more difficult to manage.

Rural residents increasingly contend with fire as a way of life, altering their homes to be more fire-resistant.

Still, even the most conscientious have found themselves humbled by nature  sometimes repeatedly. Tom Vreeland was a member of neighborhood fire councils for years before his home on Atlas Peak Road in Napa burned to its foundation in 2017. Radiant heat melted his wifes Tesla into the pavement. The couple hadnt finished decorating their new house when unusual summer lightning sparked a new cluster of fires Monday, prompting another evacuation warning.

Vreelands wife and son departed to a local RV park, but Vreeland remained home Thursday, driving up the road every few hours to check the fires progress.

Its hard, he said, reflecting on all the neighbors who sold their properties after the Wine Country fires.

Some are saying, Im just too old to do this  I just dont have the energy it takes to rebuild, Vreeland recounted.

Yet, the wooded areas of Northern California remain a draw, and people who settle there need infrastructure and utilities  another common source of wildfires. Power lines owned by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. caused a string of monstrous infernos over the past five years.

PG&E is trying to upgrade its equipment, improve maintenance and trim more vegetation, and the company is not to blame for the current fire siege. The company also resorted to shutting off power lines in recent years to reduce the chance that its equipment would spark fires and will probably do so again in the months ahead.

More aggressive forest management may help California get a better grip on its ruthless wildfires. The state is way behind on thinning out the dead vegetation that fuels large fires, said Ed Smith, a senior forest ecologist with the Nature Conservancy. He blamed the backlog on the high cost and complexity of catching up, coupled with a 150-year history of trying to suppress all fires.

A new state and federal partnership seeks to reduce fire risks on 1 million acres of forestland each year. Its a start, Smith said, but it will take years to catch up. California has about 33 million acres of forest.

Smith said part of the solution is prescribed burns and even letting some lightning-caused fires to spread a bit  if conditions are less dangerous and lives and property are not threatened, unlike now.

We need to get better at doing larger management interventions, like introducing fire, and doing that as opportunistically as possible, Smith said.

In the Sonoma Valley, winemaker Sam Coturri waits to see how much the current fires damage his business. Its a familiar drill: Three years ago, the Nuns Fire came within feet of his parents home. Several of his friends or their families lost houses in the fire.

Though a smaller fire came within a quarter mile of his home in 1996, the threat has evolved in Wine Country, where major wildfires have ignited for several consecutive years.

This was something that we always thought about, but it wasnt something that we had to deal with every year, Coturri said.

But Coturri, 37, isnt leaving. He feels linked to Sonoma County, his lifelong home and one of the worlds premier wine grape-growing regions.

This is what we know, and this is what we do, what my family does, Coturri said. And when you talk about climate change on a larger scale, theres nowhere else you can go thats not going to have some sort of impact.

For now, he thinks, all he can do is adapt  and prepare for whats to come.

J.D. Morris and Rachel Swan are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com, rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thejdmorris, @rachelswan
Over the course of the pandemic, CD Baby employees have found at least one clever way to combat so-called Zoom fatigue: Invite a llama to the video conference call.

Earlier this year, the Portland-based music distributor made the transition to full-time remote work  a move that nearly every office in the country has struggled to adapt to. While research suggests that remote workers see a boost in productivity, many social elements of the office dont so easily translate to the digital world. After all, chatting with colleagues on Slack cant quite match happy-hour banter.

But the artistry fueling the unconventional corporate life at CD Baby seems nearly pandemic-proof. Employees cite the companys mission of helping artists and its creative culture as key reasons they love their jobs. Fun, forward-thinking and fabulous are a few of the keywords repeated in survey responses for The Oregonian/OregonLives Top Workplaces. Those sentiments have made CD Baby a fourth-consecutive winner for the competition, now in its ninth year. And despite the current upheaval in the music industry, the good vibes keep flowing.

Even as the company has rushed to grow its workforce this year by around 10%, due to an unexpected growth in quarantine music releases, employees have managed to stay closely engaged in novel ways.

Take the weekly series of e-socials, which show how a little silliness can go a long way in lifting everyones spirits. Earlier this year, a furry resident of Clover Brooke Farm in New York was the secret guest of honor at the company-wide hangout.

CD Baby's employees are almost all working from home. Tracy Maddux, CD Babys CEO, gave a tour of the Portland location on July 9, 2020.Randy L. Rasmussen/For The Oregonian/OregonLive

You can imagine how wonderfully surprised everyone was when Prince Caspian and Andrea joined the video chat, says Heather Boyce, executive assistant at CD Baby  Prince Caspian being the llama and Andrea his human caretaker. The e-social also happened to be an e-costume party. Andrea had dressed up Prince Caspian in this adorable little cowboy hat with pigtails, recalls Boyce, who did much of the legwork to arrange the virtual farm tour.

Despite attendance being optional, at least half of CD Babys 200 employees (184 are based in Portland, with the rest working in markets worldwide) routinely log on for the events. We started them shortly after moving to remote work as a way to stay connected to each other  theyve been so much fun, says Boyce. Weve done game nights, ice breaker questions, trivia and even a virtual afterparty where we all voted on and watched a movie with the Netflix Party app.

Beyond the e-socials, employees get work-from-home care packages, with freshly roasted coffee and a host of snacks.

But of course, a typical work day at CD Baby isnt all virtual parties and free Cheetos. Survey respondents say they take pride in the mission of helping independent musicians make money from their work. Its a mission thats all the more timely since quarantine measures have shut down many artists primary revenue stream: concerts.

Traditionally, a recording artist would release an album and then go on tour to support it. (Full disclosure: This reporter once sold some not-so-good music on the old CDBaby.com store.)

Tracy Maddux, CD Babys CEO, outside the company's Portland location on July 9, 2020.Randy L. Rasmussen/For The Oregonian/OregonLive

The objective of the release was to support the more lucrative means of supporting yourself  touring, says Tracy Maddux, who joined CD Baby in 2010 and took the helm as chief executive in 2012. With the pandemic, its gone from 60 miles an hour to 0 (for live musicians). Now local venues are struggling to survive and the nature of life has changed.

As revenue from concerts disappeared overnight, artists turned to releasing new music, typically using a service such as CD Babys to upload their digital releases direct to streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music and more than 100 other platforms. Since the start of quarantine, artists at all levels have been releasing exponentially more new music, even spawning a very-2020 buzzword: quarantine album.

When the pandemic hit, (CD Baby) went from growing to growing really, really fast, says Maddux, who admits his team has had trouble keeping up with the number of new releases artists submit through their digital distribution services. Maddux had projected the companys crop of new releases would grow by around 15% in March, but the pandemic has driven that to more than 50%, he says.

So far, the companys only major casualty seems the most ironic: CD Baby no longer directly sells CDs. On March 31, CD Baby retired its online retail store, which founder Derek Sivers had launched in 1998 amid the dot-com craze. In the early days, Sivers helped pioneer e-commerce for many musicians. But in recent years, digital music distribution and a suite of monetization and promotional services have made up the vast majority of the companys profits, not physical CD sales. Maddux declined to share revenue, though in prior years CD Baby has reported paying out more than $100 million in artists earnings, the vast majority generated online. After closing the store, CD Baby avoided layoffs by retraining its warehouse personnel to work in other divisions.

Were focused on whats driving our business now  and theyre completely different business activities than we were engaged in 20 years ago, Maddux says. What have we learned? Being good at change is being good in times of crisis. Virtual dates with llamas seem to help a little, too.

Read more Top Workplaces stories at oregonlive.com/topworkplaces. Keep up with Oregon business and economic news by subscribing to our Oregon Business Insights newsletter.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 23

By Fidan Babayeva  Trend:

The Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) is developing new standards for information technology and IT security, said CBA Director General Farid Osmanov, the Association of Banks of Azerbaijan told Trend.

He made the remark at the online meeting of representatives of CBA and the association.

The online meeting was also attended by President of the Association Zakir Nuriev, Chairman of the expert group on IT and IT security of the association Jalal Orujov and other top managers of the CBA and the Association of Banks of Azerbaijan.

The meeting participants discussed issues related to conducting IT competitions and other related events within the framework of the International Banking Forum, annually held by the Central Bank of Azerbaijan and the Association of Banks of Azerbaijan, as well as prospects for closer cooperation other government agencies and importance of timely identification of various attacks on cybersecurity.

Director General of the Central Bank Farid Osmanov provided information about the work done by CBA in connection with the development of new standards for IT and IT security.

He emphasized the importance of such meetings and expressed his readiness to support initiatives related to digitalization of the financial sector, cost optimization and enhancing cybersecurity, said the association.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: Fidan_Babaeva
PARIS, Aug 22 (Reuters) - The French government said on Saturday it would unveil details of its 100 billion euro ($118 billion) plan to reinvigorate the economy in the first week of September, instead of next Tuesday, as it focuses on preparing the new school term.

"The recovery plan is ready, the timetable for its implementation still stands," government spokesman Gabriel Attal said in a statement.

Schools are set to reopen on Sept. 1, after most were closed during a two-month lockdown earlier this year to fight the coronavirus, and the government is working to ensure protective measures will be adequate, Attal said.

France has already outlined some of the parameters of its crisis measures, including cuts to domestic business taxes, investment in promoting jobs for the young and funding for environmental initiatives.

($1 = 0.8478 euros) (Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau Writing by Sarah White Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Christine Levesque wont be sending her son back to school in September.

Considering the challenges her 10-year-old boy with autism faced when he was in class prior to the COVID-19 pandemic being declared, Levesque does not feel comfortable sending him back immediately when schools reopen.

She isnt alone.

The Niagara Falls resident, who leads a group called Autism Advocacy Ontario, said the organization has been in contact with families daily, listening to their concerns about sending their children back to school.

Levesque said she was forced to pull her son, Larz, out of school last October after he slipped away from his teachers three times in one day when the school could not provide the support he needed.

She said school administration informed her in February a new support person had been brought in for Larz, but 10 days after he returned to class labour actions began to disrupt classes, followed by the COVID-19 shutdown.

Like most kids, Larz has been home ever since.

If his needs werent being met before, how are they going to be met now with teachers who are under so much more stress? Levesque wonders.

She also worries about worse-case scenarios that could arise, possibly leading to bullying related to the virus if children show symptoms.

Although parents of autistic children are typically advised to allow their kids to socialize as much as possible, Levesque said she is no longer concerned that her son may be too isolated at home.

She said Larz been thriving in the months hes been home, and shes heard similar stories from other parents through the advocacy group.

As soon as these kids got out of schools and started spending time with their families, things started happening. Some kids started to communicate better, she said. In the last six months, I think the calm-down of everything has helped these kids tremendously.

But she is concerned about autistic children returning to classrooms too quickly and finding a routine thats different than before with all these new expectations and hand washing.

Levesque said she has been advising parents who contact the advocacy group: Do not panic, and take your time.

She said she reminds them that if they have a special needs child, they are in control of their childs individual education plan, or IEP.

Its been this long, the transition is going to be awful. Lets do it slowly, she said.

She suggested sending children with autism back to the classroom for a half-day to start, and a full day a few weeks later, and then well see how it goes in October.

Levesque said Autism Advocacy Ontario is developing a survey to ask families to discuss concerns they have that are yet to be addressed by school boards or any other advocacy group.

RELATED STORIES Niagara Region Parents protesting autism funding cuts

The Ontario Autism Coalition, too, has been working to advise families of special needs children concerned about a lack of guidance.

The provincial government has announced no comprehensive plan to ensure students with disabilities are fully and safely included in their return to school, or to ensure that any distance learning that occurs this fall will be barrier-free, said Ontario Autism Coalition president Laura Kirby-McIntosh, who works as a teacher at a Peel high school.

As always, we have to take things into our own hands, she said.

The organization teamed up with retired lawyer and Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance chair David Lepofsky and ARCH Disability Law Centre executive director Robert Lattanzio.

Lepofsky advised parents to remain in contact with schools to ensure the needs of students are met  whether its assistance with wearing personal protective equipment or identifying any needs that may have changed as a result of the pandemic.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-22 23:36:03|Editor: huaxia

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VIENNA, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi will travel to Tehran to meet with high-level Iranian authorities next Monday, IAEA said Saturday in a statement.

The visit will be the Director General's first to Iran since he took office last December, the statement said.

During his visit, Grossi will address the cooperation of Iran with the IAEA, and in particular Iran's provision of access to the agency's inspectors to requested locations, it said.

"I have decided to come personally to Tehran so that I can reinforce the importance of cooperation and the full implementation of all safeguards commitments and obligations with the IAEA," Grossi said in the statement.

"My objective is that my meetings in Tehran will lead to concrete progress in addressing the outstanding questions that the agency has related to safeguards in Iran and, in particular, to resolve the issue of access."

"I also hope to establish a fruitful and cooperative channel of direct dialogue with the Iranian Government which will be valuable now and in the future," he added.

Earlier in the day, Iran's ambassador and permanent representative to the Vienna-based IAEA Kazem Gharibabadi said Grossi will make an official visit to Iran.

"In line with the ongoing interactions and cooperation between Iran & IAEA and based on Iran's invitation, Rafael Grossi will visit Iran next week," Gharibabadi tweeted.

Iran is one of the main partners of the agency and Grossi's visit will hopefully lead to reinforced mutual cooperation, Gharibabadi said. Enditem
George Theoharis is professor of Educational Leadership at Syracuse University.

Its been a long summer getting ready to blame young adults.

College students partying and gathering in large groups is headline news in Syracuse, Chapel Hill, South Bend, and in college towns around the country. This summer we witnessed colleges open and create Covid-19 hot spots  leading to serious illness and death. Creating these Covid hot spots and the resulting loss of life is tragic and newsworthy.

We should not take the irresponsible and selfish behavior we have seen from some college students  some of whom will be my students soon  lightly. As a parent of a college student myself, I am saddened about how their actions negatively impact our community and their fellow students. However, as a professor, I know this is a time to work with our young people about the importance of scientific knowledge in our policy and regulations. It is time to teach that civic responsibility means sacrifice to keep each other safe, not abusing your college locale as a personal playground of entitlement. This is the time to teach about pulling together for something bigger than ourselves.

But, anyone who has spent time with college-aged young people knew this would happen. Not because those of us who are professors doubt our students capacity for greatness, but because we understand their development (and we remember being 19 years old, too). Daily, we live with the duality of their enormous potential and struggles. College students gathering and partying is not new; I work at one of the biggest party schools in the nation, and I will not pretend to be surprised by it.

Lets not forget, we have seen this same behavior of adults across the country from Orange County to Houston, from Tampa to New York City  gathering in large groups and partying. The president, himself, holds large events, so, its hard to be surprised when young people follow suit. I might be disappointed at these actions, but my anger is reserved for the failure of us adults. We have failed our young people by creating this situation. Colleges, universities and our country at large are gearing up for a fall of blaming young people for the mistakes of the adults in charge.

We have decided we can scapegoat the young people because nationally we did not prioritize education (college, university, K-12) last spring or early this summer to do what we needed to do to be able to open safely. Its been a national failure of leadership.

Universities, including my own, are engaging in magical thinking that we can bring students back from cities and towns across the country and not spread Covid. Local and state officials are allowing this to happen. We knew that there would be groups of Syracuse students (and students at other colleges) who would do this; if we didnt want it to happen, we would not have opened.

Key to the drive to open are two factors: We know the importance of an in-person college experience, and we also know that our higher education system is tuition-driven. But, if opening school this fall was an actual priority and not just political lip service, national leadership, from Congress to the president, would have taken steps like national sheltering-in-place that lasted into the fall, combined with public safety nets to support this. The CARES Act provided necessary relief for emergency aid for students and relief for federal student loans. But, federal funding could have been dedicated to shoring up our essential higher education system  the institutions themselves  alleviating the competitive push to open in order to keep students and their tuition.

In the face of no national leadership, colleges and universities saw what happened as other institutions and schools opened this summer, and still continued forward with reopening plans. We did not band together en masse to call on Congress to change course. We ignored protests from local groups and organizations that worried about the contagion returning college students would bring to Syracuse, Chapel Hill and beyond. Some adjusted course only in the 11th hour, disrupting families and communities; but no collective decisions were made; colleges and universities just individually barreled forward until 

These were all choices the adults made.

We choose to moralize the science of social distancing, mask wearing, and not gathering in large groups into updated college student behavioral codes-of-conduct and safety pledges. We have directed these codes at young people. When those attempts to just say no to partying and group socializing did not work, we scold the young people. Decades of research is clear that the just say no style of character education does not work to change or guide young people. Yet, we made this choice.

We choose not to use that scientific knowledge for national policy around the virus and school opening. We choose not to teach collective sacrifice by sheltering-in-place nationally all summer. We choose not to prioritize education with our public dollars in this time of crisis. We choose to fail our young people, and now we are preparing to blame them for it.

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Syracuse University should take responsibility for potential campus outbreak (Commentary)

Syracuse University puts 23 students on interim suspension following quad gathering

Syracuse University responds to large gathering, says it may have done enough damage to shut down campus

It didnt seem that urgent: Hundreds of students gathered right under Syracuse Universitys nose
U.S. President Donald Trump's sister, a retired federal judge, called him a liar with "no principles" in audio recordings made public this weekend, the latest attack on the president's character in the run-up to the Nov. 3 election.

Maryanne Trump Barry, 83, also criticized the Republican president for "phoniness" and "cruelty" in interviews that were secretly recorded by her niece Mary Trump during a series of conversations in 2018 and 2019, according to The Washington Post, which obtained the recordings from her.

The remarks surfaced days before Republicans convene to back Trump for another four years in the election against Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Last week, more than 70 former Republican national security officials endorsed Biden, saying Trump had engaged in corrupt behavior "that renders him unfit to serve as president."

Trump dismissed his sister's remarks in a written statement.

Every day its something else, who cares," he said. "Our country will soon be stronger than ever before!

Trump Barry could not immediately be reached for comment.

In one of the recordings, some of which were also obtained by Reuters, Trump Barry addressed the president's suggestion in 2018 - while she was still a sitting judge - that he might send her to the border to deal with a surge in migrants.

All he wants to do is appeal to his base, Trump Barry said. He has no principles. None."

Mary Trump, the president's niece and a trained psychologist, published a tell-all book in July in which she concluded he likely suffers from narcissism and other clinical disorders.

Chris Bastardi, a spokesman for Mary Trump, said she taped the conversations as part of a legal dispute over her inheritance following the death of Fred Trump Sr., the president's father and her grandfather, "in order to protect herself."

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The New South Wales premier is confident in the processes in place at the states quarantine hotels after two security guards tested positive to COVID-19.

Of the four new COVID-19 cases confirmed on Aug. 23, one is a hotel security guard who was previously reported as a case on Aug. 22.

He worked at the Marriott Hotel in Sydney and tested positive after a week-long testing blitz on contacts after another security guard tested positive on Aug. 14.

NSW Health on Aug. 23 said contact tracing is underway as they investigate the source of his infection and potential links to the other infected security guard.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said a recent audit of the states hotel quarantine system gave her confidence the processes in place are good.

But, she noted mistakes will be made.

You might have good processes but that doesnt mean people remember to do the right thing all of the time, she told reporters on Aug. 23.

When the first guard tested positive of course it was a concern but its also surprising it had not occurred until now given weve had 48,000 people come through that system.

Berejiklian also flagged she wont be increasing the cap on international arrivals into NSW at this stage.

We are still having the burden for the nation in terms of people we are welcoming and I dont want to see those numbers go up at this stage, she said.

The newly-diagnosed security guard is the sole person among the first ill guards 700 contacts to return a COVID-positive test.

NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant at a press conference in Homebush in Sydney, Australia on Aug. 17, 2020. (Brook Mitchell/Getty Images)

NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant said the two guards worked the same shift on Aug. 3, while the newly-diagnosed guard also worked at Sheraton Grand Hyatt Park hotel on the night of Aug. 16.

He was asymptomatic at the time of his shifts.

The guard who originally tested positive also worked across a number of venues after he was exposed.

The premier noted the state continues to be on a knife-edge in terms of community transmission and that she is most concerned about cases with no known source.

She also reiterated to HSC students that Year 12 formals and graduation ceremonies could go ahead in term four after the exams.

It follows an announcement earlier in the week to ban the events with Berejiklian on Aug. 23 saying the health advice is only in place until the end of HSC exams.

We dont want to risk the HSC getting disrupted, she said.

Were hoping in term four all of those activities can be conducted in a COVID safe way.

NSW Labor health spokesman Ryan Park says the coalition government needs to learn from Victorias mistakes in relation to quarantine hotels.

The opposition wants hotel guards to be given full-time positions within the quarantine system, to help contain the virus should more guards be exposed.

Securing our quarantine hotels shouldnt be a part-time job, he said in a statement.

Labor is also pushing for guards to be subject to testing, like the police.

The other cases reported on Aug. 23 included two travellers in hotel quarantine and one linked to the Apollo Restaurant cluster in Potts Point.

By Dominica Sanda
Jammu police on Sunday seized 272 bags of flour meant to be distributed to the poor people through the public distribution system but being sold illegally by ration dealers in connivance with officials of food and supplies department in RS Pura area of Jammu district.

A team led by station house officer RS Pura Jai Pal Sharma arrested two ration dealers Sourabh Gupta, resident of Dablehar and Krishan Lal, resident of Jinder Milu.

Both were caught red handed while loading and disposing the ration bags which had the stamp mark of PDS on them.

Search for one more ration dealer Rashpal Singh, a resident of Khour is underway, said the SHO.

Some empty bags with CAPD stamp mark were also seized from the scene of crime.

Subsequently, four vehicles were also seized. They were used by these ration dealers to transport the BPL ration to the chosen locations.

An FIR no 175/2020 under section 409 IPC and 3/7 EC Act was registered at police station RS Pura and further investigation has been taken up.

According to police some more arrests are likely in near future.

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Iranians should not rely on a near-term lifting of sanctions or the outcome of the U.S. presidential election to bring relief for the country's ailing economy, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday.

Khamenei, who has ordered Iran's government to expand the Islamic Republic's manufacturing capacity, slash imports and create jobs, said in a video call with President Hassan Rouhani and his cabinet that officials should base their policies on the assumption that sanctions may be around for another decade.

"Economic plans shouldn't wait for sanctions to be lifted or for the election results of a certain country," Khamenei said, according to a statement on his official website. The indirect reference is to the United States, which under President Donald Trump imposed severe sanctions on Iran after withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal.

Trump is fighting for re-election on Nov. 3. According to the latest polls he is behind his Democratic challenger Joe Biden - former vice president to Barack Obama, who negotiated the landmark international accord with Iran.

"The assumption should be made that sanctions will continue, for example, for another 10 years," Khamenei said, adding that the government should crack down on imports of "nonessential luxury goods." Shortly after, he wrote in a tweet that officials should also stop imports of "a certain luxury U.S. mobile brand," a reference to Apple Inc.'s iPhone.

Iran's economy was already suffering because of a tough U.S. sanctions regime before it was hit by a major outbreak of the coronavirus, which has so far killed more than 20,000 people in the country and compounded a budget deficit.

With limited resources to support a prolonged lockdown, Rouhani's government gradually lifted restrictions on public life and businesses in early April, spurring a surge in coronavirus infections and deaths over the following months.

The pandemic has already accelerated government plans to sell off a large number of state assets and issue a record number of bonds. Plans are also underway to monetize the country's crude oil by establishing a domestic futures market for ordinary investors.
Thai classics worth travelling for: sweet and spicy Grilled chicken with papaya salad

A Thai treasure in the heart of the New Forest  who knew? Tom enjoys a lucky find

Theres much to see in the small Hampshire village of Lyndhurst. The grave of Alice Liddell, inspiration for Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland. St Michaels and All Angels church, with stained-glass windows by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. And, for those of a less Victorian bent, two vast Ferrari showrooms.

But for me, its greatest lure, aside from the New Forest and its nibbling ponies, is Anissas Thai Kitchen. For this is no average pad Thai palace; rather, a joyous blast of true regional cooking, the country sibling to Londons peerless 101 Thai Kitchen, and an entirely fortuitous find.

Wandering down the high street I glance, as always, at the restaurant menus. Anissas not only catches my eye, it makes my heart hammer with fish sauce-soaked delight. Nueau dad dieaw! Isaan grilled chicken! I book on the spot. Only later do I find out the London connection.

Dinner is, as expected, magnificent. The great Auntie Bee, doyenne of Southern-style succour, is in the kitchen tonight. Which means that all is well in the world. We drink icy Chang beer, nibbling brittle shards of crisp chicken skin. And chewing that nueau dad dieaw  fried, dried, seasoned beef, dragged through sriracha sauce. The evening is close, heavy and humid. And for a moment I could be back in one of those late night Bangkok Isaan bars, where beer is sold by the metre, and a continuous flow of snacks assaults the tongue with salty, spicy aplomb.

Lemongrass-scented Kua Gling Moo pork

Kua gling moo, made with good minced pork, is dry fried and beautifully brutal, the paste fresh pounded, the chilli heat, scented with lime leaf and lemongrass, rolling across the tongue in fiery waves. Hot and sour prawn curry is suitably so, with fishy, fetid depth, the bamboo shoot giving the dish that idiosyncratic tang. When heat threatens to overwhelm, theres always a handful of sticky rice and, equally effective, a mouthful of lacy, puffy, oily Thai omelette.

Som tum salad is crunchy, pert and punchy, rich with chewy dried shrimp, and a lime-drenched vim. And poussin, honey and herb marinated, grilled then hewn into quarters. Dunked into a sweet, sharp jaew dipping sauce, we gnaw the chicken until the bones are clean. Service is as lovely as the food, and we skip out into the soft, sweaty Hampshire dusk, our tongues a-throb, our spirits infused with pure Siamese glee.

About 20 a head. Anissas Thai Kitchen, Lyndhurst, tel: 0238 028 4974, anissasthaikitchen.co.uk

Drinks

Give these reds 20 minutes in the fridge for a gastro game-changer, says Olly

Raoul Clerget Beaujolais 2019 (12.5%), 5, Morrisons. A cherry polished to a mirror, this refreshing red is spot-on to chill and savour  incredible for five quid.

Sainsbury's Taste the Difference, Bio Bio Chilean Pinot Noir Gran Reserva 2018 (13.5%), 8.50. Sophisticated, rich. Decant, cool in the fridge door, serve with chargrilled tuna.

Xinomavro Jeunes Vignes Thymiopoulos 2018 (13%), 10.95, The Wine Society. From one of the best winemakers in Greece, this has a fruity-savoury frisson. Outstanding.

Lalama Dominio do Bibei 2015 (13.5%), 23.95, bbr.com. Stunning fragrance and clove-like depth with a bitter twist. Serve with charcuterie and chuckle gleefully.
Arrested ISIS operative Abu Yusuf's wife, Ayesha, informs that he was bringing gunpowder and other material in small quantity and storing them at home, for the past two years. Ayesha said that she had known about his activities, but kept quiet because Yusuf strictly asked her not to reveal the information to anyone.

Arrested ISIS operative Abu Yusuf was bringing gunpowder and other material in small quantity and storing them at home, for the past two years, informed his wife Ayesha on Sunday.

Talking to ANI, Ayesha said that she had known about his activities, but kept quiet because Yusuf strictly asked her not to reveal the information to anyone. He was storing gunpowder and other material at home here in a box. When I told him he should not do such things, he told me that I should not stop him, and he would do wherever he feels like. He asked me strictly to not tell anybody, even family, she said.

The wife of the ISIS operative added that she wishes her husband could be forgiven. I have four kids. Where will I go, she added. Other family members of Yusuf, including his father, mother and younger brother deny having any knowledge of his involvement with the terrorist outfit.

Also Read: ISIS terrorist held after exchange of fire, IEDs seized

We came to know about his involvement with ISIS through police yesterday when they came to search our house. A black flag with white Arabic inscriptions was recovered from his belongings, among other things, said Yusufs younger brother Aakib.

As per Aakib and his parents, from past few years, Yusuf and his wife were living separately. The family had limited communication with them, he said. The whole family maintains that they never suspected Yusufs involvement in terrorist activities as nobody ever came to meet him at home.

Kafeel Ahmed, Yusufs father said that the last time he and his family saw Yusuf was on Friday when he left home saying that hes is going to visit his sick cousin in Lucknow. When he reached Lucknow, he called his sister there that hell visit her before going to the hospital to visit his cousin. But he never reached her place. We tried contacting him repeatedly but his phone was switched off. I even went to the police station to file a missing persons complaint, but came to know afterwards that he had been arrested in Delhi, said Kafeel Ahmed.

Ahmed added that he regrets his sons involvement in such activities. I wish he could be forgiven for once if possible. But his act is wrong. Had I known about his activities I would have asked him to leave us, said Ahmed. His mother too wished her son could be forgiven.

Also Read: BJP, LJP, JDU will fight Bihar elections together: JP Nadda

He used to watch things on the phone. Otherwise, nobody came to meet him at home, said Kahkasha, his mother. Earlier today, a huge amount of explosives, including explosive jacket, were recovered from Balrampur in Uttar Pradesh, sources said.

The jacket was allegedly prepared for a fidayeen attack, they added. This comes a day after the Delhi Polices Special Cell arrested an ISIS operative carrying two pressure cooker-based IEDs after a brief exchange of fire and averted a major terror strike in the national capital, the police said. Uttar Pradesh sounded a high alert on Saturday following the arrest of the ISIS operative.

According to the police, the accused has been identified as Mohd Mustakim Khan (36) aka Abu Yusuf Khan aka Yusuf Khan, a resident of village Badhiyaa Bhaisaahi, Utraula in Uttar Pradesh. (ANI)

Also Read: Ahead of crucial CWC meet, Congress leaders write to Sonia Gandhi
Industry super funds have called on the federal government to pay one-off contributions of up to $5000 into the accounts of low-income earners who have withdrawn retirement savings early.

The Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees, which represents industry funds, is behind the proposal. It recommends increasing the concession tax rate of super earnings for accounts with balances of more than $10 million to 30 per cent, rather than 15 per cent.

"Australians shouldnt have to choose between poverty now or poverty in retirement," says AIST CEO Eva Scheerlinck. Credit:Steven Pam

"It is widely acknowledged that the current retirement income system structurally favours higher income earners who work full-time, without breaks, for the entirety of their working life," AIST said in its budget submission to the Treasury. "This consequently creates several areas of inequity in the system."

The once-off government payments would be available to Australians earning $39,837 or less a year. The size of the payment would be determined by the amount withdrawn this year under the scheme that enabled people who had lost work as a result of COVID-19 to access up to $20,000 from their retirement savings.
Where is Leo Burt?

The four young men who carried out the Sterling Hall bombing fled the scene and even the country. Brothers Karleton and Dwight Armstrong, along with David Fine, were eventually caught and sentenced to prison.

But the fourth conspirator, Leo Burt, has evaded police all this time and the elusive hunt for him continues 50 years later. The FBI still receives between 10 and 20 tips each year on Burt's whereabouts, according to special agent Doug Raubal.

"The FBIs perspective is that just because he got away with it for 50 years doesn't mean we stop looking," he said.

Burt remains on the FBI's Most Wanted Domestic Terrorism List and the agency is still offering a $150,000 reward for information leading to Burt's arrest.

"Obviously, hes not getting any younger," Raubal said. "The time to locate is right now. It is our hope that the media attention of the 50th anniversary may help generate more leads for the investigation as well."
Gold diggers in southern Australia have found two huge nuggets worth 350,000 Australian dollars (US$250,000) in historic goldfields.

The pair of nuggets weigh in at a combined 3.5 kilograms (7.7 pounds) and were found on the same day near Tarnagulla in Victoria, as shown on the Aug. 20 episode of Aussie Gold Hunters on the Discovery Channel.

Prospectors Brent Shannon and his brother-in-law Ethan West found the nuggets in a matter of hours with the help of Wests father, Paul West, according to a Discovery Channel press release.

The valuable discovery was documented on a Discovery Channel show. (Courtesy of Aussie Gold Hunters/Electric Pictures/Discovery Channel)

The nuggets could fetch up to 30 percent more than their estimated value by weight if they are sold to a collector, according to the release. I reckoned we were in for a chance, Shannon told Australian breakfast chat show Sunrise. It was in a bit of virgin ground, which means its untouched and hasnt been mined.

The pair had been waiting months for a permit that would allow them to start searching for gold in the area, according to the release.

West said he estimates he has collected thousands of small pieces of gold in four years.

These are definitely one of the most significant finds, he said. To have two large chunks in one day is quite amazing.

The teamwho call themselves the Poseidon Crewtold Sunrise that they use an excavator to dig up dirt before using a metal detector to see if there is any gold to be found.

Ethan West, Brent Shannon, and Paul West pictured at the goldfields. (Courtesy of Aussie Gold Hunters/Electric Pictures/Discovery Channel)

In January 2013, an amateur explorer unearthed a golden nugget weighing 5.5 kilograms (12.1 pounds), buried 60 centimeters (23.6 inches) in the ground outside Ballarat, around an hours drive south of Tarnagulla. At the time, experts valued the find to be worth at least US$300,000.

Gold has been continuously found in the region since 1851, but technology has become an essential aid for modern prospectors, Cordell Kent, owner of The Mining Exchange Gold Shop, said in 2013.

In the old days miners could only see or feel goldbut now with detectors they can hear it, Kent said.

The CNN Wire contributed to this report.
Belarus has been witnessing massive anti-government protests over the recent election results, in which Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko retained his position with a landslide win. Amid the ongoing protests, Lukashenko has ordered the army to defend the country's territorial integrity. Reportedly, these orders were given while the leader was visiting military units in Grodno.

The 65-year-old leader won a sixth term in the elections that took place on August 9 with 80.23 per cent of the vote. Lukashenko criticized the recent anti-government protests, which as per him are receiving support from Western counties. The authoritarian leader ordered the army to defend and protect western Belarus which he termed as a pearl.

As per reports, Lukashenkos visit to military training grounds comes ahead of large-scale military exercises planned in Grodno between August 28 and 31. The former collective farm director reportedly said that NATO troops in Poland and Lithuania were moving near their borders with Belarus and ordered his troops into full combat readiness.

NATO reportedly refuted the claims calling them baseless. Commenting on the same, NATO said in a statement that it poses no threat to Belarus or any other country and has no military buildup in the region. Echoing similar sentiments, both Poland and Lithuania also denied the accusation.

Read: Belarus Blocks News Websites Amid Large Protests

Read: Belarus Protesters Demand Fair Elections, Freedom

Poland and Lithuania deny accusations, calls them baseless rumours

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda reportedly said that the regime is trying to divert attention from Belarus internal issues with baseless rumours about external threats. The Polish president's chief of staff, Krzysztof Szczerski too rebutted the claim calling it regime propaganda.

Recently, Lithuania's foreign ministry reportedly said that US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun will visit Vilnius and Russia next week to discuss the current situation of Belarus and the elections fallout which has led to mass protests. He is planning to meet Lukashenko's main challenger Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in Lithuania, where she is now in exile.

Tikhanovskaya, who left Belarus after the disputed elections reportedly said that they are not afraid. Commenting on the ongoing protests, she said that she is proud of Belarusians because after 26 years of fear they are ready to defend their rights. Several opponents of Lukashenko have organised various strikes and demonstrations to protest his re-election and called him to step down from his position.

The opposition have also organised a major rally in Minsk on August 23 after more than 100,000 people took to the streets of the capital and other cities in the nation last weekend demanding the leaders resignation. The European Union rejected his re-election and declared to levy sanctions against people responsible for rigging the vote and cracking down on protests.

(Image credit: AP)

Read: Belarus Protestors Resort To Digital Communication To Organise Nationwide Demonstrations

Read: Tsikhanouskaya Says She Wants To Return To Belarus
Ahead of the Congress Working Committee meeting on Monday, interim chief Sonia Gandhi has communicated to members of the party's highest decision-making body that she was not interested in continuing and asked them to find a new chief, sources said, even as two Chief Ministers have come out to back the Gandhis' leadership.

Congress Communication Department chief Randeep Surjewala, however, denied any such move, saying nothing has been communicated by the interim President or said on her behalf.

A top aide of Sonia Gandhi too denied any such move and said that everything will depend on the Congress Working Committee meet.

The Gandhi family has found strong backing from Punjab and Chhatisgarh Chief Ministers, with the former, Captain Amarinder Singh saying that "this is not the right time to raise this demand (of a leadership change)".

His Chhattisgarh counterpart Bhupesh Baghel has urged Rahul Gandhi to return as the party's leader.

State Congress units are likely to hold emergency meetings to back the Gandhis for the top post.

Even some of the leaders who have written a letter to the party, said that there is no dispute on the leadership issue of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

The pro-Gandhi brigade is likely to take on the dissenters in the CWC meet, while many names have started doing the rounds, especially two Dalit leaders - Mallikarjun Kharge and Sushilkumar Shinde, as likely replacements if Sonia Gandhi doesn't want to continue.

While Kharge is close to Rahul Gandhi, Shinde has been a former Home Minister and Maharashtra Chief Minister.
Police and Army Technical Officers in the Tarry Drive area of Lurgan following the discovery of a suspicious device. Picture: Philip Magowan / PressEye

Police and Army Technical Officers in the Tarry Drive area of Lurgan following the discovery of a suspicious device. Credit: Philip Magowan / PressEye

Police and Army Technical Officers in the Tarry Drive area of Lurgan following the discovery of a suspicious device. Credit: Philip Magowan / PressEye

Several petrol bombs have been thrown at PSNI officers during ongoing disturbances in Lurgan.

It follows a hoax security alert in the town on Sunday morning that saw homes in the area evacuated.

PSNI Superintendent Wendy Middleton said: "Police are dealing with disorder in the Levin Road area of Kilwilke in Lurgan where a number of petrol bombs have been thrown at officers.



"We would ask that drivers avoid the area at this time."

Earlier on Sunday, a suspicious device was found in the Tarry Drive area.

Expand Close Police and Army Technical Officers in the Tarry Drive area of Lurgan following the discovery of a suspicious device. Credit: Philip Magowan / PressEye Philip Magowan / BNL Productions / Facebook

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Whatsapp Police and Army Technical Officers in the Tarry Drive area of Lurgan following the discovery of a suspicious device. Credit: Philip Magowan / PressEye

Police attended the scene and a number of residents had to leave their homes.

The device was examined by Army Technical Officers and later declared a hoax.

Expand Close Police and Army Technical Officers in the Tarry Drive area of Lurgan following the discovery of a suspicious device. Picture: Philip Magowan / PressEye Philip Magowan / BNL Productions / Facebook

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Whatsapp Police and Army Technical Officers in the Tarry Drive area of Lurgan following the discovery of a suspicious device. Picture: Philip Magowan / PressEye

Superintendent Middleton said: "I understand the disruption this incident caused for local residents who had to leave their homes as our officers worked to make the area safe. I want to thank the local community for their understanding and patience.



I would appeal to anyone with information about this incident to call us on 101, and quote reference number 64 of 23/08/20."



"You can also submit a report online using our non-emergency reporting form via http://www.psni.police.uk/makeareport/ You can also contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at http://crimestoppers-uk.org"
The barren land of Sahara has not been deserted forever, as we see it today. In fact, it is believed that the African area was a lush grassland around 4000 years ago. For years, researchers and scientists have been searching for the reason that led to a massive change in the topography, changing the green grass into barren desert.

According to the latest study conducted by a professor at the University of California, Irvine, the end of the Green Sahara, also known as the African Humid Period, was a result of a megadrought that destroyed parts of Southeast Asia for around 1,000 years.

Professor and earth scientist Kathleen Johnson said in her study, We provide the first proof for a strong link between the end of the Green Sahara and Southeast Asian monsoon failure during the mid- to late Holocene period.

Her study, titled End of Green Sahara amplified mid- to late Holocene megadroughts in mainland Southeast Asia has been published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

The connection between the end of Green Sahara and the megadrought in SE Asia was established after the team found some important physical evidence in caves in Laos. The major climate change resulted in the migration of large human settlement patterns in Southeast Asia, leading to the show death of vegetation in the Sahara.

This is an outstanding evidence for the type of climate change that must have affected society, what plants were available, what animals were available, added co-author Joyce White, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
ANKARA, TURKEYFive people have died in floods caused by heavy rain along Turkeys Black Sea coastline, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday.

A further 11 people were missing after flooding around the mountain town of Dereli in Giresun province.

As a state, we will quickly overcome the destruction and devastation here with Gods will, Erdogan said at an event in Istanbul.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, who travelled to Giresun to oversee rescue efforts, said 153 people had been saved.

One of the dead was a police officer whose vehicle was swept away by the floods. Four of his colleagues and the operator of a mechanical digger operator are among the missing. Their vehicles fell into a ravine when a main road collapsed in the flood as they travelled to the disaster area.

Television footage showed vehicles and debris being carried by floodwater along the main road of Dereli, which lies around 20 kilometres inland. Bridges, roads and buildings were washed away by what Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli said was more than 12.7 centimetres of rainfall in less than a day.

This is the first time Ive seen such a natural disaster, Pakdemirli said from Dereli. The towns skyline has changed.

Soylu said 98 villages in the region were cut off and 38 were without electricity. About 20 people were stranded in a wedding hall in Dereli.

Across the province, 17 buildings were destroyed and more than 360 damaged with another 31 evacuated.

Heavy rain along the Black Sea coast on Saturday evening also saw apartment buildings evacuated after landslides in Rize province, 180 kilometres east of Giresun.

At this time of the year, the Black Sea regions population is swollen by seasonal workers who travel for the tea and hazelnut harvest, many living in camps.

Meteorologists forecast heavy storms in Giresun and the neighbouring provinces of Trabzon, Rize and Artvin for later Sunday.
The state education department has extended the deadline for students to complete the second part of the application for admissions to first-year junior colleges (FYJC) to August 25. The earlier deadline for filling up the form, which consists college preferences, was August 22.

This extension is only for students who have already filled their forms but are yet to finalise and lock them due to some or the other reasons, said an official from the department.

In a circular issued on Saturday, the department also stated that students, who have registered on the portal and applied for admissions under various quotas but have failed to validate the one time password (OTP) to confirm their seats, will be given time until August 25 to update their status. As per the schedule, the entire process for quota admissions was supposed to be complete by August 22.

If a student does not get an OTP due to a technical reason, he/she should not be denied admission solely for this. Time will be given until August 25 to update it, states the circular.

This year, the admission process for FYJC has been made zero contact. While admissions under various quotas like minority, management and in-house generally have to be done at the college level, the education department has been facilitating them to make the process zero contact.

As part of this, students get an OTP on their registered mobile numbers. The colleges then call the students on the number and feed in the OTP in the online database to confirm a seat. As OTPs are time-bound, several colleges and students struggled to complete the process. In view of this, the department has now removed the time limit on entering OTPs.

The office of the deputy director will release the first general merit list on August 25 consisting details of all students so that they can verify and rectify in case of any error. Until Sunday, 2.26 lakh students had filled their college preferences.
The National Zoo in Washington, D.C., announced a small bundle of good news Friday amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Mei Xiang, the 22-year-old giant panda, gave birth to the cub on Friday at 6:35 p.m., according to the National Zoo.

"A precious giant panda cub has arrived! Were overjoyed to share that Mei Xiang gave birth at 6:35 p.m. and is caring for her newborn attentively," the zoo tweeted after the birth, which was streamed live. "Positive mothering behaviors include nursing her cub and cuddling it close."

 A precious giant panda cub has arrived! Were overjoyed to share that Mei Xiang gave birth at 6:35 p.m. and is caring for her newborn attentively. Positive mothering behaviors include nursing her cub and cuddling it close.  TUNE IN: https://t.co/99lBTV2w92. #PandaStory pic.twitter.com/x02fEYfAmx  National Zoo (@NationalZoo) August 21, 2020

Mei Xiang was artificially inseminated March 22 with semen collected from male panda Tian Tian and she exhibited behaviors consistent with pregnancy -- sleeping and nesting -- in late July.

The cub is the seventh for the panda, though only three previously have lived to adulthood. All have been fathered by Tian Tian.

"Giant pandas are an international symbol of endangered wildlife and hope, and with the birth of this precious cub we are thrilled to offer the world a much-needed moment of pure joy, Steve Monfort, the John and Adrienne Mars director of the Smithsonians National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, said in a statement. "Because Mei Xiang is of advanced maternal age, we knew the chances of her having a cub were slim. However, we wanted to give her one more opportunity to contribute to her species survival."

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"I am incredibly proud of our animal care and science teams, whose expertise in giant panda behavior was critical to this conservation success," he added.

PHOTO: Veterinarians at the Smithsonian's National Zoo detected tissue consistent with fetal development during giant panda Mei Xiang's ultrasound, Aug. 14, 2020. (Smithsonian National Zoo)

She most recently gave birth on Aug. 22, 2015, to Bei Bei, named by U.S. first lady Michelle Obama and Chinese first lady Peng Liyuang.

Bei Bei was transferred to a zoo in Chengdu, China, last November.

MORE: National Zoo says panda Mei Xiang appears to be pregnant, could give birth soon

One week ago, the zoo spoke about the upcoming arrival and the attention it would draw to the animals.

"Theres no denying that a giant panda is a charismatic animal, this is a huge success story," zoo spokesperson Pamela Baker-Masson told ABC News. "We have millions of people watching our panda cam program every year around the world."

PHOTO: Giant panda Mei Xiang (may-SHONG) cradles her newborn after she gave birth to a cub at Smithsonians National Zoo, Aug. 21, 2020, in Washington, D.C. (Smithsonian National Zoo)

Mei Xiang was born at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in July 1998.

Pandas, which are native to China, are classified as a "vulnerable" species in the wild, an upgrade from its previous status as "endangered."

ABC News' Olivia Eubanks contributed to this report.

National Zoo announces birth of new giant panda cub originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Voters cast their ballots a week before election day at UC Irvine on Oct. 30, 2018. (Los Angeles Times)

To the editor: Three in five Americans, according to surveys, cannot name the three branches of the federal government; one in five can't name one branch. More than a third cannot identify any of the rights guaranteed by the 1st Amendment. ("One fix could change U.S. politics, government and elections for the better: Make voting mandatory," Opinion, Aug. 20)

Assuming even more dismal numbers among nonvoters, I would challenge op-ed article writers Miles Rapoport and Janai S. Nelson to name something tangible the country would gain by forcing these folks to participate in a process that doesnt interest them.

The authors' abstract appeal to diversity fails the smell test. I'm guessing they've heard Democrats complain for years about low minority turnout and hope to solve the problem by passing a law.

Michael Smith, Georgetown, Ky.

..

To the editor: Rather than mandating voting for all eligible citizens, there is a better way for Americans, who generally hate being told what to do. Let's make election day in November a national holiday and promote the civic pride and celebratory aspects of voting.

I have worked at the polls many times and always loved seeing the proud looks on people's faces as they dropped their sealed ballots in the box. I have appreciated the thanks I've gotten for being there.

One of our problems is getting voters to the polls on a work day  or during a pandemic. Mail-in ballots have helped as well in states where they are offered and should be an option in every state and every election.

Linda Rose, Carpinteria

..

To the editor: All my life I've wondered why voting in this country is not mandatory. Voting should be required for all the reasons that Nelson and Rapoport give.

In a world where people struggle and give their lives for even the possibility of voting and having a say in their government, most Americans can't be bothered to show up. I won't even mention every American who has died trying to protect their fellow citizens' right to vote.

Story continues

Nathalie Cunningham, Studio City

..

To the editor: I agree completely with the authors that voting in the U.S. should be mandatory and regulated as they describe. I only wish I were as optimistic as they are that "if everyone is voting, then everyone is listening."

The low-information voter exists in large numbers under the current system and is a persistent threat to sustained democracy, and the Fox News-bubble voter is as bad or worse.

If the authors have an answer to this problem, I hope they will include it in their proposal.

Barbara Carlton, El Cajon
Summer time is rave time in France but this year battle lines have been drawn between authorities alarmed at the risk of coronavirus and serious party-goers determined to dance on.

Ravers, called "teufeurs" in French back slang, speak of "resistance" against a crackdown by security forces encouraged by locals to restore order.

"The more they stop us from partying, the more we party," said teufeur and activist Gregoire aka Pontu, who uses an alias to protect himself against the authorities.

France's "free party" movement has since the 1990s brought together techno music lovers who follow a nomadic lifestyle, often living in small communities with a libertarian or anarchist ideology.

"Because of the pandemic there have been fewer events this year than previous years," free party organiser Robin told AFP, asking not to use his full name.

"But a lot of attention has been focused on those events and the crackdown has been much tougher."

He works for the Sound Fund, an association that offers legal support for rave organisers who face fines or have equipment confiscated by the police.

The association has been called on to help in 22 confiscation cases this year, including four over the August 15 bank holiday weekend. The number is twice as high as in 2019, Robin noted.

The national gendarmerie police force said it would not respond to AFP's questions on the situation.

However one regional official said that the latest national strategy was to try to restrict the size of gatherings once they get started by blocking all access roads. The official added that site evacuations remained a rarety.

- 'Noise aggression" -

"We cannot allow 5,000, 6,000 people to get together, without shirts, masks or any respect for virus rules," said junior interior minister Marlene Schiappa in July at the site of a rave that drew 4,000 people to the Nievre department in central France.

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Police in the southern Lozere region blocked off a plateau in the Cevennes national park where 7,000 people, including small children, attended an illegal three-day festival in mid-August.

Lozere, France's least populated department, has been spared the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has so far claimed more than 30,000 lives nationwide.

With infection rates rising again, locals were furious about the risks posed by the event.

About 200 gendarmes blocked off the mountainous site before slowly filtering out ravers and seizing material such as speakers and electricity generators.

Through the confiscations the authorities can sometimes track down the event organisers who risk fines of up to 3,500 euros for illegal parties.

If the fine includes "noise aggression", the punishment can climb to a year in prison and 15,000 euros.

- 'The people who dance' -

For local councillors, the arrival of crowds of ravers can be a major shock.

Patricia Bergdolt is mayor of the quiet village of Boutigny-sur-Essonne, near Paris, whose population is mostly elderly.

She said she felt "powerless" when hundreds flooded into the area late at night for two days of hard partying before they were kicked out.

"With so many people pouring into the place, boozing and stoned, who are no longer in a fit state to follow virus rules, how can you reassure people living here?" she asked.

For now, no virus outbreak has been linked to a free party by any of France's regional health authorities.

"We are outside, back to nature, not stuck together like in a bar," said "teufeur" Gregoire.

Like many ravers he wants to see a stepping up of what they call "the resistance of the people who dance".

"Free parties will adapt if the crackdown gets worse, either events will become smaller or very much bigger," said legal fund operative Robin.

"And when 20,000 people turn up at some place, it's a lot more difficult to make them leave."

bur-dar/tib/bp/tgb
The Republican National Convention is set to begin this week, on the heels of Democrats convention in which they nominated former Vice President Joe Biden to be their partys presidential candidate.

Similar to the Democratic National Convention, the RNC will conduct most of its events and speeches virtually and remotely, with the exception of convention business in the host city of Charlotte, North Carolina. The RNC is expected to renominate President Donald Trump, who plans to deliver his address from Washington, D.C.

The Republican Party has been publicly releasing details about the convention programming at a slow pace, but here is everything we know so far about the RNC:

When and where is it?

The official RNC business and the formal presidential renomination will begin on Monday, Aug. 24 and last through Thursday, Aug. 27. The convention falls one week after the DNC, during which Biden officially accepted the Democratic Partys presidential nomination.

The official convention business takes place in Charlotte. Because of North Carolinas COVID-19 restrictions that prohibit convention celebrations, the RNC announced plans earlier this month to have a scaled-down event and to livestream Trumps formal nomination. Six delegates from each state and territory will attend the first days proceedings at the Charlotte Convention Center, adding up to 336 total delegates who will cast their votes in person. The RNC drafted a health and safety plan in accordance with the state to help protect delegates from contracting and spreading the virus.

More behind the scenes from North Carolina! pic.twitter.com/uxjWLE5U7b  Marcia Lee Kelly (@Marcialeekelly) August 23, 2020

Other than the official business, most in-person activities will be held in Washington, D.C. After Charlotte set its social distancing requirements, the RNC had planned for the convention celebration and speeches to be in Jacksonville, Florida, but abruptly canceled last...

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ICC urged to investigate Chinese leaders for genocide, abuses against Uighur Muslims US announces new sanctions on senior Chinese officials

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For the first time, evidence has been submitted to the International Criminal Court asking for an investigation into claims of genocide and crimes against humanity committed by senior Chinese leaders including President Xi Jinping for the mistreatment of Uighur Muslims and other Turkic people in Western China.

Lawyers this week submitted a complaint to the Hague-based courts prosecutors office on behalf of the East Turkistan Government in Exile and the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement.

This marks the first time that critics have attempted to use international laws to prosecute China for alleged human rights violations against minorities in Chinas far northwestern territory of Xinjiang.

The ETGE is an official body that aims to end Chinas occupation of the East Turkistan region. East Turkistan is a region known today as Chinas Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The Peoples Republic of China incorporated the region after the fall of a Soviet-backed East Turkestan Republic in 1949.

Today, the Chinese government considers support for East Turkistan independence to be terrorism and extremism.

The new filing submitted to the ICC comes as there has been much outrage in recent years as estimates suggest that over 1 million to as many as 3 million Uighur Muslims and other and other minority groups in Western China have been subject to internment camps in Xinjiang,

Laid out in the complaint are evidence of crimes that have been committed in the region by the Chinese government since 1884, with the bulk of the complaints focusing on the increase in human rights crimes committed following the Urumqi riots that took place in July 2009, where members of the Turkic-speaking minority and Han Chinese were killed.

The governments alleged crimes include those committed against the predominantly Muslim Uighur population, as well as Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples.

The alleged crimes include massacres, mass internment camps, torture, organ harvesting, disappearances, forced birth control and sterilization. The report also highlights the forcible transfer of children from their families to Chinese state orphanages or boarding homes.

The complaint also warns about government measures aimed at eliminating the use of the Uyghur and other Turkic languages in schools and the governments use of increased surveillance to monitor those groups. The report contends that the level of surveillance those groups face goes beyond the surveillance experienced by Chinas majority Han people group.

The evidence of the crimes provided in the Complaint is detailed and shocking, a statement from ETGE reads.

According to ETGE, the complaint includes a description of torture through electrocution, Muslims being forced to eat pork and drink alcohol, as well as requirements for Uighur women of child-bearing age to use intrauterine devices for birth control.

The organization also alleges that an estimated 500,000 Uyghur children are being separated from their families and sent to orphanage camps. At those camps, there have been reports of attempted suicide.

Today is a historic day. Not only is it the eleventh anniversary of the Urumchi Massacre, it marks the first step in what we hope will be the ultimate liberation of our people, the ETGE statement explains. For too long we have been oppressed by China and its Chinese Communist Party and we have suffered so much that the Genocide of our people can no longer be ignored.

The complaint comes as China has faced increasing international criticism over its treatment of Uighurs and other minorities in Western China as more becomes known about Chinas use of so-called re-education camps. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of ethnic minorities in Western China have been detained in these centers throughout Xinjiang in recent years.

While critics say that the centers are akin to concentration camps where culturally Muslim citizens are brainwashed into acting more culturally Chinese, the Chinese government has maintained that these camps are voluntary re-education camps to help the Muslim community combat extremist tendencies.

Victim testimonies and purported leaked documents have suggested that there are ideological motivations and structure behind the detention centers that go beyond just simple education. Victims have described horrific conditions with overcrowding, poor health care and hygiene. Victims say they were required to eat food that is forbidden in Islam.

The new complaint claims that the Chinese government has also conducted a campaign to round up Uyghurs abroad and who have fled East Turkistan as a result of the crimes committed against them in China.

The complaint claims that some people have been forced back to the region from places like Tajikistan and Cambodia. People who have been forced back have often faced human rights abuses, the report stresses.

Although China is not a party to the Rome statute that established the ICC, The United Kingdom-based lawyers who filed the document argue that since part of the alleged crimes detailed in the report took place in Tajikistan and Cambodia, the court has jurisdiction because those countries are party to the statute.

The Crimes committed against the Uyghur people have been widespread and systematic, ETGE added in its statement. They have taken place on a mass scale and should therefore all be investigated in order to ascertain whether the alleged perpetrators can be charged and tried.



In 2019 and 2018, the ICC determined that it had jurisdiction to investigate the genocidal crimes committed against Rohingya minorities in Myanmar by the Burmese military even though that country is also not a party to the court because some of the violations took place in Bangladesh, which is a party to the court.

As the Court held in the Rohingya cases, continuing crimes that commence on the territory of an ICC State Party come within the jurisdiction of the Court and can be investigated, the ETGE statement added. These crimes include Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity.

Rodney Dixon, a lawyer involved with the filing, said in a statement that there is now a clear legal pathway to justice for the millions of Uyghurs who are allegedly being persecuted on mass by the Chinese authorities.

It is a breakthrough and momentous opportunity which we urge the ICC Prosecutor to pursue without delay, Dixon said. This chance should not be squandered.

An Associated Press investigation published recently found that the Chinese state regularly subjects hundreds of thousands of minority women to pregnancy checks, forced use of intrauterine devices, sterilization and abortions.

In a statement late last month, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom argued that the forced sterilization of Uighur Muslims is evidence of Genocide.

Its evident from the Chinese governments own data that the Communist Partys policies are clearly designed to prevent population growth for the Uyghur, Kazakh, and other Turkic Muslim peoples, USCIRF Commissioner Nury Turkel said in a statement.

We urge the State Department to investigate whether the Chinese authorities deliberate and systematic attempt to genetically reducing the Turkic Muslim population in Xinjiang meets the legal definition for genocide as contemplated in the Genocide Convention.

Earlier this month, it was reported by the Associated Press that U.S. federal authorities seized a shipment of weaves and other beauty accessories that are suspected to be made out of human hair taken from people inside a Chinese internment camp and produced with forced child labor.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials told The Associated Press that 13 tons of hair products worth an estimated $800,000 were seized.

On Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced new sanctions against three senior Chinese leaders of the government's mistreatment of Uighurs.

Those officials include Chen Quanguo, the party secretary in Xinjiang; Zhu Hailun, the party secretary of the Xinjiang Political and Legal Committee; and Wang Mingshan, the current party secretary of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau.

Pompeo also announced additional visa restrictions on other communist party officials believed to be responsible or complicit in the detention and abuse of those in Xinjiang.

In late June, President Donald Trump signed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, a resolution passed unanimously by a very divided Congress seeking to safeguard the rights of this religious minority group.

China has also been accused of engaging in human rights crimes against other religious minority groups throughout the country, including Christians, Falun Gong practitioners and Tibetan Buddhists. U.S. Ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback said during a trip to Hong Kong last year that the Chinese Communist Party is at war with faith.
Portland protesters, please stop those kindred souls who feel the need to destroy property. Take a timeout! Resume protests without property damage after the election. Here in Kentucky, we are trying to retire Moscow Mitch McConnell  not only to help us but to help you, too.

He is using video footage of Portlands civil unrest to help him, and it seems to be working.

If you help us, Ill drive to Portland to join you to celebrate the defeat of Moscow Mitch!

Marshall Ward, Murray, Kentucky




Editor's Note: Ken Moak taught economic theory, public policy and globalization at the university level for 33 years. He co-authored a book "China's Economic Rise and Its Global Impact" in 2015. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Although U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war against China is "dumb" because it inflicted unnecessary damages on the U.S. and other economies (except for a few that gained from the stock market), his technology is downright "stupid" because of the dire consequences, stifling America's innovation ambitions, economy and even security. However, it might be a good re-election strategy.

Banning Huawei from buying chips produced by equipment using U.S. technology and adding 38 affiliated companies in 21 countries to the blacklist might pose a temporary setback, but is unlikely to inhibit its growth, let alone "kill" it.

Huawei overtook Samsung in terms of smartphone sales, respectively shipping out 55.8 and 53.7 million units in the second quarter of this year. The company remains the world's top supplier of telecom equipment, accounting for 40 percent of the total, just to list a few of Huawei's accomplishments so far.

Trump did not hurt the Chinese companies that produce TikTok and WeChat. These Chinese social media apps are highly popular and have a large following in China and around the world, thus losing the U.S. market might not be too painful. Banning WeChat might even cause Apple to lose between 15 percent and 30 percent of its business as Chinese users would switch from iPhone to Huawei or other brands.

Moreover, "killing" Huawei and other Chinese technology companies might not mitigate U.S. national security. Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung produce some parts in China. Huawei holds many technology patents that are necessary for 5G network. Against this backdrop, it is unclear that U.S. national security would be safe with the three non-Chinese telecom companies' equipment.

Trump's tech war would also put U.S. technology firms at risk. A big chunk of Qualcomm and Apple's sales and revenues, for example, is from the Asian market. Without the Chinese market, some U.S. technology firms might not survive and those that do would see a significant reduction in revenue. Revenue losses mean less money will be spent on research and development, leading to erosion in U.S. technological innovation.

This explains why Qualcomm and others were lobbying the Trump administration to rescind or delay its decision because their place in the technology world, if not survival, is at risk. The technology war against China could accelerate the development and production of Chinese technologies that produce advanced chipsets needed for high-end smartphones.

For instance, China succeeded in the space and global positioning programs when, respectively, the U.S. and EU barred it from participating in the international space program and Galileo global navigation system. The country has a space program and global navigation system rivaling those of the West.

Furthermore, Trump's tech war against China hurts other countries' interests. Neil Campling of Miraband Securities lamented that choking Huawei will cause "reverberations across the semiconductor complex," setbacks for U.S., South Korean and Japanese technology firms.

Repercussions will not end at the technology sector, but could expand to the entire U.S. economy should China decides to retaliate. Many Fortune 500 companies are highly dependent on the Chinese market for their financial well-being. Should China decide on tit-for-tat measures, the damages to these companies and by extension the U.S. economy would be insurmountable. For example, if Chinese airlines buy 25 percent of Boeing airplanes, losing the market would be a huge blow to the economy and by extension, the U.S. economy.

That said, the tech war, like the trade one, is a campaign strategy because it will bring Trump votes. Past U.S. presidential elections showed that the majority of Americans vote with the heart, not the brain, rallying around the president against an enemy "right or wrong."

George W. Bush, for example, handily won a second because he was seen as a "war president" protecting the U.S. from the alleged Muslim "terrorism." It did not matter that he (and other U.S. presidents) were largely responsible for it.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq was based on "faulty intelligence" (some would call lies). America and its "coalition partners" also bombed other Muslim countries, turning some Middle Eastern and North African countries into "wastelands," displacing or killing millions of people. Many fled to the West but only to find harsh discrimination and hopelessness. Those who fought back were branded as "terrorists."

The 2020 presidential election would be no exception. Trump will gain popularity among the American public even though his allegations of China using Huawei and other technology firms to spy on the America and harming national security are "disinformation" or even outright lies. For example, American farmers supported Trump's trade war, albeit they were made worse by it.

It would not be a surprise if Chinese tit-for-tat retaliations will bring Trump supporters, the media and pundits out in droves to rally behind the president, improving his re-election prospects.
My transition to a cashless lifestyle is all but complete thanks to COVID-19. There are still a few banknotes and coins in my wallet but its ages since I actually used one.

Australias shift away from hard currency has been rapid. Only a decade ago more than 60 per cent of payments were made with cash but that had shrunk to 27 per cent last year, Reserve Bank research shows. The value of cash payments was even lower at just 10 per cent. Now those shares are set to fall further.

Paying with cash is out of favour Credit:Gabriele Charotte

Amid concerns about the health and hygiene of banknotes, consumers and businesses have shunned cash in favour of contactless payments. ATM withdrawals in April were more than 40 per cent lower than a year earlier.

RBA assistant governor, Michele Bullock, said in a recent speech that making the shift to electronic payments is perhaps not as difficult as many had thought.
Ginette Barton-Sinkia just wants to help set her kids up for success this year.

With both of her children  aged 13 and 6  heading back into classrooms in September, Barton-Sinkia is convinced that now is the time for parents to rally together and help schools create a safe environment for kids to return to amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Her family spent time living in California, she said, where it was the norm for teachers to send a list of supplies needed in the classroom home with the children at the start of the year so that parents could pitch in.

A lot of teachers in the United States have to pay for their own stuff, Barton-Sinkia said. Im sure Canadian teachers do the same, but its more prevalent in the United States  teachers are not paid as well, and (schools) are not funded as well.

One year, she recalled, the family even donated the classroom a vacuum cleaner. Were just used to helping out the classroom.

Now, Barton-Sinkia wants to help out even more. She emailed her childrens principal asking what parents can contribute to make the transition back easier, but has not yet received a response. I feel like the teachers and the school board are dealing with so many other bigger issues, she said.

Since shes a writer, Barton-Sinkia said shes privileged to be able to work from home, meaning she can make herself available to help out around the school as needed. Since some families wont have the means, those who have the time or extra funds could contribute more, she said.

I dont mind going to the school for an afternoon to help clean or to help fashion the classroom (with protective equipment), she said. To be honest with you, I want to do that because I want to see what theyre going to have in place for my kids.

Though Barton-Sinkia considered virtual learning, the lack of clarity surrounding how classes would run led the family to select physical classrooms for the fall.

Much of her urge to pitch in comes from feeling helpless about the situation her children are facing.

For one, its not clear what the inside of the classroom will look like when her kids get to it. With drop offs happening outside the building, theres no option to tour classrooms like in years past.

Were not going to be able to see the classrooms, theyre not going to send us any info about it. So Im really happy to step in. And if you want me to clean something, Ill clean it.

Focusing on individual needs isnt the way forward, Barton-Sinkia said. If were just concentrating on what we need to do individually, its not going to help everybody get back to where they need to go.

In the absence of formal guidance from the government, she said, parents should put together plans that will make schools safer, so that kids dont have to backtrack in the event of a surge in COVID-19 cases.

There are so many ideas that we can participate in, and I feel like that would help alleviate a lot of parents in their feelings of stress, she said. Theres so many times that parents have put together little baggies for kids birthday parties to send to school  why cant we put together little kits for students where it has sanitation stuff  masks, hand soap, a towel?

If parents can organize a childs birthday party, she added, certainly they can use the same energy and resources to do something that will help all of us feel better to send our kids back to school.

Barton-Sinkia said shed happily pitch in money toward providing adequate PPE for students. The parents that have the extra money  can spend more to help the parent that doesnt have the funds to do that.

She is unsure about the plans in place as of right now, saying, I just dont see it being successful the way it is.

For Barton-Sinkia, taking initiative to pitch in would offer some peace of mind.

Weve just got to be proactive, because we literally only have one shot at this.

Editors note: In this series, the Star speaks with parents about how theyre planning for the return to school in the middle of a pandemic. Have a story youd like to tell? Email us at social@thestar.ca

Jenna Moon is a breaking news reporter for the Star and is based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @_jennamoon
Detectives have released the name of a man killed in a double shooting off West Central on Wednesday night.

Albuquerque police spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said 29-year-old Mark Williams was killed and a woman was severely injured in the incident.

Gallegos did not give an update on the womans condition or release any other details.

Officers responded around 8 p.m. to the shooting in the 200 block of 57th NW, near Central and Old Coors. They found Williams and a woman shot.

Williams died at the scene, and the woman was hospitalized in critical condition.
Maryanne Trump Barry, Donald Trumps older sister, harshly criticized the president, characterizing him as cruel and a liar who could not be trusted, in a series of recordings secretly made by her niece, Mary L. Trump. The Washington Post was the first outlet to report on the recordings and published them online Saturday night. Several outlets later said they independently obtained the recordings in which Barry, 84, mocks her 74-year-old brother and strongly criticizes his tenure as president. His goddamned tweet and the lying, oh, my God, she says in one of the recordings. Im talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit.

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Barry, a retired federal appellate judge, has never publicly spoken about any disagreements with her brother. But the audio makes clear she has plenty to say and isnt a fan of Donald or the way he runs things at the White House. Its the phoniness of it all. Its the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel, she says in one of the recordings. At another point, Barry says Donald is out for Donald, period. When her niece asks Barry what Trump had accomplished on his own, Barry says, Well, he has five bankruptcies, before adding, You cant trust him.

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Barry also harshly criticized the presidents immigration policies, particularly the way his administration separated families at the border. She was still a federal judge when she heard her brother suggest on Fox News that maybe he would place Barry at the border. All he wants to do is appeal to his base, Barry says. He has no principles. None. None. And his base, I mean my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this. Barry criticized what theyre doing with kids at the border and said it was clear Trump hasnt read my immigration opinions if hed thought she would be an ally in his border policies. And that is par for the course, she said, because he doesnt read.

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In all, Mary Trump secretly recorded 15 hours of face-to-face conversations with Barry in 2018 and 2019. She provided the recordings to the Post in response to the papers inquiry about her source in one of the most explosive elements in her recent tell-all book about her uncle, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the Worlds Most Dangerous Man. The Post asked Mary Trump how she knew that her uncle had paid a friend to take the SATs for him so he could transfer into the University of Pennsylvania. Barry made clear in her conversations academics were never her brothers forte, calling him a brat and claiming she did his homework for him. She also says he got into University of Pennsylvania because he had somebody take the exams. When Mary Trump sounds amazed at what shes hearing, Barry expands. SATs or whatever, Barry says. Thats what I believe.

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The White House released a comment from the president after the Posts story was posted online: Every day its something else, who cares. I miss my brother, and Ill continue to work hard for the American people. Not everyone agrees, but the results are obvious. Our country will soon be stronger than ever before!

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Mary Trumps spokesperson, Chris Bastardi, said she began taping conversations with Barry, after she concluded that several of her families had lied as part of a long-standing inheritance dispute. Mary Trump received much less inheritance than she expected and claims she was tricked about the value of the familys estate. Mary realized members of her family had lied in prior depositions. Anticipating litigation, she felt it prudent to tape conversations in order to protect herself, Bastardi said. She never expected to learn much of what she heard, including the presidents sister, Federal Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, state that Donald Trump had paid someone to take an SAT exam for him.

For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
Medan, Indonesia: A rumbling volcano in western Indonesia on Sunday unleashed an avalanche of scorching clouds down its slopes.

Authorities are closely monitoring Mount Sinabung on Sumatra, one of Indonesias main islands, after sensors picked up increasing activity in past weeks.

Villagers do their laundry as Mount Sinabung spews volcanic materials during an eruption, in Karo, North Sumatra, on Friday, August 14. Credit:AP

The volcano in North Sumatra province was shooting smoke and ash more than 1000 metres into the air on Sunday morning, and hot ash clouds travelled one kilometre south-east, Indonesias Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Centre said.

Villagers were advised to stay five kilometres from the craters mouth and should be aware of the peril of lava, the agency said. Air travel was not impacted by the ash so far, the Transport Ministry said.
Drugs taken by millions of Britons to treat high blood pressure slash the risk of dying from coronavirus by one third, research shows.

Academics found that Covid-19 patients who have been prescribed the medication were 33 per cent less likely to die or be admitted to intensive care.

But experts discovered no clear benefits for infected patients who didn't have high blood pressure but were given angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs).

It bolsters evidence that hypertension  the medical term for high blood pressure  is a major risk factor for the potentially life-threatening disease.

More research is needed to see if the drugs, such as Ramipril and Losartan, could actually treat coronavirus in patients without high blood pressure.

More than six million people in the UK take the drugs regularly to treat high blood pressure. They are also given to heart attack survivors. Around 100million people in the US have hypertension.

More research is needed to see if the drugs, such as Ramipril, could actually treat coronavirus in patients without high blood pressure.

More than six million people in the UK take the drugs - which include Losartan - regularly to treat high blood pressure. They are also given to heart attack survivors

Drugs taken by millions of Britons to treat high blood pressure slash the risk of dying from coronavirus by one third, research shows. Pictured: A man donating plasma after recovering from Covid-19 has his blood pressure taken in Bogota, Colombia, last week

Researchers at the University of East Anglia pooled data from previous studies looking at 28,872 patients in hospital with Covid-19.

One quarter of the patients were taking ACE inhibitors or ARBs, including one third of patients with high blood pressure.

The study showed that patients with high blood pressure were 33 per cent less likely to die or be placed on a ventilator if they were taking ACE inhibitors.

Experts said the findings are hugely reassuring for millions of patients on the medication.

It follows fears that ACE inhibitors may in fact worsen Covid-19 as they reduce blood pressure by increasing levels of ACE2 receptors on the surface of a patients cells.

Covid-19 uses the same receptor to lock on to cells and invade the body. Lead author Dr Vassilios Vassiliou suggested the drugs may reduce the risk of dying from Covid by keeping blood pressure under control and decreasing inflammation in the body.

He said: We can now very conclusively say that if you are being prescribed this medication you should keep taking it and it will not increase death or critical events, in fact it could save your life.

He added that ACE inhibitors and ARBs may also reduce the severity of coronavirus among patients who take the medication for other conditions, such as diabetes or kidney failure.

For patients who were taking the medication but did not have high blood pressure we could see a trend towards them having better outcomes but it didnt reach statistical significance. We can say it was definitely not harmful.

He added: We have shown that patients who have been prescribed the medication before they got Covid are better off.

'We do not have any evidence that if somebody got Covid-19 today and you gave them the medication they might be better off.

The most popular versions of the drugs are Ramipril, Losartan, Lisinopril and Candesartan, according to NHS data.

Professor Sir Nilesh Samani, medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said: This study, which is a collation of all the evidence to date, provides further reassurance for patients and GPs.

The finding that these drugs may be associated with lower risk of severe Covid-19 disease is interesting but should be treated with caution as it is not based on randomised clinical trials.

The study, published in the Current Atherosclerosis Reports journal, is the largest and most detailed such study to date.
Hyderabad, Aug 23 : Telangana on Sunday reported 2,384 new coronavirus cases, which took the state's overall infections tally to 1,04,249.

This is one of the highest single-day jumps in the number of new cases.

The death toll currently stands at 755, with 11 new fatalities.

Health officials said the fatality rate in the state stood at 0.72 per cent against the national average of 1.87 per cent. Out of the total fatalities, 53.87 per cent had comorbidities.

According to a media bulletin issued from the office of the director of public health and family welfare, the number of cases in Greater Hyderabad rose to 472 from Saturday's 447.

Medchal Malkajgiri and Rangareddy district abutting Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) reported 149 and 201 cases respectively.

Sangareddy, another district bordering the state capital, saw 72 new cases.

Outside GHMC and surrounding districts, Nizamabad was the worst affected with 153 new cases followed by Khammam with 125, Warangal Urban with 123 and Nalgonda with 122 cases.

Siddipet reported 92 new cases and Karimnagar reported 75 new cases while 91 samples tested positive in Jagtiyal.

Officials said 79 cases were reported from Peddapalli, 63 from Suryapet, 59 from Jogulamba Gadwal and 52 from Rajanna Sircilla.

During the last 24 hours ending on Saturday 8 p.m., authorities conducted 40,666 tests.

With this, the number of tests conducted in the state so far rose to 9,31,839. The samples tested per million population mounted to 25,099 against a daily testing target of 5,600 per day as per the World Health Organisation (WHO) benchmark of 140 per million per day.

The results of 1,347 samples were awaited.

A total of 16 government and 23 private laboratories are conducting RT-PCR/CBNAAT/TRUENAT types of tests while there are 1,076 rapid antigen tests centres.

During the last 24 hours, 1,851 people recovered from Covid-19, taking the total number of recoveries to 80,586. The state's recovery rate stands at 77.30 per cent against the national average of 74.69 per cent.

The number of active cases in the state stands at 22,908, including 16,379 in home/institutional isolation.

Age wise coronavirus positive details show that 65.3 per cent of those tested positive were in the age group of 21-50 years. Terming this as a susceptible age group, authorities have urged them not to go out unless absolutely necessary. They were advised to strictly exercise precautions like wearing face masks and maintain physical distancing.

Among positive cases, 24.71 per cent are above 51 years of age. About 10 per cent were aged below 20 years.

Officials said 64.41 per cent of those tested positive were male while the remaining 35.59 per cent were female.

According to the media bulletin, out of 20,396 beds in government-run hospitals, 17,986 beds were vacant.

The number of private hospitals treating Covid-19 in the state rose to 170. These hospitals have 9,057 beds out of which 4,938 were vacant.

The state has over 800 containment zones with the highest 136 in Ranga Reddy district, followed by 88 in Rajanna Sircilla, 78 in Mahabubnagar, 84 in Jagtiyal and 81 in Gadwal.

Greater Hyderabad has 65 containment zones.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
By Eli Walsh

Bay City News Foundation

The state of California has received federal funding assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to suppress the fires burning in Santa Clara and Stanislaus counties, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday.

FEMA issued the grant on a cost-share basis to reimburse 75 percent of the fire suppression costs accrued by local and tribal governments and the state government.

The Fire Management Assistance Grant will help the state battle the SCU Lightning Complex Fire, a group of about 20 separate fires that have now burned nearly 300,000 acres in five counties.

The state has activated multiple fire strike teams, fire engines, water tenders and shelter operations staff to battle the fires and support those they have displaced.

The part of the fire complex in Contra Costa County has been nearly extinguished and the entire complex was about 10 percent contained as of 8 a.m. Friday, according to Cal Fire. Two people have been injured as a result of the blaze.

Newsom's office did not immediately respond to a request for the dollar amount of the FEMA grant. The state received a similar grant Thursday to battle the CZU August Lightning Complex Fire in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties.

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.
A former friend of the prime suspect in Madeleine McCann's disappearance has told how he discovered the video of him raping a 72-year-old that led to his conviction.

Christian Brueckner, 43, who is now serving a sentence for drug offences, is appealing against his conviction for the rape of the elderly American woman in Portugal in 2005.

The attack took place in Praia da Luz, the same area where three-year-old Madeleine went missing from her family's holiday apartment in 2007.

Manfred S., a former friend of Brueckner's, told RTL that he'd bragged to him about breaking into hotels in the days when they roamed the Algarve together as small time crooks.

Christian Brueckner, 43, (left) was declared the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann (right) by German investigators in June

Manfred S. told the broadcaster that when Brueckner was jailed for diesel theft in 2015, he took the opportunity to rob his home with another friend.

He says they discovered a video camera there which had on its tape footage of Brueckner raping the elderly woman.

At his trial in December, the court heard how Brueckner had tied the woman up and whipped her during the ordeal which took place in her home.

'I felt that he enjoyed torturing me,' she told investigators. He carried a sabre, she claimed, 30cm long.

Manfred S. says that also on the video tape was footage of a younger woman tied to a wooden beam in another house.

Disturbed by what he saw, Manfred S. told RTL that he took the footage to the police and that it was this that eventually led to Brueckner's conviction.

Brueckner's mugshot issued by the Carabinieri military police in Italy around the time of his arrest in 2018 under an international warrant

It comes after the Mail on Sunday established that Brueckner had used a Casio Exilim digital camera to store 391 child porn pictures and 68 videos showing the rape and abuse of minors.

It was the same device that he used to take images of himself sexually abusing the five-year-old daughter of an ex-girlfriend.

The camera and its contents became the main evidence against Brueckner during two trials in which he was accused of sexually abusing the girl and possessing child pornography.

He fled to Portugal after being acquitted in 2016, but admitted his guilt when he was extradited back to Germany a year later. He was given a 15-month jail sentence.

A ten-page judgment from Braunschweig District Court reveals that the photographs showed children under the age of 14 being abused by adults, while others involved children being forced to perform sex acts.

Police said the videos had been downloaded from the internet and stored on the camera's memory card.

The judgment adds that there were several naked pictures of another ex-girlfriend of Brueckner's  not the mother of the five-year-old  and photographs of her having sex with him.

Police also found a Reck P6E blank pistol with ammunition in his flat  illegal to possess without a licence under German law.

According to the document, the abuse of the five-year-old took place on June 16, 2013, in Braunschweig at around the same time that Brueckner came on to the radar of German investigators as a suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine.

It adds he took pictures of the abuse and 'saved them on his later confiscated camera with the intent to later arouse himself sexually'.

Police received a tip-off about Brueckner following an appeal over Madeleine on German TV six years after she disappeared from her family holiday apartment in the Praia da Luz resort in Portugal in May 2007.

Brueckner was living in the area at the time and police have said that mobile data shows he was near Maddie's apartment on the evening she was abducted.

The judgment also noted that at the time of his arrest in 2014, Brueckner was on parole for a drugs offence he had committed in Niebull, a German city near the Danish border.

While he was being investigated for child abuse, he was caught trying to steal diesel from a truck in a parking lot in May 2015.

He was then arrested for drink-driving in September the same year and, two months later, assaulted his then girlfriend at a bus stop in Braunschweig.

After being jailed for the child abuse, Brueckner  now serving a sentence for drugs offences  was convicted of the rape of the 72-year-old American woman in Praia da Luz and received a seven-year prison term.

His lawyers have sought to have that conviction overturned due to what they claim was a procedural error in his extradition from Portugal to Germany in 2017.

Last month, police searched an allotment near Hanover where Brueckner lived for a time after returning to Germany, shortly after Maddie disappeared in Portugal.
By Pieter Friedrich

In the middle of his second attempt to secure a seat in US Congress, Sri Preston Kulkarni is under fire for his association with the top leadership of American affiliates of Indias controversial Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) paramilitary.

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In this campaign, Rameshji has become like my father, Sri Preston Kulkarni said in May 2018 after he won a run-off election for the Democratic Partys nomination for Texass 22nd congressional district. He was referring to Ramesh Bhutada, the man responsible for mobilizing Indian-American support for the aspiring congressman. Bhutada is Vice-President of Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (USA) as well as President of the HSSs Southwest Division.

Bhutada apparently worked hand-in-hand with his cousin-in-law, Vijay Pallod, who met Kulkarni in the early months of the campaign. Pallod himself is a former Governing Council member of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA), the US wing of the VHP of India, which is considered the religious wing of the RSS. He describes seeing a steady stream of RSS workers at Bhutadas house in the 1980s.

Speaking about Kulkarnis campaign, Pallod recounts how the candidate was all by himself until he and Bhutada came alongside him. We raised $30,000 to get his campaign off the ground in the first month and brought in a total of $45,000, says Pallod. Despite the busy schedule, Ramesh met with community stalwarts, regardless of their party affiliation to bring their financial power to help Kulkarni.

Analysis of Federal Election Commission campaign finance reports reveals that Bhutada  as well as his wife and son  were among the first 40 donors to Kulkarnis campaign.

By the time of the primary election on 6 March 2018, he had received $20,000 from just five individuals (and their immediate family members) who are directly affiliated with the Sangh Parivar (an umbrella term for RSS and its subsidiaries) in America. These included Bhutada, Pallod, Jugal Malani (brother-in-law of Ramesh Bhutada), Mihir Meghani, and HSS-Houston President Subhash Gupta  all of whose links to the Sangh are detailed extensively in my article for The Caravan.

Kulkarni had also received donations from Navin Bhargava (an executive at Bhutadas company, Star Pipe Products), Vivek Kavadi (an apologist for Indias ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, the political wing of RSS), Subroto Gangopadhyay (an activist with Overseas Friends of BJP who helped organize a 2018 event for BJPs Islamophobic Subramanian Swamy), Shekhar Agrawal (also an OFBJP activist), and Ashok Danda (former president of Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation, a VHP project). Their donations  before the Democratic Party primary  totalled $8,100.

The $28,000 donated by these handful of Sangh associates and leaders constituted approximately 26 per cent of the $106,000 that Kulkarni raised before the primary.

Thus, it appears that the Sangh in America laid the financial foundation that allowed Sri Preston Kulkarni to launch his first bid for US Congress.

Kulkarni lost his first bid for Congress. When he formally launched a second attempt in April 2019, the audience at his launch heard from two individuals who have a strong emotional bond with Sri: one was his mother and the other was Ramesh Bhutada. The ten Sangh-affiliated individuals who first began giving to him in the very earliest days of his first campaign have mostly remained faithful. Over the past two years, between both campaigns, theyve provided approximately $110,000 in funding.

Kulkarnis primary relevant experience for the job in Congress is his 14-year career in the US Foreign Service. Yet he strangely has not issued a statement on foreign policy.

Meanwhile, some Indian-Americans currently serving in Congress have made it a point to take a stand on American foreign policy towards India despite not serving on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. For instance, Congressman Ro Khanna has unequivocally denounced Hindutva  the religious-nationalist political ideology undergirding the RSS.

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal has been so vocal in support of human rights in the disputed region of Kashmir that, last year, Indias External Affairs Minister cancelled a meeting with a delegation of US congressional representatives after they refused to exclude her.

When Kulkarnis fellow Indian-Americans are so outspoken in opposition to the agenda of Indias ruling Hindu nationalists and yet he remains silent on the issue of foreign policy while, at the same time, taking in large donations from representatives of the Sangh in America, one wonders what kind of a congressman he might make.

Pieter Friedrich is a freelance journalist specializing in analysis of South Asian affairs. He is author of Saffron Fascists: Indias Hindu Nationalist Rulers and co-author of Captivating the Simple-Hearted: A Struggle for Human Dignity in the Indian Subcontinent.
Thousands of opposition demonstrators took to the streets in cities across Argentina on Monday to protest against President Alberto Fernandez and his plans to extend confinement measures against the coronavirus.

Demonstrators defied social distancing rules to answer calls to protest against a government announcement last Friday to extend containment measures in the Buenos Aires region until August 30.

The capital is home to 90 percent of the country's growing coronavirus caseload.

Demonstrators shouting "freedom, freedom" gathered around the landmark Obelisk in central Buenos Aires, waving Argentine flags and chanting anti-government slogans.

Demonstrators also protested against Fernandez's planned judicial reform to expand the number of federal courts in an effort to dilute the influence of judges suspected of making politically motivated decisions.

The protests in Buenos Aires and other main cities took place despite a recent easing of restrictions, even as the country battles a steady rise in infections.

According to the latest health figures, Argentina has recorded nearly 300,000 infections and 5,750 deaths from the coronavirus, while reporting more than 5,000 new cases a day for the past week.

Earlier Fernandez, whose judicial reform plans were a key part of his election campaign, called for unity in a speech commemorating Argentine revolutionary leader Jose de San Martin.

"We have lived a unique moment of humanity, not just in Argentina, where a pandemic is besieging us, infecting us, sickening us, killing us," he said.

The task ahead was to rebuild a country that has been "economically annihilated," by the former center-right government of his predecessor Mauricio Macri.

"They have left behind an impressive amount of debt, they have conditioned the future of many generations and they have plunged more than 40 percent of Argentines into poverty," Fernandez said.

"United I am sure we will win, " said Fernandez, paraphrasing San Martin.

The government imposed a nationwide quarantine on March 20, before gradually easing it in much of the country.

It also launched a multi-million dollar package of social and business aids to shore up an economy that has been in recession since 2018.
" " Scientists have published the first study that draws a conclusive link between anatomy and SIDS risk. See parenting pictures. Photo courtesy stock.xchange | Lakepeople

November 2, 2006

Each year in the United States, almost 2,500 seemingly healthy babies die of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, before they're six months old. Accurate global numbers are hard to come by because of the nature of SIDS: It's not diagnosed by its symptoms; it's diagnosed by the absence of any other possible explanation for the death. A SIDS death happens while a baby is asleep. It's the syndrome that is sometimes called "crib death."

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Until recently, all science knew for sure about SIDS was that certain environmental factors increased an infant's risk of suddenly dying, including exposure to alcohol and drugs while in the womb, premature birth, low birth weight, exposure to second-hand smoke after birth, and sleeping on his or her belly. It's this last one that has seemed to play the greatest role in SIDS, and a highly publicized campaign about a decade ago got many parents to put their infants to sleep on their backs, which quickly decreased the SIDS rate by 40 to 50 percent.

There are many theories about why stomach-sleeping could cause an infant to stop breathing. Perhaps the infant's jaw is compressed by the position of his or her head, in turn compressing the air pathway and making it difficult to breathe. Or perhaps an air-pocket forms in soft bedding, and the infant ends up breathing in his or her own air, leading to a build-up of carbon dioxide in the body. But in both of these cases, the infant's brain should send a signal to wake up and start crying because something's wrong. So maybe a pre-existing anatomical factor prevents the brain from sending that signal.

Researchers have been looking for proof of this anatomical risk factor for decades. Without it, SIDS is truly just a random, unpredictable death that leaves parents forever wondering if they did something wrong. In an amazing turn for SIDS research, a group of scientists has published the first study that draws a conclusive link between anatomy and SIDS risk. It's in the brain stem.

According to results published in November's Journal of the American Medical Association, it's possible that at least half of SIDS deaths are related to a defect in the way the brain stem handles a neurotransmitter called serotonin. The brain stem is the part of the brain that connects to the spinal cord and controls unconscious processes like breathing and heart rhythm, and serotonin is part of this control system.

Researchers gathered the autopsy data of 31 infants who died of SIDS and 10 infants who died of other causes between 1997 and 2005. In 30 of the 31 SIDS cases, the data showed a significant number of defective serotonin neurons -- nerve cells responsible for producing and processing serotonin -- in tissue from the part of the brain stem called the medulla. The number of defective serotonin neurons in the SIDS infants was twice that in the non-SIDS infants. Without effective neurons to create serotonin pathways in the brain, the signals carried by that serotonin are lost.

Combined with an environmental risk factor such as stomach sleeping or a lung infection, an infant who has this inherent anatomical risk factor is more likely to experience SIDS than an infant whose brain stem processes serotonin normally. If neurons in an infant's brain can't properly process serotonin, the brain can't effectively send the "Wake up!" signal when the infant experiences low oxygen levels. The authors of the study believe this defect is most likely genetic. While the results of this study do not show whether or not SIDS can be prevented, the study is a starting point for finding diagnostic techniques that could possibly pinpoint infants who are at high risk for the syndrome. Right now, the defective neurons can only be found during autopsy.

The Web site KidsHealth.org offers a list of tips to help reduce the risk of SIDS, including:

Do not drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes during pregnancy

Get full prenatal care during pregnancy and regular well-baby check-ups after birth.

Chose a firm mattress for your baby's crib, and keep any fluffy blankets or toys away from his or her head during sleep.

Do not let your infant sleep in your bed with you, but keep the crib in your room.

If your infant has a health condition, discuss the optimal sleeping position with his or her pediatrician.

Go to KidsHealth.org: Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) to see the complete list of recommendations.

For more information on SIDS research and check out the links on the following page.
SPRINGFIELD  The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 at Baystate Health facilities declined slightly over the past week.

Officials are reporting that 14 people who have tested positive for the disease are being treated at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield. Two of those patients have been admitted to a critical care unit.

Last week there were 16 patients confirmed to have COVID-19 being treated at Baystate Health Systems hospital. Three weeks ago there were 30 patients at Baystate Health hospitals in Western Massachusetts.

City officials are also reporting there has been a recent decline in the number of cases of COVID-19 in Springfield.

Baystate Health also operates Baystate Noble Hospital in Westfield, Baystate Wing Hospital in Palmer and Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield. None of those medical centers currently are treating patients admitted for confirmed COVID-19 infections.

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A Maoist carrying a cash reward of Rs 2 lakh on his head, and involved in several incidents of violence, surrendered before the police in Malkangiri district of Odisha on Sunday.

Mahadev Madkami, a resident of Kankerapra village of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh, and involved in many incidents of assault and killing of civilians, exchange of fire with security forces and destruction of government properties, surrendered before Malkangiri SP Khilari Rishikesh Dnyandeo.

Madkami had joined the Maoists in 2015 and was in the protection team of Chaitu, who was in-charge of the Darva division of Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee. Since December 2019, he was working in the Mahupadar local squad.

The Malkangiri SP said Madkami was active in Malkangiri and nearby areas and had decided to give up the path of violence as he was disillusioned by Maoist leaders. He saw various developmental activities being undertaken by the government in this area and realized the futility of the violent path before deciding to join the mainstream of society, the SP said.

With the surrender of Madkami, the number of surrenders in Odisha increased to 20 this year. Among the Maoists who surrendered this year were Kamlyu Beti alias Kamlu, the Kanger Ghati area committee secretary of Darva division under Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee in Chhattisgarh. Last year, nearly 13 Maoists had surrendered in Odisha state.
Restart-19 is studying the movement of people and flight of the tiny airborne particles that can carry viruses.

Scientists in Germany have held three pop concerts to study the risk of virus transmission during large events.

The mass experiment, staged with nearly 2,000 people in the city of Leipzig, comes at a time the country has banned all such gatherings until at least the end of October.

Al Jazeeras Um-e-Kulsoom reports.
A gunman shot and killed a woman inside her home before critically wounding a sheriffs deputy outside in a wild shootout at a Northern California mobile home park, authorities said.

The shooter, described only as a 29-year-old man, was killed by Sacramento County deputies in the exchange of gunfire Saturday evening in Rancho Cordova, the Sacramento Bee reported.

The wounded deputy, who was not identified, was struck twice and was in critical condition before surgery late Saturday, said Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones. There were no immediate updates Sunday.

Officers responding to a routine call for service were met with gunfire and returned fire, Jones said at a news conference, according to the Bee.

Authorities received a call around 7 p.m. from a woman at Centennial Estates, who said her grandson was in her home pointing a gun at her. She had a restraining order against him, officials said.

Arriving deputies confronted the gunman, who ran and then began shooting. Deputies chased him, leading to a shootout in which the deputy was wounded before the suspect was taken down, officials said.

Deputies then discovered the body of the woman inside her home. Investigators believe the man shot her in the head.

The relationship between the shooter and the woman was under investigation, the newspaper said.

Saunia Roberts, who lives in the mobile home park, told the Bee that she saw the officer wounded in the leg.

Moments later, she heard a series of gunshots  "more rounds than you can count, Roberts said.
ISIS operative nabbed in Delhi had planned an August 15 strike

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Aug 23: The ISIS operative arrested in Delhi was in touch with his handlers for a long time. He was in direct touch with the handlers of the ISIS in Afghanistan through social media platforms.

The operative identified as Abdul Yusuf Khan alias Abu Yusuf was nabbed following an encounter with the Delhi Police. He is a resident of Balrampur in Uttar Pradesh.

Deputy Commissioner Pramod Singh Kushwaha said that the operatives was arrested with Improvised Explosive Devices by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police. He said that the arrest took place following an exchange of fire at Dhaula Kuan.

Vigil up in UP after arrest of ISIS terrorist

His handlers were Yusuf Alhindi and Abu Huzafa. Alhindi, it may be recalled was killed in Syria. Abu Yusuf was the owner of a cosmetic shop in Uttar Pradesh. He was radicalised online following which he got in touch with his handlers.

He was asked to carry out an attack, following which he was to go to Syria. He had already readied passports for his wife and four children. Following the attack, he and his family were to fly into Syria, the police have learnt.

He was instructed by his emir to strike on August 15. He was however unable to do so owing to heavy security. He had decided to put his plan on hold and strike at another time. However concrete intelligence led to nabbing, following which a major strike was averted.

The police had received information about his movement in the ridge area between Dhaula Kuan and Karol Bagh. Following this a trap was laid to nab him.

The operative was on a bike when he was intercepted. It was found that he had the IED in a pressure cooker. Following the incident search operations were carried out in several locations of Delhi. The National Security Guard (NSG) Commandos and the Bomb Disposal Squad who will analyse the IED have been deployed in the Buddha Jayanti Park in the Ridge Road area. Sniffer dogs also continue to keep a tight vigil in the area.

ISIS operative concealed IED in pressure cooker, planned lone wolf attack in Delhi

Following the incident, a high alert has been sounded in UP and the police have been instructed to remain alert.

The Delhi Police said that the arrested operative is in his early 30s and appears to be highly radicalised by the ISIS ideology. From his possession we have recovered a 30 bore pistol, 4 live cartridges. During the initial round of questioning, he has been providing us with multiple identities and addresses. He will be booked under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Explosives Act and relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code, the Delhi Police also said.
Lawsuit seeks to delay enforcing Noem's new abortion pill ban

Planned Parenthood and ACLU of South Dakota are suing Noem and the Department of Health in enforcing a new abortion pill ban.
Following the Presidents directive for tertiary institutions to be reopened next week for continuing students, the ministry of education (MoE), in collaboration with Zoomlion Ghana Limited (ZGL), has bagun the second phase of disinfecting all tertiary institutions across the country.



The nationwide exercise kick-started on Friday simultaneously in about five regions. These were the Greater Accra, Central, Volta, Northern, Western and Ashanti Regions.



The exercise will cover pyrotechnic universities, health facilities in addition to all public and private tertiary institutions, and it forms part of the the central governments continuous measures at containing the spread of the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Final year students of tertiary institutions completed the academic year by writing their final exams on Friday, and that facilitated the exercise.



In the Greater Accra Region, tertiary institutions that were disinfected on day one of the exercise included Accra Polytechnic University, West End University, Dominion University, Islamic University, Kings University College among others. Open spaces of these institutions were disinfected in addition to their lecture halls, various faculties, offices and other facilities.



Addressing the media on the sidelines of the exercise, the Greater Accra Regional Manager of ZGL, Mr Ernest Morgan Acquah, disclosed that his outfit was expected to disinfect about eighty-six (86) tertiary institutions in the country.



According to him, his outfit complete the national exercise before next week Monday.



In addition to the disinfection, Mr Morgan Acquah reiterated the need for the students and the authorities in the tertiary institutions to continue observing the COVID-19 preventive measures.



And though he said it was encouraging that the country's active cases had reduced drastically, he advised that it should not be a reason for "us to lose our guard."



At the Catholic Institute of Business Technology (CIBT) near the Information Ministry, the Registrar, Mr Perry Ofosu, applauded the government's collaborative effort with Zoomlion to fight the virus.



The registrar of CIBT who was excited about the second disinfection exercise in his school averred that they had put in place adequate safety measures to receive the continuing students on Monday.



These measures, he said, included placing Veronica buckets at vantage points and ensuring that the students observe social/physical distancing.



"We will also provide each student with two reusable nose masks," Mr Ofosu added.



The exercise will continue tomorrow and end on Sunday.

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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The global coronavirus pandemic has now killed more than 806,000 people worldwide, nearly a quarter of those in the U.S.

More 23.2 million people worldwide have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, unreported cases and suspicions that some national governments are hiding or downplaying the scope of their outbreaks.

The United States is the worst-affected country, with more than 5.6 million diagnosed cases and at least 176,659 deaths.

PHOTO: Renters and housing advocates attend a protest to cancel rent and avoid evictions in front of the court house amid Coronavirus pandemic on August 21, 2020, in Los Angeles, California. (Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images)

Latest headlines:

Trump urges plasma donation following FDA emergency authorization Florida coronavirus cases on verge of grim milestone 17 more students test positive in Georgia Tech Greek house outbreak

Here's how the news is developing today. All times Eastern. Please refresh this page for updates.

6:10 p.m.: Trump urges plasma donation following FDA authorization

The FDA has issued an emergency authorization for convalescent plasma treatment in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, and President Donald Trump is calling on those who have recovered from COVID-19 to donate plasma.

"I once again urge all Americans who have recovered from the virus to go to coronavirus.gov and sign up and donate plasma today, please," Trump said during a press briefing Sunday evening.

MORE: FDA to issue emergency authorization for convalescent plasma treatment in hospitalized COVID-19 patients

Trump called the FDA's announcement to issue an Emergency Use Authorization for the treatment "truly historic."

"It showed tremendous potential," Trump said, noting that a Mayo Clinic study found the blood plasma treatment reduced COVID-19 mortality by 35%.

Antibodies found in convalescent plasma, the yellow liquid separated from the blood of recovered COVID-19 patients, are harvested and deployed to treat the newly sick.

Story continues

The White House has provided $270 million to the American Red Cross and other blood centers to collect up to 360,000 units of the plasma, Trump said.

2:02 a.m.: Florida coronavirus cases on verge of grim milestone

Florida is approaching a grim milestone, as total confirmed cases of coronavirus are on the verge of surpassing 600,000. The total number of cases currently stands at 597,597.

New daily cases have been over 4,000 since August 19 so there's a chance the state will pass 600,000 when new cases are reported later today.

If so, Florida would be only the second state to do so, behind California.

What to know about coronavirus:

How it started and how to protect yourself: Coronavirus explained

What to do if you have symptoms: Coronavirus symptoms

Tracking the spread in the U.S. and worldwide: Coronavirus map

1:11 a.m.: 17 more students test positive in Georgia Tech Greek house outbreak

Georgia Tech officials said Saturday that 33 more students have tested positive for COVID-19 on campus, including 17 members of the same Greek residence.

Officials with Sigma Phi Epsilon said Saturday night that the outbreak was at their residence.

At least eight other students in Greek housing tested positive at the end of last week but it is unclear if all of those students live at the Sigma Phi Epsilon house.

"In addition to the cluster of Greek housing residents who live in the same Greek residence near campus reported via a campus communication yesterday, 17 more members of the organization tested positive today," officials wrote.

School officials did not identify which Greek organization was affected, but Sigma Phi Epsilon issued a statement confirming it was their house on Saturday night.

For the past several days, we have dealt with a spike in COVID-19 cases among our members, the organization wrote on Instagram. As of three days ago, our house was locked down to non-residents, and we have been working closely with our Alumni and Volunteer Corporation, the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life and Georgia Tech Administration to test all other members of our chapter and isolate those positive members, in compliance with requests from administration.

Officials said all residents in the house have been tested and Georgia Tech is turning the residence into an isolation location. Students who have not tested positive will relocate elsewhere to quarantine.

"If you have had recent contact with any residents of Greek housing, please get tested at one of the free Georgia Tech testing sites," officials wrote.

Students returned to class at Georgia Tech on August 17. Students held a die-in on campus that day, protesting the return to in-person instruction.

At least 251 students at Tech have tested positive for the virus.

ABC News' Ahmad Hemingway, Sasha Pezenik and Elizabeth Thomas contributed to this report.

Coronavirus updates: Florida COVID-19 cases on verge of grim milestone originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
The scientific community remains cautiously optimistic about finding a COVID-19 vaccine that can usher in the end of a pandemic thats infected nearly 23 million and killed close to 800,000.

The virus rapid spread has created unprecedented demand for an effective vaccine, which by all indications may be found in record time  thanks in large part to governments stepping in to backstop the efforts of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.

Although a number of public health and philanthropies are also involved in the high-stakes race, governments are a linchpin in the far-reaching research and development efforts. The U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Operation Warp Speed and the U.K.s National Health Services (NHS) efforts have helped boost vaccine research and trials to produce a vaccine in record time.

America has spent more than $10 billion on at least 800 million doses, including nearly $2 billion to Pfizer (PFE)/BioNTech (BNTX) for 100 million doses even though the duo is not receiving federal funding for the research and production of their vaccine.

Entities like Emergent BioSolutions, Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing Inc., Texas A&M University and FUJIFILM have been looped in for more than $1 billion in total, to help with domestic manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccines.

To-date, the fastest a vaccine was produced for a new disease has been four years.

The virus hasnt had its first birthday yet, and already (more than) 150 vaccine candidates are being manufactured and tested, Dr. Kevin Tracey, president of The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health, told Yahoo Finance in an interview.

Thats a victory for science, he added, even as he acknowledged that not all candidates will make it to market.

Collaborations have formed on an international level, with groups like the World Health Organization (WHO), global vaccine alliance (GAVI), Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) all involved in supporting and working with companies in the race for a vaccine.

But of the hundreds of candidates currently in the mix, there are some also getting funding to provide doses to governments. That includes the U.S., Britain, the European Union and Australia.

Story continues

Vaccines become lucrative amid key unknowns

Cases in the U.S. are not spiking as much. (Graphic: David Foster/Yahoo Finance)

The market for a covid vaccine is estimated to be $100 billion in sales and $40 billion in profits, according to an Evercore ISI analysis. And while some large players are expected to be donating doses to lower-income countries, or selling at no profit, others have stated their intention to profit off of the global pandemic.

Traditionally, vaccines have been a less profitable product, due to the older technology and longer time period to produce. But recent candidates for shingles and human papillomavirus (HPV) are profitable, according to Arthur Caplan, a professor and bioethicist at NYU Langone Medical Center.

Its become lucrative, Caplan said.

Newer technologies like messenger RNA and heat-stable candidates offer companies the chance to make money. And the need for two doses effectively doubles the revenue potential, while halving the number of people that have access to the supply.

Most frontrunners being tested in the U.S. are two-shot vaccines, including a primer and booster within a months time. These are proving to be the most effective against the virus for a longer period of time

Dr. Dan Barouch, Harvard Medical School's Professor of medicine and immunology, told Yahoo Finances Andy Serwer that a two-shot inoculation need will depend on durability of the vaccine. The length of immunity is really an unknown question, he added.

The long-term effects on the body are also unknown. Recent data from a group of sailors showed potential long-term immunity, and studies continue to analyze the long-term impacts on the lungs, brain and other parts of the body.

The WHO has been focused on vaccine development as a tool to help curb the viruss global spread  but warns there is much left to learn, and finding an effective vaccine could take time.

Although we have learned so much about this disease we only have less than 8 months of experience to draw on. We still know relatively little about the long-term effects, WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday.

And experts contend that even if a vaccine is found by the end of 2020, it is likely to be part of a first generation of vaccines, and less effective than subsequent versions that companies could release.

Estimated cost of recent epidemics/pandemics:



SARS (2003) - $40 billion

H5N1 (2006) - $40 billion

H1N1 (2009) - $45 billion

Ebola (2014) - $55 billion

COVID-19 (2020) - $8.8 TRILLION



Investing in public health preparedness is FAR cheaper than the economic impact of a pandemic.  Dr. Tom Frieden (@DrTomFrieden) August 19, 2020

Price, manufacturing  and costs

The sheer volume of taxpayer money being poured into private pharmaceutical companies, many of which intend to profit off of the pandemic and have benefitted from spiking valuations in the stock market, continue to amplify negative perceptions about the industry.

Companies like Moderna (MRNA) and Novavax (NVAX), which have no products on the market and were trading below $20 per share in January, have seen their market capitalizations surge to over $26 billion and $8 billion, respectively, on the coattails of soaring stock prices.

In the past, the U.S. government has stepped up to fund a public health crisis, though not quite at the same scale. During the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, which was far less severe than COVID-19, the Obama administration funded distribution of the vaccine through public health and private health systems, with a priority list set by the CDC.

Kathleen Sebellius, former HHS Secretary under President Barack Obama, told Yahoo Finance there are questions about how a vaccine will be distributed, whether the FDA can stick to its commitment of only releasing a vaccine when it is proven safe and effective  and whether insurers will be charged for the administration of vaccines.

An additional question is if companies who have already been prepaid, try to charge for it all over again, she said.

But there are also questions about the confidence in a safe and effective vaccine. The 50% effective rate that the FDA has set is a pretty damn low bar, Sebellius said. She questioned whether the approval of a vaccine will inject a fresh round of politics into an already polarizing debate.

But one of the key differences is that amid the conversation of vaccine nationalism, the U.S. has more production capabilities on its side compared to 2009. Sebellius recalled the country had to get in line for purchasing vaccines that were mostly produced abroad.

Not surprisingly the countries with capacity also had constituencies that were in front of the line. One of the aftermath efforts was to develop much more robust manufacturing capacity in U.S., which we now have, she said  which has grown threefold.

Anjalee Khemlani is a reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter: @AnjKhem

More from Anjalee:

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance

Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, SmartNews, LinkedIn, YouTube.
As a cradle Catholic and recipient of Notre Dame's Laetare Medal, Joe Biden is outspoken in declaring that the principles and beliefs of his Catholic faith guide his public life.

"Joe is a man of faith," was a recurring theme at the Democratic convention that nominated him to become our second Catholic president.

Biden has often affirmed the centrality of his faith to his decisions in public life. In a video released on the eve of the convention, he credited Pope Francis and the nuns who educated him with making him the man he is today.

Yet, when the Supreme Court ruled in July that the Little Sisters of the Poor could not be forced, by an Obamacare mandate, to provide contraceptives to employees, Biden called the decision "disappointing."

For Joe has evolved over a half-century. He is now an all-in Roe v. Wade Catholic who supports a woman's right to abortion and believes the tax dollars of his fellow Catholics should pay for the abortions of women who cannot afford them.

This year, he changed his position and came out against the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of tax dollars to pay for abortions.

What triggered Joe's renunciation of his past support for the Hyde Amendment? Primary opponents Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris had battered him for it and Bernie Sanders had given Biden some tutoring in the new moral law of the Democratic Party.

Said the Vermont socialist, "There is no middle ground on women's rights." With that cuffing, Biden scurried off the middle ground and was all in.

"Circumstances have changed," is how Biden explained his flip-flop.

Biden's moral journey from right-to-life to pro-abortion Democrat has not gone unnoticed within the Church. A dozen years ago, when Biden was still a senator, a bishop in Scranton, with Joe in mind, declared:

"I will not tolerate any politician who claims to be a faithful Catholic who is not genuinely pro-life. ... No Catholic politician who supports the culture of death should approach Holy Communion."

During the South Carolina primary, Fr. Robert Morey of Florence denied Biden communion on the grounds he had excommunicated himself by taking the stand he has taken on the killing of the unborn.

"Holy Communion signifies we are one with God, each other, and the Church," said Morey. "Any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself out of Church teaching."

Biden also supports the restoration of federal funds for Planned Parenthood, a provider of abortions. Nor is life the only issue on which Biden has taken his leave of the teachings of the Church in which he was raised.

In 1994, Biden voted to cut off federal funds to schools that teach an acceptance of homosexuality. In 1996, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act.

Once he had become vice president in 2012, however, Biden even got out ahead of Barack Obama in urging that homosexual unions be granted the legal and social standing of traditional marriage.

Had moral truth changed? Did Catholic teaching change? No, Biden changed. The Catechism of the Catholic Church still declares "homosexual acts" to be "intrinsically immoral and contrary to the natural law" and describes "homosexual tendencies" as "objectively disordered."

Biden once believed this, or said he did for most of his life, for that is the way he campaigned in Delaware and voted in D.C.

What has changed is the Democratic Party Biden now heads. The precepts of LGBT now dictate "moral truth" in the party and platform of Joe Biden who now calls transgender rights "the civil rights issue of our time."

As Biden has turned his back on the teachings of the Church in which he was raised, the Church itself is coming under physical attack by the same radicals besetting civil society.

In Miami, a statue of Christ the Good Shepherd was lately beheaded. A statue of the Blessed Virgin inside a Boston church was set on fire, and another was desecrated in Tennessee. In Denver, the same headless fate befell a statue of St. Jude.

Statues of Fr. Junipero Serra, the priest who founded 17 missions from San Diego north to San Francisco, when California was under Spanish rule, have been under constant attack.

In St. Louis, a mounted statue in the city's Forest Park of the 13th century Saint and King Louis IX, the French monarch for whom the city was named, who led the Sixth and Seventh Crusades, is under siege.

Radicals are even demanding that the city's name be changed.

On right-to-life, the declared position of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is clear: "Taxpayer dollars should never fund abortion."

This unequivocal moral stance is being publicly repudiated and will be rejected, should he win the presidency on Nov. 3, by the professed believing and practicing Catholic, Joe Biden.

What, if anything, are the U.S. Catholic bishops going to say about this grave moral issue in the fall election? Or will they remain silent?

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On Saturday, India categorically rejected the reference of Jammu and Kashmir in a joint statement of China and Pakistan and asked the countries to not interfere in internal matters of India.

India on Saturday categorically rejected the reference of Jammu and Kashmir in a joint statement of China and Pakistan and asked the countries to not interfere in matters that are internal affairs of New Delhi. Retreating its concerns over the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, New Delhi said that it opposes actions by other countries that change the status quo in Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

The Ministry Of External Affairs statement comes a day after China told Pakistan that it opposes any unilateral action that complicates the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi during the second round of the China-Pakistan Foreign Ministers Strategic Dialogue in the Chinese province of Hainan.

Also read: ISIS terrorist held after exchange of fire, IEDs seized

Also read: India to have dedicated vaccine portal soon: ICMR

In an official statement, MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said, As in the past, we categorically reject the reference to Jammu and Kashmir in the joint press release of 2nd round of China-Pakistan Foreign Ministers Strategic Dialogue. Jammu & Kashmir is an integral & inalienable part of India.

We expect the parties concerned not to interfere in matters that are internal affairs of India, added the MEA spokesperson.

Srivastava stated that India has repeatedly conveyed its concerns to both China and Pakistan on the projects in so-called China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which are in the territory of India that has been illegally occupied by Pakistan.

He added that they resolutely oppose actions by other countries that change the status quo in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir and called on the parties concerned to cease such actions.

Also read: Atmanirbhar Bharat: PM discusses ways to boost Indias toy industry
Following the Federal Governments directives on Friday that the University of Lagos Senate nominates an acting Vice-Chancellor, newly app...

Following the Federal Governments directives on Friday that the University of Lagos Senate nominates an acting Vice-Chancellor, newly appointed acting VC, Prof Omololu Soyombo, has stepped down with immediate effect.

The governing council led by the Pro-Chancellor, Dr Wale Babalakin, had appointed Soyombo last week after it sacked Prof Oluwatoyin Ogundipe.

Soyombo, in a statement on Saturday, said it was necessary he did so because the government had directed the UNILAG Senate to nominate an acting VC for the varsity.

The news of the setting up of a Special Visitation Panel to the University of Lagos by the Federal Government was received in the evening of Friday, 21st August 2020. The government also directed the University Senate to nominate an Acting Vice-Chancellor for the University, for confirmation by the Governing Council. With this, I am stepping down, with immediate effect, as Acting Vice-Chancellor of the University, he said.

Soyombo urged all staff and students of the institution to continue to go about their lawful activities in a peaceful manner.

I wish to express my sincere appreciation to all members of staff and our dear students, the staff unions, alumni and the general public for their wonderful support and cooperation in the past ten days since my appointment as Acting Vice-Chancellor of the University on 12th August 2020.

As I noted in my address to a cross-section of staff on 19th August 2020, I accepted the offer to serve as a call to service, with the objective of restoring peace and stability in the university.

It is my prayer that the peace and stability that we so much need and desire at this time be restored very quickly, so that the University of Lagos can continue to march on as the University of First Choice and the Nations Pride, he concluded.
We have an understanding with both the Israelis and the United States that annexation is now off the table, he said. How the Palestinians and Israelis choose to work towards a permanent peace agreement and accord between them is up to them. We urge our Palestinian brethren to take this opportunity to move the Palestinian cause further to resolution, as we urge the Israelis to engage for peace.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-24 00:21:12|Editor: huaxia

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NAIROBI, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Kenya on Sunday hailed China for the support it has provided to strengthen the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rashid Aman, chief administrative secretary of the Ministry of Health, said that the Chinese government and organizations have supported Kenya in terms of donating critical medical supplies to boost response to the pandemic.

"One of the most important donations was from Jack Ma who provided COVID-19 testing kits and which became the foundation for the country's testing program," Aman said during a convention in Nairobi.

Kenya's COVID-19 positive cases stood at 32,364 and the number of fatalities linked to the disease reached 548 as the East African Nation intensified efforts to flatten the curve.

Aman said that Kenya was grateful to the Chinese government and private sector for their support that has boosted efforts to combat the spread of COVID-19.

"China is a true partner of ours," said Aman.

He said that there is a lot that Kenya can learn from China because of the measures the Asian nation has put in place to stop the spread of COVID-19.

"China has already provided us with a number of proposals on how we can approach this pandemic in order to save lives, "said Aman.

He said that Kenya is cooperating with several countries and organizations on how to manage the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We have had a lot of sessions of exchange of knowledge with China on how to respond to the pandemic," he added.

The health ministry said that Kenya is currently in talks with a number of international organizations to ensure that its citizens get access to COVID-19 vaccines once they are available in the market. Enditem
There are a lot of opportunities when the stock market crashes. But just because stocks are cheap doesnt mean you should buy them. Right now is the perfect chance to buy sure-thing stocks  stocks that could help you get rich, and quick.

Those stocks are the ones doing well even during a downturn  the stocks that can even take advantage of the downturn to come out on top. Those are the stocks that will help you get rich in the next few years.

E-commerce on top

If theres one industry that could help you get rich, its the e-commerce industry. The COVID-19 pandemic was the catalyst for the biggest stock market crash since 2008-2009. Around the world, markets fell by about 40%. But while markets crashed, e-commerce stocks actually expanded.

This may not have happened if the pandemic didnt come hand in hand with the crash. Well never know. All we know now is that with the work-from-home economy expanding rapidly, people needed supplies  fast. Enter any stock even related to e-commerce, and you have a get-rich stock.

The problem is, a lot of these e-commerce stocks were pretty obvious for those looking to get rich quick. E-commerce websites, software-as-a-service providers, cybersecurity: all of these industries spiked. But there are other areas that still relate to e-commerce and have and will continue to grow.

Storage, anyone?

With all of these spikes in products, where are you going to keep them? The answer is in light industrial properties. These properties are simply meant to store and ship products around the world. Thats all there is to it. Its simple, efficient, and easy to maintain.

Not only can investors take advantage of light industrial property stocks to get rich now, but they can look forward to years of high revenue. That comes from two reasons. First, that the e-commerce industry is still expected to expand by leaps and bounds in the next decade. Second, that there is incredibly little maintenance with these properties. It means the stocks can grow through acquisition and increase dividends.

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WPT a winner

For my money, I would highly recommend WPT Industrial REIT (TSX:WIR.U) today. This stock has it all. Its only been on the market for about two years. That means its new, and new means it still has to convince large investors to buy up in bulk. That also means its cheap. As of writing, shares trade around $13, almost where shares were before the crash.

Theres really nothing to fear when it comes to the pandemic or another market crash with this stock. Because its simply storage and shipping, there isnt the need for cutbacks from this stock. During its latest earnings report, the company announced a whopping 99.5% rental collection  almost unheard of in the best-case scenario!

In fact, across the board, there were increases. Rental revenue jumped to 56.1%. Occupancy increased to 97.4% from 95.7%. Funds from operations increased 34%, and net income increased to 51.7%. It meant the company could make yet another acquisition, bringing its total properties across North America to 102.

Bottom line

Even though share prices are almost at pre-crash levels, you cant go wrong with this stock if you want to get rich. You can buy up tons of the stock today, and even as it slowly rises, youll receive a 5.68% dividend yield. In just two years, shares have almost doubled. Not only is that possible in the next two years to happen again, but I wouldnt be surprised if it happened in the next year because of the e-commerce environment.

If you want to get rich, take advantage of whats doing well. In this case, an e-commerce stock set up to rake in cash with few costs is practically a sure thing.

The post Get Rich Quick With This 1 Sure-Thing Stock appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

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Fool contributor Amy Legate-Wolfe 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
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 18:02:29|Editor: huaxia

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BAGHDAD, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Concerns are rising over the recent decisions of Iraqi health authorities to ease some anti-COVID-19 restrictions and the public's non-compliance to health instructions as Iraq's total infections surpassed 200,000.

"The number of infected COVID-19 cases in Iraq is exponentially rising to an alarming and worrying level, suggesting a major health crisis soon," World Health Organization (WHO) warned in a statement.

"In the absence of a drug or vaccine, Iraq is left only with preventive measures to fight the spread of the pandemic," it said.

The situation has deteriorated because of the easing of restrictions and failure to implement safety measures forcefully, according to WHO.

In the past few days, the Iraqi Health Ministry has recorded the highest daily surge with more than 4,000 new COVID-19 cases. The tally of infections in the country reached 201,050 on Saturday.

Stronger testing capacity is also one of the reasons behind the latest increase of COVID-19 infections in Iraq. New COVID-19 labs have been opened in Baghdad and other provinces.

The latest peak of total infections has made Iraq fourth in the number of infections in the Middle East. It tops the list of Arab countries in the number of pandemic deaths with 6,353, according to international statistics.

Despite warnings by the Ministry of Health, Iraqi health authorities canceled the full curfew and eased health restrictions because of the heavy economic impacts on the war-shattered country.

On Aug. 16, the Iraqi Higher Committee for Health and National Safety, headed by Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, canceled the weekly three-day full curfew on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

The committee replaced the full curfew with a daily partial curfew from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Faryad al-Dhari, an Iraqi health expert, told Xinhua that ignorance and failure to abide by health instructions are primary factors behind the spread of the pandemic in Iraq.

"We live in a society of widespread ignorance and indifference, which makes people live normally without applying public safety rules of wearing a mask and applying social distancing," said al-Dhari.

Ziyad al-Jubouri, a professor of economics at Baghdad University, said that Iraqi government was force to ease restrictions amid the economic pressure.

Iraq has been facing an acute financial crisis because of sharp declines in oil prices in recent months, mainly amid the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the global economy.

Since the country's economy relies heavily on revenues from crude oil exports, the Iraqi government has been facing great difficulty in paying salaries of its employees, said al-Jubouri.

The economic paralysis was acute especially in the first months of the outbreak, and low-income families were affected most as a result of full curfew measures taken by the government.

"The government was forced to ease restrictive measures to give daily-wage laborers an opportunity to earn money at their regular jobs to support their families, despite the high number of COVID-19 infections," al-Jubouri added. Enditem
The top 5 European countries: France, Germany, the UK, and the Netherlands are all seeing about 40% of 2019s volumes for intra-European travel between January and July 2020, aside from Spain, which is lagging at 22% of last years volumes, a report said.



Tickets issued for travel to Spain, Greece and Portugal soared in a clear correlation with their announcements of border reopening in mid/late May, according to the Q4 Travel Outlook for Europe published by ForwardKeys, a leading provider of information on travel trends and business intelligence.



These tickets were predominantly made for Leisure, Group and VFR travel. Tickets issued for travel to Athens and Lisbon rebounded far quicker than the European average, Barcelona lagged, but not as far behind as London  which is yet to see much of a rebound.



The EUs authorisation of travellers from 14 countries (excluding China for the moment) to enter the zone has proven not to be enough. Tickets issued from these countries since the news was announced are still down 92% compared to last year. This is partially due to travel restrictions being lifted for some arrivals in Europe while excluding many countries on this list, making travel impossible for them.



The resilience of vintage Europe  Greece & Italy



For Q3 this year, the top 10 performing European destinations are all set to be Southern European beach cities, with Greece dominating as the place to be this summer.



This list of cities with shares of European travel of at least 0.2% includes 5 Greek cities, 3 from Spain, 1 in Croatia and 1 in Italy. The top 3 cities are Zadar -14.1%, Chania -32.1% and Ibiza -34.3%.



However, for Q4 we see the rise in demand for Italy, especially to Sardinia, Calabria, and Puglia. Are these holidaymakers or eager VFR returning home? In Greece, we also see tickets issued to Corfu, Kalamata, and Crete increase  not the traditional party islands of Mykonos or Santorini, the report said.



Meanwhile, the Balearic Islands, steal the crown as the most resilient and consistent destination in Spain from Q3 to Q4 with even a growth of 8.8% seen in Menorca.



What this data shows is that, yes, there is still demand to travel within Europe, especially to Southern European destinations which are resilient. However, people are still not taking risks and choosing more remote, less touristic destinations where social distancing can be respected, said Luis Millan, Market Researcher at ForwardKeys.



Moreover, Greece, Portugal and Spain were one of the first countries to announce the re-opening of their borders  bookings soared soon after as there were flights also available.



Top urban escapes in Europe



In terms of top European urban cities, Lisbon, Paris, and Barcelona are the top 3 inbound destination cities for international travellers in October, November and December when examining tickets issued as of August 10.



Europe is proving to be a lot more resilient during summer, despite being one of the regions most adversely impacted by Covid-19. Now the world is waiting and watching to see if this course will continue in the same vein in hope of a recovery as rumours swirl that there will be a second outbreak in Autumn.  TradeArabia News Service


Martin said he hopes to make the Freedom & Independence Ride an annual event.

The riders took off at 10 a.m. and followed a route that took them to Alda, Hastings, Juniata, Clay Center (where they picked up another group of American Legion Riders), Central City and back to Grand Island  a 135-mile round trip.

After returning to the United Veterans Club, the riders were served lunch. A raffle and silent auction followed. The money raised at the event will go to support the various causes of the American Legion Riders of Grand Island.

Martin said various Grand Island businesses contributed generously to the auction. Those merchants helped to make the event a success through the money their items raised.

The community support has been great, he said. I could not have asked for a better showing of support, especially with the tough times a lot of businesses have had because of the pandemic.

Martin said he wants the public to know that the local American Legion Riders chapter is here to support the community and veterans.

He said despite the pandemic, life continues and community is the reason why.
A smooth snake - Moment RF

A rare snake is set to be reintroduced into parts of Britain, the head of Natural England has said, as he warns that climate change means they have to be spread across the country in order to survive.

The smooth snake is so rare and secretive that experts have no approximate idea of numbers, but it is found on the Purbeck Heaths in Dorset, along with Britain's five other native reptiles.

It is so rare because its habitat has been destroyed for agriculture and infrastructure, and the grassy heathland it prefers is subject to wildfires during heatwaves, which are becoming more common.

This is the latest in a set of reintroductions, as the Government tries to restore Britain's lost species. To date, Natural England has returned beavers to Devon, the large blue butterfly to south-western England, and the red kite across Hertfordshire as well as the pool frog to East Anglia.

The large blue butterfly has already been returned to the wild - PA

Beavers, too, have been reintroduced - PA

Tony Juniper, who heads Natural England, has said in the past he wishes to restore most of Britain's lost animals, including the lynx.

He warned that although a warming climate may mean that there are more suitable habitats in England for reptiles, the increasing risk of wildfires puts them in danger of extinction.

The Environment Bill, and a set of legally-binding standards that mean local councils will be set targets for habitat creation and species reintroduction, will be used by Natural England to ensure a future for the reptiles.

Mr Juniper told The Telegraph: "The smooth snake and the rare and elusive sand lizard are southerly species with quite specific habitat requirements but they were much more widespread in the past.

"What we would like - given the volatility expected from climate change and other pressures - would be a much more secure future for these animals if they were more abundant and more widespread through this sort of habitat creation.

"Climate change would make more areas suitable for them very likely, but what it would also do is make areas where they still are potentially more vulnerable due to prolonged droughts and really serious heathland fires.

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"These have happened on a couple of our reserves. These sort of events will likely become more frequent as we get more intense hot summers. The more places these animals exist and the bigger the areas theyre in, the less likely it will be that any population will be wiped out by a catastrophe.

"We need animals to live in bigger, more connected areas of habitat as we seek to adapt to climate change."

He said local councils would be expected to build ponds and orchards in order to help Britain's wildlife and create habitats for rare species.

Mr Juniper explained: "The Nature Recovery Network would go from the city centres to the remotest uplands, its not just something that would be seen as high quality natural habitats in areas that are already wild, but we want it to be an urban and suburban project so we can have high quality habitats around our town and cities. We want more of those, with more wildlife.

The local nature recovery strategies would set out what's already there then would set out what ideally theyd have in the future, and filling in those gaps would be community orchards, ponds being created, the wilding of river valleys, establishing new nature corridors in the Green Belt."

Which other rare species should be reintroduced in Britain? Tell us in the comments section below
Donald Trump is urging Americans who have recovered from coronavirus to donate their blood plasma as he announced Sunday that the FDA has given an emergency use authorization for convalescent plasma to be used as a treatment for coronavirus.

'This is a very big day,' the president touted.

These new authorization means those who had coronavirus and recovered can now donate their blood to be used as a treatment for those currently suffering from the disease.

'Today I'm pleased to make a truly historic announcement in our battle against the China virus that will save countless lives,' Trump said as he was flanked by Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn.

The president also revealed that the treatment has proven to reduce the chance of death from coronavirus by more than one third.

'I just want to empathize this point because I don't want you to gloss over this number. We dream in drug development of something like a 35 per cent mortality reduction,' Azar said of the convalescent plasma treatment, thanking the president.

'This is a major advance in the treatment of patients. This is a major advance,' he reiterated.

President Donald Trump announced Sunday that the FDA has now given emergency use authorization for convalescent plasma to be used as a treatment for coronavirus

'This is a very big day,' the president touted as he revealed this could lower the death rate from coronavirus by one-third as he was flanked by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar (left) and FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn (right)

'We dream in drug development of something like a 35 per cent mortality reduction,' Azar said of the convalescent plasma treatment. 'This is a major advance in the treatment of patients'

By approving the use of convalescent plasma now those who have antibodies for coronavirus after already having the disease can donate their blood to be used to treat those who currently have it

Trump claimed that over 100,000 Americans have already enrolled to receive this treatment.

'Based on the science and the data, the FDA has made the independent determination that the treatment is safe and very effective,' Trump assured, highlighting that he was not the one pushing for the approval.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnanay made the press conference announcement late Saturday night where she said President Trump would reveal a 'major therapeutic breakthrough' on coronavirus

Earlier on Saturday, Trump tweeted the 'deep state' in the FDA was holding up coronavirus vaccine and treatment testing and supported the use of anti-malarial drugs as treatment

WHAT IS CONVALESCENT PLASMA AND WHERE HAS IT BEEN USED? Convalescent plasma has been used to treat infections for at least a century, dating back to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. It was also trialed during the 2009-2010 H1N1 influenza virus pandemic, 2003 SARS epidemic, and the 2012 MERS epidemic. Convalescent plasma was used as a last resort to improve the survival rate of patients with SARS whose condition continued to deteriorate. It has been proven 'effective and life-saving' against other infections, such as rabies and diphtheria, said Dr Mike Ryan, of the World Health Organization. 'It is a very important area to pursue,' Dr Ryan said. Although promising, convalescent plasma has not been shown to be effective in every disease studied, the FDA say. Is it already being used for COVID-19 patients? Before it can be routinely given to patients with COVID-19, it is important to determine whether it is safe and effective through clinical trials. The FDA said it was 'facilitating access' for the treatment to be used on patients with serious or immediately life-threatening COVID-19 infections'. It came after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that plasma would be tested there to treat the sickest of the state's coronavirus patients. COVID-19 patients in Beijing, Wuhan and Shanghai are being treated with this method, authorities report. Lu Hongzhou, professor and co-director of the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre, said in February the hospital had set up a special clinic to administer plasma therapy and was selecting patients who were willing to donate. 'We are positive that this method can be very effective in our patients,' he said. Meanwhile, the head of a Wuhan hospital said plasma infusions from recovered patients had shown some encouraging preliminary results. The MHRA has approved the use of the therapy in the UK, but it has not been revealed which hospitals have already tried it. How does it work? Blood banks take plasma donations much like they take donations of whole blood; regular plasma is used in hospitals and emergency rooms every day. If someone's donating only plasma, their blood is drawn through a tube, the plasma is separated and the rest infused back into the donor's body. Then that plasma is tested and purified to be sure it doesn't harbor any blood-borne viruses and is safe to use. For COVID-19 research, people who have recovered from the coronavirus would be donating. Scientists would measure how many antibodies are in a unit of donated plasma - tests just now being developed that aren't available to the general public - as they figure out what's a good dose, and how often a survivor could donate. There is also the possibility that asymptomatic patients - those who never showed symptoms or became unwell - would be able to donate. But these 'silent carriers' would need to be found via testing first. Japanese pharmaceutical company Takeda is working on a drug that contains recovered patients antibodies in a pill form, Stat News reported. Could it work as a vaccine? While scientists race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, blood plasma therapy could provide temporary protection for the most vulnerable in a similar fashion. A vaccine trains people's immune systems to make their own antibodies against a target germ. The plasma infusion approach would give people a temporary shot of someone else's antibodies that are short-lived and require repeated doses. If US regulator the FDA agrees, a second study would give antibody-rich plasma infusions to certain people at high risk from repeated exposures to COVID-19, such as hospital workers or first responders, said Dr Liise-anne Pirofski of New York's Montefiore Health System and Albert Einstein College of Medicine. That also might include nursing homes when a resident becomes ill, in hopes of giving the other people in the home some protection, she said. Advertisement

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany previewed Saturday that President Trump would announce a 'major therapeutic breakthrough' for coronavirus.

She tweeted that U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Food and Drug Administration head Stephen Hahn would be attending the 6pm Sunday press conference about the ' China Virus' breakthrough.

Trump has spent the past few months pushing the use of anti-malarial drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine for the treatment of coronavirus.

The FDA revoked its authorization of the emergency use of the two drugs to treat coronavirus patients on June 15, citing the fact that clinical trials showed the drugs had 'no benefit for decreasing the likelihood of death or speeding recovery.'

On Saturday, Trump dredged up a tweet about the FDA revoking the authorization from two and a half weeks ago and wrote: 'Many doctors and studies disagree with this!'

He did not provide any examples of doctors or studies to back up his statement.

Earlier on Saturday, Trump also accused 'The deep state, or whoever' at the FDA of holding up testing for coronavirus vaccines and therapeutics.

'The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics,' Trump tweeted.

'Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives!'

Trump tagged Hahn in the tweet.

On Thursday, Hahn had said that he could not speculate on when the FDA might approve a coronavirus vaccine, but said that the process was moving quickly.

'That's not because anyone has been cutting corners. It's because it's taken a concerted effort and we haven't done things in sequence, we've done things in parallel,' Hahn told Gray DC.

Despite Trump saying that he wanted the vaccine to be ready by early November, Hahn said that: 'The only facts FDA will look at with respect to a vaccine when the data come to us is those data and science and the medicine.'

He added that 'I've had absolutely no pressure from anyone.'

Earlier this week, a top FDA official who will help decide the fate of a coronavirus vaccine has vowed to resign if the Trump administration approves a vaccine before it is shown to be safe and effective.

Peter Marks, director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said that he would resign if the Trump administration approved a vaccine before it was shown to be safe and effective.

Like Hahn, Marks said he has not faced any political pressure and that the FDA would be guided by science alone.

'I could not stand by and see something that was unsafe or ineffective that was being put through,' he told Reuters.

'You have to decide where your red line is, and that's my red line. I would feel obligated [to resign] because in doing so, I would indicate to the American public that there's something wrong.'

He added that he would equally object if someone sought political gain by holding up approval of a vaccine that was shown to work, and that was safe.

Michael Caputo, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees FDA and NIH, said the government aims to identify a safe and effective vaccine by January 2021.

Speculation about the FDA approving a vaccine under political pressure 'only undermines confidence in the public health system,' Caputo said in a statement.

'I've never met one FDA regulator who wouldn't resign over improper pressure, and that's how America knows their seal of approval is the gold standard.'

Trump's approval ratings have fallen sharply in the wake of a pandemic that has killed more than 173,000 Americans and infected over 5.5 million. The race to produce a vaccine has become the centerpiece of his administration's response.

Earlier this month, Trump said a vaccine was possible before the November 3 vote.

In a statement on Thursday, FDA Commissioner Hahn said that under Marks' leadership, the agency's scientists are monitoring the COVID-19 vaccine trials, 'the data from which will be the deciding factor for any FDA approval.'

Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, has also said publicly that political considerations will not influence any decision on a coronavirus vaccine.

Large-scale clinical trials of the leading vaccine candidates from Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca were launched in recent weeks.

The FDA has scheduled a meeting of its advisory committee of outside experts on coronavirus vaccines on October 22.

Marks said the trials were enrolling volunteers 'reasonably well' and that it was 'possible' data could be available to interpret as early as October.

If not, the committee could still discuss broader regulatory issues regarding a vaccine, he said.
One of the most popular festival in Kerala, Onam is celebrated with great enthusiasm and joy, in the months of August and September. Onam, also referred to as Thiru-Onam or Thiruvonam, falls in the first month of the Malayalam calendar, Chingam. The festivities go on for a period of 10 days and this year, the celebration starts on August 22 and continue till September 2.

Each day of the festival has its own name, significance and activities that are relevant for that day. There are also a few post-Onam celebrations which add to the 10-day festival. Here is all you need to know about each day of the celebrations.

August 22, Atham: The festival starts with people decorating their homes with yellow flowers, known as Pookalam. These flowers grow in size with each passing day of the festival.

August 23, Chithira: The 2nd day of the festival is reserved for the customary cleaning of the entire house and another layer of flowers is added to the Pookalam.

August 24, Chodi: On the 3rd day of the festivities, following the addition of the Pookalam, the family gets together and begins shopping for each other. They gift each other new clothes, known as Onakodi, and jewellery.

August 25. Vishakam: The 4th day is considered the most auspicious of all the days of the festival and is the day when the preparations for the Onasadhya begins. The various competitions organised for the festival also begin today.

August 26, Anizham: The Vallamkali boat race happens on the 5th day. It starts from the small town, Aranmula, which is located on the banks of the Pamba river in Pathanamthitta

August 27, Thriketa: The 6th day is especially joyous for the children as the schools start closing and all the time is devoted to the preparation and celebration of the festival.

August 28, Moolam: Several places see the start of Onasadhya and dance performances. The decoration of the sate also begins on the 7th day.

August 29, Pooradam: On the 8 day of celebration, statues of Vamana and Kind Mahabali are cleaned and placed in the centre of the Pookalam.

August 30, Uthradom: It is believed that on the 9th day King Mahabali reaches the state. Its is considered the most important day and people start to buy fresh vegetables and start cooking the traditional meals.

August 31, Thiruonam: All the preparations done up till now give fruit on the 10th day. People across the state start the day early, exchange gifts and offer prayers at the temple. The elaborate Thiruona Sadya (special feast for Onam) is prepared in all households and dance and boat racing competitions continue.

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US President Donald Trump (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

United States-based users of WeChat are suing President Donald Trump to block an executive order they say would bar access to the popular mobile application.

WeChat is a Chinese messaging app. The move comes after Trump issued an executive order banning Chinese video sharing app TikTok, subject to owner ByteDance either selling or spinning its US business within 90 days.

The complaint was filed on August 21 in San Francisco by non-profit called US WeChat Users Alliance, who called for a federal judge to halt Trumps executive order over violation of freedom of speech, freedom of exercise of religion and other constitutional rights, Fox Business reported.

The petition states they use the messaging app for work, worship and staying in touch with relatives in China. The alliance is not associated with WeChat or its parent Tencent Holdings.

The petition further states that users have looked for alternatives without success and are afraid they may violate laws and face sanctions for merely communicating with their families.

Trump had on August 6 issued a two executive orders which pronounced sweeping but vague bans on transactions with the Chinese owners of WeChat and TikTok citing security concerns, economy and foreign policy, the report said. These orders are expected to come into effect on September 20 (45 days from date of issue of the order).

While immediate impact of application of the ban is unclear, experts told the news site the orders appear intended to bar WeChat and TikTok from app stores run by Google and Apple, making use in the US more difficult.

As per mobile research firm Sensor Tower, there were an estimated 19 million US downloads of WeChat. It is however predominantly used by the Chinese American community in the US and Chinese students to stay in touch with families back home or for business purposes.
The race for Indian American votes is well and truly under way.

The Trump campaign on Saturday released a video titled Four More Years, which seeks to rally the 1.2 million Indian-American voters in the US ahead of the November presidential election and features clips showing Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing the Howdy Modi event in Texas last year and the US President Namaste Trump event in Ahmedabad this February. The two leaders had shared the stage on both the events.

America enjoys a great relationship with India and our campaign enjoys great support from Indian Americans! Kimberly Guilfoyle, national chair of the Trump Victory Finance Committee, wrote in a tweet with the short video.

Donald Trump Jr, the presidents eldest son and Guilfoyles partner, retweeted the post.

The video opens with a panoramic view of the stadium where the Howdy Modi event was hosted in Houston in September 2019 and cuts to the February event in Ahmedabad, which was the US Presidents first visit to India. America loves India, Trump says in a clip from the event, adding America respects India, and America will always be faithful and loyal friends to the Indian people.

The video marks the campaigns most visible pitch yet to the Indian-American voters, and comes just hours ahead of the Republican partys convention that will official nominate Trump for a second term on Monday.

The video was also released just days after Democratic presidential nominee and former US vice president Joe Biden declared California Senator Kamala Harris his running mate, making her the first Indian-American and Black woman to be nominated for the key position by a major US party. Harris, 55, has since invoked her Indian heritage -- her mother was a cancer researcher who emigrated to the US from Chennai -- multiple times, including at the Democratic National Convention earlier this week.

The Biden campaign, too, has reached out to Indian-American community in the run up to the four-day Democratic convention that began on August 17.

At an Indian Independence Day celebration held virtually on August 15, the Democrat had pledged closer ties with India and a better deal for Indian-Americans in a short, policy-laden message, saying he will stand with New Delhi in confronting new threats its faces in its own region and along its own border. He also promised to check Chinas impunity along the border and not tolerate cross-border terrorism.

Al Mason, who conceptualised the 4 More Year video, said, The video depicts great friendship and love between India- US - cemented by the emotional bond between Prime Minister Modi & President Trump. Trump is much loved by the community.

Mason leads Trump campaigns outreach to the Indian-American community and is the co-chair of Trump Victory Indian-American Finance Committee. The video, he added, will evoke mega support in terms of fund raising at the grass root level and votes for President Trump in battleground states  a must win for Trump.

The American states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida are likely won or lost by wafer-thin margins.
When then-Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) decided not to seek another term in Congress, Connolly won the campaign to succeed him in the 11th District. After Connolly was reelected in a close race two years later, House Democrats altered the districts boundaries to favor their party. Connolly has not faced a robust challenge since, including this year when his general election opponent is a little-known Republican, Manga Anantatmula.
On Wednesday, former FBI agent Kevin Clinesmith pleaded guilty to altering an email in 2016 as he sought a courts blessing to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. His sentencing will take place in December; until then, hes a free man.

Despite his intentions, altering the FISA application was wrong and he deserves to be punished. But it's not the smoking gun Republicans have been seeking, nor is this proof of President Trump's "Obamagate hoax  the greatest political crime of the Century! claim.

Throw away Clinesmiths surveillance request  and throw away the controversial Steele dossier  and there were still substantial reasons to investigate possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. They include a warning from the Australian government that Russia was trying to infiltrate Trumps campaign as well as then-candidate Trumps request for Russia to expose Hillary Clinton's emails  which Russia did within hours, through Wikileaks.

Given the circumstances, it would have been negligent for intelligence officials to wave their hands and say, Im sure its all OK. A thorough investigation was required.
Pakistan is planning to use drones to drop bombs at the security establishments near the International Border in Jammu and Kashmirs RS Pura and Samba sectors, said BSF sources. It is learnt that Pakistan spy agency ISI is also planning to pump in consignment of drugs, arms and ammunitions inside India with the help of drones.

It may be recalled that on June 20, a Pakistani drone loaded with a sophisticated rifle and some grenades was shot down by the BSF along the International Border in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir.

It was the first such incident in Jammu region when a drone carrying arms and explosives was shot down by the BSF. A highly sophisticated rifle, two magazines, 60 rounds and seven grenades were the payload on the drone meant to be delivered to Pakistani agents.

In 2019, Punjab Police had recovered Pakistani drones which were used to airdrop arms and ammunition in border areas of the state. The BSF had also spotted many drones in Punjab along the International Border.

On Saturday (August 21), the BSF shot down five intruders who were trying to infiltrate Indian territory from Pakistan side in Punjab's Tarn Taran district. The incident took place near Dal village of Bhikhiwind sub-division in the district. A rifle and a bag pack has been recovered from one of the slain intruders. Officials said the incident took place in the early hours, when BSF personnel spotted some movement across the fence in Tarn Taran district.

According to BSF, the intruders were challenged and subsequently shot dead in an exchange of fire. Two bodies have been recovered along with a rifle. The area has been cordoned off and a search has been launched to retrieve the third body, officials said.
Baumgarten was set to order 5,000 Lenovo Chromebooks in July when his vendor called him off, saying Lenovos were getting stopped by a government agency because of a component from China thats not allowed here, he said. He switched to HPs and was told they would arrive in time for the first day of school Aug. 26. The delivery date then changed to September, then October. The district has about 4,000 old laptops that can serve roughly half of students, but what about the rest, Baumgarten asks rhetorically. Im very concerned that Im not going to be able to get everyone a computer.
ANN ARBOR, MI  Plans for a 19-story high-rise behind the Michigan Theater in downtown Ann Arbor are on hold until next year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Construction was supposed to begin this spring, but that changed when the coronavirus hit, said developer Howard Frehsee of Bloomfield Hills-based Cerca Trova LLC.
GOP for Biden

Regarding Im a Republican, and Im voting for Biden, (A13, Aug. 20): Amen, amen to William Treadways well-written essay.

I, too, am a lifelong Republican, and I am voting for former Vice President Joe Biden, for all the reasons so eloquently expressed by Mr. Treadway. We cannot afford another four years of Donald Trumps leadership.

W. Holmes, Houston

Joe Bidens climate plan will destroy the oil industry and the Texas economy. It is obvious that he does not care about Texas. Anyone who has read his Clean Energy Revolution proposals can only conclude Biden wants to eliminate the oil industry. I encourage Texans to read these dangerous documents. Biden might be a nicer man, but he will not be good for Houston or Texas.

Gene Cook, Spring

So hes voting for Joe Biden. Before COVID-19, more Americans were working and the stock market was the highest its been for a long time, if ever. And, last I looked, Donald Trump does not take a presidential salary, but donates it. With his claims that our national leader is toxic and the administration is abusive, corrupt and shameful, give me a break. And if the writer wants to vote for Biden, MJ Hegar and Sheila Jackson Lee, thats his privilege, as it is that of the other misinformed people.

.

Audrey Schambon, Houston

What a difference three-and-a-half years make. William Treadway now has the knowledge those years have painfully provided for him. Now he also has the courage to write what many Republicans must feel, but dont say. I personally know several people who always voted Republican, including in 2016, and will not vote that way anymore. What he clearly wants to do in writing this excellent article is to reach out to those voters who may do write-ins or not vote at all, missing the opportunity to be part of the solution and wasting their vote. I commend this military man who obviously has been brave in combat, and continues to be so in his civilian life. Thank you for your service!

Toy Halsey, Houston

DNC day 3

Regarding Party pays tribute to diverse constituents, (A1, Aug. 20): The Democrats have been saying how horrible the United States is the past few days so it occurred to me that no one will want to move here. Immigration problem solved.

Jim Younger, Katy

Quality leadership

Regarding How Texas helped nurture Ocasio-Cortez, (A1, Aug. 17): As our area copes with a pandemic and economic hardship, Ive wondered how our young county judge, Lina Hidalgo, learned the wisdom and strength she has shown in leading the countys response.

Now we know: it was the training Hidalgo and others like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez received at the National Hispanic Institute.

Leadership can be taught to a willing student. But ultimately the community has to respect and trust its leaders. At a time like this, steady, well-informed and consistent guidance is essential.

We can be very thankful now to those who provided that training.

Nancy Perich Daly, Houston
A West African delegation visiting Mali to push for a speedy return to civilian rule following a coup said it was "very hopeful" on Saturday after meeting with the country's military junta and the president it ousted.

The head of the delegation from the regional ECOWAS bloc, former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, said that detained Malian president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was doing relatively well.

"We saw him, he's very fine," said Jonathan, who had earlier met for half an hour with the soldiers who seized power on Tuesday, including new strongman Colonel Assimi Goita.

Jonathan told AFP that negotiations were going well and he was "very hopeful".

President Keita was reelected in 2018 but became the focus of widespread discontent. By ISSOUF SANOGO (AFP/File)

Rebel soldiers seized Keita and other leaders after a mutiny on Tuesday, dealing another deep blow to a country already struggling with a brutal Islamist insurgency and widespread public discontent over its government.

Mali's neighbours have called for Keita to be reinstated, saying the purpose of the delegation's visit was to help "ensure the immediate return of constitutional order".

ECOWAS Commission chief Jean-Claude Kassi Brou said late Saturday that the talks took place in a "very open atmosphere and we felt a real desire to move forward".

"We hope to be able to finalise everything by Monday," he added.

Ismael Wague, spokesman for the junta which calls itself the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, also said the negotiations were going "very well".

Colonel Assimi Goita is head of the military junta's National Committee for the Salvation of the People. By MALIK KONATE (AFP/File)

A source close to the junta said the ECOWAS envoys had made a "good impression".

"We understand that heads of state, like Ivory Coast's Alassane Ouattara, are working for an easing of tensions, for a peaceful solution, even if they have firmly condemned our seizing power. We are open to discussion," the source told AFP.

The envoys also visited the Kati military base outside the capital Bamako where the coup began and which has become a new centre of power, the source said.

President Keita has been held at the base since the coup, along with prime minister Boubou Cisse and other high-ranking government figures.

'We won'

Malian demonstrators on Friday hailed soldiers for the military overthrow of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. By ANNIE RISEMBERG (AFP/File)

Thousands of jubilant Malians took to the streets of Bamako on Friday to celebrate the toppling of Keita, who was reelected in 2018 but became the focus of widespread discontent.

The rally, originally organised as an anti-Keita protest by a loose coalition that has led months of mass rallies against him, was recast to "celebrate the victory of the Malian people".

"I am overjoyed! We won," said Mariam Cisse, 38.

But it was a different story on Saturday, when several dozen people who tried to rally in Bamako were dispersed by police.

"We are here this morning to show that we do not agree with the coup. But people attacked us with stones, then the police took advantage of this aggression to disperse our supporters," said Abdoul Niang, an activist of a pro-Keita party.

Some demonstrators carried signs opposing UN peacekeepers and French anti-jihadist operations. By ANNIE RISEMBERG (AFP)

There has been international pressure to restore order, the United States on Friday suspending military aid to Mali, with no further training or support of the country's armed forces.

The ECOWAS delegation will meet with the ambassadors in Mali of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the US-- on Sunday morning, according to the programme seen by AFP.

Fractured nation

Keita won election in a landslide in 2013, presenting himself as a unifying figure in a fractured country, and was re-elected in 2018 for another five-year term.

But he failed to make headway against the jihadist revolt that has left swathes of the country in the hands of armed Islamists and ignited ethnic violence in the country's volatile centre.

Discontent in Mali has built over months. By Gal ROMA (AFP/File)

Thousands of UN and French troops, along with soldiers from five Sahel countries, have been deployed to try to stem the bloodshed.

In a sign of the continuing challenge facing the country, four soldiers were killed Saturday by an explosive device in the centre of the country.

The ECOWAS visit with Keita comes after the UN's peacekeeping mission in Mali said a human rights team gained access to the ousted president and other detainees on Thursday.

While Keita and Cisse have no television, radio or phone, other detainees are in a training centre, where they are sleeping on mattresses and have a TV, according to witnesses to the visit.

The 75-year-old ousted president "looked tired but relaxed" they said.

A junta member said the coup leaders had released former economy minister Abdoulaye Daffe and Sabane Mahalmoudou, Keita's private secretary, calling the move "proof that we respect human rights".

Tuesday's coup was the second in eight years, and has heightened concern over regional stability as its jihadist insurgency now threatens neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday that "of course" Democrats would accept the results of the 2020 election if President Trump defeats Joe Biden.

Why it matters: Trump has refused to say whether he would accept the results of the election if he loses  especially with the rise of mail-in voting, which he has baselessly claimed will lead to a "rigged" election. His rhetoric has prompted concerns that there will not be a peaceful transition of power.

At the Democratic National Convention last week, Hillary Clinton called for voters to turn out for Joe Biden in "overwhelming" numbers so that Trump can't "sneak or steal his way to victory."

Former President Barack Obama warned Americans in his address not to let Trump "take away your democracy," and he said the president has threatened democratic institutions "like never before."

What she's saying: Pelosi accused Trump and Republicans of "undermining the integrity of our election" by straining the U.S. Postal Service and ignoring Russian interference.
Taiwan's President and a delegation from the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) on Sunday paid tribute to soldiers who fell in a deadly bombing by China on Kinmen island in August 1958.

Tsai Ing-wen did not give a speech this year as Taiwan's presidents traditionally do as part of the commemoration ceremony.

This year also marks the first appearance of a director of the AIT, the de facto American embassy in Taiwan, at the annual ceremony to commeorate what is known as the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis.

Brent Christensen headed up an 8-person delegation.

Tsai's first term starting in 2016 marked the year when Taiwan-U.S. relations started to rapidly improve.

All attendees observed a one-minute silence near the end of the ceremony, and wore masks in accordance with rules to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Military personnel stood at the grave of deceased soldiers and also paid tribute with incense sticks and sunflowers.

The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis began on Aug. 23 1958, with bombing from China's People's Liberation Army.

The intensity of the conflicts started to die down on Oct. 5 the same year but bombing only only officially stopped on Jan. 1, 1979, when the U.S. and China established full diplomatic ties.

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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
Jedward have launched a scathing attack on Jim Corr after he expressed support for an anti-mask protest in Dublin.

The former X Factor stars, 28, hit out at Jim, 56, who is a member of The Corrs, after a crowd marched through the Irish capital to protest the use of face coverings amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The protest, which was held on Saturday and organised by Health Freedom Ireland, drew ire from Jedward who called the demonstrators 'selfish low lives'.

Argument: Jedward, 28, have launched a scathing attack on Jim Corr after he expressed support for an anti-mask protest in Dublin (pictured in October 2019)

Taking to Twitter, they wrote: 'Dear Dublin Anti Mask Protest! Get the f**k inside you selfish low lives sincerely the rest of the country.

'When your core message is wrong you have no legs to stand on! Theres only one Right in this fight against Covid so dont even try to question it! Change your attitude and get with the times.'

Jim shared footage from the protest on Twitter and expressed his support, leading Jedward to criticise the musician along with a few references from The Corrs' most well-known hits.

They wrote: 'Gwan leave the whole country "breathless" from Covid because of your idiotic behaviour @Jimcorrsays [middle finger emoji]'.

Not happy: Jedward hit out at Jim, 56, after he expressed support for the crowd who protested the use of face coverings amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic (pictured in October 2017)

Jim quickly responded to the jibe by writing: 'Shut up you fools and grow a brain between you'.

Jedward then fired back with another song quip, writing: 'Why dont you just go and "Runaway" and FYI your sisters never needed you please leave the band'.

Jim then slammed the duo as 'Ireland's Millie Vanillie' and jokingly shared a YouTube link to The Corrs' song I Never Loved You Anyway to further get his feelings about the pair across.

Outraged: The protest, which was held on Saturday and organised by Health Freedom Ireland, drew ire from Jedward who called the demonstrators 'selfish low lives'

Disagreement: Jim shared footage from the protest and expressed support, leading Jedward to criticise the musician along with a few references from The Corrs' most well-known hits

Jibe: Jim then slammed the duo as 'Ireland's Millie Vanillie' and jokingly shared a YouTube link to The Corrs' song I Never Loved You Anyway

He wrote: 'Irelands Millie Vanillie have spoken and I shall hand in my notice forthwith. But lads, I just want to say... [song link]'.

Jedward hit back yet again with more song references, writing: 'Youre the best background band member In the history of Irish music.

'Jim "it really doesnt matter at all, cause we are so young now" and "irresistible" youre just another #COVIDIOT good luck with your air guitar skills.'

Jim then shot back by sharing a link to a documentary denying the coronavirus pandemic.

Ouch: Jedward hit back yet again with more song references, writing: 'Youre the best background band member In the history of Irish music

Back and forth: Jim then shot back by sharing a link to a documentary denying the coronavirus pandemic

'Bored': Jedward then tried to put an end to the virtual squabble, writing: 'Youre a waste of our time, Were getting bored'

He wrote: 'Here lads, while I go practise my air guitar watch this, it involves interviews with some important people but dont get overwhelmed as they use some big words on occasions, just take your time and if you need help understanding, Im here.'

Jedward then tried to put an end to the virtual squabble, writing: 'Youre a waste of our time, Were getting bored. May as well be talking to a brick wall. Go to bed Jim.'

Determined to have the last word, Jim shot back by sharing a link to Pink Floyd's Another Brick Wall and wrote: 'Speaking of which... night lads x'.

Jedward then shared a Tweet where they appeared to have a change of heart about online arguments, calling them 'pathetic'.

'We're right you're wrong': Jedward then shared a Tweet where they appeared to have a change of heart about online arguments, calling them 'pathetic'

They wrote: 'Twitter fights are so pathetic! We dont have time! Were right youre wrong. Wear your mask and wash your hands to whoever needs to hear this'.

Jim is a member of The Corrs along with his three younger sisters Andrea, Sharon and Caroline.

He has been critical of mask usage to help combat the virus on social media, writing in July that masks 'are about keeping the fear alive until the vaccine arrives.

'Masks stop viruses in their tracks, in the same way underpants stop farts.'
Many COVID-19 patients who have long-lasting symptoms report feeling weak or foggy after too much physical activity.

That's a hallmark of chronic fatigue syndrome, an often debilitating illness that can last several years or more.

Researchers are just beginning the understand the link between the coronavirus and chronic fatigue.

Further investigation into the similarities could be critical to patients' long-term care.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Sandra Cabreras, 57, rides an exercise bike to strengthen muscle tone while suffering from post-COVID fatigue. Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images

Before Marissa Oliver touched down in California in May, she was finally starting to feel recovered from COVID-19. Her breathing had improved: She could talk on the phone for half an hour or take a 40-minute walk without much discomfort. But traveling felled her almost instantly.

"I basically relapsed upon arrival," Oliver, a 36-year-old manager for an arts organization in New York City, told Business Insider.

Lately, she said, simple tasks like making back-to-back work calls can leave her "completely destroyed."

It's not uncommon for COVID-19 patients to endure a major setback in their recovery after too much physical activity. In fact, doctors say feeling weak or foggy after normal tasks has become a distinct pattern among patients with long-lasting symptoms. It reminds them of another condition that's also still somewhat mysterious: chronic fatigue syndrome.

Related: What coronavirus stress is doing to your brain and body

Patients with chronic fatigue  known clinically as myalgic encephalomyelitis  often "crash" or "relapse" from simple activities like taking a shower, going to the grocery store, or getting the mail. They may feel dizzy or weak from standing up too quickly, or struggle to think clearly. Some patients may become bed-ridden for several days or weeks, without feeling better after sleep or rest.

"There's talk in the the medical community about a chronic fatigue syndrome-like illness that could happen after coronavirus," Dr. Nate Favini, the medical lead at Forward, a primary-care practice that's collecting data on coronavirus patients around the country, told Business Insider. "Unfortunately, there will be a small subset of people for whom that becomes the case and these symptoms really do become a chronic thing that you're dealing with for years."

Story continues

But COVID-19 patients need to be sick for at least six months in order to be diagnosed with chronic fatigue, and many haven't hit that mark yet. Even if they do eventually receive that diagnosis, though, no cure or approved treatment awaits them. Doctors are still working to understand chronic fatigue, which is often unpredictable and can bear a striking resemble to other illnesses like fibromyalgia.

Still, the pandemic has brought renewed attention to chronic fatigue. That could mean better treatments in the future for the newly diagnosed  and for those who've battled ' fatigue for years.

Chronic fatigue: poorly explained and poorly treated

There is no test to confirm that someone has chronic fatigue syndrome.

"It's very poorly explained and it's poorly treated," Dr. Frances Williams, a rheumatologist and professor of genomic epidemiology at King's College London, told Business Insider. She added: "The medical community is still not terribly accepting of the existence of such a thing."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that up to 2.5 million Americans suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome, the majority undiagnosed. The condition costs the US economy up to $24 billion a year in medical bills and lost incomes, according to the agency. Data suggests white people are more likely to receive a chronic fatigue diagnosis than other races.

Doctors aren't quite sure what causes chronic fatigue, but the syndrome can be triggered by infectious diseases like Lyme disease or Epstein-Barr virus. Some patients can be sick for several years, while others never fully regain their health. Some may never be able to return to work at all.

Campaigners for #MillionsMissing, a movement to raise awareness for chronic fatigue syndrome, in Dublin, Ireland, on May 10, 2018. Artur Widak/NurPhoto/Getty Images

Though researchers are just beginning to study the relationship between chronic fatigue and the new coronavirus, they have some past clues from SARS patients who were infected in 2003.

A follow-up study of SARS patients in Hong Kong found that 27% met the CDC's clinical criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome four years after their illness began. Another study of 109 SARS patients in Toronto found that more than half the patients hadn't returned to work due to persistent fatigue and weakness a year after they were discharged from the ICU.

Some doctors suspect that COVID-19 patients may wind up out of work for long periods as well.

"One can anticipate  and this is a prediction  that a significant proportion of the population who were employed when they became ill with [COVID-19] may not be able to return to work in any meaningful way," Dr. Harvey Moldofsky, a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto who studied SARS patients, told Business Insider. "Can you imagine the economic impact?"

A link between the coronavirus and chronic fatigue

Based on what doctors know so far, blood clots may be one reason some COVID-19 patients feel fatigued.

"If people have a bunch of small clots in their lungs, that can continue to cause fatigue for a long period of time  even after the clots are gone  if there's damage to the blood vessels," Favini said.

An aggressive immune response to the virus could also trigger inflammation in the body that damages healthy tissue.

"We think that people's baseline immune system predicts who will get chronic fatigue," Dr. Frances Williams, a rheumatologist and professor of genomic epidemiology at King's College London, told Business Insider. Her research team is currently examining the link between the coronavirus and chronic fatigue syndrome among adult twins.

Zach Ault, a chronic-fatigue patient, completes an exercise test at the National Institutes of Health on November 18, 2019. Associated Press

Williams pointed to a 2018 study that showed how inflammatory molecules can predict chronic fatigue syndrome in hepatitis C patients.

"The ones that had the biggest reaction to it and made more inflammatory cytokines were the people most likely to get chronic fatigue," she added. "It seems highly likely that that is what we will find in COVID, but we don't know the answer yet."

An overactive inflammatory response could impair the nervous system, resulting in depleted energy, muscle weakness, or trouble concentrating or sleeping. Moldofsky's 2011 study of SARS patients in Toronto found evidence that the virus had crossed the patients' blood-brain barriers, leading to long-lasting neurological problems that disrupted their sleep and cognition. The new coronavirus could operate in a similar manner.

"It's an inflammatory disease that is interfering with the conduction of the normal pathways of the nervous system," Moldofsky said.

Dr. Noah Greenspan, a physical therapist in New York City who works with long-haul coronavirus patients, said he's seen many patients for whom the simple act of sitting up or walking across a room makes their heart race or blood pressure drop. That's likely because the coronavirus is disrupting their autonomic nervous system, he said, which regulates blood pressure, heart rate, and body temperature.

"You're only going to heal as quickly as your slowest system, and unfortunately the neurologic system is one of the slower systems to heal," Greenspan said. "Until that inflammation goes away, you may not see the change."

Understanding how to treat post-COVID cases

Recovering coronavirus patients train on a machine to strengthen muscle tone at the Department of Rehabilitative Cardiology in Genoa, Italy, on July 22, 2020. Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images

Oliver said she's found ways to make her dizziness, headaches, and fatigue more manageable lately. Daily breathing exercises seem to help, as does taking a break whenever work gets stressful. She also tries to limit her social media activity to less than five minutes per day.

"I only get this fatigue  which they're saying is part of the post-COVID syndrome  if I overextend myself, like if I'm walking too much or talking too much," she said.

Doctors say taking it easy will be key in the recovery process for COVID-19 patients with symptoms of chronic fatigue.

"You have to go extremely slow with COVID patients because sometimes they can feel perfectly fine during a treatment or they can feel perfectly fine during an activity, but if you go that one step over the edge, then they could be knocked out for a week after that or they can have a flare in their symptoms," Greenspan said.

Sill, many patients find it difficult to know when they've reached their limit.

"There is no easy way of telling somebody or predicting what their exercise tolerance is," Williams said. "The best thing really is to listen to your body. If you know that something's pushed you over the edge in the past, then don't repeat it. Do something active, but for less time or less strenuously."

The more doctors understand chronic fatigue, she added, the more they'll be able to find ways to treat patients.

A few new investigations are already underway: In May, a coalition of scientists at the Open Medicine Foundation started a multi-year study to see whether COVID-19 triggered chronic fatigue syndrome. Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, has also co-sponsored a bill in Congress that calls for $15 million in annual funding through 2024 to support research into COVID-related cases of chronic fatigue.

Having a proper diagnosis would also help COVID-19 patients with long-term fatigue get better care.

"Rheumatologists on the whole aren't interested in dealing with things that aren't inflammatory, and we're assuming that this will be a sort of post-inflammatory condition," Williams said. "It behooves us to work out where and who should be helping these people."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Why a good enough Kamala Harris is simply not good enough, Aug. 14

The Stars Shree Paradkar, like many other pundits on both sides of the border, has criticized the nomination of Sen. Kamala Harris to be the Democratic Party candidate for vice-president of the United States, on grounds that her political and pre-political track record is insufficiently progressive on issues of race relations, policing and the criminal justice system.

However, on this I profoundly disagree.

While those criticisms are valid opinions in ordinary times, the times are far from ordinary and they seriously miss the point. Now is not the time for the Democratic Party to seek the perfect candidate for either the presidency or vice-presidency. Job No. 1 for the Democratics is to get the clown Donald Trump out of office and end the circus on Pennsylvania Avenue in November, and all of their efforts need to be laser-focused on that goal.

Therell be plenty of time for them to find perfect candidates before 2024.
Vanessa Hudgens had her maternal side on display as she dropped off her beloved dog Darla at a veterinary office in Studio City on Saturday.

The 31-year-old High School Musical cradled her precious pooch in her arms before reluctantly handing her over to a friendly vet tech in the parking lot.

As she waited for Darla's appointment to wrap up, Hudgens headed over to a nearby Alfred's to grab a refreshing iced latte.

Dog mom: Vanessa Hudgens had her maternal side on display as she dropped off her beloved dog Darla at a veterinary office in Studio City

Vanessa slipped her refined curves into a red butterfly print midi dress that she paired with some brown mules.

Fastened around her neck were two blue pooka shell necklaces, a gold choker, and a chain necklace that featured a charm of her first initial.

She also had a pair of gold studs in her ears and a slew of gold bangles on her wrists.

Though she briefly removed it at the vet's office, Vanessa showed off her bright white Prada bucket hat, while getting her caffeine fix at Alfred's.

Precious cargo: The 31-year-old High School Musical cradled her precious pooch in her arms before reluctantly handing her over to a friendly vet tech

Chic: Vanessa slipped her refined curves into a red butterfly print midi dress that she paired with some brown mules

Earlier in the day, Vanessa flaunted her enviable bikini body, while taking a dip in her pool.

'Vibeee,' wrote Hudgens on her Instagram Story as she posed playfully with a coffee cup in hand.

She had on a bright pink two piece and few of her go-to jewelry pieces and a straw cowboy hat.

Waiting game: As she waited for Darla's appointment to wrap up, Hudgens headed over to a nearby Alfred's to grab a refreshing iced latte

Cooling off: Earlier in the day, Vanessa flaunted her enviable bikini body, while taking a dip in her pool

Vanessa gave fans a closer look at her mug by uploading a selfie to her Instagram Story with the caption: 'Hi.'

She applied a filter to her self-portrait that superimposed a slew of multi-toned butterflies onto her face and hat.

Hudgens has been flooding her Instagram following with pictures from a recent trip she took to Turks and Caicos.

Butterfly babe: Vanessa gave fans a closer look at her mug by uploading a selfie to her Instagram Story with the caption: 'Hi'

'Take me backkkkkk,' wrote the actress on one of her most recent vacation throwbacks.

In the stunning portraits, Vanessa posed in a flattering white bikini, which boasted a black lace-up feature on the bra in her snaps.

The popular vacation destination's famous 'white sand beaches' and 'crystal clear water' proved to be the perfect backdrop for Hudgens' snaps.

Throwback: Hudgens has been flooding her Instagram following with pictures from a recent trip she took to Turks and Caicos; Vanessa pictured on Instagram on Friday
If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





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LOS ANGELESIn an Order dated August 17, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Broadbelt III awarded adult star and media personality Stormy Daniels $44,100 as reimbursement for legal fees incurred during her fight, which began on March 6, 2018, to relieve her from abiding by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) which she signed 11 days before the 2016 election that prohibited her from discussing her 2006 affair with then-businessman Donald J. Trump.

Daniels was paid $130,000 for her signature (as "Peggy Peterson") on the NDA, which was paid by Trump's then-attorney Michael Cohen. The other signatory was "David Dennison," a Trump pseudonym reportedly created by Cohen, though in a tweet in 2018, Trump acknowledged that he had reimbursed Cohen for the payment, but claimed that the NDA had nothing to do with his presidential campaignwhich it clearly did, else why would Trump have demanded an NDA at that particular time just before the election? (One might remember that a pre-election scandal promoted by the FBI about Hillary Clinton's personal email server was said to be responsible for her losing votes in several key states in the 2016 election. A Trump/Daniels scandal might have proved to be a similar vote loser for Trump.)

The controversy bounced around various legal venues for two years, including an arbitration proceeding filed by Essential Consultants, LLC, a Cohen shell company that "arranged" for the NDA to be signed, which arbitration was required by a provision in the NDA, as well as through Daniels' lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, parts of which were later appealed to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Eventually, the matter wound up back in Superior Court in front of Judge Broadbelt by remand, and the judge issued his ruling that the lawsuit was "moot" because both parties had publicly discussed most of the issues contained within it, which meant, according to the judge's Order, that Daniels had essentially won the lawsuit and was entitled to recover her attorneys' fees.

"For the reasons set forth above, the court finds that Plaintiff is 'the party prevailing on the contract' in this action under Civil Code section 1717," Judge Broadbelt stated in the "Conclusion" section of his Order, "and that Plaintiff is entitled to recover reasonable attorney's fees from Defendant pursuant to section 8.2 of the Agreement."

Judge Broadbelt's Order may be read here.

As legal commentator Prof. Jonathan Turley noted on his website, "Notably, the ruling came with an added bite. The court rejected the claim that President Trump was not personally responsible for covering the fees because he did not sign the NDA. This reaffirms that it was his NDA which will be likely used to reinforce the position of [New York State] investigators that he was the driving force not only behind the payments but also the effort to cover up the payments," which is a crime under New York law.

Daniels celebrated the ruling on Twitter on Friday, saying, Yup. Another win.

Daniels is also in the process of appealing a federal court decision that threw out her lawsuit against Trump for defamation, after the White House occupant essentially called Daniels a liar when she stated publicly that she had been threatened by an unidentified man in a Las Vegas parking lot, who warned her to "keep quiet" about her affair with Trump. She also released a sketch of the manwhich Trump then placed side-by-side with a photo of Daniels' husband on Twitter, an action which formed the basis of Daniels' suit. The federal judge who dismissed that suit also made Daniels liable to Trump for nearly $300,00 in legal fees, which is part of what she is appealing.

In other Daniels news, Deadline.com reports that "VMI Worldwide has picked up global rights to Bad President, a comedic satire about Donald Trumps rise to power during the U.S. election in 2016. The pic stars Jeff Rector as Trump. In the film, he makes a deal with the devil (played by Eddie Griffin) to allow him to win the election. The pic, which covers various scandals, also features the real Stormy Daniels, the pornographic actress who claimed to have had an affair with Trump."

And finally, Daniels has created an upcoming television series, Spooky Babes Paranormal Show, in which, according to The Guardian (UK), she leads a team of investigators to hunt ghosts. While neither the venue nor the debut date for the series has been announced, on June 28, Daniels tweeted, "Trying to fill a date in the production schedule for my paranormal show Spooky Babes...anyone know of any cool haunted/spooky places near Atlanta that we should check out?"
New Delhi: The Congress was on Sunday in the midst of a growing tumult with the party deeply divided on the leadership issue on the eve of the crucial Congress Working Committee(CWC) meeting amid indications that its interim president Sonia Gandhi might offer to quit. As the main opposition party faces yet another internal crisis, leaders including its chief ministers and PCC chiefs rallied behind the Gandhi family, calling for Sonia to stay or Rahul Gandhi to take charge again after a section of its top leaders called for sweeping changes in the way the party is run to arrest the drift.

The pro-reform leaders had in a letter to Sonia Gandhi sought a "full time" chief who is active on the field and also an institutional leadership mechanism to collectively guide the party's revival with the Gandhi family an integral element as part of the overhaul. While Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, his counterparts in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan Bhupesh Baghel and Ashok Gehlot, Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and former ministers Ashwani Kumar, Salman Khurshid and KK Tewary backed the Gandhis, those wanting changes included Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Kapil Sibal, Mukul Wasnik, Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor and ex-Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

The details of the letter written around early August by the leaders, who included former union ministers, ex-chief ministers, former and current parliamentarians and senior functionaries, have emerged just ahead of the CWC meeting on Monday during which the issues flagged are expected to be discussed and debated. The CWC is the party's apex decision-making body. The letter, however, stressed that the Nehru-Gandhi family will "always remain an integral part of the collective leadership" of the Congress party.

After details of the letter became public, sources close to Sonia Gandhi said that in response to it she might offer to quit as party's interim chief and ask the leadership to scout for a full-time president. AICC media chief Randeep Surjewal also denied reports that she had quit. Sonia reluctantly took over as interim chief on August 10 last year following a request from the CWC after Rahul Gandhi declined the committee's unanimous appeal to stay as chief post the 2019 Lok Sabha poll debacle.

All eyes are now on the CWC meeting to see whether Sonia Gandhi resigns as she did in 1999 after the then Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sharad Pawar questioned her foreign origins. The CWC eventually rejected the resignation and Pawar along with P A Sangma and Tariq Anwar had to quit the Congress to form the NCP. Having a "full time" leadership that is active in the field and "visible" in party offices, dissolution of powers to state units and revamping the CWC in line with the party constitution are some of the far-reaching suggestions made by the 23 senior Congress leaders to revive the organisation, sources said.

The leaders said that over-centralisation of the organisation and micro-management has always proven to be counter-productive, and that uncertainty over the leadership has "demoralised the Congress workers and further weakened the party". Highlighting the gravity of the challenges facing the party, they said it was "imperative" to urgently establish an institutional leadership mechanism to collectively guide the party's revival.

Opposing the bid to challenge the Gandhi family leadership, Amarinder Singh said this was not the time to raise such an issue. "The move by these Congress leaders to demand an overhaul of the party at this critical juncture would be detrimental to its interests, and the interests of the nation.

"What the Congress needs is a leadership that is acceptable not just to a few but to the entire party, through its rank and file, and the nation at large," he said, adding that the Gandhis were the right fit for this role. "Sonia Gandhi should continue to helm the Congress as long as she wants," he said in a statement, adding that Rahul Gandhi should thereafter take over as he is fully competent to lead the party.

Gehlot termed the letter as unfortunate and said the Gandhi family has kept the party united. "I am not aware of any such letter but if this is true, then it is unfortunate. They all have worked with the party for so long and the move of the letter is uncalled for," Gehlot told PTI.

Former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah tweeted, "It is unfortunate that the leadership of Gandhi family is being questioned by few. In these difficult times of undeclared emergency and attack on democracy by BJP, we should collectively strive to strengthen Congress and not weaken it." Some leaders close to Rahul have also written parallel letters to the CWC pressing for the Gandhi scion's return as chief. In his letter, AICC secretary for Maharashtra Challa Vamshi Chand Reddy said any delay in Rahul Gandhi's reinstatement would be at the cost of the Congress.

Lok Sabha MP Manickam Tagore too demanded Rahul Gandhi's return as Congress president. The Delhi unit of the Congress also held an "emergency" meeting presided by its chief Anil Kumar and passed a resolution demanding that Rahul Gandhi be appointed as the party's national president without further delay, a statement said.

Tharoor put out a cryptic tweet quoting Jawaharlal Nehru that said we have become prisoners of the past. "Without passion and urge, there is a gradual oozing out of hope and vitality, a settling down on lower levels of existence, a slow merging into non-existence. We have become prisoners of the past and some part of its immobility sticks to us," he tweeted.

Ashwani Kumar, Salman Khurshid and K K Tewary spoke against elections to the post of party president and favoured consensus. Kumar and Khurshid both argued that elections would be divisive and consensus should be given a chance.

Tewary, a party veteran, feared the party might disintegrate if Gandhis withdrew. In their letter, the pro-reform leaders are further learnt to have called for free and fair organizational polls from the block up to the working committee level.

They were also critical of the way the CWC was being constituted and was functioning. They are learnt to have pointed out that the CWC is not "guiding" the party effectively in mobilizing public opinion against the BJP.

While most of the leaders who have written the letter did not answer calls on Sunday, some who answered remained tight-lipped on the issue having set the stage for a CWC debate on the need for a Gandhi versus a non-Gandhi Congress President.

(With inputs from PTI)
Algiers, 17 August 2020 (SPS) - The Ambassador of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) to Algeria Abdelkader Taleb Omar on Sunday commended the principle stance of the political class in Algeria on the Sahrawi cause under the duty of neighbourhood and brotherhood and UN charters.



Speaking at an audience granted to him by Leader of El-Bina Movement Abdelkader Bengrina at the headquarters of his party, the Sahrawi diplomat thanked the Movement and the political class in Algeria for the national consensus and support to the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination.



My meetings with the Algerian parties are part of strengthening contacts in order to inform them of the developments of the situation in the Sahrawi occupied territories, said the source.



Taleb Omar also hailed the honourable positions of Algeria in favour of the Sahrawi cause, which stems from the duty of neighbourhood and brotherhood and in accordance with the charters of the United Nations (UN) on the rights of refugees.



After warning against the obstacles posed by the Moroccan regime and the deadlock, Taleb Omar denounced the silence of the United Nations and the MINURSO in the face of the events that occur in the occupied territories.



The Sahrawi diplomat also referred to the the disinformation practised by the Moroccan regime and its lies about Algeria, a country that supports international legitimacy for decolonization. (SPS)



062/SPS/APS
South Korean diplomat Chang Song-min -- former aide of South Korean ex-President Kim Dae-Jung  has told the media that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is comatose.

He claimed that the North Korean leaders health is fast deteriorating and his sister Kim Yo-jong has already been declared the de facto second-in-command.

As per a Wion News report, Chang Song-min has claimed that Kim Yo-jong has been entrusted with the responsibility of managing diplomatic relations with the United States and South Korea.

He reportedly got the information from a source in China.

During his interaction with the South Korean media, Chang Song-min said: I assess him to be in a coma, but his life has not ended. A complete succession structure has not been formed, so Kim Yo-jong is being brought to the fore as the vacuum cannot be maintained for a prolonged period.

This got further air after South Korean spy agency also said that Kim Jong Un has partly delegated authority to his sister according to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency.

He however believes that the power restructuring is not an obvious indication that Kim Yo-jong will succeed Kim Jong Un as the future leader of North Korea.

Chang also confirmed raging rumours by claiming that the latest photographs of Kim Jong Un being circulated by state-controlled North Korean media were fake.

Twitter had recently been abuzz with controversy theories of a body double being used after some social media users had spotted marked differences in Kim Jong Un's facial features in the photos of him attending a launch event as against his past photos.

Earlier in April, it was reported that Kim Jong Un has had a heart surgery after which it was said that he was missing for nearly three weeks. Kim Jong Un also suspiciously missed his grandfather Kim Il Sung's birth anniversary leading further rumours.

After several reports South Korean spy agency later denied that Kim Jong Un had any heart surgery.

The North Korean government didn't explain about his absence.
At least 13 people were crushed to death or asphyxiated as partygoers tried to flee a Lima nightclub after it was raided by police for hosting a party in violation of coronavirus restrictions.

Fifteen of the 23 people detained by police who broke up the clandestine party on Saturday night tested positive for COVID-19, President Martin Vizcarra said.

At least six others were injured, including three police officers, as around 120 people tried to escape the Thomas Restobar club in Lima's Los Olivos district on Saturday night as police arrived to break up the event, which neighbours had reported, national police and government officials said.

The partygoers had become trapped between the only entrance door, which was pushed closed in the chaos, and a staircase leading to the street, police said.

Expand Close Police officers and forensic investigators gather outside the Tomas Restobar disco where officials say 13 people died in a stampede (AP Photo/Martin Mejia) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Police officers and forensic investigators gather outside the Tomas Restobar disco where officials say 13 people died in a stampede (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

Government officials clarified on Sunday that the 13 victims were 12 women and one man between the ages of 20 and 30, after initially reporting the victims as 11 men and two women.

Only seven of the victims had been identified by Sunday afternoon, officials from the Interior Ministry said.

Peru ordered the closure of nightclubs and bars in March and banned extended family gatherings on Aug. 12 to fight what is Latin America's second highest COVID-19 infection rate, according to a Reuters tally. A Sunday curfew is also in effect.

The club's owners, a married couple, were detained, the Interior Ministry said.

Representatives of the nightclub were not immediately available to comment.

The Interior Ministry said in a statement that police did not use tear gas or firearms in the raid, after some family members of victims told local radio station RPP that officers used tear gas at the scene.

Vizcarra condemned the club's owners and said similar clandestine events were common, and posed a serious threat to public health.

"I have sorrow and I have sadness for the people and relatives of the people who have died, but I also have anger and indignation for those who were irresponsible by organising this type of event," Vizcarra said at a public event on Sunday. "Please reflect, let's not lose more lives due to negligence."

The 60 police officers who participated in the raid were also being tested for coronavirus, officials said.

Peru had recorded a total of 585,236 coronavirus cases as of Saturday, double the number reported on July 2, while the known death toll has risen to 27,453.
WHY DONT YOU READ THESE?
As the city braces up for the first day of immersion for Ganeshotsav on Sunday, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has advised citizens celebrating at home to carry out immersion at their homes in a bucket or drums.

The BMC has also banned any type of procession for immersion and has given an option to conduct immersion at 70 natural and 170 artificial spots in the city by following social distancing and hygiene norms. Every year, on the first day of the celebrations, over 35,000 idol immersions are conducted in the city. In 2019, more than 46,000 idols were immersed on the first day.

The BMC has uploaded the list of natural and artificial ponds on its website for the purpose of immersion.

In case of 70 natural immersion spots, that also includes the sea, citizens or devotees residing within 2-kilometre radius of these spots will be allowed to immerse their idols by handing them over to the BMC. The citizens or devotees shall not be allowed to enter the water under any circumstances, the BMC said in its advisory.

Also read: At Sushants Mumbai residence, CBI recreates sequence of events

The advisory states, Devotees who are celebrating Ganesh Festival in their homes are advised to carry out idol immersion of the Ganesh idols at their homes in a bucket or a drum as their first preference.

The BMC has also asked mandals and those celebrating from home and residing in containment zone or sealed buildings to either defer immersion for next year or make arrangements on their own using buckets or drums.

The advisory issued by the BMC in this context reads, The Ganeshotsav Mandals, as well as citizens situated in Containment Zones, shall immerse their Ganesh idols by creating necessary arrangement in the mandap/pandol and their homes itself. Alternatively, they can defer the immersion of the idols to the next year. Devotees who are staying in Sealed Buildings shall mandatorily immerse their Ganesh idols in their homes itself (in bucket/ small drums) or postpone the immersion to the next year.

Further, the BMC has said that devotees shall perform Pooja and Aarti at their homes itself and then hand over the idols to the BMC. Under no circumstances will anyone be allowed to perform pooja or aarti at the immersion spots, it added. Those taking part in the immersion ritual will need to make use of mask, sanitizers and follow necessary social distancing norms, the BMC added.

Meanwhile, as a special arrangement, the BMC has created Mobile Immersion Spots on Wheels this year by fitting suitable water tanks in trucks. Devotees are also requested to take advantage of these Mobile Immersion Spots after taking information from the official BMC website.
Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh has said that a decision regarding removal of restrictions on inter-state and intra-state movement people and goods will be taken soon. He announced this in a tweet.

"We have taken note of the recent guidelines announced by the centre removing all restrictions on inter-state and intra-state movement of goods and people. Appropriate decision will be taken regarding the same after discussion with chief minister and deputy chief minister," it said.

In a separate statement, the minister said that currently, e-passes are required for travel and so far 7,74,203 e-passes have been issued.

As part of Unlock 3, the Centre had allowed inter-state travel without any restrictions. But in Maharashtra, e-passes was mandatory.
Pro-life groups laud Trump ethics board for rejecting fetal tissue research proposals Ethics board rejects 13 fetal research proposals, but approves 1

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Pro-life groups praised the Trump administration this week after a federal ethics advisory board recommended against federal funding of fetal tissue research, saying tiny humans should not be aborted for exploitation.

We applaud the Trump administration for convening the independent advisory board as established by statute, Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, said in a statement, referring to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Fetal Tissue Research Advisory Board.

In its report on fetal tissue research, released this week, the board recommended that all but one of the grant proposals for federally-funded medical research using human fetal tissue donated after elective abortions be rejected.

The board was set up by the Trump administration last year to review applications for funding of such research conducted outside of NIH facilities. It recommended withholding federal funding from 13 out of 14 research proposals  through grants or contracts  involving the use of fetal tissue.

It is appropriate that tax-funded research be reviewed in regard to the ethical nature of the research, Tobias said. These tiny humans are aborted and exploited when they are farmed for their organs and tissue for use in research projects. Ethical alternatives are available.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, who heads the U.S. bishops pro-life committee, also applauded the recommendation.

We applaud the Administration for moving NIH in a direction that shows greater consideration for medical ethics in research, and greater respect for innocent human life, Naumann said in a statement. It is neither ethical nor necessary to further violate the bodies of aborted babies by commodifying them for use in medical research.

The archbishop said the victims of abortion deserve the same respect as every other human person.

We are grateful that the Administration is following through on its commitment to end federal funding of research using aborted fetal tissue, he added.

The board said it "assessed considerations as to whether the nature of the research involved is such that it is unethical to conduct or support the research."

The board's recommendations have been submitted to HHS Secretary Alex Azar and Congress. Azar will make the final decision.

The details of the proposal that was not recommended to be withheld are not known.

Last June, HHS put a moratorium on new fetal tissue research at NIH facilities, and said that funding of extramural research conducted outside NIH would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, The Christian Post reported.

Promoting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death is one of the very top priorities of President Trumps administration, HHS said at the time.

The HHS also said its continuing to look at alternatives to using fetal tissue from aborted babies in government-funded research. In December 2018, the NIH announced a $20 million funding opportunity for research to develop experimental models that do not rely on human fetal tissue from aborted babies.
New Zealand's High Court sentenced the Australian white supremacist who admitted killing 51 people in two Christchurch mosques to life in prison with no parole.

Why it matters: Brenton Tarrant, 29, is the first person in New Zealand to receive the sentence. The 2019 attack is considered the worst in the country's history and one of the world's worst shootings by a single gunman. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she'd been moved by the dozens of survivors who faced him in court to give victim impact statements this week.

"His deserves to be a lifetime of complete and utter silence."

 Ardern

What they're saying: Ardern said during a brief news conference that it gave her "relief to know that this person will never see the light of day."

Ardern noted that "nothing will take the pain away" of the survivors of the attack and the victims' families, "but I hope you felt the arms of New Zealand around you through this process."

"I hope you continue to feel that through all the days that follow," she added.

The big picture: Tarrant was sentenced on Thursday afternoon local time. He pleaded guilty in March and was convicted of 51 counts of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and one charge of terrorism after changing his plea.

New Zealand banned military-style semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles in response to the March 15, 2019, massacre at the Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Islamic Centre.

The attack prompted Ardern to lead an international campaign that resulted in the Christchurch Call, an initiative to reduce violent extremist content online that was launched by governments and tech companies.

Of note: The prosecution told the court on Monday that Tarrant intended to "burn the mosques down" and planned a third mosque attack.

The mother of one victim told him: "You gave yourself the authority to take the souls of 51 innocent people. Their only crime in your eyes was being Muslim," per RNZ.

Tarrant's sentencing lasted four days to enable survivors and victims' families to speak to the impact of his actions.

The court banned live reporting to avoid Tarrant from using the hearing to spread hate and to minimize the re-traumatization of victims and their families.

Some victims' families and survivors were exempted from New Zealand's coronavirus border ban on nonresidents to attend the hearing after spending 14 days in managed quarantine facilities.

Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.
Coronavirus is infecting the population under 40 four more times than the population over the age of 65, France's health minister said in an interview with a leading state daily Journal Du Dimanche. While the COVID-19 affected the elderly and more vulnerable, it was mainly the younger population that was now circulating the virus, Olivier Veran said. The higher number of cases in France isnt solely due to increased testing but infections were on the rise among the youngsters, he said, adding, that France is in a risky situation.

We cant bring the country to a halt. But wed consider targeted reconfinement if the situation calls for itPresident Emmanuel Macron said in an interview with Paris magazine, according to an AP report.

[French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a television address in Ciboure, southwestern France. Credit: AP]

[France is now mandating masks in all workplaces, from the Paris business district to factories in the provinces. The government is trying to contain growing virus infections but avoid shutting down the economy. Credit: AP]

According to a news agency report, Veran explained about the European dynamic in dealing with the coronavirus surge that does not aim to impose a total lockdown. He emphasized on the localized measures and other health safety protocols in case France witnessed a sudden infection spike. On August 22, France recorded over 3,602 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus within 24 hours, although, the spike recorded the previous day was significantly meager. However, in recent weeks, France has registered a high number of new cases that hit an all-time post lockdown high.

Transmission of the virus is accentuating among all age groups, especially young adultsAP quoted Frances Health authorities as saying.

Read: COVID-19 Caseload In India Crosses 30-lakh Mark

Read: WHO Says Children Above 12 Years Should Wear Masks Like Adults To Reduce Risk Of COVID-19

Another noticeable rise of COVID-19

Similarly, Italy witnessed more than 1,000 cases of the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, for the first time since May since the lockdown measures eased, the health ministry confirmed in a report. Italy, like France, had surpassed the COVID-19 death peak and highest number of cases on record between March and April. In another noticeable rise, indicating the onslaught of cases from the second wave, Australia registered over 17 new coronavirus deaths in 24 hours on August 22. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said at a press conference that the state witnessed 208 new infections, all in 24 hours almost halfway through the six-week lockdown. Were going to defeat this second wave, Andrews said in the press address.

Read: Anti-fibrotic Drugs Effective In COVID-19 Patients: Army Institute Of Cardiothoracic Sciences

Read: German Researchers Organise Three Back-to-back Crowded Concerts To Study COVID-19 Risk

(Image Credit: Instagram/Oliver Veran)
Amid a heatwave in the West, the largest U.S. solar state, California, is grappling with power issues and with keeping its electricity grid stable as demand exceeds supply. And in a looming renewable future, those power disruptions just might be a sign of things to come.

California energy consumers were warned of rolling outages as there is insufficient energy to meet the high demand during the heatwave, the California Independent System Operator (ISO) said over the weekend.

The warning to Californians about the outages and strained grid should serve as a warning for policymakers and system operators across the United States and elsewhere: a rush to boost renewable energy power generation should be coupled with  and even preceded by  more careful planning on how to ensure the reliability and stability of the power grid.

Californias Struggles With Power Reliability

In the case of California, where solar power supplies more than 20 percent of electricity as per the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the rolling outages this week were the worst such outages since the 2000-2001 energy crisis in the state.

Some blame the current power crisis on Californias aggressive renewable energy rollout and retirement of natural gas-powered plants. Others say that there is a way for the state to reconcile renewables with reliability, although this would not come in the near term and certainly not soon enough to help with the current power supply issues.

It would seem that California has put the renewable cart before the proverbial horse.

Related: Saudi Arabia Refuses To Learn From Its Two Failed Oil Price Wars

The blame game and the debate about how exactly to cope with reliability in a heavily renewable power grid highlight the fact that meeting clean energy goals and reducing emissions should be made only after careful planning on how to ensure reliable power supply to customers and how to prepare the grid for an increased share of solar and wind power.

Earlier this week, California Governor Gavin Newsom sent a letter to California Independent System Operator (CAISO), the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), and the California Energy Commission (CEC), demanding an investigation into the service disruptions that occurred over the weekend and the energy agencies failure to predict and mitigate them.

At the same time, Governor Newsom signed an emergency proclamation designed to free up energy capacity and reduce the need for temporary energy service disruptions.

These blackouts, which occurred without prior warning or enough time for preparation, are unacceptable and unbefitting of the nations largest and most innovative state, Governor Newsom wrote in the letter.

Are Renewables To Blame For Outages?

In a joint response to the letter, CAISO, CPUC, and CEC said that Californias clean energy plans were not to blame for the rotating outage, although they needed to do more to integrate renewables into the grid.

Collectively, our organizations want to be clear about one factor that did not cause the rotating outage: Californias commitment to clean energy. Renewable energy did not cause the rotating outages, they said.

Related: Aramco Suspends Investment In Chinese Refinery As Low Oil Prices Bite



Our organizations understand the impacts wind and solar have on the grid. We have already taken many steps to integrate these resources, but we clearly need to do more. Clean energy and reliable energy are not contradictory goals.

The current situation, however, would suggest that that is indeed the case at present.

CAISO President Stephen Berberich said at a meeting on Monday, as carried by Greentech Media, The situation we are in could have been avoided.

The grid operator has been warning regulators for years about the insufficient availability of power supply during the so-called net peak in the evenings when solar power generation is no longer available.

CAISO has warned that there is inadequate power available during the net peak, the hours when the solar [generation] has left the system, Berberich said.

California, in many ways, is the canary in the coal mine, Todd Snitchler, CEO at nationwide trade group Electric Power Supply Association, told The Wall Street Journal.

Many of the natural-gas units that some in California would like to see go away have been exactly whats needed to keep the system operating, Snitchler told the Journal.

Whats The Solution?

For California, the solution could include scaling battery storage capacity, not shutting down the Diablo Canyon  the states last nuclear power plant  as planned in 2024, and counting nuclear power as part of Californias renewable generation target of 60 percent renewable electricity by 2030, analysts told Los Angeles Times Sammy Roth.

According to CAISOs Berberich, batteries alone will not be enough to solve Californias grid reliability issues while the share of renewable power is set to rise.

Batteries wont fix this alone. They will help, and theyre an important part of a renewable-heavy system. However, they dont generate any power, and during extended periods of cloud cover over the solar field, there wont be any energy to charge them, Berberich told the ISO board this week, as carried by the Financial Times.

Commenting on Californias outages, Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), a non-profit advocating for a transition to clean energy, said that more batteries would contribute to meeting evening peak demand.

The planned battery capacity increase to 923 MW by the end of the year could have played an important role in preventing these outages and are poised to play a growing role in the diverse portfolio of resources that is needed to maintain reliability, RMI said, dismissing the idea that renewables were to blame:

Such speculation is premature, incomplete, and almost certainly incorrect.

Californias power supply issues during peak demand serve as a warning for overzealous advocates for a swift shift to renewables and complete decarbonization of the power grid. Such efforts require careful planning to ensure reliability and stability, preferably before utilities, grid operators, and governors realize that even in a heatwave, the sun cannot help with evening peak demand.



By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
New Delhi, Aug 23 : For those financial institutions including banks in the country that are still hesitant to embark on a Cloud journey for complete digital transformation due to genuine apprehensions emanating from safety and regulatory concerns, there is help at hand, say IBM India executives.

Banks know well that embracing the Cloud ecosystem can open the floodgates to innovations that can drive growth, increase efficiencies and more importantly, make the customers happier.

But the sensitivity of the data that they handle and the regulatory framework within which they must operate tend to sap their confidence.

However, IBM has a Cloud service precisely to address these concerns, two top executives of the company said.

"The world's first FSS (financial services sector) Cloud provided by IBM has all these capabilities -- with the clear intent to handle highly regulated workloads," Subram Natarajan, Chief Technology Officer, IBM India/South Asia, told IANS.

The IBM Cloud for Financial Services offering is designed to enable a transparent public Cloud ecosystem with the specific features for security, compliance and resiliency that financial institutions require.

IBM says that banks can confidently host their mission-critical applications in the Cloud and transact quickly and efficiently.

"As a strategy, banks may choose to move some of the infrastructure environments for a subset of applications, to the Cloud," Natarajan said.

"While banks can realise the cost benefits arising out of the 'pay as you use' models, especially for these workloads, it gives them a Hybrid Cloud environment to operate both from on-premise as well as on public Cloud, interchangeably," he added.

A Hybrid Cloud Platform will enable users to access more secure, resilient infrastructure to win in the agile, scale-driven as-a-service economy.

"Throughout the journey, moving the main production environments can occur in phases for a select set of applications. Of course, the nuances of this strategy may vary from one bank to another," Natarajan said.

According to a recent IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) survey, 80 per cent of Indian survey respondents trust their bank or other financial institutions to protect their personal information and data to a major extent.

Indeed, the research indicates that India's citizens and consumers trust their bank more than any other organisation or institution they interact with, including their employers -- 78 per cent; their government --76 per cent; and their healthcare providers --73 per cent.

Banks can realise the value of the data by suitably deriving the insights from the data and infusing the same into the digital journeys, or even use them for making business decisions.

"The need for every bank to become more and more 'data-driven' is evident," Natarajan said.

"Therefore, modernising the data platform, that allows the bank to collect data from various sources - inhouse and external, organizing it to make it meaningful, conducting analysis using Artificial Intelligence /Machine Learning methodologies to bring out insights and finally integrating them into the business processes, is the way to go," he added.

According to Arijit Bonnerjee, Director - Financial Services Sector, IBM India/ South Asia, IBM has been working with a lot of banks both globally and in India to help them adopt the next-generation business model which it calls "The Cognitive Enterprise".

"It starts with creating the right information architecture to leverage the power of data and then use Artificial Intelligence to make customer interactions more contextual, personalised, and instantly gratifying," he said.

IBM said its Hybrid Cloud platform generated more than $23 billion of revenue over the past 12 months.

(Gokul Bhagabati can be contacted at gokul.b@ians.in)
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said on Saturday he would close factories that have seen worker protests, the Russian RIA news agency reported, his latest attempt to quell a wave of opposition rallies since contested elections this month.

Lukashenko also suggested he would fire the workers concerned.

"If a factory is not working then let's put a lock on its gate from Monday, let's stop it," RIA cited Lukashenko as saying in the town of Grodno near the border with Poland. "People will calm down and we will decide whom to invite (to work) next."

In the biggest challenge to Lukashenko's 26 years in power, people have taken to the streets in many Belarusian towns, including in its capital Minsk, for nearly two weeks, protesting against the result of an Aug 9 election that they say was rigged to give the president re-election.

Some workers at a number of state factories have also joined protests.

Lukashenko has denied any fraud in the vote.

His main opponent in the election, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, has fled to neighbouring Lithuania. Without naming anybody, Lukashenko said on Saturday that arrangers of the country-wide rallies "are sitting abroad in neighbouring countries" and enjoying political support from those countries' leaders.

In an interview with Reuters on Saturday, Tsikhanouskaya said she sees herself as a symbol of change whose role is to help deliver new elections as Lukashenko will have to quit sooner or later.

Two leading members of a newly formed opposition council in Belarus were questioned on Friday in a criminal case over what Lukashenko calls an attempt to seize power.

(Reporting by Andrey Kuzmin; Additional reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius; Writing by Katya Golubkova; Editing by Frances Kerry)
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Prashanth Tapse

Looking beyond and after June quarter earnings, investors are now flocking to virus-resilient sectors in the market. And despite COVID-19 severely hampering economic activity, markets consistently surged on better-than-expected June quarter earnings and on hopes of COVID-19 vaccine. Indian investor sentiment was also boosted by domestic liquidity, which continued to drive Indian equities in tandem with global markets.

Even management commentary gave the market a confident outlook to withstand businesses against the COVID spread and its impact. With unlocking formulas supporting phased re-opening of economic activity, market started discounting the severity of impact of virus spread over businesses, going forward. But it seems like more businesses are dealing with coronavirus and markets have learnt to live with it.

Here are sectors which we believe investors should focus on and invest in after June quarter earnings session:

Life Insurance a sweet spot sector: Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) clocked a sharp 40 percent month-on-month growth in individual premiums in July and August, led by a jump in the sales of big-ticket pension and term assurance plans. We believe life insurance space in India has been gaining significant traction, with top private sector players delivering strong performances over the past two to three years. We expect private insurance companies like HDFC Life, SBI Life and ICICI Prudential Life could see the same traction in premium collection growth.

Defence sector stocks to be in action on the back of Atma Nirbhar Bharat boost: The procurements will focus on indigenous design and development. Platforms and equipment worth Rs 31,130 crore will be procured from Indian companies and they will be manufactured in India. In the last 5 years, India has spent Rs 3.5 trillion on import of defence items and expects the opportunities of Rs 4 trillion in next 5 years, hence defence stocks like Bharat Dynamics, Bharat Electronics, ZenTech, Cochin Shipyard, HAL and L&T are set to benefit.

The real estate sector can see a boost in the coming quarter: The Centre makes a countrywide effort to push affordable housing and Maharashtra is considering reducing stamp duty on real estate from 5 percent to 2-3 percent in order to give a boost to the industry. The government recently appointed a committee, under the chairmanship of HDFC head Deepak Parekh, to make recommendations to boost the sector. One of its recommendations was to cut stamp duty by 50 percent. Realty & building material stocks to be focused in coming quarters. We like Kolte-Patil, Godrej Properties, Sobha, Brigade Enterprises, Raymond, Ashiana Housing etc. Paints /Tiles stocks are also to follow the trend.

Government's move to build a better infrastructure sector: National Infrastructure Pipeline will ease COVID hit on the economy. Government has identified about 7,000 projects in different sectors that will be part of the National Infrastructure Pipeline. The National Infrastructure Pipeline will play a crucial role in resurrecting the country's economy from the impact of the corona outbreak and the country is going to spend more than Rs 100 lakh crore on this. Hence we are bullish on stocks such as Larsen & Toubro, Ashoka buildcon, Dilip Buildcon, KEC International and KNR Construction.

The author is AVP Research at Mehta Equities.

: 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.
(Reuters) - Delta Air Lines Inc <DAL.N> on Friday said it plans to resume 50 flights on the international route this winter and in 2021 that were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"While significant hurdles remain in the global fight against the pandemic, we are ready to connect customers to the people, places, opportunities and experiences they're longing for," said Joe Esposito, senior vice president for network planning. (https://bit.ly/31kxXCu)

Delta said its resumed service would include daily flights from Seattle to Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and Shanghai.

In June, Delta said it would resume flights between Seattle and Shanghai, making it the first U.S. airline to restart operations between the United States and China after flights were suspended in February due to the pandemic.

The U.S. airline said earlier this week that it would continue blocking middle seats through at least Jan. 6, covering the key holiday season, but would raise the cap on the number of passengers on its flights in October.

(This story has been refiled to correct typos in headline).

(Reporting by Arunima Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)
Sunday Shodipe, a 19-year-old man accused of involvement in the rape and murder of some female residents in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, has narrated how he escaped from police custody.

Mr Shodipe, on Sunday, addressed journalists on how police negligence gave him the opportunity to run away.

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that he escaped from custody over a week ago. He was, however, recaptured on Sunday.

The Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, in a statement signed by the force spokesperson, Frank Mba, said the notorious suspect was re-arrested in Bodija area of Ibadan.

He also warned against any form of complacency on the part of the operatives of the Oyo State Police Command, stressing that all hands must be on deck to bring the case to a positive and successful closure.

But speaking on how he escaped, Mr Shodipe said he ran away from Mokola police custody where he was detained when he was ordered to take his bath by the Divisional Police Officer (DPO).

PM News reported that the suspect said he jumped the fence when the police officer asked to monitor him was not paying close attention.

The new female DPO asked Officer Funsho to allow me to take my bath. He cautioned me not to try to escape but I managed.

I escaped when I saw him discussing with another person. I climbed the borehole pole and jumped the fence. The people living in the area saw me when I escaped but they did not raise any alarm, he narrated.

This newspaper reported that no fewer than three female residents in Akinyele area of Ibadan were raped and killed during the coronavirus lockdown.

More such cases were reported across Nigeria.

Following public outcry, the government vowed to implement strict action against rape. Some states in the country have passed laws on incarceration, life imprisonment and death as punishment for rape.
More than 1,000 migrants waiting to seek asylum are estimated to be in the camp, which sits along the rivers edge in Matamoros, Mexico, across from Brownsville. The camp grew significantly last October after the Migrant Protection Protocols  known as President Donald Trumps Remain in Mexico policy  rolled out along the U.S.-Mexico border. Some families are waiting for court appointments in the U.S., while others have yet to present themselves to U.S. authorities while the border remains closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In 1999, a Canadian mining company, Taseko, bought a mothballed copper mine in the middle of British Columbia.

At the time, copper was trading at 50c (38p) a pound, the mine was uneconomical and the vendors were keen to dispose of it. Taseko paid a dollar for the asset, known as Gibraltar.

Today, the mine produces 140 million pounds of copper a year and is the fourth largest open pit mine in North America.

Copper-bottomed: The copper price has risen, helping miners such as Taseko, as its use in industry increases

Having sold 25 per cent of the mine to help fund initial construction work, Taseko benefits from the sale of more than 100 million pounds of copper annually.

Prices bumped along at about 50c for a while but have been above a dollar almost continuously since 2004, and today copper is trading at a two-year high of more than $3 a pound.

With production costs of between $1.30 and $1.90 a pound, Gibraltar has turned out to be a very canny investment.

Vancouver-based Taseko is smart at flexing costs too. When copper prices fell as the coronavirus pandemic took hold, president Stuart McDonald focused on areas where extraction was easier and cheaper.

Ultimately, extraction will pivot to a new section of the mine, where production is more costly. However, with copper prices expected to increase steadily through the year, profit margins are likely to remain robust.

Earlier this month, Taseko issued an upbeat statement about the three months from March to June, with sales and production ahead of last year, despite the Covid-19 pandemic.

Analysts expect full year sales for the 2020 calendar year of at least C$350million (201million), up more than 6 per cent since 2019, with further growth pencilled in for next year and beyond.

Gibraltar is Taseko's only mine that is currently in production, but the group has five other sites in its portfolio, one of which, Florence Copper, should start making money in 2022.

Located in the Arizona desert, an hour and a half from Phoenix, Florence is expected to deliver 85million pounds of copper a year, almost doubling Taseko's current production.

The site benefits from highly unusual geological properties so Taseko can adopt a mining process that is widely used to extract uranium but has never been used for copper before  extracting the metal, rather than its ore, directly from the ground, using a solution made from water and sulphuric acid.

The method does not involve any of the usual mining practices, such as blasting, tunnelling and waste dumps, so the carbon footprint is some 90 per cent lower than conventional mining.

The acid is neutralised with alkaline solution once each section of the site has been mined so the environment is protected too. For shareholders, there is another key advantage  at $1.10 a pound, costs are significantly lower than in traditional copper mining.

McDonald has been testing the new method for the past 18 months and results have been highly encouraging. In a major step forwards, Taseko was recently granted a draft environmental permit from the state regulators and a full permit is expected in the next few months, with federal permission set to follow.

In the meantime, McDonald is in active discussions over financing. The group needs $230million to take Florence into production and may well seek to secure the bulk of that from an external investor, in exchange for about 20 per cent of the mine.

The strategy worked well for Gibraltar and Florence is, in many ways, an even more beguiling asset, which has already attracted interest from potential customers.

Further down the line, another asset in British Columbia, Yellowhead, is likely to come on stream with three more Canadian assets waiting in the wings.

Copper has proved a volatile metal over the past 20 years but the outlook for Taseko is bright. Supply from Chile and Peru, the two biggest producers, has been constrained by coronavirus, even as demand has picked up in China, which accounts for around 40 per cent of global demand.

Looking ahead, copper followers are optimistic. Governments worldwide are keen to stimulate economic growth through building works and copper is integral to most construction projects. It also plays a key role in renewable energy and electric vehicles, where demand is likely to increase over the coming years.

Midas verdict: Taseko has been listed in Toronto for years but only joined the London market in November 2019. The shares have done well in recent weeks but they should continue to rise, as copper prices increase and Florence comes closer to production. At 65p, the stock is a long-term buy.

Traded on: Main market Ticker: TKO Contact: tasekomines.com or 001 778 373 4533
Officials say a firefighter battling the CZU Lightning Complex fire near Santa Cruz was targeted by opportunistic thieves over the weekend.

Cal Fire officials say a ground commander returned to his work truck, parked in the evacuation zone, to find it had been broken into. His wallet was stolen and officials say the man then discovered his bank account had been drained.
As Mumbai braces for the first day of immersion during the Ganeshotsav on Sunday, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has advised people performing the pooja at home to carry out immersion in a bucket or a drum.

BMC has also banned any type of procession for immersion, and also given options to conduct immersion at 70 natural and 170 artificial spots in the city in adherence to social distancing and hygiene norms. Every year on the first day, over 35,000 idol immersion is conducted in the city. In 2019, over 46,000 idols were immersed on the first day.

The BMC has uploaded list of natural and artificial ponds on its website (http://stopcoronavirus.mcgm.gov.in/ganesh-visarjan-locations)

In case of 70 natural immersion spots that also includes the sea, citizens residing within a 2km radius are allowed to immerse their idols there by handing over the idols to BMC. The citizens shall not be allowed to enter the sea water or water of natural spots to immerse the idols themselves under any circumstances.

Also read: Four densely populated pockets in Dharavi continue on BMCs Covid-19 watchlist

Devotees who are celebrating Ganesh Festival in their homes are advised to carry out idol immersion of the Ganesh idols at their homes in a bucket or a drum as their first preference, the advisory said.

BMC has also asked mandals and those residing in containment zones or sealed buildings to either defer immersion till next year or to make arrangements on their own using buckets or drums.

The advisory issued by BMC in this context reads, The Ganeshotsav Mandals as well as citizens situated in Containment Zones shall immerse their Ganesh idols by creating necessary arrangement in the mandap / pandol and their homes itself . Alternatively they can defer the immersion of the idols to the next year. Devotees who are staying in Sealed Buildings shall mandatorily immerse their Ganesh idols in their homes itself (in bucket/ small drums) or postpone the immersion to the next year.

Further, BMC said that devotees shall perform Pooja & Aarti in their homes itself and then hand over the idols to the civic body. No one will be allowed to do pooja or aarti at immersion spots. Those taking part in immersion have wears masks, use sanitizers and follow necessary social distancing.

Meanwhile, as a special arrangement, BMC this year created the Mobile Immersion Spots on Wheels bu using water tanks in trucks.
(CNN)  Belarus's embattled government vowed to take control of national monuments to protect them from protesters, as opposition demonstrators gathered in Minsk on Sunday.

"We are strictly warning: In case of disruption of the order and peace in these places -- you will have to deal not with the police, but with the Army," the Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

There was a strong security force presence in the capital city as opposition protesters began arriving at Independence Square, with protesters warned over a loudspeaker to disperse and stop violating public order laws.

It has been two weeks since a contested presidential election saw Alexander Lukashenko retain his 26-year grip on power, sparking mass opposition protests across the country.

Independent observers criticized the country's August 9 poll for being neither free nor fair. And much of the international community has expressed solidarity with the protesters, piling pressure on Lukashenko to give in to calls for another vote.

But the President has doubled down, even insisting that there won't be new elections "until you kill me." Last Sunday, Lukashenko told a rally in central Minsk that Belarus was being threatened by "foreign forces."

The United Nations said Friday it was "disturbed" that reportedly no action had been taken to investigate reports of "large-scale torture and ill-treatment" of people and children arrested in connection with the protests.

European Council President Charles Michel said two days earlier the European Union would "shortly" impose "sanctions on a substantial number of individuals responsible for violence, repression and election fraud" after an emergency summit of the bloc's leaders on the "increasingly concerning situation" in the country.

"The protests in Belarus are not about geopolitics. This is in the first place a national crisis. It is about the right of the people to freely elect their leadership. We stand firmly behind the right of Belarusian people to determine their own fate," Michel said.

"On August 9th, Belarus held elections. These elections were neither free nor fair and did not meet international standards. We don't recognize the results presented by the Belarus authorities," Michel said, adding that "the people of Belarus deserve the democratic right to choose their leaders and shape their future."

Michel also condemned the "shocking and unacceptable" violence against "peaceful protesters."

Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya remains in Lithuania, where she fled to after the disputed presidential election.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Belarus opposition protests begin amid heavy police presence"
On Sunday Baradar, head of the Taliban political office, was travelling to Pakistan from Doha, just days after Islamabad issued fresh orders implementing the 2015 U.N. sanctions against the Taliban as well as a number of other outlawed groups. It wasnt immediately clear who Baradar would be meeting or the purpose of his visit, but Pakistan has been pressing for an early start to intra-Afghan negotiations.
Midlands unemployment continues to trend lower, recording a second monthly decline as the rate retreats from its high of 12.6 percent recorded in May.

The Texas Workforce Commission said Friday that unemployment in its Midland metropolitan statistical area  which includes Midland and Martin counties  dipped to 9.4 percent in July from 9.5 percent in June. That remains far above the July 2019 unemployment rate of 2.2 percent.

While Odessa reported an unemployment rate decline similar to Midland  dipping to 12.6 percent from 12.7 percent in June  the city recorded the states highest unemployment for a second consecutive month.

I think were seeing it trend in the right direction, Willie Taylor, chief executive officer of the commissions Workforce Solutions Permian Basin, told the Reporter-Telegram in a phone interview.

He said the number of unemployment insurance benefit claims is also trending lower. Despite the hurdles caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Taylor said his office tries to hold virtual job fairs every other week to ensure we get people back to work. One is scheduled for this week with Medical Center Hospital.



The issue with getting unemployed people back to work is child care, Taylor said. Regionwide, the waiting list for child care is 900, he said. With West Texas split almost evenly between men and women, he said it presents a challenge to single parents trying to return to work. With a new child care provider contract set to take effect next month, he said he hopes those issues will soon be addressed.

The regions dominant industry sector, oil and gas, has been hit hard by the twin blows of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic woes of the dominant oil and gas industry, Taylor said. It tells us we need to focus on trying to diversify our industry base to make sure we can sustain ourselves through these downturns.

Midlands civilian labor force grew by 120 from June to July, to 102,658 from 102,532 in June. Still, it remains about 8,900 below the 111,590 recorded last July. Supporting the market was the fact that about 250 residents joined the ranks of the employed, which grew to 93,040 from 92,797 in June but is 16,000 below the 109,105 employed a year ago. The number of unemployed residents shrank by about 100 to 9,618 from 9,735, still 7100 above the 2,485 unemployed last year.

Though Midlands unemployment rate continues to decline, the Tall City still shed 1,200 total nonfarm jobs from June to July. Total nonfarm jobs in July were 98,700, down from 99,900 in June and 16,900 below the 115,600 of July 2019, a decline rate of 14.6 percent.

The dominant Mining, Logging and Construction sector lost 800 jobs from June to July, followed by the Leisure and Hospitality sector with 400 jobs lost. The Trade, Transportation and Utilities sector and the Government sector each lost 100 jobs. Education and Health Services was the only sector to gain, adding 200 jobs during the month.

For the 21 months from July 2019 to July 2020, the Mining, Logging and Construction sector has shed 11,500 jobs for a decline rate of 28.2 percent. The Trade, Transportation and Utilities sector followed with the loss of 1,800 jobs and the Leisure and Hospitality sector, with 1,400 jobs. The Other Services sector lost 800 jobs and the Government sector 400 jobs. The Manufacturing sector and the Financial Sector each lost 300 jobs and the Education and Health Services sector 200 jobs. The Information and Professional and Business Services sectors each lost 100 jobs.

Statewide, the unemployment rate dropped to 8 percent, the third consecutive monthly decline. The state lost 12,300 jobs from June to July.

Amarillo recorded the states lowest unemployment at 5.1 percent, followed by College Station-Bran with 5.8 percent and Abilene and Sherman-Denison at 5.9 percent each.

Midland Unemployment

January 2020 2.4 percent

January 2019 2.3 percent





February 2020 2.3 percent

February 2019 2.2 percent





March 2020 3.4 percent

March 2019 2 percent





April 2020 10.2 percent

April 2019 1.7 percent





May 2020 12.4 percent

May 2019 1.8 percent





June 2020 9.6 percent

June 2019 2.1 percent





July 2020 9.4 percent

July 2019 2.2 percent
MINSK, Belarus (AP)  Behind each protester in Belarus is a surprising story of awakening.

A police officer who quit his job, ashamed of violence by his colleagues. A paramedic who treated victims of that brutality, wielding white roses in response. An actor using his theater as backdrop for revolt, ready to sabotage his career to seek a freer nation.

Holding signs or personal tokens of resistance, they described their fears and hopes to The Associated Press, after nearly two weeks of protests against President Alexander Lukashenkos 26-year rule.

Tatyana, a 29-year-old paramedic, joined the protests after treating those wounded when police tried to stifle demonstrations on the night of presidential elections Aug. 9.

Despite what they were subjected to, (protesters) didnt respond with violence, she said, holding her roses and pointing to children mixed in among the protesting crowds as a sign of hope that they will remain peaceful. They just want justice.

For actor Mihail Zui, the banner he brandished was his resignation letter from one of the countrys premier cultural venues, the Yanka Kupala Theater. After its influential and popular director decided to support the protesters, he was fired  and Zui and most of the other performers quit in solidarity and anger.

Thirty-year-old Nikolay wore a homemade Batman-style mask, as protection and a statement.

The protesters come from various generations and walks of life in this country that forms a buffer between Russia and Europe, and that long seemed frozen in the repressive calm of the Soviet era. Until now.

Among those breaking the silence was pensioner Ales Varhamiev, 62, who brought his guitar to play the protesters anti-Lukashenko anthem Cockroach, Get Out!

Holding up his fingers in a victory sign, 43-year-old Pavel Stavpinskiy joined the protests after working as an observer in the presidential election, in which most opposition candidates were jailed or exiled.

Among the victims of the police violence was 18-year-old college student Alexander Laubert, who now gets around Minsk on crutches, after riot police smashed his kneecaps.

Story continues

Hes wary at first but then opens up about how police attacked him for having images of the protests in his phone. He endured two days of being beaten, trampled on, nearly suffocated and doused in gasoline before volunteers finally brought him to a hospital for treatment and a leg cast.

Former police administrator Alexander Ahremchyk displayed his insignia and medals, which he no longer wears after quitting the service in the wake of the protests.

My resignation is a protest itself, he said. He said he doesnt object to his bosses, but to the unjustified violence toward those who were detained.

At the Atlant refrigerator factory, a rare strike this week prompted even more rare public political debate. Viktoria Bogutenko, a student and young employee, pushed past a picket line to make her evening shift, holding a historic red-and-white Belarusian flag in her own form of protest.

I am against the current authorities, but I am not for this strike, she said. Her voice choked with emotion as she described the importance of keeping the conveyor belts moving, for the sake of salaries and ordinary people like her.

Choir singer Olga Baryshnikova, 24, wore a traditional Belarusian national costume as she took a lunch break from the nearby musical academy and came to sing to the protesters, in a gesture of support.

She said she cant sit silent at a time like this. I hurt for Belarus, she said, tears in her eyes.

___

Associated Press reporter Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.
JERUSALEM/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Israel's military said on Saturday that one of its drones fell inside Lebanon during "operational activity" along the frontier, and the armed Lebanese group Hezbollah said it shot it down.

The drone, which was downed near the border town of Aita al-shaab, was now in the group's possession, the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement said in a statement.

"There is no risk of breach of information," Israel's military said in a statement.

It provided no further details.

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch and Laila Bassam; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
Diners taking advantage of Chancellor Rishi Sunaks Eat Out to Help Out scheme may have been eating meat, fish and vegetables that are up to 18 months old.

The closure of restaurants and pubs during lockdown means the food industry is sitting on 20 million of excess produce.

But Government-approved changes to best before labels now allow supermarkets to offload their leftover products.

Government-approved changes to best before labels now allow excess produce to be sold. Frozen beef, chicken and lamb can last an additional 18 months, along with chips and most vegetables

Experts stress it is safe and lawful but want the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to publicise the move to diners.

Darren Goldney, of the wholesale group Unitas, said: We dont want this situation, but these are exceptional times and stocks are going to last another six months.

Food that has exceeded its use by date cannot be legally sold for health reasons.

Products with a best before date can be eaten long afterwards as long as it has been stored correctly.

Frozen beef, chicken and lamb can last an additional 18 months, along with chips and most vegetables.

Frozen prawns and salmon steaks are also fine for another year.

Britons have eaten 35 million discounted meals under Chancellor Rishi Sunaks Eat Out to Help Out scheme, which sees half-price meals on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday

James Bielby, chief executive of the Federation of Wholesale Distributors, said: If this food stock is good enough to go to charities, it is good enough for the rest of us.

'Defra must take the lead in resolving this.

Britons have eaten 35 million discounted meals under Mr Sunaks scheme, which sees half-price meals on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Defra said it urged food businesses to do all they can to work through the current stockpile of food and avoid waste.

Champagne production has been slashed by 22 per cent this year as coronavirus kills demand for bubbles

By Jane Wharton for the Mail on Sunday

It promises to be a vintage year, but falling demand for champagne means much of the current crop will be left rotting on the vine.

Growers and producers have made the difficult decision to slash production by 22 per cent this year.

David Faivre, a champagne maker from the French village of Belval-sous-Chatillon, said: Champagne is synonymous with partying. And the world isnt doing that right now.

The decision to slash production is even more painful because the grapes have good levels of sugar and acidity, promising a vintage year

Sales of the fizz were down 30 per cent in the first half of this year but have picked up a little since June.

About half of champagne sales take place in the last four months of the year.

To preserve the luxurious reputation of the drink, the cartel of growers and producers that decide on the annual harvest have agreed to a sharp cut so excess bottles are not left languishing.

This year there will be a maximum yield of 7,125lb of grapes per acre  the equivalent to 230 million bottles and the smallest yield for 35 years.

The decision is even more painful because the grapes have good levels of sugar and acidity, promising a vintage year.

Thibaut Le Mailloux, of the industry body Comite Interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne, said: Well always need champagne to celebrate. Whats not certain is the mood of consumers.
At the end of this month, Ashok Lavasa, one of Indias election commissioners, will prepare to depart for the sunny shores of Manila to join the Asian Development Bank. His term at the Election Commission was not over.

In fact, he would have become, by virtue of seniority, the chief election commissioner, and overseen the conduct of the 2024 parliamentary elections.

Why is he then leaving one of the most responsible and prestigious assignments in his own country, and the prospect of eventually heading the EC, for the nondescript anonymity of a job in a multinational organisation outside India?

Perhaps he wanted a change. Perhaps, the heat and dust of New Delhi was not to his liking. Perhaps he wanted a bigger pay package, and the opportunity to save some money.

But, perhaps, this unprecedented easing out of a serving election commissioner had also something to do with his having made the cardinal mistake of being critical of the conduct of Prime Minister Narendra

Modi and home minister Amit Shah during the last general election in 2019. Reportedly, ever since then, government agencies began a series of investigations into his finances and those of his wife and other members of his family. Perhaps something was discovered that could embarrass him.

Either way, a convenient modus vivendi was found. He was offered an attractive exit route, which apparently he had no objections in accepting. Perhaps, the EC will now be a more well behaved institution.

On another front, the honourable Supreme Court has convicted lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan, holding him guilty of criminal contempt, for two tweets that he had sent which raised questions on the functioning and integrity of the highest court of the land. Perhaps, the honourable judges were genuinely scandalised by what he had said.

The law of contempt in our country says, inter alia, that words, written or spoken, signs and actions that scandalise or tend to scandalise the court are tantamount to contempt. The word scandalise is a curious one. It implies a subjectivity of interpretation that rests entirely with the person claiming to be scandalised.

The Constitution of India guarantees freedom of speech as a fundamental right. Democracy by definition means that an ordinary citizen has the right to express his views, dissent, critique, and interrogate. But, where the Supreme Court is concerned, there is the real worry that anything that questions its functioning may scandalise the honourable judges.

What is the dividing line between well-intentioned criticism, and the interpretation that it could scandalise the judiciary, and thus be treated as contempt. Incidentally, the contempt law has been inherited by us from the British.

However, although the judiciary there has often come under relentless attack, the last conviction for contempt in the United Kingdom took place as far back as 1931.

It is also rather confusing what amounts to contempt. When, on a sunny morning in January 2018, the four then seniormost judges of the Supreme Court Kurian Joseph, J. Chamleshwar, Ranjan Gogoi and Madan B. Lokur took the unprecedented step for the first time in our history of publicly holding a press conference, in which they said that the administration of the court is not in order and many things which are less than desirable have happened in the last few months that have raised questions and further doubts about the integrity of the nation, were they not scandalising the Chief Justice of India?

I think the Supreme Court needs to take a more generous and democratic view of comments about itself. And, yes, there should certainly be, to strengthen the perception of impartiality, a law that prevents Supreme Court judges from being given fresh assignments by the government or the party in power after they retire.

A third area that is worrying is the misuse of the law of sedition. Thomas Babington Macaulay, who drafted this law in 1870, may not have known where Kumarsain is. It is a hamlet outside Shimla. It is here that the Himachal Pradesh police filed a case for sedition against senior journalist Vinod Dua.

The case was filed in April this year against a YouTube show Dua did on March 30. In his show Vinod Dua questioned the preparedness of the Central government in handling the coronavirus pandemic. On June 12, a posse of policemen arrived at Duas home in New Delhi to take him for questioning to Himachal Pradesh. It is then that he sought the protection of the judiciary.

The case is still going on.

Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code is a colonial relic, meant to still disaffection of an enslaved people. It says that whosoever, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt or excites disaffection towards the government established by law in India, shall be punished with imprisonment for life.

One must give it to Macaulay for a remarkable act of drafting in insulating the colonial government against any attack. But we are a sovereign, democratic republic. Surely, laws like this, which are acted upon indiscriminately by oversensitive governments, erode the very democracy that we uphold with such pride?

Our republic is still young. Many of its institutions are still evolving. Precedents are being tested. Democratic functioning is still taking roots. The intent and the spirit of the Constitution is being evaluated in actual practice.

A thin skin to criticism often leads to the thick rod of authoritarianism. It is the duty of every public-spirited citizen to resist such a tendency.
Uzbekistan has asked Afghanistan to strengthen security protection for the personnel of Uzbek companies operating in Afghanistan following an armed attack in Balkh Province, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry said, Trend reports citing Kabar.

Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov and his Afghan counterpart Mohammad Hanif Atmar discussed over the phone an armed attack on an Uzbek railway company near Hairaton railway station in Afghanistan that occurred on Thursday, the statement said.

Uzbekistan's state railway company said in a separate statement that during the attack by unidentified gunmen, an Afghan soldier guarding the railway was killed, and an Uzbek railway specialist was wounded and taken to the hospital.

In response, Atmar said that Afghan authorities will conduct a thorough investigation of the incident and bring those involved to justice.

Uzbekistan shares a border with Afghanistan in the south, and has been participating in the socio-economic revival of the war-torn country through regional infrastructure projects, including building railways and electricity lines.
On Sunday, 26th July 2020, President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo gave his 14th coronavirus update to the nation, and as usual, he found an opportunity to dabble in politics. This man has failed to provide leadership as a statesman and Head of State of our nation; increasingly he has shown himself as a very partisan president whose overriding preoccupation is to find and create opportunities for self-enrichment and for his family, friends, cronies, former concubines and colleagues.

But that is not my concern or focus on this opinion piece. I shall return to this nation-wrecking theme of self-seeking at another time.

Before the President's 14th update on the coronavirus pandemic, on Thursday, July 23rd, 2020, the President's nephew and personal banker, Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, one of Akufo-Addo's close family members in his government, presented the mid-year review of this year's budget to Parliament as required by law, revealing a gloomy picture of the country's finances, and showing a collapsed economy with a huge deficit not seen in recent times.

So far as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Akufo-Addo's government through his cousin Ken Ofori-Atta has borrowed the following amounts of money.

US$1,000,000,000(One Billion US Dollars) from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or in terms of the Cedi equivalent, this is GH574,100,000,000 US$100,000,000(One Hundred Million US Dollars) from the World Bank, which in terms of the Cedi is GH574,100,000 US$300,000,000(Three Hundred Million) from our Stabilization Fund(Oil Money) saved by the NDC government of President Mahama, which in Cedi terms is GH1,722,300,000 GH5,500,000,000 (Five Billion and Five Hundred Million CEDI's) from Bank of Ghana US$69,000,000(Sixty-Nine Million Dollars) from African Development Bank Group which in terms of Cedi is GH396,129,000

The total of these borrowings in this short period in Cedi terms, therefore, is GH532,292,529,000

We are told that just in less than two weeks of providing some kind of food - gari "olonka" and three cubes of sugar for a small section of our people in Accra, Tema, Kasoa, Kumasi and its environs, for sections of the population, so poor that they themselves could not feed themselves for two weeks, if they don't go to scratch the ground on a daily basis, the amount spent by Ken Ofori-Atta and his NPP Polling Station Executives, they said was GH54,300,000 on the so-called food for the poor and the vulnerable.

And the surprising and pathetic aspect of this whole thievery of the peoples' money was that there was no proper accounting for these expenditures. Now that we have raised these issues of lack of accountability in the use of our corona money, and questioning these fake expenditures, take it from me that in the coming days we shall be slapped with some fictitious account to cover their thievery of the public purse.

But even more pathetic and worrying is the fact that since the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic in Ghana early in March this year, the Akufo-Addo regime has taken actions that have enabled it to take advantage of the disease, apart from the carefree borrowing with careless abandon going on with no regard to fiscal discipline. (I wish the Minority in Parliament succeeds in hauling the Finance Minister before court for disregarding the fiscal responsibility Act.)

The result is that the country's 2020 budget had been thrown into disarray with a free grabbing for their party people that knows no bounds.

CORONA FLARES UP

Meanwhile, the disease has defied the poor measures taken so far to rein it in and is on rampage infecting an increasing number of Ghanaians on a daily basis.

Of particular note is the very poor testing regime. On 13th August, while putting this article together, I accessed the Ghana Health Service website to source the latest information on the coronavirus pandemic disease. This was what the ministry put on its website in connection with testing results:

So far over 41,725 Ghanaians have been infected and over 200 Ghanaians have died as a result.

The quality of the management of the corona pandemic in the country has left much to be desired in many ways. The testing regime carried out so far has been poor to the extent that samples have been left untested for over a month and then discarded. If samples are not tested how can those infected be efficiently determined, separated, quarantined and treated so that they do not infect people to increase the numbers.

The government seemed happy to let the disease spread and fester as its actions and directives seemed designed to increase infections rather than reducing them.

The first two infections were announced in early March and were said to have been imported into the country by foreigners or persons who had travelled outside the country and had returned bringing the disease onto our shores.

The disease's spread was very slow at first but later decisions taken by the government involving mass registration for citizenship identity card and registration of voters for this year's general elections as well as reopening of schools have led to spikes in infections.

The single highest daily infection of 1,385 occurred on 27th July 2020 at the peak of the voter registration and Ghana card registrations.

So far the following figures were released by the Ghana Health Service on its website on 13th August 2020 :

223 Ghanaians dead 41,725 Ghanaians infected

As if the above were not bad enough, the President during his 14th update on the pandemic after his own 14days of isolation due to exposure to an infected person some two weeks earlier lifted the ban on social/physical distancing in public transport in the country.

It was as though the President was interested in keeping the infection spiking and spreading of the disease so that he could keep restrictions on social gatherings in the country, thus limiting the political activities of his political opponents (or enemies as he liked to call them)

One of the cardinal measures that all healthcare professionals are agreed on as being effective in controlling cross person infection or person to person infection was limiting inter-personal contacts. Nowhere are people in closer contact with each other than in public transport where we are packed tightly together like sardines in a can.

Certainly, the President's lifting of physical distancing in vehicles would go a long way in helping to increase infections of more and more people in the country. Even drivers' mates are complaining about it.

What does the President want to achieve by that directive?

Two weeks earlier, the government had agreed on terms with transport operators in the country and had increased transport fares to satisfy their reduced number of passengers in accordance with physical distancing measures in vehicles.

Taking into consideration that more than a million people move into and out of Accra alone every blessed day, it could be seen that the infection and spread of the coronavirus in Ghana is NOT about to end anytime soon by this singular measure of President Akufo-Addo.

Were President Akufo-Addo and his nephew Ken Ofori-Atta concerned with the spread of the virus and its destructive effects on the people, our economy and its finances, they would have adopted more prudent measures in managing the disease.

The testing regime would have been much robust and faster so that suspected cases could be better managed with certainty, not the long wait forever with some samples collected from exposed persons being discarded due to lack of chemicals for testing. Physical distancing measures in vehicles would have been maintained until the disease has completely subsided or completely eliminated. Schools would not have been reopened in the midst of the pandemic leading to infections and death of poor students-KNUST SHS, Anglo SHS, Mamfe Methodist Girls SHS and Koforidua-Oyoko Methodist SHS have all recorded deaths of students due to the coronavirus. Better protective equipment (PPE's) would have been provided to our medical/healthcare staff to prevent the needless deaths that have afflicted our healthcare professionals. Korlebu Teaching Hospital alone has lost three highly experienced seniormost consulting Doctors already to the disease.

This year, 2020, is an election year and by now, in July, the country would have been in the middle of a nationwide frantic political campaign by the major political parties.

Keeping the disease rampaging and keeping the numbers of infections up seemed to be in the best interest of the President Mr. Akufo-Addo and his henchmen in government.

Why?

The quieter the political atmosphere the better it is for him because his failures, lies, and deceit would not be exposed.

This might seem rather paradoxical, but that is what the government's actions point to.

For example, the pandemic has enabled the government to undertake certain economic and social interventions which were not on the cards before the pandemic broke. These included:

Provision of free electricity and water for three months which ended at the end of June. Suddenly the government has announced that it has extended these freebies for another three months. This was done at a time when restrictions on business activities had been lifted since the three-week lockdown was lifted long ago in April. There certainly was no justification for the extension of free utilities as announced by the government this time except for cheap political gain. Business support: As part of its interventions in economic activities, the government announced a GHC600million fund to provide capital for micro and small businesses in the country badly affected. Disbursement of the fund has started through applications on the internet and payments done through mobile money payments. There are indications that the government is using these financial interventions to shore up its faltering fortunes as there is no doubt there is so much hardship in the country before the corona outbreak. Amounts between GHC2000 and GHC5000 are being disbursed to applicants said to be mostly NPP party activists. The President has promised bigger interventions for more formal businesses in the medium and large-scale business groups. It is most likely that these amounts of money being disbursed, particularly to persons tagged as small and micro enterprises would never be recovered and would become corona debts to be paid by the generality of Ghanaians as national debt, after the 2020 elections no matter which government comes to power.

All these measures have been dictated by a desire to buy the conscience of voters than mitigate real economic difficulties.

If the government were interested in protecting Ghanaians from coronavirus disease, it would have used very small portions of the billions of monies so far borrowed to mitigate transport operators so that they could continue to observe physical distancing measures in their vehicles.

If the government were interested in protecting Ghanaians from coronavirus disease, they would have provided enough personal protection equipment for our doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers to avoid needless deaths.

If the government were interested in protecting Ghanaians from coronavirus disease, adequate quantities of testing chemicals would have been imported to facilitate a vigorous and quicker testing regime so that those tested can know their fates earlier and better treatment provided them.

The December 2020 elections are barely four months away but the coronavirus pandemic shows no signs of abating, due to the government's poor measures. Infections in the of over 500 to 1,000 people daily are now taking place in the country. And with its ability to infect exponentially, Ghana is likely to see more infections with the disease staying longer and wrecking more havoc if the present measures of handling it are not substantially revised.

With over 41,700 people infected (many public health experts dispute these figures saying it is much higher) and still ravaging, Ghana must indeed braze up for harder times ahead as the government sees political advantage in keeping us under corona siege and its actions seen as father Christmas to the people.

In these regards, the government looks more like gangsters extracting the most out of us than helping us out of the destructive effects of the dreaded coronavirus disease.

This is what we bargained for in 2016 when we voted for Mr Akufo-Addo, and this is what we have got.

December 7th, 2020 gives us another chance to make amends by getting rid of this corruption-laden, and selfish, Akufo-Addo government and their collaborators.

ERIC AMETOR-QUARMYNE

AG. RECTOR

JEAM INSTITUTE OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIAL RESEARCH

ACCRA.
Physicists at the University of Gottingen, together with pathologists and lung specialists at the Medical University of Hannover, have developed a three-dimensional imaging technique that enables high resolution and three-dimensional representation of damaged lung tissue following severe Covid-19. Using a special X-ray microscopy technique, they were able to image changes caused by the coronavirus in the structure of alveoli (the tiny air sacs in the lung) and the vasculature. The results of the study were published in the research journal eLife.

In severe Covid-19 disease, the researchers observed significant changes in the vasculature, inflammation, blood clots and "hyaline membranes", which are composed of proteins and dead cells deposited on the alveolar walls, which make gas exchange difficult or impossible. With their new imaging approach, these changes can be visualized for the first time in larger tissue volumes, without cutting and staining or damaging the tissue as in conventional histology. It is particularly well suited for tracing small blood vessels and their branches in three dimensions, localizing cells of the immune systems which are recruited to the inflammation sites, and measuring the thickness of the alveolar walls. Due to the three-dimensional reconstruction, the data could also be used to simulate gas exchange.

Using zoom tomography, large areas of lung tissue embedded in wax can be scanned enabling detailed examination to locate particularly interesting areas around inflammation, blood vessels or bronchial tubes." Professor Tim Salditt, Lead Author, Institute of X-ray Physics at the University of Gottingen

Since X-rays penetrate deep into tissue, this enables scientists to understand the relation between the microscopic tissue structure and the larger functional architecture of an organ. This is important, for example, to visualize the tree of blood vessels down to the smallest capillaries.

The authors foresee that this new X-ray technique will be an extension to traditional histology and histopathology, areas of study which go back to the 19th century when optical microscopes had just become available and pathologists could thereby unravel the microscopic origins of many diseases. Even today, pathologists still follow the same basic steps to prepare and investigate tissue: chemical fixation, slicing, staining and microscopy. This traditional approach, however, is not sufficient if three-dimensional images are required or if large volumes have to be screened, digitalized or analysed with computer programmes.

Three-dimensional imaging is well known from medical computerized tomography (CT). However, the resolution and contrast of this conventional technique are not sufficient to detect the tissue structure with cellular or sub-cellular resolution. Therefore, the authors used "phase contrast", which exploits the different propagation velocities of X-rays in tissue to generate an intensity pattern on the detector. Salditt and his research group at the Institute for X-ray Physics developed special illumination optics and algorithms to reconstruct sharp images from these patterns, an approach which they have now adapted for the study of lung tissue affected by severe progression of Covid-19.

The Gottingen team could record lung tissue at scalable size and resolution, yielding both larger overviews and close-up reconstructions. Depending on the setting, their method can even yield structural details below the resolution of conventional light microscopy. To achieve this, the researchers used highly powerful X-ray radiation generated at the PETRAIII storage ring of the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg.

As was the case when the modern microscope was invented 150 years ago, significant progress has resulted from collaboration between physicists and medical researchers. The interdisciplinary research team hopes that the new method will support the development of treatment methods, medicines to prevent or alleviate severe lung damage in Covid-19, or to promote regeneration and recovery. "It is only when we can clearly see and understand what is really going on, that we can develop targeted interventions and drugs," adds Danny Jonigk (Medical University Hannover), who led the medical part of the interdisciplinary study.
Like many great origin stories, that of Coco-op starts with a cup of coffee.

Graham Campbell and Ward Davis, co-founders of the new nonprofit and makerspace, met for the first time at White Dove Coffee Shop to discuss a vision Campbell had of bringing people together to create and learn. 70-year-old Davis is a retired chemical engineer, Master Recycler and consultant, always refurbishing and reusing that which others throw away. At 28, Campbell works as an outdoor guide and has long been interested in different trades, art and DIYall with the goal of making them accessible to everyone.

Coco-op, a clever combination of Coconino and co-op, opened in July after some months of Campbell and Davis scouting locations and bringing in members and equipment to get the idea on its feet. Eventually the two found 5,000 square feet worth of warehouse space in west Flagstaff where they could begin realizing their dream.

Similar to Tinkertopia, the local STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) community space that fosters hands-on learning for children and adults, Coco-op seeks to bring people together, master or amateur, artist or non, to learn and engage in different trades and arts in a collaborative and community-oriented workspace.

I think, philosophically speaking, having a space with tools and equipment is important for people to help themselves, both for learning and economically, Campbell says. And a lot of times theres a gap between having ideas and wanting to tinker and actually being able to execute those ideas.

Enter Coco-op and its philosophy of making making possible and within reach.

The warehouse on Kaibab Lane greets its members with a gathering space. Consisting of a full bookshelf, couch and vintage armchair, Polaroids of Coco-ops current members and their creations, it is intended as a place to trade ideas or simply socialize. The rest of the buildinghome for many decades to Rich and Julie Hartzells telephone equipment and systems business Teledigit Corphouses a soft workshop with a sewing machine, textile and leatherworking tools, fabric and hopefully a loom in the near future. A painting and drawing room, 3D printing and computer lab and a classroom are just across the hall, each their own designated space. A wood and welding garage completes Coco-op, with a pottery studio likely to be placed on the large mezzanine that overlooks the metal and woodworking area. The garage door also allows for car tinkering.

The options are vast at Coco-op, as evidenced by one of Davis' newest inventions, a novel ventilated mask to protect its wearer from the coronavirus. Complete with full face shield and hood, tubes that connect to an air circulation device and leather belt that allows the wearer to keep it on with ease, the invention is just one of Davis' many. He shows it off as sparks fly behind him from a project Joseph Zufall is working on at the welding station. Two other members are crafting a geodesic dome for their backyard.

Isnt it true that some of the most iconic objects were made in a garage? The Etch-A-Sketch, the first Dyson vacuums, the first radio station (amateur radio operator Frank Conrad built a 75-watt transmitter in his Pennsylvania garage and used it to broadcast music to a small audience of ham radio enthusiasts), to name a few.

One of the primary functions of Coco-op is in serving as an accessible workspace where memberships are affordable and projects easy to maintain and approach. A membership includes access to classes offered by Coco-op and its experts, all equipment and for 24-hour use of the space.

Whether [a member] creates a new product or a new skill they can sell, welding, sewing, etc., Ive found that [trade and learning] are not equally accessed, Campbell said. You can be a student and have access to a mechanical engineering lab but you have to have tuition to access that. And they have some resources at the community college but there you also have to pay tuition.

A monthly membership at Coco-op is $50, with the option of the Starving Maker rate of $25 as well as scholarships available for those who demonstrate need.

We dont want to turn anybody away for not being able to pay, Campbell said.

Campbell is originally from Knoxville, Tennessee, a southern accent peppering each of his sentences. He had previously worked at a startup in the heart of the tech industry but left to become an outdoor guide, something that eventually lead him to Flagstaff this fall.

When he arrived he immediately began planning for Coco-op, meeting Davis through Tinkertopias Dr. Alice Christie. The partnership was perfect; Davis, a constant collector of things with a mind for creativity and innovation, wanted in immediately.

When I moved here there was not a makerspace and the long and short is if Im going to live in a place I want there to be a makerspace, because they are awesome and fun, Campbell said with a laugh. But its not just to have access to the tools and everything, it was really to create something that touches a lot of peoples lives.

Coco-op now has 22 members and the list is quickly growing. Many members also donated machinery to the space, something that is an important aspect of what Campbell and Ward are seeking to build. Saws, welding tables, a sewing machine, iMacs and a kiln and more all are donations made by Coco-op members and founders as well as the larger community. Machines that sat dormant in garages and basements now have renewed life and a permanent home where they can be used by many. The democratization of tools, Campbell calls it.

The term radical inclusivity is another phrase he finds himself coming back to when describing the nonprofit, a term also used by places like Longmont, Colorados Tinkermill, where Campbell got a great deal of his inspiration.

Campbell and Davis see Coco-op as a place for invention for everyone, one where patents might come to be, or careers and new inventions can thrive. Or simply a place to meet people and finally delve into an interest that has been sitting on someones proverbial backburner. Thats also where Coco-ops course offerings come in, with upcoming classes including learning how to weld metal, 3D printing basics, making clay mugs, computer coding 101 and troubleshooting of car problems.

Were doing the classes because there are certain skills people want to learn but also as a way of building informal sharing of know-how, he said. Think, your grandpa in the garage teaching you some skills.

When you get handy Do-it-Yourself-ers, artists, computer nerds and designers in the same place, new products and even entire new businesses can emerge, playing a big role in the future of Flagstaffs economy, Campbell wrote in an email.

But also, a lot of cool things start in a garage, he said.

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Bengaluru: A tree uprooted in Manjunath Nagar due to heavy rains that had lashed Bengaluru on Thursday during the extended nationwide lockdown imposed to mitigate the spread of coronavirus; on Apr 24, 2020. (Photo: IANS) Image Source: IANS News

Bengaluru: Trees uprooted due to heavy rains at Malleshwaram in Bengaluru on May 27, 2020. (Photo: IANS) Image Source: IANS News

Bengaluru, Aug 23 : As many as 250 trees were uprooted in Karnataka's Kodagu district due to strong winds amid the recent heavy rains, an official said on Sunday.

"In one week, 250 trees were uprooted because of the winds," Kodagu Deputy Commissioner Annies Kanmani Joy told IANS.

As the fallen trees were blocking the roads, the district administration sought the help of the Forest Department to clear them.

According to Joy, rains were not that big an issue in 2020 but strong winds and landslides were.

"This year, we had a major landslide in Talakaveri. 14 places had landslides in total. Two houses were damaged," she said.

Talakaveri witnessed a major landslide in the first week of August in which the bodies of three people were recovered.

Rains in the area were heavier in 2018 and 2019.
File image

Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan, on August 22, asserted that India's first vaccine against COVID-19 could be available by the end of 2020.

Inaugurating a 10-bed hospital at the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF)s 8th Battalion Centre in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, the health minister said that work is currently progressing on three vaccine candidates. All vaccine candidates are in advanced stages of trials and one of them is in the third phase of human trials, Harsh Vardhan said.

In a statement, the Union Health Ministry also cites Harsh Vardhan as saying that the country will have a vaccine soon after the phased trials are over.

However, news agency ANI has quoted the health minister as saying, We are very confident that a vaccine will be developed by end of this year."

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

Follow our LIVE blog for the latest updates of the novel coronavirus pandemic

On August 22, numbers from the Health Ministry showed that Indias COVID-19 tally was nearing the grim 30 lakh-mark. This included over 55,000 deaths related to the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

However, the health ministry has been highlighting that Indias recovery rate has reached almost 75 percent. The case fatality rate has also been falling and currently stands at 1.87 percent. Case fatality rate is the proportion of deaths caused by a certain disease compared to the total number of people diagnosed with the disease during a particular period.

Globally, over 100 potential COVID-19 vaccines are currently under development, but four are considered ahead of the pack.
By Jason Lim





Anya Kamenetz and Corey Turner recently published an article in NPR titled, "20 Questions To Help Decide What's Best For Your Kids (And You) This School Year." As a parent of a rising 3rd grader, I responded to the questions to see where it led me.



1. Are you working? Or do you need time to look for work?



Yes, I am working at a steady job, which is something that many millions of Americans don't get to do these days. This also means that I don't have to look for work, which is an all-consuming and exhausting task.



2. Do you work outside of the house and therefore need someone at home with the kids?



No, I am allowed to telework fulltime since I am not considered an essential employee. Also, all my colleagues that I usually interact with on an everyday basis also telework fulltime  this means that the default expectation for communications and collaboration is to be virtual all the time. This is important since teleworking wouldn't be nearly as effective if it was a fallback option for the in-person work environment. Teleworking is effective only when everybody teleworks as a default.



3. Do you work from home, and if so, do you need some help entertaining or occupying your kids while you're on the clock?



Yes. Fortunately, my wife is able to spend time with my son while I am downstairs in the basement screaming at the screen to be heard or struggling with the sound lag while everyone is talking over one another. This is incredibly important. Young kids need constant attention when playing or attending virtual classes. In fact, we quickly realized that virtual classes meant that parents have to be attending classes along with the kids all the time in order to make it work. At eight years old, my son definitely needs continuous support, which is a euphemism for making sure he is paying attention and doing the work. Watching your child interacting via virtual class can be a very frustrating exercise of heroic self-control. This goes the same for playing. Otherwise, the only option is to give the kid free rein on the iPad, which she has to occasionally out of sheer exhaustion. Mano-a-mano parental engagement is essential to virtual schooling.



4. Does your job have any family leave or any schedule flexibility?



Yes. My job provides scheduling and family leave flexibility. We haven't had to use them yet, but good to know that we have the flexibility in case you know one or all of us come down sick with COVID-19. It's been known to happen.



5. If you're thinking about taking a step back from work, have you calculated not only the loss in earnings now, but the loss of retirement contributions and a wage penalty you may pay long term when you go back to work?



Luckily, we didn't have to do this math since my wife decided early on that she was willing to be a stay-at-home mom. Also, I am not sure how you can quantify the constant presence of a mom to a kid's wellbeing and overall family cohesion. This is a very personal and difficult decision that each family will have to decide itself; COVID19 just amplifies the criticality of this decision greatly.



6. You may be managing now without help, but are you stressed to a level that might lead to burnout?



Interestingly, my workload has become heavier since I started teleworking fulltime. There is definitely an expectation of extended availability by everyone, not just the leadership. Of course, communications in a virtual work environment have to more intentional and deliberate, requiring much more energy than face-to-face communications in which body language can pick up the load somewhat. So, burnout based on just increasing workload is a factor, but if I had to add 24X7 childcare on top of that, I would be shriveled black by now.



Ok, I've run out of space for more questions, but my mind was definitely made up after the first few questions. We are going to send out kid to school for in-person classes. Fortunately, our son's school offers that as an option, which is not true for many other schools. The biggest factor to our decision was that our son wanted to go back to school to be with his classmates. After six months of being cooped up in the house with only his parents for company, our son decided that his mental health would benefit greatly from being outside the home for a while. We wholeheartedly agree.



However, this isn't an easy or light decision. It's an agonizing decision that each family will have to make based on its risk tolerance and comfort level. What makes this decision possible is the trust we have in the school to try its best to make this work with the health and safety of the kids as the overriding driver. Hopefully, the 2020-2021 school year is a true aberration that my son will look back with lingering annoyance and amusement. For his parents, however, we will look back with a shudder at having to make an impossible choice.





Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture.


Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday tweeted on the occasion of Samvatsari, a day when the members of the Jain community forgive and seek forgiveness for their mistakes committed either knowingly or unknowingly from all living creatures.

"Michhami Dukkadam! May seeking forgiveness and being forgiving always be at the core of our personality. Our ethos teaches us to be large hearted and never carry grudges.

"Sharing what I had spoken about Samvatsari during one of the earlier episodes of #MannKiBaat," the Prime Minister tweeted.

Michhami Dukkadam is a phrase in ancient Prakrit language, found in Jain texts. It loosely translates to "may all the evil that has been done be fruitless". The idea is to seek forgiveness for one's bad deeds.

He shared a small clip wherein he had spoken about Samvatsari during one of his earlier episodes of the monthly radio programme 'Mann Ki Baat'.
Coronavirus Updates: An emergency use authorisation allows unapproved vaccine candidates to be used in high-risk groups for a limited period

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Across the world, the number of deaths has doubled to just over 800,000 since June 6, with 100,000 fatalities in the last 17 days alone, while more than 23 million cases have been registered.

And in Asia, South Korea, which had largely brought the virus under control, became the latest country to announce it would boost restrictions to try to stem a new outbreak.

Western Europe, particularly Spain, Italy Germany and France, has been enduring infection levels not seen in many months, sparking fears of a fully-fledged second wave.

The global toll from the new coronavirus has surpassed 800,000, according to an AFP count on Saturday, with numerous countries ramping up restrictions in an effort to battle an eruption of new cases.

The fresh COVID-19 cases were reported from 29 of the 30 districts of the state.

Three fresh fatalities were registered in Cuttack, two in Sundargarh and one each in Bolangir, Ganjam, Malkangiri and Rayagada districts, he said.

Odisha's COVID-19 tally rose to 75,537 on Saturday with the detection of 2,819 fresh infections, while nine more fatalities pushed its coronavirus death toll to 399, a health official told PTI.

The ministry's figures showed that three people died from disease caused by the virus, bringing total deaths to 35,430 in Italy since the pandemic began. Total infections number 258,136.

Italy recorded 1,071 new cases of the novel coronavirus in the last 24 hours, the worst daily number since lockdown was lifted in May, the health ministry reported on Saturday.

Three more persons aged 63 years, 55 years and 60 years of age lost their lives in Cachar, Kamrup and Sonitpur districts respectively, he added.

The persons affected included a 77-year-old from Kamrup Metropolitan district, which primarily cinsists of the Guwahati city. The others are a 77-year-old and a 60-year old from Dibrugarh district the fourth one is a 46-year old man from Jorhat, Sarma said.

The toll in Assam due to the pandemic rose to 234 with seven more succumbing to it, Health and Family Welfare Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Saturday. The seven deceased are from Jorhat, Dibrugarh, Cachar, Kamrup, Sonitpur and Kamrup Metropolitan districts, Sarma tweeted.

Indias coronavirus tally on Sunday breached the 30-lakh mark after the country reported 69,239 new cases in the last 24 hours. The countrys toll rose by 912 to 56,706. Of the overall tally of 30,44,940, India now has 7,07,668 active cases while more than 22 lakh people have recovered from the infection

"Twenty-three people have tested positive for COVID-19. Their reports were received on Saturday evening. On the same day, six patients recovered," District Magistrate Jasjit Kaur said. The officials said that a woman from Thanabhawan town died at a hospital on Saturday, taking the death toll to 15 in the district.

The number of active COVID-19 cases in Uttar Pradesh's Shamli district has increased to 150 with 23 people testing positive for the infection, officials told PTI on Sunday. The district also reported a death from the novel coronavirus and the toll now stands at 15, they said.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has said that 3,52,92,220 samples were tested for COVID-19 in the country till yesterday (August 22). Of these, 8,01,147 were tested yesterday.

There are 7,07,668 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which comprises 23.24 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.

With a single-day spike of 69,239 infections, the country's COVID-19 caseload mounted to 30,44,940, while the death toll climbed to 56,706 with 912 fatalities being reported in a span of 24-hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.The COVID-19 case fatality rate has declined to 1.86 percent.

India's COVID-19 tally sprinted past the 30-lakh mark, just 16 days after it crossed 20 lakh, while 22,80,566 people have recuperated in the country so far pushing the recovery rate to 74.90 per cent, according to the Union Health Ministry data.

The number of COVID-19 cases in Maharashtra's Thane district has gone up to 1,13,884 with 1,284 more people testing positive for the disease, a health official told PTI on Sunday. The fatality count in the district has reached 3,240 as 26 more people succumbed to the viral infection on Saturday, he said.

Rajasthan reports 697 new COVID-19 cases and 6 deaths today, taking the total cases to 69,961 including 950 deaths, 54,252 recoveries and 14,759 active cases

Health teams went to Saket Colony on Friday and to the hospital mentioned by the other two persons on Saturday to take them for treatment at a medical facility, the officials said. It was found that they had provided fake information, Chief Medical Officer Dr Praveen Chopda said.

Two of them claimed to be staffers of a hospital here, while the third person had given his address as Saket Colony, they said.

Three people who tested COVID-19 positive in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar district cannot be traced as they provided fake information and phone numbers during sample collection, officials said on Sunday.

The cumulative recoveries stood at 6,657, Director of Health and Family Welfare S Mohan Kumar said in a release here. A total of 1,282 samples were tested during the period.

The COVID-19 tally in the union territory rose to 10,522 and the toll mounted to 159 with the addition of 412 fresh cases and eight deaths, the Health Department said on Sunday. There were 3,706 active cases after the discharge of 350 patients in the last 24 hours ending at 10 AM.

After consultation with the home ministry and the health ministry, a standard operating procedure (SOP) has been firmed up, he said. According to the SOP, the actors facing the camera will be exempt from wearing masks. And crew members will have to adhere to the guidelines of the health ministry, reports NDTV.

According to Hindustan Times, Union information and broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar on Sunday said film and television programme production can be resumed with all the necessary health protocols in place amid Covid-19 pandemic.

Mukherjee was admitted to the hospital in Delhi Cantonment on 10 August and was operated for removal of a clot in the brain. He had also tested positive for COVID-19.

There is no change in the health of former President Pranab Mukherjee and he continues to remain on ventilator support, the Army''s Research and Referral hospital told PTI on Sunday. Doctors attending on the 84-year-old Mukherjee said his vital parameters are stable.

The state had last reported its highest single-day surge of 2,924 cases on 15 August.

Fifty-three other coronavirus patients have also died, but the cause of their deaths was attributed to some other reasons. Of the new 2,993 cases, 1,879 were reported from different quarantine centres, while the remaining 1,114 were detected during contact tracing, he said.

Odisha on Sunday registered its highest single-day spike of 2,993 COVID-19 cases and 10 more deaths due to the infection. With this, the state's COVID-19 death toll has mounted to 409 and the infection tally reached 78,530, a health official said.

Risk-based approach includes considerations such as intensity of transmission in the area, the child's ability to use masks, access to masks, adequate adult supervision, potential impact on learning and psycho-social development and interactions with people at high risk of developing serious illness, the organisation said in a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) document uploaded on August 21.

Children aged 12 and older should wear masks like adults while those aged 6-11 should wear them on a risk-based approach, the World Health Organisation has said, reports moneycontrol.

A Business Today report had said that India's first Covid vaccine-Serum Institute's 'Covishield'- will be commercialised in 73 days.

"COVISHIELD will be commercialized once trials are proven successful & requisite regulatory approvals are in place. Phase-3 trials for Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine are underway. Only once vaccine is proven immunogenic & efficacious,SII will confirm its availability officially," the company said.

"Presently, government has granted us permission to only manufacture the vaccine and stockpile it for future use." the company said, reports ANI.

Serum Institute of India clarified on Sunday that the current claims over COVISHIELD's availability, in the media are completely false and conjectural.

There is no scientific evidence that the drug works against COVID-19, a fact stressed not only by medical scientists but by some homeopathic practitioners themselves.

In its presentation made before the World Health Organisation on August 20 on Gujarat's COVID-19 prevention strategy, the health department said it distributed Arsenicum Album-30 to 3.48 crore people, which is more than half of the state's population of 6.6 crore.

The Gujarat health department has said it distributed homeopathic drug Arsenicum Album-30 to more than half of the state's population as prophylaxis since March after the outbreak of COVID-19, reports PTI.

PTI has earlier reported how perhaps for the first time the Railways has refunded more than it has earned from ticket bookings, registering a negative passenger segment revenue of Rs 1,066 crore in the COVID-19-hit first quarter of 2020-21.

The RTI has found that the Railways, which had suspended its passenger train services since 25 March, cancelled 1,78,70,644 tickets.

The Railways has cancelled more than 1.78 crore tickets since March this year due to the coronavirus pandemic and refunded an amount to the tune of Rs 2,727 crore, a RTI has found.

The cluster at Sungei Tengah Lodge was among the largest in Singapore before the dormitory was declared cleared of COVID-19 by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) on Jul 21, the Channel News Asia reported.

Two of the new COVID-19 cases reported in Singapore on Saturday were linked to 55 previous cases to form a new cluster at Sungei Tengah Lodge dormitory at 500 Old Choa Chu Kang Road, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said.

A new COVID-19 cluster has been reported in Singapore's biggest dormitory housing foreign workers, including Indian nationals, about a month after it was declared to be fully cleared of the coronavirus.

E-passes are not required to travel to and from Puducherry, announced the Union Territory administration today, reports ANI.

Ripunjoy Kakoti and Roushan's wife were also afflicted with the disease, the officials said. Chetia and Kakoti were suffering from fever and cough and their swab samples were tested. Roushan and his wife tested positive for the infection during raping antigen tests and were advised home isolation, they said. Dhubri Superintendent of Police Anand Mishra hadtested positive for COVID-19 last week. A total of 3,310 Assam Police personnel, including Director General of Police Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, have tested positive for the infection till date. Eleven police personnel have died, while 2,698 have recovered and 601 are undergoing treatment, officials said.

Three senior Assam Police officers, including two Superintendents of Police, have tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday, health officials said. Tinsukia SP Shiladitya Chetia and his Kokrajhar counterpart Rakesh Roushan have tested positive for the infection, they said. Tinsukia's Additional Superintendent of Police

With the addition of 1,101 new coronavirus positive cases on Sunday, Gujarat's COVID-19 count climbed to 86,779, the state health department said. The toll in the state reached 2,897 as 14 patients succumbed to the infection during the day, it said. As 972 patients were discharged from various hospitals on Sunday, the total number of recovered cases in the state rose to 69,229, the department said in a release. The state has now achieved the recovery rate of 80 per cent, it said adding that the number of active cases stood at 14,653.

The number of COVID-19 cases in Ahmedabad district rose by 177 to 30,197 on Sunday, the Gujarat health department said. With five more fatalities, all from the city, the toll reached 1,685, it said. This is the fourth day in a row that Ahmedabad has been reporting more than 150 cases in a day. A total of 172 patients were discharged in the day, taking the number of recoveries to 25,104. Of the 177 cases, 153 infections were reported from Ahmedabad city while 24 cases were reported from rural parts of the district, the health department said.

The chorus for postponing various examinations, including NEET and JEE, grew louder on Sunday with over 4,000 students observing a day-long hunger strike to press for the demand in view of rising COVID-19 cases. The protest came on a day Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the government must listen to the 'mann ki baat' of students and arrive at "an acceptable solution" and his party demanded that the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) and the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) be deferred.

The man in the viral photo is seen pouring liquor in a glass from a bottle while sitting on a hospital bed while food items served in aluminium foil containers are in front of him. A handcuff is also seen dangling from his right wrist. Katras police station officer-in-charge Ras Bihari Lal identified the man as 30-year-old Shantu Gupta, who was arrested on the charges of extortion on Thursday and was forwarded to jail. As he tested positive for coronavirus infection, the police admitted him to the central hospital of Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), which was converted to a dedicated COVID19 facility, on Friday.

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Sunday orderedan investigation after a photo purportedly showing a COVID-19 positive prisoner drinking alcohol inside a hospital ward in Dhanbad went viral. One person tweeted the photo to the chief minister and he retweeted it directing Dhanbad Deputy Commissioner Umashankar Singh to probe the matter and take action against those who were responsible for the irregularity. Singh said that the sub-divisional magistrate and the sub-divisional police officer concerned would carry out the investigation. "The chief minister has been informed of the progress of the probe," he said.

China has authorised emergency usage of COVID-19 vaccines developed by some select domestic companies, a Chinese health official has said. An emergency use authorisation, which is based on Chinese vaccine management law, allows unapproved vaccine candidates to be used among people who are at high risk of getting infected on a limited period. "We've drawn up a series of plan packages, including medical consent forms, side-effects monitoring plans, rescuing plans, compensation plans, to make sure that the emergency use is well regulated and monitored," Zheng Zhongwei, head of China's coronavirus vaccine development task force, told state-run CCTV on Saturday. One month has passed since China officially launched the urgent use of COVID-19 vaccines on 22 July, while the vaccines were going through clinical trials, Zheng said. Recipients who got their first dose since then revealed they had few adverse reactions and none reported a fever.

coronavirus death toll to 610, a health bulletin said. The fresh infections have taken the total number of COVID-19 cases in the state to 1,22,155, it said. Patna district reported the highest number of new cases at 203, followed by Begusarai (159), Muzaffarpur (127), Bhagalpur (115) and Saharsa (120), the bulletin said.

Bihar's COVID-19 caseload rose to 1.22 lakh on Sunday as 2,247 more people tested positive for the infection, while nine fresh fatalities pushed the state's

of COVID-19, this contagion has not even spared me. But, I am not showing any symptoms. My request to all please stay at home and follow the guidelines of the government," he tweeted. Mahapatra is now in home isolation at his Panskura residence in Purba Medinipur district, sources said.

West Bengal Environment Minister Soumen Mahapatra on Sunday said he has tested positive for COVID-19. Stating that he is asymptomatic, the minister urged people who had come in contact with him recently to be in home isolation. "In the present alarming situation due to the outbreak

Tamil Nadu Health Minister Vijayabaskar on Sunday inaugurated a plasma bank at a government hospital, the second in the state, to treat COVID-19 patients. The Rs 25 lakh facility is established with an aim to collect and store plasma from those who have recovered from the disease and help coronavirus patients recuperate quickly, he said. Last month, the government set up the first plasma bank at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General hospital in Chennai.

The push on Sunday came a day after Trump tweeted sharp criticism on the process to treat the virus, which has killed more than 175,000 Americans and imperiled his re-election chances.

Pushing for breakthroughs in treatments for the coronavirus, White House officials suggested Sunday there were politically motivated delays by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in approving a vaccine and therapeutics for the disease. The accusations, the latest assault from President Donald Trumps team on the so-called deep state bureaucracy, were presented without evidence and just hours before Trump was set to hold a news conference to announce an apparent advancement in therapeutics. This president is about cutting red tape, said White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. He had to make sure that they felt the heat. If they dont see the light, they need to feel the heat because the American people are suffering.

Coronavirus LATEST Updates: China has authorised emergency usage of COVID-19 vaccines developed by some select domestic companies, a Chinese health official has said.

The first serological survey in Assam was launched by the Minister of state for Health and Family Welfare Pijush Hazarika on Sunday to assess whether people surveyed have developed immunity to novel coronavirus.

Children aged 12 and older should wear masks like adults while those aged 6-11 should wear them on a 'risk-based approach', the World Health Organisation has said

According to the SOP, the actors facing the camera will be exempt from wearing masks. And crew members will have to adhere to the guidelines of the health ministry

Of the overall tally of 30,44,940, India now has 7,07,668 active cases while more than 22 lakh people have recovered from the infection

India's coronavirus case count raced past 30 lakh on Saturday, showed an unofficial tally based on information provided by staes and Union territories, while the toll rose to 56,762 and recoveries climbed to 22,71,054.

India is the third-worst affected country by the viral infection, said news agency PTI, which compiled the data.

The virus has claimed over eight lakh lives globally.

However, according to data released by Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Saturday morning, the overall case count in India has climbed to 29,75,701 with the country recording its highest single-day spike of 69,874 new coronavirus cases. The toll climbed to 55,794 with 945 fatalities being reported in a span of 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.

But the number of recoveries also surged to 22,22,577 pushing the recovery rate to 74.69 percent on Saturday while the fatality rate dipped to 1.87 percent, said the ministry.

India on Saturday also crossed the significant milestone of having conducted over 10 lakh tests in a day for the detection of the novel coronavirus, with more than 3.44 crore such tests conducted so far.

The COVID-19 case count in Telangana crossed the one-lakh mark with 2,474 new cases while the toll touched 744. In Jharkhand, Chief Minister Hemant Soren said his father, veteran Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Shibu Soren, and his mother Roopi, tested positive for the viral infection and are placed in home quarantine.

Recoveries exceed active cases by 15 lakh, says health ministry

The home ministry, in its morning update, said that there are 6,97,330 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country, comprising 23.43 percent of the total caseload in the country.

While the country's COVID-19 case count has surged to 29.75 lakh, the total number of recoveries has surged to 22,22,577 and exceed active cases by over 15 lakh as on date, it said.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, at the inauguration of a make-shift NDRF hospital in Ghaziabad, said that India has the "best" COVID-19 recovery rate, which is improving every day, and the "lowest" mortality rate in the world.

Taking a potshot at government critics, Vardhan said "many intelligent people, scientists and naysayers" had estimated that India, with a population of about 135 crore, will see 30 crore COVID-19 cases and about 50-60 lakh people will die by July-August, and the country's healthcare system was "incapable" to combat the disease.

"However, I am happy to say that in the eighth month of the battle, India has the best recovery rate of 75 percent and against an estimate of 30 crore affected we have not even reached 30 lakh cases."

"In fact, 22 lakh patients have recovered and gone home and another seven lakh are going to be cured very soon," he said.

The minister said these successes were achieved due to the "coordinated" efforts with the participation of everyone  the government and the people.

Centre asks states to ensure unrestricted movement of goods, people

Meanwhile, the Centre asked all states to ensure that there are no restrictions on inter-state and intra-state movement of persons and goods during the ongoing unlocking process. In a communication to chief secretaries of all states and Union Territories, Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla said there were reports that local level restrictions on movement were being imposed by various districts and states.

Drawing attention to the Unlock-3 guidelines, Bhalla said such restrictions are creating problems in inter-state movement of goods and services and are impacting supply chains, resulting in disruption of economic activity and employment.

The unlock guidelines clearly state that there shall be no restrictions on inter-state and intra-state movement of persons and goods, he said in the letter. The guidelines also stated that no separate permission, approval or e-permit will be required for movement of persons and goods for cross land border trade under treaties with neighbouring countries.

The home secretary said the restrictions amount to violation of the guidelines issued by Ministry of Home Affairs under provisions of Disaster Management Act, 2005.

JMM chief Shibu Soren tests positive

Rajya Sabha MP and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) president Shibu Soren and wife Roopi have tested positive for COVID-19, his son and Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren said.

Taking to Twitter, the chief minister said "respected father Dishom Guru ji" and mother were diagnosed with the disease on Friday night, and they are undergoing home quarantine. The 76-year-old president of the ruling JMM in the state is revered as 'guruji' (master) by his followers.

                                              Hemant Soren (   -  ) (@HemantSorenJMM) August 22, 2020



"With the blessings of the people of Jharkhand and the entire country, they will soon be among us, the CM tweeted.

Seven other members of the JMM chief's household have also tested positive for the viral infection, reported news agency PTI quoting official sources.

The chief minister, who lives at his official residence, close to the JMM chief's government bungalow, will undertake the test on Monday -- third time in two months. Earlier, Hemant had taken the test on two separate occasions  first time after coming in contact with infected

Cabinet colleague Mithilesh Thakur, and the second time after 17 employees at his office were diagnosed with the disease.

On Tuesday, state health minister Banna Gupta was diagnosed with the disease.

Punjab minister tests positive

In Punjab, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said that Cooperation and Jails Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa has tested positive for COVID-19.

"I wish him a speedy recovery and look forward to him joining us at work soon," said Singh.

My Cabinet colleague and Cooperation & Jails Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa has tested positive for #Covid19. I wish him a speedy recovery and look forward to him joining us at work soon.  Capt.Amarinder Singh (@capt_amarinder) August 22, 2020

Former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's residence in Muktsar district was declared as a micro containment zone after five security personnel posted there tested positive, a health official told PTI.

Punjab on Saturday reported 45 deaths and 1,320 fresh infections, pushing the death count to 1,036 and total infections to 40,643.

Telangana's case count crosses one lakh

Telangana's overall case count rose to 1,01,865 as 2,474 new cases were added. With seven more people succumbing to the virus, the toll in the state mounted to 744. However, the state's recovery rate at 77.29 percent was higher than the country's recovery rate of 74.69 percent.

Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and West Bengal were among the other states which added high numbers to their case tallies.

While Maharashtra reported 14,492 new cases and 297 deaths, Andhra Pradesh reported over 10,000 fresh infections. The overall count in the southern state climbed to 3,45,216 and the toll mounted to 3,189.

Gujarat its highest single-day spike of 1,212 new COVID-19 cases, taking the total count of infections to 85,678, the state health department said. The number of fatalities rose by 14, including six in Surat, which is the highest in the state, to 2,883, it said.

A total of 980 patients were discharged in the day, taking the number of recoveries to 68,257, the department said, adding that the recovery rate has reached 80 percent.

With a record 3,232 new cases in a single day, West Bengal's caseload went up to 1,35,596. The toll reached 2,737 with 48 more people succumbing to the disease, said a bulletin issued by the state health department.

With inputs from agencies
Bishop Stephen Mamza, Chairman, Christians Association Nigeria (CAN), Adamawa Chapter, has tested positive for COVID-19. Mamza, who is a m...

Bishop Stephen Mamza, Chairman, Christians Association Nigeria (CAN), Adamawa Chapter, has tested positive for COVID-19.

Mamza, who is a member of Adamawa State COVID-19 Committee, confirmed the development in a statement on Sunday in Yola.

The Bishop said that the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), had confirmed his positive status.

He said: Today (Sunday), the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), confirmed to me that I am COVID-19 positive and I have to go into total isolation.

One lesson that I want people to appreciate and understand is that everybody has to make himself available for testing if need be.

Meanwhile, he noted that testing positive for the virus was not a death sentence, urging people to pray for him and all who tested positive.

He urged the general public to take COVID-19 protocols seriously in order to help stop the spread of the pandemic.

Mamza said in compliance with COVID-19 protocols he had gone into self-isolation and already started treatment.

NAN
A decade ago it became obvious to many scientists the future of Louisianas fight for coastal life would depend on the news from three sources: the ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica, the policies coming from Washington D.C.  and the person you see in a mirror.

Given those markers, I sought an update on that news from experts in those fields, including Virginia Burkett, chief scientist for Climate and Land Use Change at the U.S. Geological Survey; Torbjorn Tornqvist, Tulane professor and climate researcher; and Donald Boesch, former head of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, and a longtime contributor to Louisianas coastal planning and research.

And this year, like the previous 10, the news was mostly bad.

The best summary from them goes like this: While coastal residents over 40 likely wont be facing climate Armageddon in their lifetimes, any chance future generations have for living below I-10 will depend on current generations dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the next 20 to 30 years.

So we have a window of reasonable opportunity for our children and grandchildren to live sustainability here through the end of this century, but that window is closing fast.

Heres why.

If the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica melt into the oceans they could raise world sea level as much as 200 feet, easily drowning the bottom third of Louisiana as well as most coastal areas on the planet.

Until 20 years ago that wasnt an issue because there was hardly a trickle melting from those ice sheets and scientists didnt expect that to change. Indeed, the 2001 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded, thermal expansion is expected to contribute the largest component to sea level rise over the next hundred years.

Scientists at that time admitted climate and ice sheet research was just developing, and their projections could be off. Unfortunately, they were not even close.

The latest IPCC report (2019) shows sea level rise has more than doubled in the last decade and the melting of ice sheets and glaciers is responsible for two-thirds of that increase.

And recent news was just as bad. Research shows Greenland is melting seven times faster than previously thought, while glaciers on Antarctica are flowing more rapidly into the ocean.

The root cause of the faster melting is well known: The nation and worlds failures to limit the amount of carbon emissions, which is driving the warming, causing oceans to swell from ice melt and thermal expansion.

And that brings us to the news from Washington, D.C.

Because the U.S. (15%) is second only to China (28%) in total emissions, it is key to meeting those global reduction goals while that window is still open. U.S. leadership is also considered key in coaxing developing nations to participate as well as pushing China to keep its promises to cut emissions.

But President Donald Trump, long a denier of the science and the evidence of warming, has spent the last four years rolling back emissions regulations put in place by both presidents Obama and Bush. U.S. emissions have dropped some due to the economic downturn in the current recession, but regulations that could keep that progress moving have been scrapped.

Sadly, he was supported by Louisianas GOP congressional delegation  from the state whose future most depends on reducing emissions.

Which leads us to the news from that final critical source for Louisianas coast: The face in your mirror.

The fight for a coastal future here cannot be won without a commitment from everyone to win the battle of emissions. Voting for congressmen who oppose emissions regulations is a vote to drown this coast because our salvation depends on national action.

To be clear, this issue is not critical to the future for older residents here. While we are already suffering the effects of warming (stronger hurricanes, more frequent house-flooding rainstorms, and higher, deeper-reaching storm surges) our levees and floodwalls will keep the rising Gulf away for the rest of our lives.

But what we do over the next 20 to 30 years can give the next generations a chance to live here while working to solve even longer-term challenges.

And any progress toward that goal will be determined in the news you get from Greenland, Antarctica, Washington D.C.  and the face in your mirror.

Bob Marshall, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Louisiana environmental journalist, can be reached at bmarshallenviro@gmail.com.
The Canadarm2 robotic arm maneuvers JAXA's (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) H-II Transfer Vehicle-9 (HTV-9) into release position after uninstalling it from the Harmony module. The HTV-9 resupply ship arrived at the International Space Station on May 25 delivering four tons of food, fuel, crew supplies and station experiments to the Expedition 63 crew. Credit: NASA.

SpaceCast Weekly is a NASA Television broadcast from the Johnson Space Center in Houston featuring stories about NASA's work in human spaceflight.

They include the International Space Station and its crews and scientific research activities, and the development of Orion and the Space Launch System, the next generation American spacecraft being built to take humans farther into space than they've ever gone before.

Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- An asteroid has a small chance of heading towards Earth on Nov. 2, the day before the U.S. election, according to recent reports.

According to NASA data, the asteroid, dubbed 2018VP1 is small, with an estimated diameter of 1.8 to 3.9 meters, Business Insider reported.

The asteroid is only 0.41% likely to impact the Earth, but celestial objects at this small size tend to burn up in the atmosphere, NASA told the media outlet.

Asteroid 2018VP1 is very small, approximately 6.5 feet, and poses no threat to Earth, a spokesperson for NASA told Business Insider. If it were to enter our planets atmosphere, it would disintegrate due to its extremely small size.

The asteroid had a few close encounters with Earth dating back to 1970, last visiting in November 2018 when it was discovered at Californias Palomar Observatory, according to CNN.

Now after a two-year orbit around the sun, it will come within 4,800 and 260,000 miles of our atmosphere, Business Insider reported, according to NASA data. To compare, the International Space Station (ISS) sits about 254 miles above Earth, according to the media outlet.

Earlier this month, an SUV-sized asteroid set the record for coming closer to Earth than any other known Near Earth Asteroid (NEAs), according to a NASA press release.

It passed 1,830 miles above the southern Indian Ocean on Aug. 16. At roughly 10 to 20 feet across, the asteroid 2020 QG is very small by asteroid standards and if it had actually been on an impact trajectory, it would have likely become a fireball as it broke up in the Earths atmosphere.

NASA said there are hundreds of millions of small asteroids the size of 2020 QG but they are extremely hard to discover until they get very close to Earth. The vast majority of NEAs pass by safely at much greater distances, usually much farther away than the moon.

In 2005, Congress assigned NASA the goal of finding 90% of the near-Earth asteroid that are about 460 feet or larger in size, NASA said. These larger asteroids pose a much greater threat if they were to impact and they can be detected much farther away from Earth because their rate of motion across the sky is typically much smaller at that distance, the space agency said.

Its quite an accomplishment to find these tiny close-in asteroids in the first place, because they pass by so fast, said Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Theres typically only a short window of a couple of days before or after close approach when this small of an asteroid is close enough to Earth to be bright enough, but not so close that it moves too fast in the sky to be detected by a telescope.

In August 2019, six asteroids were heading toward Earth and one was reportedly bigger than the Empire State Building. However, the asteroids didnt make impact on our planet.

A potentially hazardous asteroid that was about 1,900 feet in diameter with a speed of 10,000 miles per hour was about 5 million miles from Earth when it flew past Earth at the time, according to NASAs Center for Near Earth Object Studies.

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The Austro-Slovenian border witnessed large-scale traffic jams on Saturday night due to increased border controls, enforced due to the pandemic.

Anyone who wishes to enter Austria needs to register their personal information with the border patrol, as ordered by the Austrian government. This also applies to those travelling through the country.

As a result, vehicles waited up to ten hours to pass through the Karawanks Tunnel, while passengers in the Loibl Tunnel had to wait up to seven. Mostly Dutch and German tourists were affected, and many have filed a complaint with local authorities.

The Karawanks Tunnel reportedly has relaxed in terms of traffic, while authorities still expect a few hours of waiting to cross the Austrian border via the Loibl crossing.
US-Led Soldiers Withdraw From Iraqs Camp Taji Base: Military

U.S.-led troops have been withdrawn from Iraqs Taji base, coming after missile attacks earlier this year, as the facility was handed over to Iraqi security forces over the weekend.

The coalition confirmed the development on Sunday in a statement.

The movement of coalition military personnel is part of a long-range plan coordinated with the government of Iraq, the Combined Joint Task ForceOperation Inherent Resolve said.

The statement added that Camp Taji, located about 50 miles north of Baghdad, the capital, is a prime location for training. Coalition troops were sent there to combat the rise of the ISIS terrorist group in Iraq and Syria, but the base came under attack from Iran-backed militias in the region, who fired rockets at the facility several times in 2020.

This is truly a historic day, said Maj. Gen. Kenneth Ekman, the deputy commander of the task force. For the past six years, Camp Taji has served as a primary installation for Coalition partners to train the Iraqi Army, Iraqi Air Force, and the Qwat al-Khasah. The Coalitions efforts have enabled the Iraqis to train themselves. From this day forward, the ISF will take full responsibility for the facilities and programs at Taji and continue to use the site to lead and conduct training as part of the mission to defeat Daesh remnants.

The coalition said that some 2,000 coalition members historically were stationed at Camp Taji, but many of them departed over the summer. The remaining coalition troops will depart in the coming days after the base and equipment is handed over to Iraqi security forces.

Sundays announcement marks the eighth transfer of a coalition portion of an Iraqi base back to Iraqi forces.

President Donald Trump (L) welcomes Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi to the White House in Washington, on Aug. 20, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The withdrawal just days after President Donald Trump, in a meeting with Iraqs prime minister, stated that he would withdraw American soldiers from Iraq. The United States has approximately 5,000 soldiers in Iraq, while about 2,500 coalition troops are still there.

This is what success looks like, said Australian Brig. Gen. Simon Johnstone, CJTF-OIR director of strategy, in a statement. The transfer of bases like Taji is part of our campaign plan for the ISF to secure their own future and defend Iraqi sovereignty. The tremendous efforts by the ISF and the Coalition demonstrate our shared commitment from the Coalition and Australia to ensure safety, security, and stability for Iraqi citizens.

Earlier this year, in the midst of heightened Iran-U.S. tensions, Iraqs parliament voted for the departure of American and other foreign troops from Iraq. The vote came after the United States authorized the airstrike of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, who officials said killed hundreds of U.S. troops over the years and was plotting more attacks on American assets in the region. Iran then launched a volley of rockets at two Iraqi bases housing U.S. forces, causing dozens of minor injures.
23.08.2020 LISTEN

This article recognizes that youths are social public actors with their own conceptualizations and lived experience, multiplex identities and community standings; though not homogeneous. Therefore, it is intractable to provide a clear cut definition of youth that would depict the lived experience of all youths in general.

Democracy and Youths:

There is an in general reluctance by youths activists on the continent of Africa to associate themselves with politics due to lack of trust in their current elected leaders. Also, there is a perception among youths in Africa that politicians are dishonest, corrupt, and that politics is bad.

The political system in Africa is mostly democratic in nature as it is controlled by the impact of international forces and a number of African feudal aristocrats, political leaders, bureaucrats and organizations. Democratic elections in Africa for the most part, are changing actors but same old scripts, and enormous corruption. Moreover, without youths participation and representation, democratic society could be undermined, because for democracy to function well all parts of society must be included. Its time to stop castigating youth and instead try to understand and evaluate with compassion why disengaging is often their duck position.

Young people are frequently less engaged in the overall political processes across the continent, and young people feel that they have little opportunity to participate in politics, but their role in democratic process is totally important. Therefore, lack of political efficacy of youth has influenced their behavior towards politics. As such , they have insufficient trust in political parties, governments, and politicians. When young people are disenfranchised or less engaged from political processes, a significant portion of the population has little or no voice or influence in decisions that affect them. This leads to consequences undermining of democratic systems. Young people are not only participating less than adults, but their levels of contribution are declining at a more rapid rate. African youths are less likely to vote in national elections, engage in public behavior or sign up others in raising an issue, compared to their elders.

The role of youths in nation-building is more important than anyone might think. In other words, the brains and work of the youth will take Africa on the right lane to success. AU also acknowledged the importance of investing in young people by adopting the African Youth Charter about 12 years ago and later declared 2009 to 2018 the African Youth Decade. It developed an action plan to empower youth and promote their participation in politics as events in many African countries and various surveys, have shown, plans to get more youth elected to political office have not been translated into action, and it is a clear evidence that the participation of young people in formal, institutional political processes is low when compared to older citizens across the continent.

Youths are the building blocks of any country, and it is a well-known reality that the youth of any country is a prodigious asset. They are indeed the future of the country and should be represented at every level. In other words, the participation and representation of youths will take the continent on the pathway of success. Young people participation at every level of the development process will enhance their capacity and provide the needed experience for the future growing responsibilities.

Youths Participation:

Most youth initiatives on the continent, however, appear to be more about given jobs and good education than partaking in the opinionated political system, plus representation. According to the United nation development programme (UNDP), youths are sociologically described as young individuals transitioning from adolescence to adulthood. The focus on youth, in terms of their engagement in the political arena, is a relatively new priority but extremely timely, particularly in light of recent events and democratic transitions in the continent. Africa has the youngest population globally, with people under the age of 35 years accounting for nearly 70% of the total population.

This young demographic in Africa holds an enormous quantity of energy that can be used in addressing the continent's many social, cultural, financial, political and ideological challenges. The effectiveness with which the continent will deploy policies, and structures for youths engagement, and participation in political processes will largely determines whether the growing number of youths will have a positive or a negative impact on democracy. This is because only young people can set up the pathway for the attainment of equal rights which is still not in practice in many parts of Africa, and put an end to corruption and bribery.

According to the UNDP some countries in the continent have resorted to affirmative action to ensure youth are represented, Uganda reserves five seats in its parliament for youth representatives. In Kenya, 12 parliamentary seats are reserved for representatives to be nominated by political parties to represent special interests, including youth, people with disabilities and workers. In Rwanda, the National Youth Council elects two members to the chamber of deputies, and in Morocco, the election law includes 30 seats reserved for candidates under the age of 40 years. All of these present an enormous opportunity for young people to get actively involved in social, and political issues. As patriotic citizens, their participation will help in promoting national integration, and serving as brimming rivers for empowering the masses in expressing solidarity.

Youths As Double Edged Sword:

Youths have a vital role in the political arenas in Africa. They need to be adequately represented in political institutions, processes, and decision-making, and particularly in elections. Young people must know their rights and be given the necessary knowledge and capacity to participate in a meaningful way at all levels. This will subsequently lead to strengthening political structure. Youths are double-edged swords for the continent. While it is true that youth can spur innovation, creativity, social change, economic growth, and enterprise all of which enhance development, if young people are not well managed, and involved into political representations it can fuel instability, violent protest, and conflict. When there are obstacles to participating in formal, institutionalized political processes, young people can rapidly feel disempowered. And, youths often tend to believe that their voices are not been heard, and they are not being taken seriously despite their sensitivity to the demands for social equity and justice, which often leads to youths involvement in freedom or independence struggles, mobilizing and campaigning against autocratic governments, and championing opposition to virtual forms of democratic governments.

Youth protests have contributed to changing national leaders, and governments in many African countries over the past years. Early in 2019, Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika was ousted following months of youth-led street demonstrations. Around the same time, in April, Sudan youths-led revolution and thousands filled the streets of Khartoum demanding a civilian government, and that protest caused the removal of President Omar al-Bashir. Media reports on streets of these demonstrations routinely highlight the active presence of youth at the helm of these political and social discontents across the continent.

All of these protests were the result of a dangerous combination of a lack of job opportunities, poor economic growth, lack of youth representation, and involvement in decision making. In many African countries , youths are not given opportunities to prove themselves with the excuse that they are not sufficiently experienced to participate actively in the governance of the country. Almost all the major political parties on the continent seem to be functioning under the monopoly of old leaders. In parts of Africa where youths are afforded the opportunity to participate in politics, young people continue to demonstrate the transformational value they can bring to governance. In countries such as Mali, South Sudan, Liberia, and the Central African Republic, young people have become human rights observers, and civil society activists, and countries such as Burundi, Central African Republic and Gabon, young people were active in voicing their discontent over a variety of issues, including free and fair elections.

Africa desperately needs young leaders who are energetic, enthusiastic, morally sound and diligent. The youth of modern day Africa are aware of the problems facing our various countries and the continent at large. Given a chance they would be willing to change the political condition of the continent for the better, and our development will proceed much faster if we have more young torchbearers to light the way. I am also not saying that old people should leave the political scene. Old people should realize that they must make way for younger people to take control of the activities, but again as Franz Fanon predicted, as a generation, they seem to be discovering their historical mission and seeking ways to fulfil it.

Prinston Anthony Sieh Moosh Nimene is a Liberian and a master candidate at Cavendish University Uganda, studying international relations and diplomacy.
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Nigerias First Lady Aisha Buhari and her daughter, Hanan have reportedly escaped a plane crash. The private jet both women were tra...

Nigerias First Lady Aisha Buhari and her daughter, Hanan have reportedly escaped a plane crash.

The private jet both women were travelling on was reported to have lost control while on its way to Nigeria from the UAE

The private jet with registration number GIV N52MK is said to belong to her in-law, Mohammed Indimi.

The jet reportedly lost complete control for 10 minutes while only one hour away from approaching the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.

SaharaReporters, reports that the members of the first family needed medical treatment and examination on arrival.

The Presidents wife is said to be in good health, however.





Recall that Aisha Buhari was reported to have been flown to Dubai for a neck pain treatment.
NEW YORK, Aug. 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Teck Resources Limited (Teck or the Company) (NYSE: TECK). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at newaction@pomlaw.com or 888-476-6529, ext. 7980.



The investigation concerns whether Teck and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices.

[Click here for information about joining the class action]

On August 19, 2020, Canadas federal government announced its decision to join in an environmental assessment of a significant expansion to Tecks Castle coal mine in British Columbia. The office of Canadas Environment Minister stated that the decision was reached after analyzing the projects potential to cause adverse effects within areas of federal jurisdiction.

On this news, Tecks stock price fell $0.82 per share, or 6.47%, to close at $11.86 per share on August 20, 2020.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Paris is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com.
By Trend

Azerbaijan provided constructive engagement in negotiations on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but Armenia continued destructive policy, Assistant to Azerbaijans President - Head of the Foreign Affairs Policy Department of the Presidential Administration Hikmat Hajiyev said in an interview with TRT World, Trend reports.

Hajiyev said that initially, when Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan came to power, Azerbaijan had expectations that he could probably pursue a different policy than the previous Armenian leadership.

He recalled the meeting of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Tajikistans capital city of Dushanbe.

Hajiyev said that Armenian prime minister asked for some time to make a house cleaning in Armenia and prepare for the parliamentary elections and so on.

From Azerbaijans perspective, we have provided constructive engagement in the negotiation process and giving it time and also trying from our side to ensure a ceasefire regime, but unfortunately we have not seen reciprocity from Armenian side, he added.

Armenian government continued their destructive policy, Hajiyev said.

He emphasized that the core of this policy starts from the offensive military doctrine of Armenia that calls for new territories and new wars.

Then Armenian Security Minister said that no inch of [occupied] territory of Azerbaijan should be given back, and then Pashinyan said that Nagorno-Karabakh is Armenia, full stop, Hajiyev noted.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
B ig companies should carry out random drug tests on their staff, Shaun Bailey has said.

The Conservative London mayor candidate said the aim of mandatory drugs tests on staff would not be to get people fired, but to change the culture around drug use.

People who buy drugs are "funding the criminals who...unleash mayhem" on London's streets, he argued.

London is by far the biggest consumer of cocaine in Europe with a market worth 1 billion per year, a study by King's College London claimed last year.

London is the biggest consumer of cocaine in Europe / PA

In an open letter addressed to Londons business leaders, he wrote: "This is a huge problem. Drug use is not only a crime in itself; drug use is a direct cause of crime, from county lines gangs to stabbings on our streets.

"When people buy drugs, they are funding the criminals who traffic vulnerable kids and unleash mayhem on our streets.

"So as mayor, Ill call for every business in London with over 250 employees to sign up to a drug testing charter."

Mr Bailey, 49, who grew up in a council house in Ladbroke Grove, west London, was a youth worker with gang members for 20 years.

Shaun Bailey, Conservative candidate for the Mayor of London / Getty Images

"The purpose of this charter is not to get employees fired or shamed. Individual results will be anonymous, he said.

"The purpose is to change our culture. City Hall will publish an annual league table showing which companies have the highest and lowest rates of drug use.

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"Becausethe way to start tackling a problem is to shine a light on it."

Additional reporting by the Press Association
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says Australia's economy won't recover until the Victorian coronavirus outbreak is brought under control and the state is pulled out of lockdown.

Treasury analysis released on Monday predicts the national jobless rate will climb above 13 per cent in the coming weeks, up from 9.9 per cent last month.

Mr Frydenberg blamed Victoria's lockdown and border closures for stifling the national jobs recovery, of which NSW is emerging as the leader.

'There is still a long way to go through this crisis and high frequency data is showing signs that the jobs recovery may be slowing as state border closures have been tightened,' he said.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is excited about the jobs market bounceback being led by NSW. Pictured: coronavirus jobless queue in April outside Centrelink in Melbourne

EFFECTIVE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE PER STATE 2020 State April May June July NSW 15.8 13.5 10.4 8.5 VIC 14.6 13.1 11.7 10.5 QLD 15.1 15.2 12.1 11.4 SA 15.3 13.7 11.2 9.8 WA 14.4 14.4 10.7 9.8 TAS 14.1 14.5 10.8 7.9 NT 11.2 11.3 12.3 12.1 ACT 9.8 8.3 6.2 5.2 AUSTRALIA 14.9 13.9 11.2 9.9 Source: Treasurer Josh Frydenberg

In NSW, which recorded four new coronavirus cases on Sunday, 69.4 per cent of jobs lost during the first lockdown have been regained.

Victoria has clawed back only 44.3 per cent of jobs suspended or lost since the first lockdowns and Queensland only 39.2 per cent.

The new Treasury figures show Queensland's tight border closures have led the state to the slowest recovery.

Queensland had the highest effective unemployment rate, behind the Northern Territory, at 11.4 per cent, the Treasury modelling showed.

Treasury modelling shows 315,000 NSW workers have regained their employment since the worst of the pandemic hit in April, even after being isolated by other states.

JOBS RECOVERY IN YOUR STATE NEW SOUTH WALES - Strongest recovery since April - 315,000 people gaining effective employment since April - Recovered 69.4% of those unemployed in April compared to March - Effective unemployment down from 15.8% in April to 8.5% in July VICTORIA - Nearly half of those employed but working zero hours for July are in Victoria - In April before the second outbreak only 30% of zero hour workers came from Victoria - Treasury expects lockdowns to hurt the labour market in future months - Effective unemployment rate expected to increase above 13% - Predicted increase of 450,000 people effectively unemployed in August and September over July - Effective unemployment rate down from 14.6% in April to 10.5% in July. QUEENSLAND - 100,000 people gained effective employment since April - 39.2% recovery in April over March - 14.5% of people stood down on zero hours going back to work - Effective unemployment rate down from 15.1% in April to 11.4% in July WESTERN AUSTRALIA - 67,000 people gained effective employment since April - 51.1% per cent recovery in April over March - 9.7% of people stood down on zero hours going back to work - Effective unemployment rate down from 14.4% in April to 9.8% in July SOUTH AUSTRALIA - 51,000 people gained effective employment since April - 62.2% recovery in April over March - 7.4% per cent of people stood down on zero hours going back to work - Effective unemployment rate down from 15.3% in April to 9.8% in July TASMANIA - 17,000 people gained effective employment since April - 68% recovery in April over March - 2.5% of people stood down on zero hours going back to work - Effective unemployment rate down from 14.1% in April to 7.9% in July Source: Treasurer Josh Frydenberg Advertisement

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said NSW had been under pressure but achieved 'magnificent' results.

'I think they demonstrate the way forward as to how these things can be managed,' he said as he pushed a virus suppression strategy over an elimination strategy after National Cabinet met last week.

Treasurer Frydenberg said the government's recently announced JobMaker plan was designed to rebuild the economy.

'We know the road to recovery will be bumpy as we have seen with the setback in Victoria,' Mr Frydenberg said.

'However, the jobs recovery across the rest of the country gives cause for optimism that through containing the spread of the virus and reopening the economy we will get through this.'

JobMaker includes a $1 billion JobTrainer fund to help create 340,700 new training places and a further $1.5 billion in support for small and medium businesses to retain their apprentices.

Passengers arrive from Hong Kong to Sydney on Sunday. The Federal and NSW state Liberal governments blame lockdowns and border closures for economic disruption and want to loosen restrictions with a suppression strategy. Covid-free states prefer elimination

Passengers are escorted to mandatory 14-day quarantine at Sydney Airport on Sunday

The coronavirus effective employment rate is a Treasury estimate based on the number of unemployed people looking for work, plus those employed and working zero hours, plus those who gave up and left the labour market since March.

The new effective rate is being used because the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the pandemic means the official unemployment rate conveys even less useful information about spare capacity in the labour market than usual.

The participation rate, which measures the number of working aged people actually in full-time work is regarded as a better indicator as it captures those who are not registered as unemployed or who are hidden by unemployment programs such as the Community Development Program or Transition to Work.

Pictured: motorists at a checkpoint at Coolangatta on the NSW-Queensland border on August 7. While Queensland is keen to protect its state with a coronvirus elimination strategy and border restrictions NSW wants a suppression strategy and relaxed border controls

A police checkpoint at Albury on the NSW-Victorian border on July 8. It was the first time in 100 years the border was shut. Australia is split between those who want the suppression strategy blaming border closures for economic hardship and those who want elimination

Meanwhile, medical experts have warned that pursuing a suppression strategy in Victoria and NSW while the rest of Australia eliminates the virus would split the nation.

'The rest of Australia are hoping to retain their elimination status. That means we will essentially be living in a country that's split in two,' said University of Melbourne epidemiologist Professor Tony Blakely.

State and Territory leaders have said their borders would remain closed to New South Wales and Victoria until their community transmission is wiped out completely.

Professor Blakely told Nine News that if Victoria wanted to eliminate the virus it had locked down a month too late - and would now have to keep up its tough restrictions for several more weeks.

The Federal and NSW Liberal governments are keen for the other states to relax their borders and have encouraged a suppression strategy instead of an elimination strategy.

NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro has called for a relaxation in the border restrictions between NSW, Queensland and Victoria.

In an opinion piece published in the Sydney Morning Herald, UNSW economics professor Richard Holden and law professor Rosalind Dixon said relaxing restrictions too soon would undermine the progress made in NSW and Queensland.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is optimistic about the latest Treasury modelling of jobs growth

'Let us not forget that only a few weeks ago, with case numbers rising, there was the very real possibility of NSW going back into lockdown,' they wrote on Tuesday.

'The fantasy that businesses can just bounce back, when restrictions are lifted, ignores the overwhelming evidence from overseas  that it is the virus, not lockdowns or border closures, that kills business and consumer confidence, and with it economic growth.'

'Protecting people and the economy therefore requires keeping restrictions in place for as long as is necessary to meaningfully suppress or eliminate the virus  not to get halfway there.'
Congress president Sonia Gandhi looks set to announce her decision to step down at Mondays meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the partys highest decision-making body, after 103 Congress leaders wrote a letter to her this month, seeking a complete rehaul of the organisation.

The letter, which was signed by former chief ministers and members of Parliament, alleged drift and uncertainty over the leadership of the 134-year-old party. The letter was signed by, among others, Kapil Sibal, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Shashi Tharoor, Bhupinder Hooda, Milind Deora, Manish Tewari and PJ Kurien, and delivered to her residence  10, Janpath  on Independence Day.

Hindustan Times has learnt that Gandhi responded to the letter a few days later with a hand-written note to one of the signatories.

WATCH: Grand old partys dissent within, Sonia says look for new chief

According to two senior Congress leaders that HT spoke with, the 73-year-old Gandhi said Congress leaders should get together and find a new chief because she does not want to carry the responsibility of leading the party any longer.

Sonia Gandhi became interim president of the Congress after Rahul Gandhi quit as the party chief in May 2019, owning responsibility for the Congresss rout in last years general elections, in which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led the National Democratic Alliance to power for the second straight term.

Expressing her sense of hurt at being targeted by party leaders who made the complaint against the Congress leadership public, Gandhi wrote in the note that she was not interested in leading the party and had accepted the post of interim chief after much persuasion only on condition that the party will find a replacement for her soon, according to the two senior leaders cited above, who requested anonymity.

Congress leaders made desperate pleas to her after Rahul Gandhi rejected their calls to withdraw the resignation that he offered on May 25, 2019.

For the record, party spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said: Reports of Sonia Gandhi resigning from her post of Congress president are false. The two leaders that HT spoke to confirmed that Gandhi was inclined to resign at the CWC meeting, called to discuss the leadership issue.

If she has to resign, she may do so when she meets with the leadership tomorrow, said one of the two leaders, requesting anonymity.

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan said in Gwalior: The Congress is bound to sink; no power in the world can save it.

Also read | After letter, some Congress leaders back Gandhis

While Surjewala and other party leaders denied that she had already resigned, Mondays CWC meeting is set to be a stormy one with a confrontation likely between those who are unhappy with the current style of functioning of the leadership (Sibal, Azad) and those that are part of the current power structure  KC Venugopal, Randeep Surjewala and Rajeev Satav, among others.

In a column published in Hindustan Times on August 4, Sibal wrote about the importance of value of organizations. The management of a large public corporation committed to growth, with a huge shareholder base, has to deal with a host of complex issues. This requires the management to listen to the voice of its shareholders  a vital input for the corporations strategy, operations and growth, the Congress leader wrote.

The organisers have decided to make it an extended session which will be attended by all Congress chief ministers. Chief ministers Amarinder Singh of Punjab, Ashok Gehlot of Rajasthan and Bhupesh Baghel of Chhattisgarh released statements in favour of Sonia Gandhis leadership.

One party leader told Hindustan Times that the letter had been leaked to the media to force a discussion on the leadership issue at the CWC meeting.

This is not the right time to raise such an issue, given the need for a strong opposition against the BJP-led NDA, said Amarinder Singh. A move by these Congress leaders to demand a rehaul of the party at this critical juncture would be detrimental to its interests.

Its very unfortunate. There was no need to go to the media. I strongly believe that Sonia Gandhiji should continue at this juncture, said Gehlot.

The group of senior leaders wrote the letter after four months of deliberations, HT has learnt. While Kurien said that the full details of the letter would be released after the CWC meeting on Monday, another signatory told HT that they were forced to write the letter after months of frustration. Senior leaders would approach the Gandhis but would be told to speak to Surjewala. How can some of these senior leaders seek a clarification from him? the signatory added, requesting anonymity.

Its okay that they wrote a letter and expressed their concern, said one Congress politician from the other side, also requesting that he not be named. What is worrying is that they have been meeting about this issue. It means they have been actively seeking change.

Shes a very dignified lady and never wanted to be Congress president, said CWC member and leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. When she passes through Central Hall, she is greeted by MPs from all parties and this shows how much people regard her.

In the letter, the 23 leaders have acknowledged an erosion of the partys support base and pointed to the lack of honest introspection after electoral defeats. The leaders have also outlined an agenda for reform  a full-time, effective, active and visible president; elections at all levels in the party (including the CWC); establishing an institutional leadership model to collectively guide the party; and a national coalition with like-minded parties, among other measures.

Zoya Hasan, Professor Emerita, JNU, said: The letter of 23 is certainly not a 1969 moment in the Congress. But it is a significant development as it is forcing the partys hand. Such a letter has not been written in a long time. And that is its importance. Thanks to the letter, the Congresss existential crisis is out in the open. The drift and failure to confront its deep crisis has harmed the party immensely. This uncertainty must end. Congress is divided on the leadership issue and on the role of Gandhis. If Sonia Gandhi quits, the question is who will replace her... the issue cannot be brushed under the carpet any longer. They need to sort themselves out and elect a full-time president.
Former FBI director James Comey argued on Sunday that the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on 2016 Russian interference "blows up" President Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr's claims that the FBI's Russia investigation was unjustified and a "hoax."

Why it matters: The 966-page bipartisan report, which goes into more detail than the Mueller report, found that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort passed sensitive internal polling data and strategy to a Russian intelligence officer who may have been involved in the hacking of Democratic emails.

The big picture: Barr has tapped veteran prosecutor John Durham to conduct a sweeping investigation into the origins of the FBI's Russia probe, which Trump and his allies have long claimed was a political hit job engineered by Comey and other Obama-era officials.

That investigation netted its first criminal charge last week from Kevin Clinesmith, a former FBI lawyer who pleaded guilty to altering an email used to obtain a surveillance warrant for former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Former CIA director John Brennan was interviewed by Durham on Friday and informed that he was neither a subject nor a target of the investigation, according to a spokesperson. Comey said on Sunday that he has had "no contact" with Durham and "can't imagine" that he is a target of the probe.

What he's saying: "The Senate Intelligence Committee was looking at all information they could gather. Mueller was approaching it as a prosecutor, trying to see what evidence he could bring into court to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt," Comey said on CBS News' "Face the Nation.

"So the Senate Intelligence Committee could look much more broadly, and as you said, came to this conclusion that the head of Trump's campaign was funneling information to a Russian intelligence officer  someone he likely knew was a Russian intelligence officer."

"Let that sink in, and ask yourself: So there was nothing to investigate here, as Bill Barr said? It was a hoax? The Republicans have exploded that nonsense."

Between the lines: The Senate report was also critical of the FBI and its failures to alert the Democratic National Committee of the full threat of the Russian interference effort. Comey acknowledged that this is "fair criticism."

Asked why he never considered the scenario of Russian interference as FBI director, Comey responded, "I don't know why. It didn't occur to us that the Russians were doing something they had never done before, which is to weaponize and actually fire stolen material at our democratic process."

"Looking back in hindsight, it seems obvious. I don't know the answer as to why nobody in the intelligence community, none of the analysts, saw this coming."

Go deeper: Top Democrat says Senate Intel Committee voted 14-1 to pass Russia report
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 07:19:56|Editor: huaxia

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BOGOTA, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Colombian President Ivan Duque on Saturday condemned the recent violence that occurred in the country, with five young people killed on Aug. 11.

"They are not alone. We are here as a government, we are here to reject violence, and we have told you that we will be delivering results quickly to clarify these facts and for justice to be done," the president in a speech in the city of Cali.

Violence in the country has escalated in recent weeks, and the government is placing the blame on armed groups such as the National Liberation Army (ELN), a guerrilla group with strong ties to drug trafficking whose members originally belonged to the now disarmed Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

"We need to confront organized crime with greater forcefulness, and in that there can be no doubts ... For many years we have said that being tolerant of violence generates new violence. The call is for all of us as a society to understand that defeating violence is our moral duty," he said.

The president pointed out that at this time, society must unite and strengthen itself against the violence that is strongly affecting the country's youth, as they are the main perpetrators as well as the main victims.

On Aug. 17, the United Nations, together with the Verification Mission in Colombia which monitors the implementation of the 2016 peace accords, expressed concern over the alarming increase in violence in the country. Enditem
A pair of Mahatma Gandhi's circular rimmed, gold-plated glasses left in a Bristol auction house's letterbox were sold for 260,000 pounds ($340,314).

Earlier this month, the staff at the East Bristol Auctions, the largest auction house in South West England, found the glasses in its letterbox inside a plain envelope.

The staff estimated that the glasses would raise more than 14,500 pounds, however, they have now gone for 260,000 pounds.

"We found them just four weeks ago in our letterbox, left there by a gentleman whose uncle had been given them by Gandhi himself," the auction house wrote on Friday.

"An incredible result for an incredible item. Thanks to all those who bid."

Auctioneer Andrew Stowe earlier this month told Sky News: "Someone popped them into our letterbox on a Friday night and they stayed there until Monday - literally hanging out.

"One of my staff handed them to me and said there was a note saying they were Gandhi's glasses. I thought 'That's an interesting one' and carried on with my day."

Upon investigating, Stowe said he almost "fell off his chair" to discover the circular rimmed, gold-plated glasses, had been worn by the Indian civil rights leader.

"I phoned the guy back and I think he nearly had a heart attack," said Stowe.

The auction house's website says the glasses were given to the vendor's uncle by Gandhi in South Africa on a visit.

"The vendor's uncle worked for British Petroleum at the time and was stationed in South Africa, and it can be presumed that these were gifted by way of thanks from Gandhi for some good deed," the auction house said.
The Dubai Airshow organisers are presenting the UAEs first platform dedicated to curating conversations that contribute to a more sustainable aviation industry.

The Future of Aviation Sustainability virtual session will be held on August 26 at 14.00 GST.

The global pandemic has welcomed a new age of sustainability. Consumers, manufacturers and operators are tackling one of the largest disruptions in history. However, in recent statement, airline manufactures and operators have demonstrated their commitment by boldly solidifying their sustainable initiatives, says a .

"There is a consensus that airlines who restart their operations with sustainability at the forefront of their brand will have a competitive advantage with consumers,"

"With so much change happening in the industry, were providing an opportunity to discuss some of the challenges being faced by airlines and how collaboration between stakeholders will help move us to a more sustainable future in our upcoming virtual sessions,' it said.

This session will explore how Covid-19 has changed the roadmap to sustainability. Speakers from AirFrance KLM Group, Rolls Royce, Cathay Pacific and Khalifa University will cover:

 How technology can support green airline recovery;

 Committing to a safe, secure and sustainable air transport system; and

 Exploring the impact of Covid-19 on aviations sustainability drive.

The 2021 edition of the Dubai Airshow, organised by F&E Aerospace , will be held from November 14 to 18, 2021. It will build on the overwhelming success of the last event which drew 84,000 trade visitors from 148 countries, 1,200 exhibitors, over 1,400 international and regional media and an order book in excess of $54.4 billion. - TradeArabia News Service
On a morning that in Washington saw congressmen called into a rare Saturday session, Tom Dukes stood in the pouring rain in Alamo Heights and led his first protest ever, in support of the U.S. Postal Service.

Dukes, 68, decided to act after seeing a national call to action on Twitter and only one rally scheduled, in the Thousand Oaks area. He put the word out through texts and emails for others to join him in the cause at the Alamo Heights post office near his home.

The post office has been one of the sinews that holds the United States together since Benjamin Franklin was the first postmaster, Dukes said as motorists honked their horns in support. Its a thing that should not be allowed to disappear or winnow away through mistreatment.

Dukes and 20 other protesters socially distanced themselves along the sidewalk outside the post office on Austin Highway during one of three local rallies that joined the national Save the Post Office Saturday day of action. Rallies also were scheduled at the De Zavala and Henderson Pass post offices.

More than 600 similar events were planned in cities and towns across the country.

On ExpressNews.com: Thats a big issue right there  Rep. Joaquin Castro wants to know why postal workers deceived him and a congressman from Fort Worth

MoveOn and several partners organized the events as their response to accusations that President Donald Trump and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy were trying to undermine mail services through the Nov. 3 election.

Under dark gray skies, the activists wore protective masks and raincoats and waved to passing drivers who flashed lights and beeped horns. They held signs covered in clear plastic that read, Go Postal! Protect our Postal Workers and Dont Mess With My Mail.

Dukes wife, Sharon, 69, held a red sign that said, Save USPS.

I cant imagine being without a postal service, she said. And its not supposed to be privatized. Its supposed to be a service.

A friend told Army veteran Tom Wetzler, 69, about the rally.

I was glad to find that people are concerned about the dismantling of our post office and are against it, he said, huddled under an umbrella. I think its important, particularly as a veteran, to protect our democracy and our vote.

Ingrid Crawley, 54, said the Postal Service kept her military family of five connected to people all over the world for 20 years. She said that before her husband retired from the Air Force last month, they voted exclusively by absentee ballot.

Its critical to having a fair representation of all the people who want to vote, Crawley said, but maybe cant vote in person like us when we were stationed abroad.

The rain had dwindled to a drizzle 11 miles away at the Henderson Pass post office as Heather Perez led a rally on behalf of postal workers. Perez, a volunteer with MoveOn.org, said she was prompted to protest on behalf of her husband, a letter carrier.

More than 30 people joined her on the curb of the wet street. She said passers-by included several people who wanted to join the group but were in the hard risk category.

Her sign read, 46 Million Rural Homes Delivered To Daily. Perez said funding is needed for contract employees to deliver mail in rural counties more often.

Theyre not getting cards from their grandkids, prescriptions or Social Security benefits, she said as a protester clanged a cowbell. Its a big deal.

Perez said recent changes have affected the way that the employees go through their work life. She said the rallies are a call that more funding isnt required just for mail-in ballots but for all the functions of the post office system.

In Washington, after a heated debate over mail delays, the House approved legislation Saturday that would reverse recent changes in Postal Service operations and send $25 billion to shore up the agency ahead of the November election, the Associated Press reported.

It needs to go deeper that just your local post office, Perez said. It needs to go to the top, the leadership, board of directors, and it needs to go to the president.

Vincent T. Davis is a reporter in the Greater San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Vincent, become a subscriber. vtdavis@express-news.net | Twitter: @vincentdavis
P eople who organise illegal raves in England could get fines of up to 10,000 from Friday, as authorities clamp down on unlawful gatherings ahead of the bank holiday weekend.

Officers have responded to several hundred unlicensed music events in London and across the country in recent months amid warm weather and an easing of lockdown restrictions.

And Boris Johnson said that new fines were to be introduced for those hosting raves when he announced a further easing of Englands lockdown last week.

People facilitating or organising any unlawful gathering of 30 people, including illegal raves and other unlicensed music events may be hit with a 10,000 fine.

A party on Clapham Common on Saturday night that was later dispersed by police / Paul Halliday/Twitter

Other participants can continue to be issued with fines of 100, while people who have already been fined will see the amount double on each offence, up to a maximum of 3,200.

The moves come on another busy weekend for police in regard to unlawful gatherings.

Birmingham Police said they attended more than 70 unlicensed street and house parties on Saturday night, while police in Huddersfield broke up an illegal rave involving some 300 people.

The Metropolitan Police received information on more than 200 events across London in a single weekend, responding to more than 1,000 illegal events in the capital since the end of June.

Elsewhere, West Midlands Police shut down 125 parties and raves  including one of up to 600 people  in one weekend.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said: These gatherings are dangerous and those who organise them show a blatant disregard for the safety of others.

An illegal party in Notting Hill this summer

I am pleased the police have already stepped up their response and I am giving them the tools they need to continue to keep us safe.

We will continue to crack down on the small minority who think they are above the law.

Fines for not wearing face coverings where it is mandated are also set to double for repeat offenders from Friday, starting at 100 and doubling to a maximum of 3,200 for each repeat offence.

The National Police Chiefs Council has warned that forces in England and Wales will continue to increase patrols heading into the bank holiday weekend.

Areas of concern, such as Leicester and Greater Manchester, have seen deployments larger than on New Years Eve, it said.

Home Secretary Priti Patel / PA

Commander Ade Adelekan, lead for unlicensed music events, said: These events are hosted without regard for the safety of those attending, and police have observed cases of anti-social behaviour, sales of drugs and gang activity.

To the organisers of this sort of activity, I strongly advise that you seriously consider the risks youre creating for everyone in attendance and the wider community.

There is a risk of prosecution for those who organise these events and equipment will be seized.

With additional reporting by PA
How this ISIS operative from Mangaluru lured her victims and converted them to Islam

Suicide vest, explosives recovered from home of suspected ISIS terrorist

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Aug 23: A suicide vest, ball bearings, 7 cylindrical boxes, timer, 4 batteries, ISIS flag have been recovered from the IS terrorist's house in Uttar Pradesh who was nabbed by security forces in Delhi on Saturday.

The terrorist, identified as Mohammad Mustakim Khan, alias Abu Yusuf Khan, from Badhiyaa Bhaisaahi village in Uttar Pradesh''s Balrampur district was arrested from central Delhi''s Ridge Road area late on Friday night following a brief exchange of fire with police, according to officials.

One brown jacket containing three explosive packets and another blue check jacket containing four explosive packets were recovered from his house, a senior police officer said.

"Each explosive packet, removed from jackets, was wrapped with transparent tape which contains explosive and cardboard sheet pasted with ball bearings and electric wires were coming outside from it," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) P S Kushwah said.

ISIS operative nabbed in Delhi had planned an August 15 strike

"One ISIS flag, one leather belt containing around three kilograms explosive, eight to nine kilogram explosive in four different polythenes, three cylindrical metal boxes containing explosive and electric wires wrapped with transparent tape and two cylindrical metal boxes in which ball bearings were pasted were recovered from his house," the DCP said.

Among other material recovered from his house were "one wooden broken box (for target practice), 30 ball bearings of different diameters, one packet containing 12 small boxes of ball bearings, three lithium batteries -- two of 4V and one of 9V, two cylindrical metal boxes, one-ampere meter yellow colour".

"Two iron blades, attached in parallel to each other, connected to electric wires from sides, one wire cutter, two mobile chargers, a table alarm watch attached with electric wires and one black colour tape were also recovered from his house," Kushwah said.

Security was stepped up in the national capital and in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh following the arrest.

He has planned to carry out a "lone wolf" strike at a heavy footfall area in the national capital.

Abu Yusuf was the owner of a cosmetic shop in Uttar Pradesh. He was radicalised online following which he got in touch with his handlers.

He was asked to carry out an attack, following which he was to go to Syria. He had already readied passports for his wife and four children. Following the attack, he and his family were to fly into Syria, the police have learnt. He was instructed by his emir to strike on August 15.

He was, however, unable to do so owing to heavy security. He had decided to put his plan on hold and strike at another time. However concrete intelligence led to nabbing, following which a major strike was averted.

Khan and his wife have four children, two sons and two daughters.

Khan has been booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. He was remanded to eight days in police custody and taken to different places in Uttar Pradesh, including Balrampur, for further investigation.
By Express News Service

KOCHI: Atham marks the beginning of the 10-day Onam festivities in Kerala. The celebrations start with Athachamayam the grand procession held at Tripunithura showcasing the cultural heritage of the princely state of Kochi.

The king used to lead a grand procession accompanied by caparisoned elephants, floats, musical ensembles and a variety of folk arts to the Tripunithura fort.

However, the royal corridor of Tripunithura wore a deserted look on Saturday as the government decided to avoid festivities in the wake of the Covid outbreak. The festivities marking the arrival of Onam turned out to be a low-key affair as the rituals were limited to the hoisting of the festival flag by M Swaraj, MLA.

The festival flag was handed over to the organising committee by Kochi royal family representative S Anujan Thampuran.

ASLO READ | COVID-19 robs Onam of its sheen this time Kerala

Meanwhile the 10-day Onam festival started at Thrikkakara Vamanamurthy temple with priest Pothopurath Illath Srikanth Namboothiri hoisting the festival flag at 7.30pm on Saturday. The temple will allow devotees for prayers during the festival days adhering to Covid protocol.

Only five people will be allowed inside the temple at a time. The festival will end with Arattu on August 31, the Thiruvonam day.

Though the temple used to parade nine elephants for Arattu in the previous years, there will not be any elephant parade this time. Only important rituals will be performed.

Meanwhile, flower merchants complained that the restrictions on bringing flowers had affected their livelihood. The flower market in Kerala has an annual turnover of `2000 crore and thousands of families are dependent on the profession.

Onam season offers a major market for flowers in Kerala. Though we have received thousands of orders we are not able to deliver flowers due to the restrictions imposed by the government on bringing flowers from other states. Loads of vegetables, eggs and chicken are brought to the state through the checkposts, but the authorities are not allowing us to bring flowers which has affected our livelihood, said Kerala Flower Merchants Association president V J Thomas.
New Delhi, Aug 23 : Pakistan will use drones to bomb security establishments near the International Border in Jammu and Kashmir's RS Pura and Samba sectors, the intelligence wing of the Border Security Force (BSF) has alerted.

The security establishments, including the Indian Army, have been informed about the plans of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to carry out the attacks in Indian territory.

The BSF had alerted other security forces about Pakistan's activities earlier this week.

Pakistan has increased bombardment in the Indian territories, while China has started transgression in Eastern Ladakh by creating a two-front war like situation.

The BSF, India's first line of defence with Pakistan and Bangladesh, has also alerted that "ISI plans to pump in consignment of drugs/arms/ammunitions inside India with the help of drones".

It guards around 2,280 kms of the front with Pakistan and the 4,096-km-long Indo-Bangla border.

A senior BSF officer said that activities have increased across the International Border with Pakistan in Jammu and Punjab after terrorists were unable to infiltrate across Line of Control in Kashmir.

On Saturday, the BSF shot dead five Pakistani intruders along the Tarn Taran sector of Punjab and seized multiple weapons and drugs.

The officer said that the five armed Pakistani nationals had entered the Indian territory overnight on Friday and were hiding across the fence.

The alert troops of BSF's 103rd Battalion noticed suspicious movement at night at the Dal outpost under the Khalra police station of Tarn Taran district.

Around 4.45 a.m. on the Saturday morning, as the troopers started searching the area, they were fired upon. The BSF soldiers retaliated in self-defence killing the five intruders.

On June 20, a Pakistani drone, loaded with a sophisticated rifle and some grenades, was shot down by the BSF along the International Border in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir.

It was the first such incident in the Jammu region when a drone carrying arms and explosives was shot down by the BSF.

In 2019, Punjab Police had recovered Pakistani drones used to airdrop arms and ammunition in border areas of the state.

The BSF had also sighted many high-flying drones along Punjab along the international border.

(Sumit Kumar Singh can be reached at sumit.k@ians.in)
Indias Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat has explicitly stated that a military option to deal with transgressions by the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army in Ladakh is on the table, but will be exercised only if talks between the two armies and the diplomatic option are unfruitful.

Transgressions along the LAC occur due to differing perceptions about its alignment. Defence services are tasked to monitor and carry out surveillance and prevent such transgressions turning into intrusions. Whole of government approach is adopted to peacefully resolve any such activity and prevent intrusions. Defence services always remain prepared for military actions should all efforts to restore status quo along the LAC do not succeed, General Rawat told Hindustan Times.

Defence minister Rajnath Singh, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and all those responsible for national security are reviewing all options with the objective that PLA restores status quo ante in Ladakh, he said.

Also read: Rumblings within China over President Xis wolf warrior diplomacy | Analysis

The CDS, who was army chief during the 73-day military standoff in Doklam against the PLA in 2017, also dispelled the notion that there is a lack of coordination among the principal intelligence agencies. He said that India has a vast front-line along the northern and western borders along with the Indian Ocean Region, all of which require constant monitoring.

Also Watch | India-China border dispute: 5 things you need to know about current situation

According to him, while India is still working towards acquiring round-the-clock capabilities to monitor its areas of interest, there is regular interaction between all agencies responsible for collection and collation of information. The apex multi-agency centre has been meeting on a daily basis, he pointed out, and constantly keeping everyone informed of the situation on the ground in Ladakh or any other area of interest.

On Saturday, defence minister Rajnath Singh met with the NSA and the three service chiefs to discuss the stand-off along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh. China has built up its presence along the LAC in Ladakh, with India deploying heavily to match its northern neighbour.

A bloody skirmish between the two sides resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese casualties on June 15, but while Beijing has repeatedly spoken of peace and tranquility, it continues to maintain its presence in the region.

Takes between the two armies and also a diplomatic dialogue are on to first totally disengage and then de-escalate, but the PLA is seen to be dragging its feet as the issue has a domestic political resonance.Gen Rawat refused to comment on the Saturday meeting and also declined to share any operational details.

Also read: Centre withdraws 10,000 soldiers from Kashmir to send a message

On Indias infrastructure development programmes in border areas, the CDS said this has been under way for some years now. Regular meetings to prioritize and resource these projects are held. They (the projects) have been given the desired impetus over the past three to four years. Our infrastructure development like the construction of Darbuk-Shyok-Daulet Beg Oldi (DSDBO) road or developments in other areas of our northern borders have been undertaken to provide connectivity to our people who are otherwise seeking migration. It also simultaneously assists the security forces who are responsible for monitoring and maintaining surveillance along our border areas. The impetus by the way of prioritisation has helped in development of strategic connectivity for the future, he said.

It is widely believed that the immediate reason for the Chinese transgressions was the construction of the DSDBO road.

Indias apex China Study Group, which comprises the governments senior most ministers and officials, has been meeting regularly to review the situation in the Ladakh sector along with the military posture adopted by the PLA. The security agencies are constantly updating information collected through human and technical intelligence about the Chinese Army all along the 3,488-kilometre LAC.

The Indian Army is aware of not only the Chinese military capability in the occupied Aksai Chin area but also in the so-called depth areas through tech-intelligence and satellite imagery. The Indian Air Force has taken note of the Chinese posturing by moving J 20 stealth fighters into the Hotan air base and then moving them away to a different location.

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Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, who recently joined an expansive list of Trump administration officials accused of violating federal law by politicking on the clock, drew the ire of government watchdogs again on Sunday by touting President Donald Trumps accomplishments while hammering his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, in a Fox News interview.

Watch the latest video at foxnews.com

Meadows, introduced according to his official title by Fox News Chris Wallace, told the anchor that the Democratic National Convention was dark and focused on Trump, whereas the Republican National Convention, starting Monday, would focus on the American people and demonstrate a real difference between the presidential candidates.

This is not about speeches, Meadows said in reference to Bidens convention speech. Joe Biden has been in office for over 40 years. Politicians give speeches. What were looking for is action. This president has shown action each and every day. This president accomplished more in his first 100 days than Joe Biden did in the last 40 years. Its about action. This presidents willing to do that.

Meadows, previously a North Carolina congressman for seven years, slammed Biden for barely passing two bills, one of which hes trying to run away from because of the left. Meadows was likely referencing the 1994 crime bill, which included sentencing guidelines that many criminal justice experts and lawmakers now say led to mass incarceration of people of color.

Donald Sherman, deputy director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), told MassLive on Sunday that, As several White House staffers have done in recent months, Mark Meadows blatantly violated the Hatch Act again.

With the President getting closer and closer to facing accountability from the voters, he and his staff have escalated their illegal use of government resources to help Trump stay in power, Sherman added.

The Hatch Act prohibits most on-duty executive branch employees, whose salaries are paid by taxpayers, from engaging in political activity, including advocating for or against political candidates or parties. The 1939 law is geared to keep politics out of federal work  to keep partisanship off duty and out of government resources, and to protect employees from political coercion.

The chief of staffs remarks Sunday resembled the way he advocated against Biden, and for Trump, during an interview with Fox News Sean Hannity in July  one of two previous interviews that led CREW, a nonprofit government watchdog, to accuse Meadows of improperly campaigning for the president while on duty.

Where is Joe Biden? In his basement, Meadows told Hannity after touting Trumps law and order message amid nationwide protests over systemic racism, according to the Fox News transcript. You know, its amazing. Weve seen Joe Biden for 40 years talk a good game. And weve seen no results, no results.

CREW filed a complaint against Meadows in July with the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates alleged Hatch Act violations and, when necessary, recommends disciplinary actions.

MassLive on Sunday afternoon reached out to the White House and the Trump campaign for comment.

Trump, who along with the vice president is exempt from the Hatch Act, offered a politically-framed take on his chief of staffs Fox News interview in a Sunday afternoon tweet, characterizing the exchange as Wallaces unsuccessful grilling of Meadows before softball questions to a group of Biden lightweights.

At least a dozen Trump administration officials, including Dan Scavino, Jr., White House deputy chief of staff for communications, and Stephanie Grisham, former press secretary, have been warned or found in violation of the Hatch Act, some for tweeting campaign slogans or the hashtag, #MAGA, an acronym for the presidents 2016 slogan.

In March, after a review of the taxpayer-backed White House Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts, MassLive reported that the Trump administrations pattern of flouting the Hatch Act extended to official government social media accounts over the last three years.

Administration aides who fall under the Hatch Act have used official government accounts to deploy Trump re-election campaign material and frequent attacks against the Democratic Party and potential presidential foes to more than 60 million combined followers.

The instances include frequent posts of campaign slogans, such as Promises Made, Promises Kept, on official accounts in defiance of repeated warnings from OSC investigators. Watchdogs say the posts on official White House accounts also likely breach ethics guidelines laid out by the Office of Government Ethics.

Official accounts must be politically neutral! the Office of Government Ethics said in a 66-page presentation titled Government Ethics and the Use of Social Media in 2014.

On Saturday, The New York Times, in a story detailing preparations for the RNC, reported that some Trump aides privately scoff at the Hatch Act and say they take pride in violating its regulations.

At least one administration official, Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway, has publicly scoffed at Hatch Act violations reported by watchdogs and confirmed by OSC. Let me know when the jail sentence starts, she once flippantly told a reporter, according to OSC.

Screenshot of a Jan. 31, 2020, tweet by Dan Scavino, Jr., the White House director of social media, in which Scavino uses a Trump campaign slogan, "Promises Made, Promises Kept," despite the Office of Special Counsel previously finding other administrations in violation of federal law for engaging in political activity while on duty.

As a private citizen, @realDonaldTrump saw that Americans were treated unfairly by NAFTA.



He ran for officeand wonon a promise to fix it.



Promises made, promises kept.  pic.twitter.com/6XyHKnjjer  The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 11, 2019

The Best is Yet to Come'

As Election Day approaches, CREW in early July called on Congress to review allegedly persistent attempts by Trump administration aides to sway the 2020 vote during the course of their official duties.

In March 2018, a week after Trump officially announced his 2020 re-election bid, OSC issued a guidance warning federal employees that under the Hatch Act, they could not wear, display, or distribute items with slogans and materials from the 2016 and 2020 campaigns.

CREW last year accused Ivanka Trump, Trumps daughter and an assistant to the president, of violating the Hatch Act in a tweet. Ivanka Trump tweeted a photo that featured a 2016 campaign sign with the slogan, Make America Great Again, and the statement, the best is yet to come  a slogan frequently used by Trump and featured in re-election campaign speeches, campaign ads, as well as official White House speeches, social media posts and videos.

Four years ago today, I introduced my father @realDonaldTrump when he launched a Campaign that would forever change America.



Because of his courage, Americans are safer and more prosperous...and the best is yet to come!



Happy Fathers Day!  pic.twitter.com/ygcbg3URQx  Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) June 16, 2019

Ivanka Trump has since posted the best is yet to come at least half a dozen times on her official Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts.

In a since-deleted tweet on June 7, the official White House account posted a video of economic adviser Larry Kudlow encouraging Americans to stick with the winners, Trump, and Pence and me. The video, which was later parodied to depict Kudlow as a car salesman, closed with the campaigns frequent refrain, The best is yet to come.

The Trump campaign Twitter account has posted the phrase The best is yet to come nearly a dozen times on Twitter over the last year.

The official White House accounts, overseen by taxpayer-funded executive branch employees, tweeted or posted on Facebook the best is yet to come at least 15 times combined between October 2019 and last month.

Screen grab of the official White House Twitter account, which has frequently posted Trump campaign slogans in defiance of federal investigators' repeated warnings that displaying slogans is barred by the Hatch Act.

The White House has tweeted variations of the Trump-Pence 2020 slogan Promises Made, Promises Kept at least 16 times since August 2018 and as recently as May 20. On Instagram, the White House posted Promises made, promises kept alongside American flag emojis as recently as Aug. 6.

Just last week, Meadows posted a tweet similar to the one that sparked a Hatch Act complaint against Ivanka Trump. While Meadows tweet did not include slogans, the post featured a photo from an Arizona re-election campaign stop that featured a Make American Great Again banner behind the crowd.

Seeing more and more incredible enthusiasm on the road today. The forgotten men and women of America are forgotten no more! THANK YOU, Arizona! @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/H2d37RoV9s  Mark Meadows (@MarkMeadows) August 18, 2020

Meadows Twitter bio notes his official government title, but characterizes the account as personal. His other Twitter account, featuring his former congressional title, is also labeled as his personal account, but he hasnt tweeted there since January.

Internet archives show Meadows chief of staff account was not listed as a personal account in the first few days of April, after he took over for acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney on March 31. But sometime between April 4 and April 19, the account was labeled personal.

According to the OSCs guidelines on the Hatch Act, any social media account created in a federal employees official capacity should be limited to official business matters and remain politically neutral. Any political activity must be confined to the employees personal Facebook or Twitter account, subject to certain limitations. One of the limitations, according to OSC, is that the Hatch Act prohibits engaging in any political activity via Facebook or Twitter while on duty or in the workplace.

Meadows chief of staff account is used consistently, with a mix of professional updates on the administration, retweets of campaign attack ads and Trump #MAGA videos from battleground states, and, lately, barbs lobbed at Democratic leaders as Meadows negotiates a COVID-19 stimulus deal on Capitol Hill.

Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, retweeted Trump's recent post of a video during a visit in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

Like other White House staff, Meadows salary is paid by taxpayers, not the Trump campaign.

Meadows wrote in the Aug. 18 tweet that the forgotten men and women of America are forgotten no more, a line from the presidents 2017 inauguration speech thats also featured as the description of a video titled, The Best is Yet to Come, a stylish production highlighting Trumps accomplishments that closes with the official White House logo, but was later posted on the Trump campaign YouTube page.

Nick Schwellenbach, an investigator with the Project on Government Oversight, told MassLive earlier this year that OSC trains White House officials to pivot when they field questions about an opponent or campaign.

He said OSC steers officials to essentially say, Look, Im not going to talk about the campaign, but I will talk about the administration believing in this policy.

But sprinkling in these little campaign slogans ... is an obvious attempt to intertwine the campaign into it, Schwellenbach added.

The Project on Government Oversight recently filed a Hatch Act complaint against Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, accusing him of trying to sway the election through the U.S. Postal Services removal of high-speed mail sorting machines with no explanation regarding their removal, along with the removal of mail collection boxes in several states.

Last summer, Meadows found himself at odds with OSC  and general Hatch Act advice offered by OSC head Henry Kerner, a Republican Trump appointee  when it came to Conway.

Meadows called OSCs investigation into Conways politicized comments to reporters and tweets a disaster in a Facebook post.

A fiery Meadows defended Conway as a presenter of basic facts, not a political campaigner, during a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on the Trump administrations Hatch Act violations in June 2019.

During a heated exchange with the former Rep. Elijah Cummings, Meadows argued that members of Congress should be held to the same ethical standards when doing news interviews; the Hatch Act, however, doesnt apply to lawmakers.

U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, a Democrat from Illinois, noted that Trumps campaign saw a fundraising boost on several days last year when Conway violated the Hatch Act during television interviews. Federal Election Commission filings showed the day after an appearance on average yielded 159% increase in daily donations from the day before an interview, Kelly said.

And television is only the tip of the iceberg, Kelly added. Social media creates many more opportunities for conflicts of interest.

Trump, in defending Conway last year, argued that the Hatch Act stifles free speech.

Meadows earlier this month said he had argued against Trump giving his RNC speech at the White House, CNN reported.

Ethics experts say that accepting the GOP nomination with the White House as a backdrop crosses the line by blending government resources with politics. Meadows told Gray TVs Greta Van Susteren that he advocated for the speech to take place miles and miles away from here, CNN reported.

Sherman on Twitter highlighted a list of Trump administration officials scheduled to speak at the upcoming GOP convention. The officials include Conway, whom the OSC urged the president to fire over flagrant Hatch Act violations last year; Ivanka Trump; and cabinet members including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.

Administration officials are allowed to participate in the convention so long as they follow the Hatch Act, but Sherman noted that former President Barack Obama barred his cabinet from participating in the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

The OSC, in a letter sent earlier this month to U.S. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, said it determined that the president could hold his GOP nomination acceptance speech on White House grounds.

The agency said it is not possible to provide an exhaustive list of permitted or prohibited activities of administration employees who fall under the Hatch Act. But the OSC offered some guidance, including that all White House employees, including White House Commissioned Officers, are subject to the prohibition against using their official authority or influence to affect an election. Accordingly, Hatch Act concerns could arise if White House employees who are supervisors were to task subordinate staff with work in support of the political event.

Hatch Act violations dont land anyone in prison. They can lead to a reprimand, demotion, suspension or ban from federal work for up to five years or a civil penalty up to $1,000.

The OSC previously cited a few officials in the Bush and Obama administrations for violations; the administrations implemented training to address OSCs concerns.

*This story has been updated to reflect that both Meadows Twitter accounts are listed as personal accounts.

Related Content:
United Nations:

The UN Security Council has demanded that Israel halt settlements in Palestinian territory, after the United States refrained from vetoing a resolution condemning its closest Middle East ally.



In a rare and momentous step, the United States instead abstained, enabling the adoption of the first UN resolution since 1979 to condemn Israel over its settlement policy.



Applause broke out in the chamber after the text was passed with support from all remaining members of the 15-member council.



The landmark move by the Security Council on Friday came despite an effort led by Israel and backed by US President-elect Donald Trump to block the text.Trump reacted after the vote in a tweet, vowing: As to the UN, things will be different after Jan 20th.

Also read | Israel rejects UN resolution to remove its settlements from Palestine, lashes out at Obama

Ambassador Samantha Power said the US abstention stemmed from concerns that the expansion of the Jewish outposts was threatening the two-state solution aimed at achieving peace by creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel.



We do not believe that outside parties can impose a solution that has not been negotiated by the two parties, nor can we unilaterally recognize a future Palestinian state, said Power.



But it is precisely our commitment to Israels security that makes the United States believe that we cannot stand in the way of this resolution as we seek to preserve a chance of attaining our longstanding objective of two states living side by side in peace and security, she said.

Also read | Israeli official accuses Obama of shameful move against Isreal at UN



The settlement problem has gotten so much worse that it is now putting at risk the very viability of that two-state solution, said Power.



Israeli settlements are seen as a major stumbling block to peace efforts, as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.Palestinian President Mahmud Abbass office said the vote was a big blow to Israeli policy and a show of strong support for the two-state solution.



The United Nations maintains that settlements are illegal, but UN officials have reported a surge in construction over the past months.

Read | White House defends decision to abstain from UNSC vote on Israeli settlement in Palestine



Some 430,000 Israeli settlers currently live in the West Bank and a further 200,000 Israelis live in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians see as the capital of their future state.



The resolution demands that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.



It states that Israeli settlements have no legal validity and are dangerously imperiling the viability of the two-state solution.



Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon criticized the administration of President Barack Obama for not vetoing this disgraceful resolution.



I have no doubt that the new US administration and the incoming UN secretary general will usher in a new era in terms of the UNs relationship with Israel, said Danon.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
While the CBI has taken over the Sushant Singh Rajput probe, his fans on social media seem convinced the late actor was murdered. On Saturday, Twitter was abuzz with a hashtag demanding that the killers of SSR be arrested.

Tweets posted with the hashtag #ArrestSSRKillers not only demand that culprits be brought to book, but have also been used to troll filmmaker Karan Johar, who returned to Twitter after a couple of months.

"CDR of SSR's residence Mount Blanc owner and owner's manager must be checked. Bandra Police has been in constant touch with the owner. CBI should grill the Real Estate Agent who got this Rental Deal to SSR. He's a very close associate of Rhea for years! #ArrestSSRKillers," tweeted a user.

"AIIMS senior officials demanded -

-Original PM reports

-viscera reports

-PM vidrography tape

-Forensic pictures

They will analyze all those because they found it all misleading! #ArrestSSRKillers," another user commented.

Questions are also being raised by fans in social media about the role of Bollywood producer Sandip Ssingh.

"Many of you have asked, do I believe what Surjeet Singh Rathore said? My answer is honestly I don't! I feel he is staged!

Rhea is just a pawn, a spacegoat!

Sandeep Singh is crisis Manager!

But the mastermind is someone way too powerful! #ArrestSSRKillers," another user opined.

"SANDIP caught in his own web of lies. He admits dat he accesses SSR's PAN &Aadhar card. Who handed over SSR's PAN & Aadhar to Sandip. Sandip was not in touch with SSR from the past 1 year & suddenly on d day of SSR's death. #ArrestSSRKillers," observed a user.

Netizens also did not spare the chance of trolling filmmaker Karan Johar who on Saturday tweeted for the first time after his last tweet on June 14. Back in June, Johat had tweeted to mourn Sushant's demise.

Johar has been at the subject of memes and trolls ever since Sushant's death, due to his reputation of favouring star kids over outsiders and promoting a culture of nepotism within the industry. Many netizens believe Sushant had been a victim of such favouritism in Bollywood.

"May the power of Lord Ganesh protect you and your loved ones from all evil....may the power enhance all positivity and spread only love...please stay safe," Karan Johar tweeted from his verified account on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi on Saturday.

May the power of Lord Ganesh protect you and your loved ones from all evil....may the power enhance all positivity and spread only love...please stay safe pic.twitter.com/fx0dolkylE Karan Johar (@karanjohar) August 22, 2020

Commenting on his tweet, a user wrote: "Look Who is Telling About Spreading Positivity, Love. Coffee with karan Show Motive is to Spread Negativity, Hate, and Bullying. Dual Face Demon. Get ready. Karma will serve you what you have paid for. #ArrestSSRKillers."

"Thank you for your kind words for the public. However Lord Ganesha sees everything and protects those who are good hearted and not sinful. Unfortunately your own words cannot be applied to you since your heart is as black as coal & a soul which you have already sold to the devil," tweeted another user.
Schools reopening next month is top priority for government

This article is old - Published: Sunday, Aug 23rd, 2020

The re-opening of schools and colleges in Wales from next month is the top priority for the Welsh Government, the First Minister Mark Drakeford has said.

Students across Wales havent had access to regular face to face teaching and classes since education facilities were closed in March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Online classes and teaching was available throughout the remainder of the academic year. However there have been concerns raised of the long-term impact school closures will have on children, particularly those who are unable to access the online teaching and are in receipt of free school meals.

In June the Welsh Government unveiled plans for all children to have the opportunity to check in and catch up across four weeks before the start of the summer holidays.

But in Wrexham  and many other parts of Wales  this idea was rejected by local councils who directed schools to open for just three weeks.

From the start of September all children are expected to return to school and college for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

Speaking at Fridays Welsh Government press conference, First Minister Mark Drakeford said the re-opening of schools is the priority and that most of the headroom we have is being devoted to ensuring that schools of staff and students can make a successful and safe return.

He added that re-opening of schools remains a top priority going into the autumn.

Asked by BBC Wales how much confidence parents can have that the re-opening of schools will go according to plan after the chaos over A Level results, Mr Drakeford said: I think parents and pupils in Wales can have confidence that schools in Wales will re-open successfully from September.

We are unique in the United Kingdom in having that experience from June and July where schools actually opened very successfully all schools in Wales be open to all pupils in Wales were able to attend and we have learned a great deal from that

I visited a school here in Cardiff earlier this week where the head teacher told me of the lessons that they learned from that experience, how they are applying them for the reopening in September.

We are in close touch with colleagues in Scotland, where schools have already returned and whether there are things that we can learn from them, too.

And by using the headroom we have in the next three weeks cycle, primarily for the purpose of re-opening schools, I think demonstrates that we are putting the successful and safe reopening of schools right at the very top of our agenda.

Guidance on the re-opening of schools has recently been released by the Welsh Government, includes a series of measures which schools and educational settings are expected to take wherever possible.

This includes enhanced cleaning, ensuring rooms are well ventilated where possible, encouraging frequent hand washing, minimising contact between all individuals wherever possible and making sure that a staff member or student isolates if they, a member of their household, or contact shows symptoms.

You can view the full briefing, along with the Q&A that some media attend, via the below video:


SK, KB lead green drive in Korea



By Lee Min-hyung

Environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) is emerging as a new mantra for sustainable growth of Korean manufacturing and financial firms, in their drive to generate more meaningful green, social and economic value.



Until recently, the notion of ESG did not make big headlines worldwide. But with the COVID-19 pandemic triggering what many pundits call a "once-in-a-century health crisis," large companies here and abroad are rushing to embrace ESG as their next key management philosophy under the strong belief that no firm can survive without a spirit of co-prosperity with society and the environment.



Data shows that more and more capital is flowing into socially responsible investment (SRI) funds here. According to market tracker FnGuide, the number of SRI funds in Korea has risen rapidly to 41 as of Aug. 13, compared to 31 at the end of 2019. The value of the funds also increased to 367.9 billion won ($309.3 million), up 15 percent during the same period.



Financial institutions are also latching on to the ESG boom by issuing relevant bonds. As of the end of 2019, the nation's four major financial holding firms  including KB, Shinhan, Hana and Woori  had issued ESG bonds worth more than 5.16 trillion won.



On the industrial front, SK Group is standing at the forefront in joining the global ESG bandwagon, with its key affiliates taking aggressive steps for eco-friendly management under the leadership of Chairman Chey Tae-won.



"The definition of sustainability has drastically changed since the COVID-19 outbreak," Chey said in the group's sustainable management report published in June. "Sustainable management is made possible only in a sustainable society."



The latest in a series of the group's ESG practices is SK Engineering & Construction's (E&C) recent announcement of its move to acquire EMC Holdings, a local environment management firm running more than 2,000 waste water treatment facilities nationwide.



SK E&C is in talks to take over EMC for 1 trillion won. The SK affiliate expects the acquisition to speed up its eco-friendly drive and secure a new sustainable growth engine, while at the same time fulfilling its social and economic value program.



SK Chemicals is also on track to realign its business portfolio with the focus on developing eco-friendly materials.



In February, the company sold its bioenergy business unit to a local private equity firm for 380 billion won. The decision was made as part of the firm's determination to secure capital to invest in developing more eco-friendly materials and increasing the sophistication of its life sciences business.



SK Innovation, which manufactures petroleum products and batteries for electric vehicles, is also looking to fulfil the group-wide ESG drive. The company plans to create what it calls a "total value chain" for the environment under which it will not just manufacture eco-friendly products, but also take steps to recycle batteries.



On the financial front, KB Financial Group, the nation's largest financial holding firm by market capitalization, is setting an example in achieving a group-wide ESG management drive.



Starting this year, KB Financial Group Chairman Yoon Jong-kyoo has reiterated the importance of ESG management, viewing it as a crucial and unavoidable step for the group's sustainability.



KB recently decided to expand its ESG investments to 50 trillion won by 2030 from the current 20 trillion won.



"KB will continue seeking to become a leading ESG-fulfilling company by taking more responsibility in the area, and we will do our best to create future value," Yoon said in the group's sustainability report published in early August.



To join the global ESG drive, KB is teaming up with the United Nations. Last year, the company signed up for the Principles for Responsible Banking under the U.N. Environment Program Finance Initiative.



The principles share a series of rules that banking players should follow for financial sustainability here and abroad.



KB Kookmin Bank, the group's major cash cow, is at the center of fulfilling a comprehensive set of ESG practices  from offering financial consultations on new renewable energy projects to establishing funds for sustainable growth of small- and medium-sized enterprises.



KB Securities has established a joint fund with a Canadian energy investment firm and acquired a license to operate a solar power development business project there.



KB Kookmin Bank also plans to launch an ESG-related fund in September. Other top-tier lenders, such as Shinhan Bank and Hana Bank, are also selling ESG funds.



While Korean companies only recently jumped on the global ESG paradigm, overseas firms mostly in the United States and Europe have already embraced the eco-friendly drive as their key management philosophy.



Microsoft is one of the most exemplary firms worldwide in terms of ESG management. As of the end of 2019, the American software giant had invested $2.3 billion in ESG funds, surpassing Apple which came in second at $500 million.



Microsoft is also sharing a grand vision to become carbon negative by 2030. The company is taking a leading role in investing in global carbon emission reduction by helping other firms control and reduce their emissions.



In the finance circle, BNP Paribas, a French international banking company, is actively engaging in the green drive by launching climate- and other environment-linked bonds. The company has issued equity-linked green bonds worth $100 million here and abroad for investment in eco-friendly and environmental projects.




BEAUFORT  Open to all Palmetto State high school juniors and seniors, the annual South Carolina High School Writing Contest was created in 2013 by Steven Lynn, dean of the South Carolina Honors College at USC; writer and editor Aida Rogers; best-selling writer Pat Conroy (the competitions original judge); and Jonathan Haupt, then director of the University of South Carolina Press and now executive director of the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center.

It is fitting then that Haupt was invited to return to the project to serve as the competitions judge this year. In addition to Conroy, previous judges have included Walter Edgar, Nikky Finney, Pam Durban, Mary Alice Monroe, and Marjory Wentworth.

It was my tremendous privilege to have helped Steve Lynn and Aida Rogers shepherd this important contest through its early years, and Im beyond honored to be invited back to judge the 2020 competition, Haupt said. Opportunities like these can begin to give shape to the arc of a writing life for burgeoning storytellers. And this contest has always done such a masterful job of letting us know whats on the minds and in the hearts of our young writers as they survey the present and look toward the future. Its all the more important now that we recognize and listen to their voices.

The writing contests topic is How should we improve the state of South Carolina? Submissions of up to 750 words are welcome by September 25 in all creative genres, including fiction, drama, and poetry, as well as straightforward essays, diary/journal entries, letters, or other literary forms.

After students submits their work, 15-20 finalists will be chosen. Those finalists will have their work reviewed by the 2020 writing contest judge. Cash prizes of $1,000, $500, and $250 will be awarded to the first, second, and third place winners. The entries of finalists and winners will be showcased by the South Carolina Honors College on its website.

The SC Honors College at USC partners with the Pat Conroy Literary Center, the South Carolina State Library, the University of South Carolina School of Library and Information Sciences, the South Carolina Academy of Authors, and the South Carolina Writers Association to present the annual statewide contest.

Learn more and submit entries at www.schonors.com/hswritingcontest.

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Caleigh Rathmell Alevy resides in Mountain Brook with her husband, 4 children, and canine. She is a Licensed Master Social Worker and a Licensed Massage Therapist. She is a guest columnist of David Shers Comeback Town.

In recent weeks, I have witnessed parents in my community battle on social media as we are approaching the start of the school year. Parents who want the best for their children and will fight to make sure their children get as much of that as possible. The foreseeable future is unknown and many parents are overcome with stress while deciding if their children will return to traditional brick and mortar school or stay at home learning through virtual school.

Ive watched parents post careless and hateful comments, challenging any parent who disagrees with their understanding and opinions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ive watched parents post their dissatisfaction with how the schools have handled returning to this school year. Ive watched parents instruct other parents that their children need to stay at home and attend virtual school or perhaps they really need to enroll their children in a private school.

I have no idea if these parents are friends beyond the social media world, but I do know that I would not be asking these parents for advice when I have the supportive and dedicated public school system, teachers, and faculty where my children are enrolled. My observation is simply that parents will cut down anyone who challenges their agenda and gets in the way of children returning to school.

Many times, a parent will post something significant and important to them to a group page and it quickly escalates into arguing or bantering amongst the members. Rather than turning someones social media contribution into a verbal war supporting ones own agenda, could parents be applying their thoughts and energy to supporting one another as well as the teachers and faculty who are working hard to provide a safe and welcoming space for our children?

While I did not want to get involved in the battlefield where so many are throwing in their two cents and others are rubbernecking, I wanted to convey the grief and shock I was experiencing.

I am ashamed to admit that I, too, took to social media with a passionate post. I wrote of how I struggled in my youth to embrace my community and how I feel as if I am circling right back to those feelings in the present. While I conveyed my feelings to others in similar situations, I left many of my friends and family perplexed and concerned for me.

I was not surprised to hear from parents, near and far, who are experiencing the same social media disasters. These verbal battlefields are not exclusive to my community. It is happening all over the country.

Is there a way that we could be using these platforms more effectively in a supportive way? One of the parents who contacted me shared insightful information that may help all of us do just that.

My friend, as a teacher, reached out to me because she wanted to assure me that teachers everywhere are working tirelessly in order to educate and care for their students during this pandemic. Teachers are arranging their classrooms to fit social distancing requirements, formulating their curricula for both traditional and virtual platforms further in advance than ever before, and participating in extensive training to help them identify trauma that their pupils may be experiencing during this challenging time.

The last component I find the most important. Trauma doesnt always look like someone being physically or verbally abused. Trauma can be something as minor as a child being separated from their parents during the pandemic when all theyve recently learned is that they are not supposed to be in contact with anyone outside of their immediate family.

Something as minor as a child requiring ear tubes due to an ear infection may not be allowed to have a parent present due to Covid-19 regulations. This can lead to a potential traumatic experience. While teachers have always received training to identify trauma so that schools can help children and their families, 2020 trauma will likely look a bit different.

Our teachers and faculty are not simply preparing to welcome our kids back to another school year and get them caught up with their academics. Our teachers and faculty are investing every waking moment and sleepless night learning how they may identify any behavioral health challenges that can be added in order to prevent our children from experiencing long-term emotional side effects.

Educators are worried of the impact a child could have losing their teacher to COVID-19 because of returning to school. There is so much unknown in the future and while COVID-19 may not have significantly impacted many of us yet, the numbers have not decreased to the recommended amount and we are continuing to disrespect the advice of many medical professionals.

My friend highlighted that teachers are also witnessing the same social media battlefields. One cant blame the teachers for being concerned for how this may impact their classrooms.

All mothers (and perhaps fathers) have heard the advice, You cant take care of others, if you arent taking care of yourself. Our teachers and faculty have very little to no time to take care of themselves right now. They are busy preparing for students while responding to stressed parents who want and need answers, expecting their childrens attendance and academic success be the priority.

I implore parents to spend the time they usually use on social media to support teachers, faculty and each other with respect, patience, and understanding. It takes a village to raise a child and the further support we can give to those teaching our kids, the stronger we will all be coming out of these uncertain times.
Washington, Aug 23 : The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that would inject $25bn (A19bn) into the Postal Service (USPS) ahead of November's election.

The legislation would also block cuts and changes that critics have said will hamper mail-in voting, the BBC reported on Saturday.

Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi recalled lawmakers from the summer recess to vote on the bill, which she said would protect the USPS.

After the vote, President Trump tweeted the measure was a Democrat ballot scam.

"Representatives of the Post Office have repeatedly stated that they DO NOT NEED MONEY, and will not make changes, " said Donald Trump. He has threatened to veto the bill, which is in any case unlikely to make progress in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said the chamber would "absolutely not pass" the bill.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said earlier that further cost-cutting measures at the postal service would be suspended until after November's vote.

A slowdown in mail deliveries amid cost-saving measures at USPS has fuelled fears about how one of the oldest and most trusted institutions in the US can handle an unprecedented influx of mail-in ballots due to the coronavirus pandemic.

President Trump strongly opposes mail-in ballots and has repeatedly suggested it could lead to widespread voter fraud despite there being no evidence for this.

The "Delivering for America Act" passed by the House in a rare Saturday sitting includes $25bn of emergency coronavirus funding requested by the USPS's board of governors.

More than a dozen Republicans crossed the floor to vote with their Democratic opponents.

The bill would require the USPS to treat all official election correspondence as first-class mail.

The service would be prohibited until January 2021 from implementing or approving any changes to operations or service levels that would "impede prompt, reliable, and efficient service", including closing or reducing the hours of post offices, removing mail sorting machines and mailboxes, or stopping overtime payments.

"This is not a partisan issue," Democratic Representative Carolyn Maloney, the bill's author, said before the debate. "It makes absolutely no sense to impose these kinds of dangerous cuts in the middle of a pandemic and just months before the elections in November." Pelosi stressed that the USPS was not a business.

"While we always want to subject every federal dollar to the scrutiny of what we're getting for it, let us remember that it is a service. No business that I can think of would ever be saddled with what we've done to the Postal Service," she added.

Republican political leaders on Friday said Democrats had "sought to spread baseless conspiracy theories about the USPS for political gain" and had "manufactured a crisis to undermine President Trump at the expense of America's institutions".

They also condemned Democrats for pursuing for what they said was "an unnecessary bailout plan that does not fix any of the underlying operational issues".

On Friday, the postmaster general told a Senate committee there had been "no changes to any policies with regard to election mail" and that the USPS was "fully capable and committed to delivering the nation's election mail fully and on time".

DeJoy - a top Republican donor and former logistics executive appointed to lead the agency in May - acknowledged that the changes he had instigated had slowed some mail delivery, but insisted that it was "outrageous" to suggest they were intended to help President Trump in November.
Cinema Masrs cast includes 65 students presenting on stage around 40 scenes from memorable Egyptian films in a dramatic context created by director Khaled Galal

Renowned Egyptian director Khaled Galal and his big cast from the Artistic Creativity Centre will perform their successful play 'Cinema Masr' at the Cairo Opera House's Fountain Theatre on three successive nights starting Monday.

The play, which has seen huge success among audiences and critics, has been staged for dozens of nights since its premier last summer, with many first-class artists attending and some being honoured during the show.

Cinema Masrs cast includes 65 students presenting on stage around 40 scenes from memorable Egyptian films in a dramatic context created by the director.

Khaled Galal is head of the Actor's Studio, operating under the Artistic Creativity Centre, which he also manages alongside heading the Cultural Production Affairs Sector.

Under Galal, during the past two decades, hundreds of actors enrolled at the Studio have graduated and entered the theatre and film scene, with its most successful play being Qahwa Sada (Black Coffee), which premiered in 2008 and whose cast have become some of the most popular and active actors in Egypt.

Amid strict safety measures, Egypt resumed cultural activities last month, with most performances to be held at outdoor venues.

Programme:

Monday 24, Tuesday 25 and Wednesday 26, 8pm

Fountain Theater, Cairo Opera House, Zamalek

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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Firefighters in California were racing to slow the spread of wildfires that burned nearly one million acres in a week and destroyed hundreds of homes as weekend weather threatened to spark new fires and overwhelm the states firefighting ability.

Responding to the emergency, President Donald Trump issued on Saturday a major disaster declaration to provide federal assistance. Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement that the declaration will also help people in counties affected by the fires with crisis counseling, housing and other social services.

Two clusters of wildfires in the San Francisco Bay Area broke old records to become the second- and third-largest wildfires in recent state history by size.

Also read| California wildfires among largest in states history: What we know so far

Light winds, cooler and more humid nighttime weather helped fire crews make a bit of progress, but their efforts could be hurt by warm, dry weather, erratic wind gusts and lightning in the forecast, state fire officials said.

The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning of high fire danger across the Bay Area and along the Central Coast, beginning from Sunday morning to Monday afternoon.

The worst is not behind us. We are in a battle rhythm, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Chief Thom Porter tweeted.

Since thousands of lightning strikes began on Aug. 15, the state responded to 585 wildfires that have burned nearly a million acres, or 1,562 square miles (4,046 square kilometers), according to CalFire.

Many were small and remote. The bulk of damage was from three clusters of fire complexes that were ravaging forest and rural areas in the San Francisco Bay Area and wine country north of San Francisco. They have burned 1,045 square miles (2,700 square kilometers).

The third one was burning in the Santa Cruz Mountains and along the coast of San Mateo County, south of San Francisco.

The fires have killed five people, torched nearly 700 homes and other structures and forced tens of thousands from their houses.

Tuesday night when I went to bed I had a beautiful home on a beautiful ranch, said 81-year-old Hank Hanson of Vacaville. By Wednesday night I have nothing but a bunch of ashes. Earlier in the week, fire officials in charge of each of the major wildfires said they were strapped for resources. Some firefighters were working 72-hour shifts instead of the usual 24 hours.

By Friday, the approximately 13,700 firefighters on the line began to get help on the ground and in the air from 10 states, along with the National Guard and US military.
Los Angeles, Aug 23 : Dwayne Johnson is all set to change the hierarchy of power in the superhero universe with his Black Adam avatar. The Hollywood star described Black Adam as a ruthless keeper of justice.

Johnson pulled back the curtain of his upcoming film "Black Adam" at the DC Fandome by sharing some concept art trailers for the film, which has not yet been shot. He said that he is in the "very early processes of this creation".

"I can promise you this, I give you my word. We are going to go beyond your wildest expectations," said Johnson, who also confirmed that the film includes Justice Society of America characters Hawkman, Doctor Fate, Cyclone, and Atom Smasher (played by Noah Centineo).

"The superheroes have to exhibit a little bit of restraint when it comes to taking care of the bad guys. This idea that you could take all of Black Adam's powers and he does not practice restraint, that makes for a really powerful combination, and one that's explosive, one that's very dangerous, and one that is ultimately very likable.

"He's a ruthless keeper of justice. He is the judge, the jury and executioner," Johnson said while talking about Black Adam.

The "Black Adam" panel began with an animated sequence voiced over by Johnson, which narrated the origin story of the anti-hero.

In the clip, he said: "5,000 years ago, Kahndaq was a melting pot of magic and powers. Most of us had nothing except the chains around our necks. Kahndaq needed a hero; instead they got me. I did what needed to be doneaand they imprisoned me for it. Now, 5,000 years later, I'm free. And I give you my wordano one will ever stop me again." Johnson loves that Black Adam's origins are of a slave as he said: "He's felt the burdens and pressures of a larger entity holding him down until he can't take it anymore. When you come from that place, it's just a very different energy and it informs how he operates and delivers justice." Black Adam is the arch-nemesis of the DC superhero Shazam. He is imagined as a complex antihero with a rich history of his own. Although Black Adam has traditionally been a villain, Johnson is selling him as a hero.

Teasing the story, Johnson narrated as Black Adam: "I have a knack for destroying bullies, but there are some who think I need help. Hawkman, Doctor Fate, and their new recruits: Cyclone and Atom Smasher. They call themselves the Justice Society, an organisation that believes in fighting for truth and justice. Well, I'm going to teach them that the only beliefs I fight for are mine. Welcome to truth, justice and the Black Adam way." The Justice Society of America is a popular superhero team introduced by DC Comics in 1940. It originally included Green Lantern, Atom, Flash, Hawkman, Hour-Man, Spectre, Sandman and Doctor Fate.

For the uninitiated, Doctor Fate is a sorcerer, Cyclone manipulates the wind, Atom Smasher can grow large and Hawkman flies and smashes things with a magic mace.

Johnson also suggested that Black Adam has ambitions to interact with other DC heroes, with the Hollywood star teasing names like Batman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and The Flash.

"The hierarchy of power in the DC Universe is about to change," he said.

Even though there is no clarity on Henry Cavill coming back as Superman for a cameo in a future DC movie, Johnson teased about a potential face off between Black Adam and Superman while answering a fan question.

"It might be cool to hang out with Superman. Because of our strengths and speed; Black Adam and Superman could become friends..or they won't," he said.

Johnson was joined by Centineo, who is confirmed to play Atom Smasher. He shared that he is busy training for the role "on a tarmac".

"His grandfather was kind of a villain. What I love about the character is he goes through this transformation... Because this is his first mission, it's this journey that he goes on of what it means to be a superhero," said Centineo.

Johnson has been working on developing Black Adam for a decade. The Warner bros movie is being helmed by "Jungle Cruise" director Jaume Collet-Serra.

The shooting for the film was supposed to start this year, but the plan was changed due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Victoria, B.C., police say that for the second night in a row, theyve broken up a party at the same downtown apartment and fined one of the participants.

Police say they were called to a one-bedroom suite in a multi-unit residential building just after midnight on Sunday for reports of a party.

They had visited the same suite the night before, breaking up a party of approximately 30 people and fining the host $2,300 for failing to follow the COVID-19 provincial health guidelines.

Police say this time they encountered a group of 15 people and ordered the party to disband.

One guest refused to co-operate, was subsequently arrested and given a $230 fine for abusive or belligerent behaviour under the COVID-19 Related Measures Act.

Police say the guest was later released at the scene and no additional tickets were handed out.

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Here are todays leading news stories:

Politics

-- Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc will attend the third Mekong-Lancang Cooperation (MLC) Summit, which is due to be held online on Monday, at the invitation of his Laotian counterpart Thongloun Sisoulith.

Society

-- Vietnam did not record any new case of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on Sunday morning. The countrys tally remains at 1,014, with 563 having recovered.

-- A 93-year-old woman in the central city of Da Nang became the countrys 26th coronavirus-related death on Saturday. The patient had a history of heart failure, hypertension, atrial fibrillation, kidney failure, and dementia.

-- Two young brothers, a five-year-old and a two-year-old, drowned in a lake while their mother was taking a nap in the southern province of Binh Phuoc on Saturday afternoon, police confirmed on the same day.

-- Traffic police in Ho Chi Minh City have booked 9,355 drivers for drunk-driving and 83 others for driving under the influence of drugs in the first three weeks of a national campaign aimed at curbing such traffic violations.

-- Police in the northern province of Bac Ninh have arrested two suspects who allegedly kidnapped a two-year-old boy. The boy went missing while playing with his father at a local park on Friday afternoon and was found by officers on Saturday evening.

Business

-- Vietnams exports continued to recover in the first half of August as the country has recorded a US$10 billion trade surplus so far this year, according to the General Department of Vietnam Customs.

-- The Peoples Committee in Ho Chi Minh City has asked for the governments support for its scheme to make the city a regional and international financial hub by adding the plan to the national socio-economic development strategy in the 2021-30 period, with a vision for 2045.

World News

-- Over 23.3 million people have caught COVID-19 while more than 807,700 have died of the disease around the world, according to Vietnam's Ministry of Health. Approximately 15.8 million have recovered from the virus.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Thousands of people gather for a protest at the Independence square in Minsk, Belarus (Dmitri Lovetsky/AP)

More than 100,000 protesters demanding the resignation of Belarus president have gathered in a vast square in the capital, keeping up the massive outburst of dissent that has shaken the country since a disputed presidential election two weeks ago.

Sundays demonstration overflowed Minsks sprawling 17-acre Independence Square.

There were no official figures on crowd size, but it appeared to be 150,000 people or more.

The demonstrators then marched to another square about one-and-a-half miles away.

Police made no immediate efforts to break up Sundays protest.

Protesters say the official August 9 presidential election results that gave President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term in a landslide are fraudulent.

The size and duration of the protests are unprecedented for Belarus, a former Soviet republic of 9.5 million people.

Expand Close Demonstrators are taking to the streets of the Belarusian capital (Dmitri Lovetsky/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Demonstrators are taking to the streets of the Belarusian capital (Dmitri Lovetsky/AP)

Video from Belarus on Sunday showed the beleaguered president carrying a rifle and wearing a bulletproof vest as he got off a helicopter that brought him to his working residence amid the 15th straight day of protests.

As Mr Lukashenko landed at the Independence Palace in Minsk, protesters were gathered in a nearby square.

The video was released on the Telegram messaging app on a channel that other media identified as being close to Mr Lukashenkos press service.

The 65-year-old leader  who has been in power for 26 years  appears to be flailing about for a strategy to counter them.

He has repeatedly blamed Western interference, claimed the protests were backed by the United States and accuses Nato of building up troop concentrations in Poland and Lithuania on Belarus western border, which the alliance denies.

He also claimed that Russian president Vladimir Putin was willing to offer security assistance to his government to quell the protests if he asked for it.

Expand Close Thousands of people gather for a protest at Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus (Dmitri Lovetsky/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Thousands of people gather for a protest at Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus (Dmitri Lovetsky/AP)

A similarly enormous crowd turned out for a protest a week ago and daily demonstrations have taken place since the vote.

Several of the countrys key factories have been hit with protest strikes by workers fed up with government policies.

Those strikes not only threaten the already-ailing economy, but show that opposition to Mr Lukashenko extends beyond educated white-collar circles and into his traditional blue-collar base.

Belarus has changed. Lukashenko has been able to unify everybody, from workers to intelligentsia, in the demand for change, said protester Slava Chirkov, who attended Sundays demonstration with his wife and son.

They held a sign declaring Lukashenko, your milk has gone sour, referencing Mr Lukashenkos former job as the director of a Soviet-era collective farm.

Mr Lukashenkos main election challenger, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, fled to Lithuania the day after the election.

Several other possible challengers fled the country even before the election.

An opposition Coordination Council was created last week to develop a strategy for a transition of power, but authorities in Belarus have opened a criminal probe into its formation.
There shouldnt be anything partisan about the U.S. Postal Service. Its a part of America that goes back to the Constitution, and has proven integral in uniting a country across vast spaces, over mountains and even oceans. There is no one who has not depended on a reliable postal service at some point in their lives to send and receive our most vital correspondence.

Today, the U.S. Postal Service is tasked with something its never faced before. Because of the threat of the coronavirus, millions of voters are likely to take advantage of absentee ballots and vote by mail this year. Absentees have been a part of elections for generations, but never on this scale. And in places like Connecticut, absentee ballots have until now been reserved only for people who meet specific criteria, such as an inability to vote in person due to illness or travel.

But we shouldnt act as though vote by mail is wholly unprecedented. Many states, including Oregon and Colorado, have long allowed anyone to vote via the Postal Service, and those elections have proceeded without a hitch. Voting by mail is safe, reliable and easy.

Unfortunately, like so much else in our current era, voting by mail has turned into a partisan feud, led by a president who said in a recent interview that he wanted to block federal funds to the Postal Service because of the election. They need that money in order to make the post office work, so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots, President Trump said in an interview with Fox Business Network. Now, if we dont make a deal, that means they dont get the money. That means they cant have universal mail-in voting.

Democrats have acted to reverse policy changes they say have had the effect of slowing the mail, and Connecticut Attorney General William Tong joined many states around the country in filing suit over cost-cutting changes to the services operational capacity. House Democrats were scheduled to vote Saturday on an emergency relief plan, but the Senate would need to act, as well.

Complaints about the Postal Services profits and losses should not be part of any debate on this topic. Its a part of the government that provides a service, not a business to be bought or sold. As Fourth District U.S. Rep. Jim Himes said recently, Breaking the Post Office because it doesnt make money is like trashing your bicycle because it doesnt brew coffee.

The Postal Service must not only halt any changes that were in the works, but reverse moves that have already been made. At its regular capacity, the Postal Service is well-equipped to handle the ballots expected to move around Election Day, but if its cuts are not restored, that ability is called into question. With so much on the line in the presidential election, as well as state and local races nationwide, the service cannot be faced with any unnecessary restrictions.

The Postal Service has never been more important to our countrys future than it is during our current health crisis. The cuts that have diminished its service cannot be allowed to stand.
OMSK, Russia, Aug 22 (Reuters) - A plane carrying Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny took off from the Russian city of Omsk early on Saturday headed for Germany, his spokeswoman said on Twitter.

Gravely ill Kremlin critic Navalny was meant to be airlifted to Berlin to receive medical care after the opposition politician's allies accused the Russian authorities of trying to stop his evacuation.

Navalny fell ill earlier this week while flying back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk, where he had met allies ahead of regional elections next month. He was taken on a stretcher, motionless, from the plane and rushed to hospital after it made an emergency landing in Omsk. (Reporting by Anton Zverev; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by William Mallard)
T he gunman who killed 51 Muslim worshippers in New Zealand's worst mass shooting will face survivors of his attack on Monday at a sentencing hearing.

Brenton Tarrant, an Australian, has pleaded guilty to 51 murder charges, 40 charges of attempted murder and one charge of committing a terrorist act.

The attacks on March 15, 2019, which targeted people praying at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques, shocked the nation and prompted new laws banning the deadliest types of semi-automatic weapons.

They also prompted global changes to social media protocols after the gunman livestreamed his attack on Facebook, where it was viewed by hundreds of thousands of people.

The hearing on Monday will take place at the courthouse in Christchurch, the city where Tarrant carried out the attacks.

Some survivors, who have travelled from abroad to attend the hearing, will be allowed in the courtroom for their first encounter with Tarrant since the shootings.

Mourners pay their respects at a memorial near the Masjid Al Noor mosque in Christchurch / AP

Coronavirus measures mean the number of survivors in the main courtroom will be limited to 35 at any one time.

The hearing will also be streamed to seven adjacent courtrooms, which can hold another 200 people.

Judge Cameron Mander will hear some 66 victim impact statements, according to the court.

He said he realised the court process had been "exhausting and frustrating" for many of the victims.

"Finality and closure is considered by some as the best means of bringing relief to the Muslim community," he wrote in a court memo.

The judge is not allowing live reporting from the sentencing hearing and has reserved the right to ban some things that are said in court from being broadcast or published.

Tarrant will be allowed to speak before the sentencing / AFP/Getty Images

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who was praised around the world for her empathy and leadership after the attacks, said she would be monitoring the hearing closely.

"I don't think there is much that I can say that is going to ease just how traumatic that period is going to be," she said.

Tarrant, who is representing himself, will be allowed to speak before the sentencing.

A murder conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison. The judge can impose a life term without parole, a sentence that has never been used in New Zealand.

Andrew Geddis, a law professor at the University of Otago, said the case was unprecedented in New Zealand, both in the magnitude of the crime and the number of victims involved in the sentencing.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press
There is a new divisive issue in the U.S. presidential election: the ballot drop box.

The issue has taken on new urgency following cost-cutting measures at the U.S. Postal Service. The measures have slowed mail delivery nationwide.

U.S. election officials are preparing for a major expansion of mail-in voting. Experts say up to half of voters in the November 3 election may choose to not vote in person.

Democrats want drop boxes, Republicans do not

Democrats across the country are promoting drop boxes as an easy and reliable choice for voters who do not want to entrust their ballots to the U.S. Postal Service.

In Connecticut, Secretary of State Denise Merrill is recommending that voters turn in their ballots by drop box rather than through the mail. She made the recommendation after receiving reports that some ballots mailed a week before her states August 11 nominating contests arrived too late to be counted.

Three-quarters of ballots in that August primary were cast absentee, she said. Merrill, a Democrat, said the states 200 new drop boxes had proven a safe and popular choice.

I do not understand why people think theyre such a problem, Merrill said. Theyre more secure than mailboxes.

Republicans in Pennsylvania do not share that opinion.

Bruce Marks is a former Republican state senator from Pennsylvania. He said drop boxes do not offer trust that the person turning in a ballot is the person who cast that vote.

Theres no one watching or tracking, he said.

Pennsylvania's Democratic Governor Tom Wolf has defended the state's use of drop boxes. He argues they are legal and necessary, especially during the coronavirus crisis.

President Donald Trump, a Republican, won the state of Pennsylvania by less than 1 percentage point in 2016. Public opinion studies show that he is running behind Democratic candidate Joe Biden in the presidential race.

Trumps re-election campaign has taken legal action to prevent the use of ballot drop boxes in Pennsylvania. The campaign says the boxes could lead to voting fraud. Republican officials in other states have already prevented the use of drop boxes.

In neighboring Ohio, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose said last week that he did not want to risk similar legal action from the Trump administration. He announced he would permit one drop box for each of the states 88 counties. He said the Republican-controlled legislature had not given him the power to provide more.

Democrats are urging LaRose to change his decision. They note that the decision leaves the 864,000 registered voters in Clevelands Cuyahoga County with the same number of drop boxes as the 8,400 registered voters in Vinton County. Cuyahoga County voters are majority Democrat. Vinton is a majority Republican county.

In hotly contested Florida, Democrats in Miami-Dade County are seeking to make it easier for voters to use drop boxes.

Unlike other counties in the state, Miami-Dade voters must provide election officials with identification when putting a ballot in a drop box. Election workers also record a number printed on the voters envelope.

The process can take up to three minutes, the Democratic Party said in a letter to local election officials. The party is seeking to permit voters to drop their ballots quickly without the processing requirements.

Security measures required for ballot drop boxes differ from state to state. In Montana, at least two election officials must be present at the boxes. In New Mexico, the boxes are watched by video.

Some say the drop box battle is unnecessary.

Before 2020, eight states  Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington  had laws explaining how and where drop boxes could be used.

Returning ballots this way proved popular. In Colorado, Oregon and Washington, more than half of mail ballots were returned either to a drop box or to an election office in the 2016 presidential election. Those numbers come from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study.

Drop boxes have not caused debate in those states, said Murphy Bannerman of Election Protection Arizona, a voting-rights group.

Both parties use it at a really high rate, Bannerman said. So a lot of those tensions dont exist here.

Im Ashley Thompson.

The Reuters news agency reported this story. Ashley Thompson adapted it for VOA Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

promote - v. to help (something) happen, develop, or increase

reliable - adj. able to be trusted to do or provide what is needed

track - v. to follow or watch the path of (something)

fraud - n. the crime of using dishonest methods to take something valuable from another person

cast - v. to make (a vote) formally

print - v. to cause (words, images, etc.) to appear on paper or cloth by using a machine (called a printer)

envelope - n. an enclosing cover for a letter, card, etc.
Scientists testing a link between Queensland's growing youth detention centre cluster and an earlier Logan outbreak are expected to deliver their results by the end of the week.

Health officials have been analysing the genomic fingerprints of both outbreaks to determine if they form one supercluster.

It is alleged Olivia Muranga and Diana Lasu returned to Brisbane from Melbourne together on July 21 and spent eight days mingling in the community before testing positive for COVID-19.

The two women and another friend were charged with public health offences after allegedly lying to police about travelling to Melbourne, a declared hot spot.
Desmond Narh Tetteh, an internet cafe operator at Odumase Krobo, in the Eastern Region, has been arrested for fraudulent activities.



The Nursing and Midwifery Council (N&MC) collaborated with the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service to arrest him on suspicion of fraudulently using the logo of the Council to brand his internet cafe as an accredited facility to defraud Nurse Assistants who were seeking employment with the Ministry of Health.



A media brief issued by the Public Affairs Directorate of the N&MC to the Ghana News Agency in Accra, said at the time of his arrest on Thursday, August 20, 2020, Mr Tetteh, was in possession of some Certificates of Registration issued by the Council, which were suspected to belong to some Nurse Assistants.



He was also found with a list of over 100 names and index numbers, which he claimed were those of Nurse Assistants who sought for his assistance to register their details and apply for employment on the Ministry of Health (MOH) recruitment portal.



According to the brief, Mr Felix Nyante, the Registrar of the N&MC, received a tip-off that an internet cafe situated in the Odumasi Krobo in the Eastern region, had used the Councils logo and photo of some Nurse Assistants, to design a flyer and circulating on social media.



It said the target group as per the details on the said flyer was captured as Nurses General Recruitment, Strictly for 2017 NAP and NAC graduate only who completed from various Public Health Training Institutions.



It said, following the announcement by the MOH for the recruitment of Nurse Assistants Clinical (NAC) and Nurse Assistant Preventive (NAP), it was reported that Mr Tetteh, advertised his internet cafe using the logo of the Council to solicit for services from the applicants.



According to the release, Mr Tetteh charged GHS20.00 for each registration done on behalf of his clients, and that the people who patronised his internet cafe did so with the notion that the facility, was accredited by the N&MC, hence the Councils logo on his E-flyers.



It said upon this information, the Registrar tasked the team from the Disciplinary and Intelligence Department of the Council to investigate the matter.



The team, it said, sought the assistance of the Special Investigation Unit of the CID, to effect the arrest of Mr Tetteh, and he was caught in the act while he was attending to some clients at his internet cafe, and was subsequently sent to the Police CID Headquarters in Accra for further interrogation and investigation.



Items retrieved by the Police included a desktop computer, laptop, signed Certificates of Registration issued by the N&MC, and a list containing names and index numbers.

Source: GNA









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After Hurricane Harvey devastated the Houston area in 2017, waterlogged Houstonians responded with resounding support for flood mitigation projects and for the view that climate change is to blame for the flooding.

A lot has changed in the past three years as entire neighborhoods have seen new construction and the elevation of older homes, and yet a survey of Houston-area residents found attitudes on climate change and support for flood mitigation projects remain remarkably unchanged or have even increased slightly.

Thats despite the fact that flooding, while certainly a continuing threat, has been far more localized in the years since Hurricane Harvey. People have not forgotten the trauma of those weeks in August and September 2017. And as a series of new tropical disturbances once again heads our way, the message couldnt be more timely.

TEXAS FLOOD MAP: Your guide to long-term flood-risk data for Houston neighborhoods

The survey by the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston was conducted earlier this summer, the third in a series tracking residents attitudes and, more broadly, the regions recovery. We found most of those forced from their homes by Hurricane Harvey have either repaired their homes or built new ones, although about 20 percent remain in temporary housing. Pause for a moment and take that in  that is 1 in 5 three years after Hurricane Harvey forced them from their homes.

A strong majority of Houstonians point to global warming as the principal source of recent flooding, and most say climate change is man-made rather than naturally occurring. Support for a wide range of policies designed to reduce the negative impact of flooding remains extraordinarily high, and some of the work has already begun, with bayous widened and bridges raised to expand the waterways capacity and both new and older homes elevated 5 and even 10 feet above street level. You need only to drive near Cypress Creek or through Meyerland and other flood-weary neighborhoods to see the efforts underway to both limit future flooding and, if it happens, allow residents to literally rise above it.

Support for building additional retention basins is nearly universal, at 93 percent, with similar levels of support for widening the areas bayous, elevating homes and banning construction in flood plains.

Perhaps more surprising, three out of four residents in a region known as the oil and gas capital of the world support government funding for the development of wind, solar and thermal energy, as well as for government regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.

Not, of course, that Hurricane Harvey turned all Houstonians into raging liberals.

Two-thirds of area residents said they are either very or somewhat worried about global warming, and 74 percent think the more extreme flooding caused by global warming represents a threat to the Houston area, up from 67 percent two years ago. But there is still sizeable disagreement on the cause, with about 38 percent saying they believe global warming is caused mostly by natural changes in the environment, rather than by human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels.

LIVE UPDATES: Tropical Storm Laura likely to be bigger threat to Houston than Marco

And despite their support for flood mitigation projects, residents arent necessarily enthusiastic about higher taxes to pay for those projects. We found even less support for higher sales taxes than higher property taxes.

About 85 percent, however, said Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and state legislators should tap the states Rainy Day Fund to address future flooding.

One factor that perhaps dampens support for a tax increase is a lack of public confidence in city and county leaders ability to prevent the negative impact of future flooding, with only 17 percent of residents very confident that local leaders know how to prevent future flooding from having a negative impact on the region.

That rises to 52 percent for those who say they are at least somewhat confident in local leaders, still a tepid vote of confidence considering that some of the work approved by voters in a $2.5 billion bond election in 2018 is underway  a visible sign of action.

So what is the message to local leaders? Its mixed, but the average Houston area resident believes climate change is real, caused by human activity and responsible at least in part for the citys severe flooding. And, they support policies to prevent the adverse effects of future flooding  from restricting development to public subsidies for renewable energy.

The other message? People are reluctant to pay more in taxes to support the changes, in part because they are not entirely confident that local elected officials will use those tax funds to notably reduce the risks of future flooding.

We still have work to do.

Jones is Baker Institute Fellow in Political Science at Rice University. Cross is senior director of the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston, and Pinto is director of the Center for Public Policy at the Hobby School.
A Santa Cruz firefighter battling the CZU Lightning Complex this weekend returned to his work vehicle to find his wallet stolen and his bank account drained, authorities said Sunday morning.

Its saddening. Its sickening, Cal Fire Operations Chief Mark Brunton said.

Officials said the fires in southern San Mateo County and northern Santa Cruz County had burned 71,000 acres and were only 8% contained at 7 a.m. Sunday. Damage inspection teams were arriving to survey locations where the fire had diminished, but already 115 structures have been destroyed and 24,323 were threatened.

Among the 1,349 personnel responding to the fires was the ground commander whose wallet was stolen. Though approximately 77,000 have been evacuated from the area, authorities have had trouble keeping out looters.

Now Playing: Chronicle photojournalist Gabrielle Lurie captures the smoke from California State Route 1 on Thursday, August 20. The CZU August Lightning Complex fires have burned about 50,000 acres, 0% containment as of Friday afternoon, Aug. 21, 2020. Video: San Francisco Chronicle

In incidents separate from the one involving the firefighter, five people suspected of looting were arrested Friday in Santa Cruz County, county officials said.

Frankly, I cant believe someone would have the nerve to break into a firefighters vehicle or enter their vehicle to steal something from them, while theyre there to protect the community, said Chief Deputy Chris Clark of the Santa Cruz County Sheriffs Office.

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.

Officials asked residents to leave evacuation areas and not return. They also warned about scams in the area, including callers pretending to be from PG&E and asking for money.

Another scam, officials said, was a purported fake GoFundMe account, claiming to be established in support of the firefighter whose wallet was stolen. Cal Fire and Santa Cruz County officials asked that donations instead be made to Red Cross or the countys community foundation.

Rusty Simmons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rsimmons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Rusty_SFChron
RN Jose Muniz gives a CCP virus vaccination to a volunteer at Research Centers of America in Hollywood, Fla., on Aug. 7, 2020. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Virginia Health Commissioner Plans to Mandate COVID-19 Vaccine

Virginias health commissioner said he intends to require people to be immunized for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus once a vaccine becomes available to the public, crystallizing fears that Americans will be forced to be vaccinated.

The virus is killing people now. We dont have a treatment for it, and if we develop a vaccine that can prevent it from spreading in the community, we will save hundreds and hundreds of lives, Dr. Norman Oliver told Richmond news station 8News last week.

He added that such a mandate wouldnt happen until a vaccine is proven to be safe.

Dr. Norman Oliver. (Virginia Department of Health)

Virginia law currently allows the commissioner to require immediate vaccination in the case of an epidemic. Exceptions are granted only if a physician has certified in writing that the administration of a vaccine would be detrimental to a patient.

But three Republican lawmakers introduced a bill (pdf) last week that would add another exception. If the legislation passes, people who object to getting vaccinated on religious grounds could avoid the requirement.

Delegate Mark Colethe bills main patrontold The Epoch Times in an email: Government does not have the right to force someone to violate their religious rights.

No one should be forced to take a vaccine. Every vaccine has some health ricks associated with it, they may be relatively minor but they are there. Vaccines that have been tested and found to be effective and safe should be offered to the public, and I am confident that the vast majority of people will take advantage of it, including myself. That in itself will be enough to develop a herd immunity. There is no reason to force people to take the vaccine against their will, he added.

Cole also expressed concern about how fast COVID-19 vaccines are being developed, wondering if the speed means crucial safety steps are being bypassed.

Who knows what the health consequences of short-circuiting the process may be? he said.

Delegate Mark Sickles, a Democrat who chairs the state House Health, Welfare, and Institutions Committee, where the bill was referred to for consideration, didnt return a request for comment.

Democrats control both the House and the Senate in Virginia.

A spokeswoman for Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam didnt respond about whether Northam supports Olivers plans for a mandated CCP virus vaccine.

The virus causes COVID-19, a disease that is proving debilitating or fatal primarily for the elderly and infirm.

Skepticism of a safe CCP virus vaccine is rampant in the United States. Twenty-four percent of respondents to a Reuters/Ipsos poll in May said they arent at all interested, or not very interested, in taking a vaccine. Another 11 percent said they arent sure.

Vaccines for the new illness are being rushed to development, with some targeted to be ready by the end of the year. It normally takes years of development for a vaccine to hit the market.

Transmission electron micrograph of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles, which The Epoch Times refers to as the CCP virus, isolated from a patient. (NIAID)

More than 40 percent of those with little or no interest said they were worried about how fast the vaccines are being developed and fear the vaccine is riskier than the disease itself.

In a poll from Marist University and PBS this month, 35 percent of respondents said they wouldnt get the vaccination. Another 5 percent were unsure.

Some fear the vaccine becoming mandatory, with a number of people reacting strongly to Olivers remarks on social media.

This is absolutely terrifying and should be met with whatever resistance is necessary, Ben Jammin, a supporter of President Donald Trump who works for DFS Army, wrote on Twitter.

Kathleen Medaries, spokeswoman for Virginia Freedom Keepers, which advocates for medical freedom, said it should be up to individuals to decide whether the vaccine is right for their family.

This is not a Republican or Democrat issue. Its not a pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine issue,  Medaries told 8News. For me, its an issue of being able to assess each vaccine for myself and my family one at a time.

Experts told news agencies that people who refuse to get the vaccine could be punished.

A laboratory technician holds a dose of a CCP virus vaccine candidate ready for trial on monkeys at the National Primate Research Center of Thailand at Chulalongkorn University in Saraburi on May 23, 2020. (Mladen Antonov/AFP via Getty Images)

States can compel vaccinations in more or less intrusive ways, Dov Fox, a law professor and the director of the Center for Health Law Policy and Bioethics at the University of San Diego, told KGTV. They can limit access to schools or services or jobs if people dont get vaccinated. They could force them to pay a fine or even lock them up in jail.

Courts have found that when medical necessity requires it, the public health outweighs the individual rights and liberties at stake, he added, citing the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Jacobson v. Massachusetts.

Debbie Kaminer, a law professor at Baruch College in New York, cited the same ruling in a column, arguing that states would likely have the legal right to enforce mandates for vaccines. Even though the ruling was made in 1905, courts still rely on it, she added.

For example, New York City in 2019 required that anyone over 6 months old who lived, worked, or attended school in certain areas must be vaccinated against the measles, or face a fine.

Kaminer said employers are able to require vaccination in different ways, though few have decided to do so prior to the pandemic.

Not all states are poised to mandate a COVID-19 vaccination.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, told reporters on Aug. 5 that he wouldnt mandate that children get vaccinated upon return to school once a vaccine becomes available.

Action on a federal level may not be legal, according to Y. Tony Yang, executive director of the Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement at the George Washington University School of Nursing, and Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law.

A federal vaccine mandate would likely be found unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause because it would regulate activity that is not solely economic, they wrote in an op-ed, adding: Beyond legality, a federal vaccine mandate does not solve root problems that prevent people from vaccinating. A mandate is also likely to fuel the anti-vaccination movement and even greater distrust in government.
President Donald Trump speaks to the 2020 Council for National Policy Meeting, Friday, Aug. 21, 2020, in Arlington, Va. Evan Vucci/AP Photo

Several Republican leaders have publicly voiced their opposition to Trump and signaled they will not support his 2020 reelection.

The list includes ex-officials and those currently in office, such as former President George W. Bush and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, the GOP presidential nominee in 2012.

At the Democratic National Convention this week, more Republicans added to the chorus against Trump, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump has stoked tensions within the Republican Party he leads, bashing party loyalists and even previous presidential nominees who dared to defy him with names like "loser" and "RINO," for Republican in name only.

These divisions and Trump's no-holds-barred rhetoric have prompted lifelong Republicans to come forward and say they're not backing him in 2020. It's also led to the creation of groups like NeverTrumpers, The Lincoln Project and Republican Voters Against Trump.

Some of these current and former GOP leaders have stretched that promise further and shared plans to instead tick the ballot box for his rival, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. A handful joined the ranks this week at the four-day virtual Democratic National Convention.

Scroll for a list of all the high-ranking Republican officials who have said they will not support Trump's reelection bid.

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott

Phil Scott. Cheryl Senter/AP

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott shared that he will not be voting for Trump on Friday.

The announcement comes as Scott is seeking a second-term as governor in the left-leaning state for the upcoming general election. He has been governor since 2017 and previously served as lieutenant governor and state senator.

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Scott has said that he did not back Trump in the 2016 election.

Former Defense Secretary and Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel

Chuck Hagel. Davaan Ingraham / REUTERS

Former Defense Secretary and Sen. Chuck Hagel joined more than 70 former national security officials from a handful Republican administrations to endorse Joe Biden on Friday.

"While we  like all Americans  had hoped that Donald Trump would govern wisely, he has disappointed millions of voters who put their faith in him and has demonstrated that he is dangerously unfit to serve another term," the statement reads.

"While some of us hold policy positions that differ from those of Joe Biden and his party, the time to debate those policy differences will come later," it continues. "For now, it is imperative that we stop Trump's assault on our nation's values and institutions and reinstate the moral foundations of our democracy."

Hagel served as defense secretary from 2013 to 2015 during the Obama administration and as a GOP senator from 1997 to 2009.

Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich

John Kasich. Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a self-delared "lifelong Republican," crossed the aisle earlier this week when he made an appearance at the DNC rebuking Trump's attacks on Biden.

The former governor implored Americans to think beyond party lines this November and join him in "choosing a better way forward."

"I'm sure there are Republicans and independents who couldn't imagine crossing over to support a Democrat," Kasich said. "They fear Joe may turn sharp left and leave them behind. I don't believe that because I know the measure of the man: reasonable, faithful, respectful. And you know, no one pushes Joe around."

Kasich previously ran against Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary. He served as governor from 2011 to 2019 and before that in the state's legislature.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell echoed the sentiments of many Republicans at the DNC, indicating his support for Biden over Trump.

"Our country needs a commander-in-chief who takes care of our troops, in the same way he would his own family," Powell said at the event. "With Joe Biden, that doesn't need teaching."

Powell did not support Trump in 2016 and voted for his opponent Hillary Clinton. Another Democrat he has voted for in the past is Barack Obama. He served under the George W. Bush administration.

Former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman

Christine Todd Whitman. Handout/DNCC via Getty Images

Former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman also appeared in the DNC clip deemed "We the People Putting Country Over Party" alongside fellow Republicans voicing their support for Biden.

"What am I doing here? I'm a lifelong Republican," Whitman said. "My parents were introduced at the Republican National Convention by their parents. That's how far back it goes."

"But this isn't about a Republican or Democrat. It's about a person," she added. "A person who can work with everyone, Democrats and Republicans, to get things done. Donald Trump isn't that person. Joe Biden is."

Whitman served as governor of New Jersey from 1994 to 2001.

Former New York Rep. Susan Molinari

Susan Molinari. Handout/DNCC via Getty Images

Former Rep. Susan Molinari, a native New Yorker, told viewers at the DNC that she has known Trump for most of her political career and has also worked with Biden.

"So disappointing and lately, so disturbing" Molinari said of Trump. Biden, on the other hand, is a "really good man" and "exactly what this nation needs at this time."

She served as a congresswoman for New York from 1990 to 1993.

Former Pennsylvania Rep. Charlie Dent

Charlie Dent. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Former Rep. Charlie Dent endorsed Biden earlier this week, blasting Trump as an "illiberal populist" who ineffectively responded to the coronavirus pandemic. Dent served in Congress from 2005 to 2018.

"Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined a Republican President praising autocrats and advancing Russian President Vladimir Putin's foreign policy interests in Europe and the Middle East," the former congressman hailing from Pennsylvania wrote in an op-ed for CNN.

"Biden is fundamentally a decent and honorable man who respects the American tradition, supports the rule of law, embraces America's friends and allies, and will restore some semblance of normalcy to the functioning of government," Dent said. "That's all I want  and not too much to ask of a President."

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton

John Bolton. Thomson Reuters

Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton released an explosive memoir earlier this year in which he slammed the president.

During several interviews promoting the book, Bolton revealed that he will not be voting for Trump. He told Insider's Sonam Sheth that he would be writing in a conservative Republican, saying that he wouldn't vote for Trump "for philosophical reasons and because he's not competent."

Bolton worked under the Trump administration from April 2018 to September 2019.

Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah

Mitt Romney. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Sen. Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, has broke with his party on several occasions as a vocal critic of Trump, and was the lone Republican to vote in support of his impeachment.

More recently, he has struck back at the president's bitter tone toward the Black Lives Matter protests, taking to the streets himself to participate in the racial justice movement.

Romney made it clear in an interview with The Atlantic earlier this year that he will not vote for Trump.

Romney has been in his current office since 2019 and previously was governor of Massachusetts. He lost to Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election.

Former President George W. Bush

George W. Bush. Alex Wong/Getty Images

Former President George W. Bush will not be voting for Trump, according to people close to him as reported by the New York Times.

Bush did not support Trump in 2016. He reportedly called Trump's inaugural address "some weird s--t." He has distanced himself from the president throughout his tenure.

Former Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona

Jeff Flake. Toya Sarno Jordan/Getty Images

Jeff Flake had called out Trump while he was still a senator but piled on his criticisms after he left the office in 2019, penning an op-ed pleading with fellow Republicans to not back the president's reelection.

Flake confirmed in an interview with the Washington Post that he does not plan to vote for Trump this year.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Two hurricanes are expected to slam into the US Gulf Coast in the coming days, forecasters said Sunday, as Tropical Storm Laura killed at least 12 people when it struck Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

US media said twin hurricanes were unprecedented in the Gulf of Mexico since records began 150 years ago.

Tropical Storm Marco strengthened into a hurricane with winds of 75 miles (120 kilometers) per hour, and is forecast to hit the state of Louisiana on Monday.

Tropical Storm Laura hammered Haiti and the Dominican Republic with heavy rain, killing at least 12 people -- 9 in Haiti and three in the Dominican Republic.

It was set to become a hurricane on Tuesday that could hit the US coastal region on Wednesday.

Energy companies have suspended some oil and natural gas production in the Gulf as the weather deteriorates.

The US National Hurricane Center said Storm Laura was "bringing torrential rainfall and life-threatening flooding" to Haiti, which shares Hispaniola island with the Dominican Republic.

The storm killed three people in the Dominican Republic's capital Santo Domingo, said Juan Manuel Mendez, head of the country's Center of Emergency Operations.

A woman and a child died at home, while a young man died when a tree fell on his home, Mendez said.

The storm has flooded houses, cut off remote villages and left more than one million Dominicans in the dark, Mendez added.

In neighboring Haiti, a 10-year-old girl was among the nine dead, authorities said. They said some homes were flooded and evacuations were underway.

- Flooded homes -

With brown water up to their knees, some residents tried to save what they could from their flooded homes, while street traders saw their goods washed away.

"I didn't know there was bad weather forecast. We don't often have electricity in my neighborhood so I couldn't follow the news on the radio," said Sony Joseph, trembling with cold.

The Atlantic storm season, which runs through November, could be one of the busiest ever this year, with the Hurricane Center predicting as many as 25 named storms. Laura is the 12th so far.

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Haiti, a country of 11 million, has seen a relatively low incidence of COVID-19 -- with just over 8,000 cases and around 200 deaths to date -- but authorities urged caution to prevent further spread in the aftermath of Storm Laura.

"Wear your masks and respect distances, especially in temporary shelters," Interior Minister Audain Fils Bernadel said at a briefing Saturday. "With COVID, we have considerably less capacity in our shelters."

Storms pose a serious risk to Haiti every year from June to November. Even a heavy rainfall can threaten the country's poorest residents, many of them living in at-risk zones, near canals or ravines that can be obstructed by debris and quickly overflow.

The Miami-based Hurricane Center said on Sunday that "a slightly stronger Laura was just south of eastern Cuba" after sending "life-threatening flash flooding likely over the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba and Jamaica."

Marco was expected to bring "life-threatening storm surges and hurricane force winds" to parts of the US Gulf coast on Monday and Tuesday, the NHC warned.

bur-mdl/jm
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...
A South Korean diplomat has speculated that Kim Jong Un is in a coma and his sister is being positioned to take control of North Korea.

Chang Song-min, an ex-aide to late-South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, believes Kim has been in a comatose state since April, and that all of his public appearances have been faked.

Chang speculated that Kim Yo-jong, the dictator's younger sister, is now being groomed for leadership after spy chiefs claimed that she has been promoted to de-facto deputy leader of the country.

A South Korean diplomat has sensationally claimed that Kim Jong Un is in a coma and his sister is set to take control of North Korea. Above, Kim Jong Un pictured at a plenary meeting on Thursday

Kim Yo-jong, 33, (pictured above) is in prime position to take over some of her brother's powers, according to Chang Song-min

Intelligence officials are said to have told a closed-door meeting of security chiefs that Kim has put his sister in charge of foreign policy toward the US and South Korea.

The role, if confirmed, would make her de-facto second-in-command of the country.

Chang said that such a move is unprecedented in North Korea's history, and would only occur under two scenarios - if Kim was gravely ill, or if there had been a coup.

Of the two possibilities, Chang wrote on Facebook: 'I assess him to be in a coma, but his life has not ended.'

He added: 'A complete succession structure has not been formed, so Kim Yo-jong is being brought to the fore as the vacuum cannot be maintained for a prolonged period.'

That would mean that all of Kim's recent public appearances have been faked, including one of him at a party meeting last week.

Observers have previously suggested that Kim could be using a body-double, after images of him at a fertiliser factory - published after he disappeared for 21 days - seemed to show several physical differences.

But observers poured scorn on Chang's comments, with South Korean website Shinmoongo calling it 'absurd.'

The site pointed out that the former diplomat - now a popular commentator on conservative news outlets - made the same remarks earlier this year.

After 'greatly embarrassing' himself by commenting on the leader's health before he reappeared in public, Chang is now trying to validate his opinions, the site said.

Earlier this week, it was claimed that Kim Jong Un had promoted his sister to second-in-command of North Korea. Above, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, attends a plenary meeting of the Workers' Party in Pyongyang, North Korea, Wednesday, August 19

Other North Korean experts had cast doubt on the initial intelligence from South Korea, which they pointed out has been wrong in the past.

In 2016, the agency reported that chief of the army Ri Yong-gil had been executed, only to subsequently report that he was still alive.

Kim Jong Un, said to be aged around 36, has only been seen a handful of times this year amid speculation in April that a 'botched' heart operation had left him in a critical condition or even dead.

While he has appeared in public multiple times since then, his schedule has been dramatically reduced.

Meanwhile Kim Yo-jong has been taking on a much larger public profile in recent months, including taking the lead on diplomacy with South Korea.

In June, she gave the order to blow up a joint liaison office with South Korea amid fury at propaganda leaflets being sent over the border.

She was also charged with organising a counter-leaflet campaign in revenge, and ordered loudspeakers playing propaganda messages to be erected along the border.

She also threatened South Korea with unspecified military action, until Kim Jong-un ordered the threat to be withdrawn.

At the time, observers said it was possible that North Korea was trying to boost the leadership profile of the younger Kim, in the event she has to step in for her brother if his health fails.

Others suggested that the pair were attempting to develop a 'good cop, bad cop' dynamic, potentially giving them an edge in negotiations with foreign powers - after the collapse of nuclear talks with Donald Trump.
(Newser)  Alexei Navalny, who fell ill after drinking tea his supporters believe was poisoned, is now being treated in a hospital in Berlin. The Russian opposition leader was taken by air ambulance from Siberia to Germany on Saturday, Reuters reports. Doctors in Omsk approved the move Friday after first blocking it, saying Navalnywho's in an induced comawas too ill for the trip. German doctors then went to Omsk to examine Navalny, declaring him able to be transferred, and his wife appealed to the Kremlin for approval. His condition didn't appear to change during the trip, said a supporter on the flight, which was provided by the Cinema for Peace Foundation. Navalny, 44, was taken to Berlin's Charite hospital, where his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, and an aide, saw him Sunday. They left without saying anything to reporters, per the AP.

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During Navalny's trip to Siberia, just before he collapsed on a flight to Moscow, an aide had said the dissident was under "absolutely obvious" police surveillance. Police sources detailed the surveillance in Tomsk to a Russian newspaper, per the Guardian, possibly to clear authorities there. "The security services are inclined to believe that if the events connected to a poisoning did take place, then they probably occurred at the airport or in the plane," the paper said. The sources provided information about Navalny being followed as he went about the city for meetingsand even for a swim. The apartment where he was staying was discovered when someone in his party had sushi delivered. The Berlin hospital said it would release information about Navalny's condition after it completes tests and informs his family. (Read more Alexei Navalny stories.)
England's chief medical officer Chris Whitty has said a vaccine for the coronavirus may not be ready until next winter and that he'd be 'surprised' if we had one by this Christmas.

Whitty told reporters on Saturday it would be 'foolish' to plan for winter on the basis of having a vaccine but there was a 'reasonable chance' there could be one made available before the winter of 2021-2022.

He warned that going into winter there will be 'real problems' with Covid-19 and said that the country should plan on the basis of no vaccine being available.

Prof Whitty added: 'I would obviously be delighted if it came earlier rather than later but I'd be quite surprised if we had a highly effective vaccine ready for mass use in a large percentage of the population before the end of winter, certainly before this side of Christmas.

England's chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty (pictured in June) has said it would be 'foolish' to plan for winter on the basis of having a coronavirus vaccine

'Now that may be wrong, a lot of people are doing a huge amount scientifically, logistically to make sure that's a pessimistic statement, to try and see if we can get a vaccine at extraordinarily fast speed but we have to check it works and we have to make sure it's safe and these things do take time.

'So I think if we look forward a year I think the chances are much greater than if we look forward six months and we need to have that sort of timescale in mind.

'So planning for the next winter, it would be foolish to plan on the basis we will have a vaccine.

'We should plan on the basis we will not have a vaccine and then if one does prove to be effective and safe and available then we're in a strong position to be able to use it and that will be great but we should be planning on the basis of what we currently have.'

I'm confident in the long-term in the ability of science to get us out of this hole but I don't think we can expect it to happen in the next few weeks or even the next few months

But Prof Whitty said he was confident in the ability of science to help tackle the virus but it would not be in the next few weeks or months.

He added: 'I'm confident in the long-term in the ability of science to get us out of this hole but I don't think we can expect it to happen in the next few weeks or even the next few months.'

Pictured: Volunteer Yash is injected with the vaccine as part of an Imperial College vaccine trial, at a clinic in London in early August. Whitty told reporters on Saturday that there was a 'reasonable chance' there could be vaccines to the virus before the winter of 2021-2022

His comments to reporters come as he joined the UK's chief and deputy chief medical officers to issue a joint statement on schools and childcare reopening.

When asked if there were decisions he would have made differently earlier in the pandemic Prof Whitty said 'of course' but plans had to be made with the information available.

He added: 'There is a long list of things which, if we knew at the beginning of this what we know now about this virus, about how it operates and also how the initial epidemic started, of course we would have done differently and we knew at the time that it would be easier to plan with the huge benefit of hindsight, but you have to plan with the information you've got available to you, but yes, of course.'

When asked if the country should have gone into lockdown earlier Prof Whitty said there were a 'wide range of views' on that issue but it did not help with forward planning.

He added: 'I'm very happy to give a long and rather tedious mathematical answer but I think in due course we'll be going through that but that's not actually something that helps us with forward planning and that's the thing which I and my colleagues are really critically concentrating on at the moment.'
STAMFORD  About 150 seniors from the Stamford Senior Center fulfilled their summer cravings at the ice cream drive-thru at the Jewish Community Center in Stamford on Thursday.

The Ice Cream Emergency food truck catered the event, which saw a large crowd of folks passing through the JCC parking lot in a drive-thru fashion.
Wildfires in California have killed at least six people and forced tens of thousands from their homes, with few signs of reprieve in sight, as firefighting resources strain under the vastness of dozens of infernos raging across the state.

More than 771,000 acres have burned so far, an area greater than the state of Rhode Island, Californias governor Gavin Newsom said at a press conference Friday.

He said the scope and ferocity of the fires has stretched thin the states capacity to respond in an unprecedented moment in Californias history, adding that he anticipated mutual aid support coming from Arizona, Oregon, Washington state, Texas, Nevada and elsewhere.

We are struggling, said Newsom.

Three major complexes encompassing dozens of fires chewed through forests, canyons and rural areas north, east and south of San Francisco Bay. Fires have scorched iconic redwoods within Big Basin, Californias oldest state park. Thousands of acres were ablaze elsewhere across California.

Skies remained darkened by smoke on Friday, with tens of thousands of homes threatened by flames that drove through dense and bone-dry trees and brush. Some fires doubled in size within 24 hours, fire officials said

Related: 'Severe inhumanity': California prisons overwhelmed by Covid outbreaks and approaching fires

Air quality in California has been among the worlds worst, leaving those with respiratory conditions  who are already vulnerable to Covid-19, especially vulnerable. The intersecting crises have also strained public health resources, with health officials expressing concern over growing evidence that air pollution could exacerbate the symptoms of coronavirus, and stoke the spread of disease.

Many of the fires were sparked by an unusually high volume of lightning strikes during thunderstorms earlier this week, which came amid a searing heatwave.

The state was struck by lightning more than 12,000 times over the past four days, state fire officials said Friday. More than 560 separate blazes  which includes two dozen complex, major fires  are burning concurrently, officials reported.

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The National Weather Service in the Bay Area warned there was a risk of another possible widespread lightning event this weekend.

Newsom noted that the state has been suffering from what may be the hottest modern recorded temperatures in the history of the world, adding, That is a remarkable statement of fact.

While evacuations were lifted in the small city of Vacaville, between San Francisco and Sacramento, other areas expanded their evacuation areas. The University of California, Santa Cruz, was evacuated and a new fire burning near Yosemite national park also prompted evacuations.

A satellite image shows the wildfire burning in Sonoma county in California. Photograph: AP

The mayor of Santa Cruz, a coastal city of 65,000, urged residents on Thursday evening to be prepared to evacuate by gassing up their vehicles and packing important documents, medicines and other belongings.

Prepare early so that you are ready to go at a moments notice, Cummings said.

Temperatures remained high, though were predicted to ease slightly on Friday. Erratic winds also could drive the fires unpredictably in multiple directions, challenging firefighting efforts, state fire officials said.

Theres so much heat in these fires that they create their own wind  and they may blow in any direction, and very erratically, said Daniel Berlant, an assistant deputy director with the state department of forestry and fire protection, known as Cal Fire.

As the fires rage, the state is facing a shortage of firefighters, due to a decline in available crews of incarcerated firefighters, which the state has long relied on despite widespread concerns about the ethics and labor issues surrounding use of imprisoned workers.

Newsom said the state has brought on more than 830 firefighters to backfill positions left vacant after some incarcerated firefighters were released from prison due to the Covid crisis.

The ferocity of the blazes so early in the year has astonished fire scientists. Typically, peak fire season in California is in the autumn, when powerful offshore winds stoke and spread embers into infernos. Theres no real end in sight this year, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA.

Cal Fires Berlant said three civilians have died in Napa county and one in neighboring Solano county since the fires began. It wasnt immediately clear whether the death toll included a Pacific Gas & Electric utility worker who was found dead on Wednesday in a vehicle in the Vacaville area. Also, in central California, a pilot on a water-dropping mission in western Fresno county died on Wednesday morning when his helicopter crashed.

Related: The climate crisis has already arrived. Just look to Californias abnormal wildfires | Alastair Gee, Dani Anguiano

At least two other people were missing and more than 30 civilians and firefighters have been injured, authorities said.

The fires have destroyed at least 175 buildings, including homes, and threatened tens of thousands more.

Outside Fresno, in Californias central valley, 52-year-old helicopter pilot Mike Fournier was dropping water to beat back brush fires when his Bell UH-1 helicopter crashed, killing the pilot. The cause of the crash remains unclear.

More than 10,000 firefighters were on the front lines. Some 3,000 firefighters had arrived in the past 24 hours, along with hundreds of fire engines from other states, and National Guard troops that were staffing hand crews and flying helicopters, Berlant said.

More firefighters were sent to battle the complex of fires in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties but its still not enough, said Billy See, Cal Fire assistant chief.

Were still drastically short for a fire of this size, he said.

An aircraft drops fire retardant on a ridge during the Walbridge fire, part of the larger LNU Lightning Complex fire. Photograph: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

The fires have once again brought the climate crisis to the fore. While wildfires are a natural part of Californias environment, they have grown increasingly ferocious in recent years amid intensifying drought and heat. In a video recorded for the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night, Newsom warned: If you are in denial about climate change, come to California.

At a campaign stop yesterday in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal funding after he said the state has failed to heed his advice to clear debris from forest floors.

Theyre starting again in California, Trump said of the raging wildfires.

I said, you gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests  there are many, many years of leaves and broken trees and theyre like, like, so flammable, you touch them and it goes up, he said. Maybe were just going to have to make them pay for it because they dont listen to us, he added.

The president has made this argument annually in recent years, including in 2018, when he visited the area burned by the Camp fire, which killed 84 people in the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in the states history. He said at the time that Finlands forest cities have been able to avoid fires because theyve spent a lot of time raking their forest floors.

The criticism belies a misunderstanding of how forest and landscape management work, and conveniently overlooks the fact that the federal government controls most of the states forestland and that state and local agencies oversee just 3%.

Forestry experts have also pointed out that development that has encroached on fire-prone areas has also played a role in the fires, as has climate change, which has meant prolonged periods of drought thats turned wildlands into kindling.

Agencies contributed reporting
(Natural News) The New York Times eagerly scours college campuses for racism and reliably finds it, which makes Saturdays story defending Yale University (named after a slave-trader) even more fascinating. Reporters Anemona Hartocollis and Giulia McDonnell Nieto Del Rio fought the possibility of racial discrimination against Asian-Americans in Yales admission process, instead suggesting racism on the part of the Trump administration: Yale Students Denounce Discrimination Accusations. The text box turned the tables: Charges are a way to pit minority groups against each other.

(Article by Clay Waters republished from NewsBusters.org)

Siddarth Shankar, an Asian-American student, sees nothing wrong with the admissions process, which is perhaps not surprising, given that he made it in.

Now he sees the Trump administrations accusation that Yale discriminated against Asian-American and white applicants, leveled against the university by the Justice Departments civil rights division on Thursday, as unfathomable and divisive. . Yale students widely criticized the administrations finding, which came two years after a complaint was filed against the university by a group called the Asian American Coalition for Education. Most said the administration had lost credibility on racial matters long ago, undermining any analysis it might produce on the use of race and ethnicity in college admissions. When I talk to my Asian-American friends, this is not what we wanted, said Alec Dai, a Yale senior from New York City whose parents immigrated from Guangzhou, China.

Well, they got in, didnt they? Perhaps theyre the wrong people to ask about an unfair admission process.

For the great majority of applicants, Asian-American and white applicants have only one-tenth to one-fourth of the likelihood of admission as African-American applicants with comparable academic credentials, the department said.

The paper found an Obama bureaucrat to criticize the rushed finding, and a politically correct student, well-versed in made-up ethnic terminology, to make their own race-obsessed points.

Anti-Blackness and systematic racism and oppression, especially for Black Americans, is the more pervasive and the most important thing that we need to focus on right now, [Mary Chen] said.Thats not something that is considered in discussions about affirmative action, she said. Its always continuing the demonization of Black and Latinx students, as taking a spot from a deserving white or Asian student.

Yet after strenuously denying racial discrimination at Yale, the Times is eager to uncover phantom racism on the Trump front, displayed on Saturdays front page in a piece co-written by roving culture reporter Melena Ryzik, Trump Traffics in a Racist Trope With a Decades-Long History, featuring the president tossing about his usual insults of political opponents, this time at Joe Bidens vice presidential pick Kamala Harris (a mad woman and angry).

On Sunday, the paper fought racism on the strangest front for humorless policing  stand-up comedy. The Arts & Leisure sections front page featured a hostile profile of Second City, the legendary Chicago home of improvisation, reduced to a bastion of whiteness. Ryzik co-wrote that one also.

The ominous first line suggested Times reporters dont understand how humor works.

What happens when a comedy institution realizes that a punchline is not worth a performers pain? Isnt part of comedy risking offensiveness? But for many performers of color, Second City was not a Valhalla: it was a trial. They tell stories of being demeaned, marginalized, tokenized, cast aside or worse. . During one performance, one of the stars, Peter Kim, recalled, he turned to the audience for an improv prompt. Whats a small thing that makes you feel annoyed? he asked. A white man seated beside a Latino man yelled out, Sitting next to a Mexican! It wasnt an isolated incident. We were telling our stage manager, our house manager, our producers  we had almost a weekly meeting about this. And they would assure us every single time, Were on your side, were going to police the house better, were going to kick them out, said Kim, who had also been physically grabbed by patrons.

Policing the audience for offensive improv prompts? Sounds like a tense night out. And dont successful comedians have to deal with hecklers all the time?

The papers woke hypersensitivity to bogus racism charges, while denying actual racial discrimination at Yale University, is galling.

Read more at: NewsBusters.org
The state's construction tsar has estimated up to 20 industry players are responsible for the vast majority of apartment buildings in Sydney, Wollongong and Newcastle that have serious defects.

A week before his new powers come into force, NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler has issued a blunt warning to certifiers of buildings that the days of a small group of them choosing to act as "signatures for sale" are over.

Building Commissioner David Chandler's new powers will come into force next week. Credit:Kate Geraghty

Mr Chandler will have the power from September 1 to enter and inspect building sites, prevent the issuing of occupation certificates, call for documents and order work to be stopped.

With his first 15 inspectors set to begin audits in a week, Mr Chandler said he believed up to 20 industry players  combinations of builders, developers and certifiers  were responsible for the vast majority of those buildings in Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong with "many, many defects".
Nearly 13 people were asphyxiated as they tried to escape a Lima nightclub raided by police as it was open amid the restrictions imposed to contain the spread of coronavirus, officials reportedly said. They reportedly said that at least six were injured including three police officers, as around 120 people tried to flee the Thomas Restobar club on the night of August 22, Saturday.

READ: Urns With Virus Dead Ashes Now Part Of Peru Homes

Partygoers violate public gatherings

As per the reports, the chaos happened as police arrived at the spot to interrupt the party as the partygoers violated the lockdown norms and basic safety standards imposed by the government. The neighbours residing nearby informed the cops about the extravaganza going at the club in the Los Olivos district of the Peruvian capital.

READ: Sinopharm's COVID-19 Vaccine Approved By Peru, Morocco For Phase III Trials

Orlando Velasco of the National Police said, "In these circumstances when people begin to fight to get out, its tumultuous, everyone goes against each other".

The Interior Ministry was reported to have said in a statement that the partygoers tried to squeeze en masse through the only entrance door and got trapped between the door and a staircase leading to the street. The ministry reportedly added that at least 23 partygoers have been detained.

According to the John Hopkins coronavirus dashboard Peru has Latin America's second-highest COVID-19 infection rate. The country imposed closure of pubs and bars in March and banned family gatherings on a large scale on August 12. The total number of coronavirus cases in Peru stands at 585,236 as of Saturday and the fatalities have risen to 27,453.

READ: Coronavirus Vaccine Trials To Begin In Peru

READ: Prisoners Make Face Masks In Peruvian Jail Amid Pandemic

Image: Pixabay
The Motor Accident Claims Tribunal



here in Maharashtra has awarded a compensation of Rs 14.58 lakh to the family of a woman who was killed in a road accident in 2016.

Tribunal member R N Rokade in his order last week held that the offending tempo was at fault.

Hence, he ordered the vehicle's owner and insurer to jointly and severally make the payment to the claimants with an interest at eight per cent per annum from the date of filing of the application.

On November 27, 2016, Varsha Vaity, 28, was riding pillion on a motorcycle with a man and was on way to her home here when a speeding tempo rammed into their vehicle from behind at Ovla village.

Both the occupants of the two-wheeler fell and the tempo ran over Vaity, who died on the spot, her 54-year-old mother and two sisters, aged 26 and 29, told the tribunal.

The deceased was at that time self-employed and earned Rs 12,000 per month, the applicants said, adding that they were dependent on her for their livelihood and hence, were seeking compensation.

The tribual in its order said the accident took place solely because of the rash and negligent driving on part of the tempo driver.

The tempo's insurer, Reliance General Insurance Company Ltd, contested the claim, but the tribunal rejected its arguments.

The vehicle's owner did not appear before the tribunal, hence the case was decided ex-parte against him.

Both the opponents were liable to pay compensation to the claimants, the tribunal 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.)
The excavated earth looks like layer cake as the centuries pass.

In a spot the size of two parking spaces, we could find 10,000 pieces, he said.

Pieces found during the project are on display at the Hatteras Library. The rest are in storage.

Dawsons book draws from research into original writings of John White, Thomas Harriot and others. Most of their writings were compiled at the time by English historian Richard Hakluyt.

Records from Jamestown also helped Dawson understand more about the tribes political structure.

The evidence shows the colony left Roanoke Island with the friendly Croatoans to settle on Hatteras Island. They thrived, ate well, had mixed families and endured for generations. More than a century later, explorer John Lawson found natives with blue eyes who recounted they had ancestors who could speak out of a book, Lawson wrote.

The two cultures adapted English earrings into fishhooks and gun barrels into sharp-ended tubes to tap tar from trees.
The third thing is we need to be sure target populations know who the providers are. There will be populations that will be targeted for prioritization at different levels. We should not leave it to the provider to have to sort too much of that out. The provider should feel very comfortable not having to convince people. If we educate the public well, the provider should be able to just give the vaccine. There shouldnt be a lot of conversation back and forth between the patient and provider. If were going to vaccinate about 300 million people, we had better be able to do it rapidly.
With Rakesh Asthana taking over as full-time Director General of the Border Security Force (BSF), technological upgradation of the force has started with approval for 436 small and micro drones for border surveillance and anti-drone system being currently tested on India-Pakistan border to shoot down any drone carrying weapon-load for terrorists in Punjab, and Jammu and Kashmir.

Under the Comprehensive Integrated Border Management (CIBM) plan, all 1923 border outposts manned by BSF on Pakistan and Bangladesh border will be equipped with sensors, CCTV and drone feeds from the sector headquarters with as many as 1,500 posts (as rest are in remote locations) being able to fly drone to recce the border and use anti-drone system to shoot any weapon pay-load transportation from across.

According to senior Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) officials, while the cost of small and micro drone will come around Rs 88 crore, the BSF with the help of security agencies is currently testing an indigenous anti-drone system on the sensitive Punjab border with Pakistan. In the past one year, Pakistani deep state is using Chinese commercial drones to transport assault rifles, pistols and grenades to the Khalistani terrorists in Punjab as well as jihadis in Jammu and Kashmir.

By killing five Pakistani intruders carrying assault rifles and Afghan heroin on Friday morning, the new DG has made his intentions clear that the BSF will be pro-active on both the borders and will not allow any anti-India activity. It is understood that the BSF chief personally spoke to the company commander who carried out the successful operation in Taran Taran sector.

As Rakesh Asthana also holds the charge of DG, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), the G Branch or the intelligence branch of the BSF is also being revived so that Afghan drugs do not make their way across the Pakistan border or the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir. In this context, a common strategy will be adopted between the BSF and NCB to bring big cross border drug kingpins to book as the narcotic trade funds the cross border weapons smuggling and terrorism both in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir. In the past decade, India has not only become the hub of drug transhipment but also a major consumer of narcotics like heroin and cocaine from Afghanistan.

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The Vow creative team, led by the directors Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, had plenty of raw material to work with. Members of the group appear to have documented nearly every conversation they had with each other and with Raniere during the past two decades, and many Nxivm seminars were also recorded. We dont have to rely on the commentary from former members to see what Raniere was selling, and how much others helped him promulgate sexist mind-sets and increasingly deranged formulations of abuse as love.

The early episodes focus on how adherents were drawn in by Nxivms superficial resemblance to other self-help philosophies, then the documentary evolves into something of a slow-burn thriller. The viewer becomes a fly on the wall as the filmmakers follow a group of anti-Nxivm campaigners, including Edmondson, Vicente and the actresses Catherine Oxenberg and Bonnie Piesse, who implore the authorities and the media  including The Times  to do something about Raniere and his secretive inner circle. (Oxenbergs daughter India was deeply involved in Nxivm  the group attracted quite a few Hollywood folks  and Catherines pain and relentless energy are affecting.)

For survivors of Ranieres alleged patterns of financial and emotional abuse  which reach back at least three decades  the path toward healing and potential redemption often involves trying to undo the work they did for Vanguard and his lieutenants. Theres a lot of talk these days about the concept of restorative justice as a means of atoning for damage done, and the ex-Nxivm folks at the core of The Vow show what that idea looks like in action. Even as they bravely fight for justice for Ranieres victims, they struggle with a painful array of things they wish theyd done differently.

What is the path back for those who participate in  or look away from  abuse? Wheres the line between coercion and independence? What consequences is society willing to dish out when a storyteller with a committed following  in politics, in the arts, in self-help realms or anywhere else  is revealed to be a charismatic predator or canny charlatan? Those are the deeper questions that animate The Vow and help make it not just engrossing but extraordinarily relevant.

It occasionally also feels like a juicy soap opera, with glimpses into the lives of wealthy heiresses and the haunting rituals of a secret society. Though Mack is not interviewed, her adoration for Raniere can be seen in excerpts from glossy Nxivm promotional videos, and her descent into abject, destructive devotion is both tragic and fascinating.

In one of the seriess most chilling moments, we see Raniere and Mack chatting at one of the groups late-night volleyball games. Raniere deftly manipulates her deepest vulnerabilities  they involve art, repression and emotion  and its as if the rabbit hole she is about to fall down takes shape before our eyes.
With wildfires burning almost one million acres of California, storms may sound like needed relief. But the dry thunderstorms projected to arrive as early as Sunday morning are the worst of both worlds.

You still get all the lightning, but you dont get any of the rain, said Drew Peterson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Dry thunderstorms have an elevated cloud base, so the precipitation that falls quickly evaporates in the dry air below, Mr. Peterson said. Even if lightning does not set new fires, erratic winds can send current fires in unexpected directions.
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PARIS (Reuters) - French government officials on Saturday said they would work to track down those responsible for defacing a memorial to the victims of a Nazi massacre during World War Two, which was painted over with graffiti calling the killings a lie.

The site, at the village of Oradour-sur-Glane near the western city of Limoges, commemorates the hundreds of men, women and children who were killed in June 1944 by an SS division.

The word "martyr" on the memorial was crossed out, with "menteur" or "liar" daubed next to it.

"Nothing can erase the memory of our 642 martyrs of Oradour-sur-Glane," French President Emmanuel Macron said on Twitter.

Prime Minister Jean Castex said in a statement that everything would be done to bring those behind the "disgraceful acts" to justice.

(Reporting by Sarah White and Elizabeth Pineau; Editing by David Holmes)
The Manhattan skyline in the distance as a man visits Governors Island in New York City, on July 15, 2020. (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

Americans Continue to Flee States With Higher Taxes

WASHINGTONStates with the highest tax burdens, such as New York, Illinois, and California, continue to lose residents this year as tax rates have a significant effect on the growth and prosperity of the states, economists say.

The evidence is clear that competitive tax rates, thoughtful regulations, and responsible spending lead to more opportunities for all Americans, according to the Rich States, Poor States report by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative nonprofit organization.

The annual report ranks states based on their competitiveness and economic outlook by examining the policy choices made by the states and their impact.

In 2019, Utah ranked No. 1 for economic outlook, followed by Wyoming, Idaho, Indiana, and North Carolina; the state has earned the top ranking for 13 consecutive years.

According to Jonathan Williams, ALECs chief economist, Utah has implemented many reforms that have been ahead of the curve.

Utahs lawmakers saw the unfunded liability problem in the state pension system and took bold actions to fix it after the financial crisis of 2008. The state also revised its property tax system.

Its not just a theory. This is really playing out in practice. And we see Americans continue to move into Utah. And Utah is just booming right now, Williams told the show NTD Business.

We continue to see this phenomenon where Americans vote with their feet. And theyre voting very strongly away from states with high tax burdens and less economic opportunities, he said.

The states that gained the most in population over the past decade were Texas (more than 1.2 million, 15th on the economic outlook list) and Florida (more than 1.1 million, 7th on the list).

According to Williams, these states provide a pro-business environment, better tax policy, and more economic competition.

The bottom five states on the economic outlook ranking were New York, Vermont, New Jersey, Illinois, and California.

When you look at the bottom states again, you see those states that have the highest tax rates, and theyre not phasing out, either, economist Arthur Laffer, who co-authored the report, said on Aug. 11 during a webinar hosted by ALEC.

Both California and New York, for example, have proposals for large tax increases, he noted.

New York is a treasure for America, but even treasures can have their gooses cooked over taxes, and I think thats what youre really seeing here, Laffer said.

New York maintains the second-highest top marginal personal income tax rate and the highest top marginal corporate income tax rate, according to the report. The state lost more than 1.3 million residents between 2009 and 2018 to more economically competitive states.

The report also shows that big reforms have significantly helped states such as Wyoming, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Delaware, and Montana. These states improved their national rankings in 2019 by keeping their spending in check, which allowed them to reduce tax burdens, Williams said.

Youre seeing just a migration of people out of these high tax states, Stephen Moore, economist and a co-author of the ALEC report, said during the webinar.

And its really putting stress on the budgets of these states like New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. These states are being kind of bled to death, year after year, he said.

According to Moore, despite the pandemic, several states, including Utah, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa, have already balanced their budgets this year without massive income taxes.

The report illustrates each states competitiveness and economic outlook using 15 equally weighted policy variables, including tax rates, regulations, spending, and right-to-work labor policy. It also examines trends from past decades as well as policy choices made in 2019.
Congressman Henry Cuellar on Saturday evening voting in favor of a $25 billion legislation he co-sponsored to provide aid to the United States Postal Service.

The Delivery for America Act is intended to provide funds to the agency for its continued operation without interruptions and to allow postal workers to continue getting sufficient hours. According to Cuellar, the $25 billion legislation is not political but something that the postal officials appointed by the current presidential administration asked for to help the agency. However, it has since become political due to the issue of mail-in voting.

On Saturday night, the vote passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 257 to 150 as a couple dozen Republicans joined the Democrats in their effort to get the bill passed. Cuellar was surprised by the minimal bipartisan support.

Its going to pass, although I thought it was going to be a bit bipartisan, he said. The republicans are saying that there is no problem. If you listen to the debates, they are saying that you guys are making it up and that you democrats are making it up, and I am like, My God, how can they not see it?

The Postal Service is essential to the fabric of our communities, providing Texas families and all Americans with critical services including the delivery of life-saving prescriptions, Social Security benefits, paychecks, tax returns and ballots. Therefore, in the name of our democracy and the Texas veterans, seniors, families and small businesses who depend on the post office, I proudly joined my colleagues to pass the Delivering for America Act to undo the damage and ensure the postal service has the resources necessary to fulfill its vital role at this pivotal moment.

READ MORE: Congressman Cuellar holds press conference on steps of Laredo post office demanding aid for USPS

Cuellar said the operational policies put in place by USPS Postmaster General Louis DeJoy have caused immense delays in delivery time. Although the effects in Laredo have still not been felt because of such operational changes, there are areas of the country where the mail has been delayed significantly as sorting machines have been taken away.

The changes, which have been suspended until after the upcoming general election, also prevent many postal employees from working their full hours or overtime and prevent hiring new workers. According to Cuellar, there are internal documents from the postal service indicating some mail has even been delayed about two months.

Although the bill passed the House of Representatives, its fate in the Senate and on the presidents desk is still unknown. Cuellar said the president does not believe the assistance is needed.

The president already said that the was going to veto it, and I am really just thinking What are they doing? as it is beyond me that they dont see what we see as they dont see the delays, Cuellar said.

Cuellar said they have a plan to overpass the veto or bring more attention to the subject to get a similar piece of legislation in action. He said he may even get together with the local postmaster general in the Laredo area to hold another press conference asking for another bill. The event would be the second in two weeks where the congressman gets together with Laredo area representatives of the USPS.

The other thing we are doing is to treat all official election mail as first class, Cuellar said. I have known about many elderly people calling their postal offices in Laredo and are saying that they are worried about their mail-in ballots getting there on time, so I want to reassure the people that their mail-in ballots, no matter who they are voting for, to get them on time. I just want to reassure people that the postal offices will do everything possible in them sending their mail-in ballots on time.
Farmer Wants A Wife star Harry Robertson has revealed he has been taken aback by the female attention he has received since appearing on the show.

The 29-year-old, who will be choosing between Stacey Cain and Madison MacKenzie on Sunday night's instalment of the dating series, admitted that his growing fanbase took him by surprise.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Harry said: 'They all want to know about me and my life. I have gone from no one really caring about my love life too much, now everyone wants a piece of it.'

'They all want to know about my life!' Farmer Wants A Wife star Harry Robertson has revealed he has been taken aback by the female attention he has received since appearing on the show

'I guess that's what happens with these sorts of shows,' Harry said while also noting that 'some interesting characters' have come out of the woodwork.

Despite his newfound TV fame, Harry said that he is adamant on keeping his feet firmly on the ground.

'I will never change. I have plenty of mates around here who put me back into line if I get too excited,' he added.

Meanwhile, on Monday's episode of Farmer Wants A Wife, the pressure finally got to Stacey.

'Everyone wants a piece of me!' The 29-year-old, who will be choosing between Stacey Cain and Madison MacKenzie on Sunday night's episode, admitted that his growing fanbase took him by surprise

'I will never change': Despite his newfound TV fame, Harry said that he is adamant on keeping his feet firmly on the ground

After a tense dinner, Stacey, 28, pulled farmer Harry aside for a one-on-one conversation to explain why she was feeling upset.

'You know, I've just had enough. I'm just exhausted. Tough today. This is just a hard situation to be in,' she told Harry.

Affectionately stroking her hand, Harry urged Stacey to open up to him, as she broke down and cried.

'It's not a normal environment we're in, where you're dating someone and you take them home to meet your family,' she later explained.

'Like, you're not the only one there, are you.'

Breaking down: Meanwhile, the pressure of being on Farmer Wants A Wife finally got to Stacey Cain during Monday's episode

Getting emotional: After a tense dinner, Stacey, 28, pulled farmer Harry aside for a one-on-one conversation to explain why she was feeling upset

Stacey confessed 'it always feels like a competition', and said she struggled being pitted against Madison Mackenzie while meeting Harry's family earlier on in the day.

'I'm not going to sit there and try and paint myself to be the best person in the world and make everyone love me, I'm just going to be myself,' she told Alex.

Reflecting on her meeting with Harry's three sisters, Stacey said she felt like they 'didn't get an accurate gauge' on her 'connection' with the farmer.

'You know, I've just had enough. I'm just exhausted. Tough today. This is just a hard situation to be in,' she said

'I'm not going to sit there and try and paint myself to be the best person in the world and make everyone love me, I'm just going to be myself,' she told Alex

Despite enjoying an intimate date earlier on in the episode, during which Harry told Stacey he could see a future with her, things took a turn when they visited his family.

After meeting with both Stacey and Madison, 24, Harry's three sisters told him that he seemed 'bedazzled' by Stacey and urged him to give Madison a chance, too.

'I'm definitely going to be a lot more open to Mads. I probably was being a bit blindsided and sturdy on Stacey,' Harry later admitted.

Farmer Wants A Wife continues Monday at 7.30pm on Channel Seven
Randy Chittos turtles, bears and koshares capture the ancient mysteries of tribal storytelling with a grin.

The Santa Fe potter is one of 450 native artists who juried the Santa Fe Indian Markets virtual show at swaia.org. Organizers cancelled the traditional market that invades the citys Plaza every summer due to the pandemic. The virtual market will remain online until Aug. 31.

Admirers sometimes assume Chitto hails from one of New Mexicos pueblos because of his affinity with clay. But this longtime artist was born into the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. He grew up in Chicago. His family moved there with his five siblings in 1964 as part of the Indian Relocation Act of 1956. His father worked in a warehouse; his mother was a bead artist.

His gifts surfaced when he was a toddler.

When we were still in Mississippi, I would go underneath the porch and start drawing in the dirt, he said.

When he was 8 or 9 hed accompany his mother to Chicagos Old Town neighborhood to sell her beadwork to high-end hippie shops.

The reverence and respect they showed her was amazing, he said. They would offer her coffee and a little plate of cookies.

After studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chitto enrolled at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, planning to become a painter. The school required students to take a full load in order to live in the dormitory for free. He was missing two credits; the seniors commanded priority in the classes he desired. He was left with two choices: jewelry or clay. He chose clay because he thought it sounded interesting.

It would prove revelatory. Otellie Loloma, the wife of the legendary Charles Loloma and a Hopi potter, was his teacher.

I was sitting there and she put this big lump of clay in front of me, Chitto said. I made a pot; Id never done it before.

Loloma peppered him with questions, asking what pueblo he was from, and informing him the 8-pound clay mound had been intended for all of her students, not just him.

She was like 90,000 years old and she was just a little lady and she was just amazing, Chitto said.

He was hooked.

Clay is alive, he said. Things are still living inside the clay; its natural. If I make something and it decides not to become that, itll change. I make the piece, I give it a smile, then the piece becomes what it wants. Sometimes the smile is round, so its singing.

At first, he made pots decorated with turtles. He wanted to make large storage jars, but a visit to the School of Advanced Research left him discouraged after he saw one by the great Maria Martinez.

It broke my heart, he said. I thought, what am I doing? I couldnt even hold a candle to what Maria did. I bet her sherds looked better than what I was doing at the time.

His animal menagerie emerged when he traveled home to Mississippi one summer. He began thinking about stories. His aunt had unearthed a weathered paper drawing in Mississippi.

It showed this Choctaw lady in traditional clothing with a turtle on all fours sticking its head out. She was listening and the turtle was talking. I thought, Oh, yes, the turtle was the storyteller. 

I thought, OK, all tribes have storytellers, he continued. Some of them are animals.

He says his figures are essentially pots with legs.

Chitto sculpted his turtles sitting up, so that they were looking at the viewer. He soon added accessories like drums, turquoise offerings, flutes and eagle dancer feathers. Then he expanded his creatures into suites, such as a family of bears going fishing. He hand-coils each piece before kiln-firing them.

Ive had them holding hands and walking, Chitto said of his bear families. We named it Strong Family. 

Chitto always tries to inject some humor into his figures. After Sept. 11, a potential client asked him to design a sad figure in tribute to the tragic event. Chitto refused, albeit gently.

It was almost like a sacrilege, he said. I didnt want to gain money from this tragedy.

Mine are happy pieces, he continued. I think in these times bringing someone a smile can be just as powerful. My collectors come back and say, I can have a bad day at work and I see your bear piece and I smile. 

That could be a good epitaph.

Chittos work can be found in the Heard Museum in Phoenix, the Denver Art Museum and the National Museum of the American Indian, among others. He is a past winner of a Southwestern Association for Indian Arts fellowship and a Dubin Fellow at the School of Advanced Research.
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Linkedin Aboeprijadi Santoso (The Jakarta Post) Amsterdam  Mon, August 24 2020

Happy Merdeka Day! Kartika Sari Dewi Soekarno wrote, conveying her greeting on the 75th anniversary of Indonesias independence, Aug. 17, 2020.

The daughter of president Sukarno and his Japanese wife Ratna Sari Dewi is a former TV journalist in Japan. Now married to a Dutch businessman and living in London, she grew up in Paris and has been educated in the United States.

Like her mother, she still holds an Indonesian passport. My father created this passport by fighting for freedom and social justice.

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File image: Union Minister Nitin Gadkari

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Focus on critical infrastructure building through an integrated approach, right from a number of strategic tunnels and bridges to 22 green expressways, is bound to place India in the league of advanced nations like the US, UK and Australia in the coming two years, union minister Nitin Gadkari has said.

Apart from a number of strategic tunnels and bridges being built across the length and breadth of the country, 22 green expressways at an estimated cost of Rs 3.10 lakh crore comprising 7,500 km are planned to be executed in the next couple of years, the road transport minister said.

He further said that talks are in advanced stage for building Rs 8,250 crore Chambal Expressway in Madhya Pradesh, a first of its kind in collaboration of the state government.

"To take India's infrastructure to the next level it has been decided to work on it in an integrated manner as per Prime Minister Narendera Modi's vision. Plans are afoot to tap full potential while building newer highways by laying optic fibre, transmission line and gas pipe lines," Gadkari told PTI in an interview.

The power ministry will come up with plans for transmission line while the IT ministry will give nod for optical fibre cable network, the minister said adding that similarly gas pipeline can be laid along the big roads that are being built.

These are planned along the proposed 22 green expressways, of which the work on seven including Rs 1 lakh crore Delhi-Mumbai Expressway has started.

"Given the pace of work on critical infrastructure including strategic tunnels, bridges and highways, I am confident that whatever work we are doing... (in) coming next two years you will see a changed India. Roads, tunnel and bridges which we see in in the US, UK, Germany and Australia, the same kind of work will be seen in our country," the senior minister said.

Gadkari, who also holds the MSME portfolio, said the strategic Rs 2,379 crore Z-Morh Tunnel project in Jammu and Kashmir, that stuck for long after it was abandoned, was cleared and is expected to be built soon.

The Z-Morh Tunnel along with the Zojila tunnel are designed to provide all-weather road connectivity to Jammu and Kashmir parts which remain closed during the winters due to heavy snowfall.

"Z-Morh tunnel work was stuck. I have cleared it. ...work on Zojila tunnel will start in two months," Gadkari said.

Megha Engineering & Infrastructure Ltd (MEIL) has emerged as the lowest bidder for the prestigious Zojila Pass tunnel to provide all-year connectivity between Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh union territories.

Among the three bidders in the race including Larsen & Toubro and Ircon International JV, the Hyderabad-headquartered company had quoted the lowest Rs 4,509.5 crore for the tunnel project, stuck for over six years now.

The project holds strategic significance as Zojila Pass is situated at an altitude of 11,578 feet on the Srinagar-Kargil-Leh National Highway and remains closed during winters due to heavy snowfall.

Besides, the minister said work was in full swing for Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, India's longest expressway at 1,320 km which is slated to reduce travel time between Delhi and Mumbai from 24 hours to 13 hours.

Apart from optic fibre, transmission and gas pipelines, a large number of industrial clusters are planned on its side, he said.

Stating that there have been some obstructions in execution of highway projects due to the coronavirus outbreak, Gadkari said nevertheless his ministry believed in converting this crisis into an opportunity and overcoming it. The pace of execution of projects has been expedited, he said.

Chambal Expressway is proposed to be executed at a cost of Rs 8,250 crore and it could be a game changer for the poor and tribals living in far-flung areas of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, Gadkari explained.

The 404 km project providing cross-connectivity with the Golden Quadrilateral's Delhi-Kolkata corridor, North-South Corridor, East-West Corridor and Delhi-Mumbai -Expressway will prove to be the newest model of infrastructure development jointly between the states and the Centre, he said.

It provides an alternate route from Kanpur to Kota through Madhya Pradesh, and then it joins the Delhi-Mumbai corridor.

The minister also said that work is underway on Ram Janaki Marg from Ayodhya to Janakpuri including 370 km in Bihar at a cost of Rs 2,700 crore.

Of the 370 km in Bihar, construction of 220 km will be completed at a cost of Rs 1,300 crore by June 2021.

"We have completed about 80 per cent work on Kailash Mansarovar route and the remaining work is likely to be completed by April 2021," he said.

The minister had recently complimented the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) for completing the work of road connectivity from Dharchula to Lipulekh, popularly known as Kailash Mansarovar Yatra route, which will ease the journey of pilgrims.

The newly built 80-km strategically crucial stretch connects the Lipulekh pass at a height of 17,000 feet along the border with China in Uttarakhand with Dharchula.

Gadkari also said that efforts are on to complete Rs 12,000 crore Chardham project by May-June next year by ironing out obstacles like forest clearances etc as early as possible.
<! Tambuwal and Obasanjo >

By Adejoke Adeleye

Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo on Saturday met with Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal behind closed door at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta, Ogun State.

Aftet the meeting, Tambuwal described former Obasanjo as a statesman, who would still be relevant for consultations on issues of governance and challenges of the country.

The governor, who paid an unscheduled visit at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) Pent House residence of the former President, said Nigerians shall continue to learn from him.

The Special Assistant Media to the former President, Kehinde Akinyemi in a release on Saturday, stated that the governor met with Obasanjo behind closed-doors.

After about an hour meeting behind closed-doors with Obasanjo, the governor hinted that they had a successful parley and that he was happy that the elder statesman was in high spirit despite the Covid-19 pandemic atmosphere.

According to Tambuwal, you know Baba is our leader, statesman and it is always good for us to come around to see how he is doing, pay homage and consult him on very many issues of governance, that is why we have come this afternoon. And we brought him the greetings and felicitations of the good people of Sokoto state.

We shall continue to learn from him, drink from his wealth of experience and fountain of his knowledge and wisdom on issues of governance and challenges of today. We prayed that God Almighty shall continue to give him good health as I have met him today, and may him and all of us survive this Covid-19 pandemic.

On goverance in Sokoto State, the governor spoke on efforts of his administration restore permanent stability after recent outbreak of banditry.

We are reestablishing peace in the northern part of the state, where we have been having challenges of banditry.

Peace is returning and people are back to their farms and villages. Those of us in the IDPs camps are back in our homes and villages now. We are doing our best as a state government to ensure that we engender security. And we are doing our best to provide development and employment for our people, Tambuwal disclosed.

The governor who arrived at about 2.30pm and left at 3.30pm was accompanied by eight members of his special advisers.

Related
Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan has conveyed a congratulatory message on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of Armenia, as reported the press service of the National Assembly of Armenia. The message reads as follows:

Thirty days ago today, deputies of the newly elected Supreme Council, expressing the unified will of the people of Armenia, enshrined the sovereign right of our fathers, our and our children to live and create in independent Armenia. The Declaration of Independence of Armenia is the best expression of the pan-national desires of all Armenians, and it has been, is and will be the most accurate document that expresses the public-political relations of the Republic of Armenia which we must always look to in order to understand which direction we are moving in as a state and society.
Next week the Labor Party will find itself marking the 10th anniversary of the day Prime Minister Julia Gillard signed a deal with the Greens. There can be no celebration; at the national level, the ALP continues to be unable to get out from under that ill-starred moment. The agreement with the Greens ultimately sealed the fate of the government led by Gillard and later Kevin Rudd, crippling Labors ability to craft an effective and electorally saleable set of policies on climate change and energy.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese. Credit:Wolter Peeters

All these years later, the ALP seems as far away from a coherent approach to these policy areas as it was after it was smashed at the 2013 election at which Tony Abbotts coalition rode to victory vowing to axe the carbon tax that flowed from the deal with the Greens.

Right now, the ALP is in the throes of a very willing internal debate about the role of gas and renewable energy, with agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon warning that it could break the party in two. Fitzgibbon, who represents a coal seat in the Hunter Valley, has raised the prospect of Labor falling apart as it tries to satisfy the seemingly disparate constituencies of inner-city greenies and regional blue-collar workers. He wants the ALP to champion the use of fossil fuels for export and for industry.

Meanwhile, the energy spokesman, Mark Butler, appears to favour doubling down on renewables and is encouraging party activists to steer the party towards a purer stance.
The presidential panel probing Ibrahim Magu, suspended acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has recomme...

The presidential panel probing Ibrahim Magu, suspended acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has recommended his sack.

In its interim report submitted on Wednesday, the panel headed, by Ayo Salami, retired president of the court of appeal, also recommended that Magu should be prosecuted over allegations of corruption and abuse of office.

Magu is also accused of violating the code of conduct law by allegedly failing to declare all his assets when he assumed office in 2015.

TheCable reportss that the panel also recommended the appointment of a new chairman for the anti-graft agency withot further delay.

In a letter dated July 3, 2020, President Muhammadu Buhari had directed the panel to submit its interim reports to me from time to time.

Mohammed Umar, former director of operations at the EFCC, has been in charge of the commission in acting capacity since July 6 when Magu was whisked before the panel by a combined team of Department of State Services (DSS) and officers from the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) of the police in Abuja.

He was detained area 10 of the FCT police command for nine days before being granted bail.

The travails of Magu, a commissioner of police, followed a memo by Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation, who accused him of grave malfeasance.

He was alleged to have mishandled the recovered loot and sold seized assets to his associates.

Magu was also alleged to have purchased a property in Dubai, United Arab Emirates using a pastor as a conduit.

He has since denied all the allegations which he described as nonsense, once saying: what I am going through is a case of dog eats dog.

The former acting chairman of EFCC has also accused the panel of not giving him fair hearing.

Through Wahab Shittu, his counsel, Magu has written several letters to the panel, demanding to be served a copy of the charges against him in order to prepare for defence.

Buhari had appointed him in 2015 but the senate declined to confirm his appointment, citing a DSS report which indicted him of corruption  although Magus denied any wrongdoing.
Business Digest  45 

Edelman202228200022202291%10 1825642161 91%87%74%53%52%42%39%36% 2017201891% /Business DigestMKFC
Twenty years. We cant believe that two decades have passed since the release of Refugee, Abhishek Bachchans debut film as an actor. There was an innocence about him back then. A vulnerability that set him apart from others of his breed. He was Amitabh Bachchans son and comparisons to his father were all but inevitable. But Abhishek wasnt an Amitabh clone. He was very much his own actor. Slowly and steadily, he made sure everyone noticed that. There is a certain gravitas in him as an actor, something which has only increased with time. You saw that in Yuva, in Guru, in Manmarziyaan, He ventured into OTT space with Breathe: Into the Shadows and while the initial reactions were positive, he sadly tested positive for COVID-19. Panic ensued when both Abhishek and Amitabh Bachchan were admittted to the Nanavati hospital. He asked his fans to stay calm.Both my father and I tested positive for COVID 19. Both of us having mild symptoms have been admitted to hospital. We have informed all the required authorities and our family and staff are all being tested. I request all to stay calm and not panic. We spoke to the actor via video chat a few days before he was tested and this is what he had to say:To be thankful for the work that you get, to be grateful to the audience for allowing you to be an actor for so long and to work even harder tomorrow to earn that respect and love again.I think whats remained unchanged about me is my excitement to do what I do. I love being an actor, I love being part of films, I love making films, Im passionate about it. So that hasnt changed. What has changed, I think experience teaches you a lot. Twenty years are enough to learn about how to do things, how to improve, how to better yourself. So I would like to believe that the experience of twenty years has taught me a lot and brought a change in me.Of course, I spoke to JP Saab. I had a long conversation with him. Maine unse kaha ki main aap ko dhanyawad kehna chahunga ki aapne mujhe aur Bebo ko yeh mauka dia, hamein us layak samjha ke hum aap ki picture ke Refugee aur Nazneen ban paayein --(I thanked him for giving Kareena and me a chance to become Nazneen and Refugee in his film). I also thanked him for introducing us to what was possibly, if I can speak for Kareena, the best decision we could have made in our lives and that was to become actors.Its a thrilling, edge-of-your-seat entertainer, which has something for everybody and a lot of twists and turns and surprises. Its perfectly suited for Amazon Prime as an original series. I think people will enjoy the work we have done.To be honest, if youd asked me this question 10 years ago, Id have said that Im an actor, my job is to act and I have to learn through observation. Today, I can perform not just by observation but also by actually experiencing what I have gone through as a father. If I had asked you five years ago, how do you think it will feel to be a father? Your answer would have been different. Today, because you are a father, youll understand that emotion, you can answer that question better. Thats the only difference. The difference is that today I have first-hand experience of that emotion. I dont need to create that emotion, that emotion is within me.The challenge was to make that turmoil seem believable. This medium does not allow for melodrama. This mediums requirement is that your emotions and performance have to be as believable and realistic as possible. So sometimes you might try a story which is very complicated but how do you portray that role as believably as possible. What is the emotion a father goes through -- to know that you have to look for your daughter, worry about your daughters well being and to do that as believably as possible, I think that was the greatest challenge.Outstanding. She is unbelievably brilliant as an actor. She is one of the best actresses I have worked with. She is so effortless, she is so natural, its just been a pleasure.Its the future, its not the future. Its going to be part of the future. Its interesting that you asked it. First, there was theatre, then came cinema, no one thought theatre was going to die. After cinema came television, no one thought cinema was going to die. Today, the theatre scene is thriving in Mumbai. All over India too, theatre is still highly patronised by people. So is cinema, so is television. This is yet another medium that has come. It helps us as creative people to reach out to our audience. Thats it. It is the future because it is the latest technology available. But is it the future means baaki sab pichhe chhut jayega? No. I think it will all co-exist. And how wonderful.Yes, it does. And theres a reason for that. The criteria for cinema is different as compared to a web series. Streaming platforms are a lot more intimate experience as compared to cinema. In theatre you watch a film with two hundred and sometimes with five hundred people -- and sometimes youre even with your family. The web series you can watch alone on your phone or TV or laptop in your room. So there are different requirements all together. You can push the envelope a lot more on OTT platorms. Going to the film theatre is seen as a family outing in our country. So it is not just an individual that you cater to. Yes there are many people who go with their friends, but its more of a community experience. When that is there then I need to make a film, which the whole family can sit together and enjoy. That means putting something for everybody in the film. That is not necessary in a web series. It can be there as well, Im not saying that cant be a criterion.Yes, if you are talking about the Friday jitters -- they arent there because currently there is no barometer to judge. But the endgame is all the same. At the end of the day, the audience has to like your work. If they like your work in a film theyll go for repeat viewings. That means your collections will increase and your film will be called a hit. Here also, if your work is good then they will watch it again and again and the streaming service will know what the figures are and they will employ you for their next product. Its as simple as that. So, in both cases at the end of the day its the audience which matters. The audience has to like what you do.I had to step out as I had to dub. Thankfully, all the precautions and permissions were taken. I think thats more important. People should be educated about the fact that its alright to move out provided you take all the precautions, in line with what the government has said. People have become too lax. They behave as if theres nothing to worry about. I told the paparazzi that came to our dubbing to first wear the mask, and even better, wear a helmet. Another thing is that they ride three people to a bike. I asked them to stop doing that in these times. The police might catch them and throw them in jail. Whatll they do then? They might get into trouble if they dont follow the rules. I feel everybody has to be a responsible citizen.I spent them at home. Where else could you go? I looked upon it as a blessing because I got to spend quality time with my family, which I get to do rarely. The whole family was together after a very long time and for such a huge period of time. It was nice to have everyone under one roof.There are so many ya. Its difficult to choose just one. But one thing you should understand that for a country of 1.3 billion people to successfully lockdown to whatever possible degree, I think is commendable. You should look at the positives. I dont want to look at the negatives.
Panaji, Aug 23 : Amid a steady increase in Covid-19 cases in Goa, bank employees in the state have demanded fewer working hours, with a 50 per cent staff ratio and exemption of work for pregnant employees and those with disabilities and comorbidities.

In a statement issued on Sunday, the Goa Bank Employees Association has also said that the pandemic is affecting functioning of banks as a significant number of its employees have been infected by the coronavirus.

"The pandemic is threatening the banks' branches across the state. The number of infected employees in the banks is going up significantly. Many employees are residing in the containment zones. There is fear and anxiety in the minds of the bank employees and public at large visiting these banks' branches," the Association said.

The Association also urged the State Level Banking Committee to issue concrete safety protocol measures and guidelines in bank premises and related to dealing with customers, to deal with the pandemic, stating that many banks in the state were not following Union Ministry of Home Affairs guidelines related to social distancing.

"Most bank's managements have expressed their helplessness in ensuring the Covid-safe environment in the absence of any direction from SLBC while few banks are following independent guidelines issued by their respective head office at pan-India level thereby creating confusion in the minds of the customers and general public as well amongst the employees," the statement said.

Among the key demands put forth by the Association includes four-hour work days, operating of branches with 50 per cent staff, strict maintenance of social distancing norms, allowing only essential services to function, etc.

"Allow female employees in the family way, lactating women employees, employees with disabilities, employees with serious ailments, employees having comorbidities to work from home by exempting them from attending office as per MHA guidelines," the Association said in its statement.

"Sanction special leave to employees who cannot attend duties due to transport restrictions and non-availability of public transport, those who are in the containment zones, etc," the statement also said.

Goa currently has 13,999 confirmed Covid-19 cases, 3,383 of which are active. As many as 144 persons have died due to coronavirus infections in the state ever since the outbreak of the virus in March this year.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
KABUL, Afghanistan: A roadside bombing on Sunday in eastern Afghanistan killed seven civilians, a provincial official said, the latest in relentless deadly violence in the country amid new uncertainties over the start of talks between the Taliban and the Kabul government.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing in Ghazni provinces Jaghatu district. Three women, two children and two men died when their vehicle struck the roadside bomb, said Wahidullah Jumazada, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

Afghan civilians continue to bear the brunt of the war across their country despite efforts to launch peace talks and find a road map for post-war Afghanistan.

According to a United Nations report released in July, 1,282 people were killed in violence in Afghanistan in the first six months of 2020 and hundreds more were wounded.

Women and children continue to be disproportionately affected by the direct and indirect impacts of the armed conflict, comprising more than 40% of the total civilian casualties, meaning both the killed and the wounded, the U.N. had said.

The expected start of talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban has stalled after Kabul said it would not release the last 320 Taliban prisoners it holds until the insurgents free more captured Afghan soldiers.

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
New Delhi:

At least 14 people were killed when an interstate bus in Malaysia careered off a highway early Saturday, officials said.

The bus, heading from southern Johor state to the capital Kuala Lumpur was carrying passengers from Singapore and Myanmar.

The vehicle went off the road in the wet before rolling over and ending up in a deep ditch, said Mohammad Yusof Mohammad Gunnos, deputy director of the fire and rescue department.

The incident happened in the early hours in Johor state. Details of those killed were not immediately known, he said, adding that the injured were being treated in the Muar district public hospital.

"This pre-Christmas tragedy is so far the most horrific accident in Johor state for 2016," he told AFP. Deadly road accidents are common in Malaysia despite efforts to crack down on poor driving, especially during festive seasons when people return to their home towns.

(With inputs from PTI)

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Anuraag Singh By

Express News Service

MADHYA PRADESH: For the uninitiated, mahua shrub has a sweet smell; its taste is fruity and heady. Its converted into the best drinks indigenous to India, says Felix Padel, an anthropologist who has worked in India for several years.

In Madhya Pradesh the mahua tree is found in abundance in dense forests and is a chief source of livelihood for tribal communities.

This season, mahua flowers have brought in a fortune for them even as they got stuck in their rural homes because of Covid-induced lockdowns.

In the tribal belt of Madhya Pradeshs Hoshangabad, scores of rusty forest dwellers are celebrating their Mahua flower harvest: for the first time, they have found government reaching their doorstep and arranging purchasers to buy the flowers in bulk at a minimum support price, like in the case of other crops.

Mukesh Dhurve worked as a daily wager as he wandered to neighbouring districts and beyond. Confined to his home post lockdown, he saw a ray of hope emerging from mahua shadows.

He sold sacks of mahua flowers collected from the forest skirting his Jalikhedi village and earned Rs 3.5 lakh in a month!

I never saw so many currency notes. A registered trader has paid an amount equal to my three-year wages as a labourer. I have saved a lot since I didnt have t o go outside my village, Dhurve exults. Similar are the stories of Ram Das, Shakun Bai, Godu Lal and others  all of them having earned at least Rs 50,000 by making full use of their forest with government encouragement.

Hoshangabad District Forest Officer Ajay Pandey says mahua flower cultivation this year is much higher than in the previous years.

Earlier the produce invited low prices, making it almost a non-profitable venture, says Pandey.

The mahua tree is also called the tree of life of tribal India. From food to animal fodder and even fuel, every part of the tree can be used.

Its flowers and bark are extensively used in Ayurvedic medicines. mahua is also an alcoholic drink made out of flowers of the tree and is a popular summer drink.

The government plans to sell it as a mildly alcoholic drink  think of Breezer, if you could. So, this season, the forest department took up the task of getting rightful prices to tribals.

It opened 15-20 procurement centres to purchase the produce directly from the tribals. Around 500 quintals were procured. As the plucking was on a much higher scale, we faced the storage problem, says Pandey.

The department then got big traders to purchase the flowers at Rs 35 per kg MSP or higher directly from tribals. We worked with the district administration and police to ensure their unrestricted movement to tribals doorstep during the lockdown, says Pandey.

Registered traders armed with weighing machines descended on the villages and purchased over 20,000 quintals of the produce at prices not lower than the MSP, which has resulted in a big sale of `8 crore, out of which % (around `8 lakh) has been deposited by the traders as Access Benefit Sharing to the Biodiversity Fund under the provisions of the Act.

Some unregistered traders who bought the produce much lower than the MSP have been booked and their vehicles seized, said Pandey.

Not only did the forest department ensure direct purchase of the produce, but also provided mahua collection nets to tribals in at least six villages under the World Bankfunded Green India Mission.

This has resulted in the collection of better quality produce that fetched prices ranging between Rs 40-45 per kg. The forest department now plans to replicate the mahua success with other forest produce, including mahua seeds, Kalmegh, amla, chironji, bael, harad and baheda in the coming months.
Modi sarkars relentless persistence got Pakistan to admit Dawood is in Karachi

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Aug 23: Pakistan did admit for the first time that Dawood Ibrahim is on their soil. His addresses which were put out by Pakistan is nothing new and was always known to the Indian agencies.

However what led to Pakistan admitting this for the first time is the pressure that India has put on the country especially with the Financial Action Task Force. Since the past couple of years, India has relentlessly pursued Pakistan's terror funding and this yielded results for the first time.

Pakistan finally admits Dawood Ibrahim is on their soil

In January the Asia Pacific Group of the Financial Action Task Force decided to place Pakistan in the Enhanced Expedited Follow Up List as it failed to meet its standards. Being moved to this list meant that Pakistan would be closely monitored by the global terror financing watchdog FATF.

The move comes in the wake of Pakistan having failed to deliver on most of the compliance parameters that were set for it.

Several Indian officials that OneIndia spoke with said that it was time up for Pakistan as the pressure from the FATF and the global community was immense. India pursued the case very closely and despite several attempts, Pakistan was unable to get out of it. In fact Pakistan failed 32 of the 40 parameters.

On Saturday, the admission by Pakistan came in a list of 88 banned terror groups that were disclosed as part of its efforts to get out of the tough financial sanctions for helping terrorists and their organisations.

Pakistan said that it had imposed tough financial sanctions on terror groups and its leaders. The country said that it had imposed tough sanctions on terror leaders such as Maulana Masood Azhar and Dawood Ibrahim by ordering seizure of all their properties and also freezing of their bank accounts.

Pak puts more curbs on Hafiz Saeed, Masood Azhar and Dawood to avoid FATF blacklisting

Giving out details of the Mumbai serial blasts accused, Pakistan said that he was born in Kher, Ratnagiri. It also says that he lives now in Karachi. Confirming what the Indian agencies have always said Pakistan says that he lives in Clifton Karachi near the Saudi Mosque. Pakistan further notes that his house is at the 30th Street Defence Housing Authority, Karachi. Further Pakistan also says that he lives in a palatial bungalow in the hilly area of Noorabad in Karachi.

It may be recalled that the Pakistan government had on August 18 issued two notifications announcing sanctions on Lashkar-e-Tayiba chief, Hafiz Saeed and Jaish-e-Mohammad boss, Maulana Masood Azhar. The notification was also issued in the case of Dawood Ibrahim, who is wanted by India in connection with the Mumbai serial blasts.

The move came in the wake of the Financial Action Task Force putting Pakistan on the grey list in June 2018. Islamabad had been asked to implement a plan of action by the end of 2019, but the same was postponed in the wake of the outbreak of the pandemic.

Pakistan which has for nearly three decades denied the existence of Dawood Ibrahim on its soil has now said in an official document that he lives in White House, Near Saudi Mosque, Clifton" in Karachi, Pakistan. He also has other properties listed as "House Nu 37 - 30th Street - defence, Housing Authority, Karachi" and "Palatial bungalow in the hilly area of Noorabad in Karachi.

Dawood is also accused of being a major funder of terror activities in India. He also faces charges of money laundering and extortion. He is also a major funder of terror groups such as the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Al-Qaeda.

An Intelligence Bureau official who OneIndia spoke with said that this only asserts their claim. We have been saying for more than 20 years that Pakistan has been sheltering Dawood Ibrahim. They continued to deny the same, but with the pressure from the FATF increasing, they had no choice but to admit to the fact that Dawood is on their soil and they have been protecting him.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Sunday, August 23, 2020, 8:35 [IST]
Fredie Blom's identity documents showed he was born in Eastern Cape province in May 1904, although that was never verified by Guinness World Records.



When he was teenager, his entire family was wiped out by the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. He went on to survive two world wars and apartheid.



Mr Blom told the BBC in 2018 that there was no special secret to his longevity.



"There's only one thing - it's the man above [God]. He's got all the power. I have nothing. I can drop over any time but He holds me," he said.



Mr Blom spent most of his life as a labourer - first on a farm and then in the construction industry - and only retired when he was in his 80s.



Although he gave up drinking many years ago, he was a regular smoker.



However, a coronavirus-related lockdown imposed by the South African government reportedly meant he was unable to buy tobacco to roll his own cigarettes on his 116th birthday.



Mr Blom's family said he died of natural causes in Cape Town on Saturday.



"Two weeks ago oupa [grandfather] was still chopping wood," family spokesman Andre Naidoo told AFP news agency. "He was a strong man, full of pride."



But within days Mr Blom shrank "from a big man to a small person", he added.



Mr Naidoo said the family did not believe his death was related to Covid-19.

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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A police officer has escaped with minor injuries after he was stabbed while responding to reports of a disturbance in west London.

Metropolitan Police officers were called to Dovedale Close in Harefield at 2.44am on Sunday.

"Officers attended and could hear a disturbance coming from inside the premises," a statement from Hillingdon Police said.

"A man opened the door, armed with a knife and was threatening officers.

"The man then stabbed one of the male officers in the arm."

Police said a Taser was deployed on the man and he was detained.

"The officer was taken to hospital, where he was assessed and his stab wound was treated," the statement said. "His injuries are not life threatening."

Scotland Yard said a 40-year-old man was arrested for assault on an emergency service worker, GBH and affray.

The man remains in custody.

Detective chief inspector Thomas Bowen from the West Area Basic Command Unit said: "These officers were courageous and extremely lucky that they were able to walk away from this incident with minimal injuries.

"This is an example of the dangers that our officers face, whilst doing their role as police officers.

"We wish the officer a speedy recovery.
In Xian, a city in northwestern China, Jing Mingzhu, who works in the food service industry, recently started traveling and going to the gym again. During a recent trip to southern China, she said, she realized the importance of feeling free and relaxed.

I took travel for granted, Ms. Jing said. After it was taken away, I felt I should cherish it.

Chinas leaders, hoping to bolster the economy, are eager for people to get back to work and start shopping and traveling again.

But they are also taking a cautious approach, requiring movie theaters and tourist sites, for example, to operate at half capacity. To get into banks, restaurants and other public venues, residents must submit to temperature checks and show digital codes verifying that they are healthy and have not traveled recently to areas where there have been clusters of new cases.

The authorities continue to restrict travel in the Xinjiang region in western China, where an outbreak last month prompted a lockdown. China still prohibits most foreigners from entering the country, for fear that they could bring the virus.

There have been outbreaks in recent months, but in each case the response was swift. When Wuhan reported six coronavirus cases in May, breaking a streak of more than a month without any confirmed infections, the city launched a plan to test all 11 million of its people. And when a new cluster emerged in Beijing in June, the authorities quickly reimposed some lockdown measures to contain it.

While China is not the only place where restrictions have eased  Taiwan, for example, has kept the virus under control for months  the semblance of normalcy has become a point of national pride and fodder for the countrys vast propaganda apparatus.

The state news media is pointing to the return of large gatherings and classes as evidence of Chinas superior response to the virus, especially compared with the United States and other Western countries whose officials are still dealing with large outbreaks.




Two screens set up on both sides of the cross at Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul on Sunday read online church services will be continued until Aug. 30. / Yonhap



By Kang Hyun-kyung



Busan-based Protestant churches and the local government clashed Sunday as the former pushed for physical Sunday worship services, amid a heightened alert on the spread of COVID-19 following a new wave of infection clusters.



The city government warned of punitive measures to defiant churches that didn't follow guidelines for social distancing imposed Friday.



On Saturday, the Christian Council of Busan (BCC) sent letters to 1,800 Busan-based churches, encouraging them to go ahead with physical church services, as opposed to online streaming services, despite the public gathering ban.



BCC members met to discuss the city government's executive order, which told the local churches to move to online services and to cooperate with the local government to help cope with the spread of the coronavirus.



They agreed to push for the physical church services Sunday, claiming the local government's decision to ban them breaches their rights to religious freedom and freedom of association.



"When COVID-19 patients are found to have visited certain cafes or eateries, those cafes and restaurants are shut down temporarily but other cafes and restaurants are still open," Rev. Lim Young-mun, BCC president said.



He indicated that closing down all churches on Sunday just because some members of other churches were infected with COVID-19 was unfair.






is it a pic from virgin suicides photoshoot or something? random lol

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It does look the virgin suicides-ish. My theory is that he just googled blond girl smiling and didnt recognize her lol

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yeah like I doubt he specifically wanted Kirsten in the picture, she just happened to pop in the results lol still wrong though

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idk I tried googling blonde girl smiling and blonde girl and searched pretty far down and found nothing. But if you google kirsten dunst smiling it's the fifth pic.

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I think it is

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lol Kiki would like to be excluded from this narrative 

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Do you think she regrets putting Kanye and the Kkklan on? giving them all those vogue covers smh

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you can just call it racism bb

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imagine if he had used taylor's face

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can i watch her fargo season w/o watching the others?



do i need to watch the film?

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The film is good. A little out there but I think it'll help give you some idea of what to expect style wise.



Idt you need to see the season before hers. I think I read they're all different with some throwbacks but I just really only watched the first and third season.

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Yes its independent of the other seasons so u dont have to watch those. Shes excellent in Fargo

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Like they said above, its an anthology with only some easter eggs. The second season is the first one chronologically though, so you could start with it regardless (also its the best one imo so if you dont like it, you probs wont like the others).

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Yes. All the Fargo TV seasons are standalones with "easter eggs" connecting the seasons. Each are really good in their own way but the one with Kiki and Jessie is exceptional.

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Her Fargo season is hands down the best of the show and you don't need to see s1 before it unless you really want the easter eggs, the seasons can easily be standalones.





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Yes, they're all stand alones. I've never seen the movie, but have seen S2 &3

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Yes and no

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It's especially infuriating when nobody would know we're still in these streets protesting if mainstream media was believed..

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I feel its not even struggle anymore, its a certified flop.

My original post had some news about his electors having no idea they were his electors lol. Apparently they were mostly being approached to sign a petition in order to have a third-party candidate in the ballot without being informed it was Kanye. Hes also already out of the ballot in at least 5 states.

Its crazy that no one who cares for him hasnt put a stop to it.



Edited at 2020-08-23 04:09 am (UTC)

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you'd think they would've learned from giving trump so much airtime five years ago

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Do yall know ppl who's art has been stolen by other ppl or companies?

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Oh yeah. Almost all the artists I follow on Instagram have had to deal with people ripping off their art or products

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https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50817561 Its basically guaranteed that if your artwork gets shared enough on twitter itll be stolen by automated systems

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Didnt Taylor Swift steal someones art off of etsy years ago and then sue her or something when she got called out

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Yep, through Chinese companies, Urban Outfitters, people who follow Stefan Sagmeister's Design Advice on Instagram who redo work people post on there with Stefan's suggestions and pass it off as their own, kids who don't know any better, luxury designer lines who ask aspiring designers in school for a copy of their portfolio of work so they can get a "closer look" who then steal the designs and show them during the fashion shows, and so forth. The question isn't "who do you know whose art been stolen" it's "who do you know that hasn't been ripped off?"

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Yeah I'm acquaintances with one local designer who's whole accessorie concept got stolen by a B-list but still huge worldwide fashion house and thankfully he campaigned online loud enough/sued them and got a check to drop the trial and never mention that case again. Him campaining got him a large following too so now like cool internationally known indie musicians follow him on insta and shit

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yaaaaa mad ppls jewelry and clothing showing up on aliexpress. ppl r lowkey like "u know u made it when u get ripped of by aliexpress lol" but it's always shitty. ppl want the cheap version of everything

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Pretty sure Hot Topic did this back in the day.

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wasn't F21 always stealing shit and making ugly tshirts out of them? Lmao i love that that shitty company shut down

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the one I can think of recently was dolls kill put itsblackfridays photo of herself on a shirt and the half ass gave an apology when she called them out on it. Not sure if they gave her any money either, but they kept on selling it. Which is crazy to me.

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Honestly it's so rare when someone does actually give credit. I know ontd doesn't like Katy but I really like that she paid a little monster for their cover art and used it as an alternate album cover.

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this is the first time im hearing of this.which album? and yeah, it's great that she did that! this is just new to me lol



Edited at 2020-08-24 05:28 am (UTC)

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Sometimes I like to sketch clothing designs and I found out that my aunt's old receptionist copied my drawings for her collection in school, I was like 15 and she was probably like ten years older than me. It felt weird and I've never forgotten it haha

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My old co-workers partner invented these notecards to put on wine bottles, and a grocery store he tried to sell them to ripped them off. He didnt have the money to hire a lawyer to fight them.



ETA: Damn it this was supposed to be a reply to the comment above.



Edited at 2020-08-23 03:56 am (UTC)

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I see you, bb!



that's really fucking terrible. I would be so infuriated and feel so hopeless if that happened to me. :/



is it too late to file a suit? even if the money wasnt a lot, a lot of lawyers work w/ you for free and they dont get paid unless you get paid

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It was a few years ago, so I think he just accepted it. Its too bad because it was a cute idea.

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Anna would be a Biden supporter

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Obviously. Shed never support Trump.

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Wtf how random haha

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Honestly the joke was supposed to be that she was into Biden back when there were other candidates but I failed lol

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I'm really praying for him. A decade of reality tv antics has me laughing at the lunacy of this, but he's really unwell.

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pre-donda's passing kanye is the only kanye i acknowledge, period

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Taylor knew, though.

He was no less of a mess back then - it was just easier to overlook because a) his music was good, and b) he was still new and we weren't privy to how batshit he is. All the signs were there, and his fans failed as people for not recognizing it sooner.Taylor knew, though.

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taylor didn't know jack shit

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that is true about Kanye always been terrible and egotistical but people did ignore because of his talents/hits.

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Keep this demon away pls

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He has always said and done crazy shit pre-Kim K and Dondas passing. Like the other poster said, yall were just not paying attention. Or the best excuse, its because hes a genius. Then you had other musicians like Bjork saying Kanye samples everything and uses 30 producers. I sit for months and make up all the melodies by myself, but hes the genius. Excuses everywhere for him





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Kanye wasn't new lmao

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Can we just deplatform Kanye a la M*lo Y***nopoulos and be rid of him already? It's time.

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The great thing about milo being deplatformed is I forget he exists until someone brings him up

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lmao honestly the perfect punishment for someone like him

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until the recent breadtube debacle, I had forgotten abut Milo too

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He was photographed with Laura Loomer at her primary win party. He's still around.

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This is what happens when you hire a designer without scruples who uses Google images instead of stock photography. I wish I could say it rarely happens but that would be a lie, and it's mostly inexperienced designers people hire when they want to be cheap. You get what you pay for.

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Lol wtf. Weirdo

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LOL Poor Kirsten.

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Anything for attention

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Yep sickness or not, he loves the attention.

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Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday that  despite President Trump's claims to the contrary  his department has no authority to send law enforcement agents to polling stations on Election Day.

Why it matters: Trump told Fox News Friday there would be "sheriffs, and we're going to have law enforcement, and we're going to have, hopefully, U.S. attorneys, and we're going to have everybody, and attorney generals" at polling locations. Experts and secretaries of state have said sending federal law enforcement or any other attempts to intimidate voters would be unlawful.

What he's saying: When asked whether the president has spoken to him about sending officials to polling stations, Wolf replied, "No, absolutely he has not."

"That's not what we do at the Department of Homeland Security. ... We have expressed authorities given to us by Congress and this is not one of them," he continued.

"This is not a mission for the Department of Homeland Security. ... We don't have any authority to do that at the department."

The big picture: Wolf said that he has not seen any intelligence indicating that foreign powers like Russia, China and Iran are attempting to attack election infrastructure or forge mail-in ballots.
Employees of Sogdiana Trans, a subsidiary of Uzbekistan Railways, have been subjected to an armed attack in northern Afghanistan, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry said on Friday

TASHKENT (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2020) Employees of Sogdiana Trans, a subsidiary of Uzbekistan Railways, have been subjected to an armed attack in northern Afghanistan, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov discussed the incident in a call with his Afghan counterpart, Mohammed Haneef Atmar.

"The ministers discussed an armed attack on representatives of subsidiary Sogdiana Trans that happened in the Balkh province of Afghanistan on August 20," the press service wrote on its Telegram channel, without providing further details regarding the incident.

According to the Uzbek ministry, Atmar pledged that Afghanistan would thoroughly investigate the circumstances of the incident and bring those responsible to justice.

"The Uzbek side asked to boost security for the personnel of Uzbek companies and enterprises operating in Afghanistan," the ministry added.

According to Uzbek Railways, two Afghan nationals were killed in the incident, including one attacker. One employee of the company was injured and taken to a hospital in the southern Uzbek city of Termez.

Sogdiana Trans, founded in December 2011, is involved in railroad construction in Afghanistan. The projects are facing delays due to the volatile security situation in the country.
Heartthrob Bradley Cooper has been at the center of plenty of swirling relationship rumors throughout his rise to the top echelon of Hollywood. Between his complex relationship status with Irina Shayk and his on-screen chemistry with Lady Gaga, fans have been eager to figure out just where his love life stands.

Now another rumor  this time that Cooper has a summer home in Connecticut  has suburban women flocking to the location in the hopes of catching a peek of the actor. At least these thirsty suburbanites have the decency to decoy their voyeurism with baked goods!

Bradley Cooper has risen to a A-list star

RELATED: Bradley Cooper Once Ate 6,000 Calories Daily to Prepare for This Movie Role

Coopers first credited role was a small spot on a single episode of Sex and the City back in 1999. He moved on to some lesser-known television series (including The $treet and Touching Evil) as well as TV movies.

Some small roles in big films like Weddings Crashers (2005) and Failure to Launch (2006) earned him a solid reputation among comedy fans, which really came to fruition in 2009s Hes Just Not That Into You and The Hangover. By that point, Coopers star was clearly on the rise.

The pivot to impressive dramas would come just a few years later. In 2012, he was in both The Place Beyond the Pines and Silver Linings Playbook, films that helped demonstrate his range and ability.

He received critical acclaim for his part in 2014s American Sniper and then voiced the Marvel Cinematic Universe character of Rocket, keeping him busy in several of the films across the franchise. Without a doubt, the film that has gotten him the most attention recently, though, is 2018s A Star is Born, a cinematic project he directed and did the screenplay for in addition to playing the starring role.

Bradley Coopers love life has drawn attention

Bradley Cooper | Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

People really started to speculate about Coopers love life after seeing his amazing on-screen chemistry with A Star is Born co-star Lady Gaga. Many speculated that the pair were in a relationship, but others noted that Cooper was already with someone else.

Cooper was married back in 2006 to Jennifer Esposito, but the marriage only lasted a few months before they each went their separate ways. He was in a casual relationship with Isabella Brewster in 2009 and then dated Renee Zellweger for a couple of years. After that, he had a few dates with Jennifer Lopez before getting serious with Zoe Saldana for several months and then dating Suki Waterhouse from 2013 to 2015.

Thats when he began dating Russian supermodel Irina Shayk who had appeared in Kanye Wests video for Power and hosted a Russian version of Next Top Model. The pair hid their relationship for a while, but things got seriously pretty quickly, and then they added a daughter to the mix in 2017.

When the rumors started swirling about Cooper and Lady Gaga, he was happily in a solid relationship with Shayk. In June 2019, however, it was reported that the pair had split. When they were photographed together in February 2020, fans wondered about a reconciliation, but there has not been a confirmation, and its likely they are just trying to make co-parenting work.

Some bake cookies to sneak a peek at Bradley Cooper

Well they do say a way to a mans heart is through his stomach. It was worth a tryright? https://t.co/G3HlGTXfDv -TF  98.5 KLUC (@985KLUC) August 17, 2020

With Cooper potentially available, rumors that he is summering in Southport, Connecticut have drawn the attention of locals looking for love  or at least a brush with fame. According to Page Six, several local women of the ritzy suburb are trying to get closer to Cooper. They think hes staying in a swank mansion, and theyve been getting creative to make contact.

We have had things like women dropping off cookies or muffins that they bake at the gate with the request that he return the dish personally, dinner party invitations, etc., the listing broker for the location explained. It seems unlikely that Cooper is going to be returning plates to strangers during a pandemic as a way to find his next romantic partner, but you got to give these women props for shooting their shot.
A new COVID-19 cluster has been reported in Singapore's biggest dormitory housing foreign workers, including Indian nationals, about a month after it was declared to be fully cleared of the coronavirus.

Two of the new COVID-19 cases reported in Singapore on Saturday were linked to 55 previous cases to form a new cluster at Sungei Tengah Lodge dormitory at 500 Old Choa Chu Kang Road, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said. The cluster at Sungei Tengah Lodge was among the largest in Singapore before the dormitory was declared cleared of COVID-19 by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) on Jul 21, the Channel News Asia reported.

More than 2,200 confirmed cases had been linked to the cluster and the Health ministry closed the cluster on Jul 18. Sungei Tengah Lodge is Singapore's biggest purpose-built dormitory, with about 16,000 workers living there, the daily said. Singapore on Sunday reported 87 new COVID-19 cases including 13 imported infections, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said.

The imported cases had all been placed on stay-home notice upon their arrival in Singapore, it said. All of the cases were foreign workers including the sole community case on a work pass here. With 87 new cases, the national tally of the coronavirus cases has reached 56,353. With 269 more cases of COVID-19 infection discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities on Saturday, 53,920 people have fully recovered from the infection.

There are currently 81 confirmed cases who are still in hospital while 2,238 are isolated and cared for at community facilities for mild symptoms or are clinically well but still test positive for COVID-19.

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The wife of a suspected ISIS operative, who was arrested from Delhi on Friday night, said her husband had stored gunpowder and other explosive materials at their house in Uttar Pradeshs Balrampur.

She said she had warned Mohd Mustakeem Khan, alias Abu Yusuf, against doing so but he told her not to stop him, news agency ANI cited her as saying.

According to ANI, the woman said she wished her husband, who according to police had planned to carry out terror strikes in Delhis crowded areas on the instruction of his handlers in Afghanistan, could be forgiven. I have four kids. Where will I go? she said.

The 36-year-old Khans father Kafeel Ahmed told a news channel that his son was a very good person who never fought with anyone and that he never imagined he would take to terrorism.

When asked if he knew about his sons Khans terror plot, Ahmed said, I have not heard anything about explosive material. If I had any idea that he was collecting explosive material, I would not have allowed Abu Yusuf to stay in my house, according to news agency PTI.

Also read: UP man, father of 4 and cosmetic shop owner, was in touch with ISIS for years, say police

Only after the police came in the evening and found the material, I realised what it is, he said.

A Special Cell team of Delhi Police on Saturday took Khan to his village, Badhya Bhaksai in Balrampur district, to verify the claims he had made, a top UP police officer said, according to news agency PTI.

Khan, who was arrested after a shootout from the section of the Ridge Road between Dhaula Kuan and Karol Bagh, was going to install the two pressure-cooker Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) at heavy footfall area in Delhi, police have said. The IEDs recovered from him were defused later.

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Sonia Gandhi may have decided to step down as Congress party chief, but Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh still believes the members of the Gandhi family are the right fit for a leadership role.

Defending the Gandhis, he said on August 23 that the recent electoral defeats should not be the basis for seeking a change in leadership.

According to an NDTV report, Singh has said the Congress party would be making a mistake if they downplay the importance and sway of the family that has been selflessly committed to the party and made unimaginable sacrifices for the same. He further said that the Gandhis helped the Congress party stand like a rock in the path of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its ambition to divide the country on the lines of caste and religion.

The Punjab chief ministers statement comes in response to a letter written by more than 20 top leaders of the party, seeking to shake up the order within the Congress party and introspect into the recent electoral losses.

Sonia Gandhi, the interim president of the Congress party, has, however, informed her aides that she is willing to step down as party chief. But the Punjab CM is evidently unhappy with the demand for shuffling the ranks.

Stating that bedrock of Constitutional strength is under threat at the moment and India needs strong and united Opposition, he said: The move by these leaders to demand a re-haul of the party at this critical juncture would be detrimental to its interests and interests of the nation.

Insisting the Gandhis are the right fit for the leadership role, he said there is no one else in the party right now who can lead the pack efficiently.

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel also echoed his sentiments and tweeted: Sonia ji and Rahul ji are the ray of hope for us in every challenge. We are all with you. Crores of workers and countrymen of Chhattisgarh and country are with you.
People's Liberation Army (PLA) will carry military exercises in the South China Sea off China's Guangdong province from August 24-29, state-run news outlet reported on Sunday citing the local maritime safety administration.

The Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) will hold military exercises in the South China Sea off Chinas Guangdong province from August 24-29, state-run Global Times reported on Sunday citing the local maritime safety administration.

The upcoming military exercises come at a time when tensions have aggravated in the South China Sea, where China lays its territorial claims in the region and is in a dispute with several countries including Vietnam and the Philippines.

During US Health Secretary Alex Azars historic visit to Taiwan earlier this month, China deployed fighter jets that briefly crossed the midline of the Taiwan Strait, South China Morning Post reported citing Taiwans Defence Ministry. The ministry said it had tracked the PLA fighters with its land-based anti-aircraft missiles and had strongly driven them out.

Also read: US Elections 2020: Donald Trumps new commercial ft. PM Modi aims to woo Indian Americans, watch here

Also read: Iran is to thank for peace in the Middle East

Recently, Malaysia has rejected Beijings expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea. Malaysia opposes Chinas claim that they have historic rights over those waters, Malaysian Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told the Parliament in a rare public rebuke of its largest trading partner.

The Malaysian government also considers Chinas claims over maritime features in the South China Sea to have no basis whatsoever under international law, he added.

The US has hit out at China and urged nations to push back against the Asian country, saying that Beijing is bullying its neighbours and militarise features in the South China Sea, rather than helping the world during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Also read: TikTok to sue Trump administration over app ban
Cash-strapped package holidays giant Tui has come under attack from hedge funds hoping to cash in on a looming rights issue aimed at helping it to ride out the coronavirus crisis.

Bets against the FTSE 250 company have hit a record high after short-sellers rounded on the firm in recent days.

The increase in short positions  where investors bet on share price falls  follows confirmation from Tui's chief executive Fritz Joussen that the firm is considering a rights issue after reporting a 1.3 billion loss for the three months to June.

Cash-strapped: Bets against the FTSE 250 company have hit a record high after short-sellers rounded on the firm in recent days

American billionaire Ken Griffin's hedge fund giant Citadel Advisors and Swiss firm PSquared Asset Management have placed large bets against Tui shares in the last few days.

It takes the total disclosed short positions to 5.7 per cent of Tui's shares, according to data from the Financial Conduct Authority  the highest level since the FCA began disclosing short positions in 2012. These are worth about 100 million

Tui's shares have unsurprisingly suffered in recent months as the Covid-19 crisis battered shares in travel companies, which were already feeling the effects long before lockdown was introduced in the UK.

Earlier this month, Tui said it would 'evaluate options to achieve the optimal balance sheet structure to support the business over the longer term'.

Joussen later confirmed this could mean raising cash via a rights issue or selling off parts of the company, such as Tui's Marella Cruises.

Airlines and tour operators have been in crisis due to severe restrictions on international movement as a result of the pandemic.

Hopes that the situation was improving were dashed after the Government began removing some of the top destinations from the travel corridor list  countries exempt from quarantine requirements  to the dismay of the travel industry.

The Government has been adding and removing countries at short notice, throwing the travel plans of millions of Britons into chaos. Those travelling to popular hotspots such as France, Spain and now Croatia have to self-isolate for two weeks upon return to the UK.

Tui and other firms have called for the introduction of coronavirus testing at airports to reduce the need for quarantine.

Shares in several airlines rose last week on the news of possible testing at airports.

Tui declined to comment on the rise in short-selling
- Mama Ida Odinga was born in 1950 and on August 24 she will turn 70 years

- Her husband Raila Odinga held an invite-only birthday party for her at their house in Karen, Nairobi

- Among other people who attended included Raila's new friends David Murathe, Anne Waiguru and Peter Kenneth

Opposition leader Raila Odinga has thrown a lavish birthday party for his lovely wife Ida Odinga as she turned 70.

Among other people who attended the invite-only party included Kirinyaga governor Anne Waiguru, David Murathe, Peter Kenneth among others.

READ ALSO: Senator Cherargei blasts Sifuna for dragging Ruto's name into KEMSA scandal

Mama Ida Odinga (seated in the middle) carrying a bunch of flowers. On the left is Fatuma Gedi and Anne Waiguru on the right. Photo: Anne Waiguru

Source: Twitter

READ ALSO: Clip of man behaving like a snake leaves netizens scratching their heads

Others who were also invited included COTU boss Francis Atwoli and President Uhuru Kenyattas cousin George Muhoho.

Photos that were later posted on Twitter by the Kirinyaga county boss showed Mama Ida holding a bunch of flowers as she posed for a photo alongside Waiguru and Wajir woman representative Fatuma Gedi.

"Joined Rt. Hon Raila Odinga, family and other leaders in celebrating Mama Idas birthday. Ida Odinga, you are strong, wise, graceful, and selfless. Not many know or understand the critical role you play in this nation. God grant you many fruitful years ahead, full of laughter and love," said Waiguru.

READ ALSO: 'Photocopy' wa Uhuru Michael Njogo azungumza, adai maisha ni magumu

Ida Betty Odinga was born as Ida Anyango Oyoo on August 24, 1950, and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Nairobi in 1974 when she was 24 years old.

While attending the University of Nairobi, she met her husband, Raila Odinga, who was an employee of the university's Department of Engineering at the time.

Later on they married and had four children. The couple has stayed together for over 44 years.

Raila is currently 75 years and usually, he celebrates his birthday on January 7.

Do you have an inspirational story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Follow us on Telegram: Tuko news

Source: TUKO.co.ke
The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development(MLGRD) have launched a GH 2.5 million pilot support project for 48 selected women farmer-based organizations across Sefwi- Waiwso in the Western North Region.



The support includes; equipment and training for beneficiary farmer-based groups.



Speaking at the launch, Mr. Henry Williams Fordjour, Western North Regional Director of Food and Agriculture said the support was in line with Canada's Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP), which seeks to empower women to eradicate poverty and build the more peaceful, inclusive and more prosperous world.



He explained that a total of 122 Farmers from three farmer-based groups from the Sefwi-Waiwso Municipality were the beneficiaries from the Western North Region.



The groups are ,Mewoenenyo farmers group at Nyameagyeso, Miwenenyo farmers group at Mempeasem and Anidaso farmers group at Nkonya with each farmer group receiving GH 43000 support in training and Equipment.



He pointed out that an agreement was signed between the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the leadership of the farmer groups.



Mr Fordjour indicated that the initiative would contribute to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the government of Ghana's investment for Food and Jobs (IFJ) objectives.



He hinted that the activities that would be supported were;purchasing and installation of agro- processing equipment with capacity building on operational and maintenance of the machinery and marketing techniques to ensure appropriate marketing linkages.



"It is expected that this initiative will improve the ability of women's farmer based organizations to efficiently add value to their products and to reduce post -harvest losses and improve the incomes of members as well as the economic status of their households", he added.



The Regional Director said an agreement was signed between the Ministry of Trade and GRATIS to supply Equipment required by the beneficiary women groups to deliver and install them for use by the Farmers.



He advised farmers across the country to form cooperatives since that was the only way to access governments support and programmes.



He also called on the beneficiary farmers to make good use of the initiative and seek expert advice to remain vibrant in business.



Ms Janet Amoah, chairperson of Anidaso Farmer group, who spoke on behalf of the beneficiary groups, commended the government and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture for the support since it would go a long way to motivate them to work harder to support their families and the country.



She called on famers in the Region to form cooperatives to receive support from the government.

Source: GNA









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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 14:17:41|Editor: huaxia

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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Four policemen of the Afghan National Police (ANP) were killed and two others wounded during clashes in southern Kandahar province Saturday night, a provincial police spokesman said Sunday. Enditem
Lionel Messi is angry with Barcelona, after details of his meeting with new manager Ronald Koeman was made public, Clarin reports. T...

Lionel Messi is angry with Barcelona, after details of his meeting with new manager Ronald Koeman was made public, Clarin reports.

The 32-year-old cut short his holiday to meet with Koeman on Thursday.

He is believed to have told the new boss that he is considering leaving the Camp Nou.

But Messi is furious by the source of the leak, Catalan radio station RAC1, who have regularly backed under-fire president Josep Bartomeu.

The claims coincide with reports that some Barcelona board want Messi to leave the club. It is understood that at least one high-ranking member thinks a a shock sale would be best for all involved.

Koeman has already made it clear that he sees Messi as an integral part of his rebuilding project, which will start with several notable departures.





Further talks between Messi and Koeman are scheduled to take place imminently and the members of the board who want the clubs record goalscorer to remain are said to be relaxed about the situation.
Australians on high alert amid the coronavirus pandemic have been warned about a host of other infectious diseases that can be transmitted to them via their four-legged friends.

Receiving a sloppy lick from a dog might seem innocent, but it could actually see the transfer of a potentially harmful infection, according to emergency and critical care veterinarian Dr Brooke Schampers.

Most of these diseases, which fall into the zoonotic category, are the result of parasites, Dr Schampers told Yahoo News Australia.

What we see a lot of is intestinal parasites such as hook worm and round worm. They are the two internal parasites that can certainly transfer to people, Dr Schampers said.

Dog owners have been warned against letting their pets lick their face. Source: Getty Images

Externally, you have things like mites which are acquired through contact transmission and can cause a lot of itchiness and discomfort.

The worms, however, are transmitted orally and via faeces, so when they lick peoples hands and faces, they could be delivering more than a sweet show of affection.

Its reasonably easy to catch these parasites from our pets if we dont use proper hand hygiene and take preventative measures against them, Dr Schampers said.

While the infections arent deadly and can be treated with medication, theyre certainly not something anyone would want to come by.

With hook worm, the parasites can migrate under our skin, so that in itself comes with a lot of discomfort. And round worm can cause gastrointestinal side-effects like vomiting and diarrhoea, Dr Schampers said.

Parasites can be transferred from dogs to humans via faeces. Source: Getty Images

Some dogs would show obvious signs of being infected with worms, Dr Schampers said, but in others it could go unnoticed until it was too late.

If youre in really close contact with your pet, and youre picking up your pets faeces really frequently, then contracting a zoonotic disease is certainly possible, she said.

Story continues

How to prevent contracting a zoonotic disease

As a precaution, Dr Schampers said she and her colleagues wormed themselves annually to be on the safe side, given the volume of animals they were in close contact with.

Aside from this measure, dog owners should be vigilant with washing their hands frequently, especially before eating and after picking up faeces.

Dr Schampers suggested owners consider wearing gloves while cleaning up after their dog and recommended they always use a well-sealed bag.

One of the most important thing dog owners can do to prevent contraction of a disease from their pet is to refrain from allowing it to lick their face.

Thats probably the biggest risk factor. The way a lot of these intestinal parasites are transmitted is from them licking our face or our hands [before] touching our face and our mouth, the vet said.

Puppies are even more of a risk which can be hard because theyre so cute.

Additionally, dog owners should be worming their pets on a regular basis  at least every three months with products like NexGard Spectra, according to Dr Schampers,

Preventative medications are incredibly effective if theyre used appropriately. Making sure pets are on prevention is the most important thing we can do for their health and our health, she said.

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.
She has mastered the art of exhibiting fashion-forward, yet effortless street style.

And Katie Holmes was spotted rocking her tried-and-true wide-legged denim jeans, while heading to Blick Art Materials in New York City on Saturday afternoon.

The 41-year-old actress had her brunette tresses tied up into a bun and wore a cloth mask over her face as she chatted on her cellphone.

Go-to: Katie Holmes was spotted rocking her tried-and-true wide-legged denim jeans, while heading to Blick Art Materials in New York City on Saturday afternoon

Katie put her toned arms on display in a loose nude tank top that she tucked into the waist band of her jeans.

The Dawson's Creek star kept accessories to a minimum by rocking a delicate bracelet on her wrist and a pair of oversized sunglasses on her face.

She trekked down the NYC sidewalk in a pair of white lace-up sneakers and she carried her belongings in a dark blue canvas bag that she had tucked under her arm.

Katie kept her phone glued to her ear and her idle hand in the pocket of her jeans until she reached the well known art supplies store.

Chatty: The 41-year-old actress had her brunette tresses tied up into a bun and wore a cloth mask over her face as she chatted on her cellphone

That's better: Katie stayed dry beneath an umbrella as it started to rain in New York

Last Tuesday, Katie styled her favorite denim bottoms with a blue and green plaid button down shirt, which she tucked loosely into her waistband.

She gave the ensemble a more relaxed vibe by rolling up the sleeves of her button down and by rocking a pair of black Birkenstock sandals.

Holmes has proven her love for a wide-legged silhouette, having been spotted with a different variation of the 70's inspired pant earlier in the month, while picking up a painting in Manhattan.

Style switch up: Last Tuesday, Katie styled her favorite denim bottoms with a blue and green plaid button down shirt that she also happened to tuck into the waist band of her pants; Katie pictured on August 18

Favorite silhouette: Holmes has proven her love for a wide-legged silhouette, having been spotted with a different variation of the 70's inspired pant earlier in the month, while picking up a painting in Manhattan; Katie pictured on August 1

When Katie is not providing fashion inspiration for the masses, she is lending her voice to the the political agendas near and dear to her heart.

Most recently, the Batman Begins star announced on Instagram that she would be voting for presidential hopeful Joe Biden in the upcoming election.

'#BidenHarris2020,' captioned Katie, who included a busty throwback snap taken in April for her InStyle cover shoot.

He's got her vote: Most recently, the Batman Begins star announced on Instagram that she would be voting for presidential hopeful Joe Biden in the upcoming election; Katie pictured on Instagram on August 11

Holmes and her 14-year-old daughter Suri have been hunkered down at their NYC abode amid the raging coronavirus pandemic.

Katie shares Suri with her ex-husband, celebrity Scientologist Tom Cruise, whom she was married to from 2006 to 2012.

Katie's divorce from Tom, which she filed in 2012, was finalized only 10 days later, with her retaining primary custody of Suri, though Tom could visit, according to People.

Quarantine partners: Holmes and her 14-year-old daughter Suri have been hunkered down at their NYC abode amid the raging coronavirus pandemic; Katie and Suri pictured in 2019

Katie recently opened up about life in quarantine with Suri in a recent interview with The Telegraph, while remotely promoting her new film The Secret: Dare to Dream.

'I like to keep [Suri] out of my interviews, but I will say that this time of quarantine has been such a lesson.'

'Just really looking at everything you have and celebrating the simplicity of making dinner and [spending] that time together,' she concluded.

You can watch Dawson's Creek on Hulu, or on Stan in Australia.
Harry and Meghan have revealed they adore US academic and self-help guru Brene Brown.

The University of Houston professor describes her field as the study of courage, shame, vulnerability and empathy and she has written a string of best-selling motivational books.

Her Ted Talk, The Power Of Vulnerability, has been viewed almost 50 millions times, and Oprah Winfrey and Melinda Gates are among her celebrity followers.

Read More

Speaking at a web event discussing social media and its potential as a force for good, the Duke of Sussex said he and his wife were big fans of Ms Browns work.

The event was hosted by the Queens Commonwealth Trust, of which the duke and duchess are president and vice-president respectively.

Among the guests was Hunter Johnson, founder of The Man Cave  an Australian organisation working to encourage healthy masculinity in men and boys.

Mr Johnson quoted one of Ms Browns philosophies: Vulnerability brings connection and connection is why we are here. It brings meaning and it brings purpose to our lives.

He also referred to Tristan Hunter, co-founder of the Centre for Humane Technology, which works to promote the positive evolution of social media, rather than platforms that hijack users attention.

Mr Hunter coined the phrases human downgrading and system of harms to describe the methods social media relies on  addiction, distraction, isolation, polarisation and fake news.

Video of the Day

Harry said: I love the fact that you are bringing up Brene Brown and also Tristan Hunter  two people that we absolutely adore and that we know as well.

Five years ago, six years ago, talking about your mental health was a sign of weakness. Just as much as vulnerability was a form of weakness.

If were all able to show our vulnerability that doesnt mean you are weak, if anything I believe that shows mostly your strength, the duke added.

If you are so in-touch with your emotions that you know where you are on each day, well thats a superpower.

Meghan said: Everyones mental and emotional wellbeing are perhaps more fragile than ever before, certainly with Covid and our dependability on devices right now in the absence of human interaction.

People are going online more than ever before to feel community.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's health ministry on Saturday reported 6,482 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infection and 644 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 556,216 cases and 60,254 deaths.

The government has said the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.

(Reporting by Dave Graham; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
Dishonesty is the unifying theme of the 2020 election strategy of the worlds oldest political party. With a placeholder, visibly addled candidate at the top of the ticket, the signal to all down the ballot is that reality should be no constraint. The partys national leadership has been united around the latest phony conspiracy theory that mailboxes are being removed and mail sorting machinery dismantled to obstruct mail voting. That theory was demolished Friday by Postmaster General Louis Dejoy in Senate testimony, but that isnt stopping the Dems from pushing it.

The message has been received down ballot.

Consider all the fraud in these stories from the past week.

Portland City Commissioner LIES on official Twitter to cover up crime by RIOTERS despite VIDEO PROOF heres what she said about Marquise Love, who as you know is a protester (rioter) arrested as one of several people who tried to murder a man in front of a whole crowd of people in the middle of a Portland city street. Love was arrested because he did the crime.

Important fact check: The statement includes "the [incident] where a truck driver was beaten up after an altercation with a protester" which has been proven false. The driver was attacked by several individuals not associated with the protests: https://t.co/kYvWeJMk8G  Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty (@JoAnnPDX) August 20, 2020

At the Democrats convention, a purported longstanding Republican from Rhode Island was featured multiple times on video, saying that he has seen the light and now is voting Democrat. The only problem for people interested in reality:

Talk Show Host John DePetro: In 4 out of 5 primaries he has voted as a Democrat . he is a registered Democrat

Then theres the US Senate candidate in Alaska running as an independent.

A U.S. Senate candidate in Alaska bills himself as an independent, but he told Democratic donors behind closed doors that hes actually to the left and is only claiming to be an independent now in the hopes it will get him elected. The Washington Free Beacon reported that Al Gross, who is challenging incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), made the admission to Democratic donors on Wednesday. I will caucus with the Democrats. Ive been an independent since I was 18, but if you look at my platform, youll see that most of my values are to the left, Gross said, according to the outlet. Ive met with leadership in the Senate and they are very understanding that my best pathway to win is to remain as an independent.

But my favorite this week is the Democrat running for mayor of Sumter, SC, with the main appeal that she would be the first black female mayor, who has been arrested and confessed to staging a fake kidnapping attempt in order to garner sympathy and slur her opponents. WIS TV reports:

A woman running for mayor in Sumter now faces criminal charges after police say she staged her own kidnapping and beating to get publicity, sympathy and votes in the November election. Sabrina Belcher, 29, carried out the stunt on Facebook live, police say, with help from 34-year-old Christopher Eaddy. (snip) Police say she admitted to faking the crime. Police also accused Belcher of trying to smear a political opponent during the fake Facebook Live attack, and planning to smear other candidates ahead of the election.

Andy Ngo tweeted out part of the now-deleted Facebook live feed of the phony attack:

Insane! RT @MrAndyNgo: Here is part of the now-deleted Facebook live video police say was a fake kidnapping stunt to garner sympathy votes. Sabrina Princess Belcher campaigned to be the "first black female mayor" for Sumter, S.C. #HateHoax pic.twitter.com/DtOrkvu3JS  CovinaP (@CPGeekee) August 21, 2020

Andy also tweeted a side-by-side graphic of a Belcher campaign ad and her mug shot that reveal a degree of visual fraud that is remarkable. Are we to believe that two women are the same person?

Twitter screen grab
SpiceJet has been designated as "Indian scheduled carrier" to operate flight services to the UK from India, the Gurugram-based no-frills airline said in a regulatory filing on Friday.

On Thursday, the airline was allowed to fly on India-US routes by the governments of the two countries under the bilateral air services pact.

"We would like to inform you that in terms of the air services agreement between the Government of India and the United Kingdom, SpiceJet has been designated as Indian scheduled carrier to operate on agreed services between India and the UK," SpiceJet said in the filing.

An air service agreement is a bilateral agreement to allow international commercial air transport services between signatories.

After the United States, SpiceJet has now been designated as an Indian scheduled carrier to operate to the United Kingdom. The UK and the US are two of the top international destinations for airlines and we are delighted to have got this designation to operate to these two countries," said SpiceJet Chairman and Managing Director Ajay Singh said in a statement.

SpiceJet gets the nod to fly to the UK at a time when all international commercial air passenger services have been suspended since March 22 due to visa and travel restrictions in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

However, various evacuation and charter flights are being currently operated to fly back stranded Indians in various countries and also transport foreign nationals, who are stuck in India, to their countries.

Currently, government-run Air India is the only domestic airline flying between India and the UK.

SpiceJet had been planning to operate to London since the summer of 2019 when it applied for slots to connect Amritsar-London flights.

However, after it failed to get them, the budget carrier took another attempt in August for slots at London Heathrow and Manchester after the grounding of Jet Airways in April. But, even that plan could not fructify.

Since both the US and the UK are wide-body operations, SpiceJet is reportedly in talks with Oman Air for the wet leasing of some of the Gulf-based airline's A330 planes.

A wet lease is an arrangement under which one airline provides an aircraft, its complete crew, maintenance and insurance.
By Trend

The Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) is developing new standards for information technology and IT security, said CBA Director General Farid Osmanov, the Association of Banks of Azerbaijan told Trend.

He made the remark at the online meeting of representatives of CBA and the association.

The online meeting was also attended by President of the Association Zakir Nuriev, Chairman of the expert group on IT and IT security of the association Jalal Orujov and other top managers of the CBA and the Association of Banks of Azerbaijan.

The meeting participants discussed issues related to conducting IT competitions and other related events within the framework of the International Banking Forum, annually held by the Central Bank of Azerbaijan and the Association of Banks of Azerbaijan, as well as prospects for closer cooperation other government agencies and importance of timely identification of various attacks on cybersecurity.

Director General of the Central Bank Farid Osmanov provided information about the work done by CBA in connection with the development of new standards for IT and IT security.

He emphasized the importance of such meetings and expressed his readiness to support initiatives related to digitalization of the financial sector, cost optimization and enhancing cybersecurity, said the association.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
A gangland hitman stabbed himself with scissors before confessing to the brutal murder of a teenage boy to police in a stunning midnight revelation.

Conrad Craig broke down the door of Brayden Dillon's family home in Glenfield in Sydney's southwest at the crack of dawn on Good Friday in 2017.

He then threatened the teenager's mother and stepfather with a gun before bursting into the 15-year-old's room and shooting him as he slept.

Craig was arrested and charged with the murder three months later and kept quiet about the heartless shooting for more than a year.

But in January 2019, the 29-year-old took to his face and arms with scissors in Lithgow jail in order to get prison guards to call Detective Sergeant Luke Scott.

It was midnight on a Sunday night and Craig was ready to own up to Dillon's murder.

Conrad Craig (pictured) shot Brayden Dillon in a brutal murder at his home in April 2017

Brayden Dillon (pictured) was asleep when Craig stormed into his home and shot him in the head

'I'm confessing to what happened  he f**kng died,' Craig said on the call, according to evidence tendered to the court and obtained by the The Sunday Telegraph.

'Yeah, I f**king pulled the trigger.'

Craig claimed to Sergeant Scott that Dillon's murder was a kneecapping that had gone wrong, though police suspected his execution was a part of something more.

During the explosive phone call with Sergeant Scott, Craig begged to be moved from Lithgow to another jail as he was unable to see his children and was ready to disclose valuable information to police in order to get his demands.

'I want to tell you what happened and also about another three or four that have been charged and I know done it,' Craig said.

According to a statement of agreed facts heard in the Supreme Court, Craig was approached by Abdul Abu-Mahmoud about killing the teen, claiming he wanted revenge for the stabbing death of his nephew Adam Abu-Mahmoud in Panania in July 2016.

Abu-Mahmoud, who has pleaded not guilty in the Supreme Court, has denied financing and ordering the hit.

Craig (pictured) confessed to the brutal crime in a midnight phone call to police from Lithgow jail in January 2019

Craig knocked down the front door of Dillon's home (pictured) and woke up his mother. He told her to go to sleep before shooting the 15 year old in his head

Craig had spent most of his adult life going in and out of jail and was released from Cessnock Prison just 19 days before he shot the teenager.

His midnight confession included demands to keep his family safe as he was fearful other inmates were aware of his admission and had a mobile phone to communicate the news with gang members on the outside.

'You've put my family through hell,' Craig said. 'The other motherf**ker wants to f**king gangster on, think their mad c**ts and leave me with it and laugh at me. I am not f**king youse (sic) around.'

Craig continued to provide evidence and assistance to police in their investigation, which led to him receiving a 20 per cent discount on his prison sentence.

He pleaded guilty to Dillon's murder in June and was sentenced to 40 years in prison with a non-parole period of 30 years.

With time served, his earliest possible release date is July 2047.
- A night out on the town has ended in tragedy for all parties involved after a high-speed chase took a turn for the worst

- Three Tshwane Metro Police officials died after the suspect's vehicle was involved in a head-on collision with theirs

- It is suspected that the suspect, who also died in the accident, was under the influence of alcohol

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Three Tshwane Metro Police officials have died in a collision with an alleged drunk driver after a high-speed chase on Sunday morning.

A statement issued by the Tshwane Metro Police Department explained that the incident had taken place on the N4 in Pretoria West at around 2 am.

The officers had noticed a vehicle driving recklessly toward vehicles travelling in the opposite direction in the Central Business District.

The officials had unsuccessfully attempted to stop the vehicle when the driver opted to speed off, this had led to the police giving chase and requesting backup.

Three Tshwane police officials died on the scene. Image: TMPD

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Va Tamba: Mboweni slams resignation rumours, hints at ANC betrayal

The first responders were then joined by three additional officers in another vehicle located where the suspect was chasing off to.

This second vehicle was then involved in a head-on collision with the suspect's car with three officers dying on the scene.

The suspect at the centre of the drama also subsequently died on the scene with his female companion taken to the nearest hospital.

The statement further explained that police investigators had reason to believe the suspect was under the influence of liquor after a search was carried out:

"Empty and full alcohol bottles were found in the suspect's vehicle. A case of culpable homicide has been opened. The identities of the three officers who have lost their lives will be released as soon as their families have been informed."

In other news, Briefly.co.za reported that Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has made it clear that he has no plans to resign from his post.

The vexed Mboweni has taken to social media to deny the rumours, hinting that they originated from within the ANC.

Commenting on this alleged betrayal from a 'fellow comrade', the minister insisted he is 'firmly' in place:

"There are people, your own colleagues and comrades who peddle stories to Sunday papers. Tito this, Tito that. He is resigning etc etc! Va tamba! I am firmly here."

Enjoyed reading our story? Download BRIEFLY's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major South African news!

Source: Briefly News
The World Health Organization (WHO) has updated its mask-wearing guidelines for children as the cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid19) continue to rise across the world.

The WHO has recommended that children below the age of five do not have to wear masks. This decision was made keeping in mind the capacity of a child to wear a mask with minimal assistance. The global health body also considered other factors like the childs safety and their overall health.

WHO in its coronavirus page has listed several criteria when it comes to children falling under the age group of 6-11 years. WHO says that masks should be worn only if there is widespread transmission of Covid-19 in the area where the child comes from. It also highlighted that aspects like the ability of children to wear masks, adult supervision and potential impact of wearing them on learning should also be taken into account in these cases.

WHO recommends that children above 12 years of age should wear masks and follow the same guidelines as adults regardless of the intensity of transmission of Covid-19 in the area where the child resides.

It has also recommended that children suffering from cancer and cystic fibrosis should wear medical masks to provide better protection. It also said that it is not mandatory for children with developmental difficulties to wear masks and such cases should be assessed by the parents, caregivers and medical workers.

There are more than 23 million cases of Covid-19 which have been reported across the globe with the US, India and Brazil contributing to the most number of cases. Germany, Hong Kong, South Korea, New Zealand and Vietnam, who along with few other nations have been lauded for their efforts to handle the pandemic, are now seeing a rise in the number of cases.
Mayhem in Melbourne

On August 2, lockdown measures were implemented in Melbourne, Australia, that were so draconian that Australian news commentator Alan Jones said on Sky News: People are entitled to think there is an agenda to destroy western society.

The gist of an August 13th article on the Melbourne lockdown is captured in the title: Australian Police Go FULL NAZI, Smashing in Windows of Civilian Cars Just Because Passengers Wouldnt Give Details About Where They Were Going.

Another article with an arresting title was by Guy Burchell in the August 7th Australian National Review: Melbourne Cops May Now Enter Homes Without a Warrant, After 11 People Die of COVID  Australia, This Is Madness, Not Democracy. Burchell wrote that only 147 people had lost their lives to coronavirus in Victoria (the Australian state of which Melbourne is the capital), a very low death rate compared to other countries. The ramped up lockdown measures were triggered by an uptick in cases due to ramped up testing and 11 additional deaths, all of them in nursing homes (where lockdown measures would actually have little effect). The new rules include a six week curfew from 8 PM to 5 AM, with residents allowed to leave home outside those curfew hours only to shop for food and essential items (one household member only), and for caregiving, work and exercise (limited to one hour).

But the piece de resistance, writes Burchell, has to be that now police officers can enter homes with neither a warrant nor permission. This is an astonishing violation of civil liberties. Deaths of this kind are not normally cause for government action, let alone the effective house arrest of an entire city. He quoted Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews, who told Victorians, there is literally no reason for you to leave your home and if you were to leave your home and not be found there, you will have a very difficult time convincing Victoria police that you have a lawful reason. Burchell commented:

[U]nder this new regime you cant even remain in your house unmolested by the cops, they can just pop round anytime to make sure you havent had Bruce and Sheila from next door round for a couple of drinks. All over a disease that is simply not that fatal. Last year more than 310,000 Australians were hospitalised with flu and over 900 died. By all metrics that makes flu a worse threat than COVID-19 but police werent granted Stasi-like powers during the flu season. Millions of people werent confined to their homes and threatened with AUS$5,000 fines for not having a good reason for being out of their homes.

At an August 19th press conference, Australias second most senior medical officer said the government would be discussing measures such as banning restaurants, international travel, public transport, and withholding government programs through No Jab No Pay in order to coerce vaccine resisters.

An August 13 article on LifeSiteNews quoted Father Glen Tattersall, a Catholic parish priest in Melbourne, who said the draconian provisions simply cannot be justified on a scientific basis:

We have a curfew from 8 pm to 5 am, rigorously enforced including by the use of police helicopters and search lights. Is the virus a vampire that just comes out at night? Or the wearing of masks: they must be worn everywhere outside, even in a park where you are nowhere near any other person. Why? Does the virus leap hundreds of metres through the air? This is all about inducing mass fear, and humiliating the populace by demanding external compliance.

Why the strict curfew? Curfews have been implemented recently in the US to deter violence during protests, but no violence of that sort was reported in Melbourne. What was reported, at least on social media, were planes landing in the night from the Chinese province of Guandong carrying equipment related to 5G and the Chinese biometric social credit system, which was reportedly being installed under a blanket of secrecy.

Angelo Codevilla, professor emeritus at Boston University, concluded in an August 13th article, We are living through a coup detat based on the oldest of ploys: declaring emergencies, suspending law and rights, and issuing arbitrary rules of behavior to excuse taking full powers.

Questioning the Narrative

Melbourne has gone to extremes with its lockdown measures, but it could portend things to come globally. Lockdowns were originally sold to the public as being necessary just for a couple of weeks to flatten the curve, to prevent hospital overcrowding from COVID-19 cases. It has now been over five months, with self-appointed vaccine czar Bill Gates intoning that we will not be able to return to normal until the entire global population of 7 billion people has been vaccinated. He has since backed off on the numbers, but commentators everywhere are reiterating that lockdowns are the new normal, which could last for years.

All this is such a radical curtailment of our civil liberties that we need to look closely at the evidence justifying it; and when we do, that evidence is weak. The isolation policies were triggered by estimates from the Imperial College London of 510,000 UK deaths and 2.2 million US deaths, more than 10 times the actual death rate from COVID-19. A Stanford University antibody study estimated that the fatality rate if infected was only about 0.1 to 0.2 percent; and in an August 4th blog post, Bill Gates himself acknowledged that the death rate was only 0.14 percent, not much higher than for the flu. But restrictive measures have gotten more onerous rather than less as the mortality figures have been revised downward.

A July 2020 UK study from Loughborough and Sheffield Universities found that government policy over the lockdown period has actually increased mortality rather than reducing it, after factoring in collateral damage including deaths from cancers and other serious diseases that are being left untreated, a dramatic increase in suicides and drug overdose, and poverty and malnourishment due to unemployment. Globally, according to UNICEF, 1.2 million child deaths are expected as a direct result of the lockdowns. A data analyst in South Africa asserts that the consequences of the countrys lockdown will lead to 29 times more deaths than from the coronavirus itself.

Countries and states that did very little to restrict their populations, including Sweden and South Dakota, have fared as well as or better overall than locked down US states. In an August 12th article in The UK Telegraph titled Swedens Success Shows the True Cost of Our Arrogant, Failed Establishment, Allister Heath writes:

Sweden got it largely right, and the British establishment catastrophically wrong. Anders Tegnell, Stockholms epidemiologist-king, has pulled off a remarkable triple whammy: far fewer deaths per capita than Britain, a maintenance of basic freedoms and opportunities, including schooling, and, most strikingly, a recession less than half as severe as our own.

Not restraining the populace has allowed Swedens curve to taper off naturally through herd immunity, with daily deaths down to single digits for the last month. (See chart.)

The Pandemic That Wasnt?

Also bringing the official narrative into question is the unreliability of the tests on which the lockdowns have been based. In a Wired interview, even Bill Gates acknowledged that most US test results are garbage. The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technology used in the nasal swab test is considered the gold standard for COVID-19 detection; yet the PCR test was regarded by its own inventor, Nobel prize winner Kary Mullis, as inappropriate to detect viral infection. In a detailed June 27th analysis titled COVID-19 PCR Tests Are Scientifically Meaningless, Torsten Engelbrecht and Konstantin Demeter conclude:

Without doubt eventual excess mortality rates are caused by the therapy and by the lockdown measures, while the COVID-19 death statistics comprise also patients who died of a variety of diseases, redefined as COVID-19 only because of a positive test result whose value could not be more doubtful.

The authors discussed a January 2007 New York Times article titled Faith in Quick Test Leads to Epidemic That Wasnt, describing an apparent whooping cough epidemic in a New Hampshire hospital. The epidemic was verified by preliminary PCR tests given to nearly 1,000 healthcare workers, who were subsequently furloughed. Eight months later, the epidemic was found to be a false alarm. Not a single case of whooping cough was confirmed by the gold standard test  growing pertussis bacteria in the laboratory. All of the cases found through the PCR test were false positives.

Yet test, test, test was the message proclaimed for all countries by WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom at a media briefing on March 16, 2020, five days after WHO officially declared COVID-19; and the test recommended as the gold standard was the PCR. Why, when it had already been demonstrated to be unreliable, creating false positives that gave the appearance of an epidemic when there was none? Or was that the goal  to create the appearance of a pandemic, one so vast that the global economy had to be brought to a standstill until a vaccine could be found? Recall Prof. Codevillas conclusion: We are living through a coup detat based on the oldest of ploys: declaring emergencies, suspending law and rights, and issuing arbitrary rules of behavior to excuse taking full powers.

People desperate to get back to work will not only submit to a largely untested vaccine but will agree to surveillance measures that would have been considered a flagrant violation of their civil rights if those rights had not been overridden by a national emergency justifying preemption by the police powers of the state. They will agree to get immunity passports in order to travel and participate in group activities, and they will submit to quarantines, curfews, contact tracings, social credit scores and informing on the neighbors. The emergency must be kept going to justify these unprecedented violations of their liberties, in which decision-making is removed from elected representatives and handed to unelected bureaucrats and technocrats.

A national health crisis also a necessary prerequisite for relief from liability for personal injuries from the drugs and other products deployed in response to the crisis. Under the 2005 Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREPA), in the event of a declared public health emergency, manufacturers are shielded from tort liability for injuries both from the vaccines and from invalid or invasive tests. Compensation for personal injuries is a massive expense for drug companies, and the potential profits from a product free of that downside are a gold mine for pharmaceutical companies and investors. The liabilities will be borne by the taxpayers and the victims.

All this, however, presupposes both an existing public health emergency and no effective treatment to defuse it. That helps explain the otherwise inexplicable war on hydroxychloroquine, a safe drug that has been in use and available over the counter for 65 years and has been shown to be effective in multiple studies when used early in combination with zinc and an antibiotic. A table prepared by the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (below) found that the US has nearly 30 times as many deaths per capita as countries making early and prophylactic use of hydroxychloroquine.

The latest international testing of hydroxychloroquine treatment of coronavirus shows countries that had early use of the drug had a 79% lower mortality rate than countries that banned the use of the safe malaria drug. Lowering the US mortality rate by 79% could have saved over 100,000 lives. But an effective, inexpensive COVID-19 treatment would mean the end of the alleged pandemic and the vaccine bonanza it purports to justify.

The need to maintain the appearance of a pandemic also explains the inflated reports of cases and deaths. Hospitals have been rewarded with increased fees for reclassifying cases as COVID-19. As deaths declined in the US, the numbers of cases reported by the Centers for Disease Control were also gamed to make it appear that America was in a second wave of a pandemic. The reporting criterion was changed on May 18 from people who tested positive for the virus only to people who tested positive for either the virus or its antibodies. The exploding numbers thus include people who have recovered from COVID-19 as well as false positives. The Loughborough and Sheffield researchers found that when controlling for other factors affecting mortality, actual deaths due to COVID-19 are 54% to 63% lower than implied by the standard excess deaths measure.

Ushering in The Great Reset

Forcing compliance with global vaccine mandates is one obvious motive for maintaining the appearance of an ongoing pandemic, but what would be the motive for destroying the global economy with forced lockdowns? What is behind the agenda to destroy Western society suspected by Australian commentator Alan Jones?

Evidently it is this: destroying the old is necessary to usher in the new. Global economic destruction paves the way for the Great Reset now being promoted by the World Economic Forum, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the International Monetary Fund and other big global players.

Although cast as arising from the pandemic, the global economic reset is a concept that was floated as early as 2014 by Christine Lagarde, then head of the IMF, and is said to be a recharacterization of the New World Order discussed long before that. It was promoted as a solution to the ongoing economic crisis triggered in 2008.

The World Economic Forum  that elite group of businessmen, politicians and academics that meets in Davos, Switzerland, every January  announced in June that the Great Reset would be the theme of its 2021 Summit. Klaus Schwab, founder of the Forum, admonished:

The world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed.

No country will be allowed to opt out because it would be endangering the rest, just as no person will be allowed to escape the COVID-19 vaccine for the same reason.

Who is behind the Great Reset and what it really entails are major questions that need their own article, but suffice it to say here that to escape the trap of the globalist agenda, we need a mass awakening to what is really going on and collective resistance to it while there is still time. There are hopeful signs that this is happening, including massive protests against economic shutdowns and restrictions, particularly in Europe; a rash of lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the lockdowns and of police power overreach; and a flood of alternative media exposes despite widespread censorship.

Life as we know it will change. We need to ensure that it changes in ways that serve the people and the productive economy, while preserving our national sovereignty and hard-won personal freedoms.

_______________

Ellen Brown is an attorney, chair of the Public Banking Institute and author of thirteen books, including her latest, Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age. She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called Its Our Money. Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com.
Theres often a delicate tension in northern New Mexico over tourism. While the hospitality industry is a dominant economic force in places such as Santa Fe and Taos, bringing in gobs of money, creating jobs and funding local governments via taxes generated by visitor spending, locals decry its inarguable impact on historic local culture. Some are just generally annoyed by out-of-staters wandering around, looking like tourists and asking for directions or trying to figure out the local traffic grid.

The latter attitude is off-base. Welcoming visitors is basic human courtesy and, as weve said before, what we New Mexicans hope for when we cross state lines for a vacation, to see family or on a business trip.

We have a whole state department dedicated to getting people to come to New Mexico. We can argue among ourselves about how much tourism is too much. And it can be entertaining to recount humorous encounters with confused visitors or just how outrageous some of them look in their new cowboy outfits. But dont blame people if they heed that New Mexico True call and show up here, looking for fun, relaxation or retail therapy in what we, after all, call the Land of Enchantment.

Now, the COVID-19 pandemic has added a new twist to how we react to tourism in New Mexico.

In Taos, as detailed in a recent news story by the Journal Norths Kyle Land, theres resentment that tourists from COVID hotbed states may be endangering the local populace.

As of earlier this month, many were clearly violating Gov. Michelle Lujan Grishams virtually impossible-to-enforce order that they quarantine for 14 days before going out to enjoy New Mexicos blue skies. Many also werent wearing face masks, despite signs about mandated masks posted all over town.

On social media, locals say the visitors are putting the town at risk. Residents and tourists reported that cars with out-of-state plates were getting keyed and people were throwing rocks at visitors or yelling at them to leave. And the message Go home has been graffitied on walls around town.

That all sounds pretty ugly. But its a fact that things are different these days  theres a pandemic. You should and, in fact, are required to wear a mask to help protect everyone. Health officials urge us to restrict travel. As official talking heads say over and over, the coronavirus doesnt care about state lines.

Taos merchants hit hard by the virus effects on the local and national economies, of course, welcome the summer rush of outside shoppers. But should Taosenos in general be happy that Texans or Arizonans fled their pandemic outbreaks to come to the shelter of New Mexicos relatively low COVID-19 infection rates?

Its tough to say how locals in such tourist towns as Taos and Santa Fe should react. Shops and restaurants with outside dining remain open and, despite gentle official efforts to encourage out-of-staters to stay home and come here at some other time, New Mexico hasnt put up barricades at its borders. So, were open business.

On the other hand, many of us are ourselves eschewing travel and other activities as anti-virus protections, and wish others would do the same, for the common good.

So, what to do, good people?

First, we say that face masks are such an important and simple virus preventative that anyone  tourist or not  who goes out without a mask should expect some, uh, feedback on the streets or inside a store.

Many of us who veer toward conflict avoidance are reticent to badger strangers on this issue, but to those who arent so shy, we say more power to them, as long as they are as polite as possible. The same goes for approaching people who arent social distancing.

Local authorities should be issuing warnings first, and then citations, to the mask-averse and be on the lookout for violators at popular tourist locations, such as the plazas in Taos and Santa Fe.

As far as yelling at tourists simply for being tourists, that kind of behavior crosses the line. Throwing rocks at them, for whatever reason, or keying cars constitutes criminal behavior.

Its a hard world right now. But maybe the best advice for how to deal with crowds of tourists during the pandemic is either to avoid them as much as possible or to kill them with kindness (from a safe distance).
A pit bull was shot and killed by a Detroit K9 police officer after it got entangled with her own dog through a fence, sparking outrage on social media after video of the incident went viral.

Home security cameras captured the graphic footage from August 3 which shows a white pit bull in its own yard in a residential area of Detroit get into a confrontation with a police K9.

In the footage, the police officer appears to have trouble separating the two.

Detroit Police Department officials told TMZ that the pit bull bit down on the K9s nose and refused to let go.

The image above taken from a home security camera shows a Detroit police officer struggling to separate her K9 from a white pit bull as they fought through a fence in a residential area

The officer appears to lose control of her K9 as the white pit bull confronts it from behind the fence. As the two dogs go at it, the officer reaches for her weapon and fires a bullet into the white dog's face

The police officer then pulls out a gun and shoots the pit bull in the face.

The graphic video shows the white pit bull writhing in pain and twitching as it bleeds to death from the gunshot wound.

Detroit police told TMZ that there are no plans to discipline the officer involved.

DailyMail.com has reached out to the department for comment.

'Her partner was being attacked and we demand that our officers protect not only themselves but their partners and citizens,' Detroit Police Commander Darin Szilagyi told the Detroit Free Press.

'At this point it was a clear and present danger; her dog was being viciously harmed.

'It's unfortunate it came to this, we don't like to see any animal hurt.'

Szilagyi said it was the owner's responsibility to keep the dog away from the K9.

'I'm a dog lover, I own several dogs, I have a responsibility to protect the public from my animals, just like anyone else,' Szilagyi said.

'Keep your dogs in the backyards and this wont be an issue.'

Detroit police said that the officer was looking for a gun that an armed suspect had left in the area.

The dog was seen writhing in pain and twitching before it died

A woman standing in the yard in front of the property (bottom right) watched as the shooting unfolded

The department also claimed that the officer had her dog on a leash.

The only way that the police officer could free her dog from the pit bulls grip was to shoot it, according to the Detroit police.

Police also accused the property owner of illegally constructing the fence.

The viral video has sparked outrage online, prompting lawmakers to weigh in.

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib of Michigan tweeted: I am waiting to see what our elected Detroit Board of Police Commissioners will do about this.

The whole point of the Board is oversight of our police department, not looking the other way.

Julian Castro, the former Democratic presidential candidate, tweeted: A Detroit police officer shot someones dog that posed no threat inside its own fence after he lost control of his own K9.

This officer should be held accountable. He should be fired and prosecuted.

Another Twitter user wrote: 'Everybody about to hate Detroit police because they killed a dog. Sick it took an animal lie but now we all on the same page.'

One Twitter user was angry about the incident, saying that the dog died 'horribly' while in 'spasms of agony and pain.'

'THIS IS NOT OKAY,' tweeted another Twitter user. 'Watching this makes me sick to my stomach.'

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib of Michigan tweeted: I am waiting to see what our elected Detroit Board of Police Commissioners will do about this.'

Julian Castro, the former Democratic presidential candidate, tweeted: A Detroit police officer shot someones dog that posed no threat inside its own fence after he lost control of his own K9. This officer should be held accountable. He should be fired and prosecuted.

One Twitter user was angry about the incident, saying that the dog died 'horribly' while in 'spasms of agony and pain'

Another Twitter user wrote: 'Everybody about to hate Detroit police because they killed a dog. Sick it took an animal lie but now we all on the same page.'

'THIS IS NOT OKAY,' tweeted another Twitter user. 'Watching this makes me sick to my stomach'

One Twitter user appeared to support the police, saying that the white dog 'had its jaws on the K9 and was not letting go'

But another Twitter user replied: 'There are ways of getting the dog to let go without shooting'

The video clip was first posted by an animal rights organization, Animal Hope and Wellness.

Detroit police have been sued in years past by suspects who said officers fatally shot their dogs without justification.

Last year, the city paid out $60,000 to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit brought by a woman whose three dogs were killed by officers who raided her house in a marijuana search.

The woman who brought the lawsuit, Nikita Smith, was arrested for marijuana possession, but the charges were later dropped when the arresting cops failed to appear in court, according to Reason.

One of the officers involved in the Smith raid shot 80 dogs during the course of his career, according to an investigation.

Two other cops linked to the raid said they had shot fewer than 20 and at least 19 dogs over the course of their service on the force.

Last year, the city paid $250,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by Kenneth Savage and Ashley Franklin.

They claimed Detroit cops shot their three dogs while the pets were behind an enclosed, 8ft tall fence.

The officers shot the dogs so that they could take potted marijuana plants in the backyard.

In 2017 alone, Detroit police shot 54 dogs while conducting drug raids. Thats twice the number of dogs shot in Chicago.
For residents of these agrarian communities raining seasons are often bittersweet. While the rain leaves their crops nourished and their harvest bountiful, it often causes a nearby Weru River to overflow its banks leaving the community flooded.

Also, the overflowing river makes it impossible for residents to take their farm produce to the popular Malete and Olowu markets.

Despite budgeting N144 million in five years, the only bridge connecting these villages to the nearest motorable road has continued to suffer neglect.

In 2015, the then-senator representing Kwara North, Shaaba Lafiagi, elected the construction of a bridge over the flood-prone Weru bridge into the annual Zonal Intervention Projects (ZIP) at the sum of N45 million.

The project was to be handled by the Lower Niger River Basin Development Authority, (LNRBDA) a federal agency under the Ministry of Water Resources.

The project was also reinserted in 2016 at the sum of N44 million. Another N10 million naira and N45 million naira were allocated to the project in 2017 and 2018 respectively and tagged Completion of Weru Bridge and Rehabilitation of Approaching Road in Moro LGA of Kwara North Senatorial District.

But five years after the first contract for the bridge was awarded and N144 million disbursed, the project lies abandoned.

Dashed hope

When Needs Technologies Limited, the contractor in charge of the construction of the bridge started work in 2015, residents of the communities were hopeful that their perennial worry was finally coming to an end. But their hope was short-lived as Needs Technology soon stopped work and moved its construction equipment out of the site.

Afusat Omoniju, a nursing mother and cassava farmer, said a large chunk of her harvest becomes rotten due to the difficulty in transporting her crop to the market.

Whenever it is the raining season that we ought to take our harvest to nearby villages or Malete to sell, we wont be able to. Weru River would be (so) flooded that drivers wont want to come. It is only motorcyclists that ply this place during this period and they charged exorbitantly.

Other villagers wont be able to cross to our side and vice versa. The abandoned bridge is really undermining our activities. Now, our cassava is getting spoilt because we could not get them to the market. There is no vehicle, and there is a limit to what okada can convey, she said.

It rained the night before this reporter visited the villages. The river had breached its bank and completely covered a makeshift wooden bridge built by residents as substitute the abandoned bridge.

Weru Bridge

To the right of the makeshift bridge, lay the decrepit uncompleted bridge. Youth were seen making quick money by ferrying people and their commodities across the river for N50 per trip.

If one considers that the main road leading to the village is in a deplorable state, the abandoned bridge, the fact that the villages have never had electricity and potable water, the communities seem separated from civilisation.

Auditor-Generals report

In 2016, the situation of Weru Bridge caught the attention of the Auditor General of the Federation. In his audit report, the contract for the construction of the bridge was awarded to Needs Technologies Limited at the sum of N98.7 million on 10th November 2015, with a completion period expected to last for 12 (twelve) months.

One of the deplorable roads in Olowu village

The report by the AGF, further, revealed that contrary to extant regulations stipulating 15 per cent as mobilisation fees, the sum of N26.8 million representing 27 per cent was paid to the contractor as mobilisation fee. A further payment of N16.8 million was made as preliminary expenses, including N2.9 million without proof of expenditure.

In 2018, an UDEME report of the project revealed that work stopped for over a year, exposing residents of the communities to untold hardship.

Residents speak, recount losses

With a cutlass dangling in his left hand, Yusuf Salman, a resident of Omoniju, was on his way from his farm when this reporter accosted him.

Residents reparing the bad road

As he led this reporter to his residence, he narrated the travails he faces to get his farm produce to Malete market. He said residents have since resigned to fate as they have lost hope that the bridge will be completed any time soon.

We have been looking forward to when the bridge would be completed, but it seems there is no hope the project would ever be completed. It was started during the tenure of Abdulfatai Ahmed as well as this road. We were told it would also be constructed. Apart from disrupting our farming, it has also claimed lives. We dont know what is stalling it. Although some of us have motorcycles, and that has been helping in conveying our farm products to other villages, particularly Malete or Alapa market, how about others? he asked.

For Ismail Nurudeen, another resident of Omoniju, the road leading to the villages is also a source of constant worry for the inhabitants. He said the abandoned bridge has also undermined the economy of the surrounding villages.

Residents climbing ladder to use the bridge

The abandoned bridge is giving our means of livelihood a hard knock. We cant transport our farm produce to the ,arket anymore, especially whenever it rains.

What we were told by the contractor was that they couldnt proceed with the construction because the government has not paid them. When you get to the bridge, youll agree with me that no human should be subjected to the kind of suffering we face here.

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Residents of Oluwu, one of the surrounding villages in the area, have to travel for three hours to get to Malete market to sell their farm produce. The trip would have taken an hour if the bridge had been constructed.

The leader of Olowu community, Abdulwahab Salman, said he has repeatedly written to the government asking for help, but nothing has happened.

Mr Salman said politicians only come to the village during elections when they need the votes of the people but vanish into thin air afterwards.

Olowu primary school

Due to the flooded river, many school children have stopped going to school as their parents would rather have them stay home or help them with farming instead of risking their lives.

The hardship we face cannot be compared to that faced by our children whenever it rains. Even before COVID-19, our children have (had) stopped going to school because it would be suicidal to attempt to cross the river to school when Weru is flooded Mr Salman, a resident of Omoniju said.

Contractor reacts

When contacted, the managing director of Needs Technologies Ltd, Tajudeen Abdul, absolved his company of blame in the delay in the construction of the bridge. He blamed the paucity of funds and what he termed unnecessary court trial.

After the court dispute, which was raised by an unsuccessful bidder for the project, was closed, Mr Abdul explained his men had returned back to work.

The project has been completed. You can go there; the bridge has been completed. In fact, let me forward the pictures to you. What happened exactly is that we only construct(ed) the bridge, he said.

The only school in Olowu

He promised to forward pictures of the completed bridge to this reporter. But when he sent the pictures via WhatsApp messaging App, the new development only captured the removal of the supporting wood on the concrete deck and painting of the hand-rail.

The bridge used almost four years before we could complete it, and ordinarily, we shouldnt use more than two years. But the Senator didnt have the money to put down N100 million at a time, that was the problem we first had with the project. Apart from that, we had to deal with the court case. We were sued by a man who said he was the one that should be awarded the contract. As such, we were ordered by the court to stop the project, he said.

In 2018, Mr Shaaba reinserted the project into the annual zonal intervention projects to ensure the completion of the bridge as well as the rehabilitation of the approaching road at the sum of N45 million.

However, Mr Tajudeen claimed the rehabilitation of the road was not awarded to his firm.

I told the senator that the amount budgeted would not complete the project. We all know the amount they were selling cement, iron rods when the project was awarded which nobody is ready to supplement or pay. I told the Senator that additional money would have to be appropriated to enable us to fill the two sides for easy passage along the route.

The comatose hand pump borehole in Omoniju village

It was later in 2018 that the Senator inserted the completion of the bridge and rehabilitation of approaching road for the two culverts at the sum of N45 million so that we can fill it up and do 500 metres each way. But basin (referring to the agency) refused to award it to us. We dont know where the money went. We have completed the bridge; nothing concerns us with the approaching road. We only did what we were paid for. The agency should be held responsible for that of the approaching road.

Insufficient funding, our bane  Agency

When reached for comment, the (LNRBDA) said the project was delayed in large part due to insufficient funding.

A breakdown of the amount budgeted and released between 2015  2018 showed that while a sum of N45 million was appropriated for the project in 2015, only N14.8 million was released for the year.

Abandoned site

In 2016, another sum of N44 million was earmarked further for its construction, but only N36.6 million was the amount released for the year.

Although a sum of N6.4 million was released out of an appropriated sum of N10 million for the year 2017, no amount has so far been released for 2018 which captured the completion and rehabilitation of the approaching road despite a total sum of N45 million being the amount earmarked for the year.

Although no provision was made for the completion of the project in the 2019 and 2020 budget, the agency says it is working with the incumbent senator representing the district, Sadiq Umar, to facilitate the appropriation of funds for the completion of the project as well as made provision for the rehabilitation of the approaching road next year as the 1,518m3 borrowed material provision to earth fill around the bridge abutment is insufficient to fil the bridge abutment to level and improve these section to put the road into effective use.

Residents climbing the ladder to use the bridge

There was no appropriation for the project in 2019 and 2020 financial year, hence, the N4.7 million outstanding payment for the contract in the interim payment certificate approved since October 2019 could not be settled by the Authority. The total sum of N88 million has so far been paid to the contractor for certified work, out of the contract sum of N98.7 million with an outstanding balance of N4.7 million, the agency disclosed.

The agency, therefore, said it is working to ensure that the contractor returns to the site for the completion of the bridge adding that he had done 98.9 per cent of the job.

This investigation was done as part of the UDEME project.

UDEME(www.udeme.ng) is a social accountability platform that tracks the implementation of developmental projects and how funds released for such projects are spent.
Head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization voiced Iran's full preparedness to negotiate with Ukrainian officials as the next round of talks between the two countries' aviation officials will be held in October in the capital city of Tehran, Trend reports citing IRNA.

In an exclusive interview with IRNA, Touraj Dehqani Zangeneh elaborated on the latest situation of talks between Iran and Ukraine with the aim of paying compensation for the incident of the Ukrainian passenger plane which was shot down in late January 2020.

"Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Mr. Baharvand, heading a delegation comprising representatives of different sectors, has held different meetings with the Ukrainian officials," Dehqani Zanqeneh said.

He recalled that the talks on the issues pertaining to the crash of the Ukrainian passenger plane, including the issue of paying compensation have been reviewed and the next meeting will be held in Tehran in October.

"What is evident is that Iran has accepted the responsibility for its mistake and therefore the country is ready for negotiations on paying full compensation for what is had done," Dehqani Zangeneh added.

He pointed out that paying preliminary compensation in technical and legal areas will bear the result and it will take place on the basis of agreement.

Asked about the time for paying compensation to the beneficiaries Tehran-Kiev flight plane crash, Dehqani Zangeneh said that the compensation will be paid with the boundaries of international laws and without discrimination while it will include any group that has been affected in the incident.
Berlin

Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who is in a coma after a suspected poisoning, arrived in Berlin on a special flight early Saturday for treatment by specialists at the German capital's main hospital.

A staffer of the NGO that arranged the flight confirmed that the plane had landed and Navalny was in stable condition.

"Navalny is in Berlin," Jaka Bizilj, of the German group Cinema For Peace, told The Associated Press.

"He survived the flight and he's stable."

He said all other information on the 44-year-old's health would have to come from his family and the German doctors now looking after him.

"He's being treated at the Charite hospital," Bizilj said.

Navalny, a politician and corruption investigator who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's fiercest critics, was admitted to an intensive care unit in the Siberian city of Omsk Thursday. His supporters believe tea he drank was poisoned  and the Kremlin is behind his illness and delays in transferring him to a top German hospital.

When German specialists arrived aboard a plane with medical equipment Friday morning at his family's behest, Navalny's Omsk doctors said he was too unstable to move.

Navalny's supporters denounced that as a ploy by authorities to stall until any poison in his system would no longer be traceable. The Omsk medical team relented only after a charity that organized the medevac plane said the German doctors examined Navalny and said he was fit to be transported.

The reversal came as international pressure on Russian leaders mounted.

Prominent, outspoken Russians have been targeted in such a way before and the Kremlin was accused of being behind it.

Thursday, leaders of France and Germany offered Navalny and his family any and all assistance and insisted on investigation.

The most famous member of Russia's opposition, Navalny challenged Putin in the 2018 presidential election but was barred from running. Since then, he promoted opposition candidates in elections, challenging the ruling party, United Russia.

His Foundation for Fighting Corruption has been exposing graft among high level government officials. But he had to shut the foundation last month after a financially devastating lawsuit from a businessman with close ties to the Kremlin.

Navalny fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday and was taken to the hospital after an emergency landing. His team made arrangements to transfer him to Charite, a Berlin clinic that treated many famous foreign dissidents.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Dr. Yaroslav Ashikhmin, Navalny's physician in Moscow, said the plane, which had a ventilator and a machine that can do the work of the heart and lungs, "can be even safer than staying in a hospital in Omsk."

Navalny's spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh posted pictures of what she said was a bathroom inside the hospital that showed squalid conditions, including walls with paint peeling , rusting pipes, dirty floors and walls.

His family insists Navalny was poisoned. Omsk chief doctor, Alexander Murakhovsky, had a different theory in a video published by Omsk news outlet NGS55. He said a metabolic disorder was likely and drop in blood sugar may have caused loss of consciousness.

Navalny's doctor since 2013, Dr. Anastasia Vasilyeva, dismissed the Omsk theory, saying Navalny has always been in good health with regular checkups and poison may be the cause. Western toxicology experts said poison can't be ruled out.

"It takes a while to rule things out...if something is highly toxic  it will be there in very low concentrations. Many screening tests would not pick that substance up," said Alastair Hay, emeritus professor and toxicology expert at the University of Leeds school of medicine.

Like many Russian Putin critics, Navalny was often jailed and harassed by pro-Kremlin groups. In 2017, he was attacked by several men who threw antiseptic in his face, damaging an eye.
TikTok confirms plans to file a lawsuit against the U.S. government on Saturday. They argued that President Trump's executive order that bans the app has deprived it of due process.

TikTok also said it was unfairly and incorrectly treated as a security threat by Trump, reported New York Times. It plans to file the suit next week, but the court where they will file it is not yet clear.

The lawsuit will be TikTok's most public legal pushback against the Trump administration, BBC reported.

In a statement obtained by The Verge, TikTok spokesperson Josh Gartner said the company sought to engage in good faith to give "constructive solution" to the government's concerns.

"What we encountered instead was a lack of due process as the administration paid no attention to facts and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses," Gartner said.

The statement also details how TikTok came to a decision of suing the government. In it, the company said they want to ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and they, along with their users, are treated fairly.

TikTok also "strongly disagreed" with Trump's concerns that led to the ban, reported Bloomberg.

The ban on TikTok's U.S. Operations started on August 6 and lasted 45 days. Trump gave the company 90 days to divest itself from its Chinese parent company ByteDance.

The heat between TikTok and the U.S. Government has lasted for weeks. Trump railed against TikTok and its ties to China, arguing that the app was a national security threat.

It was believed to be a security threat as it was alleged to share data about its users with the Chinese government.

TikTok has repeatedly denied that it shares data with the Chinese government. They tried to appease the Trump administration previously, said reports.

But the White House's actions pushed them to become more critical of its moves.

No Shield for ByteDance from Divesting

The legal challenge served by TikTok will not shield ByteDance from divesting the app, reported Reuters. It only pertains to the August 14 order on TikTok's sale, which is not subject to judicial review.

It is evident, though, that ByteDance wants to use all the legal ammunition it has as it tries to prevent a fire sale on the app.

News on a possible lawsuit against the government started before, but was never confirmed by TikTok.

Representatives of the White House did not respond to request for comment, along with the Department of Justice.

A separate lawsuit against the president's similar ban was also filed by Chinese-Americans on the social media app WeChat.

Leading Companies in Acquiring TikTok

Trump has pushed for ByteDance to sell TikTok's U.S. operations to a U.S. based company, so that user data will be stored on U.S. servers.

There are other companies reported to be interested acquiring TikTok. But Microsoft and Oracle are among the company's leading suitors. Both have held discussions on a possible deal.

The short video format of the app exploded in recent months, particularly among teens who downloaded the app more than a billion times around the world. In the U.S. alone, TikTok has over 80 million active users.

Its growing market has made it prone to and riddled with controversy, particularly against competitor Facebook.

Facebook first tried to purchase the video app Musical.ly, which eventually joined TikTok. When that failed, the company instead tried to clone the main video features of TikTok.

Lasso, a stand-alone app same as TikTok was created in 2018 and Instagram Reels was introduced in June.

Check these out!

Foreign Tech Company ByteDance Accuses Facebook of 'Plagiarism and Smear'

Amid TikTok Controversy, Trump Gets Verified on Competitor Triller

Facebook, Snap Inc Want to Buy Tiktok Rival Dubsmash, Reports Say
The Bachelor Locklan 'Locky' Gilbert has confirmed he's fallen madly in love with his 'winning' lady.

And while walking away with a girlfriend is a bonus, Locky is likely to have pocketed a VERY handsome six figure pay packet in the process.

An industry insider told Hit FM's Tom and Olly on Friday that the former Survivor star was rumoured to have secured at least $100,000 for the TV role.

Scroll down for video

REVEALED: Insider lifts the lid on Bachelor Locky Gilbert's (pictured) rumoured SIX-FIGURE salary... despite claims he was the network's 'Plan C' suitor

The source, who went by the name Eliza, speculated with an educated guess: 'I think it's probably around the hundred [thousand] mark.'

'It's [a] good [amount] when you're a nobody and you're there for three months and you get to hook-up with people!' she joked, referring to Locky's figure compared to other well-known stars on the series in the past.

In 2017, The Courier Mail reported that Sophie Monk was rumoured to be making $300,000 on the show, while other insiders claimed Matthew 'Matty J' Johnson had earned $200,000 for the 2017 season after his brutal rejection from Georgia Love.

Rugby star Nick 'Honey Badger' Cummins was also rumoured to have scored a $250,000 paycheck for his efforts on the series, despite shocking the nation by walking away without choosing a 'winner'.

'It's [a] good [amount] when you're a nobody': The insider claimed while Locky is not likely earning as much as some of the other more well-known stars over the years, he was probably stoked to 'hook up with people' and get paid for it

The big bucks: In 2017, The Courier Mail reported that Sophie Monk was rumoured to be making $300,000 on the show

Take the money and run: Rugby star Nick 'Honey Badger' Cummins (pictured) was rumoured to have scored a $250,000 paycheck for his efforts on the series in 2018, despite shocking the nation by not choosing a 'winner'

Despite the massive six-figure pay day, it was claimed earlier this week that Locky wasn't actually the network's first choice as a suitor.

According to the So Dramatic podcast, a 'source' from Channel Ten revealed they had tried a few other handsome lads before settling with Locky.

'Locky has actually one-upped [plan B Bachelorettes Elly and Becky Miles], because it turns out he is our plan C Bachelor,' the host said on the podcast.

'Plan C': According to the So Dramatic podcast last week, an alleged source from Channel 10 claimed Locky wasn't the network's first choice for 2020's suitor. Pictured: Locky on Survivor

Is she Locky's lady love? As of Sunday morning, Sportsbet was tipping nurse Irena Srbinovska (pctured) to win

'I am told from a very reliable Channel 10 source that Locky wasn't their first choice.

'In fact, he wasn't even their second choice, he was their third choice  aka their last resort because they had no one else and he was basically chucked into the role at the 11th hour.'

As of Sunday morning, Sportsbet was tipping nurse Irena Srbinovska ($1.65) to win Locky's heart. TAB has even shorter odds, offering $1.40.

The Bachelor continues on Channel Ten, Wednesday, 7.30pm
Pak government imposed financial sanctions on 88 banned terror groups and their leaders, including Ibrahim, to avoid FATF blacklisting

Islamabad: Pakistan has for the first time acknowledged the presence of Dawood Ibrahim on its soil after the government imposed sweeping sanctions on 88 banned terror groups and their leaders which also included the name of the underworld don wanted by India.

There was no official confirmation on Pakistan government including Ibrahim's name in the list of terror groups and its leaders on whom fresh restrictions have been imposed. But if Pakistani media reports are true, this could be the first time Islamabad has acknowledged the presence of Ibrahim on its soil.

Seeking to wriggle out of the FATF's grey list, Pakistan on Friday imposed tough financial sanctions on 88 banned terror groups and their leaders, including Hafiz Saeed, Masood Azhar and Ibrahim, by ordering the seizure of all of their properties and freezing of bank accounts, Pakistani newspaper 'The News' reported on Saturday.

Ibrahim, who heads a vast and multifaceted illegal business, has emerged as India's most wanted terrorist after the 1993 Mumbai bombings.

It is for the first time that Pakistan has admitted the presence of the underworld don in the country.

In 2003, the US declared Ibrahim as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.

India has repeatedly asked the Government of Pakistan to hand over Ibrahim to India so that he can be prosecuted for the crimes committed by him. It is reported that Ibrahim is based in the southern port city of Karachi.

The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) put Pakistan on the grey list in June 2018 and asked Islamabad to implement a plan of action by the end of 2019, but the deadline was extended later due to COVID-19 pandemic.

The government issued two notifications on August 18 announcing sanctions on key figures of terror outfits such as 26/11 Mumbai attack mastermind and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Saeed, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Azhar, and underworld don Ibrahim.

The Pakistan government has proscribed 88 leaders and members of terrorist groups, in compliance with the new list issued by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) recently, The News reported.

The notifications announced sanctions on key figures of terror outfits such as the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), JeM, Taliban, Daesh, Haqqani Group, al-Qaeda, and others.

The government ordered the seizure of all movable and immovable properties of these outfits and individuals, and freezing of their bank accounts, the report said.

These terrorists have been barred from transferring money through financial institutions, purchasing of arms and travelling abroad, it said.

The notifications ratified a complete ban on all leaders and members of defunct Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) hiding in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas.

The paper reported that Saeed, Azhar, Mullah Fazlullah (alias Mullah Radio), Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Muhammad Yahya Mujahid, Abdul Hakeem Murad, wanted by Interpol, Noor Wali Mehsud, Fazal Raheem Shah of Uzbekistan Liberation Movement, Taliban leaders Jalaluddin Haqqani, Khalil Ahmad Haqqani, Yahya Haqqani, and Ibrahim and his associates were on the list.

The notifications said that leadership of the defunct TTP, and other organisations including Lashkar-e-Taiba, JeM, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Tariq Geedar group of TTP, Harkatul Mujahideen, Al Rasheed Trust, Al Akhtar Trust, Tanzim Jaish-al Mohajireen Ansar, Jamaat-ul Ahrar, Tanzim Khutba Imam Bukhari, Rabita Trust Lahore, Revival of Islamic Heritage Society of Pakistan, Al-Haramain Foundation Islamabad, Harkat Jihad Al Islami, Islami Jihad Group, Uzbekistan Islami Tehreek, Daesh of Iraq, Emirates of Tanzim Qafqaz working against Russia, and Abdul Haq of Uyghurs of Islamic Freedom Movement of China have been banned.

Though various sanctions were in place against almost all of those listed by the UNSC, the government through the new notifications consolidated and documented the previously announced measures, the report said.

The UNSC Sanctions Committee deals with sanctions on entities and individuals declared as terrorists. All states, including Pakistan, are bound to implement the sanctions which include assets freeze, an arms embargo, and travel ban.

It is believed that the latest move by the Pakistan government is part of its efforts to wriggle out of the grey list of the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog FATF.

On August 12, Pakistan Parliament's lower house passed four bills related to the tough conditions set by the FATF after the government and the Opposition reached a consensus.

The legislation was part of the efforts by Pakistan to move from the FATF's grey list to the white list.

In its third and final plenary held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic in June, the FATF decided to keep Pakistan in the "grey list" as Islamabad failed to check the flow of money to terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). The plenary was held under the Chinese Presidency of Xiangmin Liu.

With Pakistan's continuation in the 'grey list', it will be difficult for the country to get financial aid from the IMF, World Bank, ADB, and the European Union, thus further enhancing problems for the nation which is in a precarious financial situation.

If Pakistan fails to comply with the FATF directive by October, there is every possibility that the global body may put the country in the 'Black List' along with North Korea and Iran.

The FATF is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 to combat money laundering, terrorist financing, and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.

The FATF currently has 39 members including two regional organisations - the European Commission and Gulf Cooperation Council.
Holvi is now focused on a handful of European markets. Its native Finland as well as Germany are home to its biggest operations, according to vice president of marketing Elina Rasanen (PA)

Digital bank Holvi is to ramp up its operations here having quit the UK last week after just six months.

Holvi, which is based in Finland and owned by Spanish banking giant BBVA, provides digital bank accounts to small businesses, sole traders and freelancers.

It pulled out of the UK market saying that the disruption from the coronavirus pandemic had added to existing challenges caused by Brexit.

Holvi is not the only digital-only bank that has exited the UK market. Germany's N26 retail bank pulled out in February, blaming Brexit after it struggled to win customers.

Holvi is now focused on a handful of European markets. Its native Finland as well as Germany are home to its biggest operations, according to vice president of marketing Elina Rasanen.

It launched in Ireland over a year ago at the same time as in Italy, Belgium, France and the Netherlands after first dipping its toe in Ireland in 2014 before retreating to refine the product in other countries.

Rasanen said that Holvi has done a lot of testing in markets since then.

"The situation at Holvi was a bit different in 2014 and 2015. We were still a very early-stage company. At that point, the whole fintech scene as well as challenger banks were a little bit rarer, so we had work to do in establishing the whole concept," she said.

"Now some years later, the situation has of course changed in Ireland, there have been many challenger banks entering the market."

Holvi was founded in 2011 as an early fintech mover and it concentrated on business banking rather than consumers.

Since then big players like Revolut have added business accounts while UK fintech firm Soldo, which is also heavily backed by venture capital funding, entered Ireland last year.

Holvi has taken a more cautious approach to expansion than other players.

Rasanen said that it rolls out its features, such as its payment card, bookkeeping and invoicing, in every market and then evaluates ways to localise those features to each country, including Ireland.

"We are still learning how the market works," she said. "There are still quite a lot of localisation matters that actually are crucial for the business."

Holvi doesn't release market-specific customer numbers, but earlier this year it said it had 200,000 customers. Rasanen said around 20pc of those accounts are outside Finland and Germany.
Tripoli-allies militias also stormed the western town of al-Asabaa, detaining dozens for suspected ties with Hifters forces, two residents said. The militias took the town earlier this year from Hifters forces. The U.N. mission in Libya voiced concerns, saying that at least one civilian was reportedly kille, and the town was under apparent forced lockdown while the civilian population is already under strain.
Photo: Getty Images/2020

Jack Sherman, an early Red Hot Chili Peppers member who played guitar on the bands first album, has died at the age of 64. The bands official social-media pages confirmed Shermans passing without disclosing a cause. We of the RHCP family would like to wish Jack Sherman smooth sailing into the worlds beyond, for he has passed, a statement read. He was a unique dude and we thank him for all times good, bad, and in between. Peace on the boogie platform. Sherman, who joined Red Hot Chili Peppers in late 1983, was a replacement for founding member Hillel Slovak, who departed in pursuit of a different project. Sherman would go on to tour with the band for their debut album, and he also co-wrote several songs for their follow-up record, Freaky Styley. When Slovak asked to return in 1985, the band effectively fired Sherman.

We of the RHCP family would like to wish Jack Sherman smooth sailing into the worlds beyond, for he has passed. Jack played on our debut album as well as our first tour of the USA. pic.twitter.com/2vpZ3wrYRN  Red Hot ChiliPeppers (@ChiliPeppers) August 22, 2020

In the subsequent decades, Sherman maintained an active yet quiet career as a studio guitarist, assisting other artists such as Bob Dylan and George Clinton. Sherman publicly reemerged when Red Hot Chili Peppers was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, as he was omitted from the bands induction list. Its really painful to see all this celebrating going on and be excluded, he explained at the time, saying that he personally appealed to his former members for inclusion. Im not claiming that Ive brought anything other to the band, but to have soldiered on under arduous conditions to try to make the thing work, and I think thats what you do in a job, looking back. And thats been dishonored. Im being dishonored, and it sucks. Anthony Kiedis later remarked in his memoir that Sherman did keep the band afloat for a year, and if he hadnt, the years to follow probably wouldnt have.
Greece criticizes Turkey's decision to convert museum into mosque

Athens, Aug. 21 (UNI) Greece has denounced Turkey's decision to convert the Chora museum, a former Byzantine Greek Orthodox church, into a mosque.

In a statement issued on Friday the Greek Foreign Ministry described the act as "totally condemnable,".

Xinhua quoted the statement saying that Turkey's decision is an insult to the character of another UNESCO cultural heritage monument, especially after the earlier conversion of the After Hagia Sophia into a mosque and shows disregard for international opinion.
'Bihar assembly polls on time amid demands by some parties for postponing it'

India

pti-Madhuri Adnal

New Delhi, Aug 23: The assembly elections in Bihar, due later this year, would be held on time, highly placed sources in the Election Commission said on Sunday amid demands by some political parties for postponing the polls in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The term of the 243-member Bihar legislative assembly comes to an end on November 29. Indications are that the polls could be held sometime in October-November.

Bihar assembly election 2020: BJP, JD(U), LJP to fight together, says JP Nadda

"Bihar elections are definitely happening on time," a senior official of the poll panel said on Sunday. The state's principal opposition party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, has questioned the need for holding the elections amid the pandemic.

The Lok Janshakti Party, a constituent of the ruling NDA, has urged the poll panel to postpone the polls in view of the pandemic. Some other parties like the NCP and the National People's Party too have demanded postponing the elections. Political parties had recently responded to a letter from the EC seeking suggestions on how to conduct campaigning during the pandemic for the upcoming Bihar elections and certain other by-elections.

Last week, the Commission had come out with a set of broad guidelines to hold elections and by-elections amid the pandemic. Voters will be provided with gloves to press electronic voting machine (EVM) buttons and COVID-19 patients in quarantine will be allowed to vote at the last hour of the polling day, according to the guidelines issued by the EC. A separate set of guidelines would be issued for voters who are residing in areas notified as COVID-19 "containment zone".

Bihar assembly election 2020: BJP President JP Nadda begins 2-day virtual strategy meet today

The commission has recommended mandatory sanitisation of polling stations, preferably a day before polling. Thermal scanners would be placed at the entry point of every polling station. Polling or paramedical staff will conduct thermal screening of voters at the entry point of a polling station, it said. In case an election cannot be held before the term of the assembly ends, the EC seeks a certificate from the Law Ministry to postpone the elections, detailing the reasons. The state then comes under the central rule in the absence of an elected legislature.
After almost months of coping with the COVID-19 realities, cities, towns, First Nations and Indigenous communities across Canada are adjusting to the new routines of life in the pandemic. The wave of fear that dominated the early spring has ebbed, but many First Nations remain cautious.

We know COVID-19 could have a devastating effect in remote communities, especially on the elders  our knowledge keepers. So, we are staying vigilant and doing our part to prevent a return to the dark days of March and April.

And we are considering what the future holds. How does the country heal from this global disruption? How can governments foster new economic growth?

First Nations know where to look for guidance and strength. For generations, we have recognized that healing happens on the land. Deep in the forests, out on the prairies, and up in the mountains is where we regain our strength.

Following caribou or gathering plants, we reaffirm that we are connected to each other and the natural world. We know if we take care of the land, the land will take care of us. Honouring this relationship is at the very heart of our culture. It is who we are, Haa Kusteeyi  our way of life.

On the land initiatives also support our prosperity. First Nations are leading visionary conservation projects proven to generate jobs and create long-term sustainability. As Canada begins rebuilding the economy, these models will make a vital contribution to our shared future. Together we can become more resilient in the face of uncertain times. We can create a more just world and a more just economy.

Investing in First Nations stewardship can help the country heal  from the pandemic, from the threat of climate change, from the loss of biodiversity and from the scars of colonialism.

It begins with supporting Indigenous leadership on the land.

Across the country, First Nations have launched about 70 Indigenous Guardians programs. Guardians are trained experts who manage lands, test water quality and restore animal and plant populations.

The Guardians of the Ross River Kaska Dena Council, for instance, track climate change impacts on caribou in the Yukon. And the Minaskuat Kanakuataku of the Innu Nation in Labrador monitor the environmental impacts of the largest nickel mine in the world.

Guardians programs offer good paying jobs. Northwest of Yellowknife, the Kasho Gotne Charter Community hired seven guardians to partner with federal and territorial scientists on wildlife research. Nearby, the Dehcho First Nations plan to employ 23 guardians this year. These programs make a big impact in small communities  each job supporting family members and purchases in the local economy.

Guardians programs connected to Indigenous Protected and Conservation Areas stimulate additional investments and contributions to communities.

In 2019, the utsel K'e Dene First Nation signed agreements to co-govern Thaidene Nene, one of the largest terrestrial protected areas in North America. The Nation has hired Indigenous guardians to help manage the area and invested over $500,000 to buy boats and research equipment from regional businesses.

Guardians on the land provide far-reaching, significant benefits by transforming peoples lives and communities. Indigenous youth find a sense of pride and possibilities. Guardian-run wellness programs build resilience across generations.

Australia committed $1.5 billion to similar Indigenous rangers and Indigenous Protected Areas. Research shows every $1 invested generates $3 in social, cultural and economic return, including reduced income support, improved health and lower justice costs.

The same benefits can be delivered here in Canada by making Indigenous-led conservation a key part of the countrys economic recovery. Sustained federal investment in Guardians can strengthen communities, bring Canada closer to its conservation and climate goals, and help close the gap between First Nations and Canadians. We can help make the next several months a time of healing, hope and connection, leading us into the next seasons of change.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 11:35:22|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- No new locally-transmitted COVID-19 cases were reported Saturday across the Chinese mainland, the National Health Commission said Sunday.

A total of 12 confirmed cases arriving from outside the mainland were reported Saturday, the commission said in its daily report.

Two new suspected cases arriving from outside the mainland were reported in Fujian Province, and no deaths related to the disease were reported on the mainland, it added.

Of the new imported cases, five were reported in Hebei, two each in Tianjin, Guangdong and Shaanxi, and one in Fujian, the commission said.

On Saturday, 44 COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospitals after recovery, the commission said.

By the end of Saturday, a total of 2,402 imported cases had been reported on the mainland. Of them, 2,190 had been discharged from hospitals after recovery, and 212 remained hospitalized, with two in severe condition. No deaths from the imported cases had been reported.

As of Saturday, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases on the mainland had reached 84,951, including 422 patients who were still being treated, with 16 in severe condition.

Altogether 79,895 people had been discharged after recovery, and 4,634 had died of the disease on the mainland, the commission said.

There were three suspected COVID-19 cases on the mainland, it added.

According to the commission, 13,730 close contacts were still under medical observation after 1,478 were discharged on Saturday.

Also on Saturday, 15 new asymptomatic cases, all from outside the mainland, were reported, and no asymptomatic cases were re-categorized as confirmed ones.

The commission said 370 asymptomatic cases, including 289 from outside the mainland, were still under medical observation.

By Saturday, 4,657 confirmed cases including 76 deaths had been reported in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), together with 46 confirmed cases in the Macao SAR and 487 cases including seven deaths in Taiwan.

A total of 3,974 COVID-19 patients in the Hong Kong SAR, 46 in the Macao SAR, and 457 in Taiwan had been discharged from hospitals after recovery. Enditem
Luis Arce (pictured June 2020) is a candidate for the Movement for Socialism party in upcoming presidential elections in Bolivia

The hand-picked candidate of ex-president Evo Morales and former president Carlos Mesa are running neck-and-neck ahead of Bolivia's election in October, according to a poll published Tuesday.

Morales leftist ally Luis Arce and centrist Mesa, president from 2003-2005, both have 23 percent support ahead of the twice-delayed elections, set for October 18.

Right-wing interim president Jeanine Anez is trailing with 12 percent, according to the poll by Mercados y Muestras for the daily Pagine Siete newspaper.

Luis Fernando Camacho, who spearheaded protests that led to Morales' resignation in the wake of his controversial 2019 re-election, has just 6 percent of voter preferences.

The presidential election will go to a second round run-off if the leading candidate fails to win 50 percent of the vote, or 40 percent with a 10-point margin.

In the event of a second round, Mesa would win with 47 percent, with Arce polling at 30 percent, the opinion poll showed.

The poll was carried out in 10 cities earlier this month as Morales supporters set up roadblocks around the country in protest at the repeated election postponements.

Bolivia has been going through a crisis since the October 2019 election, when opposition protesters rejected Morales' claims of victory that would give him a fourth term, claiming widespread fraud.

The president eventually resigned after losing the support of the armed forces and fled to exile in Mexico before taking up residence in neighboring Argentina.

Originally set for May 3, the elections were postponed to September 6 and then October 18 because of the worsening coronavirus epidemic.

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23.08.2020 LISTEN

Misleading as the name sounds, a Physician Assistant does not assist any Physician or a Doctor but practice medicine independently.

This cadre of health professionals are found all over the world including countries like the USA, Canada, UK, Australia and many African countries.

To become A Physician Assistant in the USA one is required to complete a 4 year University education in a science related program before proceeding to another 2 years University Education to train as a Physician Assistant. After completing the 2 year training they are allowed to specialize in any field of medicine just like a trained medical Doctor. In that country many patients prefer to be seen by a Physician Assistant other than a Doctor.

In Kenya Physician Assistants train in accredited Universities for 3 years and are made to serve in under-served communities where they practice medicine and surgery with some leading surgical teams and perform invasive procedures like caesarean sections and hysterectomies

In Ghana currently, the program is offered at Universities (eg. UCC, Central University, University of Allied Health, Presbyterian University, Kintampo College of Health and Wellbeing etc.) across the country for a minimum of 4 years (With students paying in excess of GHC8000 annually as fees) after which the professionals are made to sit for a licensing exams supervised by the Medical and Dental Council of Ghana. All those who pass this exams are made to undergo additional 1 year of training under strict supervision in accredited Hospitals across the country. This is to ensure that the professionals are prepared to practice medicine in the country.

After 5 years of training a Physician Assistant is expected to register with the Council and must attend Medical and Dental Council accredited programs and must accrue minimum 10 credits each year in order to renew his license and be in good standing with the council in order to continue practicing medicine in the country.

It will interest readers to know that some of the accredited programs can cost as high as GHC 2000 whiles the retention fee is subject to annual review at the discretion of the council with last years retention fee pegged at GHC300.

After going through the ordeal stated above, Physician Assistants practicing in the country have no prestige and recognition among health professionals in Ghana. They are treated like PUPPETS and MADE SERVANTS of Medical Doctors with the Medical and Dental Council (dominated by medical doctors) being the supervisor.

Neither the Council, the health ministry nor the Ghana Health Service treats the Physician Assistant with any dignity (be reminded that all these institutions are headed by medical doctors who see the Physician Assistant as a threat). This partly account for the reason why most Physician Assistants in the country continue to hide under the shadow of a Doctor other than identifying themselves as Physician Assistants.

It is a fact that most of those in white coats who attend to patients in various hospitals and clinics across the country are Physician Assistants not doctors. These cadre of health professionals willingly accept postings to underserved communities where a Medical Doctor refuse to go.

In fact the recently posted Physician Assistants are currently working without appointment letter and remuneration from the Ghana Health Service with some even refused a befitting accommodation unlike their Masters who the ministry acting on the directive of the Ghana Medical Association (whose members head these institutions) ensures that a doctor is provided with a free, furnished befitting accommodation with internet service.

The Medical and Dental Council in collaboration with the National Accreditation Board over the years made frantic efforts aimed at worsening the plight of the Ghanaian Physician Assistant. These two institutions allowed proliferation of Physician Assistant Training Schools with some schools even running the program on weekends. Most of the schools have no laboratories, requisite teaching materials and qualified staffs hence resort to services of part-time lectures from other universities and medical schools who often do not have enough contact hours with the students. Practical in most of the schools is inadequate and sometimes non-existent for most of the subjects thought in the schools.

*Medical and Dental council over the years limited curriculum of the schools thus limiting the lecturers from teaching most of relevant topics that could benefit the Ghanaian. All these are aimed at making products from the Physician Assistant training schools ignorant and to widen the knowledge gap between Doctors and practicing Physician Assistants in the country so to make the doctor supirior to the PA.

Several attempts by the training schools to improve teaching and learning in the schools by for example teaching the Physician Assistant student how to do caesarean section met resistance from members of the council with the reason that the students are not competent to undergo such trainings.

But the truth is training Physician Assistants to do CS will make most doctors in the country irrelevant and reduce their market value, and the government will no longer bow to their demands when they embark on strikes.

Can you imagine Doctors going on strike and Physician Assistants holding the front in both medical and surgical fields, will the impact of their strike be felt and demands granted?

You and I know the answer. This is the reason why the Medical And Dental Council is refusing to allow and improve curriculum and specialization for the Ghanaian Physician Assistant.

Last year parliament of Ghana requested for an amendment of the health professionals regulatory act, the Medical and Dental council quickly moved to amend the act seeking to put Licensed and practicing Physician Assistants in the country under the supervision of Medical Doctors regardless number of years of experience.

This move has nothing to do with protecting the public as the council want Ghanaians to believe. It is to ensure that Physician Assistant who own private clinics mandatorly employ Doctors as their practitioner in charge and to limit the number of Physician Assistants who go into private practice to saturate the market space. It is also to reduce the rate of unemployment among newly qualified and retired doctors and to keep them relevant whiles the Physician Assistant remain in abject poverty .

It is a fact that there are as many bad and recalcitrant Doctors just as Physician Assistants who will do all kinds of abortions and sign all kinds of medicolegal documents even with lies and errors as long as they can make some money from the act.

The council currently prohibit Physician Assistants from signing medicolegal documents for patients they have attended to. The documents must be signed by a doctor even if the Doctor is not the practitioner who attended to the patient. This has nothing to do with protecting the Physician Assistants but for the money charged for signing such documents. Fees charged for signing medicolegal documents are often pocketed by the Doctor or the practitioner who signed them. This has become a cash cow for most Doctors reason why they will not allow the Physician Assistant to sign them.

It will interest readers to know that, signing of such documents is never part of the curriculum of medical schools, but the council organizes training for newly qualified Doctors where they are thought how to endorse the documents.

Since Medical and Dental council is regulating both the Doctors and the Physician Assistants, one wonders why only the doctor is given such training when in most cases they do not attend to the patients themselves.

I have also met several astute, diligent and good Physician Assistants in various hospitals who if not told they are Physician Assistants you wouldnt know.

One may ask what becomes of the supervisory roles of the Medical And Dental Council and by extension medical superintendents in our hospitals if every doctor is to supervise a Licensed Physician Assistant regardless of their years of experience?

Will the doctors in the years to come demand additional pay for the supervisory role being assigned them by the Medical And Dental Council?

How are the limited number of Doctors in the country going to supervise Physician Assistants in every health facility in the country?

It will interest readers to know that even before parliament could approve the yet to be amended health professionals regulatory act, the Doctors are muscling their power through the Medical and Dental Council, HeFRA, Ghana Health Service and NHIS (all headed by Doctors) to start implementing contents of the act by having Physician Assistants supervised by Doctors.

This is happening at the time the likes of USA and other countries are passing laws that grant autonomy to the Physician Assistants.

Currently there is a strong resistance against Physician Assistants establishing their own council to regulate their training and practice as Doctors in the country see this as a further threat to their existence and relevance.

Medical and Dental Council promptly submits details of newly qualified Doctors (including those trained outside Ghana) to the ministry of Health and Ghana Health service for posting but same cannot be said of the Physician Assistants.

In fact quite recently a little over 800 Physician Assistants received clearance from the ministry of finance following several years of efforts by the Mother Associations (Graduate Physician Assistants of Ghana and Ghana Physician Assistants Association).

Despite the fact that the clearance came last year, only a little over 400 were posted without appointment letters. The rest didnt even know their fate. It is being rumoured that the clearance is currently on sale to the highest bidder by powers that be at the ministry of health and Ghana Health Service. This is happening at the time most health facilities across the country are in need of Physician Assistants with with the few in the system over burden with work loads.

These cadre of health professionals hardly get STUDY LEAVE WITH PAY to upgrade themselves whiles the Ghana Health Service readily grants Doctors who apply for these leaves. Almost every doctor who apply for the leave gets.

These are some of the reasons why Ghana will forever remain a developing country and continue to struggle to achieve the milemmum development goals.

God bless our homeland Ghana and make our nation great and strong.

By......... Desmond Apenteng
Sudhir Suryawanshi By

Express News Service

MUMBAI: Maharashtra BJP unit president Chandrakant Patil is in trouble over supressing his business firms, income details in the 2019 state assembly election affidavit.

The judicial magistrate first class , Pune hearing the case filed by the residents of Pune against Chandrakant Patil issued the order and asked the police to probe the matter and submit the report by September 16.

It was alleged that Patil, who was elected from Kothrud state assembly constituency in 2019, did not mention the details of his two business firms and their total revenue generation.

Patil refuting this allegations said that there is big political conspiracy against him. He said that the 2019 election is over, then why some one is complaining about it now. If anyone has any issue with my election affidavit filed for the 2019 state assembly polls, he or she should have raised the objection that time only. The returning officer scrutinised the my affidavit and forms, they did not find anything wrong. Besides, the person who contested against me also did not raise any doubt or query that time, why there is fuss now. It shows there is big plot to malign my and my party image, Patil clarified.

Pune resident Abhishekh Haridas had filed the petition in Pune court against BJP state president alleging he hid information about his business firms in election affidavit. He had alleged that Patil not only supressed information about his business firm, but also did not mention the income which he earns through these firms. This is a blatant violation. The candidate has to compulsorily mention his details of firms owned firms by him and the income earned from them. It is the right of the voters to know details of their candidates, his business and earned income. By not mentioning details in election affidavit , BJP state unit president not only cheated the election commission but his voters as well. So the criminal case has to filed against the Patil, was stated in the petition.
Midwinter Memorial Museum

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The first museum to occupy space on the north side of Golden Gate Park's music concourse was the repurposed "Fine and Decorative Arts Building" from the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894. In 1895 the Egyptian-style structure opened as the "Midwinter Memorial Museum", and housed art, curios, and even replicated rooms from a Bavarian palace.

The building, designed by Charles C. McDougall, was inaugurated as a permanent museum on March 21, 1895. M.H. de Young, publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle and major promoter of the Midwinter Fair, donated much of the original collection.

The Midwinter Memorial Museum building was demolished in 1929, replaced by a new museum dedicated to de Young and erected just to the west.

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Images: 1) Midwinter Memorial Museum building, represented in postcards.

Contribute your own stories about western neighborhoods places!
The 2020 US presidential election is now in the final straight and the policy leanings of both candidates have started to come clear. A victory for Democratic challenger Joe Biden or the reelection of President Donald Trump have implications for many countries, not least Ireland.

The Democratic National Convention last week was a virtual event, with party leaders praising former vice president and nice guy Mr Biden as their presidential nominee and telling viewers that the US cant afford another four years of President Trump. This was quickly followed up by the nomination of Kamala Harris as his vice-presidential running mate, hoping to widen the appeal of the ticket to more voters.

Emotions aside, and ignoring the annoying tweets ham-fisted international affairs handling of President Trump, the US economy up to the outbreak of Covid-19 had the strongest GDP and productivity growth in 20 years, with unemployment at its lowest rate in 50 years. Even amid the global pandemic, 2020 was on pace to be one of the best for listings on Wall Street since the dot-com bubble.

Despite some rumblings of unbalanced trade, many businesses in Ireland also have good reason to reflect on the benefits of Trumpian economics. The exports to the US have risen much faster across the last three years.

Even in the Covid-hit six months to June this year, exports to the US have increased by 11% to reach an all-time high of just under 25bn. Foreign direct investment from the US has also ramped up under the Trump administration, at a rate reaching approximately twice that of years of President Barack Obama.

Economics aside, Mr Biden to date has been running ahead of President Trump in most national and swing-state polls, with a Wall Street Journal-NBC poll released last week showing Mr Biden with a hefty lead at this stage.

However, the Republican National Convention this week may benefit from a higher moral ground push from Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York who has accepted an invitation to offer a prayer at the party's nominating convention.

Cardinal Dolan will offer the prayer at the convention as President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are formally nominated as the Republican Party's candidates for a second term. This may offset some of the good press that Catholic educated Mr Biden gained from his nomination speech.

Many business sectors in the US have benefited from President Trump's policies and while wary of publicly supporting him, privately will worry that the Democrats will roll back some of their Trumpian business benefits.

Unprecedented corporation tax cuts in 2017, his first year in office, gave a huge boost to balance sheets and drove Wall Street up to new heights, while the banks will not want to lose the gains from President Trumps redrafting in 2018 of the Democrat enacted Dodd-Frank Act.

US steel and aluminium companies will not wish to see the end of tariffs on imports and the US auto unions will not support roll-back of plans for increased tariffs on car and truck imports from Europe.

The poor handling of the Covid-19 pandemic by the White House will however take some time to overcome and is likely to continue to damage the Republican campaign. There are signs that second wave outbreaks of the virus are hurting President Trumps big play on a "strong America". In contrast to the boom on Wall Street in the technology stock market sector, the wider economy is suffering badly, with the US economy plummeting by almost 33% on an annualised basis in the three months to June.

Fortunately, the business sectors that are holding up through the economic downturn are markets where Irish businesses have a significant presence, including pharmaceuticals and information communication technology.

President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at the White House, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Pharmaceuticals make up the bulk of exports to the US and with the worldwide hunt for an anti-Covid vaccine and medical treatment, this sector is likely to continue its rapid growth. IT provides a key base in Ireland for the global giants, including Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Google, driving social media and online platforms across Europe.

Picking through the Democratic manifesto, there are many aspects that will receive a warm welcome in Europe and may make for an easier route to an EU-US trade agreement that will help with economic recovery in the wake of the pandemic.

Mr Bidens "clean energy revolution", much like the EUs Green New Deal, would make the US economy reliant on clean energy, with net-zero emissions by 2050. A speedy return to the Paris Climate Agreement can be expected under a Biden administration.

But unpicking the aluminium and steel tariff and dropping the food and drink tariffs associated with the Airbus-Boeing dispute may not be so easily done. The tariff dispute was not just a Trumpian folly, there is a strong 'buy American' sentiment across the political divide. This was most evident in the recent bill to force Chinese companies to delist from the US stock exchanges, if they do not open their books to US regulators, which was passed unanimously. There was also cross-party support over the past few years on the wider tariff war with China.

The EU has contacted the US trade representatives in recent weeks to outline ways in which the US and EU could work together to boost economic recovery amid the pandemic. However, it is unlikely that any progress will be made in the remaining time before the November presidential election.

With the likelihood of a new US Trade Representative in place and regardless of the change of party, there were unwelcome signs that the EU and US were hurtling towards a trade war over the right to tax Google, Facebook, and Amazon, following Washingtons pull out of talks on global rules for taxing the digital economy.

This is unlikely to change under a Democratic president and may present the EU with an uphill battle in negotiating a fresh trade deal with a new US administration. At stake is which country has the right to tax digital companies whose operations now span the world.

The looming spat may spell bad news for Ireland and also exposes divisions within Europe as countries remain split over how to force companies like Google and Amazon to pay more into national coffers.

Despite support from many EU countries, Ireland and some Nordic countries stopped previous efforts to create an EU-wide tax which they argued would have put their export-led economies at a disadvantage.

There are however many unknowns that still remain to be clarified in the next few weeks and all sorts of breaking news can change the pulse of the election. Mr Bidens policies on fracking, automatic firearms, health care, and immigration could swing key votes.

In the TV debates with President Trump, Mr Biden will face issues over the trade war with China, the Iran nuclear deal, membership of the World Health Organisation, and Russian interference.

Finally, there is the question of virtual voting and how postal voting will stand up to President Trump's attacks.

Businesses in Ireland, big and small can be expected to stay neutral and straddle the political divide. They will have to do trade under whatever regime will emerge.

John Whelan is managing partner at The Linkage-Partnership


The Australian man convicted of the 2019 mosque terror attack has returned to Christchurch for the first time since carrying out his crimes.

Brenton Tarrant was transferred from Auckland on Aug 23 ahead of his sentencing in the High Court which begins on Aug 24.

Local media reported the 29-year-old was flown in an NZ Air Force Hercules aircraft before being taken from Christchurch airport in a convoy of six cars, including police and corrections officers.

Tarrant was shown handcuffed and wearing protective gear including a helmet in a photo published by the NZ Herald.

He is already in Christchurch justice precinct, according to Newshub, which includes police headquarters and the courtroom where he will be sentenced over the next four days.

Nearby streets have been closed off, and police are maintaining a strong presence around the city, including armed officers outside the two mosques Tarrant attacked last year.

Tarrant was convicted of 51 murders, 40 attempted murders and one count of terrorism in March after switching his plea to guilty.

The Grafton-raised man will represent himself in the proceeding after letting his legal representation go last month.
The mother of a man fatally shot by Louisiana police said her son was intelligent, shy and had sought therapy for social anxiety. Her lawyers said they plan to sue over the death of Trayford Pellerin, who police said had a knife and was trying to enter a convenience store.

The shooting Friday night was captured on video, and the state ACLU condemned what it described as a horrific and deadly incident of police violence against a Black person. Both the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center quickly called for an investigation.

Also read: London police defend smashing car window of man after racism complaint

Pellerins death prompted a crowd of protesters to gather Saturday and demonstrate against the latest fatal police shooting. Officers in riot gear fired what appeared to be tear gas on Saturday night after ordering the crowd to disperse.

Louisiana State Police said Lafayette officers followed Pellerin, 31, on foot as he left a convenience store where he had created a disturbance with a knife about 8 p.m. Friday. Stun guns failed to stop him, and the officers shot Pellerin as he tried to enter another convenience store, still with the knife, according to a news release.

Pellerin became anxious in groups and may have been frightened by the officers, Michelle Pellerin told The Advocate. He had sought professional help earlier this year, she said.

Instead of giving him a helping hand they gave him bullets, national civil rights attorney Ben Crump told the newspaper. He and Baton Rouge attorney Ronald Haley said they have begun their own investigation by interviewing witnesses. Some said Pellerin was not armed, Haley said.

Also read: Masked mourners brave heat, Covid-19 fears to honour John Lewis

The family believes Pellerin may have been having a mental health crisis, Crump said.

Lafayette police asked state police to investigate  standard procedure in the state for shootings by local officers.

Lafayette police shot Mr. Pellerin several times as he walked away from them, Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in an emailed statement. His killing demands an analysis of the excessive use of force by law enforcement. We fully support movement leaders calls for a swift and transparent investigation into Mr. Pellerins killing.

State ACLU executive director Alanah Odoms Hebert said, Once again, video footage has captured a horrific and deadly incident of police violence against a Black person who was brutally killed in front of our eyes.

Captured on video, the May 25 death of George Floyd under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer sparked a global reckoning over police tactics and racial injustice.

Trayford Pellerin should be alive today. Instead, a family is mourning and a community is grieving, her statement said. None of our communities are safe when the police can murder people with impunity or when routine encounters escalate into deadly shooting sprees.

Rikasha Montgomery, who took a video of the shooting, told The Advertiser that a man holding what looked like a knife kept walking down the highway while some officers fired stun guns at him. Officers holding guns shouted at him to get onto the ground, said Montgomery, 18.

She said they fired when the man reached the door of a Shell gas station.

When I heard the gunshots, I couldnt hold my phone like I was first filming, she said. I feel kind of scared about it. Im traumatized. Youre so used to hearing about this, but I never thought I would experience it.

Crump, representing Pellerins family, called the shooting reckless and his death tragic.

The officers involved should be fired immediately for their abhorrent and fatal actions, Crump said in a statement Saturday.

The incident was the third shooting by Lafayette police since mid-July. State police said a man was critically wounded last month after being shot during an altercation with police. Another man was in stable condition after being shot during a burglary investigation earlier this month.

Haley told The Advocate that he and Crump will be seeking reform and policy changes in the police department as well as damages.

We want policy changes as well, so that Ben and I are not in the living room with another family in Lafayette dealing with this, Haley said.
Canon Middle East (CME) is hosting a webinar in collaboration with ME Printer on August 25 at 11am (UAE time) to announce the results of an industry-first study on trends impacting the print industry.



The Canon ME Printing Industry Market Study 2020 was conducted in partnership with Middle East Printer Magazine and aims to support print businesses looking to implement an informed and sustainable business strategy in a post-Covid world.



During the webinar Canon ME will reveal the results of the study and will present an in-depth overview of the print market and the current state of the industry during Covid-19.



The study will also look into the opportunities, challenges and the latest market trends in the regional printing industry and more specifically the Gulf region. Furthermore, the webinar will showcase the shift towards digitisation, a move accelerated by the current situation.



The study covered industry stakeholders from the printing industry as well as brand owners from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and the Levant from June 2020 until the first week of July 2020.



Shadi Bakhour, B2B Business Unit Director, Canon Middle East, said: Canon is committed towards the growth of the print industry in the region. The study is the first of its kind and our goal is to support businesses in the print industry shape their business decisions as accurately as possible as they navigate a new normal and adapt to recent changes based on fresh insights.



The past few months have impacted how all industries operate, and more specifically for the print industry, the emphasis on digital trends holds many opportunities if these are implemented with foresight and the investment in the right products and services. The webinar will address all these topics and support the industry transition toward a new path of growth, added Bakhour.



The webinar will conclude with a panel discussion around the result of the study moderated by Eithne Treanor, Founder and CEO of E. Treanor Media. The featured panel speakers will include Sunil Pandita, Director, Production, United Printing & Publishing; Alex Jahanbani, Editor, ME Printer; and Ayman Aly, Senior Marketing Manager, B2B, Canon Middle East.  TradeArabia News Service
Ghanas COVID-19 active cases as at Saturday, surged again to 1,712 after a continuous two days decline which brought it to 1,656 on Friday, August 21.



This follows the confirmation of 180 new cases of infections across the country, bringing the country's accumulated cases to 43,505.



The new infections are from tests conducted on August 20.



The latest update by the Ghana Health Service, the countrys health management body said a total of 41,532 patients had so far recovered from the disease and been discharged.



Sixteen cases, it said, were in severe conditions, with four in critical condition, and two on ventilators.



The active cases, the update said, were being managed in treatment sites, isolation centers across the country, while some were under home management.



The death toll however, remained at 261 since the last update.



The new infections were recorded in the following regions; Eastern- 67; Greater Accra- 57; Ashanti- 25; Bono East-16; Central- 12 and Volta- Three.



Out of the total confirmed cases 16,957 were from the General Surveillance; with 26,548 cases from the Enhanced Contact Tracing, the update stated.



A total of 433,503 tests have been conducted so far.



Out of this, 158,050 were from Routine Surveillance with 275,453 from Contact Tracing.



The positivity rate is 10.0.



The latest infections take Greater Accra's total cases to 21,624, representing nearly 50 per cent of the national total.



The Ashanti, Western and Eastern regions have case tally of 10,731; 2,933 and 2,224 respectively.



The rest are:



Central- 1,849



Bono East Region  746



Volta Region  654



Western North Region  598



Northern Region  497



Ahafo Region  490



Bono Region- 480



Upper East Region  282



Oti Region- 229



Upper West Region  88



Savannah Region  62



North East Region  18









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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Kerner is charged with multiple counts of murder and robbery resulting in serious bodily injury, and arson and intimidation.

Silva faces two counts each of murder and robbery resulting in serious bodily injury.

Kerner, who was 17 at the time of the killings, reportedly told an informant he shot Grill after Grill tried to rob him during a drug deal.

"Grill fell to the ground and was begging for his life," according to police records. "Kerner advised that he panicked due to being out of bullets in the gun. Kerner then beat (Grill) with a pipe wrench until he died."

Kerner then showed Grill's body to Lanham, court records allege. Kerner warned Lanham not to say anything about the death, and as she turned to leave, Kerner shot her in the head, police said.

Kerner is further accused of loading the two bodies into the trunk of the teens' Honda Civic following the killings along with various containers of flammable liquids and setting the vehicle on fire, police said.
The Finance Ministry will soon evaluate if consumption of bottled non-alcoholic, carbonated beverages is a sin in India after lobbying by a group of companies for tax relief.

The Indian Beverage Association (IBA), the controlling body of the non-alcoholic beverage industry, has written a note to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asking for tax relief for a sector hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. In short, the note said if other food and beverages containing sugar can get a reduction in goods and services tax (GST), why not colas, and other carbonated soft drinks?

Moneycontrol has reviewed a copy of the note in which the IBA has demanded that colas and other aerated drinks should not be charged sin tax because it could impact a Rs 70,000-crore industry. IBA companies, the note said, has already suffered a Rs 1,200 crore plus loss on account of ingredients expiring due to limited shelf life and diminishing out-of-home consumption which contributes significantly to beverage sales.

The demands by IBA come ahead of the 41st and 42nd meetings of the GST Council, a political body that decides these tax rates. The council is due to meet soon.

The crux of the demand by IBA, which has Dabur India, Red Bull India, Coca-Cola India and Pepsico India Holdings, among others, as members, is remove aerated beverage from the sin category and provide tax parity. It also asked the Finance Ministry to remove the compensation cess, move juice-based drinks from the current GST slab of 12 percent to 5 percent and put packaged drinking water from the current GST category of 18 percent to 12 percent.

Supreme Court order

Aerated beverages comply with all the stipulations of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India and ingredients used in these beverages are completely safe, said the IBA note. Hence, there is no reason to link these with other categories which have mandatory health advisory associated with their consumption.

To buttress its case, IBA cited the landmark judgment of October 22, 2013 by the Supreme Court which endorsed the finding by experts that ingredients present in the beverage do not appear to cause any health hazard.

Heeding to its demands will give a boost to the local horticulture sector and improve the lives of farmers, according to IBA. Our local industry has been badly impacted this year given that the peak months of March to June which contribute to over 50 percent of annual volumes, have been lost due to COVID-19 lockdowns. Preliminary assessments done by IBA for the full year of 2020 indicate that our Rs 70,000-crore industry is estimated to contract by 34 percent, said the note.

The IBA referred to examples of countries that provided relief to their local beverage industries after the sales channels such as hospitality, tourism, cinema, railways, airlines and large social gathering remain shuttered.

As of June 15, 2020, reduced VAT rates for soft drinks have been approved in Austria, Greece and Belgium to stimulate consumption and discussions to reduce VAT are on in Sweden and Denmark, said the note.

Highest GST slab

IBA pleaded that aerated beverages were placed in the highest GST slab of 28 percent thanks to the compensation cess of 12 percent. The high GST levy of 40 percent on aerated beverages is against the stated policy of the government to maintain parity between pre-GST and GST regimes, it said.

Aerated beverage is the only product in the entire food category that has been subjected to compensation cess. We take this opportunity to elucidate very fundamental reasons as to why aerated drinks category should not be discriminated against and singled out, said the note.

IBA argued in the note that aerated beverages are not a luxury product, consumed across all socio-economic classes. It cited an NCAER study that showed 91 percent sales of aerated beverages are made to the lower, middle and upper middle classes and serve as one of the cheapest sources of safe hydration and refreshment. The bulk of such beverages are sold in the average price range of Rs 10 to Rs 30, which is within the reach of various economic strata of society, said the note.

Shantanu Guha Ray is a senior journalist based in New Delhi.
Late actor Sushant Singh Rajput's friend Siddharth Pithani and cook Neeraj arrived at the DRDO guest house on Sunday, where the CBI team is investigating the actor's death case.

Late Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajputs friend Siddharth Pithani and cook Neeraj on Sunday arrived at the DRDO guest house, where the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team investigating the actors death case, is staying.

On Saturday, teams of the CBI and the Mumbai Police arrived at the residence of Rajput as part of the probe in the case related to his death. CBI officials had grilled Neeraj and Pithani in connection with the case.

Meanwhile, BJP MLA Neeraj Kumar Singh Bablu, the cousin of Rajput, said that the deceased actors friends Pithani and Sandeep should definitely be arrested and interrogated by the CBI.

CBI investigation is going in the right direction. We are hopeful that the guilty will be caught. Sidharth Pithani should be definitely arrested. When we went for the last rites of Sushant, we saw that there was no sadness apparent on Pithanis face. I am suspicious of his activities. He used to be a colleague of Sushant, Bablu said.

Also read: Indias Covid-19 tally surpasses 3 million mark, recovery rate at 74.6%

Also read: Defence Minister holds security review meeting with NSA, CDS, three service chiefs

Another colleague of Sushant, Sandeep also started giving clean chits to people on the media just ten days after my cousins death. He was acting like a gangster. I have confidence that CBI will investigate and come to a result in this case. My belief is that third degree is important to get the truth out in this case, he added.

On August 19, the Supreme Court had asked the probe agency to investigate the case related to the actors death, while holding that the FIR registered in Patna was legitimate.

The single-judge bench of Justice Hrishikesh Roy had observed that the Bihar government was competent to recommend transferring the case to the CBI. It had also asked the Mumbai Police to hand over all the evidence collected so far in the case to the CBI.

The agency has registered an FIR against Rhea Chakraborty and others in connection with the actors death after the Centre accepted Bihar governments recommendation to transfer the probe in the matter from Patna.

The FIR was registered in Patna on a complaint filed by the actors father KK Singh under sections related to abetment to suicide. Rajput was found dead at his residence on June 14.

Also read: India slams China, Pakistan over interference in Kashmir matter
UPPER PROVIDENCE  Council held the fourth and final session of the conditional use hearing on Clarks Manor, a group home at 2978 N. Providence Road. The prior sessions had testimony from the applicant as well as a group of nearby residents who are opposed to the use. The protesting residents are represented by Abby Sacunus, an attorney whose home is also in proximity to the subject property.

A group home is a permitted use in the residential district with the requirement of meeting set standards in the township code. The hearing is held to determine if the applicant meets those criteria.

Clarks Manor is planned for a stone home situated on 3.6 acres, purchased at the start of 2020 by Charles Widger of Berwyn. His wishes to establish a group home for individuals with chronic mental health conditions. The milieu model is based on Wild Acre, a facility in the Boston suburbs where Widgers son, Clark, resides. While Clark would be the first resident, the home will accommodate up to eight residents.

The applicant included testimony by Widger; the director of Wild Acre who will serve as a consultant; and both a medical director and operations director who are employed by Elwyn, contracted for programming, staffing and overall operations. The facility is in the development phase and remains so until township councils decision on the conditional use.

Sacunuss witnesses have been party to the case. Other members of the public have had the opportunity to comment directly to council by email or during the sessions, all of which have been held virtually on the Zoom platform.

The final meeting featured two additional residents who own one or more property near Clarks Manor. Shortly into Sacunus questioning of Pine View resident Greg Karamitopoulos, Clarks Manor attorney objected that the witness was offering opinion, but did not qualify as an expert. Township Solicitor Carl Ewald accepted this recurring objection.

In essence, Karamitopoulos said he felt the application did not comply with elements of the most recent township comprehensive plan. He also did not accept the applicants traffic engineers testimony on the amount of trips generated by the new use. The opposition by nearby residents heavily relied on traffic accidents on the stretch of Providence Road which have taken place absent of the Clarks Manor use.

In addition to multiple safety concerns, Karamitopoulos disputed the description of group home residents as a family. The federal government has defined families in broader and more diverse terms.

Its a multiple family building; its commercial no matter what you call it, he said, adding it doesnt belong in some areas.

Steve Moppert resides on Spring Lake Road and owns an additional four lots in the vicinity. He also testified that, in his opinion, the application did not meet all provisions stated in the comprehensive plan. He referred to the applicants presentation as talking in Utopia. Proposed reconfiguration of the property driveway would not work, Moppert said, prompting McAndrews objection to testimony as opinion versus facts in evidence.

Similarly to the previous witness, Moppert disputed the group as a family, offering a home is a father and mother. This is not a family, he said.

McAndrews co-counsel Nick Caniglia brought back traffic engineer Frank Tavani who previously testified. Tavani reconfirmed that the repositioning of the Clarks Manor drive to align with Spring Valley Road would be designed to improve sight distances and through-traffic conflict points.

Tavania stressed that he stood by his calculations which were based on data collected by the ITE (Institute of Transportation Engineers), the industry standard for all types of uses and developments.

Of the public comments taken at the end of the proceedings, one was opposed, again on the basis of traffic; one simply stated the group home was not in the best interest of the community. The third individual stated the traffic problem is separate from this application, and the township should do more to solve it. But I am in favor of the group home. A family is defined in any way we want.

The attorneys were requested to submit their finding of facts and conclusions of law which summarize their cases. McAndrews said he could complete that in five days. Sacunus, citing she was starting a new job, said she would need closer to three to four weeks. Ewald set the submission date as of August 27. Council has 45 days to render a decision, and said the intension is to do so at the Sept. 10 meeting.#
Mohammad Mustakim (alias Yusuf or Abu Yusuf Khan), who was allegedly planning to carry out a lone-wolf attack in Delhi, was arrested on Friday

At least two suicide vests and a cache of explosive devices have been recovered by a team of Special Cell officers of Delhi Police from the Uttar Pradesh home of suspected Islamic State (IS) terrorist Abu Yusuf Khan, two days after he was arrested in Delhi, said reports.

According to NDTV, the vests and explosives, along with an Islamic State flag and documents related to the terror group, were recovered during a raid conducted at Yusuf's home in Uttar Pradesh's Balrampur.

Incriminating materials including a brown colour jacket containing 3 explosive packets and a blue colour check jacket containing 4 explosive packets which were removed safely, leather belt containing explosive 3 Kg approx recovered:PramodKushwaha, Delhi Dy Commissioner of Police https://t.co/uskqoVxvJD pic.twitter.com/Mb1ibWAe0N  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) August 23, 2020

Mohammad Mustakim (alias Yusuf or Abu Yusuf Khan), who was allegedly planning to carry out a lone-wolf attack in the National Capital, was arrested in Delhi's Ridge Road area on Friday night following a brief exchange of fire with a Delhi Police team.

Two "fully ready" Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and a pistol were recovered from the suspected Islamic State operative, police said. He was booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and was remanded to eight days in police custody. Khan was on Sunday taken to different places in Uttar Pradesh, including his home in Balrampur, for further investigation, officials told news agency PTI.

Among the items recovered from Khan's house were two explosive jackets, an explosive-laden belt, around nine kilograms (kgs) of raw explosives, ball bearings, seven cylindrical boxes, a timer, four batteries, an Islamic State flag and a board on which Khan used to practice shooting, reported news agency ANI quoting Delhi Special Cell DCP Pramod Kushwaha.

"Two iron blades, attached in parallel to each other, connected to electric wires from sides, one wire cutter, two mobile chargers, a table alarm watch attached with electric wires and one black colour tape were also recovered from his house," news agency PTI quoted Kushwahas saying.

The police suspect that Khan was planning to plant the two recovered IEDs in a high footfall area of Delhi, said Kushwaha. "After that, he was to receive instructions from his handler to carry out a fidayeen attack," the officer further said.

He (ISIS operative Abu Yusuf) was planning to plant the two recovered IEDs in a high footfall area of Delhi. After that, he was to receive instructions from his handler to carry out a fidayeen attack: Delhi Police Special Cell DCP Pramod Kushwaha https://t.co/eZyDteV7gA  ANI (@ANI) August 23, 2020

As per the NDTV report, police said that the suspect had also tested several smaller IEDs at a burial ground in the village.

However, Khan's father Kafeel Ahmed on Sunday told a news channel that he had no knowledge about Khan collecting explosive material and testing bombs in a graveyard.

"I have not heard anything about explosive material. If I had any idea that he was collecting explosive material, I would not have allowed Abu Yusuf to stay in my house," PTI quoted him as saying. "Only after the police came in the evening and found the material I realised what it is," he said.

He also said that Khan left home on Friday for Rath in UP's Hamirpur district and after that, his whereabouts were not known. "On Saturday, we learnt that he has been arrested in Delhi," he said.

A senior officer of the Anti-Terrorist Squad of Uttar Pradesh Police on Saturday told PTI that Khan had left his village for Lucknow two days ago on the pretext of getting one of his relatives treated there. However, it could not be ascertained how he reached the National Capital where he was arrested on Friday night from the central Delhi's Ridge Road area, he said.

The Delhi Police had earlier said that a major terror strike was averted with Khan's arrest, who had been on its radar for over a year. He was planning to carry out a lone wolf strike at a high footfall area in the National Capital, it said.

Khan had planned to strike in the National Capital on 15 August, but could not do so due to heavy security arrangements, Kushwah had told PTI.

Security was stepped up in the National Capital and neighbouring Uttar Pradesh following Khan's arrest. According to the NDTV report, NSG commandos and members of the Bomb Disposal Squad were deployed to conduct search operations in parts of Delhi and the IEDs found with him were safely defused.

With inputs from agencies
As Covid-19 grinds on, and as we bicker about crowds at sporting events, or limitations on our older people, or scold people who go to Italy, or dig into our Government, guess what?

Immunologists are working away, doing their damnedest to understand more about your one true friend when it comes to fighting Covid-19: your immune system.

That knowledge is key to the huge effort under way to develop a vaccine to stop you getting Covid-19 in the first place, and therapies to stop you getting sick or even dying should you catch it. More than 165 vaccines are being tested. We are starting to win the war when it comes to therapies, with drugs like dexamethasone keeping alive some people who would otherwise die. And more than 1,000 trials are running with a huge range of medicines, some of which will definitely help, decreasing the fear.

While all that is going on, immunologists are also trying to provide answers to one big question when it comes to Covid-19: If I have had Covid-19, then will I get it again?

Evidence in monkeys indicated the answer was no, you won't. Once monkeys were infected, scientists were unable to infect them again. Good but what about humans? Anecdotal reports suggested some people had become reinfected. These reports were hard to explain or confirm.

But now we have a chink of light in the gloom. The US's Centres for Disease Control have said there is no compelling evidence that once you've been infected, you will get infected again. And a study on a fishing vessel where there was a major outbreak has revealed that fishermen who had been infected previously did not get reinfected.

Before departure, the entire crew was tested for the virus or antibodies against the virus, both of which indicate that they would have had it. Some 104 of the 122 people on board became infected. This is known as a 'high attack rate' and reminds us how contagious Covid-19 is. Three people, however, did not test positive. And guess what? All three had tested positive for antibodies prior to departure. Those antibodies had protected them from re-infection. It's a small study that needs further scrutiny but hopeful enough for Nature, the world's leading science journal, to report on it.

If it all holds up - and remember that science is a process that can take time to reach a definite conclusion - it will also take some of the fear away. Something we badly need.

Governments need it too, as it should inform their decisions and stop them from being too draconian.

Immunologists had worried that infection might not confer protection as coronaviruses that cause the common cold don't. Previous studies had shown that people can get reinfected, although second time around, the cold is milder. The lack of protection is most likely because it is a mild disease anyway and the immune system doesn't really care about it. If Covid-19 was like that, it would mean a virus that would go on forever, just like the common cold.

Imagine that for a moment: Covid-19 forever. This would be OK if Covid-19 was like the common cold. A nuisance. But we now know that it's not like a cold in 20pc of people. It causes a much more severe disease. In those who survive, many become what are now called 'long haulers' with persistent symptoms such as chronic fatigue and so-called 'brain fog', meaning difficulty concentrating. Of those 20pc, one in five die because they are elderly or are obese or have other conditions such as heart disease.

One in three of us is in that vulnerable category. However, if infection were to mean protection, and even if it were to mean a much less severe disease next time around, then the picture would brighten.

HOPE

This is where the vaccine comes in. The history of infectious diseases on Earth tells us that most come back. There was never total immunity to measles or polio or influenza. They kept coming back. There were always children vulnerable to the viruses coming along to infect, some of whom got really sick, going deaf from measles or paralysed from polio or dying of flu. And some people got reinfected because they didn't get sick enough the first time around, mainly because the virus can switch off your immune system in order to survive.

Vaccines are, in fact, the only sure-fire way to limit infections in a population and achieve what is called 'herd immunity' - a term that only applies to vaccines and should never have been used for natural infection with Covid-19.

The vaccine is either a part of the virus or a weakened form. They've been disabled and so can't switch off our immune systems like a live virus can. And they come with a chemical called an adjuvant, which really wakes up the immune system. Like a souped-up version of the natural infection, vaccines drive antibody production, which can mop up the virus, and also T cells, a cell type in the immune system that kills cells infected with a virus. And they don't cause disease because they are not the intact virus.

If we were not able to show that natural infection can protect even a little bit, then it might mean that a vaccine would not be able to achieve this either. But now we have confidence that infection does indeed confer protection - and so we are more hopeful that a vaccine will really help. It will train the troops who will then protect you if you get infected with the real bad guy.

These initial indications that protection will endure is therefore important. Your immune system is doing what it should do: fighting the virus and then, remembering that fight, preparing it for the next fight. And the vaccine will make sure this happens in those who are vaccinated without harming them.

Memory

Something that was never a worry for immunologists was antibody levels waning after the infection. This is how it should be, otherwise your blood would be chock-full of antibodies against all the infections you've had. It's why measuring antibody levels isn't that informative. What remains are more of the cells that made them. These are called memory cells because should the infection re-emerge, then they will remember it from the first time and eliminate it. They live in your bone marrow, which is like the barracks for the troops, and they come out in their droves when you are infected again, rushing into your blood to go to your lungs and fight the virus that you have inhaled. There are also memory T cells. You won't even know you've been infected. This will happen with natural infection, as happened with those fishermen, but may not be as strong in some people who will remain infectious. It won't have happened in those not infected, 20pc of whom are at risk of severe disease or death. Hence the need for a vaccine.

This is the scenario that immunologists were hoping for, and the scientific evidence is that it is happening with Covid-19. The immune system in the protected fishermen did its job. It protected them, but more importantly, a vaccine will mean it will protect all of us, especially vulnerable people and children.

The more people we vaccinate, the lower the number of hosts for the virus to live in, bringing the viral load right down and protecting everyone. Three cheers for your immune system. And three cheers for all the immunologists doing their best to do great science that will without doubt eventually defeat Covid-19.

Luke O'Neill is professor of biochemistry in the school of biochemistry and immunology at Trinity College Dublin
Barack Obama congratulates US President Donald Trump after he took the oath of office: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Donald Trump said Barack Obama could not be considered a great president because he had undone many of the polices his predecessor had introduced during his time in office.

"President Obama, they say he was a great president  but you can't be a president when much of what he's done we've undone," Mr Trump said.

His words came during a campaign visit to Old Forge, Pennsylvania, two days after Mr Obama gave a speech during the Democratic National Convention painting Mr Trump as a dire threat to the future of America.

"I never expected that my successor would embrace my vision or continue my policies. I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously; that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care," Mr Obama said.

He continued, suggesting Mr Trump is incapable of personal or ideological growth.

"But he never did. For close to four years now, he's shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves," Mr Obama said. "Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't."

The animosity between Mr Trump and Mr Obama extends to the dawn of Mr Obama's presidency, when Mr Trump promoted the conspiracy theory that Mr Obama wasn't a natural born American.

In 2011, Mr Trump began appearing on talk shows after suggesting during the Conservative Political Action Conference that he was considering a presidential run. During his appearances, he began challenging Mr Obama to produce a birth certificate to prove he was born in the US.

President Trump: "President Obama, they say he was a great president -- but you can't be a president when much of what he's done we've undone." pic.twitter.com/elIJSGmcmi  The Hill (@thehill) August 21, 2020

"I want him to show his birth certificate. There is something on that birth certificate that he doesn't like," Mr Trump said during an appearance on The View.

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In more recent days, Mr Trump has launched similar birth place centred conspiracy theories aimed at undermining Senator Kamala Harris and even a bizarre theory that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden wasn't born in Pennsylvania.

Mr Trump claimed Mr Biden wasn't born in Pennsylvania because he moved out of the state as a child with his family, accusing him of "abandoning Scranton".

As for Mr Trump's claim that his administration has undone much of what Mr Obama did during his time in office, he has attempted to dismantle two of his predecessor's most notable programmes  the Affordable Care Act. known as Obamacare, and the DACA programme  but he has as yet been unsuccessful in his endeavours.

The US Department of Justice under Mr Trump's administration along with 18 Republican led states, have asked the US Supreme Court to strike down the ACA, alleging it is illegal in its entirety. A counter-suit led by 17 Democratic states to preserve the programme will be heard by the Supreme Court in California v Texas.

The Supreme Court also thwarted Mr Trump's attempts to dismantle the DACA programme.

This provides a pathway for individuals brought to the US illegally as children to work and live in the country. It does not provide a pathway to citizenship, but it does prevent them from being deported so long as they do not violate the programme's terms.

DACA has protected more than 800,000 recipients, known as Dreamers, from being deported.

The Supreme Court rejected Mr Trump's attempt at dismantling it, ruling the administration did not present convincing evidence that the policy violated the US Constitution.

However, Mr Trump has overturned dozens of environmental protections instituted by his predecessor. On the world stage he has withdrawn from both the Iran nuclear deal, which aimed to delay the Islamic Republic's alleged efforts to build a nuclear weapon, and from the Paris climate deal.

The former British ambassador to the US, Kim Darroch, was withdrawn from DC in 2019 after some of his cables home were leaked. Along with descriptions of chaos at the White House, the papers revealed claims that Mr Trump had withdrawn from the multinational Iran deal in order to spite Mr Obama's legacy.

Read more

Trump explodes at Obamas speech, repeating false spying accusation
BRIMFIELD  Holland Road will be closed and all traffic detoured next week because of construction.

The road is scheduled to be closed to all motorists between the intersections of Haynes Hill Road and Route 20 from about 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Tuesday. The construction is weather dependant and the schedule is subject to change, police said.

Motorists will be detoured to Wales Road to access Holland Road or Route 20. People are advised to avoid the area or plan for extra time because of the detour, police said.
Nevertheless, within hours after the story broke, Mr. Morse went from role model to pariah. Progressive groups said they would stop campaigning for him. The university called the news deeply concerning and opened an investigation.

Mr. Morse said he even considered dropping out, despite his suspicions about the motives of his accusers and the vagueness of the charges. This was no accident that it was happening three weeks before the primary, he said in an interview.

But then the story flipped, with a cascade of head-spinning revelations. Messages between some of the students that were published by The Intercept showed they had discussed how they might damage Mr. Morses campaign, with one suggesting it might help his career prospects with Mr. Morses opponent, Representative Richard E. Neal, the chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.

There was more. The Massachusetts Democratic Party acknowledged that it had provided legal advice to the College Democrats about the letter, leading Mr. Morse to accuse Mr. Neal and his allies in the states Democratic leadership of having a hand in a homophobic plot to smear him. Mr. Neal has denied any involvement.

Today, Mr. Morse is still in the race and says the allegations have only helped his campaign. Since the initial story appeared, he has raised more than $410,000, and 800 volunteers have reached out offering to help.
A crash involving a ute and a Nissan Micra at a roundabout has divided drivers over who was in the wrong.

The collision unfolded on Sunday afternoon near Southern Cross CCT in Ipswich, south-east Queensland.

Dashcam footage showed the pink Micra slowly entering the roundabout, before the green ute was seen moving quickly towards it from the right.

The ute driver slammed on the brakes, but was moving too fast to stop before hitting the Nissan.

Dashcam footage showed the pink Micra (pictured centre) slowly entering the roundabout, before the green ute was seen moving quickly towards it from an entrance to the right

The video was shared on the Dash Cam Owners Australia Facebook page and has users debating who entered the roundabout first, and who was at fault.

According to transport authorities, drivers must slow down or stop to give way to vehicles already in the roundabout.

'Who was on the roundabout first? Video is a 50/50 call in my book,' wrote one user.

'The Micra failed to give way to vehicles already on the roundabout,' another argued.

'Ute made no attempt to give way... would have slowed otherwise,' someone else contested.

The ute driver slammed on the brakes, but was moving too fast to stop before hitting the Nissan motorist

The video was shared on the Dash Cam Owners Australia Facebook page and has users confused as to who entered the roundabout first, and who was at fault

Poll Who do you think was in the wrong? Ute Micra Unsure Who do you think was in the wrong? Ute 923 votes

Micra 1823 votes

Unsure 102 votes Now share your opinion





Another argued: 'Given the seconds leading up to the Micra deciding the coast was clear it would have appeared there was plenty of time to make safe passage. Wasn't counting on the ute to come flying into the intersection so fast it was unable to stop.'

Others debated whether the roundabout road sign is the same as a give way sign.

'There is a sign on the round about that means giveaway. The ute should've slowed down regardless. It's a giveaway sign. Slow down or come to nearly a complete stop,' one shared.

'The accident would've occurred if the ute driver had slowed down to an approaching give way intersection.'

'Roundabouts don't have give way signs, give way signs are clearly marked "give way" roundabout signs are just a red triangle on a white background,' another declared.

'What do you think a roundabout sign is? Give way! It's an intersection,' someone else laughed.

But others argued about whether the roundabout road sign (pictured) is the same as a give way sign.

According to road traffic authorities in Australia, the roundabout sign signals for drivers to slow down and prepare to stop for drivers already on the roundabout.

Peter Khoury from the NRMA said drivers giving way to the right have misinterpreted the rule.

'Apparently there's a misconception that you're meant to wait for people on your right as they're approaching, which in actual fact isn't the case,' he previously told Daily Mail Australia.

'You just need to give way to people who are already on the roundabout. The rule is, once another car is on the roundabout, you need to allow that person to pass.'

The rule means drivers will often need to give way to cars already in the roundabout to the right.

But in other cases, commonly in smaller roundabouts, drivers must wait for vehicles which have entered to the left or the opposite side.
A China-Europe freight train with 45 compartments of anti-epidemic supplies leaves the Xinzhu Railway Station in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, on Aug. 12, 2020, to head for Italy's Milan. (Photo by Yuan Jingzhi/Xinhua)

China's contributions to the world economy have proven significant amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a leading Bangladeshi economist told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Jamal Uddin, general secretary of the Bangladesh Economic Association (BEA), said scientific innovations from China have made the world competitive.

Chinese mobile handsets and electronic devices, including those of Huawei and cashless financial and banking systems, have reduced the cost of doing business, said the leader of BEA, which has more than 4,500 members from academia, government, businesses, civil society and the masses.

Uddin, also a leader of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ruling Bangladesh Awami League party, noted Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has invested in Bangladeshi mobile financial service provider Bkash.

This has helped add value to micro-level transactions in the billions, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic when the Bangladeshi government safety net, salary and wages are paid through this mobile platform, and enabled poorer people to enjoy electronic financial services, said Uddin, also former president of the national professional accountancy body, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh.

Uddin, who obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Cardiff Business School in Britain, spoke highly of China's capacity to manage the economy, calling its model unique and competitive.

The expert noted China's discipline was "most important" in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

China has sufficient resources to overcome COVID-19, such as technology, skilled health professionals, health infrastructure and management capacity, said the economist, adding that with all these necessary logistics, China can win this fight and manage its economy.

China has demonstrated its excellent capability of running the economy smoothly, the expert said, noting that the country has maintained steady gross domestic product growth, transformed its financial management, banking system and capital market, and attracted foreign direct investment from developed countries by establishing itself as a global manufacturing hub.

China's export-led and huge home market-based industrial expansion has created a market for developed and developing countries including Bangladesh, which has now been enjoying a zero-tariff facility on 97 percent of exports to China, said Uddin, also former chairman of Janata Bank Limited, one of the largest state-owned commercial banks in Bangladesh.
New Delhi, Aug 23 : Several rounds of discussions were held with clerics of the Shia community in connection with Muharram, a Delhi Police officer said on Sunday and added that 'majlis' at Imambaras would be allowed with limited number of attendees but subject to COVID-19 protocol.

However, no processions or use of loudspeakers would be allowed in the national capital for Muharram events.

The discussions were held between Delhi Police officers and Ulemas, Maulanas and other respectable members of the community to discuss the guidelines issued by Delhi Disaster Management Authority regarding Muharram.

The police briefed the attendees about the guidelines and the do's and don'ts for Muharram.

"We held a meeting with Ulemas, Maulvis and other respectables in connection with Muharram and briefed them that no procession and loudspeakers will be allowed as per the DDMA guidelines. However, 'majlis' in Imambaras can be held with limited numbers of people while maintaining social distance and use of masks and sanitisers," DCP South East RP Meena said.

An Imambara is a place or a building with a hall where people assemble for 'majlis' or congregation to mourn the sacrifices of Imam Hussain and other martyrs in Karbala.

The Ulemas were called for the virtual meeting at police stations like Jamia Nagar, Lajpat nagar, Nizamuddin, Badarpur, Amar Colony, Shaheen Bagh, Kalindi Kunj, and New Friends Colony. The DCP exchanged views and briefed the gathering through videoconference.

"People can also organise 'majlis' and observe Muharram at their homes with proper precautions and maintaining social distance," the officer said.

However, the people were cautioned against overcrowding and large gatherings. Similar meetings were held in other police districts of Delhi as well.

The Uttar Pradesh government has accepted the demands of Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawwad regarding certain Muharram rituals and allowed the community members to keep 'taziyas' in their homes and observe 'azadari' during Muharram but with certain restrictions.

Jawwad had staged a dharna on Saturday evening to protest against the restrictions imposed in view of the coronavirus pandemic. The state government decision came around midnight on Saturday.
96-year-old Slim voter recalls World War Two experiences

SLIM POLLS | Every morning, after 96-year-old wheelchair-bound Renggaiyah Marumuthu wakes up, he will spend the day in front of his shophouse.

He lives at a row of shophouses in Pekan Trolak which have been there for 80 years. Renggaiyah, who is fondly known as Renga tathta which means Grandpa Renga, has lived there for more than half a century.

At the front of his shophouse, Renga would watch the roads and the vehicles passing by until lunchtime.

Malaysiakini had the opportunity to speak with him while covering the Slim by-election and was surprised to learn about his age and that he had voted in the countrys first general election in 1955.

Renggaiyah also revealed that he was a former soldier who had fought with the British against the Japanese army during World War Two.

I was born in India in 1924 and started living in Malaya when I was seven years old. I came with my father to Temoh and grew up at a mine there. My father worked at that mine, and so I also learned from there, he said.

Temoh is a small village located between Kampar and Tapah.

Renggaiyah said his wife and one of his children have already passed away. His four other children had moved away. He stays at his shophouse with an assistant.

Tailing Japanese soldiers

Relating his experience in World War Two, Renggaiyah said he joined the British army at Malim Nawar, Perak with a group of friends.

Our duties werent at the frontlines, but we were helping the soldiers carry their supplies and so on, he said.

Among his duties were to make signs out of stones, which would be buried along the road while he and several others tailed the Japanese soldiers.

These signs would serve as guides for the British soldiers to identify which roads to take to chase after the Japanese soldiers.

Renggaiyah said he once followed the Japanese soldiers all the way to Singapore after the British lost in the battles at Kampar, Teluk Intan and Tapah.

There was a guide stone at Trolak known as the Japanese stone, but it was destroyed after the works to expand the road from Slim to Sungkai recently.

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There is so much history, it is not enough just to write a book. There is no way they can write down everything, right? he said.

There are so many things that happened in World War Two in Perak which needs to be conveyed to the next generation, he said.

Renggaiyah said, after the Japanese surrendered, he returned to Perak from Singapore and stayed in Kampar and Tapah before moving to Trolak.

For the record, World War Two in Malaya involved soldiers from the Commonwealth including the British, Indians, Australians as well as Malaya residents fighting against Imperial Japanese soldiers in the early 1940s.

Some historians view the Britishs loss at Kampar and Slim River as one of the factors which dimmed the British empires chances of defending Malaya and Singapore.

World War Two graves

Renggaiyah said there are two World War Two graveyards in Bidor, with the first being in Kampung Baru Coldstream at Jalan Bidor heading towards Teluk Intan.

There are three big graves located next to each other, which were built in 1946 after the Japanese lost in the war.

According to a resident there, the Japanese soldiers captured more than 20 Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA) fighters in 1942 and tortured them.

They were tied up with steel wires, and their bodies were poked. They were later burnt alive, said a woman who only wanted to be known as Aunty Lee.

After the Japanese lost, the villagers gathered the ashes of the fighters and built those graves, she added.

Only the residents of this village and the elderly in this area know about this monument.

There are some who pray in their remembrance. If you want to do a story (about World War Two in Perak), that would be good too, she said.

The second tomb was not too far from the first. It is located in the middle of an oil palm plantation at Batu 4, Jalan Bidor-Teluk Intan.

It is smaller in size than the one in Kampung Baru Coldstream, and it looked less well-preserved.

According to the residents in the area, the graves belonged to two communist soldiers who died while fighting the Japanese. They came to this conclusion because there was the Bintang Tiga symbol etched on the tombstone.

However, another resident denied that those buried there were communists.

No, that is not a communist grave. It is the grave of two (MPAJA) fighters who fought against the Japanese, said a man who declined to be named.

He said the two died while facing the Japanese in Bidor.

I heard they were in a car and were blocked by a Japanese lorry. They were killed because they did not want to surrender, he said.

The Chinese writing on the tombstone states that it was built in 1946 to honour two soldiers who fought against the Japanese.

Slim by-election

As the conversation with Renggaiyah returned to the topic of the Slim by-election, the nonagenarian said he would go out to vote as he had done in the years before.

When asked who he would vote for, he merely replied with a smile and said that it was a secret.

The Slim by-election will take place on Aug 29.

It will see a three-cornered fight between BN candidate Mohd Zaidi Aziz with two independent candidates - Amir Khusyairi Mohamad Tanusi, who is supported by Pejuang, and academician S Santhasekaran.
President Donald Trump is on a mission to save the suburbs, warning Americans that Joe Biden would bring chaos to their communities by promoting affordable housing.

At least a dozen times since June, he has painted Biden as a threat to the suburban American Dream. He even enlisted HUD Secretary Ben Carson to jointly pen an Aug. 16 op-ed saying Democrats want to reimpose the Obama-Biden dystopian vision of building low-income housing units next to your suburban house.

Yet just a year ago, the Trump administration itself embraced a plan to use the federal government to push local governments, including in suburban areas, to overhaul zoning rules that prevent the construction of high-density apartment buildings. That plan was intended to address the increasing shortage of affordable housing for Americans that has spurred homelessness and sent home prices skyrocketing.

Trump issued an executive order in June 2019 establishing a White House Council on Eliminating Barriers to Affordable Housing and appointing Carson  the only Black member of his Cabinet  as its chair. He directed the group to address, reduce, and remove the multitude of overly burdensome regulatory barriers that artificially raise the cost of housing development.

At a meeting the council held with housing industry representatives at the White House in November, Carson repeated his longtime plea that Americans abandon the Not In My Backyard mentality that lies behind the support for exclusionary zoning rules, according to attendees.

Secretary Carson very eloquently made a solid case against restrictive zoning both on civil rights grounds and economic grounds, and really the entire White House economic staff was there in the room, nodding their heads. said National Housing Conference President David Dworkin, a former Treasury official under both the Obama and Trump administrations.

Well, what happened? Dworkin said.

Trumps dramatic about-face on the issue came as he began to hammer a law and order theme after widespread racial justice protests this summer, lifting a page from the Richard Nixon 1968 playbook. His recent comments about the dangers of a sweeping Obama-era fair housing rule  which Trump has rescinded  are part of a gamble that he can claw back support from wary suburbanites unnerved by scenes of urban rioting.

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Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the suburbs 49 percent to 45 percent, according to exit polls from the 2016 presidential race. But Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives in 2018 by making deep inroads with those voters, flipping four seats in the once-Republican stronghold of Orange County, California, alone.

This is an attempt to make a law-and-order case to an audience that no longer exists, Dworkin said. The people who live in the suburbs today are largely going to be embarrassed by these arguments and do not want to be associated with racist housing policies, even when they have reservations about affordable housing.

Trump tried to make that case yet again on Saturday, tweeting: "Why would Suburban Women vote for Biden and the Democrats when Democrat run cities are now rampant with crime... which could easily spread to the suburbs, and they will reconstitute, on steroids, their low income suburbs plan!"

For his part, Carson has spoken of taking on the NIMBYs as far back as 2018. That was the same year a HUD research report faulted local zoning and regulations, lengthy permitting processes, and not in my backyard opposition as primary causes of restricted housing supply and rising housing prices. That report found that in the suburbs, NIMBYismmay have worsened in recent years.

HUD declined to comment directly on Carsons apparent shift.

Secretary Carson does not believe that unelected bureaucrats in Washington should be setting blanket, national policies on intimate local issues such as zoning laws, HUD spokesman Brad Bishop said.

Through [the 2019] executive order, the Secretary has worked with local and community leaders to examine affordable housing needs across the country and identify unreasonably burdensome federal regulations that delay permitting and review procedures and stifle affordable housing for those who need it most, he added.

At the time, even some conservatives cheered the idea that Trump would use the federal government to prod local governments into action: While Republicans typically want to protect states and localities from the heavy hand of the federal government, theyre also eager to scrap inefficient and expensive regulations.

It was also a great way to needle the Democratic mayors of cities with the highest housing costs, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York  each of which was singled out for imposing excessive local regulatory barriers to housing in the White Houses most recent annual report of the Council of Economic Advisers, released in February.

That report, which called cutting local government barriers to housing a priority for the Trump administration, even cited the 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule  the one Trump scrapped this summer  as a tool the administration would use to increase housing supply.

The Obama-era rule was intended to compel localities to take active steps to combat segregation to fulfill the promise of the landmark 1968 Fair Housing Act. HUD in January had released a proposed rule watering down the AFFH after delaying its implementation for years.

HUD has also taken action under the Trump Administration to counter regulatory barriers to building affordable housing. The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing ruleis being revised to focus more clearly on increasing housing supply in areas where supply is constrained, the CEA said in its annual report.

This rule recognizes that increasing housing choice for disadvantaged groups requires taking on regulatory barriers that place housing in large swaths of specific areas out of reach for lower-income families, the report added.

That would seem to have been news to Trump, who four months later  when few people were talking about the suburbs amid the twin crises of a global pandemic and deep recession  tweeted that he would be studying the devastating AFFH rule at the request of many great Americans who live in the suburbs. He warned that Biden  who supports resurrecting the original version of the rule  wants to make them MUCH WORSE.

HUD revoked the rule entirely three weeks later. Trump has linked the move to his bid for re-election in tweets.

The suburban housewife will be voting for me. They want safety & are thrilled that I ended the long running program where low income housing would invade their neighborhood, he tweeted on Aug. 12 . Biden would reinstall it, in a bigger form, with Corey Booker [sic] in charge!

The op-ed that he and Carson wrote in the Wall Street Journal explicitly connects the suburbs argument to his campaign to paint Democratic cities as overrun with crime and chaos in the wake of the mass protests  some of which turned violent  inspired by the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Rather than rethink their destructive policies, the left wants to make sure there is no escape, they wrote. The plan is to remake the suburbs in their image so they resemble the dysfunctional cities they now govern. As usual, anyone who dares tell the truth about what the left is doing is smeared as a racist.

Sen. Cory Booker, the New Jersey Democrat who Trump says would be charged with enforcing the original fair housing rule in a Biden administration, said the president's attacks were another case of his using racial tropes to stir up division.

It sounds like his normal tools in his toolbox  which is bigotry and fear-mongering, and in many ways trying to pit Americans against Americans, Booker, one of only three Black U.S. senators, said Wednesday in an MSNBC interview.

Trump literally thinks by invoking the name of a Black politician that somehow you can scare white people, Booker added, a situation that he said is both angering to the Black community and the white community.


With the quality of counterfeit goods improving and shoppers increasingly making online purchases, researchers have discovered an eye-watering sum is being spent on knock-offs.

According to H&T Pawnbrokers, Britons are unknowingly splurging over 3.2 billion on fake designer goods, with one in three people falling for a knock-off sold online.

After analysing Google search volumes for 'fake' alternatives to popular luxury brands, they found the most in demand counterfeit goods include Yeezy, Balenciaga and Rolex products.

Experts have revealed new data that suggests Brits could be unknowingly spending over 3.2 billion on fake designer goods. Pictured: Fake Yeezy

H&T Pawnbrokers explained how Yeezy (pictured) topped the list of brands online shoppers are aiming to find a fake version off when searching Google

Sarah Buck from H&T said: 'Counterfeit designer goods are becoming increasingly common, particularly within the online second-hand market where consumers cannot see the items before they purchase them.'

Meanwhile they also revealed how shoppers can tell the fake from the real designer good, including tips on looking for spelling mistakes and researching the price to check if it's too good to be true.

BAGS

H&T Pawnbrokers said a fake designer handbag can be spotted because the hardware isn't as high quality as an authentic item. Pictured left: Real Gucci bag. Pictured right: Fake Gucci bag

H&T Pawnbrokers explained that paperwork is not always a guarantee that a luxury item is genuine. Pictured left: Real Dior handbag. Pictured right: Fake Dior handbag

H&T Pawnbrokers advise that a vital stage of shopping online could be researching the price of a product to check the likelihood that it's authentic.

The financial service providers warned against being tempted by things that seem too good to true, explaining that designer products are often made to last.

The experts explained: 'Designer bags should not be flimsy and should hold their shape.

'Designer products are made to last - check for quality hardware. If the product tarnishes easily or loses its colour, it's fake.'

They said that real designer handbags don't come with authenticity cards, but should usually have a serial number for reference.

Sarah Buck from H&T Pawnbrokers said it's best to buy designer items from a trusted seller and to check reviews before making an online purchase. Pictured: Real Prada handbag

Sarah revealed clothing is the industry worst hit by fake products. Pictured: Fake Prada handbag

Adding: 'Paperwork is no guarantee that the item is genuine, [because] it can be easily forged.'

The experts said a fake Gucci Marmont clutch bag would be noticeable because of abnormalities on the brand's logo and the neatness of its stitching.

They said that the real bag would be well manufactured and shouldnt include curved edges.

JEWELLERY

Meanwhile the pawnbrokers also recommended purchasing from an established jewellers to avoid mistakenly purchasing a knock-off.

They said designer accessories would come with official packing, dust bags, and will usually be hallmarked.

Revealing that the daintier jewellery is usually of a higher-quality, the financial service provider warned that there shouldn't be any discoloration on the skin if the item is authentic.

The experts also reinforced the importance of getting a receipt and checking the returns policy.

WATCHES

H&T Pawnbrokers said a genuine high end watch will feel heavy due to high quality materials and explained that the second hand movement on the watch should not be rigid.

They advised being mindful that model name and serial number on a fake may be used across all of their pieces, rather than on individual goods, and suggested comparing the item with a known genuine example before purchasing.

Meanwhile the experts also explained that fine details won't be as refined on fake items and often additional functionalities are missing.

For example, they explained how the edges of a fake Rolex watch would be coarser than those on the genuine, as well as the spacing of text will be different.

Top 10 replicated designer brands RANK 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 BRAND Yeezy Balenciaga Rolex Raybans Gucci Cartier Vivienne Westwood Chanel Louis Vuitton Fendi MONTHLY SEARCH VOLUME 15480 15370 14010 8210 8100 5030 2910 920 700 590 Advertisement

More info: https://handt.co.uk/blog/spot-the-fake
PM Modi held a discussion on taking the 'Swadeshi' toy industry global, he said that India was home to several toy clusters and thousands of artisans who produce indigenous toys which not only had cultural connect but also helped in building life-skills and psychomotor skills among children at an early age.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting with senior ministers and officials to discuss ways to boost manufacturing and global imprint of Indian toys on Saturday. PM Modi said that India was home to several toy clusters and thousands of artisans who produce indigenous toys which not only had cultural connect but also helped in building life-skills and psychomotor skills among children at an early age.

He said such clusters should be promoted through innovative and creative methods. Toys mould a childs mind and should be aligned with Indian values, according to the Prime Minister. He said toys should be used as pedagogical tools at Anganwadi centres and schools for all-round development of children, according to an official press release.

According to the release, the Indian toy market has huge potential and can bring a transformative change in the industry by promoting Vocal for Local under Aatma nirbhar Bharat campaign. The Prime Minister said the focus should be on the use of technology and innovation and also towards manufacturing quality products that meet global standards.

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He discussed the impact of toys on psychomotor/cognitive skills of children and how it can become a means for societal change thereby helping shape the future generation of the nation. He even suggested that youth should be engaged to come up with innovative designs and toys that can instil a sense of pride towards national goals and achievements.

The Prime Minister said toys can be an excellent medium to further the spirit of Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat and exhorted that toys should reflect Indias value system and culturally established environment-friendly approach.

He suggested using tourism as a tool to promote Indias culture especially in regions which are renowned for handcrafted toys.

The Prime Minister also emphasised on the need to organise hackathons for youth for innovations in toy technology and design, including online games, to reflect Indian ethos and values.

Laying emphasis on fast-growing digital gaming arena, Prime Minister said India should tap the huge potential in this area and lead the international digital gaming sector by developing games that are inspired by Indian culture and folk tales.

Also read: Indian Railways tender for 44 Vande Bharat trains cancelled
Police broke up illegal raves attended by hundreds of people in Covid hospot of Blackburn and in Huddersfield as officers in Birmingham were called to more than 70 parties on the last weekend before organisers face a 10,000 fine for setting up the gatherings.

Officers in Deighton, Huddersfield had missiles thrown at them after they tried to break up a gathering of more than 300 people on Saturday night.

Elsewhere in Greater Manchester, police had to taser a man after two police vehicles were damaged outside a house party in Farnworth.

Meanwhile in Birmingham, police were called to more than 70 parties - including one in Northfield which included two marquees and a DJ.

Around 200 people were seen gathering in the city centre, around Hampton Street.

From Friday new powers will come into force meaning organisers of illegal raves can be fined.

Around 200 people were seen gathering in Birmingham city centre, around Hampton Street, last night

Police were called out to an illegal gathering in Northfield, near Birmingham, on Saturday

The rave in Northfield was one of more than 70 reported gatherings in the West Midlands on Saturday night - ahead of new fines that will come into force from next Friday

Rave organisers will be fined 10,000 from Friday New punishments for people organising and attending raves will come into force from next Friday, just in time for the Bank Holiday weekend. People facilitating or organising illegal raves, unlicensed music events or any other unlawful gathering of 30 people or more may face a 10,000 fine. Participants can continue to be issued with fines of 100, while those who have already been fined will see the amount double on each offence, up to a maximum of 3,200. Fines for not wearing face coverings where it is mandated are also set to double for repeat offenders from Friday, starting at 100 and doubling to a maximum of 3,200 for each repeat offence. Home Secretary Priti Patel said: 'These gatherings are dangerous and those who organise them show a blatant disregard for the safety of others. 'I am pleased the police have already stepped up their response and I am giving them the tools they need to continue to keep us safe. 'We will continue to crack down on the small minority who think they are above the law.' Advertisement

Around 150 people had to be dispersed by police at Entwistle reservoir, between Blackburn and Bolton, both areas where extra restrictions are in place due to the pandemic.

The man who organised the event was arrested by officers and had his equipment taken off him.

Deputy Chief Constable Terry Woods, of Lancashire Police, tweeted: 'Disappointed to see illegal rave started at Entwistle reservoir overnight.

'Force resources mobilised & it was stopped quickly.

'Organiser identified at scene, arrested, his van & all sound/other equipment seized. 150 plus young people now off back to families to possibly pass virus on.'

Dr Sakthi Karunanithi, director of public health at Lancashire County Council, tweeted: 'Unacceptable behaviour by organiser. 1000s of young people & households are sacrificing their freedom whilst a small minority behave irresponsibly. Please please avoid social mixing.

'Serious consequences to our health and economy if this leads to more cases.'

Two police vehicles were damaged and four people arrested after officers broke up a party breaking lockdown rules in Greater Manchester.

Around 50 people were at the gathering at a house, which had a gazebo set up with loud speakers, music equipment and party lights, Greater Manchester Police.

And while police were dealing with the incident in Farnworth, a man threw an object at the window of a police vehicle and damaged the wing mirror of a second police vehicle, before attempting to flee.

He was pursued on foot and a Taser was discharged before the suspect, aged 33, was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage.

Chief Inspector Steph Parker, of GMP's Bolton District, said: 'This is an utterly shameful incident that the Farnworth and wider Bolton community should totally condemn.

'At a time when the vast majority of Greater Manchester and the country as a whole is pulling together, it is appalling that our officers are still having to attend incidents such as this.

'The people involved should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. They are literally putting lives at risk and causing further pressure on our hard-working emergency services.

'Not content with their disgraceful behaviour, they have also damaged two police vehicles.

'These will now have to be taken off the road for a period when they should be being used to help fight crime.

Another man, aged 57, was arrested for a section five public order offence after causing a disturbance in the street when refusing to leave, officers said.

Police said two more men, aged 39 and 28, were arrested to prevent a breach of the peace after being directed to leave on a number of occasions and continuing to return to the address, becoming abusive toward officers.

All four were further arrested for breach of Covid-19 regulations, and fixed penalty notices were issued.

The home owner and another individual who had organised the party were also issued with fixed penalty notices, police said.

Around 70 people were caught at an illegal party at an old quarry in Bawsey, near Kings Lynn, in the early hours of this morning - just two weeks after a young man drowned at the site.

Officers blocked off all access roads by 3.00am and the music switched off at police direction at 3.15am. A 31-year-old local man was arrested on suspicion of organising the event and generators and sound equipment seized.

Earlier this week Birmingham was placed on the government watch list after a sharp rise in coronavirus infections.

The Covid-19 infection rate jumped from the UK average of 12 per 100,000 in early August to 32 per 100,000 this week.

The rate on Friday of 25.5 was the 13th highest infection rate in the country prompting local health officials and politicians to raise the prospect of a local lockdown.

People facilitating or organising illegal raves, unlicensed music events or any other unlawful gathering of 30 people or more may face a 10,000 fine.

Aerial footage shows people gathering outside a house in Birmingham on Saturday during a rave

In another Covid hotspot, 150 people had to be dispersed by police at Entwistle reservoir, between Blackburn and Bolton, both areas where extra restrictions are in place due to the pandemic.

The man who organised the event was arrested by officers and had his equipment taken off him.

Deputy Chief Constable Terry Woods, of Lancashire Police, tweeted: 'Disappointed to see illegal rave started at Entwistle reservoir overnight.

'Force resources mobilised & it was stopped quickly.

'Organiser identified at scene, arrested, his van & all sound/other equipment seized. 150 plus young people now off back to families to possibly pass virus on.'

Dr Sakthi Karunanithi, director of public health at Lancashire County Council, tweeted: 'Unacceptable behaviour by organiser. 1000s of young people & households are sacrificing their freedom whilst a small minority behave irresponsibly. Please please avoid social mixing.

'Serious consequences to our health and economy if this leads to more cases.'

Participants can continue to be issued with fines of 100, while those who have already been fined will see the amount double on each offence, up to a maximum of 3,200.

Metropolitan Police received information on more than 200 events across London in a single weekend, responding to more than 1,000 illegal events in the capital since the end of June.

Police in Huddersfield broke up an illegal rave involving some 300 people.

West Yorkshire Police tweeted they were called to the gathering in Deighton, where missiles were thrown at officers.

There were similar scenes in Campbell Park, Milton Keynes, last night, where crowds gathered.

Police said the music was 'quickly turned off' and the crowd was dispersed, a move 'met by applause from local residents'.

Yesterday's activity comes after similar gatherings on Friday night.

Police reinforcements from Wales assisted officers in Manchester on Friday night with enforcing Covid-19 rules.

North Wales police helped in Moss Side, Longsight and Hulme, dispersing large groups and issuing Fixed Penalty Notices for breaches.

Crowds were seen gathering around a DJ booth, with marquees also set up at a gathering in Campbell Park, Milton Keynes, last night

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said new fines were to be introduced for those hosting raves when he announced a further easing of England's lockdown last week.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said: 'These gatherings are dangerous and those who organise them show a blatant disregard for the safety of others.

'I am pleased the police have already stepped up their response and I am giving them the tools they need to continue to keep us safe.

'We will continue to crack down on the small minority who think they are above the law.'

Fines for not wearing face coverings where it is mandated are also set to double for repeat offenders from Friday, starting at 100 and doubling to a maximum of 3,200 for each repeat offence.

Police were called to more than 70 illegal gatherings around Birmingham and the West Midlands on Saturday night

The National Police Chiefs' Council has warned that forces in England and Wales will continue to increase patrols heading into the bank holiday weekend.

Areas of concern, such as Leicester and Greater Manchester, have seen deployments larger than on New Year's Eve, it said.

Commander Ade Adelekan, lead for unlicensed music events, said: 'These events are hosted without regard for the safety of those attending, and police have observed cases of anti-social behaviour, sales of drugs and gang activity.

'To the organisers of this sort of activity, I strongly advise that you seriously consider the risks you're creating for everyone in attendance and the wider community.

'There is a risk of prosecution for those who organise these events and equipment will be seized.'

'Covid? I need to get off my nut': With nightclubs closed, police are battling to stop illegal raves blamed for spreading the virus... including 140 revellers cramming onto a canal boat in East London for brazen drugs party
KAMIAH - On Saturday, August 22, the United States Forest Service (USFS) provided an update on fires that are being reported or already burning in the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests. Three confirmed fires were reported by the Grangeville Interagency Dispatch Center on Saturday, August 22. Firefighters on the forest continue to quickly respond to new incidents while completing suppression efforts on scattered fires remaining from lightning storms earlier in the week.

Near Elk City, the Shissler fire is estimated to be nearly 2000 acres, and is 0% contained. Recent fire growth was primarily to the Northeast into Meadow Creek and moving away from structures along Hot Springs Road. No evacuations have occurred due to the Shissler Fire. Several roads, trails, and campgrounds in the area are closed to provide for public safety:

 505 Trail  From Magruder Road to the intersection with the 668 Trail

 541 Trail  From Forest Service Road 234 to Green Mountain

 Bridge Creek Campground

 Butter Creek  Undeveloped Campground

 FSR 1170

 FSR 1166

The Marion fire, located six miles southeast of Powell on the Lochsa-Powell Ranger District, is roughly 30 acres in size. The Type 3 Team and available resources are clearing debris around bridges and assessing the fire area for opportunities to minimize impacts to values at risk. Walton Lakes Trail #79 has been closed for public safety due to this fire.

The Double fire on the Moose Creek Ranger District, located approximately 10 miles north of the historic Moose Creek Ranger Station, is approximately 30 acres. Trail 619 (Bailey Mountain Trail) from the junction with Trail 421 to the junction with Trail 618 has been closed for public safety. In addition, Trail 618 from North Fork Moose Creek and east to Maple Lake Peak is also closed for public safety.

The National Weather Service reports that a dry cold front will pass through central Idaho Saturday, resulting in cooler temperatures and not as dry as Friday. High pressure will rebound on Sunday, causing warmer and drier conditions. Moisture will begin to move into Idaho on Monday with showers and thunderstorms possible both Monday and Tuesday.
They have been married for 24 years.

And Gordon Ramsay posted a sweet tribute to his wife Tana as she celebrated her 46th birthday on Sunday.

The celebrity chef, 53, shared a snap of the happy couple on Instagram as he marked her special day.

Loved-up: Gordon Ramsay posted a sweet tribute to his wife Tana as she celebrated her 46th birthday on Sunday

The Hell's Kitchen star, who has five children with Tana, was wearing a Breton-style striped t-shirt in the snap.

Meanwhile Tana looked radiant in orange as they posed for the cute couple snap.

Gordon captioned the post: 'Happy birthday gorgeous @tanaramsay lots of love xxxx.'

Celebrations: The celebrity chef, 53, shared a snap of the happy couple on Instagram as he marked her special day

Gordon recently angered Cornwall locals after relocating his family to their second home during the outbreak as the Government urged Britons not to travel from hotspots to the countryside.

The TV personality moved into a beachside 4.4 million mansion in the village of Rock in Cornwall as he decided to escape from London at the start of the pandemic.

The star was spotted a number of times taking long excursions when outings were still limited to an hour a day including a beachside stroll with his entire family.

Dating dad: Although he wasn't in the family shot, Tana made sure to tag her husband in the Instagram post

The Hell's Kitchen star also landed in hot water with the local coastguard, who are said to have issued an official warning to him over his apparent flouting of lockdown guidelines.

Sources indicated that Gordon was seen in Rock, Fowey, Port Isaac and Newquay  some distance from his 4 million home in Trebetherick.

The warning was particularly troubling because Ramsay was the face of a 'Stayhome' initiative on YouTube which he has been plugging on his ten-minute cookery shows, filmed in 'isolation' in his Cornwall kitchen.

Moreover, the TV personality hit yet another stumbling block when he was forced deny 'almost causing an accident' after a resident accused him of jumping a red light while on a 26.2-mile bike ride.

Whilst the UK was in heavy lockdown to slow the spread of COVID-19, the government advice was to 'stay local and use open spaces near to your home where possible.'
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 23:45:35|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh attend an event commemorating the 20th anniversary of the demarcation of the land boundary and the 10th anniversary of the erection of boundary markers in Dongxing, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Aug. 23, 2020. (Xinhua/Huang Xiaobang)

NANNING, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- China and Vietnam on Sunday vowed to make their border areas peaceful and friendly for cooperation and common development.

The pledge came as Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, together with Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh, attended events commemorating the 20th anniversary of the demarcation of the land boundary and the 10th anniversary of the erection of boundary markers.

Wang said since the normalization of bilateral ties, China and Vietnam have been committed to settling land boundary issues via dialogue and consultation, hailing the border areas as an important bond and bridge of cooperation for promoting the two countries' common development.

Wang called on the two sides to make the China-Vietnam boundary better serve the two countries' development and people's well-being, shore up border governance system and capacity, promote regional cooperation via the border areas, and draw on the successful practice in solving land boundary issues to seek an early settlement of maritime disputes.

"China is ready to work closely with Vietnam to make the land boundary a peaceful and friendly one for cooperation, common development and prosperity," Wang added.

During their talks, Wang said China and Vietnam were first among world countries to have successfully contained COVID-19 and restored economic and social development, demonstrating their institutional advantages and cooperation achievements.

China-Vietnam relations will become more robust after weathering the test of the pandemic, he said.

For his part, Pham Binh Minh said the Vietnamese side is committed to upholding the Vietnam-China comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, and expressed the willingness to further advance bilateral ties.

The two foreign ministers examined the boundary stones between China and Vietnam and traced in red ink over characters printed on their respective first boundary stones.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 02:45:39|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- In a message published on the International Day Commemorating the Victims of Violence Based on Religious Belief, which falls on Aug. 22, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Saturday called on the international community to make efforts to put an end to hate and discrimination.

While warning of a rise in racism since the spread of COVID-19 across the world, the UN chief noted that the pandemic has been accompanied by "a surge in stigma and racist discourse vilifying communities, spreading vile stereotypes and assigning blame."

The secretary-general listed some of the disturbing examples of discrimination against religious minorities, such as attacks on people and religious sites, and hate crimes and atrocity crimes targeting populations because of their religion or belief.

In order to counter this discrimination, Guterres called for more action to address the root causes of intolerance and discrimination by promoting inclusion and respect for diversity, as well as for the perpetrators of crimes of this nature to be held accountable.

"The right to freedom of religion or belief is firmly entrenched in international human rights law," said the secretary-general, "and is a cornerstone for inclusive, prosperous and peaceful societies."

This international day was created by a UN resolution adopted in May 2019, in response to a rise of intolerance and violence based on religion or belief against individuals, which are often of a criminal nature. Launching his Strategy on Hate Speech in June 2019, Guterres said that "a groundswell of xenophobia, racism and intolerance, violent misogyny, anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim hatred" are being seen around the world, and noted that, in some places, Christian communities were also being systematically attacked. Enditem
By PTI

NEW DELHI: There has been no increase in the number of complaints of crimes against children during the coronavirus-induced lockdown in the country, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights chairperson Priyank Kanoongo said.

In fact, the NCPCR, the country's apex child rights' body, reported to authorities some reports claiming otherwise, he said.

Speaking to PTI, Kanoongo also said the NCPCR took various steps to address the challenges faced by children due to the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent lockdown.

Asked if the number of complaints related to crimes against children saw a rise during the lockdown, which began on March 25, he said "no".

"In fact, we reported to authorities a few reports that claimed that there has been a rise during this period," he added.

On concerns that there maybe a rise in the dropout rate for schoolchildren due to the pandemic, Kanoongo said having such apprehension even before the schools reopen is "not correct".

"It will be unfair to challenge the wisdom of children. Children fulfil their national duty by going to school and studying. Children, even in difficult circumstances, are attending schools, so we should not have a negative approach towards them," he said.

Kanoongo said the NCPCR asked states to ensure shelters for children when labour migration began in the country in March, and also took up complaints regarding online education with them.

"The children were supplied with ration and milk and we ensured that rights of the children are not affected in any way," he said.

"Secondly, we received several complaints related to online education. We also took up this matter with all state governments. How issues related to fees must be addressed, we also took that up with the state governments," he said.

On the issue of child trafficking during the lockdown, Kanoongo said the commission is moving from a child-centric approach to a family-centric approach.

"Till now, the NCPCR had a child-centric approach to deal with cases of trafficking. But now, from a child-centric approach, we are moving towards a family-centric approach. We spoke to all state commissions on this matter," he said.

"One point is very clear, the main reason for trafficking is poverty so it is essential to undertake preventive measures at the source from where a child is trafficked. Vulnerable children and their families can be mapped and they can then be linked to different social schemes for which we have prepared a strategy and shared it with states," he said.

The NCPCR chief said the child rights' body revamped procedures to address the issues faced by street children due to the pandemic.

"The worst sufferer of poverty is a child so we need a plan to rehabilitate these children. We need to remember that a family is a unit and the first protection mechanism a child gets is from his family. So we must ensure that in the best interest of the child the whole family is rehabilitated."

"We must strengthen the family to ensure the safety and security of children. We need a family-centric approach," he said.
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 08/23/2020



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[ Spoilers Warning: This report features spoilers that reveal if Paul and Karine are still together and the latest about : Happily Ever After? couple's status.]

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Did Karine dump Paul or did she try to work things out with her husband?

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So did Paul and Karine's relationship really end or is the couple still together?

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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

star Paul Staehle accused wife Karine Martins of having severe mood swings on Season 5 of : Happily Ever After?, so did Karine give up on Paul and America or is the couple still together now -- and what's the latest on their relationship?Paul, a 35-year-old from Louisville, KY, and Karine, a 23-year-old from Tonantins, Brazil, met on a dating app and communicated for over a year before Paul traveled to Brazil to get to know Karine better.The couple starred on Seasons 1 and 2 of : Before the 90 Days as well as Season 1 of : The Other Way.Paul and Karine tied the knot in 2017, and then Karine got pregnant in 2018 after suffering through several miscarriages. The couple announced their big news in October 2018 and revealed they had a baby boy on the way that same month.But shortly before baby Pierre was born on March 22, 2019, Karine threatened to file for divorce from Paul because she was tired of fighting with him, and she believed Paul had some major trust and jealousy issues.Karine didn't feel supported or taken care of, but Paul insisted he was doing everything for his wife. He never thought his efforts were good enough for his wife, but Karine apparently just wanted Paul to land a steady job.: The Other Way's first season featured Karine and her mother leaving Paul behind in Tonantins and traveling to Manaus via boat to file for divorce shortly before Pierre was born.However, Karine decided to give Paul another chance because she loved him and thought he'd be a good father to her son. Paul also really stepped it up in the delivery room.Paul and Karine had been married for two years by the time Season 5 of : Happily Ever After? filmed. The couple had been in Brazil for over a year but Paul said they were "barely getting by."Paul and Karine therefore planned to move to the United States so Paul could get a job and make more money. He also wanted to give Pierre a better life."It took a lot, but I was able to sponsor Karine on a CR-1 visa, which is a spousal visa and allows Karine to apply and get a two-year Green Card before she even enters America," Paul told the cameras."She already has her Green Card approved; she is a complete permanent resident."Karine, however, wasn't happy about leaving Brazil and being so far away from her family.Once Karine arrived in America, she was immediately disappointed when she discovered Paul's car in Louisville, KY, was a mess and his mother had no intention of helping them out. Paul had also spent most of their savings.A big U.S. grocery store didn't impress Karine, and she was disgusted with potential living options when she and Paul toured a trailer park together."If Paul doesn't find a beautiful house, Pierre and I will come back to Brazil without him," Karine said in a confessional.Since Karine refused to live in a trailer, Paul found a tiny home for them to live in that was situated on the same lot as the trailer park. The one-bedroom "studio," which appeared to be a renovated shed, had a little front porch and Paul cleaned it for his wife."It's good. I like it here," Karine said, adding that all she wanted was a house with walls, a bathroom and enough space for her family."Paul is really trying to make me happy. This house is the first step for me to feel comfortable here in the U.S. And right now, it makes me happy."Paul felt "so relieved" Karine liked the place, but they could only live there temporarily.And Karine's happiness didn't last long, especially since Paul had trouble landing a job due to his criminal record and having been charged with an arson felony.Paul told his mother Mary that Karine was homesick and often complained about her body."I wouldn't want to be with somebody who is kind of like a deadbeat," Mary admitted to her son.After one month of being in America, Karine called the adjustment very difficult, but Paul begged her to be patient with him and give it some time.Karine told Paul to go look for a job, and he insisted he had been networking and connecting with people. Paul said Karine didn't give him enough credit for everything he did for his family because he took care of their food "and everything."Paul promised Karine everything was going to be alright, but she replied, "I'll give you two months to find a job. Otherwise, I'll pick up Pierre and we'll leave for Brazil."Paul told Karine that he loved her and wanted to stay together as a family and so he would do his "very best." Paul said Karine's threat broke his heart and shattered it on the floor, adding he would be devastated if Karine and his son moved back to Brazil without him."Failure is not an option for me -- whatsoever," Paul noted to the cameras.Not long after Karine made her threat, Paul said his wife was having "a lot of mood swings lately" and tended to lock herself into a room for like five or six hours at a time.Paul said Karine was happy one minute and angry the next, and she clearly didn't want to talk to him."It's heartbreaking. I don't want my wife to feel like this... I just want to find out what I can do to make things better," Paul explained, before begging his wife to talk to him. "I am emotionally exhausted. It's one thing after the next, and it's really difficult."Paul acknowledged this was "the worst" he had ever seen Karine and he worried she'd just hop on a plane back to Brazil without him.Karine and Paul appeared to be a happy family last summer, but in early September 2019, Paul made an Instagram Stories posting claiming Karine was threatening him with divorce."Doing a poll strictly out of curiosity. For someone I know very well...... Should a wife divorce her husband over his mother buying gifts daily spoiling their son?" he wrote in the Instagram Story."Should a grandmother be banned from seeing her grandchildren over spoiling them. And a husband be divorced for defending his mother's actions?"Although Paul seemingly tried to play it off like the scenario was happening to some other couple, most of his Instagram followers knew better as the couple's social-media postings openly showed they were living near Paul's mother in the Louisville at the time with Pierre.As a result, it appeared Karine was angry with Paul's mother for "spoiling" her son as well as Paul for taking his mom's side.Things seemed to go back to normal until late September, when Paul suggested, once again, the couple's marriage was ending and Karine had initiated a divorce.According to the comments, Karine told Paul that she didn't want him in her life anymore and had retained a divorce lawyer.Paul revealed the news in a pair of since-deleted Facebook postings from September 27, according to screenshots captured by his followers."Karine asked me to remove our photos. And let everyone know that she doesn't want me in her life," he wrote in his first Facebook posting.Paul then also wrote a subsequent posting in a mix of Portuguese and English. When translated, the text states, "Karine's divorce lawyer called me. Guess I need a lawyer."Shortly afterward, Paul deleted both postings and removed most photos of Karine from his page.In October 2019, the cloud seemed to pass because Paul asked fans on Instagram for great haunted-house recommendations in the spirit of Halloween. He also posted a photo of them smiling at the time.Paul and Karine then celebrated their second wedding anniversary in early November 2019.But later that month, the pair openly discussed filing for divorce, once again.Paul claimed Karine had "started divorce proceedings in Manaus," and Karine told Us Weekly on November 12 that she was "looking for a lawyer.""Over the course of our Christmas dinner Paul and Karine broke up, got back together, broke up, got back together, broke up and this just in -- are back together. Stay tuned for more on this developing story," Instagrammer John Yates posted on December 25.In December 2019, Paul alleged Karine had taken off with their baby and was with a new man named Blake. He also said Karine was demanding a divorce again at the time.In July, Paul lashed out at Karine on Instagram for allegedly calling Paul a "horrible father and husband" and threatening to move their son Pierre back to Brazil.Paul took to Instagram on July 15 with the angry message to Karine and quickly deleted it afterward, but Yates captured a screenshot of the rant and posted it on his own account.Paul blasted Karine in saying, "Yelling at me in public calling me horrible father and husband. We spend every penny we have on bills and designer [clothes] and video games for you. I did not buy anything for myself.""I made sure you and Pierre had everything you all could possibly want and I bought nothing for myself. I try to show my family USA History and I get shunned. Because only your country and culture matter," Paul continued."I take you to the hospital and stay by your side, make sure [you're] at all your doctors appointments and let you spend all your money only on what you want -- but I am a Bad Father and Husband you yell in public."Paul also insisted he's the one who changes "every poopy diaper" Pierre has."Even when I am not home and you call me to come home just to change his diaper because the smell of poop makes you sick. But I am the terrible husband and father. I also never ever cheated on you," Paul wrote."But I understand you want to take Pierre to Tonantins and live because I am such a horrible person," he concluded.The pair appeared to briefly reconcile for about two weeks, but then things changed and exploded in the most dramatic of ways.On July 30, Paul posted a lengthy Instagram Live video in which he and Karine had a huge fight . They both made assault allegations against each other and Karine called the police.Paul said he wanted to file for full custody of their son Pierre after Karine allegedly cheated on Paul and violated a Child Protective Services case against her.During the Instagram Live video, an apparent friend of Karine's also told the police Karine wanted to be taken to a "shelter" where someone could "help her."The woman said Karine depended on Paul -- who seemed to be holding Karine's passport and other documents -- for everything, including money, and so Karine basically didn't have a way out.Later that night, at around 4AM on Friday, Paul posted another video on his Instagram Stories and seemed to claim the police were called again."I apologize to you guys for earlier. It's been crazy here. I did not get arrested. The cops did come back," Paul said."We had a storm and Karine got on her cell phone and called the police because the WIFI disconnected. She said I was halting her communications... which didn't make any sense to me because she had her phone the whole time and the WIFI just randomly went out.""Sometimes Internet goes out in our houses -- it happens right?! But you're going to call the cops? For that? The cops weren't too happy about it."Paul added it's "been stressful" for the couple and they "need prayers.""That's the big thing," Paul noted. "Everybody, pray for us. And like I said... I don't want Pierre in dangerous situations. Pierre has been in a very dangerous situation before and that's why things happened."Paul subsequently made additional Instagram postings, reportedly, in which he claimed Karine had gone "missing" with Pierre while he was in the hospital being treated for a STD. He seemed to blame the STD allegation on Karine for allegedly cheating on him after she arrived in Kentucky."I've never cheated on Karine, ever, but apparently I've tested positive for an STD and they are giving me treatment for me," Paul said in one video.A couple of hours later, Paul then reportedly claimed Karine had filed a "full restraining order" against him and posted photos showing a copy of the order Karine had filed against him."I'm not allowed to be around her or my son, within 500 feet of them at all," he said.Karine, who is expecting her second child with Paul, confirmed in early August that she had left Paul and obtained an emergency protective order against him.Karine said she wasn't "missing" but needed to be "rescued from an environment" that was no longer healthy for her and her child, adding on Instagram, "Relationships are hard and sometimes it just can't be fixed anymore."Karine's protective order included an array of shocking claims -- including that Paul had physically assaulted her, sexually assaulted her, and prevented her doctor from prescribing contraception to her.In the emergency protection order application Paul had shared on social media, Karine claimed Paul "forcefully rapes me," "hold[s] my Green Card and all my documents," monitors her phone, uses cameras to monitor her on his phone when he is not home, has forced her to drink beer while pregnant, and has forbidden Karine's doctor from prescribing birth control to her."On multiples occasions in the past 3 weeks the respondent pushed me, grab my breast squ[ee]zing and twisting, hurting me, pushing me to the floor, covering my mouth. He force his penis into my mouth and forcefully rapes me. If I refuse he throws things, he yells, or he threat[ens] to call police," Karine wrote in the handwritten two-page application."He currently hold[s] my Green Card and all my documents. I am not allowed to leave the house, he monitor[s] my phone, he [has] cameras around the house and he can see through his phone who arrives and who leaves. He threat[ens] take out son Pierre away if I ever leave. He forced me to drink alcohol by threat[ing] me so I drunk some so he calm down."Karine continued, with the help of a language translator, "He is constantly on social media making videos of me against my will saying I am crazy, saying I have mental illness. Recently he called [Child Protective Services] and told [them] I was always drunk, aggressive, and abusive to him.""He post on social media [that] I have [cheated with] several [men] even knowing that he [has] cameras around the house and I can't leave. I have no access to money for my son or myself.""I went to the doctor to try [and] get contraceptive," she wrote. "In the doctor's office he said 'no' because I would be doing an abortion. The doctor explained the contraceptive was only for preventing [pregnancy] and I would not get pregnant [but] Paul said 'no' and took me home."According to her application, Paul also refused to let her return home to Brazil but she feared she still wouldn't even be safe in her native country."I came to U.S. to visit my in-laws and now he [does] not let me go back. We got married in Brazil, not in U.S.," she wrote. "When I ask to go back to me family he threat[ens] [to] take my son away.""I am terrified he will hurt me or hurt my son because I runned away from him and I am even afraid to go back to Brazil now because He Can go to Brazil and hurt us."Karine ended her application by stating she was also afraid of Paul's mother Mary and wanted no contact with any of his family or friends."I have my family in Brazil but I don't feel that law enforcement will protect me from him there," she wrote. "I am afraid of him and his mother because his mother knows and sees what he does and she refused [to] report her son. I have witnessed him threat[en] and being violent with his own mother.""I do not want any contact with or his mother, his friends or family. I do not want them close, I am afraid of them hurt[ing] my son for revenge."Paul, however, denied Karine's allegations in the protective order on August 10."It truley [sic] breaks my heart it has come to this. I have bent over backwards. I found work. Got a new home. A new car. Let her buy anything she wanted. I did the cooking, cleaning, laundry and took care of Pierre," Paul wrote in his Instagram Stories."I have never in my life physically or sexually assaulted anyone."Paul has claimed for quite some time that Karine has mental health issues, and so he addressed his beliefs in the message to his followers."I have made motions to the court for Karine to get mental help. I have had to double up on my therapy to cope with this madness," Paul wrote."Her motion against me with false allegations is for a 3 year restraining order against me and both my children. Alimony and child support. But I can not see her or my children at all."One day later, Paul vented about how social media has basically ruined his life."I will be deactivating all my social media accounts soon. My social media addiction has caused me nothing but pain. It is time people put their phones and social media down and focus on your loved ones," Paul wrote."Do not allow social media to destroy your relationships and family. I never knew my heart could feel such pain. I always took for granted my son would be around me every day... I never want to date or remarry [or] to ever feel this pain again. To not be a part of your childrens life born and unborn is beyond painful."Paul continued in his Instagram Stories posting, "I regret oversharing private matters on social media and to other people. I regret taking for granted my family would be together for ever and live happily ever after," Paul lamented.Paul advised other men to treat their wives and children well and to "listen, forgive" and "not hold grudges" in relationships."But most of all, keep your marital problems private," Paul concluded."This is a pain no one should have to endure. Not knowing if my children [are] ok. If and when I might see them again. I forgive all those in my life who have ever made false accusations against me."Paul subsequently made surprising claims about his estranged wife in his own protective order he had filed against Karine on July 30."I previously found glass in my food," Paul alleged in court documents obtained by Us. "I found similar glass shards from an item she broke."Paul also alleged that Karine's friends were calling him with death threats."[They are] threatening to come to my home and kill me. They requested I pay them $10,000 or I would never see my son again," Paul reportedly claimed, adding that Karine allowed Pierre to "run in the street [and] get into the chemical cabinets.""I fear for my wife's safety and mental well-being. I fear for my son's safety," Paul concluded.A judge therefore reportedly ordered Karine to stop all communication with Paul and stay 500 feet away from him at all times.As of August 21, the bio in Paul's Instagram account reads, "God please grant me a miracle," but the sentence is written in Portuguese.The latest events represent a dramatic change from the couple's status only about a month or two earlier.In late June, Karine had posted a photo of Paul playing with Pierre and captioned it, "Happy Father's Day." She also added a blue heart to her post.And Paul posted an Instagram video on May 19 of a bike he had purchased and was putting together for Karine.Earlier in May, Paul had also taken to Instagram to happily announce Karine's pregnancy with Baby No. 2.It appeared Karine was already several months along into her pregnancy at the time.The baby's gender and due date have yet to be announced.Want more spoilers or couples updates? Click here to visit our homepage!
DENVER - A year after Elijah McClain was stopped by police in suburban Denver on his way home from the store, people gathered on a football field on Sunday night to dance and sing and to also call for justice for him and his family.

The event was intended as a way to celebrate the life of the 23-year-old massage therapist who died several days after being put in a neck hold by police and injected with the sedative ketamine. The fatal encounter happened a year ago Monday after a man called police to report that McClain seemed sketchy because he was waiving his hands and wearing a mask  something his family said he wore it because he had a blood condition that caused him to get cold easily.

The three officers who confronted McClain in Aurora, Colorado, have not faced any discipline for their actions in the encounter. A district attorney said last year he could not pursue criminal charges because an autopsy did not determine how McClain died, but state Attorney General Phil Weiser is looking at whether criminal charges are warranted in the case. Gov. Jared Polis ordered him to look at the case in June after outrage over McClains death grew amid protests over racial injustice following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Like many other people, MiDian Holmes, 39, of Denver only learned of what had happened to McClain a few miles from her home after his death got new attention following Floyds death. Holmes, a mother of a daughter and two sons, heard Elijah McClains mother, Sheneen McClain, ask protesters in May why they did not show up for her son.

She lost a joy. She has lost a treasure and she has not had time to heal because she hasnt had justice, she said.

Holmes said the festival-like atmosphere of the anniversary event gave people a chance to talk to each other without fear of being interrupted by police or tear gas, opening the door to possible innovation and motivation.

A contingent of activists from Louisville, Kentucky, who joined a rally at the Colorado Capitol on Saturday, were recognized during the event. Colorado activists had earlier travelled there to protest the death of Breonna Taylor.

The music ranged from Michael Jackson to the Cupid Shuffle, which the DJ encouraged everyone to join, to We Shall Overcome and the Black national anthem Lift Every Voice and Sing.

The anthem was an instrumental version but H. Malcolm Newton, a former opera singer, sang along. Let us march on til victory is won, he sang as he tapped his brown leather shoe on the ground and his fingers on the railing he was leaning on.

A trio of violinists also played in tribute to McClain, a violinist who liked to play for cats at the animal shelter to comfort them. They made sure to play Pachelbels Canon, which violinists were performing at a violin vigil for McClain earlier this summer when it was interrupted by police deploying pepper spray and foam rounds. Police said they were trying to stop agitators. Cynthia Katsarelis said they wanted finish what those violinists had started.

Just like we will finish the work we need to do, she told the crowd.

When police approached McClain last year, body-camera video shows an officer getting out of his car and saying, Stop right there. Stop. Stop. ... I have a right to stop you because youre being suspicious.

In the video, the officer turns around McClain and repeats, Stop tensing up and says, Relax, or Im going to have to change this situation.

Other officers join to restrain McClain, who tells them that he had stopped his music to listen to them and asks them to let him go.

The officers move McClain over the grass in front of an apartment building but what happens next is not clear from the video. Police have said one of the officers applied the neck hold.

All three of the officers body cameras eventually came off during the struggle but continued to record audio. An officer says McClain grabbed one of their guns. McClain can be heard trying to explain himself and sometimes crying out.

Im just different. Im just different, thats all. Thats all I was doing. Im so sorry. I have no gun. I dont do that stuff, he said, as the officers talk among themselves.

One officer eventually retrieves his camera, which shows McClain handcuffed and laying on his side as another officer leans on him. The leaning officer says, Move your camera dude but the camera doesnt move and continues to show the scene.

McClain suffered two heart attacks on the way to a hospital and was taken off life support six days later.

The increased spotlight on the case recently has made it more difficult for McClains family to grieve his loss.

McClains mother, Sheneen McClain, initially had planned on Sunday to take the same route her son was taking to walk his spirit home but later cancelled the event, saying in a Facebook post that the event had gotten out of hand. She endorsed the event at the football field at a Denver recreation centre but did not speak, sticking with a vow not to talk publicly until the police officers who stopped her son are charged.

She was also upset that McClains pleading words to police have been invoked by those protesting his death. They have shown up on signs and at protests and were read in an Instagram video by Janelle Monae, Meagan Good, Jonathan Van Ness and others calling on Colorado officials to pursue charges against the officers.

ITS NOT OKAY TO REPEAT MY SONS DYING WORDS BECAUSE THATS ALL YOU CAN THINK TO DO. THINK HARDER!!!! THAT HURTS ME, Sheneen McClain wrote.

Mari Newman, the McClain familys lawyer, said they welcome support from other people who are sharing the pain and outrage over McClains death but do not want to serve as a kind of masters of ceremony as they grieve.

Its just a very challenging time for them emotionally, she said.
The landmarks Twitter account confirmed only pedestrians and cyclists could use it on Sunday morning.

City of London Police urged motorists to find alternative routes.

Tower Bridge remains open to pedestrians only at present.  Tower Bridge (@TowerBridge) August 23, 2020

Traffic in central London was left gridlocked after the famous bridge failed to close after allowing a ship to pass along the River Thames on Saturday afternoon.

Queues of motorists and pedestrians were left waiting for at least an hour from both directions.

A witness said: According to the security radios we overheard there are multiple failures.

City of London Police said engineers rushed to fix the bridge as drivers were urged to avoid the area.

Its Twitter account said: Tower Bridge is currently closed to pedestrians and traffic, due to a mechanical fault.

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One social media user said: Ive been stuck here for nearly an hour now #TowerBridge.

#TowerBridge remains closed to traffic, the bridge is open to pedestrians and cyclists. Thank you for your patience. @Squarehighways @TfLTrafficNews @TowerBridge  City of London Police (@CityPolice) August 23, 2020

Another commented: Yep, tower bridge definitely stuck! One side started to come down but the other didnt! #towerbridge #londontraffic.

The bridge connects the Square Mile financial district to Southwark.

In 2005, police closed the bridge for 10 hours after a technical problem meant the arms could not be lowered.

A spokesman for the bridge, which is owned and managed by the City of London Corporation, has been approached to comment.
I am a President Trump supporter and I do wish at times he had more dignity, but when youve been blamed for everything that people do from the day you were elected, it gets old and truly hard to not react in the same manner as your accusers. He is not a dictator taking control of our country. He sees better in our state governments and humanity, advising us of the CDC guidelines on the coronavirus, but it is up to us to use our common sense as to how to apply them. Maybe President Trumps biggest fault is his belief in the good, caring and independent thinking of people.
British Finance Minister Rishi Sunak plans to drop a tax on technology companies such as Facebook and Google because it does not raise much money and could hurt a push for a US trade deal, The Mail on Sunday reported. Britain introduced the digital services tax in April after slow progress in global negotiations over how to tax tech giants, many of which are US companies. The tax is expected to raise about 500 million ($654 million) a year for Britain's public finances. That represents only a fraction of the 200 billion in extra debt the country ...
The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) has recovered the body of a 3-year-old girl who fell into a well at Baruwa, Ipaja area of the state.

The girl, identified as Seyi Jebose, fell into the well in the compound where her family resides at No 1, Gemini Bus-stop, Baruwa, Ipaja.

According to the statement by LASEMA, the incident happened around 7 p.m. on Saturday when the agency was told a girl fell into a well.

The little girl reportedly fell through the rusty cover of the well, while playing in the compound and her body was recovered hours later.

With the combined efforts of LASEMA, Lagos State Fire Service and NPF Alagolo Division, the girl was brought out of the well and rushed to Solad Hospital, Maria Street, Baruwa Ipaja, where she was confirmed dead on arrival, the agency said.

Nosa Okunbor, the spokesperson, said after the confirmation of the girls death, her remains were handed over to her family members and officers of the Nigerian Police Force from Alagolo Police Station, led by Inspector Abumere.

The fallen child operation conducted by LASEMA with the combined efforts of its collaborators from the Lagos State Fire Service and NPF Alagolo Division, enabled recovery of the girl from the well, he said.
The Deputy General Secretary of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Obiri Boahen says the seat of the Presidency will be lowered if President Akufo-Addo debates former President John Mahama.



The flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has challenged President Akufo-Addo to a debate on infrastructure.



The former president believes such a move will put to rest the argument about records of the two leading parties.



The NPP is however against the debate.



Below Standards



Nana Obiri is of the view that for a sitting President to debate a former President who is staging a comeback is odd, disingenuous and below standards.



" . . you don't have to lower the standard, you don't lower it, don't lower the bar, don't lower the position of the presidency . . . " he said.





"if it is a contest between NPP as a party and NDC as a party fine . . . when you have a former President who was kicked out of office not by a coup d'etat but by the good people of Ghana and then he wants to stage a comeback, for me, it's quite odd . . . quit disingenuous," Nana Obiri Boahen said in an interview on Kumasi based Hello FM.



Other options for Mahama



Nana Obiri Boahen has meanwhile asked President Mahama to send the invitation to other candidates like Kofi Akpaloo, Akua Donkor and Osofo Kyiriabosom since that will be understandable.



"He can go and debate Kofi Akpaloo, Kyiriabosom, Akua Donkor . . . I will not welcome that decision . . ." he emphasized, adding that Ghana deserves better.



"As a former President, by now you should be writing you own books," he added.



Listen to him in the video below





Source: Peacefmonline.com









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To secure its hold on power, the Communist Party is tightening its control over all faiths in China. Here's everything you need to know:

When did the crackdown begin?

Religious repression has intensified across China since President Xi Jinping took office in 2013. The brutal crackdown on minority Muslims in the northwestern region of Xinjiang  where mosques and madrasas are being demolished and more than 1 million Uighurs have been detained in re-education camps  has sparked international outrage. But the Communist Party's assault on faith is not limited to Islam. Authorities have used the world's distraction over the coronavirus pandemic to accelerate an ongoing campaign against Christianity. Officially atheist, the party sees adherence to any faith, particularly those with foreign origins such as Christianity and Islam, as a threat to its dominance. So Xi has embarked on the "sinicization" of religious practice, ordering Muslim, Buddhist, and Christian leaders to integrate Chinese communist thought into their belief systems. The party wants people "to love the motherland and their faith," says You Quan, head of the body that oversees ethnic and religious affairs in China. Sinicization has resulted in thousands of churches and mosques being shuttered and razed; those that remain fly Chinese flags.

How is Christianity practiced in China?

For decades, Chinese Catholics and Protestants have been divided between those who attend state-sanctioned churches  in which clerics are appointed by Beijing  and those who attend so-called underground churches. About half of China's 12 million Catholics worship in the underground churches loyal to the Vatican. To try to heal that schism, Beijing and the Vatican struck a deal in 2018 that gave Chinese authorities the right to recommend new bishops and the pope the power to approve or veto them. Beijing has exploited that agreement by refusing to name bishops to half of China's 98 dioceses, while pressuring priests to adhere to party regulations, saying that the Vatican pact means that the pope commands them to do so. Portraits of the Virgin Mary have been replaced by portraits of Xi, and priests have been compelled to incorporate Xi's sayings into their sermons.

Story continues

What about Protestant churches?

Protestantism is China's fastest-growing religion, and so is especially worrisome to Xi. The state-registered church, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, claims some 39 million adherents. But at least another 40 million are thought to worship in underground "home churches"  pushing the share of Chinese who are Protestants to nearly 6 percent, about the same as the membership of the Communist Party. Beijing is determined to control the faith. Online bookstores have been banned from selling Bibles as authorities prepare a new Mandarin translation that some fear will omit whole chapters. Pastors have been ordered to attend government-sponsored training sessions, where they are told that in China the "state leads and church follows." Thousands of underground churches have been closed. At those that remain open, symbols of faith have been purged, with crosses and Bibles burned. Facial recognition cameras have been installed so that authorities can track and harass worshippers, a tactic pioneered against Buddhists in the autonomous Chinese province of Tibet.

What happened in Tibet?

Tibetan Buddhism has been targeted by Beijing for decades because it is a central pillar of Tibetan identity. That repression has ramped up under Xi. Tens of thousands of party members have been deployed to temples and villages under an outreach initiative that doubles as a surveillance program. And since 2016, up to 17,000 Buddhist monks and nuns have been evicted from two key training institutes and sent to indoctrination centers where, the U.S. State Department reports, they were beaten and shocked with electric batons. Chen Quanguo, the Politburo member who oversaw the Tibet crackdown, was sent to Xinjiang in 2016 to use the same playbook against Uighur Muslims. Detainees are forced to say "there is no God, there is only the Communist Party," said Omer Kanat, head of the U.S.-based Uighur Human Rights Project.

Are other religious groups being repressed?

The Hui, a Muslim minority of some 10 million people in central China, are now suffering the same fate as the Uighurs. Their mosques are being sinicized, stripped of domes and minarets, and the call to prayer has been banned. Many Hui fear that concentration camps may come next. The only faith that remains relatively free is Chinese Buddhism, which is seen as indigenous. Still, it, too, is being pressed into party service: In 2018, the Shaolin Monastery  birthplace of kung fu  was forced to fly the Chinese national flag for the first time in its 1,500-year history.

How has the U.S. responded?

The Trump administration has sanctioned dozens of companies and governmental bodies connected to human rights abuses in Xinjiang. And last month, Chen and three other top officials were hit with sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act, freezing their U.S. assets and banning American companies from doing business with them. The U.S. will not stand by, said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, as the Communist Party attempts to eradicate Uighurs' "culture and Muslim faith." But outside pressure is unlikely to alter Chinese policy, says Karrie Koesel, an expert on religion in China. "The state," she says, "sees religion as an existential threat."

Eradicating Falun Gong

The Chinese government has identified "five poisons" that threaten its rule: pro-democracy activists, Taiwanese nationalists, Tibetan dissidents, Uighur separatists, and Falun Gong  a spiritual discipline that mixes traditional qigong with New Age philosophy. Founded in northeast China in 1992 by former trumpet player Li Hongzhi, Falun Gong ("law wheel practice") promises salvation to those who study Master Li's texts and practice a regimen of gentle physical movements. Li attracted some 70 million followers in a matter of years, a level of popularity that worried the Communist Party. It banned Falun Gong in 1999, labeling the movement an "evil cult" and arresting tens of thousands of adherents. Human rights activists say thousands were killed and had their organs harvested for transplant. Falun Gong practitioners who fled to Hong Kong, where they could practice freely, fear a sweeping new security law imposed on the city by Beijing could now be wielded against them. "It is a hanging knife over our heads," said Ingrid Wu, a Falun Gong spokeswoman.

This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, you can try six risk-free issues of the magazine here.

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In this file photo taken on Aug. 11, 2020, the logo of Chinese video app TikTok is seen on the side of the company's new office space at the C3 campus in Culver City, in the westside of Los Angeles, Calif. AFP



Video app TikTok said Saturday it will challenge in court a Trump administration crackdown on the popular Chinese-owned service, which Washington accuses of being a national security threat.



As tensions soar between the world's two biggest economies, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 6 giving Americans 45 days to stop doing business with TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance  effectively setting a deadline for a potential pressured sale of the viral video sensation to a US company.



"Even though we strongly disagree with the Administration's concerns, for nearly a year we have sought to engage in good faith to provide a constructive solution. What we encountered instead was a lack of due process as the Administration paid no attention to facts and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses," TikTok said in a statement.



"To ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and users are treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the Executive Order through the judicial system," it said, adding it expects to file its suit next week.



TikTok's kaleidoscopic feeds of short video clips feature everything from hair-dye tutorials to dance routines and jokes about daily life. It has been downloaded 175 million times in the US and more than a billion times around the world.



Trump claims TikTok could be used by China to track the locations of federal employees, build dossiers on people for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.



The company has said it has never provided any US user data to the Chinese government, and Beijing has blasted Trump's crackdown as political.



The US measures come ahead of November 3 elections in which Trump, who is behind his rival Joe Biden in the polls, is campaigning hard on an increasingly strident anti-Beijing message.



- Trump and China -



Trump has increasingly taken a confrontational stance on China, challenging it on trade, military and economic fronts.



Shortly after Trump announced his moves against TikTok in early August, the United States slapped sanctions on Hong Kong's leader over the Chinese security clampdown after last year's pro-democracy demonstrations.



Microsoft and Oracle are possible suitors for TikTok's US operations.



Reports have said Oracle  whose chairman Larry Ellison has raised millions in campaign funds for Trump  was weighing a bid for TikTok's operations in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.



The Trump administration has also given ByteDance a 90-day deadline to divest in TikTok before the app is banned in the United States.



The measures move away from the long-promoted American ideal of a global, open internet and could invite other countries to follow suit, analysts told AFP previously.



"It's really an attempt to fragment the internet and the global information society along US and Chinese lines, and shut China out of the information economy," Milton Mueller, a Georgia Tech professor and founder of the Internet Governance Project said previously. (AFP)


As part of the state wide program launched by TPCC, AICC spokesperson Dasoju Sravan raised demand for filing criminal cases on Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and Telangana Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar for demolition of Nalla Pochamma temple and masjids at Secretariat.

Dasoju Sravan along with Hyderabad Congress Committee chief Anjan Kumar Yadav, Nampally Congress in-charge Feroz Khan and others met Hyderabad Collector Shweta Mohanty and presented memorandum addressing Governor Tamilisai Soudarajan, demanding filing of criminal case on CM KCR and CS Somesh Kumar . The Congress delegation also stressed on the need for reconstruction of demolished religious structures at the same place.

Telangana Chief Minister KCR has been acting completely irresponsibly and not even respecting the religious sentiments and places of worship. Criminal case should be filed on CM who is directly responsible for the demolition of Nalla Pochamma temple and two masjids. These places of worship, which have religious and historical significance, were demolished as part of Secretariat demolition, without considering the repercussions. As per the Indian Law, Action should be taken on anyone who hurts religious sentiments, disobeys the constitution and CM KCR is no exception to it, said AICC National spokesman Dasoju Sravan, speaking to the media after meeting the Hyderabad Collector.

Dasoju Sravan also demanded for booking criminal cases even on CS Somesh Kumar, for working hand in glove with KCR. Government demolished these religious structures in the middle of night, to keep everyone in dark and now using police to suppress those who are protesting against this draconian act. CS Somesh Kumar as a civil servant, instead of prevailing upon CM, is acting subservient to KCR and perpetuating the misdeeds. Even Somesh Kumar should be slapped with a criminal case, fired Dasoju Sravan, speaking further on the occasion.

Dasoju Sravan expressed displeasure that though Congress activists across Telangana approached police to file cases against KCR for demolitions, police are not even filing FIRs.

According to historians, all the three religious structures demolished by the TRS government have historic significance. Masjid-e-Hashmi located at erstwhile D Block of Secretariat was built by the Nizams in 1889. Masjid Dafaatir-e-Muatamad was built during Congress rule in the past. Coming to Nalla Pochamma temple, this Hindu religious structure shot to fame all over the state, during the Telangana movement. This temple is considered auspicious by Telangana activists.

Dasoju Sravan came down heavily on CM KCR for razing such historic and sacred places of worship. According to Places of Worship Act 1991, all religious structures which existed prior to August 15, 1947 should be continued as it is and it is the responsibility of governments to protect them. Anyone who is directly or indirectly responsible for the demolition of religious structures can be jailed up to three years and levied fine. CM KCR and CS Somesh Kumar should be booked even under IPC Section 124 A, as demolition of temple, mosques and hurting religious sentiments amounts to sedition., explained Dasoju Sravan.

AICC spokesperson Sravan also pointed towards the contradiction between CM KCR and Advocate Generals statements on religious structures. While KCR said that religious structures were damaged partially as part of Secretariat demolition, AG reported to the High Court they were completely erased.

Highlighting the importance of these religious structures, Dasoju Sravan urged Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundarajan to ensure that they are reconstructed in the same place.
A distance is measured as worshippers line up to take communion on Palm Sunday outside of Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Newbury Park, Calif. on April 5, 2020. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)

Los Angeles Tries for Fourth Time to Halt Indoor Services at Megachurch

Authorities in California will attempt for a fourth time during the pandemic to shut down indoor church services at a Los Angeles-area Christian megachurch.

Los Angeles Countys motion, scheduled to be heard in that city on Aug. 24, seeks to prohibit indoor services at the Grace Community Church of the Valley. The church is represented by the Chicago-based Thomas More Society, a public-interest law firm specializing in religious freedom issues.

On March 19, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, ordered almost all establishments, including churches, to be shut down. On June 18, Los Angeles houses of worship were allowed to conduct reduced-capacity indoor operations. Reported cases of the CCP virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, began to increase.

In July, most indoor activities were again banned. Places of worship in California are now restricted to a maximum of 25 percent of building capacity or 100 attendees indoors, whichever is lower, and singing and chanting are forbidden.

Lawyer Paul Jonna, who represents the church, told The Epoch Times in an interview that he was optimistic about his clients chances.

I think that were dealing with health orders that are clearly unconstitutional, Jonna said.

I think the government is going to be unable to justify the restrictions theyre placing on houses of worship, particularly now when at this stage in the pandemic, when things are getting better, and I think that theres been a huge double standard with how they handled the protests and the kind of establishments that are open. We did research: strip clubs are open in Los Angeles right now.

Were dealing with government officials and their arbitrary priorities for millions of Californians and citizens of Los Angeles County. They have a very, very heavy burden and theyre not going to be able to meet it, and were going to aggressively pursue this case all the way up to the appellate court until the Constitution is upheld, because these are unconstitutional orders, and theyre depriving people of their fundamental constitutional right to worship, and were honored to stand beside Pastor MacArthur and help him fight this fight.

Hours after Grace Community Church, which has a large seating capacity, filed suit to invalidate what it claims are unconstitutional pandemic mitigation-related restrictions on churches, Los Angeles County filed an application for a temporary restraining order to prevent the church from conducting indoor services.

The church received a cease-and-desist letter from county lawyers on July 29, warning that violating state and county health orders is a crime punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and imprisonment of up to 90 days.

Each day of indoor services counts as a separate offense, according to the letter, which was described in court documents.

But on Aug. 14, Judge James Chalfant of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County rejected most of the countys requests, finding that the county must demonstrate why it should be allowed to infringe on the constitutionally guaranteed rights of churches to freely exercise religion. For the time being, Chalfant issued a temporary injunction directing the church to have its congregants wear face masks and maintain social distancing during indoor services.

At the hearing, Chalfant found that the county was wrong to treat churches the same as other businesses.  Theyre entitled to heightened protection, not to be treated like a hair salon.

I dont think the county or the governor has adequately considered the First Amendment rights of the church. You cannot treat them like a hair salon.

Jonna hailed Chalfant as the first judge in California to agree that theres constitutional problems with how theyre treating churches.
<! Lagos State Governor, Sanwo-Olu dejected >

By Kazeem Ugbodaga

Lagos has set a new record in Coronavirus infections, reporting 404 new cases on Saturday, with Nigerias total figures also shooting higher.

Of the 601 new cases announced by the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, on Saturday, Lagos figure was far more than half.

This is the highest Coronavirus infections the State has ever recorded since the pandemic hit Nigeria in February.

It also sharply contrasted with the 33 cases the state recorded on Friday.

Lagos new infections are also more than the 340 cases recorded nationwide on Friday.

The FCT Abuja, which is the nearest to Lagos recorded 37 cases.

Oyo got 19; Ondo 14; Abia, Enugu and Kaduna were tied on 13 cases each.

Edo and Kano also recorded 12 cases each.

The 601 new cases were reported from 21 states.

However, the total number of confirmed cases so far stands at 51,905, with 38,767 survivors discharged and 997 deaths recorded.

How States stood on Saturday

Lagos-404

FCT-37

Oyo-19

Ondo-14

Abia-13

Enugu-13

Kaduna-13

Edo-12

Kano-12

Kwara-11

Ebonyi-10

Nasarawa-7

Ogun-6

Osun-5

Delta-5

Niger-5

Plateau-4

Bayelsa-4

Katsina-3

Ekiti-2

Imo-2

51,905 confirmed

38,767 discharged

997 deaths

Related
Donald Trump will speak on all four nights of the Republican National Convention as he prepares to accept his nomination for reelection as the party released Sunday the list of big-name Republicans who will make remarks on his behalf this week.

The list includes the Republican running or Elijah Cumming's congressional seat in Baltimore who is urging black Americans to leave the Democratic Party. The convention will also feature former Democrat Jeff Van Drew who now represents New Jersey's 2nd congressional district as a Republican.

Trump will kick off the week by holding a press conference at the White House Sunday evening and then head to Asheville, North Carolina on Monday, which is about a two hour drive from the initial location of the convention in Charlotte.

The unconventional convention is expected to feature remarks from the president each night as it pushes the limits of the presidency as Trump will give his acceptance speech from the White House and several other events will be held on federal property.

Traditionally, the party's presidential nominee only speaks one night  and usually on the last night.

Donald Trump is expected to speak all four night of the Republican National Convention this week in a break from tradition where the nominee only speaks one night to accept the nomination

The first night of the convention will feature remarks from Kim Klacik, a Republican running for Congress in Baltimore who's campaign video went viral as she urged black voters to break from the Democratic Party

Former Democrat Jeff Van Drew, who flipped parties in the middle of his term and now represents New Jersey's 2nd congressional district as a Republican, will make remarks

Mark (lefT) and Patricia McCloskey (right), the St. Louis couple who went viral and are facing felony charges for defending their home by wielding guns at protesters will also speak

The change in plans comes from holding the convention in Charlotte and then Jacksonville, Florida comes after the GOP was forced to go partially virtual in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Democrats held their four-night event last week fully virtually, with the only interaction with a crowd coming the last night of the convention as Joe Biden and running mate Kamala Harris went outside the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware where a drive-in style viewing party was being held.

Trump holding his remarks at the White House comes as he still is looking for an alternative for his massive campaign rallies, which he has been able to replace with mini pop-up rallies during presidential travel last week with trips to Wisconsin, Minnesota and Arizona.

Some of the president's biggest congressional allies will have speaking slots, including Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw and Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will speak on the final night of the convention Thursday

Several of his children and their partners, excluding, of course, his youngest son Barron Trump, will also speak.

Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend and former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle will speak Monday.

On Tuesday, first lady Melania Trump, the presidents son Eric and his youngest daughter Tiffany Trump, who just graduated Law School in May, will make remarks. Erics wife Lara will speak Wednesday.

Ivanka Trump, his eldest daughter and senior adviser will speak on the final night of the convention Thursday before her day closes out the night by accepting the party's nomination for reelection.

The events will include remarks from gun rights advocates Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the married couple who faced felony charges as they went viral from defending their St. Louis home for defending it from Black Lives Matter protesters by wielding guns.

Also on the gun front will be Andrew Pollack, school safety activist whose daughter Meadow was killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018.
The Washington Nationals have fired Jazhiel Morel, an administrator at their academy in the Dominican Republic, after a video captured him throwing two cups of hot coffee at a female convenience store employee.

"The Washington Nationals learned of this horrific incident earlier today and immediately terminated the employee," General Manager Mike Rizzo said in a statement Saturday. "We do not tolerate this type of behavior in our organization."

The video was shot in the Dominican Republic and posted Friday night. Multiple people with knowledge of the situation said it is Morel who throws the coffee after what appears to be an argument at the cash register. The video shows Morel throw the coffee into the woman's face before she curls up behind the counter. Morel then slams the empty cups down before walking out of the store. Morel's termination was first reported by ESPN.

Edith Febles, a TV reporter in the Dominican Republic, reported Saturday that Morel will turn himself in at the local prosecutor's office Monday. Febles cited a conversation she had with Morel's lawyer.

As an administrator at the Nationals' academy in Boca Chica, Morel oversaw day-to-day operations. According to his LinkedIn page, he joined the organization as a video intern at the academy in June 2017. He was then promoted to the administrative role he held between November 2017 and this weekend.

The academy has attracted a lot of praise in recent years, having helped develop Juan Soto, Victor Robles, Luis Garcia, Wander Suero and Wilmer Difo, among others. It was marred by scandal in 2009, when then-general manager Jim Bowden resigned amid a federal probe into the team's signing practices. Rizzo, promoted to replace Bowden, overhauled the academy's leadership structure and hired Johnny DiPuglia to clean up the program. DiPuglia continues to oversee the academy as the Nationals' assistant general manager in charge of international operations.
Two days after Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar accused the BS Yediyurappa led state government of tapping his phones, his brother and Congress MP from Bengaluru Rural, D K Suresh, on Sunday said that he would approach the Centre for an investigation into the matter if Karnataka government didnt take the complaint seriously.

On Friday, KPCC President D K Shivakumar had written to Bengaluru city police commissioner Kamal Pant alleging two of his phone numbers were being tapped by the state government.

What Shivakumar has said is not an allegation but the truth. In case the state government doesnt investigate, will write a letter to the Centre in this regard, Suresh added.

Alleging that BJP was an expert in phone tapping, Suresh said this was an obstruction of individual freedom. President of the party has made a serious allegation and the government should investigate the same, he said.

On Friday, both home minister Basvaraj Bommai and revenue minister R Ashoka denied tapping phones of opposition leaders. Bommai said that as a responsible government, it would not do such things. The BJP had previously claimed that the earlier Congress-JDS coalition government had tapped the phone of its party leaders.
The United States is facing a coin shortage, yet another side effect of the coronavirus health crisis.

Coins are in short supply because many businesses have been closed and many Americans have been going out less to buy things.

Americas central bank, the Federal Reserve System, announced in June that the supply system for metal money had been affected. The U.S. Mint and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin urged Americans to use coins when making purchases or deposit the coins in to banks.

As the economy recovers and businesses reopen, the coin supply is expected to return to normal.

Yet businesses have urged buyers to make purchases electronically or use exact change whenever possible. Some businesses will not give change.

Other businesses have offered products or services to customers in exchange for their coins.

In exchange for $5 worth of coins, convenience store chain WaWa offered customers a free drink at some of its stores. If people brought in $50 or more in coins, they could get something to eat: a free sandwich.

In Wisconsin, Community State Bank offered $5 for every $100 worth of coins that people brought in. Bank officials had to suspend the program after a week because so many people were taking up the offer.

The coin shortage has hurt some businesses more than others.

Brian Wallace is head of the Coin Laundry Association, a trade group that represents laundromats - businesses where people clean their clothes. Wallace described the coin shortage as at the minimum an inconvenience...at worst... a business challenge.

About 56% of laundromats take quarters as the only form of payment.

Laundromats often use coins, in part, because many of their customers are unbanked or underbanked. These terms mean the customers mostly pay for goods and services in cash.

Daryl Johnson owns Giant Wash Laundry  a business operating 11 laundromats in the Minneapolis area. He says his company usually buys anywhere from $4,000 to $8,000 in quarters a week. The quarters are for change machines - machines that accept dollar bills and give back coins.

Johnson got creative. He offered to buy change from friends and family on Facebook. He put up signs in stores asking customers to bring in their own coins. He also programmed his change machines to only accept smaller bills.

Johnson even drove more than 4 hours to Omaha, Nebraska, to buy $8,000 in quarters from another laundry operator.

Its that or my business close, he told The Associated Press recently.

Since then, the coin shortage at his business has become less severe.

The coin shortage is even having an effect on some American traditions.

Jen Vicker, of Bollingbrook, Illinois has a 10-year old daughter. Her daughter recently woke up with something not feeling right: a loose tooth. She worried that the tooth fairy would not leave money for the tooth because of the coin shortage.

The tooth fairy is an imaginary person who is supposed to leave money for children while they sleep in exchange for a tooth that has come out.

So Vicker's daughter wrote a note. It reads: Dear tooth fairy, you may already know this but there is a national coin shortage in America. You usually leave me dollar coins, but until this situation is resolved, I would like cash for my teeth. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Im John Russell.

Sarah Skidmore Sell reported on this story for The Associated Press. John Russell adapted it for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

coin  n. a small, flat, and usually round piece of metal used as money

deposit  v. to put (money) in a bank account

change  n. coins as opposed to paper money

chain  n. a group of stores or other businesses that have the same name and appearance and sell the same products or services

inconvenience  n. trouble or problem

cash  n. metal pieces of money or notes, such as dollar bills

bill  n. a banknote; a piece of paper money

tooth  n. a hard, bony structure in the mouths of people and most animals




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The authoritarian president of Belarus made a dramatic show of defiance Sunday against the massive protests demanding his resignation, grabbing an assault rifle and declaring: 'They've run away like rats!'

President Lukashenko wore a bulletproof vest as he strode off a helicopter that landed at his residence while demonstrators massed nearby.

It comes as tens of thousands of Belarusians joined an anti-government demonstration in central Minsk Sunday to protest President Alexander Lukashenko's claim to a sixth term in disputed elections.

Lukashenko dispatched his notorious riot police to disperse spontaneous rallies that erupted after he claimed a sixth presidential term in an election two weeks ago that critics say was rigged.

The authoritarian president of Belarus made a dramatic show of defiance Sunday against the massive protests demanding his resignation, toting a rifle and wearing a bulletproof vest

Video from the state news agency Belta showed a government helicopter landing on the grounds and Mr Lukashenko getting off holding what appeared to be a Kalashnikov-type automatic rifle

People attend a protest march against the results of the presidential elections, in Minsk, Belarus, on August 23

Video from the state news agency Belta showed a government helicopter landing on the grounds and Mr Lukashenko getting off holding what appeared to be a Kalashnikov-type automatic rifle.

No ammunition clip was visible in the weapon, suggesting that Mr Lukashenko, who cultivates an aura of machismo, aimed only to make a show of aggression.

The video footage published by state media showed Mr Lukashenko wielding the rifle as he declares: 'They've run away like rats.

'They've run away. They found out that the response will be tough.'

Today, more than 100,000 demonstrators draped in the red-and-white flags of the opposition flooded Independence Square and marched through the capital chanting 'we will not forget, we will not forgive' as passing cars honked in support.

'We have just two demands: fair elections and stop the violence,' 32-year-old Igor said.

Officials issued a warning to Belarusians against participating in 'illegal demonstrations' and local news outlets published videos on social media showing water cannon and riot police with shields moving towards Independence Square.

President Lukashenko clutches a Kalashnikov-type rifle as he greets riot police in the capital Minsk, after protests

Lukashenko has claimed he saw off 250,000 protesters demanding his resignation yesterday. He arrived via helicopter

Tens of thousands packed into Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus, on Sunday to demand the resignation of President Alexander Lukashenko, who claimed 80 percent of the vote in a general election two weeks ago dubbed 'neither free not fair' by the European Union

Demonstrators carry a huge historical flag of Belarus as thousands gather for a protest at the Independence square in Minsk, Belarus, Sunday, Aug. 23, 2020. Demonstrators are taking to the streets of the Belarusian capital and other cities, keeping up their push for the resignation of the nation's authoritarian leader. President Alexander Lukashenko has extended his 26-year rule in a vote the opposition saw as rigged

More than 100,000 marched through the Belarusian capital on Sunday demanding the resignation of president Alexander Lukashenko

People take part in an opposition rally in Independence Square. The political crisis continues in Belarus, which arose in connection with the presidential election held on August 9, the results of which are not recognised by the opposition.

Thousands pack into Independence Avenue on Sunday to demand freedom. Officials issued a warning to Belarusians against participating in 'illegal demonstrations' and local news outlets published videos on social media showing water cannon and riot police with shields moving towards Independence Square.

People attend an opposition demonstration to protest against presidential election results at the Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus

Women take a selfie photo during a protest in Minsk, Belarus, Sunday. Demonstrators are taking to the streets of the Belarusian capital and other cities, keeping up their push for the resignation of the nation's authoritarian leader. President Alexander Lukashenko has extended his 26-year rule in a vote the opposition saw as rigged

The defence ministry said it would intervene to protect 'sacred' World War II memorials and several metro stations in Minsk were closed.

Opposition-leaning media and Telegram channels reported that more than 100,000 protesters had convened for the second Sunday in a row and an AFP journalist said smaller demonstrations erupted in provincial cities.

'Lukashenko wants everyone to leave and live like it was. But it won't be like it used to be,' said Nikita, a 28-year-old protester.

Solidarity rallies were also due in neighbouring Lithuania, where demonstrators planned to form a human chain from Vilnius to the Belarus border, three decades after residents of the Baltic states joined hands and linked their capital cities in a mass protest against Soviet rule.

The EU has rejected the results of the election and has vowed to sanction Belarusians responsible for ballot fraud and a police crackdown that saw nearly 7,000 people arrested and sparked gruesome allegations of torture and abuse in police custody.

People carry a white-red-white flad during an opposition rally in Independence Avenue as the political crisis continues

People take part in an opposition rally in Independence Avenue

Opposition supporters march to protest against disputed presidential elections results in Minsk

Demonstrators carry a huge historical flag of Belarus as thousands gather for a protest at the Independence square in Minsk

People take part in an opposition rally in Independence Avenue. The political crisis continues in Belarus, which arose in connection with the presidential election held on August 9, the results of which are not recognized by the opposition

People take part in an opposition rally in Independence Square

Top EU diplomat Josep Borell warned that Belarus should not be allowed to become a 'second Ukraine' and said it was necessary to deal with the 65-year-old Lukashenko, Europe's longest serving leader.

The man branded 'Europe's last dictator' has brushed aside the calls to go, dismissed the possibility of holding a new vote and instructed his security services to quell unrest and secure the borders.

His judiciary opened a criminal investigation into the opposition's Coordination Council that is seeking new elections and the peaceful transition of power, after he said opponents wanted to 'seize power'.

The former collective farm boss ordered the military into full combat readiness during an army inspection on Saturday near the border with the EU and warned about NATO troop 'stirrings' in neighbouring countries.

'The fatherland is now in danger. We cannot joke,' Lukashenko said.

Lithuania's President Gitanas Nauseda said Lukashenko was trying to 'divert attention' from unrest at home, while NATO dismissed the claims as baseless.

People take part in an opposition rally in Independence Square. The political crisis continues in Belarus, which arose in connection with the presidential election held on August 9, the results of which are not recognized by the opposition.

Opposition supporters rally to protest against disputed presidential elections results in Minsk on August 23, 2020

Workers of Minsk Wheel Tractor Plant (MZKT) take part in a rally in Independence Avenue. The political crisis continues in Belarus, which arose in connection with the presidential election held on August 9, the results of which are not recognized by the opposition.

eople take part in an opposition rally in Independence Square. The political crisis continues in Belarus, which arose in connection with the presidential election held on August 9, the results of which are not recognized by the opposition.

People shout slogans during a protest in Minsk, Belarus, Sunday, Aug. 23, 2020. Demonstrators are taking to the streets of the Belarusian capital and other cities, keeping up their push for the resignation of the nation's authoritarian leader. President Alexander Lukashenko has extended his 26-year rule in a vote the opposition saw as rigged.

Man waves with a historical flag of Belarus as police trucks are parked in the streets during a protest in Minsk, Belarus, Sunday, Aug. 23, 2020

People hold a large historical white-red-white flag of Belarus during an opposition demonstration to protest against presidential election results at the Independence Square in Minsk

Women hold posters denouncing President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko during a protest in Minsk, Belarus, Sunday

The unlikely leader of Belarus's opposition, 37-year-old Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, fled to Vilnius fearing reprisals for mounting the greatest challenge to Lukashenko and claiming election victory.

In an interview with AFP ahead of the demonstrations, she urged protesters to continue to exert pressure on the authorities, saying it was 'important to continue to be united in the struggle for the rights'.

The authorities have to understand 'we are not a protest movement... we are a majority and we will not step away. We are not afraid of them any more.'

Lukashenko's opponents have organised strikes and the largest protests in the ex-Soviet country's recent history over his re-election, with more than 100,000 people turning out in Minsk alone last weekend.

Yet fewer workers at state-run factories - usually a bastion of support for Lukashenko - have continued to strike, with activists citing pressure from the authorities.

A couple kisses during a protest in Minsk, Belarus, on Sunday

MINSK, BELARUS - AUGUST 23, 2020: People take part in an opposition rally in Independence Avenue.

People attend an opposition demonstration to protest against presidential election results at the Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus August 23, 2020

Today, more than 100,000 demonstrators draped in the red-and-white flags of the opposition flooded Independence Square and marched through the capital chanting 'we will not forget, we will not forgive' as passing cars honked in support.

People attend an opposition demonstration to protest against presidential election results at the Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus August 23, 2020

Demonstrators in Minsk on Sunday

Demonstrators in Minsk on Sunday face off with armoured law enforcement officers and their green trucks

Demonstrators hold hands in the Independence Square, Minsk, Belarus on Sunday

The president has threatened from Monday to shut down production lines where workers have put down their tools.

Staff at state-run media outlets have also staged walkouts and Lukashenko admitted this week that journalists from Russia had been flown in to replace them.

His powerful ally, Russia, has warned European leaders against interfering in Belarus and the Kremlin has said it would intervene in the post-election unrest if necessary.

US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun will visit Lithuania as part of a trip next week that will also include a stop in Russia for talks on the election fallout.

He is planning to meet with Tikhanovskaya, her representatives told AFP.

Lukashenko's army inspection came ahead of large-scale military exercises planned on the border with the European Union between August 28 and 31.

A woman waves a historical white-red-white flag of Belarus during an opposition demonstration to protest against presidential election results at the Independence Square in Minsk

People take part in an opposition rally in Independence Avenue

People take part in an opposition rally in Independence Avenue
Triumph over suffering is now etched so deeply into Bidens public image that Trump will be hard-pressed to undo it. And the presidents efforts to deny the reality of the countrys suffering have tended to backfire, though he will try again to claim that things would have been worse without him.
A young father left fighting for life after he was allegedly ambushed by a gang of teenagers and stabbed in the eye during a 'sadistic' attack is back on his feet.

Brett Halcro was allegedly set upon in the Sydney suburb of Pyrmont by nine youths - some of them private schoolboys - on the night of Friday, July 31.

The 36-year-old was left in a coma on a ventilator in intensive care at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney.

He was blinded in one eye with his face slashed up to 15 times during the alleged attack.

Brett Halcro, 36, pictured before the attack with his daughter who is 'the light of his life'

The teens allegedly knocked the music promoter unconscious as he rode by and while he lay defenceless on the ground, stomped on his head.

One of the teens then allegedly carved at his face and stabbed him in the eye.

According to a gloating text message included in court documents, allegedly sent by a member of the group, the attacker allegedly stuck the knife into Mr Halcro's eye socket then swivelled it.

'I put the shattered bottle in his stomach and then (another boy) slit his face like 15 times and stabbed him in the eye,' the text allegedly read.

'He stuck it in his eye. Put it in deeper. And swivelled the knife around. So funny.'

Mr Halcro, a father-of-one from Melbourne's southeastern suburb of Chelsea, had moved to Sydney earlier this year before the borders closed to help his father renovate his home.

Brett Halcro (pictured) is a 'kind and genuine person', who came to Sydney from Melbourne to help his own father renovate his house. He was allegedly knocked off his hire bike and bashed unconscious before a teenager allegedly 'sliced' his face and plunged a knife into his eye

A picture taken in Mr Halcro's hospital ward at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital where he stayed for three weeks in intensive care, his family said

So far nine teenagers have been arrested over the attack in which Brett Halcro was allegedly knocked off his bike (pictured) before being sadistically injured while unconscious

He was left for dead in a park on the corner of Pyrmont Bridge Road and Wattle Streets.

Mr Halcro spent more than a week in a coma before doctors reduced his sedation enough to allow him to breathe on his own.

On Wednesday he was moved out of ICU and onto a recovery ward, his family said on the Brett Halcro Recovery GoFundMe page set up to help rehabilitate the injured man.

After almost three weeks in intensive care, Mr Halcro's family shared a photo of him on his feet, walking in the hospital, showing his astounding recovery.

'Bandages have been removed from his arms and face,' family member Luke wrote on his GoFundMe page.

'His fitness and youth have led to pleasing progress, as remarked by the physiotherapists,' Luke said.

'Having spoken with Brett twice now (most recently this morning), I can say that his emotional wellbeing continues to fluctuate understandably, however I was incredibly proud to hear him speak with such perspective and with a relatively positive outlook on his long road ahead.

A teen member of the gang allegedly sent these gloating, sadistic messages after the attack

Pictured: two of the nine youths arrested over the attack

'He told me today that his daily highlights are visits/calls from family and also physio sessions, where he said he has a point to prove!'

Luke said he would tell Brett about the love and support poured out to him from people all over Australia.

'When he can pen something himself, I am certain he will take absolute pleasure in writing to you all,' he said.

The GoFundMe page has raised $83,597 towards Mr Halcro's rehabilitation as of Sunday night, after an outpouring of support for the stricken father who used to Skype his four-year-old daughter every day from Sydney.

Theresa Keecherer, Mr Halcro's former partner with whom he shares his daughter, said she has trouble explaining where her father is because it is 'too traumatic'.

'She asks after him everyday. It breaks my heart,' she said.

Because Mr Halcro has been left with horrific facial injuries, he will not be able to Skype his daughter for a long time.

Ms Keecherer said when her daughter asks, she says he had an accident and needs to sleep a lot to get better, and so he will talk to her later.

Theresa Keecherer, Mr Halcro's former partner with whom he shares a four-year-old daughter (pictured), said she has trouble explaining to her daughter where her father is

Pictured: one of the teens who allegedly took part in the attack

The youths are due to reappear before Surry Hills Children's Court (pictured) on September 29

The single mum said she is praying her former partner makes a full recovery or at least enough to enjoy being a father again.

Nine teenagers have been charged over the alleged attack.

The 15-year-old private schoolboy who allegedly slashed at Brett Halcro's face has withdrawn his second application for bail after being refused at his first court appearance earlier this month.

The teenager will remain in custody at Cobham Youth Justice Centre at Werrington in Sydney's west, and is due back at Surry Hills Children's Court on September 29.

Pictured: police at the scene of the attack in Sydney's Pyrmont on Friday night, July 31

Brett Halcro, 36, was allegedly knocked off his hire bike and bashed, before a teenager ran in and 'sliced' his face seven times and plunged a knife into his eye

On denying his first application for bail, Magistrate Jeffrey Hogg referred to evidence of 'gloating about the offences' in a series of social media messages, ABC News reported.

'This young person was actively seeking to avoid arrest by police for a number of days, and is in a group conversation with the offenders, gloating about the offences, discussing plans to avoid arrest and taking revenge against any co-offenders who speak with the police,' Magistrate Hogg said.

'This is distinctly contradictive of remorse.'

Police say the teen, who is reportedly an ex-student of Barker College in Sydney's northern suburb of Hornsby, was wearing a mask and gloves at the time of the attack.

Barker College is a prestigious private school with senior school fees of more than $34,000 per year.

Magistrate Hogg said the alleged stabbing had left Mr Halcro, with 'injuries that are extraordinarily severe and life-changing'.

The court heard Mr Halcro's eye would likely have to be removed.

The youth faces a maximum of 25 years in jail if found guilty of a charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. He is also charged with affray.

Two of the nine alleged attackers are said to have attended Barker College while another attended Carlingford High School.

Two of the alleged gang members have been released on bail, while the other seven remain in juvenile detention.

Despite the large number of arrests already made, police inquiries are continuing.
On 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After, Colt Johnson is desperately trying to make his relationship work with Jess Caroline. Hes just returned back to Las Vegas, Nevada after spending time in Brazil meeting Jess family. However, the trip is eventful for all the wrong reasons. Debbie drops a huge bomb on Jess by revealing that Colts friend, Vanessa Guerra, is watching their cats for them while theyre away. This is a major problem, considering Jess says Colt lied to her when he said he would stop talking to Vanessa.

Theres a lot of tension in this relationship thats hanging on by a thread. However, before Colt even leaves Brazil, hes talking about seeing Jess again. This week, he asks Jess to come visit him at his home in Las Vegas.

Colt Johnson says goodbye to Jess and mentions she can visit him

Colt Johnson | Bryan Steffy/WireImage

After a screaming argument over Colt lying about his friendship with Vanessa, Jess chooses to see Colt and his mother off at the airport. Colt mentions that they can see each other again, and it sounds like it will be sooner rather than later.

Maybe you can come to Las Vegas, and meet my cats, Colt remarks. Jess seems to like that idea, and the two are going to give things another go. Can they make this relationship work? The only way to know for sure is for them to see more of each other.

Colt asks Jess to visit him in Las Vegas

RELATED: 90 Day Fiance: Why Colt Johnson Feels Nervous About Meeting Jess Carolines Father

In the new episode, Colt is back home in Vegas and ready to see Jess again. He talks with her through video chat and tells her that he misses her. So, I was thinking maybe you might want to come out to Las Vegas? Colt asks his girlfriend.

Jess response is sweet. Yeah, I need to see your cats, she replies.

The prospect of Jess visiting Colt and seeing where he lives sounds exciting for them both. It will also be good for Jess and Debbie to gives things another shot at being cordial with each other after the events in Brazil.

Although the reunion sounds great, it will probably be full of drama too. Colt says hes keeping things from Jess, and its something he doesnt want to reveal over the phone. Maybe he will say it in person when Jess comes to visit. I want to make this work with Jess. But Ive been keeping some things from her, Colt tells the cameras. If I told Jess over the phone, I have no doubt she would break up with me.

Vanessa is living with Colt and his mother

One thing that Colt is definitely going to have to tell Jess about is that Vanessa is currently living with him and his mother. In the new episode, Colt talks with his mother about his relationship with Jess, and his mother asks if he plans to tell Jess about Vanessa before she actually arrives for a visit. He says he doesnt know, but its pretty clear we all see where this is headed.

I feel horrible, because I actually have been keeping another thing from Jess, Colt tells producers. A few days after I returned from Brazil, Vanessa was having a hard time during her divorce and needed a place to stay. My mother invited her to stay with us.

This is certainly something Jess wont be happy about. Not to mention, Colt invited her to come see him and meet his cats. If Vanessa is there, how does he think that will play out? Jess already doesnt want Colt even talking to Vanessa, let alone living with her.

Theres no way this isnt going to be a problem, especially if Colt waits to drop this bomb on Jess when she arrives in Vegas. It sounds like there is going to be some major drama in the future. Will Colt and Jess be able to stay together through all of this once Jess learns the truth? Things are unclear at this point.
The Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK) will release the provisional answer key of its Undergraduate Entrance Test (UGET) on Sunday, August 23. Candidates who have taken the exam can expect the answer key anytime soon on the official website at comedk.org.Currently, the website is not opening.

The COMEDK UGET 2020 for Engineering Courses was conducted on Wednesday August 19, 2020 in two shifts. First shift was held from 9 am to 12 noon and second shift was held from 02.30 pm to 05.30 pm. Earlier, the consortium had rescheduled the COMEDK exams from July 25 to August 1, 2020 which was again postponed to August 19.

Once the provisional answer key is released, candidates will be allowed to send their objections on answer keys, if any, online.

Due to Covid-19, helpline numbers have been closed. Students are advised to send their queries, if any, via email.

In view of the health concerns due to Coronavirus, our helpline will remain closed. All queries will be answered by email only. Please address your queries to studenthelpdesk@comedk.org, reads the statement flashing on the COMDEKs official website.

How to download COMEDK answer key 2020:

Visit the official website at comedk.org

On the homepage, click on the link that reads COMEDK UGET answer key 2020

A PDF file will open

Download and match your responses with the answer key

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Al-Azhar believes the bill, which was provisionally approved by parliament last month, endangers its independence

Related Regulating fatwas: Bizarre edicts Ahmed El-Tayyeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar, has asked the parliament to allow him to attend a plenary session during which a controversial draft law on the Sunni institution will be discussed.

Al-Azhar believes the bill, which was provisionally approved by parliament last month, endangers its independence.

El-Tayyeb was quoted by Al-Azhars official Facebook page as asking to attend the session to give the institutions view, in case the parliament insists on passing the bill despite the constitutional violation it comprises.

Drafted by Osama Al-Abd, the head of parliaments religious endowments committee, and other MPs in 2017, the law aims at granting Dar Al-Iftaa, the state institution responsible for issuing Islamic religious opinions (fatwas), financial, technical and administrative independence, according to a report by a committee formed of members from the endowments, planning and constitutional parliamentary committees.

The law also aims to restructure authorities and powers of the grand mufti, the head of Dar Al-Iftaa, as well as the appointment procedures, period of tenure and procedures to renew the term of the mufti.

Al-Azhar believes the new law will establish an independent authority that is under the justice ministry and is not supervised by Al-Azhar.

El-Tayyeb, in his Sunday statements, said the draft law, if given final approval by the parliament, will build authorities parallel to Al-Azhar, and undermine its powers and message.

He also said that fatwas are part of Islamic affairs and religious sciences, which are referred to the supervision and review of Al-Azhar.

He presented a copy of a circulated report allegedly issued by the legislative department of the State Council, as the authority in charge of revising draft laws before issuance, stressing that it constitutes an explicit violation of the constitution.

The constitution designates Al-Azhar the main reference concerning all Islamic religious matters, including answering religious inquiries, presenting religious opinions on contemporary financial transactions and debunking misconceptions, said a letter sent by Al-Azhars Council of Senior Scholars to the parliament in July.

The body warned that assigning an authority that belongs to the justice ministry and is not affiliated with Al-Azhar to carry out these tasks violates the constitution and the independence of Al-Azhar, adding that Dar Al-Iftaa will accordingly become an entity that is independent from Al-Azhar and will carry out its message without any participation from Al-Azhar.

Any Islamic religious authority established and working to achieve its [Al-Azhars] message is necessarily considered an integral part of Al-Azhars message, the letter said, noting that Al-Azhar should therefore supervise this newly established authoritys work, given the constitutional powers granted to Al-Azhar.

Osama Al-Abd has said the bill will stem the tide of bizarre fatwas.

Grand Mufti Shawki Allam told MPs there is a need to end fatwa chaos by entrusting Dar Al-Iftaa with the exclusive prerogative to issue fatwas.

The law states that a Mufti Preparation Centre be set up to provide muftis with scientific training and qualifications. At the end of the preparation period, each mufti will be granted a diploma and licence to issue fatwas on specified religious issues. No religious scholars will be allowed to issue fatwas without the diploma, the mufti said.

The July report considers this academic mission stipulated by the draft law to be a violation of the mission of Al-Azhar, which is tasked with issuing scientific certificates in Islamic sciences.

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Remi Godfrey was a fit and healthy teenager in her final year of high school when she was given a shock diagnosis of stage four Hodgkin lymphoma.

The 18-year-old dancer and aspiring medical student, from Perth, had a jam-packed schedule and never suspected the unusual red rash that appeared on her arms and legs in mid-2018 was a sign of cancer.

When the 'itchy welts' surfaced, Remi was told by doctors it was nothing to worry about and it continued to get worse over the next 12 months.

Remi told FEMAIL she had countless appointments with physicians and immunologists but no-one could pin-point what was wrong because she had no other early symptoms besides the rash.

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Remi Godfrey was a fit and healthy teenager in her final year of high school when she was given a shock diagnosis of stage four Hodgkin Lymphoma - a blood cancer that starts in the lymphatic system (pictured now)

The 18-year-old dancer and aspiring medical student, from Perth, Western Australia had a jam-packed schedule and never suspected the unusual red rash that appeared on her arms and legs in mid-2018 was a sign of cancer (pictured days before treatment started)

But in May 2019, Remi was at dancing class and suddenly felt fatigued, had sore muscles and had a fever, so she asked to sit out which she would never normally do.

'When I got home, I had a really bad pain in my chest to the point where I wasn't breathing properly because it would hurt too much,' Remi said.

'Then I woke mum up at four in the morning and said "we need to go to the hospital" so we went straight to the emergency room.'

Remi said 'almost immediately' the doctors knew something was 'very wrong' as she had no known medical conditions.

After taking an x-ray of her chest doctors discovered an 11-centimetre tumour on the lymph node near Remi's heart and hours later on May 9 she was diagnosed with the blood cancer.

When the 'itchy welts' surfaced. Remi was told by doctors it was nothing to worry about and it continued to get worse over the next 12 months (pictured)

After taking an x-ray of her chest doctors discovered an 11-centimetre tumour on the lymph node near Remi's heart and hours later on May 9 she was diagnosed with the blood cancer. She was diagnosed with stage four cancer as it had spread to her spleen and neck (right)

First symptoms of Hodgkin lymphoma Excessive tiredness, fever, night sweats, unexplained weight loss, itchy rashes and painless swelling of lymph nodes in the neck, armpits or groin. Source: Cancer Council Australia Advertisement

Remi said she was 'quickly diagnosed' as stage four cancer because the tumour had spread to other parts of the body, including the spleen and neck.

She didn't notice prior, but doctors pointed out a small, visible swelling on the left side of Remi's neck above her collarbone, which was also a sign of the cancer that was noticeable from certain angles.

Remi said the lump was the size of a ten-cent coin.

Doctors conducted further tests and took a biopsy from the cells in her neck.

Although she panicked at first, Remi remained calm even following the shock diagnosis.

The week of the diagnosis was also the week before Remi's mid-semester Year 12 exams, which she was determined to do well in.

'I was stubborn with the doctor because I wanted to get my exams done before starting chemotherapy, and I don't want to be stressing out even more or having any side effects from the treatment,' she said.

Luckily the doctor was 'very understanding' and allowed Remi to complete the exams first, then a month later she started fortnightly chemotherapy treatments on June 6.

To slow the growth of the tumour over the exam period, Remi was put on medication and steroids.

She didn't notice prior, but doctors pointed out a small swelling on the left side of Remi's neck above her collarbone, which was also a sign of the cancer that was only noticeable from certain angles (pictured: where the lump was but wasn't showing, three months before diagnosis)

'I kept living life as I normally would just with hospital visits in between, and I feel like that mentality worked for me,' she said

Hodgkin lymphoma explained Hodgkin lymphoma is a rare form of cancer that starts in a type of white blood cells called lymphocytes. The disease begins in a lymph node, usually in the neck, then spreads through the lymphatic system from one group of lymph nodes to another. Hodgkin lymphoma represents roughly 0.5 percent of all cancers diagnosed in Australia. About 11 percent of all lymphomas are types of Hodgkin lymphoma, while the remainder are non-Hodgkin. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma may arise in lymph nodes anywhere in the body, whereas Hodgkin lymphoma typically begins in the upper body, such as the neck, chest or armpits. Hodgkin lymphoma is often diagnosed at an early stage and is therefore considered one of the most treatable cancers. Approximately 600 people in Australia are diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma every year, most commonly younger people aged 15  29 and older people over the age of 65. It is more common in men than women. The causes of Hodgkin lymphoma remain largely unclear, but risk factors include family history - with those who have a parent or sibling who has had Hodgkin's slightly likelier to develop the disease - certain viruses, including glandular fever and HIV, and a generally weakened immune system which can occur because of autoimmune conditions or lengthy periods taking immunosuppressant drugs. Source: Lymphoma Australia Advertisement

After being diagnosed, Remi said she maintained a stable mindset and tried to 'ignore what was happening' in order to remain positive.

'I kept living life as I normally would just with hospital visits in between, and I feel like that mentality worked for me,' she said.

'I didn't let the cancer consume my life so I acted like everything was normal.'

Throughout the remainder of the year, Remi chose to continue going to school every day, even if it was only for half a day and 'made the most' of her final year.

'School was really accommodating, my friends were all so supportive, and if I felt like I had "chemo brain" or wasn't feeling 100 per cent, my teachers allowed me to do my tests another day,' she said.

'School was really accommodating, my friends were all so supportive, and if I felt like I had "chemo brain" or wasn't feeling 100 per cent, my teachers allowed me to do my tests another day,' she said

While she didn't have many side effects from the chemotherapy, her veins were 'destroyed' by the needles

Thankfully the cancer responded well to the treatment and the tumour near her heart almost halved in size after the first few sessions.

'My cancer journey was very different to what other people may have experienced with the same diagnosis, as I had no side effects during chemo besides fatigue or "chemo brain", I wasn't bed-ridden and was never nauseous,' she said.

But while she didn't have many side effects, her veins were 'destroyed' by the needles and after four months of treatment she eventually decided to have the PICC line inserted into her arm.

'My veins were very small and squiggly, so sometimes it took the nurses seven goes to insert it in right - so I got the PICC which made it a lot easier even though I initially didn't want it,' she said.

The thick catheter needle remained in Remi's arm for three months and she had to avoid getting it wet.

Thankfully the cancer responded well to the treatment and the tumour near her heart almost halved in size after the first few sessions

Over time due to the chemotherapy treatments, Remi slowly started losing her long blonde hair, eyebrows and eyelashes but decided to cut her hair a few months into treatment and wear a wig, which she still uses today

As she knew the cancer was curable, Remi wasn't worried and was mostly concerned about hair loss, but over time she slowly started losing her hair, eyebrows and eyelashes.

It wasn't until four months into the hospital treatments that she decided to chop her hair off rather than shave it and started wearing a wig.

To this day Remi remains insecure about her short hair and has taken few photos without the wig on as she prefers having long, blonde hair, though said it has started growing back.

Six months on at the final chemotherapy session her friends visited the hospital to surprise her and celebrate (pictured)

'It made me realise the cliche of "make the most of your life", but at the same time I wish it didn't happen because it took a huge chunk out of my life that I can't get back,' she said (pictured on the last day of treatment)

Remi also completed her final of year of school on a high and obtained an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) score of 94, which exceeded her goal of 90

On January 14, 2020 Remi was given the 'all clear' from doctors and is now in remission (pictured with family on a trip to Sydney)

Six months on at the final chemotherapy session her friends visited the hospital to surprise her and celebrate.

Remi also completed her final of year of school on a high and obtained an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) score of 94, which exceeded her goal of 90.

Remi was lost for words when asked if she felt angry or sad the cancer occurred, but she said overall she felt 'grateful' as it made her recognise a new found appreciation for life.

'It made me realise the cliche of "make the most of your life", but at the same time I wish it didn't happen because it took a huge chunk out of my life that I can't get back,' she said.

Thanks to the Make-A-Wish foundation, Remi and her family were able to take a trip to Sydney together, as it's what she wanted most.

On January 14, 2020 Remi was given the 'all clear' from doctors and is now in remission.
DANBURY  After a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases, officials are adding three coronavirus testing session in Danbury.

The move comes after Mayor Mark Boughton advised residents to limit their activities over the weekend.

Close to 2,300 city residents have had the virus since March. From Aug. 2 through Thursday, Danbury reported at least 178 new coronavirus cases, according to the state Department of Public Health on Friday.

Fourty-four additional cases among Danbury residents were reported Friday, according to Boughton.

In an email to Hearst Connecticut Media, the mayor said eight more residents had tested positive for the virus on Sunday.

According to the Community Health Center, testing is available at its Danbury location on 8 Delay St. Monday to Friday from 9 a.m to 1 a.m. There will also be a testing session on Monday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Broadview Middle School.

The CHC said another testing session will be held on Tuesday at Rogers Park Middle School from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. It said test results are available in two to three days and a CHC provider will call or text to discuss positive results.

Regarding long lines of cars at a COVID-19 testing center in Danbury, Boughton said the city had done extensive outreach to get people to come in and be tested. He said most people are following health guidlines and his request to limit their activity over the weekend.
'I'll cancel shady Agyapa deal, probe PDS deal; Akufo-Addo and his family think they can get away with it'

August 23, 2020.



In an interview on TV XYZ, Mr Mahama said: Agyapa is a very shady deal, asserting: It is a theft of Ghanaian royalties.



If I become president, I will not accept that deal, he threatened.



According to him, the people of Ghana do not accept that deal since, in his view, it is against the money laundering rules.



If you look at the people who put this together, they are people close to the president and already they have been paid two million dollars, the flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress claimed.



This president and his family think they can do anything and get away with it, Mr Mahama said.



Mr Mahama also said his next government will investigate PDS, especially when people related to the President were involved in structuring the PDS deal.



There is enough evidence to investigate PDS and prosecute.



Parliament passed the deal two weeks ago by approving five agreements to allow the country to derive maximum value from its mineral resources and monetise its mineral income accruing to the country in a sustainable and responsible manner, in line the Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF) Act, 2018 (Act 978).



The approval will enable the country to use a special purpose vehicle, Agyapa Royalties Limited, to secure about $1 billion to finance large infrastructural projects.



In line with that, Agyapa, which will operate as an independent private sector entity, will be able to raise funds from the capital market, both locally and internationally, as an alternative to the conventional debt capital market transactions.



The funds, which are expected to be raised from the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) and the London Stock Exchange (LSE), will be long-term capital, without a corresponding increase in Ghanas total debt stock and hence without a public debt repayment obligation.



Below are 15 concerns addressed by MIIF over the deal



What is MIIF and Agyapa Royalties?



MIIF was formed by the Ghanaian Parliament, pursuant to the Minerals Income Investment Fund Act, 2018 (Act 978) with the key objective of maximising the value of Ghanas income from its mineral wealth for the benefit of the Ghanaian citizens and to maximise the minerals income in a sustainable and responsible manner. The aim of the fund is to ensure that Ghanaians fully benefit from the wealth that is created in the mining sector.



The purpose of MIIF is to hold and manage the equity interests of the Government of Ghana (GoG) in mining companies, receive mineral royalties due to the GoG from mining operations, provide for the management and investment of the assets of the Fund, finance further development of the mining sector, and monitor and improve flows into the mining sector.



Regardless of who is in power, the MIIF is the custodian of Ghanas future mineral revenues. In terms of the MIIF Act, the powers of MIIF include the creation of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) in any jurisdiction in furtherance of its objectives, and the listing of the SPV on any reputable stock exchange that MIIF considers appropriate, and assignment of all or any of its rights to mineral income to a SPV in furtherance of the objects of MIIF.



Currently, MIIF is the sole shareholder of Agyapa Royalties, a SPV that is expected to list on the London and Ghana Stock Exchanges. Agyapa Royalties is expected to acquire a portion of the royalty, rent and other income from a number of gold assets in Ghana, comprising 12 producing gold mines, as well as four development assets, most of which are owned and run by major international gold mining companies.



The purpose of listing Agyapa Royalties Limited is to allow the Government of Ghana, via MIIF to raise non-debt capital to invest in the country without further increasing our national debt burden. The issue of equity in a company that is currently 100%-owned by the GoG through MIIF is a new and innovative way to raise funds that can be invested for the benefit of Ghanaian citizens into the future.



The GoG is seeking to raise a significant amount of funds from the listing of Agyapa Royalties Limited and will also expect to receive regular annual dividends in the future from Agyapa Royalties Limited, which will be reinvested in the country to finance strategic capital investments such as economic infrastructure to spur socio-economic development and enhance the lives of all Ghanaians. Ghana must invest in itself and build a future through investment, not aid.



What is very important to remember is that MIIF will remain as the majority shareholder of Agyapa Royalties Limited. This means it will retain majority shareholder control and receive the majority of the Companys dividends when declared and paid, the statement stressed.



Lastly, Ghana has always been and will always be a leader on the continent. This is but the latest example of our ability to be forward-thinking. We are the first government to implement this transformational and innovative way to raise funds. This is a pioneering template for Africa on how to achieve value add-on exports. It is the intention of Agyapa Royalties Limited to be an African royalty company and to leverage Ghanas position as the leading gold producer in Africa to build an African royalty portfolio, the release explained.



15 issues raised by critics and responses by MIIF :



1. The agreement makes it impossible for a future government to replace managers of Agyapa Royalties Limited.



Agyapa Royalties Limited will adhere to international corporate governance standards as would be expected of a publicly listed company. As such, the Board of Directors of Agyapa Royalties Limited will be up for election each and every year at the Annual General Meeting.



Shareholders will be able to vote on the election of the Company Directors. It is the MIIF that will be the largest shareholder in Agyapa Royalties and therefore will exercise its right to vote on the Directors.



2. The agreement is based on the amendment done to the Minerals Income Investment Fund Act, which was approved by Parliament but not signed into law yet by the president, therefore making it illegal.



All the agreements relating to the transaction are subject to the MIIF Act and any subsequent amendments.



3. It is a bad idea to mortgage future revenues from gold royalties for a lump sum of money today.



This is not mortgaging the countrys future revenues. This is an investment into our future which will create an upfront sum of capital upon the proposed listing date and, thereafter, regular dividends, both of which will be reinvested into the country to finance strategic capital investments such as infrastructure to spur socio-economic development and enhance the lives of all Ghanaians.



The cost of capital through this transaction is, therefore, lower than any debt capital raised, with the added advantage of no repayments. Given the gold prices are at an all-time high, the timing is right for the shares to be listed in London and Ghana. We believe Ghana must invest in itself and build a future through investment, not aid, and this is a key way to achieve this.



4. Agyapa is the current governments attempt to mortgage 75.6% of the countrys mineral revenue in perpetuity.



Agyapa Royalties will receive 75.6% of royalties from a selected portfolio of underlying gold mines (12 producing mines and four development assets) under the current mining leases. In addition to the initial capital raised, MIIF is expected to continue to receive dividends from Agyapa and will continue to receive the royalty revenue from other operating mines in Ghana that are not related to Agyapa Royalties. Agyapa Royalties will continue to benefit the Ghanaian people, regardless of which political party is in power.



5. Shareholders other than GoG will own 75.6% of Ghanas royalties and therefore its future.



This statement is untrue. At the closing of the IPO, Agyapa will hold rights to receive 75.6% of the royalties from the 12 producing mines and four development assets in its portfolio. Agyapa is not acquiring the rights to all off Ghanas royalties. Further, as discussed above, the GoG, through the MIIF, will continue to be the majority shareholder in Agyapa and therefore will benefit from the receipt of the majority of dividends from Agyapa.



6. There is a lack of information about cash flows, expenses, prospectus, etc.

While the prospectus in connection with the proposed listing was not shared as the listing has not commenced, all material and necessary information was shared with Parliament so that an educated vote could be made by the Members of Parliament.



7. This is owned by President Nana and Gabbys friends.



This is not true. Currently, the company is 100%-owned by MIIF on behalf of the GoG. Once the Company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and Ghana Stock Exchange, MIIF will be the largest shareholder, and hence Agyapa Royalties will be ultimately majority-owned by the GoG.



8. As part of the total cost of executing this transaction, the legal firm handling it is expected to receive a fee of $10 million.



This is incorrect. Moreover, once Agyapa Royalties Limited is a publicly listed company, the expenses incurred will be available for scrutiny in its inaugural annual report.



9. Agyapa Royalties Limited was incorporated in the British Virgin Islands and/or New Jersey.



Agyapa Royalties Limited has been registered in Jersey, Channel Islands. Jersey was selected as it is a well-established jurisdiction for holding-company purposes and as a listing jurisdiction. It is also a familiar listing vehicle on the London Stock Exchange, where Agyapa Royalties Limited is expected to have its primary listing.



10. The agreements were passed without the proper oversight and debate. The agreements were passed in the same process as all other agreements are dealt with in Ghana. The agreements were in line with the objects and powers of the MIIF as set out in the MIIF Act.



11. The Ghanaian people will not benefit from this transaction.



The Ghanaian people will benefit from this because the capital raised will finance strategic capital investments such as infrastructure and also in mining in collaboration with local equity participants to spur socio-economic development and enhance the lives of all Ghanaians.



It allows us to invest in ourselves and build a future through investment, not aid. This is central to the Ghana Beyond Aid philosophy. It is also an opportunity to raise funds without increasing the national debt burden, and there are no re-payment obligations, interest payments or the need for a guarantee.



12. Agyapa Royalties Limited surreptitiously changed its name from Asaase Royalties Limited.



Agyapa changed its name from Asaase upon seeing that the name Asaase is used by 21 other companies. To ensure there is no confusion, the name was changed to another name that is not as widely used.



13. Agyapa Royalties Limited is related to Asaase Radio. There is no relation between the two.



14. This is another PDS or AMERI in the making.



This is not going to be the case. Agyapa Royalties Limited is being created with Ghanaians best interests in mind. Agyapa Royalties Limited will adhere to international corporate governance standards.



15. With Agyapa Royalties registered in Jersey, Channel Islands, it will be difficult to oversee the firm and know who are the shareholders.



As a publicly listed company on the London Stock Exchange and the Ghana Stock Exchange, Agyapa will be fully transparent about its ownership. All large shareholders will need to disclose their position (when they buy or sell shares).



Agyapa Royalties Limited will adhere to international corporate governance standards so as to give its shareholders, including the GoG, peace of mind that it is doing everything in the most transparent and appropriate way. Indeed, in Agyapas annual reports, the names of the significant shareholders will boldly be shown.





Source: classfmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Weeks after Isaias pounded Connecticut with high winds and at least one confirmed tornado, federal meterologists are tracking two more tropical storms in the Carribean and Gulf of Mexico.

This time, the storms are on track to make landfall on coastal gulf states in the Southeast, rather than following the Atlantic coast north into New England.

On Sunday, the American Red Cross said four volunteers from Connecticut are being deployed to Texas both in person and virtually in advance of Hurricane Marco and Tropical Storm Laura.

These volunteers will be supporting sheltering efforts, and overall operations before, during and after landfall, the organization said.

Six other volunteers are being sent to California to help with wildfire relief efforts.

Marco is projected to make landfall around New Orleans early Monday afternoon, according to the National Hurricane Center. Hurricane and storm surge warnings have been issued for the area.

On Sunday, the center upgraded Marco from a Tropical storm to a hurricane after Air Force Hurricane Hunter aircraft recorded winds of 75 mph.

Marcos center is currently situated in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico north of the Yucatan peninsula.

The storm is expected to pass through coastal and lower Louisiana Tuesday and push into Texas early Wednesday.

Right on that storms heels, Tropical Storm Laura is expected to push west across the Caribbean and into the Gulf of Mexico before heading north and making landfall along the Louisiana coast early Thursday.

That storm is expected to continue north through central Louisiana. The storms center is currently over western Hispaniola, the island that includes Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Tropical storm conditions are expected across portions of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, the Turks and Caicos, the southeastern Bahamas, and Cuba through Monday, the National Hurricane Center said Sunday. Heavy rainfall is likely across these areas and could cause mudslides and flash and urban flooding.
The body of Soubhik Mukherjee, president of a local unit of the Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP) youth front in the Goghat area of Bengals Hooghly district was found hanging inside his house at Nabasan village on Sunday morning.

Biman Ghosh, president of the BJP local unit, alleged that the Trinamool Congress had created circumstances that forced him to hang himself.

BJP state general secretary Sayantan Basu said, Several BJP workers were killed by the TMC during the panchayat polls and their bodies were hanged to portray the crimes as suicide. Debendra Nath Roy, our legislator from Hemtabad in North Dinajpur district, was also killed and hanged in early July.

TMC leaders dismissed the allegation, saying Mukherjee committed suicide at home and the ruling party had nothing to do with it.

The youth was a relative of mine. How can the BJP politicize every death like this? They should be sympathetic towards the family at least, said TMC legislator from Goghat, Manas Majumdar.

He went to attend a birthday dinner on Saturday evening and went to bed after returning home. I talked to his family, said Majumdar.

Local people told us that Mukherjee had a relationship with a class nine student but the minor girls family was opposed to the relationship, an officer from the local police station said on condition of anonymity.
Budget carrier SpiceJet became the first Indian airline to operate the long-haul, non-stop cargo flight from Amsterdam to Mumbai using its wide-body aircraft - Airbus A340 on Saturday. The same aircraft will operate from Mumbai to Khartoum in Sudan on Sunday.

With this, the airline also becomes the first to operate non-stop cargo services from Europe on a dedicated freighter.

Adding the Netherlands to its international cargo network, SpiceJet carried 13 tonnes of cargo supplies to Mumbai on Saturday. The flight departed from the Dutch capital at 10.50 pm (local time) on Friday, August 21, and landed in Mumbai at 10.54 AM (local time) on Saturday.

Also read: China successfully launches new optical remote-sensing satellite

An airline official said that the A340 freighter that is set to take off from Mumbai to Khartoum will be carrying 40 tonnes of cargo. This will be SpiceJets first non-stop flight to Africa as the low-cost carrier has earlier flown to Sudan via Ras Al-Khaimah.

Ajay Singh, chairman and managing director of SpiceJet said, We successfully operated our first wide-body long-haul flight from Europe. The induction of our first Airbus A340 cargo aircraft has significantly enhanced our operational capability and will allow us to operate non-stop cargo services across the globe to destinations in Europe, Africa and CIS countries.

The airline has operated over 5764 cargo flights and transported over 31,800 tonnes of cargo, which according to the airline, is more than double of all domestic airlines combined. These flights carried medicines, medical equipment, fruits and vegetables across India and the world since March 25.
OTTAWAA new research paper says Canadian intelligence assessments on Iraq were generally accurate in the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of 2003  unlike reports produced in Washington and London that were used to justify war.

Almost nothing has been said outside government circles about Canadian judgments that Saddam Hussein had no active weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program, the paper says  partly to avoid embarrassing American and British counterparts.

Canadas intelligence assessments on Iraq in 2002 and 2003 subsequently turned out to be largely correct, while the analysis of most other countries on key Iraq issues  as far as is publicly known  was flawed, concludes the paper, recently published in the journal Intelligence and National Security.

The most notable difference in the Canadian case was the lack of any significant political or other outside pressure on assessment organizations to slant the Iraq analysis in a particular direction.

Getting it Right: Canadian Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, 2002-2003 was researched and written by Alan Barnes, a senior fellow at the Centre for Security, Intelligence and Defence Studies at Carleton Universitys Norman Paterson School of International Affairs.

He is far from a neutral party on the topic, having been closely involved with the production of the Canadian assessments on Iraq during this period. He was lead drafter of 21 analyses by the Privy Council Offices Intelligence Assessment Secretariat (IAS) and, as director of the secretariats Middle East and Africa Division, supervised the production of 20 others.

Barnes also drew on documents released by key federal agencies over the years  though much classified material remains under wraps  as well as interviews with 11 managers and analysts from the intelligence community who were involved in the assessments.

He found that Canadas assessments of U.S. policy on Iraq, Baghdads weapons capabilities, the regional implications of an invasion and the subsequent internal instability of Iraq proved to be generally on the mark.

The paper also points to evidence the information was included in briefings given to then-prime minister Jean Chretien, whose Liberal government decided not to participate in the Iraq War.

In late August 2002, a Canadian interdepartmental experts group completed an assessment of Iraqs weapons of mass destruction programs, including chemical, biological and nuclear arms.

It concluded any remaining chemical agents or ballistic missiles from prior to the 1991 Gulf War could only exist in very small quantities, and would likely no longer be useful because of poor storage conditions, Barnes writes.

The question of whether Baghdad was rebuilding its WMD capabilities since the departure of United Nations inspectors in 1998 got to the heart of the U.S. administrations claims that Iraq was a growing threat to the world, the paper says.

Canadian analysts could see no convincing indications that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program. They did not have confidence in the soundness of the evidence being cited by the U.S. as proof of Iraqi nuclear activity.

Nor could the analysts detect signs that Baghdad had restarted production of chemical weapons or was preparing to do so.

The extensive sharing of intelligence meant that analysts in the Five Eyes alliance  the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand  were largely working with the same body of information in trying to make sense of things.

Analysts in Ottawa were well aware of the disagreements taking place in the other Five Eyes countries over Iraqs purported WMDs, as well as the pressure put on analysts in those countries by senior officials to come up with specific conclusions to support the policy line, Barnes says.

He detected a fairly consistent pattern:

In their one-on-one interactions with their Canadian counterparts, allied analysts often expressed reservations about the evidence and avoided firm judgments;

The classified written intelligence products that Canada received from allies would express firmer, but still qualified, conclusions while acknowledging the limits of the information;

Finally, the public position of allied governments  in statements by senior officials or documents released to the public  would express unconditional conclusions on the basis of what was claimed to be conclusive evidence.

The knowledge that many allied analysts shared similar reservations about the quality of the information on Iraqs WMDs gave Canadian analysts and managers greater confidence that they were on the right track, the paper says.

Even so, there were differing views.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service analysis of Iraqs mass-destruction capabilities tended to support the claims coming from Washington, Barnes found.

This is likely a reflection of the discomfort of CSIS managers and analysts at being out of step with the U.S. intelligence community on a critical issue which might compromise their close operational links.

A CSIS report that said Saddam appeared eager to quickly acquire a nuclear weapons capability was withdrawn after the IAS raised concerns, Barnes says.

However, by then it had been shared with the U.S., giving Washington the impression that the Canadian intelligence community concurred with the U.S. claims when this was not the case.

In contrast, National Defence analysts had extensive knowledge of these issues, gleaned from participation in the earlier UN inspections in Iraq and intimate familiarity with the available intelligence over the previous decade.

In early March 2003, Defence published Iraq: No Smoke, No Gun, which deemed it unlikely that WMDs would be found.

Indeed, only a small number of abandoned chemical munitions from prior to 1991 were ultimately discovered in Iraq.

The IAS assessments were a significant element of verbal briefings on Iraq given to Chretien by Claude Laverdure, the foreign and defence policy adviser to the prime minister, the paper says.

Chretien, skeptical of the U.S. rationale, took the position that Canada would support military action against Iraq if it were sanctioned by the UN Security Council.

In his memoirs, Chretien says he told then-U.S. President George W. Bush in September 2002: I have to tell you, Ive been reading all my briefings about the weapons of mass destruction and Im not convinced. I think the evidence is very shaky.

Laverdure said to Barnes he remembers tough discussions in various meetings with Bush and then-British prime minister Tony Blair, as well as with other senior U.S. and U.K. officials, who demanded to know why the Canadians refused to accept the conclusions in the American and British reports.

During one meeting, Laverdure recalled, Blair was mad, mad, mad and Chretien became irritated ... Blair kept saying to Jean Chretien, Cant you see it, we get the same reports, and Chretien replied, No, I dont see it.

In normal circumstances, almost all Canadian intelligence assessments dealing with foreign and defence matters are shared, in whole or in part, with the Five Eyes allies, Barnes writes.

This did not happen with IAS assessments on Iraq, which were classified Canadian Eyes Only in order to avoid uncomfortable disagreements with the U.S. intelligence community which would exacerbate the sensitivities affecting relations at the political level.

Barnes says that when Robert Wright became Canadas security and intelligence co-ordinator in April 2003 he asked to see all of the IAS reporting on Iraqs WMDs.

Wright would later make it clear that there was to be no triumphalism for having made more accurate assessments.

Barnes notes the only public acknowledgment of the Canadian record was an op-ed piece by Paul Heinbecker, Canadas ambassador to the UN during the Iraq crisis, which discussed U.S. intelligence and included a cryptic comment: The Canadian analysis was better.

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Washington, Aug 23 : US President Donald Trump has declared that the massive wildfires wreaking havoc across California, which have already burnt over 1 million acres of land and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents, were a major disaster and has released federal aid.

Currently, more than 14,000 firefighters were battling to contain the blazes which were caused by over 12,000 dry lightning strikes last week during a historic heat wave in which temperatures in the Death Valley National Park reached the highest since 1931, the BBC reported.

On Saturday, CalFire, the state's fire department, said that people should brace for more lightning till Tuesday and make further evacuation plans.

According to local authorities, at least six deaths were linked to the wildfires that are believed to be the "largest ever".

Most of the destruction has been caused by three large fire complexes in mountainous and wooded rural areas.

On Saturday, California Governor Gavin Newsom said the S.C.U. Lightening Complex group of about 20 fires south and east of San Francisco is the third-largest in the state's history, the BBC reported.

Video tweeted by the Governor showed burnt tree stumps against the reddened fumes-filled sky and plumes of white smoke rising from ash-laden ground.

Although California is used to wildfire, Newsom called the fires unlike anything the state had seen before.

"If you don't believe in climate change, come to California," the BBC quoted the Governor as saying.

An evacuation order on Saturday extended to thousands of people in the Bay area near San Jose and warned others to be prepared to abandon their homes at short notice.

It is about 10 per cent contained.

The largest wildfire, called the L.N.U. Lightening complex, is in the prominent wine-growing areas of Napa and Sonoma north of San Francisco and is just 15 per cent contained, CalFire said on Saturday.

Further south in Santa Cruz county, 115 homes have been destroyed and some residents evacuated.

California is also facing electricity shortages, which have caused rolling blackouts for thousands of customers.

Officials have appealed for residents to use less power or risk further cuts.

Satellite images show smoke blanketing nearly all of California, as well most of Nevada and southern Idaho.

Officials have advised people to remain indoors due to the poor air quality outside.

The largest fire recorded in the state was the Mendocino Complex blaze in 2018, according to Cal Fire.
Hong Kong health authorities have admitted a domestic helper undergoing treatment for cancer and who has tested preliminary positive for Covid-19 was kept in general wards for a month after her employer tested positive for the virus.

The revelation came as the city confirmed 25 new cases on Sunday, including a worrying new cluster at a care home for people with mental disabilities.

The city is already battling outbreaks at facilities for older residents, with the Elderly Services Association informing care homes they can refuse admission to anyone discharged from hospital who lacks a negative Covid-19 test result.

Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the big stories originating in China.

Six of the latest cases were imported, while eight of the local transmitted ones were untraced. The citys tally now stands at 4,682, with 77 related deaths.

Among the newly infected were three staff members at Hong Chi Lei Muk Shue Hostel in Kwai Chung.

The facility has about 45 residents, with five people sharing each of its nine rooms, and roughly 50 staff. All would undergo quarantine, according to Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable disease branch at the Centre for Health Protection.

We visited the home today and as it is difficult for the residents to wear masks properly. We will quarantine all of them, Chuang said.

The mix-up at the hospital involved a 44-year-old Indonesian domestic helper who was admitted for leukaemia treatment on July 27, according to Dr Lau Ka-hin, a chief manager at the Hospital Authority. She had a slight fever but her initial coronavirus test was negative while a lung scan also showed no sign of infection.

We may have missed her quarantine order after passing it to the other team that handles them

Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of communicable disease branch, Centre for Health Protection

However, her fever persisted and another lung scan on August 9 showed some ground glass patterns commonly found in Covid-19 patients. Her fever worsened and she was retested on Saturday, which returned a preliminary positive result, Lau said. The employer was confirmed infected late last month and had since been released, but health authorities should have followed up on the result and screened the maid at the time, Chuang admitted.

Story continues

When [the helper] was admitted to hospital, her employer had not yet been confirmed as ill, so she did not know, she said. We may have missed her quarantine order after passing it to the other team that handles them.

The helper stayed in two wards and the authority has listed up to 52 people as close contacts. Among them, 17 remain in hospital, while the rest have been discharged.

Another new case involved a 72-year-old man who drove a cargo truck at Kwai Chung Container Terminals, where dozens of dock workers have been confirmed as infected. He was an employee of a company at the port with three previous cases, but Chuang did not identify the company.

He mostly spent time in his truck and rarely stayed in any of the break rooms, she said.

Hong Kong is battling a growing Covid-19 cluster at its main port, Kwai Chung Container Terminals. Photo: Sam Tsang

One of the imported cases was a crew member of a Malaysian cargo ship previously docked in Hong Kong waters after other crew were confirmed ill. The ship will not be able to leave for another 14 days.

The remaining imported cases were four arrivals from India and one from Bangladesh.

Labour and welfare minister Law Chi-kwong appealed to families of elderly people to avoid taking their loved ones out of care homes even for short reunions. His plea came after a resident at a nursing home in Tai Kok Tsui who was said to have met family members for meals was found to be infected.

Elderly homes have no choice but to ban visits or even limit outings of residents, which could be seen as an evil rule and having a negative psychological impact on them, Law said. A way to alleviate the problem is to make the best use of information technology, which puts elderly people in touch with their families through online gatherings.

Law also explained why the government did not test all 60,000 residents at nursing homes across the city, saying the logistics would be too complicated, requiring tests to be conducted in negative-pressure wards in hospitals. Minimising infection risks would be a more effective strategy, he said.

The Elderly Services Association of Hong Kong, which represents more than 400 care homes, said it wanted public hospitals to test elderly patients before discharging them.

Chairman Kenneth Chan Chi-yuk said it recently issued new guidelines to members advising them they could reject anyone released from hospital who had not tested negative for the coronavirus within 72 hours of discharge.

We are not kicking away our residents, Chan said. The proposal is to avoid cluster infections at elderly care homes. The discharged resident concerned may not be a confirmed case. But sometimes he or she can become a close contact when another patient in the ward where he or she stayed becomes a confirmed case. This would pose a great threat to the elderly home.

Chan said he would write to the Hospital Authority on Monday to express the associations concerns.

Lawmaker Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung, who sits on the welfare services panel in the Legislative Council, urged the government to issue official guidelines for the industry, rather than allowing it to establish its own. Otherwise, senior citizens could risk having nowhere to stay after leaving the hospital, Cheung said.

The Labour Department also announced foreign domestic workers awaiting employment could book an appointment for a test beginning on Monday.

Additional reporting by Ng Kang-chung

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This article Hong Kong health authorities admit hospital quarantine mix-up as 25 more Covid-19 cases confirmed first appeared on South China Morning Post

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"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." -- 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Seventeen-year old Dot Pressley quickly knew Jack Dudley was special.

"I liked him from the first time I saw him," Dot recalled, adding before long she knew he was the one with whom she wanted to spend the rest of her life. "That was my dream."

At first, Jack was unaware of his secret admirer.

"Her friends sort of steered me along, telling me there was a girl in our group who liked me," he said. "I don't know how big the group was. It might have been the whole school."

"It got down to name calling, and I said that suits me fine," he continued. "I kept thinking I could live with that girl."

It was 1948 and the two were both students at the rural Sharon High School in Abbeville, South Carolina.

"We were high school sweethearts," Dot said. "At that time, there was a popular song about my future, and I would sing that about him to my girlfriends."

Love continued to blossom for the two.

Jack would show up at Dot's house in his father's 1934 Chevrolet, and the couple would end up going to the Friday and Saturday night square dances put on by the high school for the senior class.

"That was the first time we really dated," Dot said. "He brought me home from one of the square dances."

"We just liked each other," Jack confirmed.

"I always thought he had a lot of patience," Dot said. "He was fun. He was a lot of fun. He was nice looking."

"Thank you," said Jack, to Dot's laughter.

"We liked the same things," she said, noting she would often go to see Jack play softball and the couple would also go to a popular teenage hangout in Abbeville called the Come Back.

Even though, Jack did not have his own vehicle, he said the Chevrolet he did have was stripped down so far that boards were used for the front seats.

"It was an old one," he said. "We had a good time with it."

Dot and Jack continued to date until graduation in 1949, but then life changed somewhat for the two.

The Korean War began and Jack was recruited into the United States Army, of which about six months were spent in Korea. He ended up leaving the Army as a master sergeant after about three years.

Meanwhile, Dot was in the United States attending business school.

Despite the long distance, their love did not dim.

Jack at the age of 20 and Dot at the age of 19 ended up getting married on Saturday, Aug. 5, 1950.

The couple tied the knot in the front year of Dot's parents' house in Abbeville at 5 p.m. The couple's Presbyterian pastor, who also taught a Bible class at their high school, ended up witnessing the marriage.

"We just had our family and some cousins," Dot said. "A few friends."

Jack recalled Dot's cousin actually played the piano for their wedding.

"It didn't rain," Dot said. "We were taking a chance, weren't we, at 5 o'clock on a summer day."

"It was the prettiest spot in the yard," Jack recalled. "There was a tree that we stood beside and front of."

A photo shows the couple -- Jack in his U.S. Army uniform and Dot in her white wedding dress -- in front of the tree on that day 70 years ago.

As newlyweds, Dot and Jack lived in Alexandria, Virginia, at Fort Belvoir, where their first daughter, Cheryl, was born.

In 1956, Jack and Dot moved from Atlanta as part of job change. Jack was involved in the finance business until he retired in 1993. Dot worked as a teacher aid in Marshall Elementary School for about 20 years.

They have been in Orangeburg ever since.

"Orangeburg has been our home," Dot said.

Today, Dot, 88, and Jack, 90, continue to love each other in their Wellgrove Lane home as on the day the met.

Life's little things are what keep the couple happy after all these years.

"We like to take naps," Dot said. "We like this neighborhood. We have a lot of neighbors and friends around. It is a retirement community and everybody has a lot in common."

The couple also like to watch television together and are active members of First Presbyterian Church in Orangeburg.

"We were always homebodies," she said. "We were always active in church and had retreats. There were a lot of softball games. With all the children and grandchildren, it was never dull."

Jack said the key to marriage is "to be pleasant" and to "have fun."

"Raising a family, we sort of worked for the same thing what we wanted to accomplish," Dot said. "Enjoying the same things, and we were never ones to do things extra."

Both Jack and Dot credit their faith in God as helping them in their marriage these last 70 years.

"That is the main thing," Dot said. "If you want to have a good marriage, I think you need be in church."

Jack said the church family has also been very supportive.

"You should never go to bed mad and you should be able to talk things out," Dot said. "Try to at least not let things linger a long time."

Dot says when they got married, they had an understanding that it would be forever.

"You married thinking you were going to be together until death do you part," she said. "You learn to take things in stride and not let things bother you, and usually things will work themselves out."

"If you do think of something you don't agree, try to think it out and find something good about it and go on," Jack said.

"I just love everything about Dot," Jack said. "We understand each other, and a lot of times, we know what we are going to say or do even before we do it. We read each other sometimes."

Dot says Jack has always been a patient man.

"I don't know him to have ever raised his voice," Dot said. "I think he always thinks a lot before he speaks. He is just a good person and he is the perfect one for me."

Dot says one of the biggest challenges in their lives has been old age. She is hard of hearing and Jack is considered legally blind.

"You have health issues and I wish he could see and do things," Dot said. "I probably get impatient because he can't do what he used to do."

"She is my eyes most of the times," Jack said. "She reads the newspaper. She reads The T&D every morning when I get up. She reads the headlines to me."

"I always ask how the Braves do last night," Jack said. "We try to have fun together. We don't hold any grudges."

In 70 years, the couple has a lot of memories.

For Jack, it was the birth of the couple's first child, Cheryl.

"She was very exciting to me," Jack said, smiling. "I was a father. I was a daddy now."

Jack said one thing he wished he could have done is been with Cheryl growing up more. He did not get to see her take her first steps or learn how to walk.

It was when he returned from the war at Fort Jackson when he first saw his first-born "running down the sidewalk."

"That was the first time I had ever seen her run," Jack said.

The couple now have five children -- three girls and two boys, and 13 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren. The majority of the family lives in the state and in the Southeast.

In addition to the birth of children and grandchildren, Dot said she has fond memories of the couple and children at Edisto and Myrtle beaches.

"The family used to spend a week at the beach," Dot said.

"We like Edisto," Jack said.

The family still gets together regularly.

"If they forget about getting together, we remind them," Jack said.

The couple have also expanded their family beyond blood relations.

About 50 years ago, they hosted a foreign exchange student from Osaka, Japan.

Nobuo Nakagawa was among 100 Japanese students to come to the United States through the American Field Scholarship program in 1971.

"He was like a son to us when he left," he said. "It is like losing family."

The couple continue to be in regular touch with Nakagawa and his wife, Sumiko. Nakagawa has visited the Dudleys twice over the years, the latest visit being in 2018.

The couple's 70th wedding anniversary was celebrated in subdued fashion due to the coronavirus.

"It was a special day," Dot said. "We had a vase of flowers delivered to us early that morning from our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren."

Lunch was also brought to the couple by Cheryl.

A tribute tape was also made by her children and grandchildren on how much they are appreciated.

"It was a surprise and a really neat thing," Dot said.

Nakagawa also contributed his well-wishes to the Dudleys for their 70th anniversary video tribute.

After 70 years, both Jack and Dot say they are looking forward to many more years together.

"We just hope to be able to take care of ourselves," Dot said when asked about the couple's future together. "We will just keep on doing what we are doing."

The couple's eldest, Cheryl Laing, described her parents' marriage as a model of how to love. She has been married for 40 years.

"I am trying to follow in their footsteps," Laing said. "They have shown us how to love each other. They didn't necessarily tell us things about love, but they certainly have shown us that throughout the years. They have set a good example for us."

Laing expressed her appreciation for all her parents have done for her, her siblings and grandchildren over the years.

"They have always been very generous and loving," she said. "We try to follow in their footsteps and set examples for our families like they have done for us."

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Queen Elizabeth II is an inspiration to many, including her staff, as the longest-reigning leader of the British royal family. The queens personal advisor, Angela Kelly, looked to the monarch when her working life at Buckingham Palace became particularly difficult.

Angela Kellys worked closely with Queen Elizabeth II for years

Angela Kelly after receiving her Royal Victorian Order medal from Queen Elizabeth II in 2012 | John Stillwell  WPA Pool /Getty Images

RELATED: Queen Elizabeth IIs Dresser and Prince Philip Convinced Her to Wear a Hat Backward

Known as a gatekeeper to the queen, Kellys role within the royal family is an important one. Kellys official job title is Personal Advisor to Her Majesty (jewelry, insignias, and wardrobe).

That means the British designer and milliner is responsible for curating the queens clothes and accessories. On top of that, Kelly is the queens personal assistant.

But Kelly didnt always spend a normal workday in regular contact with the queen. She worked at Buckingham Palace as a housekeeper on her way to becoming the queens personal dresser.

Angela Kelly didnt initially enjoy working at Buckingham Palace

In The Other Side of the Coin: The Queen, the Dresser and the Wardrobe, Kelly gives details on her job.

In her 2019 book, Kelly describes feeling patronized and belittled during her early days at Buckingham Palace, according to Insider.

Back then, the Royal Household was very male-dominated. It had long been a place where traditions were upheld and routines were followed, she said.

But Kelly turned to Queen Elizabeth for inspiration on how to handle the situation.

Angela Kelly stood up for herself, taking inspiration from Queen Elizabeth II

Queen Elizabeth II attends the Epsom Derby Festival in 2019 | Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images

RELATED: What Does Queen Elizabeth II Do With Her Old Clothes?

Kelly also described in her book how performing her duties well didnt sit well with others.

As I began to settle into life in the Palace, I knew it was important to start standing my ground and fighting my corner, Kelly said. When I was asked to do something, I did it efficiently and thoroughly, but I soon became aware that I was also ruffling feathers.

Noting that Buckingham Palace has changed for the better, Kelly said she had to make sure her voice was heard.

In the face of condescension and old-fashioned attitudes, I found inspiration in The Queen and the women who ruled before her and was determined to defend my right to be heard as a member of the Royal Household, she said.

Ruffling feathers paid off. In 2002, Kelly got a promotion to her current job as the queens senior dresser and her personal assistant.

Angela Kelly worked for a British Ambassador when she got a job offer from Queen Elizabeth II

Before working for the queen, Kelly worked as a housekeeper for Sir Christopher Mallaby, the British Ambassador to Germany. During a visit to Mallabys home is where the queen and Kelly first crossed paths.

Kelly mustve made an impression. A year later upon her return to London, she received a job offer from the palace.

RELATED: Queen Elizabeths Stylist Uses Intense Spreadsheets to Track Her Majestys Outfits and Accessories
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner told CNN Sunday that the U.S.-brokered normalization deal between Israel and the UAE increases the probability that the Trump administration would agree to sell F-35 jets to the UAE.

Why it matters: Israel is the only country in the Middle East to possess the F-35, the United States' most advanced fighter aircraft. Reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed off on potential sales to the UAE  which he denies  ignited a political controversy in Israel.

What he's saying: The issue is currently under review by the State Department and the Pentagon, Kushner said.

He stressed that the Trump administration is committed to maintaining Israels qualitative military edge, but added that the UAE is a good military partner for the U.S. and that there's a chance the F-35 deal will take place after Israel-UAE normalization.

The big picture: Kushner echoed similar statements by Emirati officials on the issue. The UAE's minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, said last Thursday that his country's normalization deal with Israel should "make it easier" to buy F-35 fighter jets from the U.S.
As a further 61 Covid-19 positive tests were confirmed last night, a health expert has insisted reopening schools is highly unlikely to create a breeding ground for the virus.

The chairman of the National Public Emergency Team's modelling group, Philip Nolan, said there was very little international evidence to show schools opened in other countries are major sites for transmission.

He pointed out that in the past two weeks, around 100 children aged five to 14 have tested positive in this country for the virus.

Prof Nolan said it was likely that if two children happened to test positive in the same school they would have caught the virus in their respective homes, rather than from each other.

There were 30 outbreaks of coronavirus in English schools after they reopened, analysis has found.

A Public Health England report, published yesterday, said the reopening of schools following the easing of their lockdown was associated with a total of 198 confirmed Covid-19 cases, 70 in children and 128 in staff.

However, the report said there was a "strong correlation" between community coronavirus incidence and risk of outbreaks in educational settings, even during a period of low Covid-19 incidence.

But it added this was not surprising because increased community transmission provided more opportunities for the virus to be introduced into educational settings.

Prof Nolan added research in Germany pointed to infected children acquiring the virus in their homes.

The 61 new cases of Covid-19 were confirmed last night by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre and are down on previous days. Fortunately, there were no further deaths to add to the 1,777 already confirmed.

Read More Pressure mounts on Supreme Court judge after #Golfgate scandal

The number of confirmed new positive tests were down from 156 on Saturday and 79 on Friday.

The breakdown of the latest positive results shows 39 in Dublin, 13 in Kildare and the remaining nine spread between Cork, Kerry, Laois, Limerick, Longford, and Wicklow.

Of those, 23 are confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed case, while 16 have been identified as community transmission.

The breakdown of the newly confirmed cases show that two-thirds were under the age of 45.

The additional positive tests bring the number of confirmed cases in the country to 27,969.

Sam McConkey, head of the Department of International Health and Tropical Medicine at the Irish Royal College of Surgeons, said he expected more targeted local restrictions to come into force in the coming weeks to suppress outbreaks in certain areas.

Prof McConkey, who is also a consultant in infectious diseases at Beaumont Hospital Dublin, added that restrictions could include the authorities clamping down on house parties.

Meanwhile, Ronan Glynn, acting chief medical officer at the Department of Health, said he could understand that at times people can feel powerless against Covid-19.

But we are not. Each of us has a range of simple tools at our disposal  knowing the risks, washing our hands, not touching our faces, keeping physically distant, avoiding crowds, limiting visitors to our homes, and wearing a face covering, he said.

Dr Glynn added that the most powerful tool of all remains our solidarity with one another; by encouraging each other to stick with the basic measures "and by continuing to act and adapt together we can suppress the transmission of this virus once again."
People marched through the center of the Belarusian capital, Minsk, on August 23, two weeks after the country's disputed presidential election. An estimated 100,000 joined the protest against result of the vote, in which the incumbent president, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, claimed victory despite numerous reported irregularities. Since the election, protesters have faced violence amid a police crackdown.
Mumbai, Aug 23 : Actor Aadar Jain has said that the way of celebrating Ganpati festival is different amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, but the spirit is the same.

"We have been celebrating Ganpati at our house for the last 25 years. It's a very, very special time and occasion at home. It's a festive period as we are all bhakts of Ganpatiji at home. We keep Ganpati for all 10 days and we really treat him like our dear guest.

"We decorate the entire house and we make the house very festive and we have a lot of visitors coming over. However, this time it's going to be different due to the Covid situation we can't be having any visitors. Of course, we will be doing zoom and facetime calls for people to join in for the aarti," Aadar said.

He continued: "First time in 25 years we will not be having visitors. It's going to be a private affair keeping the safety measures in mind. However, it will still be as festive and special because the festival means a lot to us. We obviously will be sad that visitors can't come over and do the darshan as a lot of people use to come over and pray to our Ganpati as they believed in it. Over the past 25 years, our house has been open to anybody and everybody from all walks of life for darshan. Unfortunately, this year due to the Covid situation, we will have to follow the safety measures and protocols." Aadar has opted for eco-friendly Ganpati, and shared: "Every year on Visarjan, we go to Chowpaty for immersion. However, this year we won't be doing that. This is the first time we have got an eco-friendly Ganpati and I am extremely happy and proud of it. It is very important that while we do immerse our Ganpati in the future we should be doing it in an eco-friendly manner and be cautious to protect the environment. We are going to do the immersion at home for the first time. There will be no dhol baaja and we will be doing the immersion in a quiet manner at home." "I really hope and pray that Ganpati Bappa takes away this pandemic along with him and brings back some normalcy to everyone's life and helps us overcome this virus," said the actor, who is currently busy with his next film "Hello Charlie".
Tod Snell, part of the police supporters, wore a Trump 2020 Keep America Great T-shirt.

I dont agree with (the counter-protestors) but I applaud them because theyre out here peacefully doing what we should all be doing in one way or another, standing for what we believe, he said.

Both groups on River Drive hollered and waved as those in support of a Q-C Awareness Walk to End Child Trafficking walked across the Centennial Bridge from Rock Island, down to River Drive and then back over the bridge.

Anti-trafficking protests

Jane Carroll was among those crossing the Centennial Bridge. This is all for awareness of child trafficking in the area," she said afterward.

She said there more than 200 such marches were held worldwide Saturday. Were trying to make history, but also trying to raise awareness about child trafficking and human trafficking as a whole," she said.

She attended a similar rally later in which participants, many with children in tow, walked around Vander Veer Botanical Park, Davenport. Some walkers distributed brochures about Family Resources, which has a "Braking Traffik" program among its services.
An investigation has been launched following the death of a man who was found on a south Armagh road with head injuries.

Police received a report just after 5am on Sunday that the injured man was discovered lying on the Blaney Road in Crossmaglen.

Emergency services attended the scene, however the man, who was in his forties, was pronounced dead a short time later.

PSNI Detective Inspector Michael Winters said: "Firstly, I want to offer my condolences to the man's family at this difficult time.

"We are working to establish how the man, who is aged in his forties, came to sustain his injuries. We have made a number of enquiries to date and we would appeal to anyone who has information to please get in touch.

"In particular, we would strongly urge the driver and any passenger/s of a dark-coloured car that is reported to have been at the scene at around 4.40am to call us.



"We would also encourage anyone who may have been travelling on this road between midnight and 5am to check their dash cam footage. If you have information call us on the non-emergency number 101, and quote reference number 515 of 23/08/2020."



A report can also be made using the online reporting form via www.psni.police.uk/makeareport or by calling Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.



The Blaney Road is currently closed while enquiries take place.
Jerusalem, Aug 23 : The alleged gangrape of a 16-year-old teenage girl by some 30 men at a hotel in the Red Sea resort of Eilat has sparked outrage and protests across Israel, according to media reports.

Protesters gathered in several cities after media reports described how men in their 20s queued outside a hotel bedroom where the minor was, awaiting their turn to take advantage of her intoxicated state, the Daily Mail said in a report Friday.

But the owner of the hotel said there was no evidence the suspected assault took place at her establishment, The Times of Israel reported.

The owner told a local TV channel that she handed over all of the Red Sea Hotel's security camera footage to police and that it does not show any groupings of 30 people.

Meanwhile, two suspects, both 27-year-old, have been arrested according to the police after allegedly threatening to send the video of the incident to the victim.

Authorities are now awaiting the results of a medical examination, while the police has formed a special team to investigate the incident.

The victim had first reported the alleged crime to the police in Eilat last week but the case had previously gone largely unnoticed.

As more information came to light, protests in the big cities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Thursday evening prompted Israeli leaders, including the President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to speak out against crimes against women.

"It's shocking - there's no other word for it," the Daily Mail report quoted Netanyahu as saying, adding that all the suspects to be put on trial.

"It's not only a crime against a young girl, it's a crime against humanity itself that deserves condemnation from all of us." In an open letter addressed to the country's youths, President Rivlin said: "Sexual assault, rape, sexual exploitation, sexual violence - these are some of the stains that cannot be deleted

"These are cases of unforgivable loss of boundaries, and they destroy us as a society. As humans." Netanyahu's coalition partner and Defence Minister Benny Gantz said in a statement: "What is a man who is standing on a crowded line with dozens of others, on the way to a room where a young, disoriented girl is lying down, trying to prove?

"The police investigation is still underway, but it's important that I convey a message to those who participated or bore witness to this case or others: The only thing you've proven is what depravity of your soul and morality you are capable of." Besides the two big cities, protests also erupted in Givatayim, Haifa and some 30 other places across the country.

The protesters united under the banner "we won't be silent anymore".

Ilana Weizman of women's rights group HaStickeriot said one in five Israeli women was raped during her lifetime with 260 cases reported every day, the Daily Mail reported.
On a peaceful July afternoon, my 9-year-old brother licked his palm, yelled corona! and sprinted after me. In the context of our backyard, his prank was disturbing, but relatively harmless. Should schools reopen in the fall?

Citing the need for more time to work through and implement key elements of the reopening plan, on Aug. 11, the Hamden Board of Education pushed back the start of school from Aug. 31 to Sept. 8.

The Hamden Public Schools Transitional Reopening Plan strikes a balance between in-school and at-home classes, and allows parents to opt into a full program of distance learning for their children.

Only about 39 percent of parents consider it safe to send their children to school, according to a CNBC/Change Research poll. But most parents want schools to reopen. Connecticut district surveys conducted in July show that a majority of Connecticut parents and guardians wanted their children in school this fall.

New cases are declining in Connecticut, and New Haven County seems to be recovering from peaks in positive cases in April and May. As Gov. Ned Lamont said on Aug. 9 on CBSs Face the Nation: If Connecticut cant get reopened, I dont know who can around the country.

Nonetheless, it is worth asking whether Hamden is making the right choice  especially in regards to its lunch policy.

Students at Hamden public schools will go to the cafeteria in small groups to pick up their meals, then eat in classrooms or other areas where they can be distanced from others, according to the Hamden Public Schools website.

To put it bluntly, lunchtime may waste students and teachers efforts to keep masks on throughout the day.

To be sure, providing meals to students with food insecurity is an important function of schools. Schools have an ethical imperative to continue this role, even in the age of coronavirus.

The social components of lunch are also important to student mental health and development.

Lunch is a social time for students, a time to catch up with your friends. And, in this school year, a time to take a break from wearing a mask, said Jeff Hill, superintendent of Morton Public Schools in Illinois.

As much as I miss eating lunch with friends, my much-needed social gratification does not measure up to the potential cost in human lives.

Having spent the past seven years in the Hamden public school system, I can attest that most of the classrooms at Hamden Middle and Hamden High are not spacious enough for students to sit 6 feet apart and safely take off our masks, even at half capacity.

Further, it would be hubristic to assume that upgraded HVAC systems, while commendable, will sufficiently lessen the risk.

The Hamden Board of Education should keep in mind that even the careful plans and expansive resources of UNC Chapel Hill and the University of Notre Dame were not enough to counter the coronavirus.

Hamden schools should send students home at noon with packed lunches. Other districts would be wise to follow suit.

Christine Kim is a rising sophomore at Hamden High School and a staff writer for The Dial, the school newspaper.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-23 22:57:19|Editor: huaxia

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-- Governments at different levels in China have made concerted efforts to help enterprises resume production, in a move that helps stabilize the global supply chain.

-- During the COVID-19 epidemic, China's manufacturing sector has withstood the "stress test" from the virus, and helped ensure a steady global supply of medical goods, as well as stable industrial and supply chains, said Xin Guobin, vice minister of industry and information technology.

-- During the epidemic, China's business environment and stable industrial supply chain have won widespread recognition from foreign investors.

NANJING, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Chinese carmaker SAIC MAXUS Automotive Co., Ltd. has managed to buck the trend of a global automobile industry recession amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with vehicle sales rising by 26.4 percent year on year in July.

"Our team has gone through all of our 1,288 suppliers to sort out possible problems early during the epidemic, which is full of twists," said Wang Ying, general manager of SAIC MAXUS's Nanjing Plant in east China's Jiangsu Province.

"We even requested the local authorities to help transfer parts and even equipment from Wuhan, a strategically important city of China's automobile industry that was hard hit during the epidemic," said Wang.

Thanks to the resilient supply chain in the world's largest auto market, SAIC MAXUS resumed full operations of its four manufacturing bases on Feb. 24.

Ambulances are seen at a modifying workshop of SAIC MAXUS Automotive Co., Ltd in Wuxi, east China's Jiangsu Province, Feb. 16, 2020. (Xinhua/Ji Chunpeng)

China's broader auto industry has seen a recovery. Data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) showed that the country's automobile production and sales increased by 21.9 percent and 16.4 percent, respectively, year on year in July.

BACK ON TRACK

Governments at different levels in China have made concerted efforts to help enterprises resume production, in a move that also helps stabilize the global supply chain.

According to Wang, the company's auto parts imports were affected as the epidemic quickly swept the world. "Thankfully, the local government quickly helped us find substitute domestic suppliers, which were key to the recovery of the automobile industrial chain."

"Authorities also sent medical supplies, such as masks and disinfectants, to help us resume production at the very beginning of the epidemic," Wang added.

Workers from Macheng City of central China's Hubei Province arrive by chartered bus at Kunshan City, east China's Jiangsu Province, March 22, 2020. (Xinhua/Ji Chunpeng)

The quick industrial production resumption across China has helped the company ensure the smooth operation of its global supply chain by exporting product parts to Europe and the United States via intercontinental trains and ships, said Steve Jin, plant manager of ASSA ABLOY Entrance System Suzhou Co., Ltd. in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou. The ASSA ABLOY Group is a global leader in access solutions with factories in more than 70 countries.

"Orders for our swing doors have increased by 20 percent and 19 percent year on year in the American and European markets so far this year," said Jin. "Manipulators and other components of these swing doors are made or purchased by the Suzhou plant."

Xin Guobin, vice minister of MIIT, said China's industrial performance has improved month by month with effective epidemic control and policy support.

Statistics showed that China's industrial output went up by 4.8 percent year on year in June, picking up from the 4.4 percent and 3.9 percent expansion in May and April, respectively.

SUPPLY CHAIN STABILITY

During the COVID-19 epidemic, China's manufacturing sector has withstood the "stress test" from the virus, and helped ensure a steady global supply of medical goods, as well as stable industrial and supply chains, said Xin.

According to Jin, the pedestrian access door business of the ASSA ABLOY Group has established four plants in America, the Czech Republic, Canada, and China. As a global purchasing center, the Suzhou plant also supplies some of the core components for the other three factories.

The Suzhou plant also produces many half-finished goods of the pillar products to reduce the costs of raw materials and labor in the entire supply chain.

Photo taken on Aug. 21, 2020 shows the assembling sector of ASSA ABLOY Entrance System Suzhou Co., Ltd in Suzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province. (Xinhua)

"The fact that the Suzhou team has been able to maintain product supply during these challenging times is vital to our ability to continue operations across the world, including installing and servicing key infrastructure like healthcare," said David Johansson, PDS Supply Chain Director of ASSA ABLOY.

As the pandemic swept other parts of the world, fast-recovering Chinese companies are playing a role in stabilizing the global industrial supply chain.

The Nanjing High Accurate Drive Equipment Manufacturing Group Co., Ltd. (NGC), one of the world's leading wind-turbine gearbox suppliers, saw sales increase over 30 percent year on year during the Jan.-July period.

The company is expected to accomplish a sales record in 2020, as it has attracted new customers in the global market, and is seeing strong sales growth in the European and Asian markets.

As an important link in the industrial supply chain, the company focuses on product development and technological innovation, with all its products owning their intellectual property rights, according to Hu Yueming, NGC's chairman and general manager.

During the epidemic, China's business environment and stable industrial supply chain have won widespread recognition from foreign investors. Statistics from the Ministry of Commerce showed that China saw an 8.4 percent year-on-year increase in the actual use of foreign investment in the second quarter of this year.

MIIT Vice Minister Xin said China will focus on increasing the stability and competitiveness of its industrial and supply chains, and improve the industrial foundations and level of modernization for the industrial chains.

(Reporting by Zhu Xiao, Chen Shengwei, Qin Huajiang, He Leijing and Li Baojie; Video reporters: Lin Kai, Zhu Xiao; Video editor: Liu Yuting)
Firefighters from Barstow tackle hotspots along Highway 9 during the CZU Lightning Complex fire Sunday in Boulder Creek, Calif. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)

The second- and third-largest fires in California history are expected to grow in the next few days as a new thunderstorm system moves over the state, producing dry lightning and gusty winds.

The National Weather Service issued red-flag warnings across large swaths of Northern and Central California that went into effect before sunrise Sunday.

The storms could spark more blazes and cause existing ones to spread rapidly, and that is unwelcome news for firefighters, who are already stretched thin.

Crews on Sunday were battling dangerous fires from the Santa Cruz Mountains to wine country and beyond, using a small break in the weather to get a jump on the conflagrations, many of them ignited by lightning strikes.

On Saturday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that the White House had approved Californias request for a presidential major disaster declaration to bolster the states emergency response to wildfires burning in Northern California.

More than 1.3 million acres have burned in California in just a month, according to a Times analysis  an astonishing toll so early in the fire season.

In all of 2019, about 259,000 acres in California burned, according to the Idaho-based National Interagency Fire Center, although that was following a relatively wet winter.

Across California, over 14,000 firefighters are on the front lines of more than two dozen major fires and lightning complexes," or groups of fires, said Jeremey Rahn, Cal Fire public information officer, at a Sunday news conference.

The blazes include the LNU Lightning Complex fire, which at nearly 348,000 acres is the second-largest fire in California history. The SCU Lightning Complex fire, currently covering more than 343,000 acres, is the third-largest.

To have both of those going on at the same time ... gives us the magnitude of what has happened here in this state," Sean Kavanaugh, incident commander on the LNU fire, said Sunday. "Over all jurisdictions, 1.3 million acres have been burned in recent time.

Story continues

The Times analysis found that more than 1,100 structures statewide have been destroyed. More than 80,000 buildings statewide remain threatened.

The LNU fire in Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Solana, Yolo and Colusa counties had killed four people, destroyed 871 homes and other buildings and was 21% contained as of Sunday night. Firefighters were working to strengthen containment lines ahead of the storms but said area residents should be ready to evacuate.

With the weather predicted, the red flag warning issued, I cant stress the importance of being prepared to leave," Chief Shana Jones said.

The SCU Lightning Complex fire began as a collection of about 20 blazes in areas of Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara, Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties and by Sunday had merged into two conflagrations.

The flames, which were 10% contained Sunday night, were burning primarily through dry grass and brush in steep, remote areas that hadnt burned in years. Firefighters were bracing for gusty winds and the possibility of dry lightning starting at about 3 p.m., said Barbara Rebiskie, public information officer on the SCU fire.

Theres a lot of dead fuel up there, Rebiskie said. And the erratic winds, the 7% humidities and the lightning  its not a good combination.

An estimated 20,265 homes and commercial buildings were threatened and five had been destroyed, with a new evacuation order issued at 3 a.m. Sunday for parts of Alameda County. In the hours that followed, a public information center set up to deal with queries from the public was flooded with so many phone calls that it crashed, Rebiskie said. By late Sunday morning, operators were still receiving about 1,000 calls an hour, she said.

She urged people to keep calling back if they got a busy signal, and to visit the incidents webpage to see a full list of evacuations.

Firefighting resources have been pouring into the region in recent days. But firefighters say it's simply not enough.

The size and scope of the fires are unprecedented, Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA, wrote in a blog post.

"As Ive stated publicly, Im essentially at a loss for words to describe the scope of the lightning-sparked fire outbreak that has rapidly evolved in northern California  even in the context of the extraordinary fires of recent years," he wrote. "Its truly astonishing."

In some places, officials said they were being turned down for state help and left to beg equipment and manpower from volunteers and local agencies.

Many of these firefighters have been on the lines for 72 hours, and everybody is running on fumes, said Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg), whose district includes wine country areas currently under siege. Our first responders are working to the ragged edge of everything they have.

With blazes overwhelming the crews available, fire experts say state officials are now being forced to prioritize which fires will get resources, and to change how equipment and crews will be used. Though officials often try to build defensible lines to contain blazes, fire experts said the focus was now on saving lives and structures. That means the current blazes could burn for weeks.

At the statewide level, we do get into this mode where we start wondering where the biggest loss is going to be, whats the highest priority, and that is where the resources are going to go, said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, a fire specialist with the UC Cooperative Extension.

Forecasters on Sunday afternoon were monitoring an area of moisture with the potential to generate thunderstorms that was just off Central California and moving toward the Monterey area, said Carolina Walbrun, meterologist with the National Weather Service in Monterey.

The front was expected to continue to move north, affecting a stretch of the state from Monterey to the Bay Area, she said.

The fear that we have as these thunderstorms develop is that it can create strong downdrafts and result in further fire spread," Walbrun said. We also have the potential of generating additional fires with dry lightning from these thunderstorms. Theres very little moisture associated with it.

The first round of thunderstorms were expected to hit hardest Sunday night into Monday, with a second event forecast Monday night into Tuesday, she said.

In addition to bringing gusty winds, the system was also causing winds to shift to more of a southwesterly direction, which could mean that firefighters have to change focus from protecting communities to the south of fire lines to those to the north, she said.

The issue that is going to hamper this whole thing is going to be the lack of resources that are available for firefighting because there are so many fires active right now, all resources are depleted, Walbrun said. So any additional starts are just going to stress the system even more.

Already, at least 1,171 homes and commercial buildings have been destroyed by fire in California since late July. They include at least 1,134that were decimated since Aug. 15, which marked the start of what officials were calling a "lightning siege" of about 12,000 strikes that started an estimated 585 fires in California.

In San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, the CZU Lightning Complex fire was threatening multiple communities and had forced 77,000 people from their homes. The blaze began as a collection of about 22 fires that largely merged into one, challenging firefighters as they tried to keep the flames away from the towns dotting the rural, mountainous area.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department said it had deployed five engine strike teams, consisting of 23 engines and 101 firefighters, to help with the effort.

The fire had consumed 74,000 acres and was 8% contained as of Sunday night. It threatened 24,323 structures and had destroyed 175, the vast majority in Santa Cruz County. One person was killed in the fire.

Firefighters were taking advantage of fairly calm winds to attack the fire on the ground as much as possible as they scrambled to make progress ahead of the inclement weather, said Daniel Potter, a Cal Fire public information officer.

Were going to get as much accomplished as we can before the front hits us, he said. And then adapt and overcome any new fires that may start in the area due to the lightning coming through.

Crews were working to establish containment lines and fire breaks around the city of Santa Cruz and the campus of UC Santa Cruz in a bid to keep the blaze from damaging the community if it made a run in that direction.

Its pretty much impossible to stop when a good wind is pushing the fire front faster than we can move, Potter said.

Officials were asking people to stay out of evacuation zones to avoid hazards including fire and downed trees and wires, and to keep roads open for emergency vehicles.

They also warned about criminals taking advantage of the crisis. Authorities on Saturday morning arrested five people on suspicion of looting, grand theft, burglary and conspiracy after they were stopped driving away from the Fall Creek Drive area, the Santa Cruz County Sheriffs Office said.

Someone also broke into the department vehicle of a firefighting commander while he was out battling the blaze, stole his wallet and drained his bank account, Mark Brunton, Cal Fire operations chief, said at a briefing Sunday.

Its saddening, its sickening," Brunton said, "and we are doing everything we can to try to help the community and unfortunately these [things] happen.

Meanwhile, local officials also continued to beg tourists to stay away.

The Santa Cruz County Emergency Operations Center said it was requesting that visitors refrain from traveling there through Sept. 1 to keep overnight accommodations available for evacuees.

Visitors, we will welcome you back to Santa Cruz County soon. But please, DO NOT visit us now. Air quality is poor, ash is everywhere, and were dealing with an unparalleled catastrophe. This is no time for a day at the beach. Thank you.  Santa Cruz County (@sccounty) August 22, 2020

More than 45,000 Santa Cruz County residents have been displaced by the fires, and though the county is operating 12 shelters, capacity is limited because of COVID-19, officials said. Many local hotels, motels and vacation rentals are also booked.

"DO NOT visit us now," the county said in a tweet. "Air quality is poor, ash is everywhere, and were dealing with an unparalleled catastrophe. This is no time for a day at the beach."

For the record:

2:21 AM, Aug. 24, 2020: A previous version of this story said the number of structures destroyed by fires in California since late July was over 2,000. The figure is 1,171, including at least 1,134 since Aug. 15.


Iran said Sunday that an upcoming visit this week by the head of the UN's atomic watchdog agency to Tehran has nothing to do with a US push to impose so-called snapback sanctions on Iran.

The Trump administration last week dismissed near-universal opposition to its demand to restore all UN sanctions on Iran, declaring that a 30-day countdown for the snapback of penalties eased under the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers had begun.

US allies and foes have joined forces to declare the action illegal and doomed to failure. The US argues that Iran has violated the restrictions imposed on its nuclear programme under the 2015 deal, a charge Tehran has dismissed.

Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted on Sunday Iran's envoy to the Atomic Energy Agency IAEA, Kazem Gharibadadi, as saying that the visit this week is neither related to the snapback mechanism nor the US demand.

Gharibabadi said the visit by the IAEA chief Rafael Grossi comes within the framework of Iran's invitation.

We do not allow to manage Iran," he said, adding that Iran's trust in the IAEA has been damaged in recent months." He expressed hope Grossi's visit will lead to building trust.

It is important to assure Tehran that the agency will move based on impartiality, independence and professionalism, said Gharibabadi.

The IAEA said on Saturday that Grossi will head to Tehran to press Iranian authorities for access to sites where the country is thought to have stored or used undeclared nuclear material. Gharibabadi said Grossi was due to meet with Iranian officials on both Tuesday and Wednesday.

The landmark 2015 nuclear deal was endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution and includes the snapback provision. President Donald Trump pulled America out of the accord in 2018 and imposed severe on Iran.

(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.)